Meta trends - what have we learned?

Posted by MadaboutDana
Dec 30, 2013 at 11:02 AM

Great discussion! But I think we’re overlooking - or perhaps misidentifying - a trend I’ve just mentioned in the iA Writer thread. Touch apps are not always dumbed-down. Sometimes they’ve found simpler ways of doing things that were formerly over-complex. I think that’s an interesting and worthwhile trend, and is being reflected in newer desktop applications, too - especially on MacOS and the web. What the touch platforms have highlighted more than anything else is the widespread dislike of “fiddly” interfaces.

Efforts to produce streamlined, non-fiddly interfaces can, of course, go too far (on this subject, it’s interesting to review reactions to iOS 7 over the past few months). But I get huge satisfaction out of using an app with a genuinely straightforward interface that’s also elegant and powerful. In the outliner world some of my favourites are on iOS (Notebooks, OneNote, Outline+, Notability). But there’s still a hurdle very few apps have overcome - touched on by Jaslar’s reference to Simplenote. It’s difficult to reconcile immediate availability with sheer power. A feature-filled app is always going to take longer to load than a streamlined single-function app. And one of the huge benefits of touch environments is their immediacy.

Which brings me to another trend we haven’t really discussed: sharing of info between apps. I’m a great cross-platform fan, of course, and am looking forward to interesting developments in this area. But it’s also interesting to watch the trend for info sharing between apps on the same platform (especially iOS). The “walled garden” approach has called forth considerable ingenuity - it’s well worth visiting the brilliant MacStories blog by Federico Viticci (http://www.macstories.net/) for some thoughtful discussions of the best solutions. I think this trend will continue and accelerate - it will be interesting to see if this encourages Apple to do something they’ve been urged to do for long time now: create a shared files area. If they don’t, existing solutions like Dropbox (and Box, with their recent Editor app) will undoubtedly continue to evolve into sophisticated app ecosystems (another interesting trend) that are also cross-platform.

My own dearest wish for 2014: a truly cross-platform note-taking app that’s fast, efficient, allows hierarchies, tagging and (highlighted) searches. Simplenote’s okay, but it’s not great (yet).

Interesting snippet of news on that score: Apple appears to have bought out Catch (http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/23/apple-reportedly-acquires-note-taking-app-catch-broadmap-talent/). That was a nice little app. But I’m more confident in developers like 6Wunderkinder for full cross-platform solutions - Apple tends to restrict its activities to its own platforms.