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March 31, 2003
bad enough
Following on from yesterday's sprawling rant about Chris vs. technology (part xxx), I've crystallized a few thoughts on the emergence of software.
IAs, IDs, designers generally try and aim for software that is "good enough". We know it's not perfect, but it does most of the things you expect, easily enough for most people to understand it.
We've reached a point, on a number of fronts, where the software is "bad enough". Bad enough to not do what people want, even what it says on the tin, but the mere fact of its existence stops anyone else from developing competition.
I've faced this recently with the P800. There are few developers, and so if there is, say, an IRC app, everyone gets excited and thinks that that problem has been solved. Normally it hasn't - even the software authors admit it - but because of the perception of a solution, no one else tries to come up with something better.
I think every software category reaches this at some point, and it takes a big competitor, with lots of conviction, to shake the market back up again - for example MS coming in and shaking up the Lotus/WordPerfect monopolies. But the situation is getting worse, due to the increasing number of platforms and OSes. Programmers can only learn in so many environments, and UI developers can only create decent solutions in so many interfaces. Money can only be thrown at so many products.
I think blogging and aggregating have reached the point where the current developers are so entrenched in their viewpoints, principles and beliefs (oh, and a huge code mountain) that they can no longer make any radical changes. It'll take a big, huge, new entrant to get them really developing again.
Smartphone development is far from this point. It will reach an initial swell of new development for these devices, and I hope there are at least a few choices for each possible product type. They will all suck. But early adopters forgive that (unless they're a ranty designer trying to actually complete tasks), and the smart developers will learn from mistakes, incorporate user centred design, and know when to throw all that code away.
Just don't be surprised when Microsoft (Nokia etc. etc.) come from nowhere and pull rugs from under your feet.
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