Application or Bust?

The modern application paradigm is seldom app- reciated beyond its own fancy graphics and high- priced designer fonts in contrast to the Microsoft Windows applications from which it came. For those who remember the early Windows 3.1 applications that were so slow to load that you could actually see the brute force instantiations happening as the foreground took over from the minimized state. In fact - the entire GUI (graphical user interface) eventually became synonymous with application windows as the reason for turning on the computer. Because fam- ously, Bill Gates didn't know what to do with more than 68 KB (kilobytes). People eventually figured out what to do, building apps such as Shazam or Winamp or Spotify and those who stuck with the typewriters were eventually left behind by spell check and Britney Spears Youtube videos in the background instead of living room records. The Windows operating system (OS) - as separate from the Windows applications running on them pioneered an entirely new way of HCI (human computer interface) centred on the GUI and the file-folder-application par- adigm. It dealt with its fair share of abuse from early authors of code, programming all sorts of 'warez' and 'trojans' into various executables. As the name suggests, 'executables' are application instantiations built by 3rd party authors and programmers specifically for executing windows subroutines into user applications. The applications are dependent on memory, compiled GPU runtime threads and HCI user input to perform tasks. As a result of trusting its registry and device driver cybersecurity constraints, all kinds of professionals gained certificates and diplomas towards becoming ever more experienced in Microsoft infrastructures, esp- ecially as it relates to enterprise solutions with names like .NET and SharePoint. For the first time in history a manufacturer had opened up its product and allowed people all over the world to place stick- ers all over its operating system. It became bloated with spyware, randomware and other scars of launching itself into the incredible pits of fires in GeoCities and early internet HTML. Having done away with executables, Apple then revolu- tionized the world by retailing an 'App Store' market. A secure totalitarian online ecosystem of Nazi-like control on any and all applications were loaded atop their formidable opera- ting systems built for notebooks, desktops and mobile phones. Applications had gone from complicated IT structures sometimes with sticker prices in the hundreds of thousands for enterprise customers by Oracle or VMWare to a well- managed bi-directionality between Apple QA and these 3rd party QA teams charging $9.99 and free avatar skins with one-touch purchases. Increasingly relying on DevOps, Testers and Architects all working together in Waterfall, Agile or Skunkworks, modern sandboxed building teams, minimizing bugs and create amazing user experiences for the world. All this came crashing down on Apple shortly after it had beaten out Adobe Flash as the gateway to internet media. It successfully lobbyied out from the woodworks HTML5 and ceas- ing its support for any Flash add-ons from its browsers also made it less dependant on anyone or anything for its best in class quality. Then FBI decided that it should have unfettered access to Apple iPhone backdoors for investigative purposes and in gathe- ring evidence against criminals so-called. It would have been akin to warranting seizure of your photo albums, rolodex, mail deliveries and even the kitchen sink if the FBI was suspicious enough about your person to merit such an occupation of your time, during routine traffic stops as with gangster drug busts. The moment this happened all applic- ations loaded atop your smartphone would be vulnerable to these technolog- ical backdoors the FBI was demanding Apple build for them. The public reaction was as expected: Apple shouldn't be forced to do anything it deems unsafe for its devices, even if law enforcement believes it should have priority over the life- blood of modern living in digital ecosystems and online communities. This probably speaks volumes for the mentality of law enforcement over the past few centuries. Mainly we should trust law enforcement exactly because they have access to the backdoors of a city, snuffing out crimes and opport- unities from the nooks and cranies of jewellery stores and butcher shops alike. No one doubts that law enforcement prob- ably does have priviledged access to what is seen in a muni- cipality nor that it should have but somehow the logic becomes absurd once that access involves our personal cell pho- nes or browser search history. That one time, instead of searching for 'deviled eggs' the you typoed yourself into entering 'defiled eggo' with the search results spitting out all kinds of images of burned toast and accusations. Apple still hasn't fully recovered from that mess and while applications are nevertheless thriving communities as Youtube Spotify and Netflix can attest to (accounting for its attempted takeover of half of Hollywood). But security and data have not been sorted and all kinds of people everywhere are at risk of ai conversations leaking their therapy-like data to any- one with the checkbook to pay for it. Just like the FBI back- door which was itself rumoured to have been built anyway by some activist hackers for a few thousand dollars. It's unclear whether applications will remain front and center within new paradigms of ml modeling and ai vibe-coding but one point which remains emphatic is that IT systems are now shared in expert- ise by OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) like Apple, the authors who manage the codebase and increasingly average cust- omers who can build their own agentic patches to repair the under- lying frictions between hardware sensors and our true intent- ions. These new software self-resiliences and sustainabilities will increasingly be with those who access to the code, open, closed or provided with keys and secret handshakes to engineers qualif- ied to read it. As stackoverflow says it best: "There will always be a need to provide clear specifications to computation devices".

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