00:00hi this is Chris Dixon this is 816 xiv
00:02podcast i'm here with benedict Evans and
00:05Balaji Srinivasan Bennett if you've been
00:07talking a lot about this idea that we
00:11are in a pre PageRank ear of mobile can
00:14you can you explain that yeah so I think
00:17the issue is really this when you look
00:20at an app store today it's like looking
00:24you know you can browse a million apps
00:26you could browse a hundred thousand
00:28websites but doesn't scale and there's
00:31no way for you to find the right things
00:34that you want to use on that device
00:35there's Google but Google doesn't cover
00:37everything you can do on a device App
00:39Store's don't you know the app stores
00:41are like Amazon they list every scene
00:43everything that exists but then always
00:44for you to discover and explore that so
00:47we're kind of in the phase of the
00:49internet was 20 years ago
00:51there's all these different things going
00:52on on the device but we don't really
00:54know how to find and explore them and
00:56you know in parallel with that we're
00:58also kind of in like a pre Netscape face
01:00because you know what happened on the
01:03Internet was you had the web browser as
01:05a been a box on your screen and
01:07everything happened inside that box and
01:09you had a few exceptions like you know
01:10Spotify and Skype and stuff for
01:11basically everything happened in the
01:12browser and again on smart phones that's
01:15not the case so there's this kind of
01:17swirling mass of how do we find stuff
01:21how do we explore things
01:23what easin is the interaction model is
01:25it an app is it a card is it a web app
01:28is it a URL is it a messaging app how do
01:31you find stuff and explore and engage
01:33and acquire customers within that so
01:35there I think there at least two ways to
01:37interpret that one is that hasn't
01:38no-one's invented that yet and the
01:40second is the more pessimistic view is
01:42it's a fundamental architectural
01:44limitation of the platform which is
01:46there's no there's no browser because
01:48there's no HTML right because obviously
01:51there's HTML in the web browser but I'm
01:52speaking about apps you know the app
01:54model of having to download software
01:56there's no way to really deep link sort
01:59of on Android not on iOS so you don't
02:01have the same linking structure and you
02:03don't have the same sort of openness and
02:04yeah you don't have a you don't have a
02:06universal resource locator yeah in a
02:10for every single piece of content and
02:11you can see Google poking around this
02:13with with deep linking into apps but I'd
02:15almost kind of turn that even if you do
02:17put into an app you stop to have yeah
02:18yeah I bet I have a download as opposed
02:20yeah it's kind of a hack I mean I touch
02:22load right I'd kind of turn it the other
02:24way there is key and there's an
02:25ideological issue in here because
02:27there's a whole group of people that
02:28will say well webs are like a hack and a
02:29fork of the web and everything will
02:31converge back on to web in some form not
02:34HTML but actually web pages with URLs
02:37and you can click on engage you other
02:38yours because obviously half of apps are
02:40actually built in HTML
02:41um I'd kind of proposed turning out the
02:44way the other way around and say well
02:45the reason there was we only had the web
02:47on the desktop Internet was because it
02:49was impossibly difficult to do anything
02:50else and you had to have this incredibly
02:52strong selling point to get somebody to
02:54actually go and download an application
02:56when you stole it in many cases go to
02:57the store literally and buy a
02:59shrink-wrapped yeah yeah I tagged over a
03:00certain file yeah yeah kids there were
03:02these stores that like soul like
03:04physical stores that sold software in
03:07Bob cardboard boxes so yeah I mean the
03:11reason that we only had the web was was
03:12all that there was was because it was so
03:14hard to do anything else and now it's
03:15incredibly easy to do other things and
03:16now smartphones themselves are
03:20communications platforms in a way that
03:21pcs never really work so I mean you see
03:24this really obviously with whatsapp
03:26because it taps into the phonebook it
03:28taps into the photo library and appreci
03:29notifications gets icon on the home
03:31screen and there's a whole bunch of
03:34other applications trying to do the same
03:35thing and so the smartphone itself
03:36becomes a social platform whereas
03:39Facebook you know where is eating on the
03:40desktop you had the browser and then
03:41inside the browser you had Facebook and
03:43then it inside Facebook you had a social
03:44platform whereas on a smartphone that's
03:47turned upside down it's the device
03:48itself is a platform so you're not
03:50limited to the browser you can do all
03:52these other things and you give up stuff
03:55in return for that there's this plusses
03:57and minuses on one side here the people
03:59that don't have that the OSS have all
04:00the power that iOS and Android
04:02do you visit the OS is is it Facebook is
04:05it line is it you know is it a
04:07combination of all of those things and
04:09how much does that carry on changing I
04:11mean the the interesting thing looking
04:14at there's a bunch of rumors about you
04:16know what Apple would do about wearables
04:17and we're looking at what Google is
04:19doing with Google with Android wear
04:23around the end of these interaction
04:25models carry on shifting so the way
04:26Android wear is you've got this device
04:28which is a computer on your wrist but it
04:30doesn't run native code it just displays
04:32notifications that come to it from an
04:34Android phone now if you look at what
04:37Apple did with passport you look at some
04:39of the rumors about what they might do
04:40with health book you see them pulling
04:42away from a native app and doing a kind
04:44of a more of an XML card sort of
04:46application which isn't necessarily
04:48installed from the App Store I mean if
04:50you look at Google now you know Google
04:52now is ICS mal my probably HTML but it's
04:55not the web in any meaningful sense if
04:57you were to go and stand outside a
04:59restaurant you can pull your phone out
05:02of your pocket should you have to open a
05:04restaurant review app and wait for it to
05:06get a jeer look up and then get a list
05:07of ten restaurants and then pick the one
05:09you want or should it use Bluetooth
05:11ibeacon to know where you are and pull
05:13up a review for that automatically
05:14whether that's from within an apple from
05:17the web or scraped out of Google now or
05:19something so so you know one thing I
05:21think is in terms of discovery and kind
05:24of thinking about architecture and so on
05:25so there are companies like you know
05:28like you are X for example that are
05:30doing like deep linking within apps but
05:33I think more fundamentally so if you
05:34think about for example at Google where
05:36and you know the phone and so I'm from
05:38an implementation perspective you you
05:40often think of you know
05:41model-view-controller you think of an
05:43app as being a view on top of an
05:46underlying data store which is sending
05:47things to you know smartphone view in a
05:50tablet view and this view in that view
05:51and so one of the more interesting
05:54projects out there is Herbet which is
05:57you know thinking about okay so we've
05:59got the web which is linking between
06:00pages how would you really link between
06:02apps right um one of the ways that you'd
06:05want to do this is you'd sort of want to
06:06make it so that you don't have to
06:08generate and think up and document an
06:10API for every app right so what if for
06:12example you had let's say a phone and
06:16have an internal directory structure
06:18let's just say laptop it's got directory
06:20structure and it's got front slash
06:21contacts and it's got front slash files
06:23and it's got front slash personal
06:25information and so on and so forth and
06:27this file system is what Dropbox
06:30accessed and read and wrote to for your
06:32files and Facebook access and read wrote
06:35to for your files for your photos
06:36but also for your contacts and for your
06:39personal information and linked and also
06:41access this and Twitter access so the
06:42data was actually local and the API is
06:45were sort of automatic and these
06:47applications but read and write to that
06:49and rather than having all the data
06:52locally in their own databases it be the
06:55billion phones would be this distributed
06:57data center right and so what's
06:59interesting about that kind of model is
07:01now you're talking about links between
07:03not just web pages but between
07:05applications based on like data interest
07:08disease right so that's one model for
07:10where the future sorta like mobile
07:12architecture is gonna go where you have
07:14data local computing and then you know
07:16you turn your large centralized you know
07:18web services into really more like large
07:20caches of local data which is going to
07:22be steal but it'll be updated next time
07:24you log into the website and then
07:25they'll download it so that's like a
07:26total inversion of control of where we
07:28are now but that's something I could see
07:31happening in like five years ten years I
07:32think another way of thinking about some
07:34of the stuff you're talking about is if
07:35you can trust what Apple and Google are
07:37doing just in the short term with the
07:39way they're running their platforms you
07:41know because Apple once a whole stack
07:42they're pushing a lot of their
07:44innovation into the integration of the
07:46hardware and software with all the blue
07:482 stuffs that they're doing and all the
07:49local wireless stuff based obviously but
07:51also things like a fingerprint scanner
07:53whereas which is very hard for Google to
07:56do they've got no idea what's on the
07:58phone it's exactly like Microsoft right
08:00they don't know what PC you've got
08:02whereas of course what Google are doing
08:04is lifting everything out of Android and
08:05putting it into the cloud right I think
08:07Google Play services but into Google now
08:08and all the other stuff that they're
08:10trying to do that so you've got almost
08:11being the ultimate version yeah exactly
08:12so there's a question you know it's sort
08:14of one of my kind of the things that
08:16I've been saying you know if I was to
08:17say I installed an app on my android
08:19smartphone in five years I don't really
08:21know what that would mean yeah what
08:22would install me and what would have
08:23actually mean right what would net what
08:26add with me and say there's a
08:27questioning it in their service yeah
08:28exactly what would you really actually
08:30be doing and you could say that actually
08:32you could probably say the same thing
08:34for Apple what I don't I can't be
08:36completely confident that if I say I
08:37installed an app on my iPhone I meant
08:40that I went to the App Store and
08:41initiated a downloaded a package of
08:43objective-c code you know that's
08:45probably going to be other stuff that
08:46might be going on as well and religious
08:48there basically is you know
08:49at Google right like with Andy Rubin
08:51stepping down and sundar Pichai now
08:53running apps and chrome and Android
08:57right obviously I think it's you know
08:59like there's gonna be some fusion of
09:01Chrome OS and Android now that they're
09:03both holding into the same person one
09:05plausible scenario is that every Java
09:08API in Android gets written rewritten to
09:10be a JavaScript API in for Chrome OS so
09:13that you have a migration path right and
09:15then you know that scenario you're
09:16talking about like where like what does
09:17it mean to install something Google fold
09:19a whole whole food thing they want Java
09:21API well okay that's right like whatever
09:24you want to call them kuk-ja powers
09:26there's the legal word is engineering
09:29word okay yeah so the Android API is
09:31right so Android like the Java syntax
09:33compatible API is right those I mean if
09:37you were doing a mobile platform today
09:38you would not write it in Java you drive
09:40it in probably JavaScript right it's
09:41like just because Java scripts getting
09:42fast and Google in particular has put
09:45all that effort into trace trees and
09:46actually getting that into production
09:47with a v8 compiler and and so yeah I
09:50mean there's one there's one school of
09:51thought that that the web can never have
09:55the same you UX performance
09:58characteristics of native apps but that
09:59just seems well the up wrong side of
10:01more it feels like it's it's it will
10:03probably always be true technically but
10:05it might not it will matter less and
10:07less right you know it's like you know
10:09it's the same thing all these you know
10:11all the arguments between different
10:12programming languages or between
10:13different network ten knows you for
10:14something you know you throw enough
10:16resource at it and eventually the
10:17problem kind of goes away and you know
10:20you see more you know again you know to
10:23me what programming language is is
10:25almost the least interesting question
10:27with the puzzle is you know what is the
10:29interaction model you know how does that
10:31icon get onto your home screen you know
10:34do you want that icon onto your home
10:35screen is does it appear there
10:37automatically do you have to enter a
10:39user ID and password and wait for
10:41download and does it appear there as you
10:43walk past the store does it bubble up
10:45from the bottom of the screen or onto
10:47your watch and so those kind of contexts
10:50you know trying to focus too much on
10:53well what's the app distribution model
10:55or how can we deep link into apps sort
10:56of fades away I mean the thing I always
10:58sort of read a blog post about this the
11:01other day that the kind of
11:02the thing I wrote on Twitter that
11:05prompted the ball post was you know who
11:06is it that's gonna kill the native app
11:08it's gonna be Apple Apple is Google you
11:12know well Google might try right but a
11:15bit I could perfectly well imagine Apple
11:18turning around and you know at a certain
11:19point and at all being the ones he kill
11:22hmmm interesting that is
11:24counterintuitive because they are the
11:25pit you know that a they ain't making
11:27obviously it's purely about the platform
11:29but you know if they was to decide okay
11:30here is another bunch of things that we
11:32can do that will make our platform
11:33stronger that will make it more
11:36compelling to develop for iOS that will
11:37make it more compelling to buy a knife
11:39at a certain point they'll do that yeah
11:40sure at a certain point if the pressure
11:41gets there insofar as we're throwing out
11:43like counterintuitive projections so
11:45certainly obviously a large component of
11:46future is mobile I think a counter to
11:48but true if you reflect on it projection
11:50is that a significant fraction in the
11:52future is also going to be sessile and
11:54what I mean by that is it's gonna be
11:55people who are wearing oculus and
11:57they're not mobile at all and they're
11:59just sitting there and they've got very
12:00powerful computers that are that are
12:01pushing away of it so I think that's
12:03like return of the laptop return of the
12:05server farm even return of the desktop
12:07so oculus is pretty interesting
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