Mobile Technology Dad Still Waiting for Dream to Become Reality
November 2, 2017
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the poster children for modern technology, but more people helped bring about the revolution. One such person is Alan Kay, often referred to as the father of mobile computing. He directed a research team at Xerox PARC, developed the SmallTalk programming language, and also worked the Xerox Alto personal computer. He also advocated that computers could be used as tools for creativity and learning. Kay sat down for an interview with Fast Company, printed in the article, “The Father Of Mobile Computing Is Not Impressed.”
Kay began the interview that Jobs was not the kind of person to befriend and animation studio Pixar was the most honest money Jobs made. He mentioned that Jobs was also trying to talk the government into giving tax breaks for companies that put computers in schools. Back in the twentieth century, Kay designed a mobile device that was the predecessor to a tablet. Called the Dynabook, it had physical buttons implanted in it and was never released for the consumer market. However, the Dynabook exists in some form today as the iPad. Kay complained that there is not a place to put a pen on the iPad, however.
After a brief explanation about human society and the desire to learn, he begins to talk about his idea of mobile computing. One of the things he liked about the earliest Mac computers was that they allowed people to undo their learning and explore how to use a computer, but the iPhone is stupid:
So, this is like less than what people got with Mac in 1984. Mac had a really good undo. It allowed you to explore things. Mac had multitasking. The iPhone is basically giving one little keyhole and if you do something wrong, you actually go back out and start the app over again.
Think about this. How stupid is this? It’s about as stupid as you can get. But how successful is the iPhone? It’s about as successful as you can get, so that matches you up with something that is the logical equivalent of television in our time.
Kay spends most of the interview speaking about how people learn, how education has changed, and some philosophical stuff. It is more about how to improve ourselves than an interview about mobile computing.
Whitney Grace, November 2, 2017
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