Killing Apps
February 9, 2004 7:07 AM   Subscribe

Software innovation is dead. I have to agree that there hasn't been anything truly exciting coming out of the software community as of late, at least anything that is going to change the way we do things like e-mail and P2P did.
posted by archimago (34 comments total)
 
If you compare the time period between the inception of email and the inception of p2p with the time period between the inception of p2p and today then I don't think that there is too much cause for concern.
posted by nthdegx at 7:09 AM on February 9, 2004


What else do we need?
posted by Witty at 7:15 AM on February 9, 2004


I still don't have a flying car either. This whole 21st century thing seems to be one big scam!
posted by spilon at 7:24 AM on February 9, 2004


Eh. A meandering editorial on shaky ground. Lots of rather empty rhetoric. He had me taking him seriously until he suggested that all the innovative developers are now working for MyDoom Incorporated.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 7:34 AM on February 9, 2004


Blah, blah, blah. So we have a 20 year old kid talking like an old man. Ooooh - In my day, innovation all the time. Oooh - nothing like the old days. Oooh - Do you remember when Og invented the wheel. Ohhh... Get a life kid.

The major gripe here seems to be the author of the piece seems frustrated that they don't know where the next piece of innovation is going to come from. Big deal. If they knew, what it was, they'd be innovating it themselves.
posted by seanyboy at 8:14 AM on February 9, 2004


I'd say HDTV and its preditable integration into the rest of the digital world just might bring on something not quite seen. UberTIVO or something - and not necessarily hardware-based. And that is just the first thing that came to my mind. Other than "just because he can't figure out what's coming next doesn't mean that ... "
posted by magullo at 8:37 AM on February 9, 2004


FLASH! Breaking news: software innovation found dead; archimago gives interview about discovery
posted by azazello at 8:45 AM on February 9, 2004


You want a new app? Here's a new app:

About a decade ago, EuroPARC was working on a next-generation PDA. It would keep track of what room you were in, and what you were saying and doing, so that you could ask it, "Where did I put the TPS report?" or "Did I remeber to put the cover sheet on the TPS report?" As far as I can tell, the project was abandoned.

Look at what we have now: fast PDAs, fast speech-to-text, lots of cell/802.11 networks, and good database software. Put a mic on the PDA, have it record everything you say (with timestamp! and locationstamp!) onto an internal buffer, then upload to your computer over a cell/802.11 connection when the buffer is full. Computer converts speech to text, and records it in the (searchable!) database. All of the hardware exists and is ubiquitous, as does most of the software -- all that's needed is the OS glue to hold it all together.

Get at it, kids!
posted by Ptrin at 9:04 AM on February 9, 2004


Exposé pretty much meets his test for innovativeness, as far as I'm concerned. I had never even longed for such a thing, but now I feel crippled using my Linux machines without it.

LaunchBar, which actually took second place in ORA's latest OS X innovators contest, was a similar revelation for me.

Personally, I think the innovation is still out there just as much as it ever has been. It's simply harder to see then existing innovations are because we don't have the presence of time to filter out all the cruft we're being flooded with and isolate the gems for us all to admire.
posted by jammer at 9:09 AM on February 9, 2004


Have any of you used winamps Internet TV. It might be a bit useless if you have a bad connection but with internet2 approaching this is the broadband revolution i was promised. It has certainly changed the way i use multimedia.
posted by sourbrew at 9:36 AM on February 9, 2004


I wouldn't mind taking a five to ten year hiatus from "innovation" and put all the smart people on actually making things work. We've yet to actually cash in on the promise that computers would make our lives simpler and less stressful.
posted by badstone at 9:46 AM on February 9, 2004


Ptrin - does this mean I'll have to walk around all day muttering out loud to myself (and my PDA,) "Here I am, putting the cover on my TPS report..."?
posted by Tubes at 9:50 AM on February 9, 2004


"The next generation of software engineers, who will be producing software in the next twenty-odd years, are simply not able to produce innovative software."

"Jonathan Love is in his third year of an undergraduate degree."

Oh, c'mon, who says Irony's Dead?
posted by JollyWanker at 9:57 AM on February 9, 2004


lol.

the most innovate thing that you could produce, software-wise, is an operating system and a suite of applications that are *very* well-integrated and easy to use.

If you could take what is *possible* right now and build a system of use that made it painless and transparently easy for hundreds of millions of people that would be innovative.

I think that while Apple is really working towards this goal that they are nowhere near what is possible. I guess you could argue that Microsoft is trying. But all they are doing is convincing people that Windows is great without actually making it better. (imho.)

Accessibility and usability are the innovation spaces that I see being wide open right now. The more people that use computers the more interesting they are for everyone.
posted by n9 at 10:06 AM on February 9, 2004


I spend a lot of time imagining what the ideal word processor software would be like. Microsoft Word ain’t it.
posted by Termite at 10:53 AM on February 9, 2004


Innovation is always right around the corner.
posted by Down10 at 12:23 PM on February 9, 2004


It's not dead, the author is just thinking about software in the wrong way. Plenty great things happening.

This essay defines the real playing field.
posted by MisterMo at 12:25 PM on February 9, 2004


If you think that windows hasn't improved tremendously over the past several years, you never used 98, NT, or Me - to say nothing of 3.1. You've never patched it manually, trying to figure out which updates and service packs you needed and in what order, if you patched it at all. You've never fucked with sound card IRQs and device resource conflicts until your dignity hurt.

It's not flawless. Some aspect of windows have been dumbed-down and macified too far, but the ease of use and automatic conflict avoidance capabilities of windows operating systems have improved tremendously over the past 10, 5, and even 2 years.
posted by techgnollogic at 12:27 PM on February 9, 2004


Now if there was a streamlined application that would let me, using Computer A, tell Computer B to play media stored on Computer C, and any combination of the above, via the network, I'd be pretty impressed.
posted by techgnollogic at 12:32 PM on February 9, 2004


anyone ever watch Earth: Final Conflict?

Rember those communication things they all carried around. That's the future... a PDA that is your phone/video/camera/everything that fits in your palm that is easy to imput info into... most importantly... they batteries last for weeks instead of hours.

And if you think about it, we are almost there. If we had the power source, we would have all sorts of nifty stuff... the tech is there... everything except the battery.
posted by LoopSouth at 12:54 PM on February 9, 2004


I don't think Windows software ever caught up with the enormous number of DOS applications, it requiring a lot of "fluff" in the programs that wasn't needed before. The simpler the program, the easier to do something radically different or specific.
However, if you'd like to see some new Windows software.

Plus, the best ever DOS program for MeFi'ers.
posted by kablam at 1:01 PM on February 9, 2004


I don't know about a lack of innovative developers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't well-motivated. The ones I know have been tossed around pretty viciously by the economy in the last 5-10 years. From under-employment to overworked, to laid off, and back again, seeing their "innovative" projects die, get sold off, go mismanaged by idiotic MBAs... I know incredibly talented developers who are literally dying for something work working on, but they're in a "fool me twice" mode. The strategy, the funding, and the business ops have to be in shape for these folks to really commit themselves to something. Many of them are doing other things with their time, or simply coasting on the money they made around the turn of the century. There's still a good deal of innovation going around, but a lot of it might be on a scale that's not visible to the consumer. The path from whiteboard idea to shrink-wrapped consumer product has been ridiculously short this past decade, fueled by enthusiasm on the investor and consumer side (not to mention unrealistic ignorance in both, as well). Perhaps that path is stretching itself out a bit. That's not such a bad thing, despite the fact that some essayists will bang their fists on their tables and whine that there's nothing new in their inbox today.
posted by scarabic at 1:20 PM on February 9, 2004


[whoop]

I don't know about a lack of innovative developers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't well-motivated. The ones I know have been tossed around pretty viciously by the economy in the last 5-10 years. From under-employed to overworked, to laid off, and back again, seeing their "innovative" projects die, get sold off, go mismanaged by idiotic MBAs... I know incredibly talented developers who are literally dying for something work working on, but they're in a "fool me twice" mode. The strategy, the funding, and the business ops have to be in shape for these folks to really commit themselves to something. Many of them are doing other things with their time, or simply coasting on the money they made around the turn of the century. There's still a good deal of innovation going around, but a lot of it might be on a scale that's not visible to the consumer. The path from whiteboard idea to shrink-wrapped consumer product has been ridiculously short this past decade, fueled by enthusiasm on the investor and consumer side (not to mention unrealistic ignorance in both, as well). Perhaps that path is stretching itself out a bit. That's not such a bad thing, despite the fact that some essayists will bang their fists on their tables and whine that there's nothing new in their inbox today.
posted by scarabic at 1:23 PM on February 9, 2004


Mellel, which I've been using for a while now, is definitely an innovative word-processor.
posted by josh at 1:48 PM on February 9, 2004


I dunno, the most "innovation" I've seen in software over the last several years has been the custom development of apps in-house. I worked with a kid was an absolute *genius* at UI design ... no matter what kind of data you were trying to manipulate, he would wrap it up in a package that was simple, clear, easy to use--even intuitive to use, yet still manage to look cool. Would his talents be better served working for a giant software company? Probably not. Yet only a few people will ever appreciate his talents. It's a sticky wicket.

The mention of DOS applications also makes me remember a time when the installation of a program (games, mostly) was a lot more entertaining than it is now.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:49 PM on February 9, 2004


"Everything that can be invented, has been invented.
-Charles H Duell, 1899, US Commissioner of Patent
posted by joedan at 2:16 PM on February 9, 2004


I've heard this argument lots of times before. Heck, was the web browser all that innovative? It was basically the same as gopher or ftp but with pictures and hyperlinks. It was viewed as too simple and that stuff like Xanadu was the real innovative stuff and the future of the net.

Anyway I'd put forth software like Blogger and Movable Type as the most important innovations since P2P stuff like napster hit in 2000. And I remember people being dismissive of napster, saying they could just use FTP/Usenet/IRC, and that P2P was just a buzzword, that all of the internet is P2P anyway, or that ICQ wasn't that different from email. And I've heard people ask why bother using movable type when it takes less than a minute to use notepad to update a page.
posted by bobo123 at 3:05 PM on February 9, 2004


Did anyone else catch the link to segusoland down in the thread?

Somebody over there seems pretty innovative and motivated to me, unlike the slacker who wrote the article.

This software makes me want to go buy a hard drive and put a Linux partition on my hard drive. I may just do it.
posted by hawkman at 5:26 PM on February 9, 2004


techgnollogic writes if there was a streamlined application that would let me, using Computer A, tell Computer B to play media stored on Computer C, and any combination of the above, via the network

I used the web server and client-server streaming functions of this Media Center app to do exactly as you describe. It even plays well with ReplayTV and Tivo. My only concern now is that with multiple DIVX, DVD, and MP3 streams ongoing, my 10/100 networking is beginning to cap out. Anyway, some people have used it to build awesome multimedia rigs.
posted by meehawl at 5:54 PM on February 9, 2004


porn drives all innovation now.
posted by ph00dz at 9:53 PM on February 9, 2004


I haven't tried it yet, but Dashboard for Linux looks like the sort of app that would quickly become a must-have:

The goal of the dashboard is to automatically show a user useful files and other objects as he goes about his day. While you read email, browse the web, write a document, or talk to your friends on IM, the dashboard does its best to proactively find objects that are relevant to your current activity, and to display them in a friendly way, saving you from digging around through your stuff like a disorganized filing clerk.

For example, if a friend IMs you and says "I can't wait for our camping trip this weekend!" the dashboard will show things like your recent emails about the camping trip, your camping bookmarks, and any files or notes you've got on your hard drive about camping.
posted by arto at 12:49 AM on February 10, 2004


This article is nonsense. The author needs to spend just a day or two watching the RSS feeds from Sourceforge or Freshmeat. There's this amazing soup of ideas expressed in software swirling around in those sites. Sure, there are 2000 different text editors, and it seems like every young software author aspires to write the next content management system, but buried amongst these is the occasional pearl. It's actually quite fun watching the things that evolve over time...or maybe I'm just a hopeless geek ;-)

Anyway, lest folks think this is rhetoric, I'll back it up with an example. If you've the time to do so, consider http://leo.sourceforge.net/ . On the surface it's a text editor/outliner with an awkward interface. But it's actually much more than that. Spend some time with the documentation and you realize it can greatly change the way you develop and deploy websites, or code software, and how you manage these projects as you work on them.
posted by Tempus67 at 5:39 AM on February 10, 2004


This is the next big innovation in UI design.
posted by VeGiTo at 6:11 AM on February 10, 2004


Matroska is another cool innovation, I like the way you can have multiple subtitle tracks associated with the multimedia content. This really internationalizes media data. Unlike DVD's primitive VOBs, the subtitles are time/frame-coded content (rather than bitmaps), and so can be indexed and searched. I expect this approach to be combined with OCR and pattern recognition and the CBR/CBZ scanned comic interchange format to provide instant, indexed, localised comics very shortly.

Yes I am a media packrat.
posted by meehawl at 12:11 PM on February 10, 2004


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