
Apple’s Magnum Opus - showngo
http://brooksreview.net/2011/06/apple-mag-opus/
======
podperson
I think this article pretty much nails a key part of it. What Apple wants to
do is implement a seamless digital world that Just Works. (It remains to be
seen whether it does in fact Just Work.)

Oddly enough, you could accuse them of, once again, stealing ideas from Xerox
PARC (and, once again, be redirected to Douglas Englebart et al) ... the kind
of thing Apple is demonstrating with iCloud, iOS5, and Lion is essentially the
computing paradigm described in a Scientific American article on Xerox PARC in
the 80s (I wish I could give the exact issue, but the article described four
basic kinds of computers - post-it notes, slates, desktops, and wall screens -
all, except the post-its which were a rough prototype with a rudimentary
display, sharing a common UI with data stored on the network.)

An interesting remark that touches on this topic on The Talk Show was (and I
paraphrase) "how come this [the app-centric universe] feels so reasonable and
natural and yet has taken so long to come". In fact, there was a huge detour
in the opposite direction exemplified by OpenDoc (on the Mac) and OLE (on
Windows). How many of us remember copying a table from excel, pasting it into
PowerPoint and getting some kind of weird icon? In the 90s the idea was to
remove the app and make the document (or perhaps the workflow) the center of
attention. This may actually have been a Good Idea but it was (in the case of
OpenDoc) badly conceived and not especially well-implemented. Or, perhaps, it
was just too far ahead of its time.

~~~
bane
_Oddly enough, you could accuse them of, once again, stealing ideas from Xerox
PARC_

Some people criticize Apple for this, but I think I'm actually quite okay with
it to an extent if you think of this as just a natural example of science &
engineering working hand in hand to make cool stuff.

Xerox PARC did the science, Apple is doing the Engineering. It's not really
much different than basic R&D in materials science and physics modeling
getting turned into a bridge or a skyscraper. Or basic academic research in
medicine becoming the next billion dollar drug.

A side question is, with these kinds of R&D shops now quite rare (Microsoft
Research and....) and seeing how Xerox and AT&T not able to capitalize on
their research, what does this mean for the modern version of these places? Is
some other company going to just come along and build what Microsoft is
researching today? Or is there a chance for one of these companies to actually
benefit from these paradigm shifting revolutions in research?

~~~
podperson
Of course I agree, but felt like I should point out that this was another
example of Apple picking up a ball Xerox "dropped".

------
rayiner
Re: the "this is how it should have always worked" comment.

I've watched my girlfriend use her computer, and this is essentially how she
works. She just leaves everything open, never saving anything. She's
comfortable using Expose to manage the million windows she ends up having
open, but doesn't bother exiting apps when she's done with them and then
starting them when she needs them again.

If she could do this and have everything always auto-save and be instantly
available anywhere she went, she'd be ecstatic. And even though I grew up on
the Windows 95 model of apps and documents... I gotta say I kinda see her
angle. I hate that our IT policy makes us log out every night so I lose my
windows. If I left for the night then came back and the cleaning person had
put away all the papers on my physical desk I'd have a fit!

~~~
banjomonster
My girlfriend does exactly the same thing. I wonder if its a gender thing? Her
PC kept freezing, but she loves her new Mac Air.

~~~
rogerbraun
Please don't say things like this. Why should it be a "gender thing"? This
only alienates people. "You don't close your windows? Like a girl?"

~~~
sp332
I can say that one person is male and another person is female without
insulting either of them. Pointing out a difference between genders is not
automatically derogatory.

~~~
rogerbraun
No, but saying "hey, your girlfriend does this, my girlfriend does this, too!
It's probably because they are both women!" is insulting if there is no reason
whatsoever to believe that there really is something genetic behind the
behaviour. I have seen the reverse of this too, when a friend visited and told
me that I had a big LCD, just like her boyfriend, and that it was typical for
males to buy large screens for their computers.

------
bad_user

        I don’t know of a single other way to take a document
        I am working on with my iPad and jump to my Mac having 
        the document up-to-date
    

I do, it's called Google Docs.

~~~
mclin
If I add a calendar event to google calendar I'm still a bit surprised when I
later notice it in my iPhone calendar.

Same with updating contacts across devices.

~~~
bad_user
To speak the truth - the Android integration with Google's contacts could be
better.

To transform all my locally stored contacts and make them Google contacts I
had to first export them to a file, copy them on my laptop, upload to Google,
mix&match duplicates and other corrections, download an export again on my
computer, delete all my contacts from my phone (which also deleted my contacts
from Google), reupload that export to Google, then synchronize my phone with
Google's Contacts.

Now everything I do on my phone or in Google's Contacts is kept in sync
nicely. I also have Facebook sync set so I get faces of people for free and
sometimes email addresses or phone numbers that I didn't have :-)

But it was a painful experience to export my old sim-stored contacts and
sometimes I get the feeling that while Google has the right idea about what
people want, they are moving too slowly to fix their shit.

~~~
seabee
> download an export again on my computer

What does this step achieve?

The process was pretty easy for me - install Motorola Phone Tools, export the
CSV file containing my contacts, make some changes in Excel, upload to Google.
There's even an 'Import from SIM' option on my phone (possibly a feature of
HTC's People app).

Even on a featurephone your SIM contacts will conflict with your phone-stored
contacts. There's an easy solution: don't view your SIM contacts.

I don't see what shit Google needs to fix here, other than documentation, and
in this case isn't that the handset manufacturer's responsibility?

~~~
bad_user
Since I had to go through all this trouble, I also wanted to take care of all
the duplicates and all the junk, to have a single source of truth for my phone
numbers - so I deleted everything from my phone, which in turn deleted
everything from Google, and that export was a backup that I uploaded to
Google's Contacts again. It's weird, but that's what I did to get what I
wanted.

This file I also processed locally with a script to merge entries that had
different names / different phone numbers, using some heuristics I came up
with.

I agree that SIM contacts are a common problem, but there should be an easier
way to handle it.

My main problem was that there is no option to upload your SIM contacts to
Google and no proper tools to get rid of the junk, only a merge option that
functions differently in Google Contacts than it does on Android.

And the contacts export only exports on an external SD card -- now this seemed
really weird to me. I actually had to go out and buy an external SD, otherwise
I couldn't do it.

Don't get me wrong, I love Android and I love Google Apps, but if you're going
to implement synchronization, you also have to give the user the proper tools
to take care of legacy.

~~~
seabee
For reference this is the feature I'm talking about, and it will import it to
your Google account (though it wasn't useful for me, since my contacts were
stored on my old phone rather than a SIM).

[http://www.htc.com/www/howto.aspx?id=14183&type=1&p_...](http://www.htc.com/www/howto.aspx?id=14183&type=1&p_id=324)

This kind of feature should be in the standard Android Contacts app IMO. But I
can't comment on that, since I've not used a vanilla Android phone.

The Google Contacts 'find duplicates' feature did a passable job for the few
duplicates I had, but I doubt it would fit some systems (e.g. matching
together "Bill Posters" and "Bill Work") nor would it be worth the effort to
try too hard. I guess that's a pain we have to live with.

------
joebadmo
Am I the only one that thinks Apple is using revolutionary technology to work
toward the perfection of a deprecated computing paradigm?

I mean, yes, iCloud makes computing work like magic, but it sort of ignores
what post-web computing _means_. Computing anymore isn't just about working on
the same documents on any device that you own seamlessly (that part is, to be
sure, great), it's about sharing and collaboration. iCloud gives you access to
your docs and photos and music wherever you are, but it doesn't seem to do
anything to let you share your digital life.

Am I wrong? What am I missing?

~~~
tptacek
I see your point but find it hard to accept the idea that letters to teachers,
school assignments, price quotes, proposals, contracts, sales presentations,
and reports are "deprecated" because the cloud enables other kinds of
documents.

~~~
joebadmo
Deprecated was probably the wrong word. The things you cite are clearly still
an important part of computing life, but it's still strange to me to use the
connective tissue of the internet to enable computing, but completely ignore
the actual connection part, the new part of what the web promises.

It feels a bit to me like publishing companies using the web to make their old
publishing models better, instead of grappling with how the web challenges the
fundamental underpinnings of their model.

~~~
matthew-wegner
Doesn't one lead to the other? What's the technical difference between
allowing person to touch the same document on 4 devices, and two people
touching the same document on 6 devices?

~~~
joebadmo
I don't know what the technical differences are, but I'm not sure how that's
relevant. My point is, Apple doesn't seem to be interested in enabling that.
And I'm not necessarily talking about collaboration, but even just sharing.
Apple has given me great ways to take, edit, store, and organize my photos,
but my primary purpose for all of that is to show my photos to others. They
seem to have ignored that part.

If you're implying that that's the obvious next step for them, then, great, I
hope that's the case. But the only time as far as I can remember that they
even made gestures toward addressing this was Ping, which was an unmitigated
disaster.

~~~
tesseract
The physical form of the iPad facilitates the photo equivalent of this:
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/52-steve-jobs-just-put-it-
in-...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/52-steve-jobs-just-put-it-in-her-ear)

------
blantonl
Quote:

"Apple’s keynote message was loud and clear: iOS 5, Lion, and iCloud are not
feature bumps — they are revolutions in how consumers _are to think_ and use
computing devices."

My emphasis above highlights an amazing observation. Per this, Apple has now
crossed over the line of "what people want" to "what people need."

~~~
bane
I think Apple crossed this long ago with the iPod.

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

~~~
rimantas
And similar sentiments were repeated with iPhone and even more with iPad.
Apple does not do focus groups research for a reason.

~~~
leviathant
The first iPod actually was pretty lame. Sales didn't take off until it was
cheaper, used USB, and iTunes was Windows compatible - see also
<http://www.systemshootouts.org/ipod_sales.html> ... Apple's "focus groups
research" involves selling a product, sometimes with absurd flaws (e.g. the
headphone jack on the 1st gen iPhone) and selling an updated version a year
later. This works out because there are people who have bought every iteration
of the iPod and keep them in collections, and people who deny to this day that
the iPhone4 deathgrip exists (bought my iPhone4 three months ago, when I hold
it like I've held my 1st gen iPhone, I lose signal, but have a case now so
that's moot), and it seems to work out for them. Why pay for focus groups when
you can have the focus groups pay you?

------
stretchwithme
Its all about using what you've already done to save you unnecessary work,
even if you move from one device to another. That's been a dream of mine for a
long time.

The vast majority of bits on your computer are just copies from somewhere
else. It is the things you do and the data that should be creating that are
the valuable things.

These should be preserved and leveraged to serve YOU, not advertisers,
wherever you happen to be.

------
ImperatorLunae
"Documents you’ve written, presentations you’ve prepared, spreadsheets you’ve
made — your iWork apps can store them in iCloud. Which means you can view and
edit the same document, in its latest state, on all your devices. And since
iCloud automatically updates any changes you make, you don’t even have to
remember to save your work."

But I already do this on Google Docs, and I don't have to buy a Mac to do it.
In fact, I don't have to buy anything to do it; I already have a
desktop/laptop/phone, and Google Docs is free of charge. Plus, most people I
know already have Google Accounts, so sharing is already implemented.

~~~
pwthornton
Google Docs is a limited suite of Web apps trying to mimic Microsoft Office.
iCloud has an API that 3rd party developers can use for all sorts of
applications. Neither Microsoft Office nor Google Docs is anything near the
caliber of using Omnioutliner for note taking and doing great outlines. iCloud
will allow the developer to store documents on iCloud and provide syncing
across computers and mobile devies, which Omnioutliner for the iPad currently
can't do.

Google Docs big selling point is collaboration. That's what I use it for, and
I love it. But sometimes I need a richer and more powerful experience, and
that's what dedicated apps provide. I'm glad that Apple is pursuing this
strategy, because I believe there is a need for both.

The other big plus of Apple's iCloud strategy is offline support.

------
programminggeek
Ok, that all sounds grandiose, but I think that perhaps people are overplaying
the impact of iCloud. Yes, it's a big deal to be sure, but perhaps some
pragmatism is in order.

The author gets one bit right, that what Apple is theoretically "killing" is
mostly irrelevant. On the other hand, what Apple showed thus far with iCloud
is more about the fact that they are doing the cloud quite a bit differently
than Google is.

Apple is saying, yes syncing and pushing is important, but so are rich apps.
They are showing that cloud doesn't just mean doing HTML5 apps. That is the
right approach IMO. The cloud isn't just the web, it's your data across all
devices in the best possible format for each device. Dropbox got this right,
Apple is getting this right(on their own platforms), Google doesn't seem to do
this as much yet and their products seem to suffer as a result.

I would love Google to do more with say Google Docs on Android than forcing
mobile web apps down our throats, but they have a web-based advertising
business to prop up so of course they love the web-only approach.

In theory Microsoft is doing some kind of hybrid approach or something to the
Office cloud, but really I wish they would just put out a killer version of
Office on all platforms. It would make them lots of money and would enable
them to lock people into their cloud (for better or worse). As it stands,
Microsoft's cloud strategy by comparison is to throw crap at the wall and hope
something sticks. Thank goodness they didn't offer $9 Billion to buy
Dropbox...

~~~
dannyr
Google is not forcing web apps on mobile devices. There are Android apps for
Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Maps, and Reader.

~~~
ajross
That's kind of what I'm thinking. This only looks revolutionary if you haven't
been watching Android at all. When the G1 shipped with universal integration
with gmail, calendar, contacts, google checkout, etc... it was a revelation.
When the "share via..." interface was extended (often via third parties) to
handle youtube and twitter and facebook etc... it was really great...

And now this is a focus for Apple too. Great, I'm sure they'll do a good job
and come up with some fantastic new ideas. But let's not pretend this is a
whole new market or a fundamental innovation. Handsets have been moving in
this direction for 3+ years now.

~~~
mishmash
>Handsets have been moving in this direction for 3+ years now.

And iTools is 11 years old. Don't believe the popular iTools/dotMac/MobileMe
is crap argument either, iDisk was badass when it debuted.

And despite all the press regarding MobileMe's launch, the syncing actually
works really well too. You can image a machine, plug in your AppleID, and
within a few minutes - all of your stuff (including individual app
preferences, wallpapers, Dock icons, etc.) show up. Restart and launch
Migration Assistant on a gig network, and within an hour or so you can
completely mirror entire workstations. It even copies Photoshop registration
and *nix config files.

iCloud is simply the continuation of a vision Apple has been working on for
more than a decade.

:)

~~~
tjogin
Exactly. For Steve Jobs it's closer to two decades, even.

As described in Steve Jobs' closing keynote of WWDC 1997, where he outlines
his setup from eight years earlier (1989).

<http://youtu.be/3LEXae1j6EY?t=14m25s>

This idea didn't come to Apple via Google, it predates Google's existence, by
a decade.

The technical solution was different then, but Steve's focus is on the user
experience, and that is quite similar.

------
saturdaysaint
Everything I really want in the cloud, I have in the cloud - music (Rdio),
podcasts (Instacast), books (Kindle), text files (Dropbox/apps). I am hopeful
that Apple can simplify cloud services for appmakers. I've found many of the
Dropbox syncing apps (ie text editors) fairly wonky - requiring an explicit
sync confirmation or mostly just allowing me to push a file to a Dropbox. I
hope that they enable/encourage a more seamless "autosave" experience to be
standard.

------
mark_l_watson
Am I the only one who thinks that a secure git server is so much ore useful
than Dropbox, iCloud, etc.? Versioning. Access to old versions of artifacts.

~~~
leviathant
A van with a V8 and a manual transmission is so much more useful than a
compact four-banger auto-trans hatchback. What kind of car do you drive?

------
gavanwoolery
YAWN

~~~
timinman
This is all big news for anyone who never uses anything but Apple products,
but not so much for the rest of the world.

