We've seen this in so many "former" creatives. Once they become irrelevant, they naysay the current direction of technology. I echo some previous comments; the marketplace has a pretty good way of saying "yes" or "no" to products. Perhaps if he understood the correct way of using "myriad" in a sentence, he would be able to articulate his vision--which he failed to make a case for in the marketplace--in a clear and compelling manner.
Cute, but I think any honest person could identify a great many such abuses here this list (in a quick skim I see more than a dozen that apply to this thread): http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Your argument supporting Kay also falls into the Appeal to Accomplishment fallacy. Your argument is that since he has accomplished so much that he must know what he's talking about.
In reality, critical thinking requires you to evaluate his ideas on their own merits. But since he hasn't provided any ideas (just a statement that the iOS UI is bad), it's impossible to do so.
Your argument supporting Kay also falls into the Appeal to Accomplishment fallacy. Your argument is that since he has accomplished so much that he must know what he's talking about.
In reality, critical thinking requires you to evaluate his ideas on their own merits. But since he hasn't provided any ideas (just a statement that the iOS UI is bad), it's impossible to do so.
Giving limited answers in a limited interview makes Kay wrong and worthy of the dump herein? With that attitude, you must be on Twitter all day criticizing people for a lack of details in 140-ch long utterances.
Actually I do attack people for making broad generalizations that lack details. See below....
Burden of proof. Do you know what it means? If you make a claim you're the one who has to prove it, it's not up to us to. Asking me to "Google it" is basically saying you can't back up your statements.
Which also fits with Alan Kay saying the UI of the iPad is "poor". If he's going to make such a broad and harsh statement in an interview he knows will be published then he should have followed it up with some examples.
So you think the two situations are comparable: An edited excerpt of an interview vs. a to-and-fro debate on a forum with no limit how long you can drag it out for? I can understand someone wishing there were more details. But the massive, derisive criticism here is absurd, given that the man is in part responsible for some of the important strands of DNA that exists in Apple products today.
One of the things that Apple doesn't allow in iOS is programs that can download executable code. For the thousands of teachers who use Squeak as a way of teaching beginning programming, this means that children cannot share programs they write with one another unless they follow Apple's current requirement that they use Android.
This is why Squeak is popular on OLPC, and is being ported to Android, but any iOS version will be lacking in that social component.
And this is what Kay was referring to with his comment about "symmetric authoring and consuming."
Apple's iOS security policies will not allow programming systems like Scratch, or Kay's "eToys," into the iOS App Store, because Scratch and eToys have as fundamental features the ability to share programs.
I know from personal communication that Kay and his assistants talked to high-level Apple officials, but their request was rejected. So, no Scratch, or eToys, on iOS. HUGE SIGH.
From what he said, it sounded like he had approached Apple about Scratch/eToy. The issue with running executable code is security because someone could develop a useful app, have it published and then download a piece of code later on that does something bad to a lot of people and Apple would have no way of preventing it. Charlie Miller demonstrated this by exploiting a code-signing bug:
There are two ways round this. One is that developers use the only dynamic code execution that Apple allows, which is Javascript or they do it server-side. Javascript is good enough for After Effects so it should be enough for visual programming. Here is an example of an app based on Scratch that has an iOS, HTML5 version under development:
It's perfectly reasonable to say that dynamic code execution has allowed the Android version to already exist but the way it does it has the potential to cause damage:
The server-side method can run any type of code. It can display the UI in an HTML view or WebGL view and code can be any object-oriented code - it can even be a remote terminal. To share the program, they'd just email a link and programs would run fast on any device. It does require internet connectivity but sharing the program in the first place needs connectivity as does visiting the website to find the guides.
The problem this creates is having to redevelop the entire way the software works and preventing the existing programs that kids have done from running, which is what I suspect the biggest objection is but like I say, that's the same deal with Flash - the programs need to be rewritten and they also need to be rewritten for a touch interface anyway.
In terms of the multi-window system, you can immediately see the trouble that has when you factor in different orientations. If you consider the iPad mini in landscape and say they had a feature to have a center split and apps on either side could be switched in and out by using the 4-finger swipe left/right. Each app would have to switch to portrait mode as the resolution for each becomes 512 x 768. To keep the same aspect, they would have to be 682 tall so ~40px black bars top/bottom or supported apps stretch.
But then what happens when you turn the iPad? You can't have a center split running vertically because you'd only get 384 pixels of width - more importantly, hardly any physical width. So the center split has to go from running vertically to running horizontally and each app has to switch to landscape, which gives them the same black bars. If the split is dismissed, the remaining app has to then animate back into portrait or landscape.
You also have to consider how the multi-tasking bar works in that scenario. Which side of the split does the chosen app load into? There would have to be another step to let you choose. There would have to be another button to let you make the split in the first place (probably in the multi-tasking bar).
Then we get to the keyboard. There has to be an active context so it will know which one to type in but imagine how small the views would become with the keyboard enabled. I quite like the ability to swipe back and forward with 4-fingers but it would be nice if there was a way to reorder the apps so you could for example swipe quickly back and forth between a browser and Pages.
The point is that you can't make a statement about a flaw without considering all of the steps and implications that go into improving it. Apple makes compromises to give the best results, every company does. Where they differ is in their quality expectations for those results.
Giving limited answers in a limited interview makes Kay wrong and worthy of the dump herein? With that attitude, you must be on Twitter all day criticizing people for a lack of details in 140-ch long utterances.
Sorry, I don't use Twitter. Nor would I expect the same level of detail and critical thinking in a Twitter (or even Facebook) post as in a professional interview.
More importantly, the last time I checked, the Internet was still open. If Kays wanted to expand on these comments (given the criticism he's received from a lot of directions), he could easily have clarified his position and listed some specifics. He hasn't done so.
Actually I do attack people for making broad generalizations that lack details. See below....
Burden of proof. Do you know what it means? If you make a claim you're the one who has to prove it, it's not up to us to. Asking me to "Google it" is basically saying you can't back up your statements.
Which also fits with Alan Kay saying the UI of the iPad is "poor". If he's going to make such a broad and harsh statement in an interview he knows will be published then he should have followed it up with some examples.
Actually, since someone claimed that the Mac was superior to the Alto was first, why don't they or you support their claim?
More importantly, the last time I checked, the Internet was still open. If Kays wanted to expand on these comments (given the criticism he's received from a lot of directions), he could easily have clarified his position and listed some specifics. He hasn't done so.
And he's had 3 years and 1 day since the iPad first landed in customer's hands to voice what is good and bad about the iPad. If he had spoken up we might have a better tablet experience today so it strikes me odd that someone with so many highly specific ideas would now elude to something has having a myriad of problems but in 3 years time never detail what they are.
In terms of the multi-window system, you can immediately see the trouble that has when you factor in different orientations. If you consider the iPad mini in landscape and say they had a feature to have a center split and apps on either side could be switched in and out by using the 4-finger swipe left/right. Each app would have to switch to portrait mode as the resolution for each becomes 512 x 768. To keep the same aspect, they would have to be 682 tall so ~40px black bars top/bottom or supported apps stretch.
Based only on what I've seen in TV ads, Blackberry might have a way to do multiple windows. Rather than displaying them both, the top window appears to slide off the one behind it. I don't know if that is exactly how it works with the BB but something like that would certainly be an improvement over double clicking the home button.
And he's had 3 years and 1 day since the iPad first landed in customer's hands to voice what is good and bad about the iPad. If he had spoken up we might have a better tablet experience today so it strikes me odd that someone with so many highly specific ideas would now elude to something has having a myriad of problems but in 3 years time never detail what they are.
Not sure why people are getting up in arms over an interview.
Kay was asked a question, and he gave a simple answer from his standpoint.
The original interview question and partial answer was:
Quote:
Q: "Do you agree that we now essentially have the Dynabook, as expressed in the three tiers of modern personal computing; the notebook, tablet and smartphone? If not, what critical features do you see missing from these?"
A: ... snip ...
"The interesting thing about this question is that it is quite clear from the several early papers that it was an ancillary point for the Dynabook to be able to simulate all existing media in an editable / authorable form in a highly portable networked (including wireless) form. The main point was for it to be able to qualitatively extend the notions of “reading, writing, sharing, publishing, etc. of ideas” literacy to include the “computer reading, writing, sharing, publishing of ideas” that is the computer’s special province.
"For all media, the original intent was “symmetric authoring and consuming”.
"Isn’t it crystal clear that this last and most important service is quite lacking in today’s computing for the general public? Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world. This could not be farther from the original intentions of the entire ARPA-IPTO/PARC community in the ’60s and ’70s.
All he's saying is that obviously today's tablets are not doing anything like what he envisioned for the Dynabook. And he's right that Apple inhibits many useful forms of application sharing. (I'd love to see Hypercard done for the iPad.)
It's all neither bad nor good. It's just the way it is.
Kay, how much did samsung pay you? No, really..... how much? Probably never get the answer from Mr. Irrelevant. Perhaps he should look to "Dancing with the Stars" like his spiritual doppleganger, the WOZ.
The response by commenters here shows how rude and immature they are. Alan Kay is spot on and if you knew much about his history, a little more respect would be shown.
Apple have in fact NO idea about ergonomics and the creative process. Bare in mind I have owned or own about every product they have ever made, (typing this on their best designed product, the MBA 13"), so here we go:
1. Finding the volume and rotate lock/mute slider on the iPads is a nightmare, spinning it around every time until you find it. 2. No consistency with gestures across iOS and OS X and even within some apps. 3. Various display aspect ratios. 4. No stylus input, making real creative drawing impossible on any iOS device. (A sponge tipped stylus is not a stylus! Has no precision.)
Ironically, the best tablets were the Windows CE models from almost 15 years ago. Only let down because they were slow and lacked proper connectivity.
Wahh! I designed a mock up 20 years ago and you damn greedy companies failed to live up to my vision.
Don't like where tablet computing is headed? Build your own.
Sort of my thoughts, too, bigdad; however, I don't know enough about the man to really know if what he says might have some truth to it beyond sensing. I sense Apple can do better and can point to a few features to improve but, for the most part, I do like to hear informed people ponder. Would be good to hear the man expand upon his expounding.
Based only on what I've seen in TV ads, Blackberry might have a way to do multiple windows. Rather than displaying them both, the top window appears to slide off the one behind it. I don't know if that is exactly how it works with the BB but something like that would certainly be an improvement over double clicking the home button.
That's not using them at the same time, just a different way to switch between them. I find the iOS switcher a little slow too but the 4-finger gestures help. 4-finger up avoids the double-tap. I can only think of Windows 8 as an example of a mobile OS to do the split view for using both and does a good job of showing why it doesn't work very well:
[VIDEO]
It seems like a Windows 8 x86 touch tablet would match Alan Kay's requirements.
Comments
Your argument supporting Kay also falls into the Appeal to Accomplishment fallacy. Your argument is that since he has accomplished so much that he must know what he's talking about.
In reality, critical thinking requires you to evaluate his ideas on their own merits. But since he hasn't provided any ideas (just a statement that the iOS UI is bad), it's impossible to do so.
Giving limited answers in a limited interview makes Kay wrong and worthy of the dump herein? With that attitude, you must be on Twitter all day criticizing people for a lack of details in 140-ch long utterances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee
Actually I do attack people for making broad generalizations that lack details. See below....
Burden of proof. Do you know what it means? If you make a claim you're the one who has to prove it, it's not up to us to. Asking me to "Google it" is basically saying you can't back up your statements.
Which also fits with Alan Kay saying the UI of the iPad is "poor". If he's going to make such a broad and harsh statement in an interview he knows will be published then he should have followed it up with some examples.
So you think the two situations are comparable: An edited excerpt of an interview vs. a to-and-fro debate on a forum with no limit how long you can drag it out for? I can understand someone wishing there were more details. But the massive, derisive criticism here is absurd, given that the man is in part responsible for some of the important strands of DNA that exists in Apple products today.
From what he said, it sounded like he had approached Apple about Scratch/eToy. The issue with running executable code is security because someone could develop a useful app, have it published and then download a piece of code later on that does something bad to a lot of people and Apple would have no way of preventing it. Charlie Miller demonstrated this by exploiting a code-signing bug:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/110811-miller-ios-bug-252886.html
There are two ways round this. One is that developers use the only dynamic code execution that Apple allows, which is Javascript or they do it server-side. Javascript is good enough for After Effects so it should be enough for visual programming. Here is an example of an app based on Scratch that has an iOS, HTML5 version under development:
http://developer.catrobat.org
[VIDEO]
It's perfectly reasonable to say that dynamic code execution has allowed the Android version to already exist but the way it does it has the potential to cause damage:
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/android-class-loading-hijacking
The server-side method can run any type of code. It can display the UI in an HTML view or WebGL view and code can be any object-oriented code - it can even be a remote terminal. To share the program, they'd just email a link and programs would run fast on any device. It does require internet connectivity but sharing the program in the first place needs connectivity as does visiting the website to find the guides.
The problem this creates is having to redevelop the entire way the software works and preventing the existing programs that kids have done from running, which is what I suspect the biggest objection is but like I say, that's the same deal with Flash - the programs need to be rewritten and they also need to be rewritten for a touch interface anyway.
In terms of the multi-window system, you can immediately see the trouble that has when you factor in different orientations. If you consider the iPad mini in landscape and say they had a feature to have a center split and apps on either side could be switched in and out by using the 4-finger swipe left/right. Each app would have to switch to portrait mode as the resolution for each becomes 512 x 768. To keep the same aspect, they would have to be 682 tall so ~40px black bars top/bottom or supported apps stretch.
But then what happens when you turn the iPad? You can't have a center split running vertically because you'd only get 384 pixels of width - more importantly, hardly any physical width. So the center split has to go from running vertically to running horizontally and each app has to switch to landscape, which gives them the same black bars. If the split is dismissed, the remaining app has to then animate back into portrait or landscape.
You also have to consider how the multi-tasking bar works in that scenario. Which side of the split does the chosen app load into? There would have to be another step to let you choose. There would have to be another button to let you make the split in the first place (probably in the multi-tasking bar).
Then we get to the keyboard. There has to be an active context so it will know which one to type in but imagine how small the views would become with the keyboard enabled. I quite like the ability to swipe back and forward with 4-fingers but it would be nice if there was a way to reorder the apps so you could for example swipe quickly back and forth between a browser and Pages.
The point is that you can't make a statement about a flaw without considering all of the steps and implications that go into improving it. Apple makes compromises to give the best results, every company does. Where they differ is in their quality expectations for those results.
Sorry, I don't use Twitter. Nor would I expect the same level of detail and critical thinking in a Twitter (or even Facebook) post as in a professional interview.
More importantly, the last time I checked, the Internet was still open. If Kays wanted to expand on these comments (given the criticism he's received from a lot of directions), he could easily have clarified his position and listed some specifics. He hasn't done so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee
Actually I do attack people for making broad generalizations that lack details. See below....
Burden of proof. Do you know what it means? If you make a claim you're the one who has to prove it, it's not up to us to. Asking me to "Google it" is basically saying you can't back up your statements.
Which also fits with Alan Kay saying the UI of the iPad is "poor". If he's going to make such a broad and harsh statement in an interview he knows will be published then he should have followed it up with some examples.
Actually, since someone claimed that the Mac was superior to the Alto was first, why don't they or you support their claim?
This doesn't even count as "dust in the wind" -- it's wind in the wind. (Flatulence in the wind, in fact! Best quickly avoided and soon forgotten...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Halfen
This doesn't even count as "dust in the wind" -- it's wind in the wind. (Flatulence in the wind, in fact! Best quickly avoided and soon forgotten...)
Wow, what a cool self-referential post!
And he's had 3 years and 1 day since the iPad first landed in customer's hands to voice what is good and bad about the iPad. If he had spoken up we might have a better tablet experience today so it strikes me odd that someone with so many highly specific ideas would now elude to something has having a myriad of problems but in 3 years time never detail what they are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
In terms of the multi-window system, you can immediately see the trouble that has when you factor in different orientations. If you consider the iPad mini in landscape and say they had a feature to have a center split and apps on either side could be switched in and out by using the 4-finger swipe left/right. Each app would have to switch to portrait mode as the resolution for each becomes 512 x 768. To keep the same aspect, they would have to be 682 tall so ~40px black bars top/bottom or supported apps stretch.
Based only on what I've seen in TV ads, Blackberry might have a way to do multiple windows. Rather than displaying them both, the top window appears to slide off the one behind it. I don't know if that is exactly how it works with the BB but something like that would certainly be an improvement over double clicking the home button.
c/elude/allude
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
c/elude/allude
"the elusive Alan Kay"
Not sure why people are getting up in arms over an interview.
Kay was asked a question, and he gave a simple answer from his standpoint.
The original interview question and partial answer was:
Quote:
Q: "Do you agree that we now essentially have the Dynabook, as expressed in the three tiers of modern personal computing; the notebook, tablet and smartphone? If not, what critical features do you see missing from these?"
A: ... snip ...
"The interesting thing about this question is that it is quite clear from the several early papers that it was an ancillary point for the Dynabook to be able to simulate all existing media in an editable / authorable form in a highly portable networked (including wireless) form. The main point was for it to be able to qualitatively extend the notions of “reading, writing, sharing, publishing, etc. of ideas” literacy to include the “computer reading, writing, sharing, publishing of ideas” that is the computer’s special province.
"For all media, the original intent was “symmetric authoring and consuming”.
"Isn’t it crystal clear that this last and most important service is quite lacking in today’s computing for the general public? Apple with the iPad and iPhone goes even further and does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world. This could not be farther from the original intentions of the entire ARPA-IPTO/PARC community in the ’60s and ’70s.
All he's saying is that obviously today's tablets are not doing anything like what he envisioned for the Dynabook. And he's right that Apple inhibits many useful forms of application sharing. (I'd love to see Hypercard done for the iPad.)
It's all neither bad nor good. It's just the way it is.
deleted
deleted
Apple have in fact NO idea about ergonomics and the creative process. Bare in mind I have owned or own about every product they have ever made, (typing this on their best designed product, the MBA 13"), so here we go:
1. Finding the volume and rotate lock/mute slider on the iPads is a nightmare, spinning it around every time until you find it.
2. No consistency with gestures across iOS and OS X and even within some apps.
3. Various display aspect ratios.
4. No stylus input, making real creative drawing impossible on any iOS device. (A sponge tipped stylus is not a stylus! Has no precision.)
Ironically, the best tablets were the Windows CE models from almost 15 years ago. Only let down because they were slow and lacked proper connectivity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdaddyp
Wahh! I designed a mock up 20 years ago and you damn greedy companies failed to live up to my vision.
Don't like where tablet computing is headed? Build your own.
Sort of my thoughts, too, bigdad; however, I don't know enough about the man to really know if what he says might have some truth to it beyond sensing. I sense Apple can do better and can point to a few features to improve but, for the most part, I do like to hear informed people ponder. Would be good to hear the man expand upon his expounding.
That's not using them at the same time, just a different way to switch between them. I find the iOS switcher a little slow too but the 4-finger gestures help. 4-finger up avoids the double-tap. I can only think of Windows 8 as an example of a mobile OS to do the split view for using both and does a good job of showing why it doesn't work very well:
[VIDEO]
It seems like a Windows 8 x86 touch tablet would match Alan Kay's requirements.