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Mobile is Eating the World

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Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#61

Post by KobaQ »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
jerf wrote: post #3

The western world right now is in a bit of a defeatist mood and pessimism reigns supreme. And while I can't deny that all things end and in some sense civilization is scheduled for some receding, I find myself wondering what impact this sort of technology will have on that process. Technology is speeding everything up so much and so fast... what if technology speeds up our next "dark age" from centuries to decades...…

Well, smartphones simply enable you to do things that you can't otherwise do. I don't think they'll have much of an effect on how long our next Dark Ages lasts. The dark ages were primarily due to culture, not ability. Smartphones enable culture to morph in interesting ways, but they don't override it. People will still be people.

But as people will still be people, ability to get what we want easily also drives culture.

Deep inside we all are shockingly selfish and lazy little animals. We all take the easiest road, at least what for our selfish desires seems to be the easiest road. Sometimes, it's looks like a hard or unselfish road on the outside, but needed to fullfill our own selfish needs. Even buddisths are selfish, as they try to be free from selfish desires for the selfish reason of reduce pain in their live.

There's always a melt down of higher cultures. People having all the tools to fullfill their basic needs loose the drive to achieve. That's why I generally see this "we make the world a better place with all our great services" direction quite sceptical. It was never easier to distract ourselves with mobile devices, but do we benefit? No, Apple, Google, FB, MS and Amazon do.

BTW: One of my favorite movies is Idiocracy :-)

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#62

Post by LVB »

I don't get the "Tech Brands Are Huge" slide, specifically the comparison to the same companies in 2004. Wouldnt you compare to the top four tech companies at the time (MSFT, AOL, whatever) to demonstrate that the share of global brand value in tech is much higher now?

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#63

Post by gumby »

cageface wrote: post #6

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. It's probably true that a lot of people that used to use desktop or laptop computers just to check…

> I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic....for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate.

Consider his use metonymic and look at the picture on page 28. When you see "mobile" see "extremely personal device that you interact with ubiquitously and almost continuously, with sensors so it senses your movements, listens to you even when you are not explicitly manipulating it, and is constantly connected." Today, essentially the only devices like that are phones.

But his core points are: - You no longer sit down to have a "computing experience" -- it's increasingly part of the fabric of society and life - This will only accelerate and new devices and modes and capabilities will flourish and extend it - This shift is transformational, not incremental. - Almost any plan that made sense a few years ago is now irrelevant.

These are concepts that are so clear that they simultaneously appear banal and yet will go unrecognized by most people even as they are being planed by these "banal truths".

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#64

Post by kalleboo »

ams6110 wrote: post #25

From one of the slides: Email is for grandparents I think this varies. I'm not a grandparent, but am close to 50 years old and have been working in computer technology my entire adult life. I have an Android smartphone (got my first one this year) but have not installed any apps on it. Email, web browser, text messages, calendar, contacts, and maps are all there and I can't really think of anything else useful I'd wa…

When I saw that slide I said to myself "rather, email is for people who have a job". But who knows, maybe that generation will reject email and create some brilliant collaboration tools that are modeled more after the instant messaging model? Was Wave just ahead of it's time?

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#65

Post by pixl97 »

awad wrote: post #43
cageface wrote: post #6

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. It's probably true that a lot of people that used to use desktop or laptop computers just to check…

Steve Jobs had a good quote on this: "I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes.…

That seems like a very silly analogy Steve made. By percentage, ya more autos were trucks back in the day, but there are more 'trucks' on the road than ever before. From small light duty trucks to gigantic semi's with an army of axles under them we are no closer to post-truck then we were when they owned the road.

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#66

Post by pixl97 »

ams6110 wrote: post #25

From one of the slides: Email is for grandparents I think this varies. I'm not a grandparent, but am close to 50 years old and have been working in computer technology my entire adult life. I have an Android smartphone (got my first one this year) but have not installed any apps on it. Email, web browser, text messages, calendar, contacts, and maps are all there and I can't really think of anything else useful I'd wa…

Email is for people who don't like reliable communication.

Too many blackholes for your message to fall into. Too many spammers, I block 90% of around 100,000 messages a day. Too many servers use unreliable blacklists. No notification anything has gone wrong.

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#67

Post by rsync »

awad wrote: post #43
cageface wrote: post #6

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. It's probably true that a lot of people that used to use desktop or laptop computers just to check…

Steve Jobs had a good quote on this: "I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes.…

Best selling car in the US is, and has been for years, the Ford F-150.

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#68

Post by lotharbot »

hayksaakian wrote: post #9
cageface wrote: post #6

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. It's probably true that a lot of people that used to use desktop or laptop computers just to check…

> But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. The number of use cases is less important. What are the most common use cases? You're conflating people that use computers as part of their job incidentally, with people that use a computer because their job inherently necessitates one. Refer to this article about the most common occupations in the US: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/a…

> " traditional input devices (keyboards) are increasingly compatible with mobile hardware"

For some people, it's not the input that matters, or the computing power, but the output. Big, high-res displays are still in demand. I'm not sure wearable displays will ever replace them -- even if Glass gets to be much higher than its current 640x320 resolution, it's a lot more difficult to shift your focus from one part of the "screen" to another if it's being projected directly into your eye.

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#69

Post by pixl97 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #59
diltonm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy said, "smartphones simply enable you to do things that you can't otherwise do". People were taking pictures with their cameras long before smartphones and uploading them. I was using Microsoft StreetMaps (I think that was the name) and a $100 GPS serial device to map trips around the SFBA. People have used a compass to navigate for thousands of years. So yes, smartphones don't do things you can't do otherwise…

I don't know why this is controversial. You aren't going to carry a camera around with you everywhere you go, nor a GPS, nor a laptop. But you'll carry your smartphone. So you can do more things because you have your smartphone with you. Anyway, my main point was that culture was the reason for the dark ages, not ability to do things. And smartphones don't override culture.

>And smartphones don't override culture.

What does override culture?

Talking to the people around you? Newspapers? Books? Telephones? Peoples options? News?

Culture: the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

If you don't think that an instantaneous audio/graphical communications device cannot be used as a means to effect culture you are highly confused about what culture is.

Re: Mobile is Eating the World

#70

Post by bbarn »

Ologn wrote: post #35

I mainly program Android apps, many for my side business. Some people here have said "mobile has peaked". I go around with my Android mobile phone, and I have trouble finding out what time stores close. I have trouble finding nearby supermarkets. I certainly can't find out if supermarkets have an item in stock, or if the item on sale. I can't find a nearby bathroom to use. We are nowhere near mobile peaking. Yes, the…

And on that note, the more places mobile puts it's fingers, ultimately, the more places that someone needs to make sure the finger points to the right thing. Every google maps, yelp review, craigslist post, etc., needs someone ultimately to vet it's place in reality before said reality can be made useless by it. I think we're on the cusp of mobile overload, where we're going to see more and more specialized mobile services made useless because we simply don't have the manpower to wire them up well without taking that manpower from something else.

So, while we may not be peaked in terms of what could be done, we're nearing the point where what WILL be done is starting to look more and more focused on the things that grab quick money.

Oddly, I think the next big revolution will be the generation that's tired of being chained to their devices and subscriptions and services, and starts to devolve back to actual interpersonal relationships. I'm seeing it every day with those of us who grew up without it, had it, and realized that it's not quite the silver bullet for living it marketed itself as.

Siri still sucks, Google maps still gets you lost, and visual studio still blows on a touchscreen laptop.

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