e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Apple-Inc.

  • A Thousand and One Affordances: iTunes, KM, and Creative Commons

    For several reasons, I have been resisting the temptation to post about Duke’s now-famous decision to give an iPod to every first-year student. To begin with, it’s been covered to death, so I didn’t think that just posting the link was doing a particular service to anyone. Second, others have already written about at least some of the affordances of the iPod that make it a potentially good fit. And third, since I just bought a new one myself, my iPod envy is under control.

    But it occurs to me that there is a possible implication that hasn’t been fully explored yet, having to do with the affordances not just of the iPod but of the iTunes Music Store (ITMS). If you think about it, the iPod/iTunes/ITMS system that Apple created is simply an efficient means for distributing any digital content with any well-defined DRM restrictions. ITMS even has its own system for categorizing information (though anybody who has seriously tried to search ITMS by genre knows that their taxonomy has some significant limitations). You could use it to deliver journal articles or learning objects just as easily as songs (as Duke clearly intends to do). You could distribute some content for free and other content for fee (as Duke also clearly intends to do). You could probably even create a channel that passes Creative Commons licensing information and, in some cases, even inforces it. For example, some of the DRM options on PDFs and even Word 2003 documents (e.g., allow copying but not editing, allow or don’t allow cut-and-paste) mirror some CC licensing options. If you hook it into something like Merlot or MLX you could develop a relatively efficient learning object distribution channel, where teachers could post playlists that function something like an enhanced version of Instructional Architect (enhanced because it affords downloading of learning objects for offline use and potentially enforces DRM).

    I’m not ready to suggest that this is the way to go; it may be that a P2P model like LionShare is a better option in the long-run. But it’s worth thinking about.

  • A Thousand Affordances in Your Pocket

    Yup. I finally broke down and got myself an iPod. Kathy has had one for about two years now but I was holding out for two more developments. First, I wanted enough disk space–at least 20 gigs–to carry a significant amount of data as well as my music, since I intended to use it as my cross-platform portable hard drive. Second, I wanted the 20 gig size not to be the biggest iPod available so I didn’t have to pay a premium for getting the biggest baddest. With the release of the new version, where the bottom-of-the-line 20-gig is only (“only”!) $300, I figured it was time.

    Boy, does this baby solve a lot of problems for me. I was thinking about getting a Treo 600 now that Verizon offers it but now I’ll hold off. I can store my calendar and address book on the iPod and it’s not obvious to me that I need to be able to input information away from my computer. And since I don’t have a compelling need for email away from my laptop, the reasons for the smart phone have pretty much evaporated.

    But the most delightful aspect of the device (as any iPod owner knows) is how rat simple it is to use for its core function of playing music. There is literally no learning curve and almost no attention required to operate it. This is the essence of what Gary Dickelman and others call “Performance-Centered Design.” Rather than forcing the user to learn how to use the device, we figure out how to make the function as easy and intuitive as humanly possible first. After all, who wants to waste time and brain space learning how to use a device? What we really want to do is access our music (or trade a stock, or pick up our voicemail messages, or whatever it is we are trying to do with a piece of technology). Performance-Centered Design (PCD) pushes the priority of lowering the cognitive load on the user as much as possible first and only teaching when absolutely necessary. The iPod is a pleasure to use because I never have to think about how to use it.

    Industrial design guru and fellow e-Learn Magazine Advisory Board member Don Norman calls the things that a device makes easy to do “affordances.” If you have not read his classic book The Design of Everyday Things then run, don’t walk, to your nearest book store or library. Every human being who has to function in the modern world should read this book and try to acquire just a little bit of Don Norman’s crankiness and ornery refusal to put up with badly designed tools.

  • Blogo-Eroticism: You'll go blind!!!

    So, here’s a puzzling bit of argumentation from Steven Strubel:

    However, my hunch is that Apple will continue to prevent its employees from blogging for the foreseeable future so that it can maintain its mystique. This approach may work for awhile, but the employees in Cupertino will eventually revolt, snub their noses at policy and begin blogging in force – even if it is anonymously. Why? Dissatisfaction and low morale.

    As much as I love Apple (I own an iBook laptop and an iPod Mini) the company is entering its next lifecycle. Despite recent huge hits like the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, Apple has struggled to sell its premium, albeit “insanely great,” computers to the majority of users beyond the core evangelists. Desktops and laptops make up the lion share of Apple’s profits. Already many smell the growth slowing and have taken notice, sending the stock downward.

    If Apple’s profits continue to decline or stay flat, investors will find more attractive stocks. While no one is predicting a return to the dark days of Gilbert Amelio, a declining share price will eventually force Apple to make changes (as Microsoft did) to maintain profit targets. This will deflate employee morale, breed dissatisfaction and prompt Apple’s internal mavericks to begin blogging–unless Apple acts first.

    For once, Apple needs to follow Microsoft’s lead by quickly letting their employees blog. Corporate transparency can’t be stopped. Apple, rekindle your revolutionary spirit, loosen your grip and let your employees blog – even if it’s just a preemptive move. If you don’t, this will only harm your brand over the long haul.

    Where to start.

    First of all, his timing is pretty bad, since Apple just announced record profits that shot its stock price through the roof. Second, also in the category of bad timing, his post comes just when Apple employee Dave Hyatt, in his Surfin’ Safari weblog, is engaging in conversation with Internet luminaries including Tim Bray, Ian Hickson, and Eric Meyer regarding nothing less than the future of Internet standards and Apple’s role in it.

    But most puzzling to me is the huge leap from Apple’s (debatable) sales slump and (indesputably non-existent) profitability struggle to official developer blogs as the only thing that can save the company, equating official PR blogs with “corporate transparency.” First, it’s not at all clear that, to the extent that Apple has problems, lack of corporate transparency is the cause. Second, to the extent that corporate transparency is the cause of Apple’s problems, Strubel fails to make the case that blogs in general can bring about a meaningful new transparency that will address Apple’s problems. Third, to the extent that blogs in general can solve Apple’s problems, he fails to make the case that official blogs are the way to make that happen. In fact, I would argue that Hyatt’s weblog, whether or not it appears in some slick Apple blog portal, provides unprecedented transparency and, further, opportunity for two-way dialog between the company’s developers and the larger community.

    Maybe these arguments (and their supporting data) exist. If so, I’d like to hear them. But frankly, I don’t see how it could be possible. Blogs are great, but they can’t cure cancer and they probably can’t single-handedly change the fate of multi-billion-dollar companies.

  • Parallel Play Grows Up, Part II

    Well, the conversation continues, with an interesting twist. This time, one blogger has explicitly responded to a request for his input from another blogger. The semantics here are interesting, since the original blogger (Dave Hyatt) didn’t directly ask for comment. Instead, what he wrote was

    I’ll be eagerly awaiting the responses of both Tim and Eric to this entry.

    This reminds me a bit of the mediated debates that the Supreme Court has with itself sometimes as justices ask questions of the lawyers not so much because they are looking for the answer as because they are implicitly articulating arguments for each other. While the lawyer, of course, does play some part in the conversation, it’s often not the part s/he thinks (or hopes) that it is.

    Since the main converation here is between a small number of standards gurus who know and respect each other’s work (and presumably know each other personally, though I’m just guessing here), this could be viewed as a similar sort of conversation, with their respective blogging audiences acting as the mediating litigators. I wonder whether this style of communication would be less inclined to develop outside of a well-established community of experts. To what degree is familiarity and mutual respect required to overcome the awkwardness of this indirect form of conversation?

  • More on Apple's Workflow Taxonomy

    More good stuff:

    The prerelease version of Automator currently comes with 123 Actions that are grouped into categories according to function. The categories include Mail, Find, Alert, People, and iPod, and users can search for Actions using Tiger’s standard Mac OS X search field. The alternate view command groups the Actions by keyword, which can be a quick way to narrow down the choice when searching for a particular Action. The set of Actions offered to developers is not restricted to Apple’s own applications: currently it includes Actions included for Microsoft Corp.’s PowerPoint presentation software.

    So the taxonomy is not organized for the user based on application but rather on typical work tasks (for home users, that is–Apple’s primary audience). As it should be.

  • A Workflow Taxonomy

    A few posts ago I mentioned that Apple’s new Automator tool was a potentially interesting development vis-a-vis workflow learning. Well, a new article at MacWorld surfaces this fascinating additional tidbit:

    With the Automator, you don’t have to write a single line of code; instead, you build a flow chart. On the left side of the Automator’s window, you can pick from a large collection of “actions” organized into 16 categories–Apple is supplying more than 100 actions, and developers can add even more for their own apps–which you drag into the Workflow area. As you drag items in, they connect to one another. By building up a series of actions, you can create a complex series of tasks that incorporate several different Mac programs.

    In essence, Apple is creating a workflow taxonomy. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

  • When Parallel Play Matures Into Socialization

    Here’s a great example of sustained and productive conversation supported by (or at least started by) weblogs and, perhaps, a counter-example to the blogging as parallel play argument. Recently, Apple Computer announced that they would be adding four extensions to HTML in order to support new features in the upcoming version of their operating system. This created an uproar in the blogosphere, but the end result (so far, anyway) was that Dave Hyatt, Apple’s chief browser technology engineer, has heard and accepted some good suggestions from the community. As a result of the conversation started in blogs, Apple will change the way its technology works.

    But it goes even deeper. (more…)