iMiss?

Have Apple missed the point with the new iPad3?

The demise of the tablet for content producing business users is nigh. As most business users do. And Apple knows this.

It’s like the disparaging retorts to the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads from Apple, referring to the parodies, being all very well to podcast etc. but in the real world that creates wealth and gives people jobs, grown ups actually do need to work spreadsheets every once in a while. The same logic applies to content producing business people, except it’s not a jab at OSX specifically, more the tablet format.

CFO’s everywhere have been persuaded to invest in a fleet of shiny new tablets to keep the employees happy, and impress the customer. A whole new industry has popped up in tablet security, and tablet accessories. Accessories being essentially Bluetooth keyboards and mice, embedded into a case designed as sleekly as the tablet, neatly doubling the size of the package.

And what of industry-specific business apps? Are the vendors, usually with a captive market, really going to invest in completely redesigning the application for a specific tablet OS? For redesign, read “greatly reduced functionality” if the app is natively written at all. The costs of a) converting the app to a number of tablet OS’s, changing the entire way the app operates with a fat-fingered touch screen GUI and limited screen space and b) then maintaining that new code base for a specific market segment of customers who are usually captive anyway, just doesn’t make economic sense.

However, Apple knows the format needs re-inventing for those native business apps that do exist, and is trailblazing as usual with the incorporation of Siri#2, “Dicatation”, into the iPad3.

In an effort to maintain said sleekness, are a nation of commuters and “serious” business people really going to be dictating instructions or emails on public transport/airport lounges/planes to a virtual assistant? With the equivalent of “Damn you autocorrect” in speech interpretation? Apart from the annoyance to fellow public-space users, is it human nature to announce to the world exactly what grubby little things you are up to on your shiny tablet as you angle your screen away from the rest of the world?

Having said that, sending a written message to a large group of people instantly seemed a bit much when email first came out. Then writing your thoughts on a public forum for anyone who cared to sidle along to view them also seemed strange in the early days of Facebook. Maybe talking to yourself with a large tablet shoved down the seat of your trousers might be the new norm. With limited functionality.

Reckon now might be the time to push that next wave of ultra-slim and very shiny laptops ….. with some sort of compelling gimmicky upgrade to please the influential shiny types…

Lebensraum

We’ve run out of addresses.

IP addresses – 4.2 billion of them to be exact-ish. Just as some dude once said that the world would never require more than 5 computers, another dude designing the internet thing reckoned that 32-bit addressing would give us more IP addresses than we would ever need. Probably the dude that brought the techie talk “http://” into the mainstream dictionary (and how did he get away with that?!).

Anyhow moving from ipv4 – the one with no hooses left –  to ipv6 will give us 128 bit addressing – will give us an outrageously huge number of addresses. So much so that NOW we should never ever ever run out.

Aside from various low-lever network technical advantages – e.g. no requirement for NAT translation within company networks – there is a further important change in that every device we now own will be able to have an INDIVIDUAL IP address.

Over simplified, this means that currently, if iPhone A wishes to exchanged data with iPhone B then you need to do so via a third party ISP IP address and subsequent network translation. However with ipv6, devices can now exchange data directly between two devices, having their own unique IP addresses.

What this essentially means is that you can now localise processing of location-based and social applications on your device  – those requiring interaction with your localised environment via things like GPS, communication with other devices, image processing etc.

Net result –  faster and fatter applications on your iPhone, talking to other devices directly, and processing the exchanged data locally, rather than just using the device as a presentation layer.

Phat Fat Apps require a Fat Phone

What will this mean?

• faster applications
• fatter applications
• more device-specific development
• requirement for corresponding growth in on-board device memory and processor speeds

With an increase in device development, expect to see growth in such device-independent coding platforms such as Appcelerator.

Roll on next gen apps. And hopefully we won’t use up all the addresses this time!

iMania

Just had a call from a Board Member asking about a corporate iP<insert device here> application.

I’m about to put in place some new policies to enable implementation of Activesync & Outlook Web Access, and hence able to connect “cool sh*t” to the corporate network. The corporate grapevine is clearly alive and well, and like MacRumors or The Smoking Gun, the news has clearly been leaked to the scavenging besuited office wolves.

 The fish kettle and worm can are fully opened at this stage.

Let me sell you an app...

Now, the argument for the prevalence of new mobile technologies and the new business trend of “bring your own”, with associated service difficulties, opens up whole new areas of, quite frankly, IT pain.

With influential dabblers scratching the surface of possibility, where do you stop? iPhone app, screen-optimised iPad app, Android app, Windows 7 mobile app? Sod it, touchscreen designed HTML7/Flash Gordon/Web5.0 thought controlled iMind app?

Who writes these? Who maintains these as new firmware/OS updates come out? Who keeps an eye on the latest form factors to define how the app needs to be updated or rewritten for new form factors or OS? etc. etc.

And finally I suppose which of course is of least importance, what does the application actually do other than splash the corporate logo on an app store somewhere.

In addition to running a business.

Another round of jealously visiting funky offices filled with emo developers and Playstation 3’s, whilst bound up in my formal corporate uniform.

Watch this space.