![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Tapping the zeitgeist: Continuous Client
May. 27th, 2010 09:07 amThis article over at Engadget has put its finger on what I've been feeling for some time now: that the time has come for a way of working one's tech so that the same session persists over many devices and types of device. Topolsky calls it a continuous client and leaves it open how that might be implemented, but he absolutely nails the problem it's there to address:
Just now, I was reading one of my favorite blogs on my laptop, but I wanted to relocate to my couch, and I wanted to switch to reading on my iPad. Of course, this required starting a new browser session, calling up the web page, and finding my place once again. This same situation now occurs constantly with Twitter (where I'll have to read and re-read timelines depending on whether I'm checking on my phone, laptop, or iPad), Facebook (a mess similar to that of Twitter), and even in my IM sessions (different locations, different conversations, different logs). There is no continuity in my call logs, text messages, or notes when seated with my laptop or desktop, and there is no way in which to continue working on something in an application on two platforms without tremendous effort. Frankly, it's a mess.
It's the kind of user-interface witchcraft Apple are so good at, and it will be a game-changer.
But who am I to talk? We're still having trouble making single sign-on, continuous client's eight-cell zygote predecessor, work properly here in the cubes.
Just now, I was reading one of my favorite blogs on my laptop, but I wanted to relocate to my couch, and I wanted to switch to reading on my iPad. Of course, this required starting a new browser session, calling up the web page, and finding my place once again. This same situation now occurs constantly with Twitter (where I'll have to read and re-read timelines depending on whether I'm checking on my phone, laptop, or iPad), Facebook (a mess similar to that of Twitter), and even in my IM sessions (different locations, different conversations, different logs). There is no continuity in my call logs, text messages, or notes when seated with my laptop or desktop, and there is no way in which to continue working on something in an application on two platforms without tremendous effort. Frankly, it's a mess.
It's the kind of user-interface witchcraft Apple are so good at, and it will be a game-changer.
But who am I to talk? We're still having trouble making single sign-on, continuous client's eight-cell zygote predecessor, work properly here in the cubes.
