Not so long ago one of my students (John Spencer) introduced me to Jef Raskin’s book “The Humane Interface“. While I have yet to read the book cover to cover, it’s got some interesting ideas in it including the notion of a “zooming user interface” or “ZUI”. Independent of John’s suggestion, another friend of mine (Zach Moazeni) visited our lab recently and gave a talk on Ruby on Rails. Zach gave his talk using prezi.com – a zooming presentation editor which really piqued my curiosity.

During our recent Spring Break (when my students were all basking in the sun down south) I started playing around with Prezi (they do make if free for educational purposes) and so far I like what I’ve seen. I’m teaching Android in one of my courses, so I started using Prezi for some of my lecture materials. Here’s a sample (click on the fullscreen option for best effect):

There are a couple of things I like about Prezi. First is its ability to focus and shift attention on presentation content in a natural flowing manner. Second, it’s sort of a hybrid between a PowerPoint presentation and a screencast. Its more dynamic than the former and more “macro” than a screencast. For example, when I browse the prezi gallery on prezi.com, I find I get more out of these presentations than a standard PowerPoint presentation (because of the ability to focus and shift attention) but find them not nearly as time consuming and tedious as watching a detailed screencast. Finally, the prezi editor is fairly simple to learn and work with, though I’m sure my initial output probably could use some serious refinement!

Prezi is based on Flash so it will work on any PC, Linux or Mac (but not on your iPhone or iPad!!). You can serve up your Prezi presentation online or you can download a read-only copy to distribute yourself. There is also an offline editor, though I prefer the online editor since I can then get at my presentations from any machine.

There are also some features I’d like to see in a future version. For example, when I’m establishing a path through multiple objects within a frame I’d like to be able to “group” that path as a sub path and refer to it at a macro level. As it stands you really can’t create a path until all the information is out on the table. The equivalent of a “snap to” wouldn’t be bad either when creating content.

I’ve posted my Android Prezis on my Screencast and Prezi Tutorials page. I’ll be adding more in the coming weeks. While you’re at it, give prezi.com a test drive yourself. I think you (and your audiences) will find it a welcome breath of fresh air after decades of PowerPoint and similar presentation tools.

Google Latitude is available on your iPhone via Safari (e.g. a web app) and not as a native app. The browser requests the user for permission to access the phone's location API.

This morning I came across this interesting and well-written article on the current state of affairs with regard to mobile app stores.   I think the author’s forward looking comments are reasonable if you limit your outlook to a year or two,  but there are a couple of things to consider with regard to app stores in the long term.  First,  the common presupposition made is that app stores will remain a relevant if not primary way users obtain apps for their phone.   From a purely technical perspective  I would suggest we should not ignore the possibility that rich Internet apps eventually begin to displace the need for native app installs, and eventually the need for mobile app stores.  As HTML5 continues to evolve and the underlying mobile platform becomes more accessible to web app developers, what advantage is there in downloading an app, especially when the data seems to suggest that mobile app retention rates are surprising low (25% on average!)?  It seems to me that web-based apps make perfect sense for a very large number of mobile apps that today are typically one-shots from the end user perspective.  Here at MASL our students have already built some very clever iPhone apps entirely in Safari.  Once a shortcut is added to the home screen it is indeed very difficult for the average user to discern whether or not its a native app or a web app. (We intend to do the equivalent of a “Pepsi Challenge” to actually measure this – look for more details in the future.)    Google Latitude on the iPhone is an early example of using the browser as an alternative to iTunes App Store.

That brings us to our second  point.   From a commercial perspective, Google is shaping up to becoming a pivotal stakeholder in the future mobile application ecosystem.   As I pointed out a while back, its raining Androids this Fall.  (For a much more up-to-date and complete listing of confirmed and rumored Android devices see the list that TechCrunch recently compiled.)  Every Android device I’ve used to-date requires you to become a Google citizen (you need to authenticate with a Google account or create one if you don’t have one) before you can use the device, and from that point on your mobile device is very tightly integrated with the Google cloud, and all the data and services you know and love (email, calendar, maps, search, etc.) are accessible from your mobile without the user installing anything.  It makes perfect sense for Google to gradually nudge the mobile application ecosystem towards a model in which the browser is the primary vehicle for third party application providers to access and integrate with Google services and data in the cloud. This also makes a lot of sense for the end user given the current app usage patterns and in the end seems to raise some interesting questions about the long-term viability of the mobile app store model.

Today its not uncommon to run into people who think of human-like robots when you start talking about Android, rather than Google’s cool new mobile phone platform. This is likely to change dramatically between now and Christmas, at least here in the USA. In the past month a number of manufacturers and carriers have announced new Android-powered phones, and there are more to come in the days ahead.

Available today at a store near you …

At present, if you reside in the USA (we’ll have to write the international version of this post later…) your Android options are far and few between. Today you in fact have only three choices:

• HTC Dream (G1): Actually the first Android phone that became available (October 2008). It has a slide out QWERTY keypad and capacitive touchscreen. Its available on T-Mobile.
• HTC myTouch3G (Magic): This device became available via T-Mobile this past summer. No QWERTY keypad on this phone.
• HTC Hero (G2): This phone looks a bit like the G1, only minus the G1′s controversial “chin”. As of this past weekend, it has become available via Sprint Nextel. (October 11).

The other options you have here in the USA is to visit ebay or opt for the unlocked developer phone made available by Google (a G1 I believe…)

Coming soon …

If you can wait a few weeks more, the number of options available to you here in the USA will increase substantially:

• Motorola CLIQ (aka as DEXT outside the US): The US launch with T-Mobile is supposedly October 19. Its actually the same processor as the original HTC G1, but comes tightly integrated with your favorite social destinations via a layer of software added on top of Android by Motorola (MOTO BLUR).
• Motorola Sholes/Tao: According to latest rumors, this device will launch with Verizon as soon as October 30, but others indicate an early December launch.
• HTC Hero/Desire?? In addition to the Motorola android phone, Verizon is to launch a second Android handset from HTC this fall.
• Samsung Moment (InstinctQ): Originally announced by Samsung last Spring, Sprint Nextel has announced a launch date of November 1.

Coming not so soon …

There are also some more options that are further out that you’ll want to pay attention to if none of the above suit your fancy:

• Dellroid: a Dell manufactured Android smartphone to be available via ATT?
• LG GW620: officially announced by LG, this phone will become available sometime in 2010.

In addition to these two, you can be sure that the usual culprits (HTC, Motorola, Samsung) will be shipping a whole raft of new Android phones in 2010. In fact, last week Gartner forecasted that by 2012 Android will be the #2 smartphone, bested only by Symbian.  We’ll need a lot more devices out there than there are today in order for that to happen!

Do let me know if I’ve missed any notables in the first two categories above.