Advent of the Eyephone
Well, the time has arrived. The wireless application is now accepted.Everybody's doin it, and we'll all have apps galore on our iPhones and Droids. See, I've been doing this stuff for years. It's been a long,hard slog to get people to see the value of real applications held in the hand, providing real value for users, both for recreation and business. What has caused this adoption of the technology, to the point that we all will be using this stuff in a few more months?
I see several factors at work:
Ubiquity of the platform - hardware has always been the issue. We went through the stages of having kludgy cell phones connected via unreliable lines to providers that only reluctantly gave us an internet connection. Now, my iPhone will use 4G, admittedly fast, and auto-switch to 802.11 whenever it's within range of an access point. This ubiquity had to happen, or we'd still be walking around outside, looking for a halfway-decent signal.
Real Applications - I attended a seminar in Rome (yes, Italy) several years ago where billing for time through a provider's system was the only way to envision getting revenue from an application. Now we've got multiple revenue streams, all available with simple 2-step clicks and our PayPals will be ticked for $0.99 or something like that. This is really where it gets exciting. If only I can create a decent, simple program that will allow me to get a quarter million users signed up, that's my retirement plan right there!
Motivated Users - there's a desparate public out there, who need all sorts of applications that will make their lives better. We just need to think out of the box a little, and imagine a world where the desktop, keyboard an all, is floating around inside someone's brain, ready in a moment to respond to a thought, idea, event, or disaster, and provide answers, directions, suggestions based on fact, that can make life easier. It's all ahead of us, and we can do it!
I'll mention one more need out there, and it's capable developers. We should be ready to create world-class applications for those who are looking for it, and need the ability to find information when and where it's needed. Developers need to stop looking at the screen, and walk around looking at other people for awhile. Watch them. They'll tell you what they're looking for. Keep your eyes open.
I see several factors at work:
Ubiquity of the platform - hardware has always been the issue. We went through the stages of having kludgy cell phones connected via unreliable lines to providers that only reluctantly gave us an internet connection. Now, my iPhone will use 4G, admittedly fast, and auto-switch to 802.11 whenever it's within range of an access point. This ubiquity had to happen, or we'd still be walking around outside, looking for a halfway-decent signal.
Real Applications - I attended a seminar in Rome (yes, Italy) several years ago where billing for time through a provider's system was the only way to envision getting revenue from an application. Now we've got multiple revenue streams, all available with simple 2-step clicks and our PayPals will be ticked for $0.99 or something like that. This is really where it gets exciting. If only I can create a decent, simple program that will allow me to get a quarter million users signed up, that's my retirement plan right there!
Motivated Users - there's a desparate public out there, who need all sorts of applications that will make their lives better. We just need to think out of the box a little, and imagine a world where the desktop, keyboard an all, is floating around inside someone's brain, ready in a moment to respond to a thought, idea, event, or disaster, and provide answers, directions, suggestions based on fact, that can make life easier. It's all ahead of us, and we can do it!
I'll mention one more need out there, and it's capable developers. We should be ready to create world-class applications for those who are looking for it, and need the ability to find information when and where it's needed. Developers need to stop looking at the screen, and walk around looking at other people for awhile. Watch them. They'll tell you what they're looking for. Keep your eyes open.
Comments