Rafe asks which of Apple and Google have changed the world the most in the last 10 years. He holds up Apple’s iPhone and Google’s PageRank-spawned search ecosystems as their respective most world-changing contributions. I don’t really find the question of which of them has made ‘more’ of a contribution all that interesting (and their successes are quite symbiotic, besides). But I think a key factor in the success of both is the extent to which they each have made ease of use paramount.
In Google’s case, their main search page is still about as simple as it could possibly be, making searching for information across the web as simple, and, not to be overlooked, as fast, as typing a few words or a phrase. Apple’s iPhone is so damn intuitive that my kid was using it at 15 months old. Each company’s relationship to its developer base is infused with an emphasis on ease of use, as well. Google’s amazing scaling infrastructure for its in-house developers is legendary. And while there are plenty of things to quibble about regarding developing apps for iOS, the app store model that Apple has promulgated makes it incredibly straightforward to develop and sell software on a platform with an immediate potential user base in the tens of millions.
Now, these superb and user-centered approaches to design and development are not entirely representative of each company’s approach to users. Google’s ongoing “real name” fiasco is precisely the opposite of a user-centered, value-sensitive approach to design. Enragingly so, in fact, but that’s another post. And Apple has had a long tradition of stepping out ahead of where its users were (a trivial example: removing floppy drives)–sometimes a mark of visionary leadership and other times just pushy and irritating. And there are plenty of other things that are disappointing and at times infuriating about each company. But for sheer ease of use–by ordinary, non-tech-savvy humans–at scale on core products/functionalities, there’s almost no competition. And that has had a huge part to play in how they’ve each been able to be world-changing.
[I am trying to heed Lyke's and Macleod's suggestions and get back to posting stuff on my own space. The G+ mess has also been a huge motivator. Let's see how long this lasts!]
I think the more interesting questions are, “who else comes close to those two?” and “why don’t more companies come close?”
Amazon is in the running, but not many others come to mind in terms of (my) day to day life. Twitter, I suppose.
Twitter is working on messing up too — witness the recent mandated use of their t.co URL shortening service.
And while I should probably be more cautious about drawing a line given only two datapoints, it is interesting that in both the recent Google nymwars and Twitter t.co SNAFUs, the mistake the companies are both making is in putting their own interests too far forward of their users. (Not “customers”, “users”.)
I think the struggle some of us have with Apple is the notion of repurposeability, which is somewhat related to simplicity. Twitter so far has been good because they don’t try to dictate how to use it. Friendster failed because they did. Facebook has adapted, when people started creating fake people to represent interests or places, Facebook removed that path, but added those capabilities.
One of the big things that the “no pseudonyms” policy on Google does is says, in a very East German way, “there is a right way and a wrong way to use this service”. I’m not interested in systems which can’t evolve and be repurposed; I don’t want to be a consumer for someone else’s view of how the world works, I want a system which can adapt to me.
Yes, that’s part of what I was getting at with my comment about other things being infuriating. I worry about less open (small ‘o’) devices and the trend toward less general-purpose computing devices a lot. Not in my daily life (since I barely have time to configure the software I buy or download as it is), but as a general principle.
(On the other hand, the tech communities that tend to advocate for and support open and general purpose approaches also have a tendency to be user-hostile–if those users (or developers) are women… so… but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.)
Very good point — and that is why Google Instant sucks: Unlike the brand, it is slow and also forces unwanted results on the user prematurely. For all of the negative vibes they get out of that, they better be making a lot of money on it.