Programming Sucks

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Incredibly hilarious rant (especially if you are a programmer) about how ridiculous writing code is. One of my favorite snippets:

The human brain isn’t particularly good at basic logic and now there’s a whole career in doing nothing but really, really complex logic. Vast chains of abstract conditions and requirements have to be picked through to discover things like missing commas. Doing this all day leaves you in a state of mild aphasia as you look at people’s faces while they’re speaking and you don’t know they’ve finished because there’s no semicolon.

 

The Leveling Off Of iPad Sales

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There has been much discussion this past week about the leveling off of iPad sales. From Benedict Evans’ excellent article on the topic:

Tim Cook also explained it on the earnings call: a channel inventory problem.

Fred Wilson asked about whether focusing on tablet sales is the wrong thing to do, and is going to recommend to his portfolio companies to focus on smartphones. Fred later revised his response by saying a drop in tablet pricing may change all that.

Personally, I think the smartphone growth rate was a strange beast because it was built on top of the feature phone business and subsumed its market. The world was already carrying a phone and we used those phones for communication: voice and text messaging. So when we bought smartphones, what apps really helped make it take off? Voice and text messaging. So Twitter took off and Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and Line and a bunch of others that are communication platforms. The phone itself was used before for communication and is used still for communication. At its core even Uber is a communication app, or at least that’s where it is revolutionary. A private car paid for with credit card isn’t. It’s the idea that you can do it from a phone and see where your driver is.

What’s the other use case that has done well on smartphone? Games and entertainment apps. These are easy to explain, too. I’m bored, need instant entertainment, and that phone is already in my pocket. My point is that there are long established use cases for the smartphone, a big reason is because we have been using them in a non-smart form for 15 years now.

What about tablets? The device is new. We’ve never had a highly portable piece of computerized glass before, with a day’s battery life, that’s light and compact. So what do we use it for?

I think that’s fundamentally what the slowdown in sales is about, not price. We don’t fully know yet. Yes, it’s an interesting reading device and I think that’s fueled a lot of the sales so far. But the best reading device is the one with us and that may very well turn out to be a 5″ phone.

Even look at the apps we use on them. Most are just slightly reconfigured smartphone apps. In other words, we haven’t really figured out yet what we will use these for, just like it took us years to figure out exactly what we were going to use the PC for. At one point there was a debate as to whether command prompts or GUI was better, too.

This isn’t to say that smartphones aren’t a good bet, just to say that I wouldn’t bet against the tablet. In some ways tablets are more interesting because each one of us has a higher likelihood of finding the business that helps sell tablets. I think the odds of that are less and less in smartphones.

Choosing Sides

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If I had to pick, it’d be the iPad. That’s the device that has changed my world more than any other. In the morning I pull the iPad off the charger, I use it all day to answer email, read, follow the news, do work, and then put it back on the charger at night, a full 16 hours later.

When I travel I used to carry all kinds of stuff with me — books, laptop, CD player, DVD player — all to keep me entertained. Now, my iPad does just fine [1]. I load it with movies and off I go. Generally I don’t even bother carrying a laptop with me, unless I know I will need to write code while away. Otherwise my iPad does the trick for me.

I never run out of battery. In fact, I don’t even notice the battery meter anymore. I have been trained that my iPad’s battery will easily last until the next charging cycle.

Most people I know say their iPhone is their most prized device. I use my iPhone, too, but a simpler, smaller device would suit me just as well. For years I carried a PalmPilot and dumb phone, even long after the smartphone category was invented. I never cared much about the phone. And it still annoys me that even a day of light use drains the battery on my iPhone down to nothing. I spend all my time calculating and worrying about running out, which is just plain annoying.

We are all different. Everyone has their own preferences. No matter what your choice, it strikes me that we are living in the golden age of technology products. Maybe there’s an amazing future of voice activated, monitoring devices that can tell me what I need before I need it. But if what we have today is the zenith, I’ll take it.

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[1] The other device I love is also a device I carry with me when I travel: a Kindle Paperwhite. All the books I can read, extremely lightweight, a subtle backlight that doesn’t wake up my wife when I can’t sleep and need to read in the middle of the night, and a battery that lasts a month!

Innovation Illiteracy

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Earlier this morning I tweeted the following:

Who said invention was easy? Oh, right. No one. Damn.

Then I read a great article from Horace Dediu about innovation illiteracy, something he coins as innoveracy. Horace said,

Rather than defining it again, I propose using a simple taxonomy of related activities that put it in context.

  • Novelty: Something new
  • Creation: Something new and valuable
  • Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
  • Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful

To illustrate, here are some examples of the concepts.

  • Novelties: The choice of Gold as a color for the iPhone; the naming of a version of Android as “Kit Kat”; coining a new word.
  • Creations: The fall collection of a fashion designer; a new movie; a blog post.
  • Inventions: Anything described by a patent; The secret formula for Coca Cola.
  • Innovations: The iPhone pricing model; Google’s revenue model; The Ford production system; Wal-Mart’s store design; Amazon’s logistics.

I thought this a rather unique approach and was very happy to see that I had used the right word. Equals is an invention right now. With more time, I’m hoping it will prove an innovation as well.

Why A Healthy Microsoft Is Important For Software Developers

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I’ve read quite a bit about Microsoft’s Build developer conference and listened to others talking about it. I’ve also been watching Microsoft’s moves very closely. All I am seeing is positive signs.

The release of Office for iPad and its immediate success is a very good thing. 12 million downloads in the first few days is absolutely amazing for any product, and while I’m sure a lot of people are only kicking tires, there are also a lot of people who rely on Word, Excel and PowerPoint for their every day activities.

Even more subtle moves are a good sign. Changing the name from Windows Azure to Microsoft Azure is fantastic news. It is clear that if Microsoft wants to remain relevant then minimizing the impact of Windows is a good thing. What Microsoft should be asking is what’s the operating systems [1] for the next generation of devices, not the last ones? The last ones all ran Windows. The next ones all run browsers and apps. Yes, browsers and apps run in an OS but the OS they run in is less and less important as time moves on.

 

It seems Microsoft gets this. From what I heard there were plenty of Windows 8 tablets on stage during the Build presentations, but there were also tons of iPads, iPhones and other devices too. Azure is a very interesting service to power the next generation of software and software services. Moving toward cloud-based developer tools and more services provided around Bing are exceptionally interesting moves. I’d like to see web-supported systems as easy to develop as desktop software used to be. That would be a huge step forward for us developers.

But this isn’t the only reason why Microsoft’s success is important for us. The reality is that Microsoft’s interests are the only ones who align with us developers, at least those of us who want to charge customers for the products they use. None of the other major platform players do that. Amazon charges for media. The apps — all free and on as many platforms as possible — are only how that media is delivered. Google and Facebook give away their software to get more eyeballs. Those ads are worth billions to them. Apple makes their money from hardware. Only Microsoft sells software, previously one-off but now as a subscription. And that’s how most software developers make money, too.

Remember, the key to success is to make money from your revenue stream and commoditize all the supporting elements. Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple all aim to commoditize software.

The latest moves are a positive sign for Microsoft. I believe a resurgent Microsoft is also a positive sign for us.

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[1] Yes, plural.