Brennan’s Blog

In the work I do I have often have to work on large applications that have grown for a few years without effective controls in place to ensure the application remains manageable. Sometimes you just have to start from scratch, perhaps cannibalizing the old application wherever possible, and carefully assemble everything piece by piece while following a disciplined plan to make sure it all meets your current requirements.

As I have watched Microsoft for the past 10 years I have seen the progression from DOS to Windows 3.1 to WinXP and now to Vista. Along the way the OS pulled along a great deal of backward compatibility at the expense of agility. Back in 2001 Apple released MacOS X which was a completely different OS from MacOS 9. Apple bet the house on a fresh start after the popularity of the Internet forced the personal computer to account for new requirements that did not exist before. Meanwhile Microsoft chose to gradually upgrade their flagship product, Windows. Watching the consequences of these two choices unfold has been a good lesson in enterprise software design.

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It was a no brainer that Apple would progressively release new iPhone alternatives after the initial release of the $600 phone. A nano version of the phone should be coming out at the more reasonable price of $300. It makes me wonder how far they will go.

Imagine a iPhone Shuffle. It could have a "drunk dial" feature that would randomly call people after midnight. But seriously, could they create an iPhone that small without the number pad if it had decent voice command features? What if it could speak the names in your phone book to you as you scroll through them? That could get tedious so they may need a very minimal screen. I am going to bet on them creating something quite small that pushes the concept of what we think a phone has to be.

An insightful opinion piece explains that while we have been laughing at Microsoft for their shortcomings this past year the offers from Apple have also been fairly lackluster. For example, releasing a new iPod with a longer battery life, larger storage and new color selections is about as innovative as Vista including an improved security model. These are the new features we should be expecting and should not find surprising.

There is also the question of how similar Vista is to MacOS X. This is by no accident but there is also nothing that Microsoft and Apple can do. They are constrained by the user interface that the common user will understand and accept. The windowing model is dominant across MacOS X, Windows and Linux (KDE/Gnome) desktops because it works and people expect it. If you want to start pointing fingers, you could suggest that Apple copied X Windows which came from Xerox PARC back in 1973. Apple did not have their visual interface until 1984. Finally in 1992 Microsoft released Windows 3.1. The "sharing of ideas" is rich in the history of these user interfaces.

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Sure the iTV is cool, but we have had the ability to watch recorded videos for decades now, so that is not a breakthrough in new technology. Sure it is wireless so it does garner some cool points. But I have thought about what you can do with this unique set of technologies and have come up with what Apple may be releasing just before the holidays.

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For years now the dream of the home entertainment system converging with the home computer has eluded reality. Over the years attempts were made to break into this market but nothing has really stuck. My idea of a modern home theater includes a DVD player, Digital Video Recorder (DVR), a gaming console and access to my home computer which holds digital video content which has been purchased and downloaded from the internet. Finding everything for such a system is difficult.

As yet, I have not been able to walk into a nearby Best Buy and find such a system. They have systems set up with a great screen and stereo system but the rest of the system is missing. Ask the staffer in the Home Theater department at Best Buy about DVR options which work with Time Warner Cable and they can give no answers. Ask them about integrating with your home computer and there are still no sufficient answers. It is clear there is nothing mainstream yet.

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