dmv wrote:
] ] We've barely moved forward since those days of word
] ] processors and spreadsheets. Since 1988, the only major
] ] new software categories that have been created are email,
] ] IM, browsers and blogging tools. For all the flack, noise
] ] and supposed development -- we have barely innovated
] ] the initial concept of what a tool is.

I agree with the spirit of this article. It's kinda funny... how all these people and developments are connected. I was an avid user of both Videoworks and Hypercard in the late 80s. Dave Winer and I had many a great conversation in the mid 90s on the potentials of the Internet. Particuarly then, there was a very small community of people who were actually building things then.

I agree that there's definitely plenty of gold to be mined in the things that we already have. The industry doesn't work on this principal. The industry works on constant upgrade cycles and licensing/maintenance fees. The industry doesn't necessary want to upgrade functionality or deliver innovation in products. That would undercut the revenue streams of professional services and integration shops.

Particularly when it comes to Microsoft's domination of the industry, most of the innovation cycle has been ground to a halt. Despite having the biggest R&D budget of any organization in the world, ever, MS doesn't really deliver on a lot of cutting edge innovation to the computing world. Certainly not in the way of products. For an industry that's incented and aligned to keep moving the target as fast as possible, we've hardly progressed as a product set.

I remember the first time I saw a Mac II in 1988. It was amazing because it was the Macintosh OS, but it was in *color*! If you were to show me what Mac OS X looks like today in 1988, I don't think I would be overwhelmed. Sure, I'd be dazzled by the beauty of the graphics, but the functionality isn't all that advanced. Certainly not 20 years worth. I'd be really disappointed by the speech recognition technology. C'mon man! I'm expecting to have my Mac advise me to take a stress pill and talk about my problems with it by now.

I do think that there are new tools all the time. But the bulk of what the industry delivers is just repackaged from 1988.

flynn23 wrote:
] I do think that there are new tools all the time. But the bulk
] of what the industry delivers is just repackaged from 1988.

I agree with what you wrote. But there is a subtlety missing to
the original essay -- I memed it without time to talk about it.
Some more thoughts.

User Experience
If you look at the hot developments of the last year, they really
boil down to user interface. Obvious examples of this include the
stuff that Google has put out. Maps.Google -- especially the super
hot "satellite images" -- this is not new. Remember Terraserver?
Satellite images are not new, but the interface is so simple and
responsive that people are experimenting. And the assistant next
door wanted to show me some cool pictures. Same with gmail. Same
with flickr. Photo sharing is not new, group photosharing is not
new, database tagging of images, even, not new. I remember when I
went to the Galapagos in 2000 I tried to tag all of my pictures.
Failed. Now I could do it easily.

That's what you'd miss if we had seen OS X in 1988. The subtle
user experience tips that make it easier, better.

Where are my flying cars?
Speech recognition is a good case of where the development realities
have lagged expections. And part of that is because they must. Our
expectations of speech recognition continue to increase every time
we get close. Dragon Dictate, for example, was phenominal for
dictation -- if you trained it, and spoke in clipped words. When
speech recognition was first proposed, that would have been amazing;
by the time it became possible, expections were raised toward no
training, multiple users, multiple languages, continuous talk.
Flying cars aren't coming not because of technology issues, but
regulatory and infrastructure problems, and raised expectations;
I want a flying car without having to have a private pilot's license
and training and upkeep requirements.

Moore's Law of Users
The real issue is the users. We don't want the thing that beats
spreadsheets, because we're comfortable with them. What people
expect from their excel experience is drastically different from
their visicalc experience, but its all still on a metaphor from
actual ledgers we've used for hundreds of years. There are really
few things that we expect to do on a computer that wasn't
obvious to the superwellconnected in 1988: graphics, communication,
etc. The surprises are all in the things that weren't being
speculated about. The software innovations that were unexpected
are in places like cell phones.

I am writing applications for my blackberry. Imagine if someone
in 1988 had walked up to you with a smartphone connected to a
time-shifted GPRS network: here, this box that's about the size of
your mouse -- I can send instant messages around the world, look
up information anywhere I want, and run programs far more sophisticated than your mac can handle. In a box that's the size
of your mouse, and anywhere in the world. That would have blown
anyone's mind.

Remember how exciting the Mac Portable was?
(late 1989, http://www.lowendmac.com/pb/portable.shtml)