Author Archives: payne

iPad Quirks

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For all the hype, the iPad still has a few quirks/drawbacks.  My list:

  • No camera. What doesn’t have a camera these days?
  • Can’t charge from most USB ports. They don’t put out enough power, you have to use a wall-charger.  This means that you’ve got to manage two distinct things:  syncing and charging.
  • iTunes umbilical cord. The iPad is nearly a laptop; why do I need to tether it to iTunes to do key operations (like unbox it)?  Also, why can’t I sync with iTunes via Wifi?
  • No printing.  (built-in support, anyway)
  • Limited app selection. Expected, but improving.  iPad apps can be much more complex, so the ramp may be slower than it was for the iPhone.

Given how Apple iterated on the first iPhone, I’d expect the same thing to happen here.  I love my iPad, but I’d expect iPad 3.0 to be even more impressive.

Venture Capitalists are Making Me Fat

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Well, not really, but with the stream of breakfast meetings, it sure feels that way!

I think I’m spending too much time with venture guys.

As I’ve written before, the venture business is struggling.  There’s still too much money, funds are too big, there are too many professionals, etc.   Big, name-brand funds have a hard time participating in the smaller, more capital-efficient projects (which is where the action is, at least in software).  Things are getting a little better, but long-term nature of venture funds will cause the correction to happen in slow-motion.

I’m realizing I’m spending a lot of time talking to venture friends about projects that they (a) can put a lot of capital into (that may not necessarily need it), (b) incubator/hatchery/Y-Combinator type programs, (c) new seed-stage funds, etc.  Some ideas are interesting, but I’m realizing these discussions are more about solving their problems.

Now, I’m not anti-VC at all.  For the right project, venture definitely has a place.  But I need to take my own advice:  less time with venture folks, more time being entrepreneurial.

iPad: First Week Update

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With products, it’s always interesting to compare initial impressions with longer-term impressions.  Sometimes they match, sometimes not.  The story about New Coke and sip testing is a good reminder that initial and long-term impressions can diverge.

After a week of living with the iPad, here’s my usage:

  • Book reading (using Amazon’s Kindle app)
  • Videos (The Blind Side via iTunes, kids videos from Netflix)
  • Light email (reading only, or one sentence replies)
  • Reference lookup (general Web surfing, Wikipanion)
  • Games (Flight Control HD)

So far, it’s pretty consistent with my initial impressions.

iPad: Initial Impressions

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Joining the iPad review chorus…..

The iPad will be hugely disruptive, but it will take time to figure out exactly how.  Unlike the iPhone and iPod Touch, the iPad is not entering a mature product category.  If you got an iPhone, you don’t need a feature phone.  If you have an iPod, you don’t need a Zune.

With an iPad, it’s less clear:  what will we use this for?  I’m not sure (yet) it will replace my laptop, though I’ll use my laptop less, for sure.

After 48 hours of fairly intense use, I think it’s a Kindle-replacer.  Specifically, it’s a great “reference” or content-consuming device.  It’s a Kindle, but with color, video, a touch screen, and Web access.  It’s got a bigger screen than my iPod Touch, and “boots” instantly compared to my laptop.  And, with open Web access and the app store, the market will iterate quickly on new ways to present content.  (For example, the NY Times iPad app is simple and gorgeous).

It’s not a great content-producing device.  The keyboard is usable, but is nothing like the real thing (I’m using my laptop to write this).  The single-app model makes simple multi-tasking hard (e.g. have a Web page open for reference while writing an article about it, and replying to your email after checking your calendar).  The iPad versions of Apple’s productivity apps (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) are interesting, but I’m not sure I’d use them for anything more than jotting rough notes or ideas.  The iPad is fine for light email, apps with lots of gesture input (e.g. list selections), but it’s unlikely you’ll write your next novel on it.

Like many new devices, it will take a few weeks to settle into some usage routine.

Why Facebook Works

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I seem to have two types of friends:  those that like Facebook and those that hate it.  The haters have a range of explanations, but the common theme seems to be:  “I don’t need a tool to manage my friendships!”

I like Facebook quite a bit, and I think I’ve finally figured out the core of why it works so well.  (Maybe I’m just slow).

It’s about “soft sharing”:   I can share things about myself, my life, my work, and my family without being intrusive to my friends.  For example, I’ve recently been hacking around on a small CNC machine in my shop.  I’d never email out project updates and pictures to ~300 friends, but I did post things about it on Facebook.   Facebook provides tools for my friends to sort through what they do and don’t want to see.

The result has been really interesting:  I’ve met a few new people (friends of friends), and ended up with some meetings that never would have happened otherwise.

So, to my Facebook hater friends:  relax, and sign up.

Your on-line presence is more than your Web site

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Five or ten years ago, your Web site was your entire on-line presence, simply because there wasn’t any other place to deploy content and functionality.

Today, that’s not the case at all: with the proliferation of platforms (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.), embeddable content, widgets (video, Flash, etc.) and access methods (desktop, mobile, game system, large screens) your on-line presence is much more than just what’s on the Web site. In extreme cases, there’s no site at all: a company’s presence may be entirely embodied in a Facebook app, for example.

Moral: don’t think of the Web site as the only place to focus development efforts. Treat the off-site stuff as first-class features and prioritize them against the Web site investments. Specifically consider:

  • Widgets
  • iPhone app (or an iPhone version of your site)
  • Google widget
  • Facebook & MySpace app
  • Twitter integration

Dropping Friends

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I’m taking a lead from Bijan and Fred and am starting to trim my Facebook friend list to “real friends”:  people I know pretty well, old friends from school, etc.  I’m starting with the folks I’ve never met, or only met once.

(If you’re on the “cut list”, sorry!)

Email, Evolved

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I have a long-running discussion with a number of friends:  what’s next for email?

After all, email hasn’t changed much in the past few decades.  Email readers have gotten slightly better over the years, with improved multimedia handling, searching, threading, calendar integration, etc.  In a lot of ways, email clients have been just good enough (e.g. Outlook) there haven’t been huge incentive for breakthroughs.

Also, instant messaging has overlapped with email.  How many times have you had a quick email exchange, then opened IM/chat to finish the discussion?  Some exchanges are interactive, and don’t lend themselves to an email message format.

I’m not sure if Google Wave will “catch”, but it’s the first thing I’ve seen in a long time that could be the evolution of email.

Hulu Desktop & Boxee: Temporary Solutions

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Hulu Desktop just came out:  it’s a client-app (Mac and Windows) that provides a “lean back” UI for Hulu video content.  It integrates remote control inputs, so it works well for folks plugging computers into the living room TV.

I’ve written before about the evolution of Internet TV:  Hulu Desktop and Boxee, as client apps, are just temporary, intermediate points.  There are few reasons (soon, no reasons) why these UIs can’t be provided through existing browser technologies, with no client install.

We saw this movie with Web browsers in the mid-90s.  As the Web took off, many groups talked themselves into a need to “control the client” by having their own Web browser.  In some cases, there were good technical reasons:  browsers were pretty limited, and adding small capabilities could enable big things.  In many cases, it was just flawed strategic thinking.

The Web became part of the operating system (or even has become the OS iteslf) and with increased capabilities, subsumed a lot of apps that would otherwise be client-deployed.  These client-side TV apps feel like the last vestige of stuff to get absorbed into the browser.