A killer app -- I'm back home!
VOICE
My colleagues at Nokia often say the killer app for a mobile phone is "VOICE". OK then, I'd say the killer app for an internet tablet is "INTERNET". Let me explain.
So let's suppose the killer app for mobile phones is VOICE. It's a vague statement if we don't define what it means for an individual person.
- For my daughter, VOICE means that she can gossip with her girlfriends, and that she can call her mom or me if any plans would change.
- For me VOICE means work. For me VOICE is an enterprise application. I work with it. I do not spend time talking with my old friends on the phone -- so the phone for me is not a means for social interaction unlike for my daughter. I also use VOICE to call a taxi cab almost on a daily basis.
- Then, I know people who use VOICE for so-called entertainment services.
- ..and so on
Well ... what is then the killer app? Is it VOICE or calling a taxi or entertainment services?
I don't know.
INTERNET
So if I really must use the concept -- then the killer app for the internet tablet is INTERNET. I especially like to
- manage and publish my own music online (got tens of thousands downloads for my simple tunes and hundreds of written comments ... and a lot of online buddies there)
- share my photos and stream my music from my home PC using 770 (I've got over 500 Gigs of hard drive and I can access that all from my 770 -- thus I've got a lot of music and pictures with me while on the go)
(contains partial nudity ...but for us Europeans it is OK)
- listen to Internet radio -- never used it before, but on 770 on the daily basis
- do email
- search -- wikipedia -- anything I need to know I grab a 770 and search
- read a local newspaper online
Feedback
VOICE is everywhere. Everybody uses VOICE and their favorite usage with it varies. So is INTERNET, too. All of us who have a life online uses INTERNET differently. It would be nice to hear your favorite killers online. And the lucky owners of a 770, do not forget to tell your opinions at the 770 feedback page.
The trip is over now -- I'm back home now
It's a helluva trip from SFO to Finland. I'm tired. But it was a good trip. I met a lot of interesting people and saw a 770 in Comp USA!
Here back home, we've got some new snow. It is certainly different than the view from my hotel room in San Francisco.
A view at the bay from my hotel room
A view from my window at home
P.S.S. And thank you all for the comments and improvement ideas so far. Roger, I really liked yours. But could you, please, make it a bit shorter -- like an executive summary. I don't read books online, you know.
posted by Ari Jaaksi at 11:42 AM
13 Comments:
Ari;
The killer app for the 770 is the GUI. I've written about it in several comments attached to your '3 part plan' entry and at ITT, plus my own web site. The GUI is an open window of opportunity that will never close. On an X terminal the GUI is vastly different than it is on a PC or a PDA. It sees software and people everywhere. A mobile X terminal is the only device most people need, actually. But when the 770 is used as a network terminal it needs an X GUI that allows users to find X apps. Yes, more X apps have to be built, and more tools to build apps have to be built, but we're way further down that road than anyone dares to even hope.
Looking ahead, the issues are about access to the network and about GUI's. The issues used to be about being able to lay our hands on a mobile X terminal, too, but Nokia has solved that problem. It used to be about free software, too, but the Free Software Foundation solved that problem. It used to be about X being misunderstood, unappreciated and outdated but Keith Packard, Jim Gettys & many others have solved that problem. Lots of thanks to Matthew Allum. Now a critical issue (opportunity) is about a GUI for the network, and that means X GUI. There is no need for a killer app any more. There's only a need for the GUI that pulls it all together for the users. You guys have played an important role in showing us that there's a rich software experience without a PC, that the network terminal software experience is a richer one than the PC software experience because it's social & collaborative. VOIP can help Nokia offer the first network GUI to feature integrated voice. Everything modular, everything integrated - the Holy Grail. How do you do it? The GUI.
HI Ari, too bad I missed your visit to NY. I wrote a long post about it on my blog: http://jmarinez.typepad.com
Maybe on your next visit you can come see our Nokia 770 group in NYC.
Keep up the good work!
Jose
FBReader works quite well in the 770, but it would definitely still need its share of UI polishing, simplifying and harmonizing...
The 770 needs to make remote file/application access easier. Three things I'd like right now ...
Use ssh to access files on a remote server. kio-slaves in KDE do this seamlessly and it would be great to treat ALL my files on a workstation as if they are local.
The video player should open web-hosted videos like mplayer does. Just open "http://website/file.avi" rather than having to download the full thing first. And no need for the user to setup video streaming for their movies. Just put them in a private web directory and point the video player at them.
A nomachine/freenx client.
Where does it say we'd be better off doing other than Ari Jaaksi says in A killer app -- I'm back home!? I sometimes think that the deeper we go into things like personal development growth the easier we can get distracted. Anyone else noticed the same thing?
I agree that Internet use will lie behind any killer app for the 770. But are you sure they will be ones for solitary readers (like Roger Sperberg's and your examples)?
Or will they be social apps, that bring together people exchanging drawings and photos. over WiFi? Imagine everyone at a business strategy meeting with a 770 in his/her lap, using it to enter ideas in brainstorming.
Or imagine a group of schoolchildren, drawing on the tablet what each of them thinks about human rights in Northern Ireland, exchanging drawings and voting on them, instead of traditional citizenship education.
That is the sort of thing one of my Ph.D. students will be looking at: but maybe not with a 770, since it is hard enough to get one of them, let along a dozen for a social experiment.
I second the eBook reader. The only other piece missing is a SIP phone. It doesn't have to have great sound quality, but it does need to work. For great calls, we already have Nokia cellphones. :-)
-- Ward Mundy at NerdVittles.com
For me the "killer app" aspect of the 770 will be (still waiting to get mine) simple NET access combined with the Debian basis of the product bringing the world of FOSS software to the device.
What makes this so much more compelling than a PDA is
1) the full sized NET
2)Being a close derivative of the existing desktop space, allowing the existing software base to be ported
My suggestions for the present, support the hell out of efforts to bring the FOSS software apps onto the 770, actively, pro-actively, with a vengance. This is what will ultimately compete with Windows CE, the applications.
I think the device could be enlarged futher, say half the area of a magazine or slightly smaller (perhabs an alternative big-brother 990). By most accounts it could use more RAM, this can only help with type of apps able to run as well as concurrent usage. I'm curious why so much storage can be fit on to an i-pod yet the 770 seems to be fairly limited?
Why this product resonates for me is the portability and usabilty of the PDA form-factor combined with the delivery of a full computing and NET environment, and of course the Debian FOSS base with all of the attendant advantages that offers.
Keep improving, you have a winner. I and several other IT consultant friends are already finding potential customer uses for this.
Killer App is the Internet/Intranet with a crisp/clean database app running and accessed from the 770. Doctors, wharehouse workers, anybody that has to maintain and update data and does not want to carry a computer can use this. I'm currently re-working all our web databases(100's) to be sure all script is cross browser compliant.
When your getting started with anything, setting clear and simple goals is one of the most important things that you can do. Time management skills
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