The more open ended Web 2.0 approach...from Windows?

Time for another post, and this time it's something I'm VERY excited about. Sure I was excited previously for the iPad (I even made two posts about it), but I think the honey moon excitement period was over and the more I read about the iPad, the more I partially hear the words AppleTV blowing in the wind...I mean one program at a time is all you can use and there's the question of Flash compatibility, not too mention the dreaded App Store process, and I what I find as an amateur programmer looking to start developing software to be a bit off-putting. I mean the only way you can get software on the platform is if you use a Mac AND get accepted by the App Store. If I want to get a more open ended approach, I have to jailbreak my iPhone and then Apple treats you like a piece of dirt.

Now in walks the Windows Phone 7 Series, which while still mum on the details looks to be a real competitor. There is the whole Android thing but Google Chrome isn't really proven and no 3g on the latest model hurts a bit, and it looks a bit like something cheap made by some Korean company you've never heard of...oh wait I think it is! Here's a pic of the Windows Phone 7 Series (is that what we call it?):


Now that's classy! It's the very model of a perfect balance of sleek business shick, futuristic classiness, and simple functionality, but I'm not hear to talk about some sort of weird erotic obsession I may have with Microsoft gadgets (even if they don't have a bunch of crappy commercials with god awful indie music and a bunch of hip wannabes you'd never want for friends)...

I'd like to quickly touch on why I now think Microsoft now rules, very quickly, from a programming enthusiast's point of view:
- C#/C++/VB Express - great for development, free, and all you need to make programs
- XNA - free coding tools and templates to make games
- The fact that Microsoft has really humbled itself by listening to it's user base and giving them what they want.
- Xbox Live - if you like that
- The Zune - underrated but great
- tons of 3rd party software companies adopting royalty based approaches to using their development software to subsidize it's freeness (that a word?).

There's a lot more to it, but the key thing I want to bring up is that MIcrosoft is doing a lot to get me pumped up and that's before they even mentioned their phones. Especially because Microsoft is adopting a 'hub' approach to how you use your phone and it's totally customizable and can be streamlined based on the individuals needs. For me the Gaming hub might take precedence while the People hub might take precedence for someone else. I think it will be great to see what happens, plus there's no itunes needed and no garbage DRM. I'm hoping Microsoft will give more development tools for the masses based on the large user base using already using Windows.

I'm not going to rush out and sell my iPhone yet as Microsoft hasn't announced pricing, networks, locked or unlocked etc., but I may have a post about a 16gb 3gs for sale come Holiday season. I love my iPhone and I knock Apple but I'm still addicted to the iPhone, but still letting go might not be that hard...

iPad Round Two...DESTROY ALL BOOKS

My last blog was about the iPad and how great it is, and while the iPad alone may not signal the ushering in of a digital age of books, I think it may mark the new era of digital books.

It's no secret the iPad exists now and already the New York Times has an app coming out for the digital print edition, and talk of e-books and iPads seems to be two terms that get used in conjunction more and more. It's not just the iPad but Kindle and many others exist as well to make e-books more accessible, and while e-readers are still expensive, they're coming down in price and every year, just like mp3 players, and will soon be a common device (I predict 2010 holiday season).

E-books have been around for awhile though, so if digital books haven't caught on massively yet I don't think they'll have the same shock value on the print industry that digital music had on the record industry, but I think hardware like the iPad will be a catalyst in getting more people to embrace digital print. Books much like vinyl records, have a lot of symbolism and will never go away, but the convenience of having so much data and knowledge at your fingertips will be something that has an addictive quality to it, and I think it may be enough to shift a lot more people towards reading again. Especially in today's society where we see value in things that are easy and come to us. Using an e-reader is like using a computer or a novel so the familiarity will be there no matter who you are.

Contrary to my thoughts (which are pretty much haphazard at best), some in the industry think digital books, more so their prices, will kill paper books. Some companies have have gone as far (Macmillan) to take action against Amazon selling their books digitally for $10, and Amazon even bowed to some of the pressure (read about it here ).

I think it's exciting to see books talked about so hotly, as a musician and someone who's made some money off music, I honestly could care less about some bigger record companies getting ripped off, but a lot of these big book publishers have aggressively adapted prices to the market, not to mention how much effort goes into these books. I think of all the years it takes some authors to write the 900 page programming books I use, then I think of that godawful template music on the radio, and I can't help but feel some authors are under paid.

I don't think digital books will have that same tactile ease or pleasure you get from flipping through a text book, but to carry primers to C++, C#, and Lua in one handy little reader that weighs a pound could be something just as pleasurable. Either way I can't wait to see what comes next for digital print.