Kids and Gadgets (by gins, 23 Feb 2014)

A recent CNET article hit close to home in articulating just how much kids have changed in only the last five years.  We have two daughters, ages 9 and 11, and they had just passed preschool when the first iPads were released.  Nevertheless, it took no time at all for each to adopt their own (or was it the other way around?).  Applications consisted of both casual games and those that included logic and learning.  And yes, I place 'The Room' in this latter category.  Fast forward to this past year, and they each have iPhones, and both live parts of their lives (and those of their friends) via Instagram and messaging.  Not necessarily a bad thing, though my oldest daughter had upwards of 1500 texts last month.  The flip-side of this... despite what seems to be an engineered after-school experience, they definitely interact more (in person) with their classmates and have plenty of opportunity to burn off excess energy as part of their dance activities.  More than I had at times.  Weekends are for cocooning, but that could be the tradeoff.  So is it bad or good?   Just different, and the new reality in the valley.

You Can Have Your Tablet Any Way You Want It...... OS Fragmentation Revisited and Security Implications - 1 Oct 2010 - by gins

In what seems like an eternity ago, enterprise IT managers were confounded with the first wave of mobile workers, toting devices based on Pocket PC 2000 and 2002 (offering phone support), followed by Windows Mobile 2003 (offered as Premium, Phone, Professional, and Smart Phones.... you get the idea), 2003 2nd edition, 5.x (integrating Exchange support), 6.x, also offered in multiple versions (Standard, Professional, and Classic), and with 6.5 introducing the Windows Phone brnading, and the week after next, Windows Phone 7. Seen this movie before?

Just when it seemed there was a bit of rationalization in the enterprise space, with IT managers converging on RIM, Windows Phone, and more recently the iPhone and Android, along comes the tablet with a completely new set of support and security issues.

On the OS front, we've now got the iPad running iOS, and multiple revisions of Android with handset vendor customizations. I doubt a Samsung Galaxy Tab, a Dell Streak, the Cisco CIUS, and a host of other Android tablets will exhibit the same behavior when users call for support. Got Security? In the other corner are the Windows 7, RIM Tablet OS (based on QNX), and HP devices (based on webOS). At least one would hope these are secure. Add a bit of Windows Phone 7, Symbian, and who knows what else, and if I were an IT manager I'd be very worried.

Unlike smartphones, where document viewing is a painful experience at best, the tablet lends itself to content storage in the same way as a laptop. Product powerpoints, COGS spreadsheets, internal launch videos, functional descriptions... bring 'em on! Apps developers are falling over themselves perfecting the various forms of side and cloud-loading, and iOS 4.2 will even further the problem. I personally find that a simple email enclosure addressed to me does the trick, in combination with GoodReader. The scary part is my cavalier attitude toward my iPad, toting it around and stashing it in all sorts of undignified places. Oh the stories it could tell.

So, beyond the OS, my firm belief is that the document management problem will create many a late night headaches for IT personnel. This is what must be addressed for risk-free tablet adoption within the enterprise. And the problem is real. I see it within some of the largest and security-savvy tech companies in the valley. Best practices implemented as part of smartphone deployments seem to be cast by the wayside in equipping employees with tablets. Consider it a wakeup call.

Caveat Emptor.... Android Fragmentation Redux and the Tablet Experience - 14 Sep 2010 - by gins

Last fall, an ex-colleague of mine wrote about Android OS fragmentation, discussing the variations due to smartphone form factors, OS versions, operator requirements, and Google Experience vs non-Google experience devices. Good reading. With the impending release of Android tablets, the problem, and its potential impact on the user experience, has only grown.

The user experience depends upon a complex interplay of the device, skilled application developers, and wireless access (WiFi, 3G, or 4G) if required by the application. Even on the iPad, though Apple controls some of these variables, there is a vast difference between those applications crafted for the iPad's form factor, and those that only rely on pixel doubling.

Android developers are in fact faced with a moving target - multiple OS versions, a diversity of form factors and price-points that impact display quality and resolution, CPU performance, and memory, and OEM customizations such as UI overlays. This is coupled with statements by none other than Google's Android team concerning Froyo's (2.2) lack of optimization of use on tablets.

What exactly does this mean when considering whether to purchase that shiny Samsung Galaxy Tab in the window. And what user experience would one expect from a tablet rumored to be $35 or even $100? How does an application developer optimize for both the high-end and the low-end, for both tablets and smartphones? OEMs developing the tablets, Google and the Android OS community, mobile operators potentially carrying the tablets under subsidy, and the application developer community have one opportunity to get this right to avoid confusion and unmet expectations. At least in the near term, part of the burden will lie with the user. Trust, but verify, and heed the watchwords, Caveat Emptor. And to the OEMs... Caveat Venditor.

The Numbers Game - 9 Sep 2010 - by gins

Ten years ago, we were all caught up in the swirl of analyst reports covering how many billions would be spent on optical networking, how many eyeballs were destined to the latest new media website, or how many sock puppets a business model made. Thus, whenever I see the 'B' world floated around, it catches my interest.

Yesterday, Asymco reported that the total number of iapps downloaded would equal iTunes music downloads sometime this year. Today, the iTunes count is approx. 12 billion while the appstore count is closer to 7. Sure, that is an important observation, but the less informed may leave thinking that the iThing's day for music is over. The reality is quite the opposite.

I've got 7700 songs on my iTunes server (all legal, with the CDs collecting dust in the basement). This is 39GB. At any time, I've transferred between 3-5GB to my iPad or those of my kids. Only about 20 in total have been purchased from the iTunes store. While gaming, the kids play music (though my multitasking ability isn't quite there). With true multitasking in a few months enabling the likes of Pandora and Spotify, this will become the norm for many surfing the web or composing an email.

What the numbers do show, however, is the increasing stickiness of the icosystem... the power of recommendation in driving impulse downloads, and disposable applications - those that you download once, kick around a bit, and then push off to the side. You know what would be fun? A tracker much like that which exists for Windows that groups application by last use and time... how many are opened on a daily or weekly basis, and how usage falls off over time (irrespective of how many new levels the Angry Birds folks crank out... I see this firsthand at home). Now that info I'd share. We could make a game of the numbers.