As a software dev currently thinking through my 'next thing,' I find this opinion refreshing. There's a lot of redundant and me-too software and it's far too easy to fall into the trap of building another mobile/social/geo/photo app.
I think hardware makers are doing a great job of pushing the envelop, but software not so much.
The question is, what's next for software? At the time Twitter came out, it was brand new...amazing...innovative. I can't recall feeling the same about anything since.
My own personal belief is that embedded software is going to be the next thing, but the problem there is the barrier to entry is a bit higher, both in terms of knowledge base and financial cost. That said, tech like Bluetooth LE is making it easier than ever to try.
> My own personal belief is that embedded software is going to be the next thing
I've started hearing that embedded software control via cheap Android tablets ($50-$100)/hardware interfaces is beginning to take off and reducing the barrier to entry. Pretty much, you can use a $75 Android tablet to control an embedded device and drive the user interface. iPads are, frankly, a bit too expensive for most hardware applications.
If I had the energy, I would champion an open-source project for niche hobbyists who want to program a particular type of hardware (assuming their particular hardware has some kind of serial/network relatively-open, documented interface - something like ZigBee but less complicated maybe) but aren't necessarily programmers. Build the project such that the UI and hardware control layer run on Android - and can be abstracted out from the actual hardware later. The UI is not going to be snazzy looking (sliding menu) but reliable looking - like an industrial control but maybe a bit better.
Interesting. In the local hackerspace, for several years, I watched many students struggle with a (very fine) graphical drag-n-drop programming tool known as StarLogo TNG[0] (and Logo variants).
In the end, it seemed the brighter students destined for real programming were relieved to get into a text editor. The "success stories" focused on people who could not otherwise program, but the cost was imposing too much abstraction on the brighter users.
So I think it's a hard problem, and thus a very worthy one to pursue.
Most of these cheap tablets have unlocked bootloaders or easily broken into ones. No reason to keep all the unnecessary Android clutter on top of the hardware if you are trying to use it as an imbedded microcontroller. Maybe keep surfaceflinger as the display server, or maybe just run X or Wayland.
I think hardware makers are doing a great job of pushing the envelop, but software not so much.
The question is, what's next for software? At the time Twitter came out, it was brand new...amazing...innovative. I can't recall feeling the same about anything since.
My own personal belief is that embedded software is going to be the next thing, but the problem there is the barrier to entry is a bit higher, both in terms of knowledge base and financial cost. That said, tech like Bluetooth LE is making it easier than ever to try.