Murray’s Blog

Well, the veil has been lifted on the Apple iPad and pundits are busy asking whether there is really such a need for a device in this particular “sub-notebook” niche—especially one at this particular price point.

And once again I shake my head; they just don’t get it… yet. To paraphrase Clinton: “It’s all about the UI, dummy.”

I actually blogged about this well over two years ago. Back when OS X Leopard was coming out (yes, I’m talking about “old” 10.5) there was the introduction of the “Core Animation” API that was the harbinger to things like the sleek iPhone UI and elements popping up on the desktop like the animated “Cover Flow” of iTunes or the Finder.

The iPad will usher in a small but steady revolution as small, intrepid programmers find ways to create very targeted, very specialized apps that make the iPad the perfect tool for business solutions. It will be the architect or interior designer who manages to make a lightweight CAD application that can be really portable, allowing floorplans to be quickly entered into the device while he or she walks through an old house; it will be the medical technician or the factory worker who finally has an application with a user interface that doesn’t force and endless stream of window clicking to enter a simple piece of data; it is the cashier or the maître d’ or the dance choreographer…

Anyway, I suggest anyone interested should actually read that old blog article I wrote in 2007. It still applies.

Up until a week ago I couldn’t say much about OS X (specifically the new 10.5 Leopard release) or the iPhone (which I broke down and bought two months ago). The reason I couldn’t talk about Leopard was that I’m an ADC (Apple Developer Connection) member and I’ve been play-testing 10.5 for months, and I was bound by a non-disclosure agreement.

Well, Leopard has been released so the NDA doesn’t apply (much). I mention the iPhone because my iPhone thoughts are related to OS X Leopard. Let me explain…
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Most everyone can pass over this blog posting. I was writing a lengthy e-mail to a friend who is considering “seeing the light” and moving to Mac. Her big concern is that she has a lot of old WordPerfect files. So this guide talks about (a) the different Word Processing options for your new Mac and (b) the two Windows “emulators” that will allow you to install a copy of Windows on your new (Intel) Mac.

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If you’ve never heard of OpenOffice (and I’m not just talking Apple here) you should educate yourself. It is a full “office suite” that can compete fully with the likes of Microsoft Office, Corel Office, Lotus SmartSuite and Apple’s “iWork” suite. It actually has a rich and fascinating history, dating back to its origin as “Star Office”, a German product that was proudly touting advanced Object Oriented design and cross compatibility between Windows and IBM’s OS/2. We’re talking circa 1995 here.

I don’t remember the particulars, but Sun bought Star Office and did the split-personality part-open-source, part-commercial development thing, like Netscape had with Mozilla. Essentially they made it an open source application “OpenOffice” to attract a wide developer base while keeping a closed-license version they could charge money for. OpenOffice is really a viable product on two platforms: Linux/Unix and Windows. For a long time it has been a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, and some government agencies in the US and abroad have attempted to standardize on it in order to escape Microsoft’s expensive licensing. (To mixed results.)

“So where’s the Apple OS X version?” you may ask. Well, the answer to that is far from simple.
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Although it’s jumping the gun a bit, I’m trying to figure out a name for my upcoming Task/Project Management application for the Mac. I’ve internally called it iProject, but a quick Google search comes up with a product that I think is made in Germany. I’ve tried the combination of adding “i” + any common related term: Task, Todo, GTD… everything there has been taken. Granted, my product doesn’t have to start with the letter “i” but I wanted to emphasize my own design goals which are (a) to have something that is as simple and easy-to-use as it is powerful and (b) an incredible level of integration and “plays well with others” with the existing iCal and other Apple applications.

For a brief moment I thought of i + Do It = iDoIt. I even like how it sounds when you pronounce it: I Do It. I typed ‘idoit’ into Google for a search and suddenly realized my folly, as Google politely asked me “Did you mean: idiot?” That could have been a disaster in the making. Kinda like the old Chevy Nova that didn’t sell well at all in Latin American communities because in Spanish “no va” means “doesn’t run”!

I’m happy to entertain any application name recommendations. Until then, I’m going to keep calling this thing iProject.