Brainmesh is HiDef's weekly get together in which our team discusses technological innovations and trends and relate them to how they impact great causes such as nonprofits and social enterprises.

iPhone 4 Announcement Reactions

We opened up discussing the iPhone 4 announcement, from two angles. First, that we are a bit discouraged by some of things that weren't announced at yesterday's keynote by Steve Jobs. For me, two biggies were another U.S. carrier wasn't announced, and that syncing over the air and using cloud technologies weren't discussed (ie, we still must connect to iTunes to do certain things).

Second, we agreed that the things that weren't announced today don't matter one bit to 90% of consumers--at least not yet. Apple nailed the experience yesterday, building on the already industry-leading experience.  They've made the iPhone tighter, smarter, and more useful for the important things in life like communicating with friends and reading the screen. 

Brad and I mused whether Android is poised to take market share from iPhone since it is readily available on most carriers and on many phones. Android is more available, but Android is also more confusing, having to support multiple screen sizes and hardware configurations. iPhone is still setting the bar for cool, at least a year ahead of the competition in terms of the user experience it provides.

More Reactions

Brian brought up "the complete experience" scenario that apple provides. If you own a Mac desktop or laptop, your video creation experience is now unparalleled. With the iMovie app for iPhone, you can take HD video, edit it right on the phone, and then do whatever you want with it--either upload to a video sharing service or sync to your desktop and continue working with it on the quality, free iMovie also available on your desktop. You just don't get that complete experience with other software/hardware combinations.  

Brian was also impressed by the new freedoms that FaceTime provides to those who are hearing impaired. Zach wonders if technical limitations (such as choppy video) could seriously hamper this experience, at least for now. I for one am not an iChat user, so I'm wondering whether Apple can get video chatting right with this one.

On Software Patents

Zach talked about Brad Feld's post speaking against software patents. As a custom software solutions provider, we as a company need to be aware of the ramifications of the changing legal landscape in this area. Zach's personal view? Software patents are a tool for larger corporations and inhibit innovation amongst the smaller (he's in agreement with Brad). Our clients also need to be aware of these issues. In short, Zach feels software patents have held technology back, especially in the U.S. 

Azin and Tom pointed out that patents have become less about protecting intellectual property and more about making business moves to secure profits, sometimes patents being created after the innovation has been born.

Online Education

Kemper opened quite a can worms! He linked us up to Think Vitamin, "A brand new online training service that delivers amazing, cutting-edge video right to your desktop every day." Kemper was interested in the business model, and at that point we opened a broader discussion on how we learn and how institutions are changing because of the Internet. Technology is opening new choices, blurring the line between education/training, self-paced tutorials and instructor-led classes.

Other team members mentioned a couple other online, high-quality training. It all makes me think that we're just seeing the start of a very important revolution in education:

Multi-tasking

Azin shared a link to a New York Times article about the ramifications of multitasking. Multitasking is actually a misnomer, and we all need to seek ways to get back to working while we're at work. Productivity is always a good discussion.