11–20 of 58 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what Zynga is evidence of?
Being made obsolete by mobile.
There is huge value in having a standard, indexed repository of information like the www. If I want to find some specific information I don't want to have to find and download a specific app every time.
Look, consumer technology is always a mess - apps vs web vs native vs desktop vs mobile vs ... etc etc. The truth of it is that we have so many choices because technology is meant to solve individual problems as best as possible.
There will never be one winner.
I think the author assumes just because tablets and apps are growing (I assume this is still happening) that this is the end game. Its not - tablets and apps certainly will be prominent for what they are good at. The app environment sucks for some things. Free flow of information and low friction information searching certainly is one use case where the web is so so much better than apps can ever be in their current form.
Lastly "apps" have always existed. Nintendo games were for all intensive purposes apps in that they were self confined experiences you played on what essentially was a technological black box. In truth if you look historically at how we have been using computing - things are more the same than different - you just have to remove the silly titles we give everything.
This is somewhat all over the place without a lot of supporting evidence. Is the author suggesting that the web will die, and be replaced by thousands of special purpose apps that must be downloaded from the app store?
This is somewhat all over the place without a lot of supporting evidence. Is the author suggesting that the web will die, and be replaced by thousands of special purpose apps that must be downloaded from the app store?
Peeling back the exterior and getting at the meat of the argument, I think the author is really arguing that the future "makers" of things are having their perception of the internet and computing shaped by their interactions with walled garden devices and controlled environments. Building off of this, they will proceed to continue perpetuating a world emphasized by unique apps and walled gardens instead of the creat…
Devices provide higher levels of abstraction from the tweak and tunables on the system, but only now are we seeing devices where there is no easy way to actually write code for them, on them. You can't write an iphone app on an actual iphone, and I don't know if you can compile an apk on Android (I know Java ides on Android exist, though).
About the only thing you can do is write web pages you can open locally. That still works. And I don't see walled apps overtaking the expanse of the internet - there is just too much content and experience only found surfing old crummy html documents you won't get on your walled garden facebook app experience. And Android is taking the smartphone market, while being relatively open for a platform with the rooting and loading of any apk you want (if you set the option).
The bulk of the non-browser apps mentioned are ways to read things (NYT, WSJ, USA Today, AP News, WashPo, Kindle app).
That is, the bulk of the non-browser apps mentioned are more-or-less tarted-up browsers. So, for that matter, are the likes of Siri and Google Search.
I don't think it's the browser that's in danger here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Peeling back the exterior and getting at the meat of the argument, I think the author is really arguing that the future "makers" of things are having their perception of the internet and computing shaped by their interactions with walled garden devices and controlled environments. Building off of this, they will proceed to continue perpetuating a world emphasized by unique apps and walled gardens instead of the creat…
A more concise argument is that your Android tablet that is Junior's first computing experience is significantly less hackable than your Commodore 64, which was more hackable than your DOS machine, which was more hackable than your Windows 95 machine, which was more hackable than your XP machine, et. cetera. Devices provide higher levels of abstraction from the tweak and tunables on the system, but only now are we se…
Most likely they will do creative stuff involving grabbing some remote VMs and building systems where the underlying computer is not so relevant.
Trying to fit all media and information into one giant walled garden would be far too challenging for a single entity.
It will be interesting to see how today's kids get into content generation with less keyboard experience and I do believe that tablets will rose over huge chunks of the internet user experience--it is just too easy to consume content using one.
But the end the open web of google and web search? And the rise of the special purpose app for everything? I don't think so. Not as long as tablets ship with standards compliant browsers.