Ben Brooks shared a link to Mailbox and Folder Management in iOS Mail and it has changed how I use Mail.app almost completely … in a good way. I have two folders I want to keep track of outside of the unified inbox, and now I have easy access to both of those folders.
Simply awesome.
Email is probably the most important communication platform that I have, and this just made iOS better for me in a non-trivial manner. The saddest part for me is that I didn’t know about it before.
Here’s a quote from John Siracusa from Episode 50 of Accidental Tech Podcast about his reason for the “iPad Pro” to be both bigger and more complex (some time in the future):
It can’t be the thing most people use for computing and remain as limited as it is now.
That quote is from about 5:29. The discussion then moved onto whether the iPad will ever actually gain the things Siracusa was talking about or if people actually even want that.
That statement above is, I think, key. It really is a look into the minds of current desktop users and what they are looking for in a computer replacement. That’s the rub, looking for a direct replacement to what they currently have. I hear, see, and read this sort of thing quite often when talking about the iPad in general as well.
I think there are assumptions being made that our current workflows or the way we currently do things is somehow innately better than what might be coming. It is the idea that our usage (thinking of power users or long-time desktop computing users) is somehow better than everything else.
I would challenge that idea. The workflows created today are tailored for windows-based computing. Trying to pry apart our current workflows and shoehorn them into a touch-oriented systems is going to be painful and, possibly (or probably) fruitless. So far, no one has cracked that and Apple has admitted as much by not adding touch screens to their Mac lineup and stating time and again that OS X and iOS are going to be separate and complementary operating systems.
However, even more than the above (that our assumptions are holding us back), I think that the limitation of an operating system like iOS is the very thing that allows many people to finally be able to use a computing device without constantly muttering “I’m not a computer person”. Every time you add complexity of any type, even when you hide it (like the multitasking switcher), it is going to bite users in some unknown way. When you added multitasking and a switcher, all of a sudden people thought they needed to police their device and clear themselves of all of those icons in the multitasking switcher (for the record, no you did not).
Being able to have more than one app on-screen (which has been discussed when thinking of the future of iOS) will ultimately mean that people will abuse that feature and cause them to get into trouble. People can’t handle multiple applications on desktops computers and we’ve been working with this for decades!
I don’t disagree that iOS is going to get improvements, that much is inevitable. What I DO disagree with is the idea that complexity is needed to make iOS more powerful. I think that the power of iOS is actually housed in its simplicity. If you chip away at the simplicity, you’re going to have a substandard product.
I was struck a little bit recently by some competing visions for what the future of computing might look like. I recommend listening to the Episode 49: Roamio and Siracusiet of the Accidental Tech Podcast.
Especially listen to the show-after-the-show when they start talking about the “iPad Pro” and the future of both desktop and tablet computing in general. It is a great look at competing visions, a little, among the three hosts of that show. Also, just subscribe because it is a great podcast overall.
At the same time, the 30th anniversary of the unveiling of the original Macintosh was going on. The normal retrospectives, parties, tweets, and all other things one would expect to be going on during the time happened … and then this one tweet crossed my Twitter stream.
http://twitter.com/fraserspeirs/status/427019332221435904
He is speaking of the interview Jason Snell was able to land with current Apple executives for Macworld. This is another one worth a read/listen.
I don’t share his fear since the article was specifically about the Mac on its 30th anniversary and also because my thoughts definitely fall along the line seeing a very important place for the Mac and OS X in the future.
I wrote recently about this in regards to Steve’s Jobs analogy of a car vs. truck as tablets/mobile vs. PC. Just as trucks and tractors aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so OS X isn’t going to be going anywhere soon. However, it does leave open some exciting possibilities.
This passage from the article really hit home with the power Apple has with two distinct and complementary platforms.
In fact, as Schiller pointed out, in some ways the success of the iPhone and iPad takes some of the pressure off and “gives us the freedom to go even further on the Mac.” Now the Mac doesn’t have to be all things to all people.
That is straight from an executive’s mouth. That’s a really important distinction. With iOS and OS X being distinct platforms, it does give Apple an amount of freedom to really push the envelope in different ways that you would if you only had a single platform from which to try to hit the needs of everyone.
That is an exciting prospect for today, tomorrow, and for the future of iOS and OS X.
The flip side is that it allows Apple to keep out things from iOS which might increase the complexity and alienate the huge groups of users who are now using iOS devices who never would have sat down and used a computer. I don’t want to continually add complexity and “power” to appease users who are better served by OS X. I want both platforms to continue to push ahead in the areas they are most capable.
It is usually a good idea to have a plan, of sorts, in place when you head out to try to do something. Learning iOS development shouldn’t be any different.
So here is my current roadmap-wish thing that I’m probably not going to stick to and probably won’t help me one bit … but I’m going to put this out here anyway in the vain hope that maybe having it published, even here, will help me stick to things more.
The the two on the list are really part of the same thing and I am hoping the update will be out before I get there. One thing missing, and I’ll probably add it to the end, is a good Objective-C book that I want to look at.
Everything I am going to work with needs to be available on at least the iPad and the Mac in electronic form (and they all are), and they follow (somewhat) a progression from C to iOS app. I’m hoping to build my first app after or during item two and then continue from there into more dangerous (and fun) water.
We’ll see what happens, but right now, I need to dig into C.
Time to dig into the past again … something I have been hoping to do but never jumped in and actually accomplish.
I’ll let you, the reader, search through the archives to find my failed attempts at learning iOS development/programming along with any number of other technologies. It is really a running joke in my own mind by now that I can’t follow-through with anything in this realm. I haven’t launched any products (web or otherwise) and haven’t put anything up on the App Store either.
I’m back at it again, however, and I hope I can get something onto the App Store this time (no matter how small it might be). This time I have Learning iOS Development from Addison Wesley to work through along with my prior work in iOS 5/6 to get me through this and to the next level.
Apple has pushed the platform ahead quite a bit with iOS 7 and there is a lot to learn. I’ve been lucky enough to watch the iOS 7 Tech Talks along with some of the WWDC 2013 sessions as well. It has worked not so much to give me an overview of the changes (which it has), but to get me pumped up and excited about development and the platform as a whole.
I’m shifting my focus a little bit to some small agricultural apps to start (I hope). There are many “paper only” tasks on the farm right now and I want to be able to capture those in some useful ways along with eliminating the need to write so often for things which really are just numbers.
I’ll hopefully have some more information that in the future as I continue to try to work out the specifics, but it will piggyback on the new farm entity we created (more on Martens Family Farm in the future, obviously) and the primary use will be small-to-medium farms and helping them get the most out of their work.
I hope.