Re: Apple iPads for Microsoft developer

[John Masterson]

I reluctantly bought an iPad because it is all the rage now among my marketing segment: medical device companies that make pacemakers, heart valves, etc. My main client just bought 3000 iPads for it's sales and marketing force.

So I am now a registered Apple Developer, and am building my initial applications.

I really think these tablets/phones are the "transistor radios" of the computer technology world.

They make computers "two-knob simple"...like transistor radios did for radio technology that once was something for an advanced hobbyist/amateur scientist in the early 1920s.

I really am impressed by what I will be able to program with a tablet: geolocation, camera, device orientation and acceleration, multiple finger gestures that become quite natural. An amazing amount of video and audio sophistication.

But man...it's a lot of work learning the Cocoa Touch object-oriented UI libraries, and Objective-C and the Model-View-Controller way of structuring applications.  Apple relies almost exclusively on the MVC design, since it uncouples the logic from the UI display...and they want things to run on all their devices.

[The Gorn]

John Masterson, now a mindless Apple cultist. How disappointing. Better go lay in a supply of black turtlenecks and hang out at hipster bars. 

(just kidding!  )

[John Masterson]

Gorn,

LOL!

Well, I can tell you that I am very conflicted. Part of me REALLY dislikes the "Apple arrogant smug self-confidence" that comes through loud and clear, flowing down from the late Steve Jobs, and seemingly infused in the culture.

And the other part really ADMIRES some of the Apple engineering that I find.

Here's a story. I bought the cheapest Mac I could for development: the Mac Mini, for $599, for the CPU unit only. But I quickly found I need more than 2GB of memory that it came with. So I called the computer hobbyist/nerd shop near the University to get a price.

$20 a stick for 4GB. Wow, prices have come down.

Then I called the Apple Store at the Mall of America and asked what a stick of 4GB costs.  The cheerful young woman answering the phone told me: $200.

"For one stick??!" I asked.

"Yes", she replied in a slightly puzzled tone.

Later I was called by Apple because they are processing my company's application to be a registered Apple Development company. At the end of the call I told the guy about the Apple Store's ridiculous prices.

He said, "Obviously I can't comment, but I would advise you to shop around for your best options."

He gets it.

To his credit, he also asked me for the location of the Apple Store, and said he was passing a report up the line about it.

So, I think the Apple culture is not monolithic.

[The Gorn]

Oh, good. You can take a joke about Apple. Therefore you are not becoming an iDouche (tm). 

That monolithic culture thing is interesting. Apple has such a "unified" culture. I'm kind of surprised that some independence leaks out. Most companies despise that kind of thing.

[John Masterson]

There's another reason I realize I must get into this.

As I look at LinkedIn at all the names of relevant managers and directors at my main client... many are in the 29 to 35 age range. And these are iPhone/iPad people.

I'm 60. Thank God am not onsite where they can see and dismiss me as old and irrelevant.

And they are emailing me about the applications they have seen that I have done and inquiring about future things I could do for them.  I never show them a picture of myself. I never will, if I can help it.

[Carrie Cobol]

Send them the picture you use here.   

[John Masterson]

  That is Steven Lang, who is a year younger than I am. He played the hardened, space marine colonel in Avatar...and I was inspired at how good a person could be physically built at my age.

[The Gorn]

Steven Lang - He's now appearing as more or less the same kind of character in Terra Nova on Fox... on that show he's lower key. They definitely had him oil up for Avatar.

Yeah, he's inspirational. Makes me feel like a lazy slob. 

[John Masterson]

Oh, and what better avatar to use than a person from Avatar!

[Richardk]

I never show them a picture of myself. I never will, if I can help it.

So no picture on Linkedin or Facebook or anything like that? Pretty sneaky.

Instead of debating to color my hair or not, I like your approach of no picture at all!

[John Masterson]

Oh, I have a picture on Facebook. But I don't mix business with Facebook; for me, Facebook is primarily for family and old pals I have known face-to-face from earlier times.

Come to think of it, you caught me...I DO have a picture on LinkedIn. So I guess they could figure me out if they look me up. But it's a younger looking picture.

And I DO dye my hair. No big deal on that. But I am doing it less often now. My wife actually likes me to darken my hair. She says it looks good. I comb the color through so I get a salt and pepper look anyway.

[I D Shukhov]

Slide #5:  Evidence Based Decision Making:

http://hbr.org/web/extras/insight-center/health-care/10innovations/5-evidence-based

A lot of the "Ten Innovations That Will Transform Medicine" are IT-based, but how much development gets outsourced offshore? 

Also, Slide #1:

Checklists:  Hospitals will require health care providers to follow strict protocols for procedures that benefit from routinization—from preparing a patient for surgery to inserting a central line.

Now it  becomes clear why a local hospital has a job opening for an "Informatics Process Specialist" who is supposed to "develop process flows... following the processes as established by [the hospital]".

They're going to make an iPad checklist app out of the process flow.  The results are going to be transmitted somewhere and whoever is performing the activity better damn well have everything checked off.   I guess that's okay.  It should improve care.   

[Carrie Cobol]

I am really starting to be convinced that tablets are the next generation client-side computers.  We'll still need server farms, obviously.  But for the end-user facing applications, tablets are much better than a laptop/mouse/stylus combo.  Finger gestures are much more intuitive than mouse clicks/drags.  In fact, after I upgraded my Mac to Lion, I bought the Apple Magic Trackpad so I can drop-kick the mouse into the trash bin.  The trackpad uses all the same gestures as the screen on an iPad, and I absolutely love using it with the Mac.

And if there's an input style one step above gestures, it might be voice - finally - because the Siri feature on the iPhones is gaining huge popularity.  I admit that my hatred for talking to machines has prevented me from using Siri yet.  I do mean to play with it some time to get used to it and see how usable it is.  I keep hearing how useful (and funny) it is, so I'm sure I'll just have to get over my hatred for talking at machines eventually.

[Walter Mitty]

Voice is good.  One place where voice has been used to good effect is devices used by forklift drivers in warehouses.  You really need hands free operation.  and the machine has the vocabulary needed to do useful work.

If you combine voice with barcodes (or  the successor to barcodes) you really have something.

[The Gorn]

I am really starting to be convinced that tablets are the next generation client-side computers. 

With an important distinction.

Keyboardless, touch screen driven entry and voice entry are fine for searching and for playing games and for using most applications.

They are all absolutely terrible entry modes for creating content. For writing, or for drawing.

Of course, nobody in the lumpenproletariat understands that. The concept of creating something rather than passively diddling (not even doodling) has slipped from the mass consciousness.

Sometimes I play Angry Birds on my phone when I am waiting for something. That's about the ultimate in idiotic use of a resource.