Can I please have an application that just does the one simple thing it's supposed to? I feel like soon both iTunes and GMail are going to try to order my groceries for me.
In the case of Google, this is pretty much exactly where they are headed (by design):
"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," he elaborates. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."
Let's say you're walking down the street. Because of the info Google has collected about you, "we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are." Google also knows, to within a foot, where you are. Mr. Schmidt leaves it to a listener to imagine the possibilities: If you need milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google will remind you to get milk. It will tell you a store ahead has a collection of horse-racing posters, that a 19th-century murder you've been reading about took place on the next block.
Says Mr. Schmidt, a generation of powerful handheld devices is just around the corner that will be adept at surprising you with information that you didn't know you wanted to know. "The thing that makes newspapers so fundamentally fascinating—that serendipity—can be calculated now. We can actually produce it electronically," Mr. Schmidt says.
In the words of Anil Dash, after this morning's announcement, "This is my favorite app for editing ringtones, copying presentations to my iPad, telling friends I'm going to a concert & watching TV!"
What one simple thing is iTunes supposed to do? From early on it's been a multi-function program. It would be very difficult to pick out a small subset of features to point at as the core functionality of iTunes since from the early days it's been a music player, CD ripper, store, device manager, etc. Probably the last major new category of functionality added before Ping (which arguably is just an extension of the store) was video playback.
Music player + CD Ripper can be the simple thing it's supposed to do. Move the music and app store into a separate app. Move the device manager into a separate app. Move the social networking into the cloud.
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Can I please have an application that just does the one simple thing it's supposed to? I feel like soon both iTunes and GMail are going to try to order my groceries for me.
Not an Emacs user, I take it?
I consider emacs more of OS/environment rather than an application... but I've started to become an emacs addict over the past year.
"a great operating system, lacking only a decent editor"
In the case of Google, this is pretty much exactly where they are headed (by design):
"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," he elaborates. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."
Let's say you're walking down the street. Because of the info Google has collected about you, "we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are." Google also knows, to within a foot, where you are. Mr. Schmidt leaves it to a listener to imagine the possibilities: If you need milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google will remind you to get milk. It will tell you a store ahead has a collection of horse-racing posters, that a 19th-century murder you've been reading about took place on the next block.
Says Mr. Schmidt, a generation of powerful handheld devices is just around the corner that will be adept at surprising you with information that you didn't know you wanted to know. "The thing that makes newspapers so fundamentally fascinating—that serendipity—can be calculated now. We can actually produce it electronically," Mr. Schmidt says.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870490110457542...
In the words of Anil Dash, after this morning's announcement, "This is my favorite app for editing ringtones, copying presentations to my iPad, telling friends I'm going to a concert & watching TV!"
http://twitter.com/anildash/statuses/22732156912
You can always use QuickTime Player (or an antique version of WinAmp) if that's all you want.
Yes, Winamp 2.95 still is outstanding. Simple, functional, tiny footprint, etc.
Get it here: http://www.oldversion.com/Winamp.html and apply AlpineAmp skin: http://customize.org/winamp2/skins/4571
The lesson- Sometimes newer and more "features" != better.
What one simple thing is iTunes supposed to do? From early on it's been a multi-function program. It would be very difficult to pick out a small subset of features to point at as the core functionality of iTunes since from the early days it's been a music player, CD ripper, store, device manager, etc. Probably the last major new category of functionality added before Ping (which arguably is just an extension of the store) was video playback.
Music player + CD Ripper can be the simple thing it's supposed to do. Move the music and app store into a separate app. Move the device manager into a separate app. Move the social networking into the cloud.
Me and a friend have been trying to write a small app that only manages and plays music. Sadly, CoreAudio is proving to be a pain in the butt :(
On the Mac side, there are a couple of widgets that use your iTunes library but provide a very simple / non-cluttered interface.