Building for Emerging Computing Platforms

Some of the best technologists I know can’t wait to explore the possibilities opened up by new computing platforms, from VR games and narratives, to productivity in AR, to apps on wearables that help us change our habits.

These new devices are a giant opportunity. But they also carry a kind of dependency that we don’t think about that often?—?adoption of new consumer electronics. Mostly, we’ve all been intensely focused on smartphones (and rightly so). The distribution choke point has been getting new applications on the phones in front of users.
 
Some version of that distribution issue will exist on the new platforms, too. But even worse, there’s an obvious additional choke point upstream if you build on these emerging computing platforms?—?the hardware. I gave a quick talk that touched on some ways to navigate that when the market is early.