Comfortably numb: Apple hyperbole is boring

Last week Apple announced their Autumn 2015 line of hardware. I avoid the live events these days, as they're a bit too sycophantic for me. The triumphalist tone is fine for internal corporate event, but for a public event it's a bit crass. So, instead, I skim various reliable news sources for the gist. Usually, the famous Jobs "reality-distortion field" is pretty effective, even since his death, and much of the press gushes with as much hyperbole as Apple itself. Not this time.

The mainstream sites are rarely, if ever, damning of Apple, but the levels of praise were distinctly fainter this year. Sure, it's an 'S' year, which is usually just upgrades to existing kit, but the point is that the hyperbole was full force and, yes, unwarranted.

Don't get me wrong, I love their passion for their work. I know the guys at Apple are feverish about the details. But not everything they do deserves the "incredible" or "epic" labels. There are refinements this year, but there's nothing new. There's nothing 'epic' or 'incredible', and to claim so is to dilute the power and impact of those prior triumphs.You can find other versions of all this stuff from competitors. Yes, Apple tech is probably smoother and more integrated but it also costs 50% more.

The trick of Jobs' reality distortion was to suspend disbelief, to maintain that fragile bubble of attraction and interest without over-inflating it with hyperbole. When the stuff wasn't ground-breaking, he'd still delight in it but would use words like 'neat' and 'cool', and avoid vacuous, overblown words like 'epic', 'awesome' and 'incredible'. I get the sense that Cook, Schiller et al are trying to press the same buttons, but it's mimicry rather than feeling.

There have been quite a few mock Apple adverts out there, like the Ikea catalogue.

It's almost like nobody at Apple has seen them. Or they have, but just can't change the formula.

So keep the products rolling, Apple, but please show a bit more sensitivity with your tone.

Occam's mobile

Mobile phones are making too many assumptions. I got an iPhone 6 back in October, and a refurbished iPad mini 2 for Christmas. So I've been pondering this for a while... In this age of miniaturisation it may have struck many people as odd that Apple increased the size of their latest iPhone version. The iPhone 5 had a 4" screen, and now the iPhone 6 has a 5" screen, with the iPhone 6 plus having an even larger screen. Whatever Apple's actual reasoning, it's evident that big, flat phones are selling, as shown by the popularity of the Samsung Galaxy range of phones, some of which border on comedic in size.

But why?

Mobile phones have always been about portability, which is a combination of size and weight. But smart phones add another, much more complex dimension: functionality. Fundamentally, this is about 'the potential to do more', and has always been a key aspect of computing. For years the attractiveness of personal computers was deemed, at least by PC and software marketing people, to be about functionality: just look at all the stuff you can do with this thing!

The fact that most of us didn't use most of these features (an oft-cited myth was that no individual used more than 10% of any given Microsoft Office app) didn't seem to matter. It was the potential.

It seems that those same marketing people have migrated to the mobile space and have opted to hit the same buttons: more speed, more functions, more, more, more.

Less, please.

My iPhone 6, for all its curvy, groovy, big-screen, slim, slick styling, is too big. It's too big for me to hold securely while my thumb touches the button at the bottom to unlock it. It's slightly too bulgey in my trouser pocket, looking either like an armour plate or a dislodged codpiece, depending on my self-esteem that particular day. Initially, I liked the larger screen: bigger than my iPhone 5, so easier on the eyes. A bit easier to read a book, type a decent length email, or watch a video longer than a couple of minutes. But only a bit.

I wasn't planning to get an iPad. I had an iPad 2 and found it too limited to be a laptop replacement, and too bulky to carry around with the laptop. But I saw a refurbed iPad mini going cheap, so bought it. Now the iPhone 6 screen feels too small. The iPad mini is roughly paperback book size. I've carried paperback books on my travels since I could read. "Always have a book". It was ingrained into me as much as brushing my teeth. The iPad is that book in multimedia form. What's more, I have found that I use it for tasks that I would previously have done on my phone. So I've removed those non-essential apps from my phone in favour of the iPad.

I've dumbed my smart phone down. Now the functionality of the device is much more aligned to its portability. Notifications, quick replies, handy utilities, like maps and calculator, small games - all fine on the phone. Anything else deemed worthy of delving into a bag for goes on the iPad mini.

So what's the point of that bigger screened iPhone 6? No point. I'm eying up my old iPhone 5 and contemplating switching back.

The Remote Migrant

Here's an article I wrote for the British Computer Society about the pros and cons of remote working.

Tech trends, with double insights

This is a good article. It's a summary and opinion on the latest Gartner Tech predictions.

I agree with most of the opinions. Gartner makes its money on research, and, as such, is prone to exaggerate some preferred predictions - possibly in the hope that the very act of proffering them will lead to them occurring. Given their influence, it's not unreasonable, but it is a bias. So it's always healthy to view such research through the lens of a few opinions.

I agree with most of Chris Taylor's opinions, with some caveats of my own. It will be fun to review this post in a year's time...

Mobile device diversity & management: I'm with Chris on this. Enablement always trumps caution in technology, for better or worse. Technologists are always more interested in whether they can do something, rather than whether they should, and especially in software (that's why it's 'soft', right?). So ubiquity will work by 2018. The only constraint to it will be vendor lock-ins, not policies or standards.

Mobile apps & applications: I think Javascript is coming to the enterprise, so more enterprise apps will become web-based (or, more specifically, more desktop software companies will be able to build desktop-equivalent apps for browser). However, mobile-native apps will continue in the consumer space because there are a lot of vested skills in iOS and Android out there, and because companies like the vanity of having an app.

Internet of everything: it's seeping out, rather than exploding as many enthusiasts predicted it would. All it needs is one killer app, though, and it could rapidly come into its own. I imagine that app to be something like a cheap, SD card-sized Raspberry Pi, with sensors, micro USB connectivity (2, one for power, one for device(s) and really simplistic, user-friendly dev software.

Hybrid cloud and IT as service broker: I'm mostly with Chris on this. The issue with cloud is not security (that's a perception to address, though), it is integration. But, living in a developing country, I would not be as dismissive of the connectivity and jurisdictional issues.

Cloud/client architecture: this is just the same as the old client/server arguments. It ebbs and flows in roughly 5-10 year cycles: it's all about the client, then all about the server etc. I see no reason for that to change just because those servers are moving to the cloud.

Era of personal cloud: Agree, but I prefer to see it in more simplistic terms. As Marc Andreesen once wrote (in the WSJ, I think): software is eating the world. As more of our media is encapsulated in software (be it music, documents, patient records, news feeds, address books, hotel bookings etc.) the amorphous, invisible nature of software is taking hold in a very personal way.

Software defined anything: see above. Same thing, just the developer side of it.

Web-scale IT: see above. Same thing, just the enterprise side of it.

Smart machines: bit ambitious of Gartner to make predictions to 2020 (that's a century in IT terms!), but I agree with the gist that there will be some inflection point ahead based on smart machines, when we'll look back on Siri and Google Now as quaint pre-cursors to the main event.

3D printing: not convinced that this is any more than a cottage industry enabler. It's like printing: nearly everyone has a printer in their office and in their home, but we only really use them for office and home stuff.  If we want business cards or brochures we still go to the professionals. Same with 3D printing: the key inhibitors will always be cost of materials and mass customisation (why print my own trainers, when Nike can build me a custom pair for $120?). So the main benefit may be contextual: it stimulates the customisation efforts of mass producers.

Chris' own list is good for 2014, I think. That's the near-term direction things are heading.