Dear Tim re: 10 Years After
I recall also writing about another killer app that has not yet been actualized (by Apple or anyone else) using a cell phone platform. But that could easily be added to the iPhone later, since it is so flexible: a home automation controller (including a home theater remote) controlled by voice. This might require Apple to advance the state of the art on voice recognition, or else incorporate someone else's software to do the same, but if there's any pointing device in the universe that's simpler than the finger, it's the voice. Put the iPhone into remote control mode and use it to program your TiVo, your thermostat, whatever. You could even do that from a remote location.
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Is there a market for something like the iRemote I describe (again)? Probably, especially in a couple years when iPhone competitors are starting to appear and Apple might need a differentiator to justify continuing to charge premium prices for a premium product.
iHub: The beauty of diversity (1/10/2007)
In my most forward-thinking moments, I've postulated that speakers and a video screen can be thought of as nothing more than a user interface from the digital network to the user. While a keyboard, mouse, microphone, video camera, and even brain scanner can be thought of as the user interface from the user to the digital system. There's even some crossover, as for example a touch screen. And I like Jef Raskin's ideas about simplifying user interface to meet the requirements for a particular computing task (simple UI, instant-on, etc.) quite a bit, as they mirror my own. One particular example I've used in the past is a portable device that could be used as a universal remote, wirelessly connecting to the digital network and reconfiguring itself to become the ideal controller for whatever device is being controlled, whether stereo, TV, TiVo, thermostat, home security system, fembot phalanx, or whatever. The iPod could be such a thing already, particularly if it had wireless connectivity and a bigger, higher-resolution display.
But there's a lot of blue sky between the very specific ideas I'd articulated for software like iMusic (which Apple released as GarageBand pretty much exactly as I'd envisioned), iStereo (which Apple has not yet released an analog for, though other companies -- notably HP -- have), iMechMouse ( released as roombavac.com ), iCarStereo (which shouldn't be so very frickin' hard to do, though hardly anyone has)
iHub: tfx re: 'iTodd’ (3/11/2004)
However, perhaps most important of all, does this indicate that my (and Jef's) dream of clean, single-purpose interfaces for many home (and other) tasks that can be controlled either manually or programmatically from my computer (or better yet, my headless home server) might truly be on the way?
iCarStereo coming next, or is that too much to hope for? And what about my thermostat? Exercise bike? Legobots? Telescope (so I can feed video over Wi-Fi to iMovie during some middle-of-the-night winter astronomical phenomena without having to tiptoe out in my jammies for a quick peek?
iHub: Sonuvagun, Apple made my iStereo (6/7/2004)
Only 10+ years after, sigh. Reminds me of a song:
Ten Years After: I'd Love To Change The World
At least I have the satisfaction of having made a whole lotta jack on my AAPL investment(s) [before and] since then ...
And then there's the whole curated streaming music market ... oy. |
