Faster is not better.

The novelty of new technology is wearing thin. Faster this, better that. While for years the developments were tangible, they’re now starting to look pretty much the same to most of us.

We Grew Up

As consumers we have matured in our taste to appreciate simplicity, effectiveness, purpose, and being engaged and entertained – more than power. In fact for most of us the idea of a powerful computer has lost it’s meaning. All computers, and now, all phones, are powerful (enough).

Total Integration

What we need now is for things to serve us. Case in point: I know you’ve been at it for years, but the iWork cloud integration falls far short of even modest needs. The process of contributing to a Pages document from two devices is so obstructive that it is not an option for busy people. Try it.

If dropbox can do it, why can’t you?

Simplify and Unite the Consumer Experience.

What is a consumer computer? It’s a computer that regular people can use in day to day life to accomplish the things they need to. The consumer is over-empowered today. They are overcharged for overcomplicated machines and software.

Two Classes of Apps

Apple has already done well focussing on consumer and professional machines. But from a UI perspective, both are the same. What about simplifying, and unifying the consumer computer experience? This could be done by differentiating consumer apps, apps which can scale.

Instead of crappy middle grounds, have

• inexpensive, consumer apps that go for less than today’s crop. Think the price point of iWork and iDraw.
• And you have expensive pro apps bought by people with professional uses, people who expect to pay for it.

Bring on the Consumer App

What this likely means is a revolution of consumer desktop software to become simpler, more intuitive, minimal, spacious and graphical: more like mobile apps. This will be a welcome development. Most people do not need great customization. We’re not all designing magazines.

These apps should be more specific in their uses than most modern desktop apps (think twice as intuitive for half the functions). Interfaces are so complex because they try to cater for 101 uses. The modern WordProcessor is guilty of this.

Bring on the Pro Apps

Pro users in industry and education will no doubt need the power and intricacy of today’s programs. They’re all professional Apps. Apple’s done well by labeling them as such: Logic Pro – Quicktime Pro -  Final Cut Pro. Pro should designate that it is not a tiered app. The price tags follow suite.

Okay but…

The Big Shift

I’m about to describe a shift in the way computers, devices and apps are thought of.

In such a paradigm shift you can build on what you have already acheived in desktop and mobile technology, and capitalise on your existing momentum bringing the two experiences closer together. It doesn’t bring the experiences closer together, but it unites them more powerfully.

Yes it’s a paradigm change, but it’s the natural extension of Apple’s 20th century development. So it’s easily grasped. It’s an a-ha moment for developers and consumers alike.

Tiered Applications

Consumer apps should be designed to work on a tiered platform from mobile to desktop.

Imagine applications that can run on a phone, tablet and PC, opening and saving from the cloud.

We’re seeing the beginnings of this with iWork, iDraw. Almost fully compatible apps, but with slightly different interfaces and opening and saving files to different, mutually exclusive locations.

Tiered Devices

The consumer computer of the future: A body and brain. A Tiered PC experience.

You have the phone. You have the tablet. You have the computer. Consumer apps are designed to run on all three.

The Brain

You take your phone or tablet with you. You open and save to and from the cloud. You return home. You connect the ‘brain’ that is your mobile device into the ‘body’

The Body

connected, the body becomes an extension of the brain. It lends it more power, more screen.

The Connection 

There is no need for physical connection. Once core files are synced, the body just needs to recognise that the brain is around.

Possible enabling technologies

And I believe it’s technologically feasable with some small changes to existing platforms. It’s certainly more than possible on existing hardware.

MAC oSX rocks. Windows 8 is going to be an annoying disaster. Merging a PC into a tablet is wrong. People are happy to have desktop computers. Actually they just want to sit down with some distance between them and the machine, type on a physical full sized keyboard, and enjoy the extra real estate.

We don’t need more complicated versions of software. We need simpler, more intuitive software. Such software can run on mobile devices. Look at Numbers as a great example. There is room for improvement. But it’s a huge start.

Moving towards more universal, graphical interfaces, where interface communication happens as much through intuition as instruction is key to unifying devices.

Simplicity.

How Apple could do this with existing products.

The mobile device should not need to be physically plugged in. There is no need for it to be more that present.

The brain connects to the wifi connection of the body (or docked via thunderbolt). Thus is continues its function as a tablet or phone. The body syncs with the brain periodically or when there is new stuff on the brain (I’m assuming 256 gig memory in phones soon). Otherwise, it serves basically as activiating the software licenses on the body. Unless syncing music or video, minimal information needs to cross over wifi.

-User info, licences etc in the cloud (Apple ID)

-Programs on the Brain (automatically synced with body).

-Documents, music and user info on Cloud (Apple ID)

-Programs, music and Videos in the body (optionally synced with brain).

The body/brain feature can be implemented with the current lineup of Apple products. Macbooks and iMacs can be updated to connect in such a way. iTunes can manage videos and music. The real thing would be apps running as if they were from the phone/device.

The real difference is this: syncing works. The iOS apps work can on a full sized screen with mouse and keyboard input. How close to or closed from from the current paradigm of OSX/PC it is is optional. But the brain-body metaphor should stand, be simple and intuitive.

About Ali

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