Connected Devices and the Next Generation of Applications

I posted our intro video on HN last week and got a lot of emails with constructive feedback. I wrote this is in response to one of them and thought it would make a good blog post.

Most of us already own multiple devices. We use our phones for doing stuff on the go such as browsing the web, social networking, watching videos and so on. At home, we use computers and tablets mostly to browse to the web. Now a lot of times we have to transfer information from once device to another. It might be something as simple as a URL, or something more complicated such as connecting your computer to projector via cable. I believe with the recent explosion of hardware, transferring information has gotten painful and with more devices coming our way, it will just get worse. The current trend is building applications for just one device and leaving it up to the user transfer the information to the other device. This is where the concept of connected applications come in. Applications that are running on your running on all your devices simultaneously and can talk to each other in real time. The obvious benefit of this there will seamless transition of information as we go from device to device and this in turn will make us less dependent on a particular devices. This is critical as we go towards ubiquitous computing, where the devices do work on the background and are less user-dependent. This is my vision of the future, and I am sure there are other people in the tech world who have it as well.

Our trump card are Smart TVs . They are essentially TVs that are connected to the internet. I think it’s an important milestone in computing since the most popular device in everyone’s home can now access the same content as your other devices and talk to them as well. Previously, the only way to talk to your TV was your HDMI cable, although I won’t call it communication since it was essentially your computer on a bigger screen. We think Smart TVs are the first step for transitioning towards building connected applications. The biggest problem with Smart TVs is the only way to interface them is through traditional remotes. We are trying to change this by making them accessible through smartphones and computers. This will give rise to a whole new generation of apps that are connected on your phone/computer and your TV at the same time. You might have seen a couple of these examples on the video. But what I didn’t talk about in video is how I think this might change advertising. Imagine watching your favorite TV show on your Smart TV with your phone being connected to the TV at the same time. If you like the clothes the actor/actress on the TV is wearing, you can view it on your phone and buy it from your phone with the press of a button. Further, now that your TV is connected to the internet, the ads you see on the TV can be personalized to your taste. And even with all this, we are still barely scratching the surface of what’s possible with connected apps.