Tapping the zeitgeist: Continuous Client

[andygates]

This 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. 

Comments

[calum]

Meebo does this for your IM sessions.. I can walk away from my desk, and seamlessly continue the same chat on my iphone..

ReadItLater does this to some extent for web pages - but its limited by what the desktop web browsers can do..

[daydreamweaver.livejournal.com]

I am really insufficiently techy for this conversation, but I think "user-interface witchcraft" is a fantastic turn of phrase.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Apple, and before them Nintendo, are especially good at tuning the user experience so that everything feels 'just so' and there are no ugly bits or nasty surprises. Mario's walk and the speed of the iPhone swoosh are textbook examples.

Nobody else goes to the same level of trouble. And user testing is so very important.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Thin clients do this. Virtual clients probably could without too much tweaking. Anything which ran off a webserver could probably be rigged to do it fairly automatically. They all use a back-end server, though... maybe a version which runs off the cloud would be truly global? Start up a device, connect to the net, punch in a password (if it's a new device), download your session, pick up where you left off.

A home-based server could certainly serve a continual session/desktop across multiple devices. A tricked-out one could even seamlessly switch to WiFi and/or telco data services (along with minimal bandwidth use) if you took a laptop/iPad/PDA out of immediate range.

Theoretically you could then host the central server on a virtual machine sitting in a multiply-redundant outsourced cluster with a remote node in your house and the ability to transparently switch the VM to the network-closest cluster in the hosting company's global network.

Put down your laptop or iPad at home, catch a flight overseas, hire a terminal device from anywhere at the far end (no more having to lug electronics through airports!) for a couple of days or weeks, and pick up your home desktop session from your hotel room. Or use a friend's PC and any web browser to run your session in a window without writing anything to disk.

What I want to see is international laptop hire. Pick up a current model at the airport in New York, plug your USB key in and run an entire customised VM for the flight to London (with optional airline WiFi if they offer it, or else just work on your documents), wipe the hard drive thirty minutes before landing, and hand in the laptop at Heathrow. If it gets seized by over-zealous security staff who think you have terrists in yer clicky-buttons, just tell that to the hire company - they'd have GPS trackers and quad-band phone-home cell chips installed standard to help them recover their property.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Here you go:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/05/27/1326245/Firefox-Home-Coming-To-iPhone-Browser-Next

It's really a problem that needs to be solved app-by-app, not in some magical infrastructure way, and it's actually pretty easy to solve if the app vendors or API authors care enough to deal with it.