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Creating Apps, Programming and Just Plain Ole’ Creativity

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Recently, I mentioned that I had decided to start making apps. Originally, my thought was to program in Android, mainly because I wasn’t a fan of Apple’s nefarious walled garden. But then I started to realize that all of my Internet stuff was involved with Mac/Apple, including my iPhone and my iPad, so I ended up buying a MacBook Pro and downloading Xcode to start using Objective C to write iPhone and iPad apps. So here I am.

What I discovered is that getting started is never easy. I think this is why most app designers never end up actually designing any apps. The learning curve is freaking huge. But once you get past it, you actually start to get somewhere. But man, what a journey that learning curve has been. I could give you an Odyssey-like journey of a story, but I’ll save that for another time. I’d rather just talk about creativity and design today.

You see, I used to be a computer programmer back in the day when there weren’t a whole lot of different languages for programming. I learned BASIC and then went to school and learned FORTRAN. Right after that, I taught myself COBOL. Shortly after that, I designed my own word processor and then one of the very first databases (in the days before Filemaker and Access were even considerations). That first database housed the Asian threat assessment for the US Forces in Southeast Asia in the 1980s. People from all over the Asian allied forces visited my office during that time just amazed that I was able to take a paper filing system of known threats and turn it into something that people could use to compare cases they were working on. At the time, there was no such thing as an Internet linkage system, so if you wanted to access the database, you had to come to my office and enter the names yourself. Or they’d phone me and ask me over the phone; there was no thought of phone surveillance back then. We were really naive back then.

Anyway, I had designed this back when few people had personal computers. At the time, I used a Wang computer system. Personally, I coded on a supped up Radio Shack TRS-80 Model IV. Man, that thing was the shit back then. Now, it has less processing power than my $1.99 calculator I bought at Wal Mart.

But because I was in the military, the computer revolution quickly came and passed me by. I pretty much missed the whole thing. When I got out of the service, I had a few stints working for computer gaming companies like Maxis (working on Sim City and The Sims) and Electronic Arts, but it was pretty obvious that the programming world was changing quickly, and I was not keeping up with it.

For years, I kept telling myself I would get back into it. I created a bunch of games when I first started out, and I keep thinking that my way of coding is so much different than everyone else’s. I keep thinking I need to get back into it and develop something the way that only Duane might ever do. But I kept avoiding it and doing other things.

Then I decided to do the whole apps thing. And I’m learning. And right off the start, I’ve started to see a few things I would like to create that no one seems to be doing. And as I used to do back when I first started, I find myself wondering, why isn’t someone else coming up with these ideas, too? The self-indulgent part of me wants to say that I’m exceptional, but the cynic in me says that I’m not smarter or more innovative than anyone else. So why do I keep coming up with really bizarre ways to do things that other people aren’t? Some people look at Facebook and say, “wow, what a great idea. Wish I would have thought of that.” I looked at Facebook when I first saw it (and just a few minutes ago) and think: Why would they have stopped with that? There were so many other things they could have done with it, things that could have enhanced these social communities, but instead they created an interactive business card model that keeps you informed what other people might be doing, kind of like a boring stalker who has nothing better to do. Anyway.

So, I’m starting to think this is the direction I should have been going a long time ago. Currently, as I learn to code through Xcode, Alice and Objective-C, I keep coming up with grandiose ideas of things I would like to do. And I keep finding myself wondering, why isn’t someone else already doing this? I sometimes feel like Socrates responding to the Oracle of Delphi who claimed he was the smartest man alive, and Socrates spent the rest of his life trying to disprove the Oracle. Well, the difference is: The Oracle never said I was the smartest guy alive. As a matter of fact, the Oracle would have had no idea who I was and would have shrugged his shoulders if asked about me in the first place. At least I have an easy task ahead of me because I don’t have to disprove anyone of anything, and no government will force me to drink hemlock because I taught society’s kids to question authority. Nowadays, Socrates would have been unknown as well, competing against people like Kim Kardasian and Paris Hilton and the whole concept of being famous for being famous. But I’m kind of rambling now as this wasn’t really the topic I wanted to discuss.

So I’m making apps now. And I’m writing my first post on my iPad’s Word Press app. It might not even make it to the server. Hell, if I designed it, it would do all sorts of fun things, but knowing my attention to detail, “publish” would be the one thing I’d have forgotten, never thinking that was all that interesting to begin with. I guess there’s something to be said for practicalities. I hear they can be useful.

Why Google Plus Won’t Beat Facebook

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I recently signed up for Google Plus. It took finding someone who get me into the beta, or whatever it is they’re calling the early period of Google Plus, but because everyone was talking about how great it was, I had to see for myself. Right off, I can tell you that I’m extremely underwelmed by the experience. The majority of the problem for me is that there’s no one I know already on it, so joining it is kind of useless. Plus, working with Google is a nightmare of proprortions when it comes to user friendly material. Not once, with any product, has Google ever really gotten it right. I’m surprised that I’m still having to make this comment.

One thing that Google fails at is simplicity. Oh, it claims it’s simple, but almost always whenever you want to do something that’s not right out of the original set up, you’re pretty much screwed. I discovered this with Gmail, Google Voice, Google Adsense and practically every other product Google has ever put out. You see, Google wants to integrate all of its products together, but it seems that their process was designed by Kafka, who believes that the more levels of hell that you have to go through to accomplish something the better off you should be. I discovered that with Google Ads. Tried to set up a simple ad, much like I had done with Facebook for one of my books. To this day, I don’t know what I kept doing wrong, but I could never get it to work. However, a few weeks after complete failure, Google charged me $5.00 for “launching” the service that could never be launched. It took me an hour more of dealing with page after page of confusing menus before I figured out how to stop Google from continuing to charge me for something I never could figure out how to use.

Google Plus is a lot like that. I can’t figure out how to add anyone that’s actually on Google Plus. Sure, I figured out how to add a few people I know, but they’re not on Google Plus, so they’re just imaginary names in my “circles”. How to find anyone else, well, Google doesn’t explain that. It just has these annoying little pages that I keep going back and forth on, unable to get any further or to find any way to make the service useful in any way, shape or form. With Facebook, I remember finding a friend the first time out, and in minutes, I actually had a connection. I’ve been on Google Plus for a few weeks now, and much like my real life, I’m still my only friend. My news feed is empty and has never shown me a piece of information. Talk about a social networking program revealing the truth. I’m not sure I want that much truth.

The other thing about Google is that it loves to link all of its products together, so that no matter what you do, if you are involved in one of their enterprises, you’re linked to everything else you do with them. So, if you end up doing one thing wrong, like using a business instead of your name, you might end up getting arbitrarily deleted or locked out of your email account. I’ve seen Google cancel people on a whim before, and giving them more reasons to do so is really not a great idea. At least with Facebook, if they cancel my account, only my account gets lost. I can still receive my email and everything else I do online.

The biggest problem Google Plus has right now is that its owners want it to be the “cool” place to go, so they’re going after the movie stars and celebrities and pretty much saying screw you to the rest of the crowd. But all social networks are actually made popular by the rest of the crowd, and rarely by the celebrities. Sure, the celebrities make it cool after it gets big, but that’s an after the fact thing, and companies like Google just don’t get that. They’re trying to get to the “already famous” stage of celebrity without doing the work that actually gets you famous. Sure, they’re Google, which means they’re big, but let’s be honest. All Google has ever really done great is create a search engine tool. Their email is okay, but it’s not ground breaking, and I’ve discovered myself rarely using it these days (choosing a Yahoo account instead, or my own dedicated one that is tied to no one but me). So, if Google wants to make it big with Plus, it has to do something to make itself famous first.

And my experience with the service has been less than stellar. That, in my opinion, is why I don’t see them being the Facebook killer they so want to be.