|
A few observations and idle thoughts ...
(1) Do people "want apps?" Generally, no. I certainly don't want to "install a bunch of things" on my phone, and I don't want to have to "switch between them" to do a single thing. I don't want to have to upgrade anything: I want to learn how to use it, then use it that way until the thing goes the way of all electronics – five, six, eight years hence.
(2) I n-e-v-e-r want to see an advertisement on my telephone. Fortunately, the first voice-mail app on my phone had no ads; I reverted to it and will never upgrade it. Problem solved.
(2a) I stopped upgrading Firefox a long, long time ago. Still works. Much better than the current one does.
(3) Even simple apps demand more privileges than they actually can justify, and give me no choice whatsoever but to "accept." I know they're spying on me – and I'm being neither paranoid nor a Luddite by saying that.
(4) When I'm "at work," I'm a nerd. Have to be, but just to pay the bills. Otherwise, I'm not. Nerds love technology for technology's own sake. They not only understand it; they want to. To me, it's a telephone.
(5) It was odd to me – but, maybe, not so odd – to read, in effect, "We have 2 billion people on the Internet now, and soon there will be 4 billion of a lower social class than we." It would behoove us all to remember that. To remember that a computer is fundamentally an appliance to most people: "not understood," and "ideally, requiring no understanding." No matter whether you consider someone to be "the great unwashed" or not, they all really just want to "use the damn thing." Quite possibly, not to the extent that you would, or that you would wish them to.
(6) "The fact that you completely open-sourced your way out of a sustainable revenue stream is not my problem. And no, I still won't pay for apps." (Which, BTW, is why I did not immediately rush out, pay $99 for a developer's kit and start trying to write apps. I calculated, I think correctly, that there would be a flood of identical-ware which wasn't making money for anyone. A one-time payment of 99¢ don't count.)
Because I am, in fact, "a nerd" in the sense of having written computer software for more than three decades, I try to keep these things front-and-center in every project that I design or manage. I want software to do less, but to do it well. I want it to do what I want, not what you think I do. Software must never be thought of as "a gratuitous portal to my face."
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 04-16-2013 at 06:56 AM.
|
