Making an Issue out of Neglecting the User

Danny Sullivan deserves a shout-out for today's piece in the Common Sense Tech column on CNET News, even if, by his own admission, this is not the first time he has visited this particular topic. The topic is the state of calendar management on the Mac, which was pathetic under Snow Leopard, long before Mac OS fell vicitim to "iOS-ification" and has progressed from bad to worse with the spin-off of Reminders. I am beginning to think that any allegiances that Apple had to user-centered design have faded into ancient history, at least as far as Mac OS is concerned, after which the transition to myth is inevitable. I suppose this is all a consequence of an ideology based on the slogan:

We have seen the future, and it's mobile.

However, I have yet to be convinced that any business that depends on an analytic approach to both reading (as in long reports that often require multiple open windows to support fact-checking, testing, and related queries) and writing (as in responding to such reports with a comprehensive analysis) will be able to flourish if all computing needs to be done on a iPad. The future of politics may devolve to a "battle of tweets;" but it is hard to imagine Twitter being the only tool available when a company decides to prepare for its IPO!