The post iPhone world

September 19, 2009 By

One fun thing I like asking representatives from Nokia, Microsoft, or Research in Motion is “what does the post iPhone world look like?”

It is my way of sensing whether they’ve done any creative thinking. So far I’ve gotten mostly blank stares.

It’s like Steve Jobs has convinced everyone in the industry that nothing possibly can replace the iPhone on the coolest device shelf.

Me? I’ve seen this play before. Remember Sony’s Walkman?

I like pretending we live in a post iPhone world.

How do we get there?

Well, what would happen if we lived in a Twitter world? One where every light switch, every device, every machine, had a Twitter account?

I asked a Microsoft executive recently why they haven’t released a .NET/Silverlight runtime that Tweets.

His answer surprised me “have you signed our NDA yet?”

That’s code for “we’re working on just that.”

After all, Microsoft probably doesn’t like it that IBM has ruled enterprise marketing with its “Smart Planet” meme.

So, why would Microsoft support a Twitter world? Because if Microsoft helped Twitter build a world where everything has a Twitter API then Microsoft would also get the keys to the post-iPhone world.

“Huh?”

Well, let’s assume that Microsoft had .NET runtimes on everything. Right now I’m staring at an IV machine in the hospital room where our next son will be born. Why couldn’t a doctor Tweet that machine? Using a message that looks something like this:

@sequoia_iv_0451 set level to 1 pt per hour

That would change the drip rate on her machine to 1 pint per hour.

That doesn’t seem that important, does it? But now what if EVERY device in the hospital had a runtime like this and could be queried through a Twitter language?

Wouldn’t that open up new application possibilities that don’t exist today? Absolutely!

Wouldn’t that encourage new kinds of devices to be built? Absolutely!

Wouldn’t that mean we’d need a replacement for the iPhone? Absolutely!

Why? Well, let’s put it this way. If you had tons of devices in your world that you wanted to interact with TweetDeck or SimplyTweet just wouldn’t cut it.

Now, what if Microsoft made such a Twitter system more reliable? After all, if a doctor is going to have a device that will talk to all sorts of machines during surgery there can’t be a possibility of a fail whale.

Once Microsoft got .NET runtimes out in enough things they could come in and build a shadow Twitter that’s more reliable than Twitter and that has some cool features.

Then once that’s done Microsoft could ship a post-iPhone world. Why? Because they would be able to build a device that would be optimized for this Twitter world.

Oh, OK, this is all science fiction. After all it’s preposterous to think that the iPhone won’t stay on the coolest device shelf forever.

Right?

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  • http://twitter.com/srbelken Sherrie Belken

    You are on fire

  • http://twitter.com/bbetances Brandon Betances

    Why does it have to be Microsoft that does it? Why not Google?

  • http://www.zacharyadamcohen.com/farmtotable Zachary Adam Cohen

    i love the way u think robert, and i continue to learn so much from you. I am about to launch a restaurant consultancy business in NYC to do social media strategy and the applications you render in this blog have got my mind brimming…

  • http://www.jonathancoffman.com Jonathan Coffman

    I'd say that in many respects, Microsoft is further along in “getting it” as far as social type technologies go (case in point the xBox) — Google just hasn't been able to get their fingers into the space very effectively yet. They undoubtedly will, but for now the point goes to MS.

  • http://twitter.com/EverywhereTrip Gary Arndt

    What you say makes sense, it is just that I have never seen Microsoft help another company. They compete with anyone and everyone that has anything to do with computers. It would seem to go against their DNA to make a Twitter client. They are probably working on something to compete with Twitter that will only run on Windows, will have the word “Live” in it, and only work on IE8.

    Also, why is Twitter part of a post iPhone world? It's a service. the iPhone is a device.

    The iPhone will be swamped when the price of smart phones gets low enough that every current mobile phone user in Africa, India, Vietnam, etc. gets an Android type phone and this becomes the portal to the internet for most of the population on Earth.

  • http://www.louisgray.com/live/ Louis Gray

    Robert, this is something I've thought a lot about as well. Last year (August of 2008), I wrote a post: “The iPhone Cannot Be The End. So What's Next?”

    http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/08/iphone-ca…

    The Palm Pre is not what's next. The Android platform may be part of what's next. The Blackberry doesn't look like what's next. It seems they're all waiting for what's next for Apple instead.

  • http://www.jonathancoffman.com Jonathan Coffman

    Louis, exactly. The current players aren't showing many signs of doing anything truly disruptive (ie disrupt the iPhone) it's going to take much more than an open-source platform, much more than fancy push-email, and much more than multi-touch (although I think multi-touch is here to stay).

  • http://www.victorpanlilio.com Victor Panlilio

    The iPhone is currently the “Michael Jordan” of phones (according to Sprint's CEO). However, I suspect that by 2012, its descendants and competitors will be at least as powerful as today's high-end laptops, and likely more so. Even today's iPhone 3Gs can edit/trim video prior to uploading to YouTube, and that's with a single-core 600MHz CPU and 256MB RAM. The 4G handhelds of 2012 will likely be able to shoot (and perhaps even stream) 1080p natively. The new iPod nano can apply special effects in real time to its 640×480 video. So the multimedia chops of future handhelds will be pretty amazing by today's standards. So we're going to be able to carry A LOT of computing power in our pockets. That's assuming the world economy hasn't imploded.

  • http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

    Microsoft helps lots of other companies. They helped MySpace when MySpace was having scalability problems. They helped NBC do the Olympics last year. Etc.

  • http://www.facebook.com/chieze Chieze Okoye

    Quite a fascinating article, actually and it brings up some really interesting points.

  • http://staynalive.com jessestay

    Hmmm…an IV machine with a Twitter account – we could have fun with that. :-)

  • http://staynalive.com jessestay

    Hmmm…an IV machine with a Twitter account – we could have fun with that. :-)

  • http://www.jonathancoffman.com Jonathan Coffman

    Certainly would require some additional “privacy” settings huh? Maybe a real reputation system too? (ie No interns messing with your meds!)

  • http://www.facebook.com/chieze Chieze Okoye

    BTW, MS is not a person. They don't have DNA. One of the problems with personifying corporations is that you miss the fact that they're made up of people, really smart people, some of whom have really good ideas, and then you get blindsided when they do something that “goes against their DNA.”

  • http://twitter.com/dennis_jernberg Dennis Jernberg

    Not science fiction per se, but definitely a plausible piece of speculation (one of my own hardwired habits, BTW). And that's just about Microsoft (and .NET). Add Google and various other Apple competitors, some of which aren't even in existence yet, and things could get really interesting…

  • http://twitter.com/dennis_jernberg Dennis Jernberg

    Sometimes you simply have to use metaphors. But you're right in that metaphors can get in the way of understanding, or progress…

  • http://staynalive.com jessestay

    Not to mention a secure password and reliable Twitter team to keep the
    account secure. I would never trust it. I could have some serious fun with
    it as a hacker though :-)

  • http://www.Tweetworks.com Mike Langford

    I first heard the Twitter as a data feed idea, including machine instructions, from Richard Dale (@venturecyclist) at a Jeff Pulver Social Media Jungle event here in Boston this spring. Basically, Twitter can be used for whatever you want to transmit in 140 character snippets. Why not machine instructions?

    Funny thing is, it has taken me until this past week to discover an application for this with the Tweetworks API. We are now scoping something very cool for the mobile space.

    You lost me a bit on the relationship to a post iPhone world though. Sure, Microsoft could do some coolness but certainly someone will create an iPhone app that communicates with it.

    Where I see Microsoft playing a big role is in Twitter Exchange Server. That's right! Twitter needs to be bullet proof as it scales as you mention. It also needs to reach new places where it currently can't go. Why not treat Twitter as a set of conventions, much like email?

    BTW: I hope everything is going smoothly with the delivery.

    –

    Mike Langford

    CEO, Tweetworks LLC

    Tweet Me: @MikeLangford

    http://www.facebook.com/MikeLangford

  • http://friendfeed.com/scottanderson scott

    Apple will not be able to follow Android into the domain of embedded systems. Android is already built on a very lean multi-process component model while the iPhone was designed to run monolithic apps. Additionally, Apple does not have the resources to compete against such a diverse set of industries. The profit margins are just not going to be sufficient to justify the investments required to go there. Android is free … it's hard to compete with that. Apple will probably get their technology into televisions and do well there but they will soon have to start defending their turf against those that have learned from their success. I wouldn't count Sony out just yet. I read that the next iteration of the Walkman will run on Android.

    Microsoft + Twitter = Blue screen of death + Fail whale. Enough said. I think XMPP (also free and open) will be the common language that devices will be speaking to each other with.

  • http://portal.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    You're being very creative in that waiting room!
    I like Every device with a Twitter account- probably will have a better chance than every device with an IP which we have heard about for such a long time with lame results.
    That damn so called keyboard still annoys me on my iPhone.
    I would place my bets on Microsoft pulling another Bing-like rabbit. They are due for some serious innovation.

  • http://portal.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    See? That was my iPhone. I swear I touched Post once. Disqus shld have a way to sense it was a duplicated entry.

  • llbbl

    Why do .NET when zend framework already supports it.
    http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.servic…
    Also Microsoft sucks at embeddable devices. Are you going to throw 4gb of ram in a IV drip machine just so it can run windows 7? no, not when you can make a small ass linux distro run with 88% less ram than needed for windows.

  • http://www.arikfr.com/blog/ Arik Fraimovich

    Scoble, most of time you really manage to understand the average user (and that's why I really like reading your stuff). But this time it seems that you completely missed it.

    While text interfaces appeal to us geeks (I'm in my terminal window 70% of my time anyway), I don't think this is the case with your doctor. Next time you're at the hospital – ask him whether he would like to control the IV machine with from an iPhone (on any other smart device) with a dedicated interface or by sending text messages to it.

  • http://twitter.com/johnkoetsier John Koetsier

    Scoble … love where you're going with this conceptually, but …

    What if Tweeting is a really stupid interface to control machinery with? I assume you're using Twitter as a metaphor … but I'm not sure.

  • http://www.zacharyadamcohen.com/farmtotable Zachary Adam Cohen

    if it means that doctor doesn't have to run in or call a nurse on the phone
    and can finish the back 9, i guarantee that doctor will learn…and QUICK

  • http://www.arikfr.com/blog/ Arik Fraimovich

    With an application on a smartdevice he doesn't have to call a nurse or type weird messages.

  • http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

    A GUI front end could be made to generate text-based messages. You do realize that Windows itself generates text-based messages when you move your mouse, right? So why couldn't a front end generate and consume text-based Tweets?

  • http://www.arikfr.com/blog/ Arik Fraimovich

    I thought that maybe you think of Twitter as the infrastructure, but why add another layer?

    For machines it easier to parse out JSON or XML rather than plain text. Also there are better solutions to deliver data between devices that doesn't involve adding another layer such as Twitter. It's called TCP/IP and it's not from 2010 – it's from 1980 ;)

  • http://twitter.com/hamutalm Hamutal Meridor

    I believe the point isn't the infrastructure, but the mere fact that all devices are connected, real-time. Having said that, should devices and people be connected through the same infrastructure that may prove an excellent ground for innovation – hence the post iPhone world Scoble was trying to envision.

  • http://chrisheath.us Chris Heath

    i don't like the idea of an IV machine being on twitter… just doesn't seem like the right way to do it

  • http://trevorcarpenter.com/ Trevor Carpenter

    “Now, what if Microsoft made such a Twitter system more reliable?”

    Ha, ha, ha, ha! Come on Scoble. There are a lot of massive developers of all sorts of software products out there. Some of them actually make decent products. Microsoft is not one well known for “reliable”. They make stuff, but none of it is “reliable”. They make pretty stuff, sometimes, but none of it is “reliable”.

  • http://www.postlinearity.com gregorylent

    everything *will* talk to everything … the tech for that is in its new-born phase … what is called the “cloud” is only a finger pointing … does nature need to be secure? no, and what is coming will/must be equally ubiquitous as “nature” … in one-system thinking, security is not a question

  • http://www.leadsexplorer.com/ Mike Hutchins

    Hey Scoble, what you’re saying here is: everything should have a url and an api ? To be honest, we’ve heard that before.
    I can’t imagine needing to access everything using structured text, this is too prone to errors.

    It wouldn’t be too hard to make some sort of universal GUI that can construct structured text messages (or json?) though.

  • http://www.arikfr.com/blog/ Arik Fraimovich

    Most devices already connected all the time in realtime via the same infrastructure. This infrastructure is the Internet :)

  • http://twitter.com/footenotes Lisa Foote

    Scoble on living in a post-iPhone world

  • AlexanderAinslie

    … “science fiction”? Nah. Scoble circa. 2013: “I backed FriendFeed. $50 M. I backed Twitter. $1 B valuation. I backed Facebook. $15 B. I backed $MSFT. $1 Trillion. Not too bad.” Dude you have to figure out a way to monitize your Wuffie “backing” these bets or go the other way and turn yourself into a bonafide not-for-profit (with benefactors & sponsors, of course!).

    Another way your twitter like “universal runtime” can potentially play out, all be it with the benefit of a federated – but decentralized – model that should please @davewiner to no end, is the up coming Google Wave.

    In my opinion, this could be a dark horse in this game. But then again, WTF do I know. See these two posts from Jason Kolb ( http://www.twitter.com/jasonkolb ) founder of Latigent, acquired by CISCO: On Google Wave Security – http://bit.ly/GWaveSec & Google Wave Model – http://bit.ly/GWaveModel –

    These are the clearest, plain language, explanations I have come across on the subject of what the hell Google Wave is and its potentially game-changing implications.

    I have a hunch Twitter knows or senses this probability, hence, they are making the smart move to sell the “sizzle” (let potential acquirers fantasize the revenue it can possibly generate) not the “steak” (turn on monetization and be valued on a forward multiple marked to an actual rate of revenue generated) to achieve a $1 B valuation. Not to say that they cannot achieve (and likely exceed) this valuation by turning on rev streams now, but its a great fall back strategy in case they sell themselves in the short term.

    Your “universal runtime” meme also reminds me this beautiful Sunday afternoon in Paris of our beloved “Mr. Digital Cities is the New White” (formerly known as “Mr. Open is the new Black”), @marccanter4real, the original Bad Boy of Open, telling us all about embedding social into devices like refrigerators, TV's and the like which has now come to pass. Shout out to Marc: “Yo, dude – its damn boring without you around to stir up the waters in this here Red Ocean! – Ketiva Ve-Chatima Tovah to you & yours.”

    Robert: Congratulations in advance for your wonderful addition to the Scoble Dynasty.

    Now I am going for a walk by the river.

    Peace,
    http://www.twitter.com/aainslie

  • http://jasonkolb.com jasonkolb

    Ug, I hate your example. Twitter is not anywhere near robust enough to be handling medical messages like that which could actually kill people.

    You're talking a message bus here, and using Twitter because that's the most familiar version of one. But it's not really a message bus, people are just trying to hack it into one. I, for one, would not want my IV drip controlled by public tweets. A lethal fail whale? No thanks.

    To do this stuff for real you'd need something at LEAST as secure and atomic as XMPP to handle this type of traffic. Thankfully I think Google Wave has the potential to mainstream XMPP to the point where the kind of stuff you're talking about is not only feasible but inevitable.

  • david45011

    Imagining the post iPhone world – that I get. I don't know what it looks like other than it being an AT&T-less world, but it is certainly a way to move forward. But then you lost me with the Twitter stuff. It isn't that I don't get Twitter its just that a) I can't take it seriously and b) I can't see how it jump starts the post iPhone world since Twitter and the iPhone are a great pair.

    Seems to me maybe you drank a bit of Ballmer's happy juice and then mixed a double espresso on top of it. Besides, you assume that Apple will stand still. Don't.

  • http://www.twitter.com/aainslie Alexander Ainslie (@AAinslie)

    Jason, welcome to the debate and thanks for being such a plain speaking geek. My inner geek groks your logic & appreciates the valuable insight that I am gleaning on this important subject.

  • http://www.facebook.com/clarence.chiang Clarence Chiang

    I would think the post-iPhone world would be a mobile ecosystem where no gate-keeper exist. Where there is no Apple to block app approval, no wireless carrier to limit phone or app functionality, where native app and web-based HTML5/6/7 app will work seamlessly.

  • http://twitter.com/IdeaTagger Louis Adekoya

    I don't think the next great phone is as far-fetched as we've been led to believe. What's great about the iPhone can be narrowed down to the following IMHO – Apps, Design and Performance. Of these, only the Apps bit should feel daunting to competitors and even then, perhaps it shouldn't.

    Any strategy to compete with the iPhone should include an apps platform that is nothing short of revolutionary in terms of ease-of-development and perhaps even more importantly, the ability to easily port iPhone apps to it. The target should be for non-developers to be able to create apps fairly complex apps for this platform. Anything remotely close to that would be enough.

  • http://twitter.com/EverywhereTrip Gary Arndt

    They 'helped' the Olympics to try and get Silverlight market share…..

  • http://twitter.com/EverywhereTrip Gary Arndt

    Dude, it's a figure of speech. I'm talking about corporate culture. The Microsoft corporate culture doesn't work well with others. Not every person in a company matters the same when you are talking about culture and policy. Steve Balmer's opinions will trump any underling.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    That's the type of expectations that shatter the status quo, fantastic vision Victor! What do you think we can do to aid design, help build, and ultimately take advantage of opportunities available in this ubiquitous portable computing world? I'm hungry for the reality of advanced software design, which I believe we are in greater need of then even the type of amazing hardware options you describe. The cost of programming and software support will decrease only when the ease of use for high level web ready languages improves.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    William just think of all the information from ubiquitous real time streams. I don't see Twitter owning it all now that alternative open real time options are gaining popularity. We're going to need much more powerful search and pattern matching tools within media.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Alexander, info rich comment! I will have to read up on Marc Canter, his ideas definitely sound worth Checking out. I appreciated your topic bouncing, resonated with my internal chaos compass. Technology is unleashing our creative potential much like the arrival of paints on ancient rocky walls. Only now the paint will be able to morph over time, and the art will be able to communcate with eachother.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Only if we demand it to be so Clarence, and finances allow for it. I truly hope the future you envision is the one that wins out. I suspect I will have to help fight for it.

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Louis you hit it out of the park. Ease of portability and development will unlock greater value for users than the other aspects of the tech. As we embrass new ultra portable computing and Internet extensions into our physical lives, developers may be business experts, athletic stars, and story tellers. The exclusion of the majority of our sum creativity, is about to end with the arrival of incredible high level design languages.

  • http://en-gb.facebook.com/roygdavis Roy Davis

    Erm, perhaps I've missed the point but why Twitter-enable the .Net runtime just so that it can receive tweets? Isn't that what an IP address and XML could do, and you could POST directly to the runtime rather than have the runtime poll a service (also IP'd BTW) periodically.

    I still don't quite “get” Twitter, which is why I probably don't quite “get” the benefits it could supposedly bring.

  • http://twitter.com/chris_alexander Chris Alexander

    Very cool vision. You're basically envisioning a future where every device is available and accessible by a stripped-down command line. Surely the same would be possible if everything had a linux server inside it (you can get some pretty small ones these days) and you could just SSH into it and issue commands. But I guess that's too techy.

    Also, I can't believe you're blogging from the hospital! That's dedication.

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