Decisions » Iphone http://decisions.net.au Our entire lives are ruled by the decisions we make. Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:50:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Past Programming Prowess http://decisions.net.au/2010/04/09/past-programming-prowess/ http://decisions.net.au/2010/04/09/past-programming-prowess/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 11:01:26 +0000 admin http://decisions.net.au/?p=8538 Some of you maybe aware that I have been a personal computer user for over 30 years. Having started out as a programmer in the late 70′s, I note with great interest in a return to real programming. Apple has realised the security issues that script programming has caused in the past on various platforms. So starting now Apple has decided that C/C++ and Objective C are to be the only programming language now to be used for apps on the iPhone and related platforms. Hurray, at last the script kiddys will have to learn PROGRAMMING and PROGRAM Design.

I do not own or plan to own an iPhone or iPAD, but doesn’t stop me from selling apps for them. Various vertical and niche markets are not being covered or only sparingly at present. I can think of the hard and difficult times i had programming applications in the 80′s with the hardware available then. Developers and owners are now spoilt with the sheer power of the hardware available. The iPAD for instance is an amazing device, but everyone sees it as a poor netbook clone. No vision! I can see hundreds of niches for it not capable of being done with a netbook.

Think outside the square, people, it is a new market. When personal computers were first released people were bombarded with recipe and book collection cardfile replacement programs. 30 years later still no marketplace for those, but PC software market has matured and exploded. The same will happen once people start thinking of new areas of use for the power an iPAD gives them. I get a little tired of people saying but!

1/ It doesn’t run Windows
2/ It doesn’t have USB ports
3/ It doesn’t have whatever.

Well guys it doesn’t mow lawns, wash the dishes or functions as a cocktail mixer either.
it is a handheld, portable, powerful little piece of engineering genius. For years we have done lots of useful things on computers that don’t run Windows and have no USB ports. They are the computers used for vertical markets or embedded in kiosks, and so on. It is a Billion dollar business.

When I started in programming it was normal to have 12″ TV based Green Screen Monitor,16k RAM and a 2MHZ processor. That was Hi-Tech, but I went to work for a company that had a computer based system that used 128k ROM and 32K ram, Full colour 20″ screen with up to 8 processors multitasking together.

So what was this early supercomputer. A Video game machine in an amusement parlour. The developers didn’t say when developing the applications (games), “this machine does not have a keyboard and text entry modes”, they just used it for it’s intrinsic abilities. The same with the iPAD, embrace the advantages, don’t force it to be something it is not.
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