One of the Next Killer Apps - Spare Time

Every once in a while I like to post about a topic that's more thoughts than links or references.

While I've been tinkering with ideas over the past year for iPhone apps, it seems like the most successful types do one of two things:  help us make things easier ( allowing the technology to speed up whatever task we need to do, or make it more portable ) or give us a way to spend our time ( games, etc ).

A lot of people would say that two things they can't do without are Google and Facebook.  Google helps us save time.  Lots of time.  Finding an answer with Google to our question takes maybe a minute or two, going to the library to look it takes who knows how much time.  It depends how hard a question it is.  Not all questions can be answered quickly (or, effectively at all at a library, outside of the Internet terminal there!)  So Google saves us time.

Facebook saves me time in a way.  It lets me communicate with hundreds of friends instead of telling them something one-to-one.  New job?  Post it.  Fifteen seconds.  Is it as personal?  No.  Should telling someone I got a job be personal?  No.  It's something that benefits me, but doesn't particularly drive a conversation.

Facebook also wastes time.  Lots and lots of time.  Lots and lots and lots of time.  But that's because it fulfills the second major role:  It gives us something to do with our time.  A lot of the people who spend a lot of time on Facebook are in the applications section, NOT the status update or message section.  They go on Facebook to be entertained.  People who don't use apps spend significantly less time on Facebook than those who do use apps.  Same with an iPhone.  The people who use just productivity apps on average surely use their iPhone fewer minutes per day than those who use their iPhone for entertainment.  This isn't new.  People who watch television for entertainment on average would watch it more than those who watch it merely for news.  People who read a newspaper for entertainment (say, the sports and lifestyle section) spend more time with a newspaper than those who merely read it for news alone (local, national, global).  Okay, yes, there are no statistics to back up this paragraph, but I would think for most of you it's agreeable and understandable.

The top 7 sites worldwide (ranked by Alexa) all fulfill one or both of these principles. All but one are commercially supported ( Wikipedia does not have ads, which is what makes it "valid" as a resource in my opinion ).  But what makes the iPhone great is that it can fulfill the little segments in our life that could be done just a little bit more easily, therefore increasing our spare time, to spend doing things of our choice (usually with the same technology that we use to create the spare time).  We use the same device to create time and spend time.

It's not to say that people don't like real things, like going to the movies, museums, going to rock concerts.  It's just, may I say, more quality to do them through virtual technology.  A parent can work while a child plays a game ( as the number of computers increase, which is driven by largely by the netbook market, meaning households have more than one ).  We can pull Netflix on our laptop or television instantly while our children do homework.  Technology keeps families spending time together, but we more efficiently do tasks separately, increasing our enjoyment of the spare time.

Do I think Facebook is a good use of spare time?  Personally, no.  Some people may think it is.  I think there's a a huge market for the next segment of killer apps.  Things that make spare time even more available.  Do I think it's going to be a web service?  No.  I think it's going to be a mobile app.  I think it's first iteration is going to be on iPhone, then spread to other platforms like Android afterwards.

Would you pay 99 cents a month for an ad-free, clutter-free Facebook?  I would.  That's why I think the iPhone is going to create the next series of killer apps.  People are rewarded for innovation in a way never really seen before.  There's an app for that is more than a marketing line.  It's the realization of the next big thing.

Apple's iPad, Netbooks, Multi-Touch and The Smaller-Bigger Web

Some of us will browse the web with our fingers and taps, and it's not going to be a fad.

Designers have to start considering this.  And screens will be smaller.

Designers have to start considering this.

Screen resolutions are measured in pixels left to right and up and down.  A device with a resolution of 1024 x 768 (such as Apple's new iPad, and many computers with old CRTs and not LCDs) have 1024 little dots left to right and 768 dots up and down.  But, let's go over some history to see what this is important.

When I started web design in 1996 (14 years ago) the average CRT monitor on a personal computer was 640x480.  Over the years, it increased to 800x600, then later 1024x768, which is where it pretty much stopped for store-bought home PCs.  Then wide screen came in, and we had views such as 1280x800 used on Apple's MacBook 13 inch ( 1280 across, 800 up and down) and other very close resolutions.  But now, we're having netbooks from ASUS and others (including my T91MT multi-touch netbook) with resolutions of 1024 x 600!

So, if you're designing a web site that doesn't scan for resolutions, you're going to max out at having a height of 600 pixels now, again, which isn't horrible compared to 728 ( from 1024 x 768 ) or 800 ( from 1280 x 800 ).

These netbooks will last 3-5 years minimum, so this is not "oh, for a year or two, I'll design smaller" deal.  You're going to have to take into account the smaller screen sizes for the foreseeable future.

The iPhone and iPad are capable of easy zooming, so the resolution is less particular on those. I imagine that Google's Chrome Netbook will have a multi-touch edition that also has some sort of simple zooming feature.

But as far as multi-touch goes, the iPad has no mouse.  People will be touching links and buttons, not clicking them.  This means that web sites that are going to work in a touch environment will have to have somewhat larger links in areas of the site that require interaction.  This can be done via CSS modifications by setting a separate style sheet if you don't want standard desktop users from being affected by your touchscreen version.

Just some thoughts :)

Google Chrome OS Netbook, Multi-Touch?

Okay, so I'm reading rumors about possible specs for a Google Chrome OS Netbook.  Not very much of it is particularly fascinating to me except one part:  The current rumors specify a multi-touch display.

Why do I feel this is significant?  If Google Chrome OS comes with built-in multi-touch support straight from the start, and is under $350 or so, it's a huge possible contender for the 1 to 1 computing movement in schools.  As I've been saying a lot recently, the potential for touch-screen oriented education just opens up a heck of a lot of possibilities.

So, for the sake of education, I hope the part of these rumors about multi-touch ends up being true.  I think that'd be a huge contribution to society (let's just hope Adobe has multi-touch support in it's first Flash Player for Chrome OS).

Thoughts on Blogs

I've been researching a bunch of topics over the past to weeks... I've been bookmarking topics until the Google search gives me the "all further results are similar" sort of error.

I'd say, probably, about 1 in 6 pages I hit was a blog. Initially, I didn't really like blog posts, but I grew to determine which type of blog posts I like.

The first one I like is the the blog post to a specific link, with personal commentary. I like when people add their thoughts, even if just a paragraph or two, to a specific link they enjoy.

The second is a resource-topic post... the author describes one topic and links to several links they enjoyed on that topic. I prefer 3 or more links, it gives a lot of direction to further the research on the topic.

The third type I like is the thoughtful, no link post by an author who is well at doing either of the first two types of posts. If they write a decent post, sometimes it's nice to have their general view on something random.

The one type of post I absolutely hate is the Copy-Paste post to one specific link. If a link is good, it's going to turn up in a search engine near the front, mindlessly copying the first paragraph and posting a link to it really doesn't benefit humanity.

I hope that some of you find this post to be in the class of the "third type" and that my other posts around this are useful to you in some way. :)