Or young and naive. Getting to see both sides of that coin.
Or just raising the bar.
Long ago there was a place among Apple fans for the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
Things have changed since then.
But those who are easily angered by their fervor to see things always remain the same are about to have their heads cave in: iOS 7 is said to have a radically different look.
And iOS 8 will change things even more.
And one day Apple will even change their licensing so that children will be able to learn programming on Apple i-devices, and share their work with their friends. By the time that happens all the anger and outrage in this thread will have been forgotten, and it will seem to some as though it's always been that way.
I believe it really is about the children... and assisting them to be creative by being creative... He used "authoring" while "consuming" as an example...
But as you point out, there are already many good apps for children and for teaching and learning on the iPad, and the iPad is making strides in the classroom also.
It seems to me that his gripe is that his particular app or program does not work on the iPad the way that he would want it to, due to Apple's rules, and his criticism seems to be highly personal and business motivated.
Who said that he hasn't accomplished a lot in the past? Ok, his past achievements are great. Now, let's talk about the present and his current statements.
Instead of avoiding the topic in a pathetic and amateurish attempt at deflecting away from legitimate criticism, why don't the people who agree with him make an argument as to why the iPad UI qualifies as 'poor', and also what is their idea of a 'good' UI.
Exactly, they are basically resorting to fallacious arguments. To the people who can't stand that anyone could disagree with Alan Kay: If Alan Kay said that the Windows 8 GUI was the best UI ever made would you unquestionably accept that statement? If not, then why should anyone unquestionably accept his statement about the iPad UI? Even if he is "right", he is not right simply because he's Alan Kay. That is fallacious reasoning at its best.
Also, plenty of brilliant people have been wrong about things on numerous occasions. Isaac Newton was exceptionally brilliant yet he believed that alchemy was real. Albert Einstein was exceptionally brilliant but incorrectly dismissed things like Quantum Mechanics. No matter how brilliant anyone is they can always be wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ankleskater
How many people here are qualified to agree or disagree?
To choose either position, one has to ponder the issue at length, try various alternatives, become acquainted with history, present and future (i.e. technology in development) of computing in order to offer a learned opinion. Regardless of background, who has spent that kind of time doing these activities? Oh yeah, that would be Alan Kay.
Everyone is qualified to agree or disagree. Your post is nothing but pure fallacy.
Or young and naive. Getting to see both sides of that coin.
I'm in the middle, neither young nor old, so I consider myself immune.
I do agree with you on the young and naive part though. Kids today are dumber than ever, IMO, and I even saw on the news recently that about 80% of NYC high school seniors lack basic skills like reading, writing and math.
Who said that he hasn't accomplished a lot in the past? Ok, his past achievements are great. Now, let's talk about the present and his current statements.
Instead of avoiding the topic in a pathetic and amateurish attempt at deflecting away from legitimate criticism, why don't the people who agree with him make an argument as to why the iPad UI qualifies as 'poor', and also what is their idea of a 'good' UI.
I'll give you one...
I'd like to have 2 apps or 2 windows of the same app on the display at the same time so I could copy/paste or drag and drop between them...
Say, I'm on AI, replying to a post and I want to locate another post by the originator and copy it into my reply.
Yes, 2 windows are enough -- and the implementation need not be overly complex.
I once applied for a job at a company, C.F Braun, who constructed petroleum refineries -- their facilities were spotless down to the factory floors and parking lots. They had a corporate policy that you could have only 1 piece of paper on your desk at any time... I wondered how they copied anything...
Sorry all you little whiners, but Alan Kay was visionary before Steve Jobs even thought about a carrot only diet.
And Alan Kay is 100% correct - the iPad is not designed for creation and sharing, it's oriented for consumption. It really is crippled.
In that sense, every single product in the world is 'crippled' because it doesn't do everything that anyone could ever want it to do.
A Ferrari is flawed because it won't tow a 7,000 lb trailer.
A Ford F150 is flawed because it won't go 170 mph.
A Corvette is flawed because it won't carry 6 passengers.
A Volvo is flawed because it won't withstand a 100 mph head on collision with a tractor trailer.
Similarly, the iPad was never intended to be primarily a content creation device, so criticizing it for not being one is silly.
The iPad IS used extensively for creation, though. There are millions of people creating things on their iPads, so claiming that it can't be used for creation and sharing is flat out wrong. That said, it IS primarily intended as a consumption device. The technology just isn't there yet to give you a full blown computer in a thin, lightweight tablet. What's wrong with it being primarily a media consumption device? That doesn't make it BAD or crippled.
And I have been buying Apple products since 1982 when I got my Apple II.
When you look at Kay's contributions to computer design, user interfaces, and object oriented programming, he set the groundwork for what most Apple technology is based on today.
That's nice. So what?
The fact that he contributed to UI development 40 years ago does not make him the world's expert on today's UIs or products that didn't exist when he was working.
As I said, by your logic, the Wright Brothers (if they were still alive) should be the world's experts in aeronautics and we should listen to their complaints about the Boeing 787 or Space Shuttle.
He does sound really butthurt. It doesn't come off as constructive criticism. Like "we invented the mouse because it was THE future. Everyone is failing because they move past it".
Could you actually read the article? His criticism is that they DIDN'T move past the original concepts of Xerox/PARC. The flaws that were in the original GUI are still there, plus some new ones.
Building a machine requires a huge organization and a lot of work, and at this point Kay is done building things, but he is not done thinking about them, and telling people his opinion. Should he provide more detail? Well, maybe he has elsewhere, have you looked?
"Apple with the iPad and iPhone does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world."
which is not much better than saying it's bad because it doesn't run Flash. It does support HTML 5 just fine and kids can make far better etoys with that and they don't require his decoders. Judging by the Squeakland website, it's understandable that he might not have heard of this. Ironic for someone so into human-computer interfaces to continue using archaic presentation methods on his own site. The criticism that technology has moved on without him seems to be holding up so far.
He goes on to talk about the sandboxing of the OS:
"insecurities are the result of their own bad practices — they are not necessary"
To some extent I agree that security should be in software by design but it's not practical. He comes from an era where a program meant replicating a punch card. Software these days is far more complex and large projects have millions of lines of code. You can't guarantee that every part is secure because it requires distrusting and quarantining every input/output operation. Nothing would ever get finished if that was to be the case so sandboxing is a catch-all. It's not perfect but it's practical.
"The education establishment in the U.S. has generally not ventured into what is special about computing with reference to modeling ideas and helping to think about them."
Totally wrong. Like I said, how is Photoshop or Final Cut not an interface for modelling ideas outside of typing? These things are used in education.
For the iPad UI, he talks about the multi window view:
"we generally want to view and edit more than one kind of scene at the same time"
Like I said, he has to come up with a way to do that. Windows 8 has tried this split view concept and it just doesn't work well. He goes on to say "to compare different perspectives of the same model". Multiple views inside a single app isn't restricted.
"Pointing and dragging are likely to stick, because they are simple extensions of hands and fingers." Pointing and dragging is in there already.
"“Undo” should stick (for obvious reasons), but it is very weakly present in the iPad, etc." Undo is something that has to be developed into every piece of software, it's not a magical system-wide event and not a flaw of the iPad UI if it's not used.
"There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating." Again, partially agree but I'm sure he doesn't go out and hunt his own food or build his own transportation. Things are simplified for convenience. Supermarkets might mean that if you are lost in the wild you can't survive but we're not going to stop using them because of that.
Alan Kay is obviously a very intelligent person and has applied it to a lot of important things but when some of the statements he makes don't hold up then he is not exempt from criticism.
Could you actually read the article? His criticism is that they DIDN'T move past the original concepts of Xerox/PARC. The flaws that were in the original GUI are still there, plus some new ones.
And exactly which flaws have they not moved past? Can you offer anything beyond merely parroting?
I'd like to have 2 apps or 2 windows of the same app on the display at the same time so I could copy/paste or drag and drop between them...
Say, I'm on AI, replying to a post and I want to locate another post by the originator and copy it into my reply.
Yes, 2 windows are enough -- and the implementation need not be overly complex.
Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. iOS is still in it's infancy and a lot of changes and improvements are sure to come. If iOS 7 is as different as they say, then we'll already be seeing a different looking OS pretty soon, which is sure to come with changes and new features.
I still wouldn't call the iPad UI 'poor', because it didn't have a certain feature or two. Apple has to play a careful balancing act, because at the end of the day, everything has to be real simple to use.
It's funny that this story comes on the same day as a story about Apple totally revamping iOS for iOS7, and another one about how Jony Ive is changing the interface in a major way.
And I'm sure the same people who are criticizing Kay now (and defending the current OS) will jump on board with the upcoming changes, and say they are big necessary improvements, and they'll forget how much they ragged on Kay for suggesting changes are needed.
In my opinion, OS X has gotten too inflexible - in all the years I've been using Macs, I've never had to fight with the OS like I have to now, just to get the things done that I need to do.
Could you actually read the article? His criticism is that they DIDN'T move past the original concepts of Xerox/PARC. The flaws that were in the original GUI are still there, plus some new ones.
It's funny that this story comes on the same day as a story about Apple totally revamping iOS for iOS7, and another one about how Jony Ive is changing the interface in a major way.
And I'm sure the same people who are criticizing Kay now (and defending the current OS) will jump on board with the upcoming changes, and say they are big necessary improvements, and they'll forget how much they ragged on Kay for suggesting changes are needed.
In my opinion, OS X has gotten too inflexible - in all the years I've been using Macs, I've never had to fight with the OS like I have to now, just to get the things done that I need to do.
No one here is saying that the iOS UI can not and should not be improved. You're just repeating a strawman argument. That has little to do with the fact that one can disagree that the current UI is "poor".
Comments
Something a two year old can easily pick up and understand is definitely a failure in UI design¡
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCProfessor
Or young and naive. Getting to see both sides of that coin.
Or just raising the bar.
Long ago there was a place among Apple fans for the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
Things have changed since then.
But those who are easily angered by their fervor to see things always remain the same are about to have their heads cave in: iOS 7 is said to have a radically different look.
And iOS 8 will change things even more.
And one day Apple will even change their licensing so that children will be able to learn programming on Apple i-devices, and share their work with their friends. By the time that happens all the anger and outrage in this thread will have been forgotten, and it will seem to some as though it's always been that way.
"We have always been at war with Oceania."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
I believe it really is about the children... and assisting them to be creative by being creative... He used "authoring" while "consuming" as an example...
But as you point out, there are already many good apps for children and for teaching and learning on the iPad, and the iPad is making strides in the classroom also.
It seems to me that his gripe is that his particular app or program does not work on the iPad the way that he would want it to, due to Apple's rules, and his criticism seems to be highly personal and business motivated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ankleskater
Regardless of background, who has spent that kind of time doing these activities? Oh yeah, that would be Alan Kay.
You wouldn't know that by looking at his website.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alcstarheel
Something a two year old can easily pick up and understand is definitely a failure in UI design¡
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][
All I see are ridiculous strawmen.
Who said that he hasn't accomplished a lot in the past? Ok, his past achievements are great. Now, let's talk about the present and his current statements.
Instead of avoiding the topic in a pathetic and amateurish attempt at deflecting away from legitimate criticism, why don't the people who agree with him make an argument as to why the iPad UI qualifies as 'poor', and also what is their idea of a 'good' UI.
Exactly, they are basically resorting to fallacious arguments. To the people who can't stand that anyone could disagree with Alan Kay: If Alan Kay said that the Windows 8 GUI was the best UI ever made would you unquestionably accept that statement? If not, then why should anyone unquestionably accept his statement about the iPad UI? Even if he is "right", he is not right simply because he's Alan Kay. That is fallacious reasoning at its best.
Also, plenty of brilliant people have been wrong about things on numerous occasions. Isaac Newton was exceptionally brilliant yet he believed that alchemy was real. Albert Einstein was exceptionally brilliant but incorrectly dismissed things like Quantum Mechanics. No matter how brilliant anyone is they can always be wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ankleskater
How many people here are qualified to agree or disagree?
To choose either position, one has to ponder the issue at length, try various alternatives, become acquainted with history, present and future (i.e. technology in development) of computing in order to offer a learned opinion. Regardless of background, who has spent that kind of time doing these activities? Oh yeah, that would be Alan Kay.
Everyone is qualified to agree or disagree. Your post is nothing but pure fallacy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCProfessor
Or young and naive. Getting to see both sides of that coin.
I'm in the middle, neither young nor old, so I consider myself immune.
I do agree with you on the young and naive part though. Kids today are dumber than ever, IMO, and I even saw on the news recently that about 80% of NYC high school seniors lack basic skills like reading, writing and math.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Applelunatic
No matter how brilliant anyone is they can always be wrong.
True, I agree fully!
Even Steve Jobs was wrong from time to time. Nobody is perfect.
I'll give you one...
I'd like to have 2 apps or 2 windows of the same app on the display at the same time so I could copy/paste or drag and drop between them...
Say, I'm on AI, replying to a post and I want to locate another post by the originator and copy it into my reply.
Yes, 2 windows are enough -- and the implementation need not be overly complex.
I once applied for a job at a company, C.F Braun, who constructed petroleum refineries -- their facilities were spotless down to the factory floors and parking lots. They had a corporate policy that you could have only 1 piece of paper on your desk at any time... I wondered how they copied anything...
Great example of a straw man. No one said that the iPad couldn't be improved.
OTOH, Kay criticized it simply because it's not what HE would have done. BFD.
If he wanted a rational discussion, he'd outline exactly what he thinks can be changed.
In that sense, every single product in the world is 'crippled' because it doesn't do everything that anyone could ever want it to do.
A Ferrari is flawed because it won't tow a 7,000 lb trailer.
A Ford F150 is flawed because it won't go 170 mph.
A Corvette is flawed because it won't carry 6 passengers.
A Volvo is flawed because it won't withstand a 100 mph head on collision with a tractor trailer.
Similarly, the iPad was never intended to be primarily a content creation device, so criticizing it for not being one is silly.
The iPad IS used extensively for creation, though. There are millions of people creating things on their iPads, so claiming that it can't be used for creation and sharing is flat out wrong. That said, it IS primarily intended as a consumption device. The technology just isn't there yet to give you a full blown computer in a thin, lightweight tablet. What's wrong with it being primarily a media consumption device? That doesn't make it BAD or crippled.
That's nice. So what?
The fact that he contributed to UI development 40 years ago does not make him the world's expert on today's UIs or products that didn't exist when he was working.
As I said, by your logic, the Wright Brothers (if they were still alive) should be the world's experts in aeronautics and we should listen to their complaints about the Boeing 787 or Space Shuttle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tasslehawf
He does sound really butthurt. It doesn't come off as constructive criticism. Like "we invented the mouse because it was THE future. Everyone is failing because they move past it".
Could you actually read the article? His criticism is that they DIDN'T move past the original concepts of Xerox/PARC. The flaws that were in the original GUI are still there, plus some new ones.
Street cred has nothing to do with how valid what they are saying is - statements stand on their own merit.
The interview goes into more detail:
http://techland.time.com/2013/04/02/an-interview-with-computing-pioneer-alan-kay/
His issue with authoring is:
"Apple with the iPad and iPhone does not allow children to download an Etoy made by another child somewhere in the world."
which is not much better than saying it's bad because it doesn't run Flash. It does support HTML 5 just fine and kids can make far better etoys with that and they don't require his decoders. Judging by the Squeakland website, it's understandable that he might not have heard of this. Ironic for someone so into human-computer interfaces to continue using archaic presentation methods on his own site. The criticism that technology has moved on without him seems to be holding up so far.
He goes on to talk about the sandboxing of the OS:
"insecurities are the result of their own bad practices — they are not necessary"
To some extent I agree that security should be in software by design but it's not practical. He comes from an era where a program meant replicating a punch card. Software these days is far more complex and large projects have millions of lines of code. You can't guarantee that every part is secure because it requires distrusting and quarantining every input/output operation. Nothing would ever get finished if that was to be the case so sandboxing is a catch-all. It's not perfect but it's practical.
"The education establishment in the U.S. has generally not ventured into what is special about computing with reference to modeling ideas and helping to think about them."
Totally wrong. Like I said, how is Photoshop or Final Cut not an interface for modelling ideas outside of typing? These things are used in education.
For the iPad UI, he talks about the multi window view:
"we generally want to view and edit more than one kind of scene at the same time"
Like I said, he has to come up with a way to do that. Windows 8 has tried this split view concept and it just doesn't work well. He goes on to say "to compare different perspectives of the same model". Multiple views inside a single app isn't restricted.
"Pointing and dragging are likely to stick, because they are simple extensions of hands and fingers." Pointing and dragging is in there already.
"“Undo” should stick (for obvious reasons), but it is very weakly present in the iPad, etc." Undo is something that has to be developed into every piece of software, it's not a magical system-wide event and not a flaw of the iPad UI if it's not used.
"There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating." Again, partially agree but I'm sure he doesn't go out and hunt his own food or build his own transportation. Things are simplified for convenience. Supermarkets might mean that if you are lost in the wild you can't survive but we're not going to stop using them because of that.
Alan Kay is obviously a very intelligent person and has applied it to a lot of important things but when some of the statements he makes don't hold up then he is not exempt from criticism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elroth
Could you actually read the article? His criticism is that they DIDN'T move past the original concepts of Xerox/PARC. The flaws that were in the original GUI are still there, plus some new ones.
And exactly which flaws have they not moved past? Can you offer anything beyond merely parroting?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
I'll give you one...
I'd like to have 2 apps or 2 windows of the same app on the display at the same time so I could copy/paste or drag and drop between them...
Say, I'm on AI, replying to a post and I want to locate another post by the originator and copy it into my reply.
Yes, 2 windows are enough -- and the implementation need not be overly complex.
Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing something like that. iOS is still in it's infancy and a lot of changes and improvements are sure to come. If iOS 7 is as different as they say, then we'll already be seeing a different looking OS pretty soon, which is sure to come with changes and new features.
I still wouldn't call the iPad UI 'poor', because it didn't have a certain feature or two. Apple has to play a careful balancing act, because at the end of the day, everything has to be real simple to use.
I love that video...
You should have been there when we got a new kitten -- and it saw a picture of another kitten of the iPad
deleted
It's funny that this story comes on the same day as a story about Apple totally revamping iOS for iOS7, and another one about how Jony Ive is changing the interface in a major way.
And I'm sure the same people who are criticizing Kay now (and defending the current OS) will jump on board with the upcoming changes, and say they are big necessary improvements, and they'll forget how much they ragged on Kay for suggesting changes are needed.
In my opinion, OS X has gotten too inflexible - in all the years I've been using Macs, I've never had to fight with the OS like I have to now, just to get the things done that I need to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elroth
Could you actually read the article? His criticism is that they DIDN'T move past the original concepts of Xerox/PARC. The flaws that were in the original GUI are still there, plus some new ones.
(Applelunatic posted something similar already).
Quote:
Originally Posted by elroth
It's funny that this story comes on the same day as a story about Apple totally revamping iOS for iOS7, and another one about how Jony Ive is changing the interface in a major way.
And I'm sure the same people who are criticizing Kay now (and defending the current OS) will jump on board with the upcoming changes, and say they are big necessary improvements, and they'll forget how much they ragged on Kay for suggesting changes are needed.
In my opinion, OS X has gotten too inflexible - in all the years I've been using Macs, I've never had to fight with the OS like I have to now, just to get the things done that I need to do.
No one here is saying that the iOS UI can not and should not be improved. You're just repeating a strawman argument. That has little to do with the fact that one can disagree that the current UI is "poor".
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
What were those flaws? More importantly, what did Kay say those flaws were, and how do they cripple the iPad?
They have no clue. They are simply parroting.