Of course, part of that evolving use (at least for the iPad) does include some measure of apps. Here’s the answer that I’ve given to those folks who recently asked me about apps I use/best apps:

- Evernote: free, but I upgraded to the premium so that I could upload more per month; able to use for notepad replacement, also can do embedded images and has a voice recorder function (I wonder if the iPad 2 does video, that would be neat)
- Adobe Ideas: $5; that’s the app I use for the sketchnotes. Really handy, exports to PDF and JPG
- Tactilis: free; another drawing app; I use this for handwritten notes and sketch-oriented wireframes. 

Both of the above I can import via email or the app into Evernote which comes in handy

Mindjet for mind mapping

Textastic for HTML editing, it also connects to (s)FTP and Dropbox accounts
Good Reader: best PDF reader, does annotations (so you can sign documents and then send them back to folks), connects to Dropbox, WebDAV and a ton of other servers
Penultimate is a new drawing notebook I am looking at; seems to work best with a stylus, but connects really easily to Dropbox and Evernote

The rest I have includes, Idea Flight, Prezi Viewer, Go to Meeting, LogMeIn, Flipboard, Join.Me, and a few others. I have one page of apps, and they all sit in folders on the dock. I keep it real simple so that I can stay focused on here. As a matter of fact, I only do email on the iPad, I moved from doing it on my phone as I normally want to be more relaxed when replying.

As you can probably discern from that quote, I don’t have a lot of apps on my iPad. And the apps that I do have have to do with stitching content together, creating experiences, or getting a window into computing from a collaborative viewpoint. Nothing really dramatic about it, but the route that I’ve done this is different than some:

• My inital uses of the iPad centered on reading. I stuck to the browser (Google Reader), the Kindle app (am now using Kindle Cloud Reader), and Good Reader for PDFs
• Once I got comfortable there, I moved to doing light email – and as I say above, I now do all email on my iPad (I don’t get so much email that it matters that I need to see it on my mobile when it comes in).
• After email, I went next to reading more indepth pieces, specalized magazines like photomags from National Geographic and content heavy pieces from the Economist have been excellent. Flipboard came into the equation here as well as this took my Google Reader and Twitter reading/contributing into that same reading paradigm
• And then I went into doing more creative items with the drawing and HTML prototyping.

I don’t see a need for a lot of applications which might be deemed normal by some. In fact, when I upgraded to iOS 5, I didn’t even both to put back on Kindle, any Bible app, and several magazine apps (most of which had no refereshed content or had a sucky UX).

As I tweeted about this morning, I do think that some features of the iPad’s UI need considerable work so that it can be better usable as I am using it. The user interface for the web browser doesn’t fit the gesture or size metaphor of the iPad one bit. The single-process/tasking nature of iOS also doesn’t lend itself well for heavy sessions of multiple tabs open, with copying and linking happening into another app like Evernote. I’d love to see an app like Scrivener make it to the iPad (it would probably replace Evernote if it did; hint, hint Evernote needs to purchase this and integrate it into the iPad/tablet UX space like now). I’d also love to see a hardware evolution of the iPad where the screen gave a bit of haptic or electrostatic feedback – because there’s no reason that in a screen this large that it should feel like pictures under glass in every interactive event.

I do debate getting rid of the iPad. There’s much that I am doing here that could be dulplcated (battery life and some UI/UX issues notwithstanding) on my current mobile. If my mobile had a Microsoft Kinect-like interactive projector system to it, it would make the tablet of no real need at all. That said, Apple has done a heck of a job with a (mostly) stable tablet and use experience. I don’t mind that I’ve gotten back into tablets at this point, even though my evolving knowledge of tools and skills means that I do want to take part in something that evolves with me a bit more.

Now, imagine that one. What if the hardware and software of a tablet could evolve with how you learn to use it. It could be some interesting stuff… or just an acceptance of another sweet computing paradigm.

I could go the route of talking about cycling, but its winter and I don’t do it so much. I do notice a lot of the choir-preaching going on in the transportation space. That part is a bit annoying. I’d really like to see/hear/engage in those conversations about transportation change happening in the medium metro areas (like Charlotte) where changing to public transportation, walking, and cycling undoes decades of planning and development, let alone behaviors that people don’t know were once different (unless they lived there before the sprawl-like changes happened). Yea, I should just ride more… makes me smell better

I could talk about mobiles. But honestly, I want and use platforms that aren’t necessarly “alive” with activity. I do so because of efficiency, security, and ability. I’m anal about performance, but not at the expense of functionality. And by God, these are as powerful as servers, we should be doing, be enabled to do, much more.

More… yup. Whenever I talk about my phone adapting to contexts, people who hate mobiles bristle. When you do something like stroke the imagination with relevance it just makes things better. Wish I could code 90% of what’s in my head, forget the next billion, I’ve got a current 2 billion folks I could enable if given the team(s), tools, and finances to pull it off.

Pulled off a lot of 2011 stress. Good friends will do that. Rest will do that. I’m blessed by a 2012 gift that keeps me smilling.

Which is where I am at this post… smiling. I don’t have the financial freedom I (think) I need. I don’t have the technological tools or skills either. But, I’ve got this peace about life that’s just good. Contentment probably. In the midst of what all is talked about the various spheres of life I listen in on, contentment is rarely loud. Its a poetic whimper in the noise… one where if heard and observed nothing else really matters.

So. Following the utopicomp (sorry, there it is) ideal of calm computing we’re gonna have to be subtle with this if we’re going anywhere with it, right? Less is more work. We should consider the potential issue of uncanny valley as applied to behaviour and may choose to sidestep it entirely. We could draw inspiration from things like Apple’s design of the sleep light on the Macbook Pro which is so obviously designed to pulsate at the same rate as its breathing would be (if it had lungs) whilst it’s asleep. It’s just enough that it gives the machine a feeling of sentience but what would happen if that speed was ever so slightly increased or decreased based on certain conditions? Would it give the impression that something is wrong? I reckon it might not immediately, but once you get to know the device and its personality you’d be used to its normal behaviour and then really notice when it starts behaving differently. Being a bit offish with you maybe. I’m pretty sure people already do this with computers when their operating system starts to get a bit sluggish or glitchy – I know I do – but maybe we could play with that a bit.

Read this (via @bashford) a few minutes ago and it took me back to a piece of a scene from a recent mobile concept video from Nokia:

Many times I think of my mobile being intelligent to adjust to me, but not so much whether it gets that aspect of sentience where I displays to me something emotional, or attach-worthy, of the moment.

My lady sent me a text as I was reading that article. What if my mobile, which vibrated in my shirt pocket at the time, had a different vibration for her? Something similar to a notification, but "felt" more like the touch of her hand or kiss on my cheek. Much like that movie. The mobile being able to display/give a sense of the environment beyond audible or visual cues, and contextual like the quote. A blinking light, but the intensity knowing the emotions of the communicators, not just the intention of sending and receiving a message.

Maybe I should have played a bit more with Mood Agent and other tools Nokia developed (beta) some Tem back?

What’s in the Photo

In this photo there are five (5) mobile devices, released by Nokia since late 2010.

• There are two (2) devices using the Symbian mobile platform – the left most devices: the N8 (top) and the E7
• The next two (2) devices use a variant of the MeeGo mobile platform Nokia had been working on – the top device being the N9 and the bottom on the developer-released-only N950
• The last device is Nokia’s current mobile platform, Windows Phone, and their headlining device using that platform (at least before CES last week), the Lumia 800.

This isn’t something that’s as easy to do with every mobile platform maker, and certainly Nokia’s seen a lot of change in the last year. But to be able to have such a fast evolution of design, platforms, and even marketing all in one picture is pretty neat. What then can we learn:

The Symbian Devices

Symbian is (probably) the oldest, and it is certainly the most efficient and mature mobile platform in this picture. Nokia has been using it on devices since somewhere around 2002, and just about everything you can think of doing with a mobile, and a number of things that you don’t, has been tried, experimented, or implemented with Symbian. Its a tough platform, versatile platform, and outside of some issues related to low-level coding, UI, and governance, a pretty solid offering. I use the N8 personally now, and aside from the N9 (will chat about that next), there’s not been much about mobile worth turning my attention towards.

The thing is Nokia is moving away from Symbian. A “burning platform” its been called by its current CEO (Stephen Elop). Its a platform that really has had trouble keeping with the user interface changes of the last half-decade in mobile. That’s not to say that its unusable, only that its not as smooth, nor has it been able to be as market challenging as Android and iOS have been. Shame though, I’ve found it a smarter mobile platform than others just because its so usable out of the box (its depth of stuff it can do is amazing, still).

It irony of the picture is that these two devices are noted in a grey color. Almost signifying that they are fading away from the scene, despite their abilities to have a screen that shines as brightly as current market participants.

Note also that there is a keyboarded device (the E7, bottom) and a touchscreen-only device (the N8, top). Symbian was flexible enough to do just about any mobile input paradigm that you could throw at it. Its even got voice commands and message reading built into the system (without needing to do any training). Its good, but wasn’t good enough to continue for Nokia even with all of its plusses.

The Shortened Paradigm Shift – MeeGo (Harmattan)

The middle devices represent something of a shortened paradigm shift for Nokia (and one can argue the mobile industry). These two devices (the N9, cyan on top, and the N950, black on bottom), came out of a long-term look at mobile from Nokia. These devices, in some respects, were supposed to represent the ending of one type of mobility – typified by the Symbian operating system, carrier-lead approaches, and application-centric behaviors – to another (agile management and development efforts on the part of Nokia and its communities, user led interaction models, and task-binding behaviors). However, with the Symbian change, there was also the change here. The N9 was introduced to much acclaim, but to a small audience. The N950 was shown to a smaller audience with an even smaller amount of hands able to design their own mobile experiences with it. It is a paradigm shoft, but an abbreviated one.

Then look at the colors. The N9 wasn’t just interesting because of its being different of a platform, nor its lack of buttons, but that color and its interaction model (called Swype UI) spoke more about a mobile that was supposed to come alive when it was near you. It relied more on sensors than specific button interactions, and this was indeed different. The N950 is the keyboard-equipped brother to the N9. Like the E7, it was meant to be more of a productive machine, a communicator and a developer’s toolbox if you will. It also shared the Swype UI and the interaction methods of the N9 – but the package was rough(er) than what you’d find in Symbian. There is/are still some gaps in the user experience that just didn’t make enough sense for Nokia to take the risk with this device. Though personally, it would have been quite amazing to see Nokia push the mess out of this platform, using everything they had left, to make a device that worked equally well on any carrier, and then also empowered the owner to take more ownership of their mobile life.

That’s what the color of the N9 meant to me. The black of the N950 seems like an admission of the same death that was happening with the grey in the Symbian models. Still a great screen (pentile display annoyed some folks, I’ve not seen it in person yet to comment directly), but not enough to make it past an abbreviated mention in this evolutionary course for Nokia.

Windows Phone and an Open Opportunity

The last device is the Lumia 800 (it could very easily be the Lumia 900 which was announced this past week at CES). This is the platform, the interaction model, the ecosystem, the type of future that Nokia and much of the mobile world seems to be aiming for. A future where there’s this filter of your mobile abilities into windows of activities, and those services/utilities that matter make themselves available to you by working with the mobile company and carrier that you choose (though that choice is slimmer since those partnerships are usually exclusive).

The 800 in this picture is black as well, but look at its screen. Its bigger and more text-laden icons seem to scream more of a message of “hey, I’ve got something here for you” more than the other screens. Yea, it has apps, but those apps come behind you. This is something that the three-screened homescreen approach of the MeeGo devices offer, but it wasn’t quite in the front of things there. Those devices still took a bow to the application-centric use (marketing) that other devices do today. With Windows Phone, its about putting relevance in front of you, and then letting (mobile) life play out.

Now, I would have gone with a more “alive” color if I were the photographer, as that would have spoken a better message about Nokia’s prospects in this kind of evolution. But, until there’s something that happens bigger in the market for them (besides the noise they are making for themselves), the color presented here says simply that Windows Phone just isn’t alive enough yet. But, in that shift they are making, there is an open opportunity for something neat to happen.

So, What’s With the Missing Keyboard Device

I thought about this a bit. I wanted to say that in that 6th position would go a slider device, running Windows Phone. But, that doesn’t exactly fit the evolution here. It does if Windows Phone was supposed to enable that communicator, developer-friendly kind of mobile lifestyle. But, that’s not the aim, nor something that Windows Phone can be shoe-horned into. There’s got to be something else in terms of how people use mobile, how people craft their lifestyle environments with a mobile that the addition of a keyboard to a Windows Phone device would have to offer. I think… and this is just me thinking way out of the box a good bit… that a Windows Phone device could have a slider, but that it shouldn’t be a keyboard – at least not a hard keyboard.

It should look like this dual-screened Kyocera Android model.

Windows Phone isn’t really all about “typing” as much as it is about navigating the panes of digital and augmented experiences. If there was to be an evolution of the N950 to Windows Phone, I’d expect something a bit more befitting the framing of a dual-screened device that could do the keyboard when its needed, but would also be another screen adding to the ability to keep your head-up from the mobile to do life around you a bit more. I’d actually see it as less of an accepted form than even the E7/N950 too. Windows Phone with that dual screen would be that half-smartphone/half-tablet that would indeed speak to a ton of uses for many, but keep them engaged only when the context dictates it such. Nintendo has done similar with the DS-series of GameBoy devices, but not to the extent of using a user experience (UX) paradigm that takes your focus into and out of mobile efficiently.

A Mobile Evolution for Nokia (and Perhaps Others)

And so we have in this picture an evolution of mobile. We go from mobile-centric, to PC-like, to PC-merged platforms. We’ve got a change in focuses from apps to tasks to events in terms of what the owner manages. And from tight carrier controls to tighter UX controls. All in all, we can see how Nokia is evolving, and in some respects make assumptions as to whether it it will be a good one.

As this picture shows, there’s a lot to draw on from Nokia’s recent past that would be of a nice benefit to all of mobile here. But, the best parts of it need to evolve in such a way that as people come to the front of the experience, life also endures to something better.

Looking forward to what’s next (dual-screened Windows Phone devices or not). However, I’m not easily impressed Nokia. Make a fan/admirer proud why don’t you

I know how much I propigate around the web; and given my service provider; that’s a ton of information to have about a bro that I physically, and in many respects legally, can’t do anything about.

There’s another option isn’t there?

Provoked by that event, a tweet, and a friend, I’ve posted three ads on Craigslist making myself available to do this:

• Charlotte, NC
• Greensboro, NC
• Columbia, SC

That’s not to say that I am not able to go other places and do this (for example, I spend enough time in SE PA that its not impossible to offer the same there), but I’m trying this out by stretching to areas that are local(ish) to me.

You might know of others doing this. But, I’m not sure who else does these sketchnotes on an iPad and with their finger only. There is no additional editing in Photoshop or any other program – the note as its finsihed on my device is what’s created and saved. After the sketchnote is finished, you’d receive it via JPG and PDF. Rates are negociable (as the length of the meeting, distance travelled, etc. will influence this until I’m more sure of this).

You can view my gallery of sketchnotes here. These are not sketchnotes that I’ve been compensated for (at this time of writing), and as such are my personal notes of which I share. It would be up to our arrangement and the content in the note as to whether that item could be added to a public gallery.

With that said, let me be your visual note taker for your meeting, workshop, or conference.

To get in contact with me, see either use the Craigslist entries noted above, or any of the contact methods noted here. If you contact via LinkedIn, please make sure to note that you are contacting me in regards to visual notes/sketchontes.

The only question I now have is when. Because the parts are certainly there to pull this off.

…my motivations have to do with wanting to shift in my focuses and activities as a person who identifies and is partially able to work towards solutions where communications and tools efficiencies break down to a person who is better able to design and implement the solution, and trends-spot to better enable companies to adjust to future disruptions…

The decisions will (publicly) bloom later, but there are things that I need to look at doing now which move me more into that statement. Part of the items that need to shift for me is how I address plugging into other environments for productivity. I’ve addressed this in the past some, but I think I’ll need to shift forward a bit here.

The Previous Shift
With the last company that I worked for, I was the usual consultant with a company issued laptop, office suite, email account, and Intranet expectations. As I worked there, that "usual" worker environment shifted a bit – in part because I had a very weakly speced laptop and was asked at times to do more than what that device could handle.

Then, I shifted to an iteration of the BYOD (bring your own device) policy: I used my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet as the primary computing device, handwritten notes (Xournal) uploaded to the respective area(s) of SharePoint so that co-workers could share/collaborate on things. Where possible, I diminished the use of Outlook, and stuck to the SMTP mail implementation on that device. This fell down when it came to setting and accepting meeting requests, so I kept the Outlook Web Access bookmark handy for those moments. I lost dependence on the physical location for defining work, and drew energy from meetings conducted in settings such as coffeeshops.

That shift evolved to how I work now (primarly MMM). Much of what I do is conducted on an iPad and Nokia N8 (the latter serving as the calendar, contacts, communications station; the former email, coding, analysis, and annotations). I work out of various mobile-oriented settings, and leverage a series of online services to collaborate over documents, share resources, and build repore with co-laborers across fields. There’s not much wrong with this, but it does stretch entreprenural parts of me to moments that I’d not considered before.

Working this way is good. Until you realize that it is also transitional to something else.

(Somewhat) Describing the Next Shift
A Twitter thread provoked me to think about this idea of a "next shift." The conversation that I was looking in on talked about a text editor for writing software applications. I realized immediately after I entered my 2 cents that a further shift by me is needed. Not just displacing the "space" that is work, but also displaying the "tools and structures."

I responded in that thread towards text editors that I used to use, but haven’t in years because I no longer use those computer platforms. I haven’t "used" MS Office in almost a year – unless compelled for a specific iteration of PowerPoint for a client. I’ve opined (too) much about owning both the server and the data streams coming from it about me – while also taking more advantage of solutions like Evernote and Dropbox which are well done and suitable until I learn how to code something more fitting to my style of work.

Where it seems that companies (and their following media) are pushing folks towards integrated tools and ways of working that mesh best for them, the shift for me that I’m seeing that I’ve been doing and have to push more towards looks like taking the lessons learned, applying new lessons, and building something better that fits better…

…this shift. Building the solution instead of just using what’s there. That’s how I’ve got to move. I didn’t see it as clearly. But, I do now. And the steps that I take from here to learn methods, not simply preferred tools, will go a long way towards enabling that shift forward to happen.

Over at Palm Addict, I wrote a post talking about how my mobile will help me along that goal:

…I’ve also got to find different ideas for suits, and so I’ll be using a combination of searching looks that I’m familiar with on various fashion websites (Details (for Men), Hypebeast, Sartorialist, etc.) along with passing pics back and forth to my best friend via SMS. Now, it would be kind of decent to be able to find a look, and then graft that suit on top of an existing picture of me, but that’s pushing the future a bit too far…

Hopefully, this is something that can help me not just in terms of presentation, but in terms of learning a bit more about the place of tech in the day-to-day activities we get into.