Content-Aware Fills in Upcoming Version of Photoshop

I'm in the process of learning more about Photoshop and now wondering if a lot of what I am learning will become obsolete shortly. This reminds me of the oft-cited Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The Cascading Effects of an Apple Tablet

I was thinking about the rumored Apple tablet and wondering how Apple would support getting content onto the tablet, and how it would support data backups for the tablet.  For syncing content, there are great third-party services like Dropbox.  But this is a device where you want a seamless experience, where file synchronization is supported natively.

For backups, Apple has its time machine backup technology, but how would they support backups on a tablet, aside from requiring everyone to have their Time Capsule? Then I got to thinking about how the nature of the tablet would require potentially many changes, across at least several Apple products and services. I thought about MobileMe and Merlin Mann's perennial requests for a more useful and powerful cloud service from Apple. Then I got really excited. Because, as recent rumors have suggested with their mention of a likely updated iLife suite, a tablet computer would require cascading changes in a lot of Apple products and technologies, in part due to the new form factor and user interface but also because of the new  use cases for the device.

Take this prediction about a possible iTunes-in-the-sky feature where all of your iTunes content is stored in the cloud, available on any networked device at any time.  Such rumors are based, in part, on Apple's recent acquisition of the Lala streaming music service that does roughly that, for a fee.  This cloud-based iTunes would finally unshackle us from home-based iTunes syncing and further propel Apple ahead of the rest.  Apple would take us one step closer to the Celestial Jukebox and answer the prayers of music-loving geeks and technologists everywhere.

January has the potential to be one of Apple's biggest and most wide-reaching announcements.  Let's hope they don't disappoint. They usually don't.

Finally Finished Adding Old Posts

I have now added my last substantial blog entry from my old blog, this one on iPhone relaxation apps. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, look for new tech posts here in the near future.

Adding Old Posts from My Old Blog

I've been migrating some posts over from my old technology blog so you may notice a few backdated entries appearing on this blog.  Take it as an opportunity to reread some old classics.

iPhone Development in 2009 Versus Unix Development in the 1990s

I've been noodling with an iPhone app for months now.  Prior to this, I hadn't written code since roughly 1999.  That's ten years away from compilers, IDEs, and curly brackets.  A lot has changed in those ten years.  Being a coder now, at least on an Apple platform, is sweet.

Coloring your code based on syntax has greatly improved.  Autocomplete is huge; you just start typing the name of a foundation class or even a local variable and it suggests possible completions.  There are a plethora of analysis tools for improving your code.  The debugger is still built upon gdb but offers more GUI flourishes and functionality.  All of this means the command line is no longer the preferred way of managing the development process.  Instead of XWindows or Motif, there is Cocoa and Cocoa Touch.  All of the documentation, for everything, is just a mouse click away.  And the Internet has finally become a valuable resource for finding answers.  There are countless tutorials available online, on YouTube and elsewhere.  And Apple has provided sample code for just about every Objective-C class.

Source code management is almost seamless.  Built-in to every Mac is a Subversion server that need only be switched on.  XCode offers a GUI for all your source code management needs.  I have XCode on all my laptops setup to access a Subversion repository on my Mac Mini, which otherwise just acts as my entertainment center media server.  How many people are storing their code on the device they use to watch DVDs on their television?

Sure, learning Objective-C took a little time.  And the Model-View-Controller paradigm was new to me.  But even these are improvements over C++ and some of the design patterns that were popular in the 1990s.

The best part?  OS X is still Unix and I still have the command line available if I need it, or just want to relive my 20s.  Sometimes I wonder if I would have remained a software engineer if the state of software development was this advanced back in the late 90s.

Imagining Life Without Apple

I know this is going to sound like an Apple fanboy post, and maybe I am one, but I do think what I'm about to say applies to most of my friends, whom I would not characterize as Apple fanboys or fangirls.  Yesterday, as I listened to a truly inspired iTunes genius jazz/jazz vocalist playlist (Yusef Lateef to Stan Getz to Nina Simone and Alice Coltrane? Genius is right.), I got to thinking about what my life would be like without the magic of Apple products.

Instead of an iPhone, which helps us stay in touch with friends and family in new and exciting ways, find our way in new parts of town, locate Yelp-recommended restaurants, and surf the web as if we were at our computer, we'd still be using devices like the Samsung Blackjack or the Blackberry Curve.  I doubt any Windows Mobile, Symbian, or Blackberry-based phone has the deep selection of relaxation apps that are available for the iPhone, despite the proliferation of app stores like Ovi and the Android Market.  Yes, the selection of relaxation apps is the best yardstick for measuring a device's utility and maturity.

Instead of typing at my MacBook Pro 17", I'd be stuck using a Sony or Dell running Vista, or worse (like I'm forced to at work), with its fan whirring at random intervals, its unreliable standby and shutdown, its rabid power consumption, and its cheap, Fisher-Price feel.  None of the sweet Mac software I have recommended in the past would be available.  No OmniFocus, no iTunes, no Time Machine (the first no-brianer backup solution that just works); no Bento, no DevonThink/DevonAgent; no Scrivener or Pixelmator; and none of the various file management applications I rely upon.  In short, my productivity would drop on a Windows machine, and not just because of crashes and viruses.

For pervasive music throughout the apartment, I'd be stuck with a Sonos system, which is a solid choice.  But, with Airtunes, I can integrate more tightly with my music listening habits.  For example, when I entertain, my friends would not be able to vote for upcoming songs in the iTunes DJ playlist with their phones were it not for Apple's innovation in the enjoyment of music.  

But the iPhone and the Macbook are only two facets of the key to the life-enhancing effect of the Apple world: the digital hub (discussed at length by Leander Kahney in his book "Inside Steve's Brain," starting around page 185, or location 2394 for you Kindle readers).  Kahney talks about how the PC's first golden age was the age of productivity, where the spreadsheet and the word processor were the killer apps, the whole point of computing.  Kahney's second golden age was that of the Internet, which started around 1996.  Since the proliferation of the iPod and the shift from the TV to the handheld device, we've entered the third great computer age: that of the digital hub.  The computer as we know it is no longer the focus.  Now, it's the devices that connect you to your media and to the "cloud." Nobody has focused on the digital hub era like Apple.  If you look at their product line and the collection of corresponding features, you'll see that the digital hub is the common thread throughout.

Of course, not everyone is taking full advantage of the digital hub, or even thinking about its potential to enhance your life.  I recently helped a friend design and setup her entire house with the Mac Mini/iTunes/Airtunes/iPhone solution.  Her incredulous and ecstatic reaction upon comprehending all the features and benefits reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke's famous maxim that, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  Apple has proven the truth of Clarke's assertion, more than any other computer company.  So, when I started this post referring to the "magic of Apple products," it was more than just the approbation of a fanboy; it was the truth of my experience talking to my non-fanboy friends.

Of course, Apple and its products have their faults.  Sure, there's heavy lock-in and they're highly proprietary.  Public opinion is starting to turn sour for the first time since iPod mania hit.  For example,  Jason Calacanis recently caused a stir with his "Case Against Apple," in which he raises one point worth considering, namely Apple's somewhat arbitrary iPhone app store policies (soon to be the topic of another post here).  But, in my opinion, these are faults we can live with, at least for now.  After all, the primary benefit of competition is innovation.  At the very least, Apple's rapid rate of innovation keeps the rest of the technology industry on its toes.  And, so long as we continue to see groundbreaking innovation coming out of Cupertino, I cannot complain about Apple's monopolistic practices.  Until the iPod/iPhone/Mac user experience goes south, I will continue to be an Apple fanboy.

Honestly, it is difficult to imagine my life without my Macs, my iPhone, and my MobileMe account.  Maybe someday someone will unseat Apple as the king of the digital hub computing era.  Maybe Google will sneak up from behind.  Or maybe we'll more fully enter the age of social networking and the digital hub will become less important.  But, as I'm sure Steve Jobs himself would point out, people will always want easy and ubiquitous access to music and other forms of entertainment and educational content.  For that reason, I see Apple continuing its dominance in this area for some time, unless something disruptive and unexpected happens, like government antitrust regulation or a loss of focus at Apple upon Steve Jobs' departure.

In my opinion, Snow Leopard didn't disappoint.  Let's see what happens September 9th.

Welcome to Random Access Culture

I grew up reading William Gibson and programming my Commodore 64 to better track my paper route.  The spread of technology in our culture fascinated me from an early age and my life has been informed by it ever since.  In this blog, I intend to write about new technological developments and their impacts on our culture, how technology can improve our lives.  I may occasionally talk about the negative side effects of technological advancement.  But, on the whole, I prefer to keep the discussion positive.

I am also fascinated by ways that law and technology influence and affect each other.  Although I may discuss that topic on these pages, I may also devote an entire blog to the topic.

A word about the title of the blog: I have this old computer science book from my graduate school / engineer days by A.K. Dewdney called "Turing's Omnibus" (copyright 1989) that contains "61 excursions in computer science."  It's essentially a collection of classic computer science problems and solutions.  Its title is a reference to Alan Turing, the godfather of computer science.  One of the chapters covers the idea of a random access computer, one in which the storage is "randomly" accessible by address.  It's how modern computer memory (RAM) works.  The title works on multiple levels.  Individuals within our society access culture and communicate via an ever-increasing diversity of technologies.  And different classes of people have differing means of access to technology.  With the ubiquity of the Interent and the power of search technologies, it is now possible to access broader swaths of our culture at more random intervals, from the most random places.  You get the idea.

Update: I'm moving to Blogger from my MobileMe/iWeb blog because it is a more portable format, should I ever want to beef up my blog with a SquareSpace account.  Plus, it's easier for me to create the network of blogs that I'm working on here.