Nova Spivack from Twine wrote an interesting post over at Read/WriteWeb about the future of the desktop which I’d like to comment on. It really ties in nicely with what I’ve been thinking about recently around user interfaces, especially since any hardware innovations will necessarily involve an ACTUAL operating system.
I agree 100% with Nova when he says that everything is moving to the cloud. SmugMug lets me store my high-res photos in my own Amazon S3 store, Jungle Disk lets me back up everything else to the cloud. Storage is, for me, a monthly utility expense (and last month it only cost me $3.18, so for me this is much cheaper than hard drive space, backup, backup tapes, tracking everything, and worrying).
About so-called WebOS/Webtop apps, Nova says:
People don’t want to manage all their information on the Web in the
same interface they use to manage data and apps on their local PC. The
Web is an entirely different medium than the desktop and it requires a
new kind of interface. The desktop of the future – what some have
called "the Webtop" – still has yet to be invented.
Right
on. The nature of data is different on the Web. The file-folder
paradigm just doesn’t work anymore, especially when you don’t own a lot
of the data you’re using (I would estimate the ratio of using to
producing data is something like 20 to 1). This is not the domain of
files on a hard drive, it is the domain of globally-accessible
information in the cloud. The world is no longer flat, but the
desktop, and the current crop of applications, are built for only two
dimensions.
As we move into a world that is increasingly mobile, where users often
work across several different devices in the course of their day, we
need unified access to our applications and data. This requires that
our applications and data do not reside on local devices anymore, but
rather that they will live in the cloud and be accessible via Web
services.
Yeah,
I agree. But it shouldn’t stop with just the data… I want personal
Web services in the cloud that can be reached at any time as well, that
can manipulate my data. Don’t touch my data yourself, I’ll handle it
for you, thanks. Problem is, it’s the Wild West out there right now.
While the standards are out there, developers don’t see why they would
benefit from using them yet.
Then he loses me a little bit:
If these trends continue, will the browser eventually swallow up or
simply replace the desktop? Yes. In fact, it will probably happen very
soon. There just isn’t any reason to have a desktop outside the browser
anymore. What we think of as "the desktop" is really just a perspective
on our information and applications – it’s really just another "page"
or context in our digital lives.
Well, maybe. However, there are still a FEW compelling use-cases for desktops versus the Web:
- Games
- Low-level hardware requests (for using new hardware)
- CPU-intensive applications (such as Photoshop and Premiere)
While I agree long-term (talking, 5 to 10 years out), I think
browsers have a ways to go before these types of apps can run in
browsers, and be stable. Flash helps, but it’s not there yet. There
are some things like thread handling and memory management that
browsers still rely heavily on the OS for. But yes, eventually I can’t
see why you wouldn’t plug a browser OS CD into your bare-bones laptop
and run everything you need from that.
The desktop of the future is going to be more concerned with helping
users manage information overload – particularly the overload caused by
change. In this respect, it is going to feel more like an RSS feed
reader or a social news site than a directory. The focus will be on
helping the user to manage and keep up with all the stuff flowing in
and out of the their environment.
Nah,
c’mon, this is a bit of a reach. We did plenty of stuff on desktops
before we were connected to the Net 24/7. Not only that, but unless
you’re a reporter how would you get an ACTUAL WORK done if your OS was
constantly pushing things in your face?
The Webtop is going to be more socially oriented than desktops of today
– it will have built-in messaging and social networking, as well as
social-media sharing, collaborative filtering, discussions, and other
community features.
Agreed,
but this DOES require the death of social networks as we know them,
because their features will just be foundational elements absorbed into
the infrastructure needed for this "Webtop".
Our next-generation shared spaces will be nestable and linkable like
folders, but they will be far more powerful and dynamic, and they will
be accessible via HTTP and other APIs such as SPARQL enabling data to
be moved in and out of them easily by other applications around the Web.
Interesting.
I like the idea of spaces with only certain participants, but doesn’t
this require a much finer level of security granularity than any
consumer is used to using?
One of the most important aspects of the coming desktop is that it’s
going to be smart. It’s going to have to be. Users simply cannot handle
the complexity of their information landscapes anymore – they need help.
Why
does everyone keep SAYING this? No, you don’t need a pill to help you
lose weight, you need to cut back on what you eat. Simple. Eliminate
the noise, or find someone who will filter it for you. Not like
there’s a lack of people doing that these days…
The Webtop is going to learn and help you to be more productive. As you
use it, it’s going to adjust to your interests, relationships, current
activities, information and preferences. It will adaptively
self-organize to help you focus your attention on what is most
important to whatever context you are in.
I
have yet to see this work well. If the application moves something
because it’s trying to figure out where I would like it better, I
inevitably get pissed off because it’s not where it used to be and have
to go hunt for it.
Your desktop will actually be a
semantic knowledge base on the back-end. It will encode a rich semantic
graph of your information, relationships, interests, behavior and
preferences. You will be able to permit other applications to access
part or all of your graph to datamine it and provide you with
value-added views and even automated intelligent assistance.
Ah, now THAT’s cool. Give the man a cigar! Why do I think Kingsley will have something to say about this 
Information that is considered to be personal and private in Web site X
should be recognized and treated as such by other applications and
websites you choose to share that information with.
You’re
making this too complicated. You just got done talking about storage
in the cloud, why are you going back to the hard drive-based
application model now? I want MY data in MY storage.
The semantic web provides a good infrastructure for building and
deploying a decentralized framework for policy and privacy integration,
but it has yet to be developed, let alone adopted.
Developed, yes. Adopted, no.
No discussion of the future of the desktop would be complete without delving into the topic of the WebOS.
Oh, no.
Many of the services that comprise an operating system are already
available as Web services, but they are not yet integrated into a
single cohesive WebOS. However it seems clear that the major players
are aware of this opportunity and are positioning their services to
capture it.
I
think that fact pretty much guarantees the death of "WebOS" as a
potential buzzword. I’ll just wait for Microsoft to come out with one
and that term will die within two years. Thankfully.
I like Nova’s ideas… some of them are exactly what I’ve been
saying for a long time. However, he still has a little too much of the
old Microsoft thinking that he needs to rid himself of. Whatever this
thing ends up being he’s absolutely right that it won’t look anything
like a current operating system/desktop, but rooting those old
constraints out of the design process takes a lot of mental work.
I’d like to add that I also really hate the word "Webtop"
