You could be forgiven for thinking that, with the arrival of the iPad, and the rivals it is spawning, that we are at the dawn of the era of 'tablet computing'.

But I believe we are at the end of the era of device-specific computing.

The move from urls to apps, closed code to open apis, on-device storage to access from the cloud, all points away from the pivotol role of the device (which is where Apple makes its bucks) to enabling connectivity to your services (the realm, currently, of developers, mobile operators, broadband and wifi providers and ISPs).

The thing that smartphones, tablets and laptops (even, Microsoft Surface - remember that?) enable is ubiquity of computing. Always on - always with you. Access is the key here. Very clearly NOT the device.

The device can enable access - but it is only one way of enabling it. Not THE way.

The service and its delivery is king. Not the device.

Apple has allied these two things by controlling what is available in its app store. You have to meet Apple's standards to be allowed to deploy - for your service to be experienced by the user via the Apple UX interface. The service provided, therefore, on an Apple device is good.

That experience can only be as good as the quality of its adaption to the device through which you experience it.

In other words, if a service is as well designed for the device you are currently experiencing it through as it is for an iPhone, then you may conclude it is the device that's delivering that service (hence the growing army of Android fanboys). A well-designed service works brilliantly with the available interface. It isn't degraded by switching from one device to another. It takes advantage of the interface it has to hand.

But holding a device in your hand, having a device at all, may be little more than a hangover from our comfort with the tactile world. The cloud could be accessed in 3D before -your-eyes Minority Report ways.



Or more likely, direct to your mind (remember how far off and way out you thought gestural interface was when you first saw it demo'd on a YouTube video?)

And at that point in the non-device specific future we'll have no one to blame for a crash but ourselves.

Daddy and the nugget monster...

Over the last few nights I've experienced some deeply good things.

The first is the ubiquity of wifi and the extent of real-time social networks that is delivering. The rate of change in one small Spanish resort over the last 12 months in this respect is quite breathtaking (I stayed here in Cambrils on the Costa Dorada exactly 12 months earlier). FourSquare's grid is everywhere, for example.

Laptops are now competing with paperbacks as must-have holiday accessories. Not so many years back the holiday user of a laptop was doing so for 'very important business reasons'. Now the holiday laptop user is doing so for pleasure, entertainment, connectedness - work may or may not be part of that. The divisions dissolve.

I benefited very much from that connectedness. One of my twitter friends noted I was in Cambrils and offered that he used to live there. This resulted in a series of welcome local tips - recommendations of restaurants and ice-cream parlours (to which I will return...). Another who has a place nearby also had advice on what I should see and where I should go.

Trusted peer recommendations. In real time.

Dining out in Cambrils - particularly the harbour - is a pleasure. Here's some things to bear in mind re what I'm about to share.

• We were visiting this particular restaurant for the first time.
• The owner had no idea whether we were here for one night or 100.

So (and I hope this will embarrass my daughter some day...) my wife had spotted a particular pasta restaurant (Porto Vecchio) she wanted to try. My daughter (5) was resolutely against this very ancient establishment (17th century I believe) on the grounds that it did not serve chicken nuggets and chips. I suspect it never had in all those centuries.
Well. I thought there may be a middle ground. Would it be possible for the restaurant to source a chicken nuggets and chips from a rival nearby? Mum and dad happy, daughter happy, restauranteur happy?
You know what? They made a quick phone call. And said sure, come on in.
So we all ate together and we all ate happy.


And when we call for the bill the owner tells us the chicken nuggets and chips are on the house.
And I'm even happier.

So I tell you all about it. Imagine that in the average chain restaurant...

There is an interesting business model going on here: making everyone happy. Happy beats going for growth over everything. Happy beats going for the last turn of the screw on profit. Happy wins.

And happy wins for those doing the delivery too. How much nicer is it to have your customers leaving shaking you warmly by the hand? Isn't that a better way to live?

It's not a rarity either.

I was recommended (via twitter) to try SirVent - an ice-cream parlour on the harbour front. And it was truly awesome. The staff were brilliant and informative. The prices keen. The ice-cream just mind-blowing.
SirVent creates a steady stream of happy flowing from its door. It over delivers to such an extent most people leave not just smiling but laughing. And they take that joy with them past all the other Harbour front diners on cones piled beyond high with spectacular looking (and tasting) icecream. I've eaten ice-cream in a lot of good places. And this one wins.
The business has been in Cambrils (so far as I could tell) from the mid 50s. It's family run and has no great ambitions to rule the world. It's hard to be this good, to over deliver so magnificently and service shareholders.

But I wonder if businesses of the kind found on Cambrils Harbour show the way business models could and should move - in the direction of the maximising of joy for all parties vs the maximising of profit.
Are they the kind of businesses more of us want to exist? When there is an abundance of most things, there remains a scarcity of happy.

So, could it be the Temparanillo speaking? Or is there space for successful businesses who place joy first?

Facebook's on-going attempt to replace the web (cite link protocol replacement 'like' and welcome 'FourSquare-killer' Places) raises questions we have to consider.
Is it all bad if someone at the centre does all the building? Our Governments deliver our road systems - and no one fears for our liberty as a result.
Expanding on that analogy, (and in the case of both Places and Like this is obvious) perhaps Facebook is simply paving over - making up to a 'better' standard - routes which others established over time. Loads of us walked that way so we flattened a path through the long grass.  Facebook paves it over.
Trouble is when the road network becomes 'improved' to a certain standard it also becomes subject to governing rules and restrictions. And we have to argue with the powers-that-be about where the next road should be built or expanded.
Is the web, as some suggest, being 'killed' in favour of big, simple, easy-to-use, one-size-fits-all stuff like Facebook or iphone and ipad apps? Big tarmacced roads (god forbid; information superhighways).
I suspect not. And I suspect not because while space in the world of the atom is limited - as are the number of locations requiring connection via roads - there are no such limitations in the digital world. No limits on the number of groups that can form (provided more nodes keep on coming along).
Facebook is a standardization of getting from A to B. It makes life easier. Lots will indulge. We like easy. It's a one size that fits many.
But it's not as interesting as going your own way. Creating niche response to niche needs. And actually, as a species (like most others, cats excepted), we like interesting more than we like easy. Cite any number of experiments Dan Ariely references in his work.
I'm sleeping safe. Facebook doesn't get to be the web this year, next year or any other year.