Alan Kay, ‘Make the screen 5 x 8, and you’ll rule the world’
The computer genius who created the first notebook and helped out the GUI-based operating system, who’s fingerprints are on just about everything digital in one form or another, gave Steve Jobs some prescient advice.
GigaOM is reporting iPad-flavored musings from computer genius Alan Kay. Interestingly, he made these comments on the day the original iPhone was introduced back in 2007 — he was there at Steve Jobs’ invitation.
When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it’s the first personal computer worth criticizing. So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world.
Thereupon, whereas Kay has been one of the less sparing critics of computer and portable device design for decades, the iPad could be the closest anyone has yet come to his original vision of the Dynabook, his 1968 vision of mobile computing, which included rich educational resources and always connected networking.
What a testament to both Kay and Apple if that vision did indeed come to rule the world, but even more strongly than the notebook or simple GUI-based operating system…
What’s your take?
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February 23rd, 2010
Obviously, the success of the iPad depends on the software that runs on it.
If Apple doesn’t restrict the apps too much, it will change the way people look at computers, and computing devices forever.
Apple seems to be the only company actually trying to improve the user interface on computers – and they have been since the Mac and before… The innovative user interface on the iPad will be its ability to emulate real world things, such as a writing pad, a magazine, a book, and a painting surface. Apple’s got more apps up their sleeve that they haven’t displayed yet, and these are the things that its competitors should be worried about. Any company can (and several already have) create a touch-based computer- but without compelling touch-sensitive apps they will fail. Competitors to the iPhone have seen this time and again.
Obviously, opening up the apps to more functionality is going to be the key to the iPad’s success. (for instance, on the iPhone, I would like my GPS app to continue where I left off if I get a phone call. Other than multitasking, having the ability for an app to save its state, and then quickly return to its state, would be one way to accomplish this goal.