A Future Where Usability is the Prime Virtue

(iPad image © Apple)

After months of speculation, rumour-mongering, and hype, the iPad was announced last week. A lot has been written elsewhere about it, much of it utterly wrongheaded, so I won't rehash any of that. However, some folks do seem to grok what the iPad is about — click on the links at the end of this post if you're curious to read what they say. In the meantime, imagine a near-future where computers are different — much more accessible and useful to non-geeks. First, a brief tour of where we came from, and how little progress we've made as computer
victims
users, really — until now.

Jan 2003, self-explanatory:

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues

Jan 2004 - Allchin (who led the Vista team) wrote:

From: Jim Allchin
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 8:38 AM
To: Bill Gates; Steve Ballmer
Subject: losing our way...

I am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems [our] customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate onto great products.

I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft...my point is about the philosophy that Apple uses. They think scenario. They think simple.

FAST FORWARD SIX YEARS

Feb 2, 2010 - developer David Alison looks back on his switch in 2008:

In relatively short order I went from having a MacBook to purchasing a Mac Pro, which replaced my primary Windows desktop. Whereas the MacBook was quick, the Mac Pro was-and still is-remarkably fast. With dual 2.8Ghz quad core Xeons and 12GB of RAM, I was suddenly able to run a huge number of applications seamlessly.

The bottom line is I'm really happy I decided to "try out" that MacBook two years ago. Computing-as a software developer the place I spent a huge number of my waking hours-became fun and exciting again.

Former MS Business Development Director Don Dodge tries out Apple stuff:

The most obvious distinction between Microsoft and Apple is design. Apple is quite simply the best hardware / software design company in the world...You see the design ethic in everything Apple does. The Mac, iPod, iTouch, iPhone and iPad are just beautiful, elegant, and imaginative designs that provide a delightful user experience.

Feb 4, 2010 - Former MS VP **** Brass recounts Microsoft's self-inflicted woes:

When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn't like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.

Which, when you think about it, describes most Microsoft products.

Contrast this with what's coming soon for the iPad:

People should have confidence that their work is always preserved unless they explicitly cancel or delete it. If your application helps people create and edit documents, make sure they do not have to take an explicit save action.

Bring it on!

Additional reading

Joe Hewitt: iPad

Fraser Speirs: Future Shock

Lucien Dupont: My Dad and the iPad

Mike Monteiro: The Failure of Empathy

The truth is not always pleasant

Vistagate

Well, it's now all over the Internet, here, here, and here. Long story short: recently revealed Microsoft internal emails show that Windows Vista was not only far from ready when it was released for sale to the public, Microsoft's own executives knew this, and Microsoft's partners (such as Intel, HP, and Dell) also did. Yet despite this, they all pushed Vista with a campaign about "The Wow! starts now." Filthy stinking liars, all of them. No wonder the Vista launch was met with widespread skepticism and sometimes outright disgust. Vista was called a chrome-plated turd, and worse. All those negative reviews? Utterly deserved. Computerworld's Gregg Keizer writes,

Last-minute changes... broke drivers, forcing key hardware vendors to "limp out with issues" when the operating system launched last year, according to a presentation... that was made public this week.

From the same publication, Mike Elgan opines:

Everybody's talking today about "Drivergate" — internal Microsoft e-mails that show senior Microsoft executives personally struggling to use hardware products sporting the "Windows Vista Capable" sticker. The e-mails also show that Microsoft lowered its standard for some hardware compatibility, apparently to help Intel impress Wall Street. This revelation is simply the latest in a long series that add up to one inescapable conclusion: Windows Vista sucks.

Gee, tell us something we don't already know.

PCMag's Lance Ulanoff wrote:

Overall, Microsoft's chief concern during this time appears to be everything but the consumer.

So, not only does Microsoft treat its customers as suspected criminals (with such nonsense as Windows Genuine Advantage and user-hostile product activation), they utterly disregard the interests of their customers in order to maximize their own revenue (e.g. through selling multiple versions). Whoop-dee-do.

Recently, to prop up lackluster retail Vista sales, Microsoft reduced the price. Brian Caulfield's take in Forbes Magazine? Microsoft's Cheaper Vista: Don't Bother.

Exactly.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I wouldn't bother running Windows Vista even if it was free (as in beer). If I really wanted free, I'd run some flavour of Linux. As it is, MacOS X serves my current needs well, and I'm not even running the latest version.

The Times, They Are A'Changin'

I used to read PC Magazine (PCMag) regularly, even after I started using a Mac (in 1996) as my primary computer. If I recall correctly, I started with PCMag Vol. 1 No. 3 (and I've kept my Vol. 1 No. 1 issue of PC World magazine). PCMag was one of my main sources of information about personal computing, along with Byte, Macworld, and MacUser. This was all well before the web was invented — no Slashdot, no Ars Technica, no Digg, no Gizmodo, no Engadget. PCMag occasionally ran articles about Macs, just so their readers would know about that other computer. The overall tone of the articles tended to be dismissive. My, my, how times have changed. Now, MacOS X 10.5 Leopard is a PCMag Editor's Choice. Edward Mendelson writes:

Leopard again raises the question of whether to switch from Windows to a Mac. I've found Vista to be a major disappointment that tends to look worse the more I use it. I still use Windows XP for getting serious work done in long, complicated documents. But OS X is easier to manage and maintain and I vastly prefer OS X to Windows for Web-browsing, mail, and especially for any task that involves graphics, music, or video. Leopard performs all such tasks even better than previous versions did—and Leopard is the only OS on the planet that works effortlessly and intuitively in today's world of networked computers and peripherals. Leopard is far from perfect, but it's better than any alternative, and it's getting harder and harder to find good reasons to use anything else.

So, just in case it isn't crystal clear — a Mac is, or should be, the No. 1 choice of anyone who's buying a new personal computer for multimedia use. And nowadays, that's almost everyone whose budget allows for more than a bare-bones $199 Linux desktop PC or an Asus Eee.

Vista SP1: Don't Hold Your Breath

A lot of people I've spoken with who've tried Windows Vista did so only because it came preinstalled on their new PCs. It's not as though they were eager to "upgrade" from Windows XP. In fact, the opposite was often true: many wanted to go back to Windows XP after experiencing Vista. In case you were wondering whether the upcoming release of the first service pack for Vista would reduce its suckage, wonder no more. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has been testing Vista SP1, and he observed:

In briefing me on SP1, Microsoft made a big point of saying that great progress had been made in the past year in making Vista work properly with add-on devices, such as printers. I tried my 2003-vintage Hewlett-Packard printer, which hadn’t worked properly with the original Vista. It still didn’t work well with SP1.

In other words: Vista SP1 still sucks.

The Horror of Vista

Phil Greenspun relates a horrific tale of software gone awry, which underlines how perfectly awful the Vista out-of-box experience can be for some unfortunate souls. It's not unlike having the transmission fall out just after you drive your brand new car off the lot. Yes, apparently it can be that bad.

No wonder people are sticking with Windows XP, or switching to Macs. Those who switch to Macs, like entrepreneur Mark Cuban, often become fanboys. In some cases, whole families switch to Macs — permanently. A priceless quote:

Adapting to life on a Mac was effortless, and delivered a much easier, better and more intuitive computing experience for everything I needed and wanted to do than any of the Windows-based PCs that littered the previous two decades.

Nowadays, I often wonder why anyone would even consider buying a Windows PC.

Uh-oh

In earlier posts, I had written about the problems some people have experienced with Windows Vista, shortly after it became widely available, more than six months ago. A lot of folks discovered that their hardware became unusable after upgrading to Microsoft's latest and greatest OS. Have things changed much since then? Apparently not. Chris Pirillo writes:

From the beginning, Vista has had issues. In many instances, we’re not talking minor problems. Driver incompatibility, hardware incompatibility, software not running, programs or the computer itself randomly crashing… all just the tip of the iceberg. For many people, the software incompatibility issue was a nightmare. They installed Vista, only to find a very long list of programs that simply would not work.

Still thinking of upgrading to Vista? Think again. Since when has an upgrade allowed you to do less with your computer than before? The Baltimore Sun's David Zeiler sums it up well:

Earlier this year some PC manufacturers, most notably Dell, started offering XP as an option on many of its new PCs, also because of customer demand. That so many people would prefer a six-year-old operating system over Microsoft’s latest and greatest speaks volumes about how badly the folks at Redmond botched Vista.

The 'Wow' continues — as in, wow, six months later, Vista still sucks.

Fighting for the Most Vulnerable

Today marks the beginning of a long weekend here in Alberta, Canada — Monday being Family Day. I set aside Saturday morning to photograph my friend, Stephanie Gray, who needed a new headshot for her official bio. Let me tell you just a little bit about Stephanie: She's Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform, a pro-life organization that educates the public about what abortion is — the legalized murder of unborn children. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to understand this, or if they do, it's only at a vaguely notional level, which allows them to remain largely indifferent to the fact that in Canada their tax dollars are paying for unrestricted access to abortion in every trimester. As if this grossly immoral misuse of public money isn't tragedy enough, I reflect on the fact that two of the world's wealthiest men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, give vast sums of money to various organizations that promote abortion. I'm not making any of this up. In 2003, American Life League tallied contributions to Planned Parenthood from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and came up with a total of $31,567,108 — which may not seem like a lot compared to the total philantrophy attributed to them. But let's look at this another way: according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the average cost of an abortion in the U.S. is $372; do some basic math, and the Gates contributions as of 2003 represent 84,858 abortions. Think about it: 84,858 people aren't with us today in part because the world's wealthiest couple thought it was a good idea to give money to organizations that murder the unborn. And it's not like this was even an original idea — see Bill Moyers' 2003 interview with Bill Gates:

When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that. And so it's fascinating. At the dinner table my parents are very good at sharing the things that they were doing. And almost treating us like adults, talking about that.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go. So I always knew there was something about really educating people and giving them choices in terms of family size.

Good grief, it's bad enough that Microsoft Windows is already installed on over 90% of the world's personal computers, but to think that every time I pay for a Microsoft product I help to fund the murder of unborn children makes me sick to my stomach. And I even went to the trouble of getting Microsoft-certified on Windows XP. Sigh.

There are alternatives to Microsoft products, you know. If you're so inclined, try Linux, or if you want something that's much less of a hassle, get a Mac. Please. Either way, you'll have far fewer problems with viruses and other malware. I played with Windows 1.0 in 1985, I've installed and configured it for other people starting with 2.0, and I've been using it regularly myself since Windows 3.1. My involvement with Windows ends with XP and 2003. No Vista for me.

Now, if you're from Canada and you've read this far, why not join the fight to end abortion?

Something is Rotten

Another week gone by, and I thought enough bad news had come out about Windows Vista. Retail copies (how many versions again?) are reportedly selling nowhere near initial expectations (can you say Zune?) Around this time one can imagine "Wow!" followed by a dull thud as a first-time Vista user encounters User Account Control and its oh-so-welcome reminders. In the meantime, Bruce Schneier wrote for Forbes (and on his own site) on "Why Vista's DRM is Bad for You":

Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry. And you don't get to refuse them.

Oh boy. When one of the planet's leading crypto experts outs Vista as a DRM hairball, you have to wonder how long before the Redmond fans call him an inveterate Microsoft-basher, but don't hold your breath. The simple reality is that most computer users don't know anything other than Windows (and Internet Explorer, or IE), either because their employers force them to use IE, or because they've never tried anything else. Firefox is so much safer to use — by comparison Internet Explorer 6 was unprotected for 284 days in 2006. I'm not kidding.

The Tide May Be Shifting, Ever So Slightly

You know something's afoot when Microsoft's latest and greatest OS is getting lukewarm or even hostile reviews from a whole raft of technology writers. Microsoft apologists and astroturfers in the blogosphere can pretend it's business as usual, but Vista has been called a chrome-plated turd, a Windows expert (Scott Finnie) has very publicly decided to switch to MacOS X (when will Vista chief Jim Allchin follow?), and now comes word that Intel co-founder (employee badge #3) Les Vadasz bought himself a MacBook Pro. He joins Tim Berners-Lee, David Hansson, Paul Graham, James Gosling, Tim Bray, Amit Singh, and Bill Joy, among other notables — a very impressive group of tech luminaries.

Scott Finnie wrote:

After living with the Mac for three months and comparing it with my Vista experiences, the choice is crystal clear. I've struggled to sort out my gut feeling about Windows Vista (see "The Trouble with Vista"), but the value and advantage of the Mac and OS X are difficult to miss. While I continue to work with Windows XP and Vista on a number of other machines, I am now recommending the Macintosh for business and home users.

It's as if the scales fell from his eyes. Apparently, he's not the only one — Stephen Manes writes for Forbes:

Windows Vista: more than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump. The new slogan is: "The 'Wow' Starts Now," and Microsoft touts new features, many filched shamelessly from Apple's Macintosh. But as with every previous version, there's no wow here, not even in ironic quotes. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out.

Ouch.

Why would Vista elicit such viscerally negative reactions? Some of the comments seen in the blogosphere are revealing. From Mini-Microsoft:

I wish I had done more day-to-day home-use testing. I looked forward to using Outlook 2007, but in the end I've settled on Gmail for my domain. Same with Vista/IE7, there are a lot of obvious bugs and issues that if I had done more day-to-day testing I would have reported on.

And:

I know you'd like to hear positive news about Vista, but we ended up sending both back to Dell this morning. Out of the box, both machines reported driver conflicts. Updating didn't help. The video cards were unrecognized. Now, this may be Dell's fault rather than Microsoft's, but Vista gets the blame.

Or from This Lamp:

Tonight one of my students was struggling to get some assignments transferred from her new Acer laptop (bought just this week) to a flash drive that I handed to her. She muttered something about hating "this new Windows Vista," so I walked over to her desk to see if I could help. She had only booted the laptop a few minutes earlier, loaded her documents into Word, and was now trying to save them to my flash drive--which is supposed to be driverless on any system. What I saw when I looked at her screen was a total freeze up. The mouse pointer wouldn't move. I tried to alt-tab between applications. Nothing. I tried a control-alt-delete. Nothing.

As I held down the power button to shutoff her laptop, I would've been speechless had it not been for the one word that came to mind.

"Wow."

No matter what's causing such incompatibilities, it makes for an abysmal out-of-the-box user experience. 'The "Wow" Starts Now' sounds apropos — just not in a good way.

Just Tell the Truth Already, Mr. Bill

Recall the old saying "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we deign to deceive." It seems someone forgot to teach Bill Gates this — or if they did, he doesn't remember. Folks noticed that in some of his recent public appearances touting Windows Vista, Bill was, um, dishonest in claiming the new software is innovative (well, except in its use of draconian measures to deprive consumers of their fair use rights with digital media). He certainly isn't willing to admit its many obvious similarities to MacOS X, and he refused to concede that Apple had delivered on many of the much-touted features of Vista — years earlier. Well, as it turns out, Bill's nasty habit of lying — even under oath — was for a time a matter of public record. The anti-Microsoft consumer case in Iowa had a public website (now restricted to authorised users) where you could access trial exhibits. Of particular interest were the videotaped depositions of his testimony during the U.S. antitrust trial (in which Microsoft was convicted for being a predatory monopoly). I viewed Clip 12 and saw how Bill shifted and squirmed in his chair under questioning. At times I could even hear the exasperation in the voice of the person questioning Bill — Bill is by turns cagey, evasive, and downright mendacious. It's a pathetic display — of shameless lying. In the face of such a dismal public outing of Bill's thoroughly deceitful mentality, his otherwise praiseworthy philanthropic efforts now come across to me as brazen attempts to distract attention away from (if not atone for) his moral failings. If you're not fooled, you can take some consolation in the fact that others aren't fooled, either. It seems some of us learned a lesson from Enron. Would that more people did likewise.