The monthly Hulu Plus fee unlocks back catalogs, meaning that you could theoretically stream any episode of any Hulu series anywhere. I like that arrangement quite a bit, especially since the cornerstone of the system is a new app released for the iPhone and iPad, in addition to upcoming applications for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

The only hitch, I think, is that a lot of people aren’t going to see why they should pay for Hulu Plus. This goes back to web entitlement issues – because everything has been free up until this point, people think they will always be free. I’m not sure how the service will fare, and the potential for a public backlash is there, but I’m more optimistic about it as its being implemented than I was a few months ago.

I’m ready to cancel my cable. Release this thing and let me justify it!

I think that the first issue is that my web consumption habits have radically changed, beginning with my return from China in 2007. The allure of Facebook was always in that it facilitated connectivity and gave communication a much-needed speed-boost. The problem is that the Facebook experience is one that almost demands that you be tethered to a computer at all times in order to really get the most of it. Four years ago that was perfectly acceptable because compelling mobile communications devices were limited to BlackBerrys and dumbphones. But when the iPhone launched in 2007 and gave rise to the thriving smartphone industry, suddenly being a really good desktop communications network wasn’t good enough for me anymore. Add to that the fact that my time in China was functionally spent in semi-isolation, and it becomes obvious that I wasn’t really in the mood to having the vast majority of my social interactions through a website that require me to sit at my desk.

When I got my iPhone after graduation, everything changed. Suddenly I was untethered from my computer and constantly accompanied by a powerful internet communications device at all times. And the fact of the matter is that despite a few promising iterations, the Facebook apps for the iPhone just aren’t what they should be. They’re slow, buggy, and generally not pleasant to use. Even the official Facebook app doesn’t do the job. Facebook’s presence in the mobile space is just not very fulfilling.

Twitter, on the other hand, is perfect for mobile. I’ve alternated between Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone), Seesmic, Echofon, and Twitterrific over the last year. They’re all spectacular, and they all let me do everything that Twitter is about: post quick updates, read what other interesting people are saying, and converse. Converse. That’s it. The apps work, and they bring a service perfect for on-the-go communication to devices perfect for the service. And for a young man on the go, that’s hugely important.

The second issues is that as my consumption habits have changed, the way I view technology has changed as well. One look at this web site will tell you that I’ve entered something of  a minimalist phase. I’ve become fascinated by the idea of stripping things down so that I have exactly enough tools at my disposal to do exactly what I want to do and nothing more. The problem I’m having with Facebook is that it doesn’t conform to that philosophy. No matter how hard I try to cut it down, there will always be significantly more of Facebook than I want to use. I’m left with the choice then of either putting a lot of effort into parts of the system that I don’t care about, or neglecting duties to the system that are expected of me.

Twitter, by contrast, strips out all of that profile and like and fan nonsense and lets me get to the core of what I want to do on a social network: communicate with people. The fact that Twitter does less than Facebook is its greatest strength, because it forces users to focus solely on what matters. And because all I have to do on Twitter is tweet, I can get involved in conversations much more easily, both with old friends and new ones, than I ever could on Facebook. Twitter’s limitations enable me to enjoy it more, because all I have to worry about is its core functionality.

And really, that’s what it’s all about. Facebook didn’t always have an open API with a gajillion connected applications. It didn’t always offer every possible tech solution under the sun. Once upon a time, it was just about communication. That’s changed now, and not necessarily for worse in a holistic sense. But it is a community that I’m less and less interested in being a party of, especially when Twitter is offering a simpler solution that enables easier, more mobile, and more direct communication. No futile and empty status updates. No meaningless “likes.” No FarmVille. Just a simple conversation with anyone. It’s a beautiful thing.

Why bother with Facebook?

(For more thoughts, check out what Nick Smith has to say on the subject.)

There are three keys to Apple’s success. The first is its unique understanding of the importance of delivery mechanisms over raw technology and features. As an example, let’s compare the iPhone 4 to the HTC EVO 4G, the current Best Android Phone Ever. When Apple announced that it was including a front-facing camera in the iPhone 4, some commentators sneered. Louis Gray wrote, “The introduction of multi-tasking and a front-facing camera both are catch up features to the latest Android models, including the aforementioned EVO.” The EVO, released only days earlier, does indeed sport a front-facing camera. But the functionality of the camera is not easily integrated into the system’s operations. Yes, it can be used to facilitate a form of video-chatting, but the mechanism by which such a chat functions is clumsy at best. Relying entirely on third parties to develop non-standard systems, the EVO’s developers clearly didn’t have a plan for how they were going to use their front-facing camera or why it would make the experience of using the EVO better. It’s just… there.

Where EVO failed is not in the technology, but in the delivery mechanism. Without a standardized, easy-to-use method of making a video call, the feature will be woefully underutilized. Apple, though, has created a simple and intuitive delivery mechanism for its video chat with FaceTime. All a user has to do is make a phone call and push a button. That’s it. It is quick and easy; perfectly packaged for the non-tech geek in all of us. Is the actual video chat technology in the iPhone 4 better than that of the EVO? Maybe not. But the delivery mechanism is flawless. And for anyone who was followed Apple over the years, that should come as no shock. This sort of thing is what they do best – they make technology usable. If you owned another MP3 players before you owned an iPod, you understand how important that is.

The second key to Apple’s success is product discipline. Prior to the announcement of the iPad, there were calls for the company to jump into the then-thriving netbook market. Apple’s computer offerings, some said, were too expensive to compete with netbooks, and the only way for the company to succeed with consumers looking for a low-cost solution to their computing needs would be to produce a $500 MacBook. But Apple didn’t want to enter into the market for low-cost, low-quality computers. They wanted to create a new market, and did so with the iPad. Now stories are being published about the iPad destroying netbook sales. The whole netbook market is collapsing before our eyes, with Google’s as-yet untested Chrome OS as its only hope of survival. Apple saw a market in netbooks that it didn’t want to enter. Instead it focused its attention elsewhere and hit a home run. That kind of discipline is increasingly rare in technology companies.

Contrast that with Google, which wants to be everywhere and compete in every market. That’s why it has a phone OS, a desktop OS, a web browser, and web services of almost every kind in addition to its core search and advertising products. But which of those services does Google actually do really well? Android isn’t bad, and the Chrome browser (built on top of Apple’s Webkit) is pretty good, but they both lack polish and don’t fully integrate with the hardware that they run on. Gmail and Maps are good, and search is very good. But what about Picassa? Google Wave? Google Buzz? Google Docs is still gestating, and Google Voice is stagnant. Chrome OS is an unknown. Google has expanded into these markets rapidly in the last year and a half, regardless of whether or not they are capable of producing a truly excellent product. They just go, ignoring half-baked development in an attempt to seize market share. That’s a strategy that worked really well for another company once upon a time. What’s happening to that company now?

Apart from their core offerings of Office and Windows, Microsoft’s products are a haphazard collection of overlapping failures. The Xbox division continues to lose millions of dollars, tablet offerings are nonexistent, and Windows Mobile/Phone is an industry joke. Microsoft even holds the distinction of failing twice simultaneously in the mobile space with its release of the Kin, the phone that no one wanted. Microsoft is trying to compete in industries where it has no business competing, and its core products are suffering as a result. Windows 7 is an improvement on Vista, but its features and usability still lag years being Mac OS X. The Office user experience is virtually identical to what it was a decade ago, opening the door for competitors and alternative products that may over time eat away at it, especially as web integration becomes a bigger factor in the eyes of consumers. Does Google aspire to this?

One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple in 1997 was start killing products that he viewed as superfluous. That included the innovative Newton MessagePad, the Cyberdog internet suite, and OpenDoc. Jobs sliced away everything that wasn’t central to the company’s mission, and poured his energy into the iMac. When he had established a small but stable foothold in the computer market, he started to think about ways to bring people to the platform. Apple entered the MP3 markets. When it was sufficiently dominant in that space, it entered the mobile phone market. When it was sufficiently dominant in that space, it entered the tablet market. All three of those markets are interconnected with one another, and Apple’s offerings progressed logically from one to the next. They also gave users an incentive to return to the platform that started it all – the Mac. Apple only entered into markets that complimented its original goal of bringing people to the Mac platform, and then only did so when it felt that it could produce a high-quality product with a clear purpose and mass appeal. That kind of discipline is rare among both companies and people, and without it, Apple might never have recovered from the Dark Ages that was the 1990s.

The third key is that same principle applied to design. Minimalism is the hallmark of Apple products, and more than anything else, is the reason why those products have found their way into so many hands. In many ways, the Mac vs. Windows, iPhone vs. Android debate boils down to a very simple dichotomy: what do you need to do vs. what can you do. Do you want a machine that performs a lot of tasks in a mediocre way, or do you want a machine that performs fewer tasks but does them exceptionally well? If success is determined by the breadth of available features, then Windows and Android are going to win easily. You can do more with a Windows machine, and you can do more with an Android phone. You can mod it, customize it, tweak it, tinker with it, install anything, run anything, and make it absolutely your own. But how much of what’s on your Android phone or your Windows machine do you need? How much of it do you actually use? How much of it is there for a functional purpose? And of what is there that you don’t need, how much of that gets in your way? How much of it hinders your experience rather than helps it? With excessive computer customization comes a complication of the user experience, a non-standardized interface, and increased susceptibility to bugs. And the effect of that completely customizable, anything-goes platform is to complicate usability for the eighty percent of the populace that just wants to check its emails and browse the web.

Critics like to knock the iPhone in particular for what they perceive as restrictions – it doesn’t do “real” multitasking, it doesn’t allow total customization, it has a closed application system – but those restrictions are actually liberators for the majority of people. The fact that there is only one very simple way to do something on the iPhone makes it easier to learn and easier to use. It makes the device drop away, vanish, and leaves only the user experience. And it allows people who aren’t comfortable with computers, who dread installing anything new or making any changes for fear of seeing a blue screen, to just go. Apple’s guiding philosophy in all of its products is to give the vast majority of people exactly what they need to do exactly what they want to do, and to give nothing else that could possibly complicate or hinder that experience. That’s why children can pick up an iPad and know exactly what they’re doing. And that philosophy has allowed the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad to become the most successful, innovative, and important products available in their respective markets.

Delivery mechanisms, discipline, and minimalism – these are the keys to Apple’s success. More than that, they are the keys to Apple’s excellence, which is even more important. Apple produces excellent products, products that are intuitive, reliable, and fulfill user needs. It provides excellent technology delivered in an excellent design and market it with excellent advertising. More than any company in the world today, it has taken excellence as a concept and made it a success.

Can Google or Microsoft say that?

Now, that said, the slate of products that Google unveiled yesterday, which included a new version of Android running Flash and a Google TV platform that integrates with cable boxes and some TVs, was mighty impressive – assuming that each of the things actually works outside of the demo. There have already been reports of Flash sucking battery and causing major heating issues on Android phones – not very welcome when your device is a handheld – and Internet TVs have never caught on in the past (although before the iPad, the same could be said about tablet computing). Nevertheless, some commentators are predicting that the upcoming release of Android 2.2 (“Froyo” – damn hippies and their strange dessert-related naming conventions), coupled with the Google TV, will be enough to suck the life out of Jobs’ baby and kick Apple back down the technology ladder.

I stumbled onto this video a while back. With the launch of the iPad imminent, I thought it was as good a time as any to drag it out, dust it off, and slap it up here as “content.” I’ve made my unabashed love for all things Apple well known to readers of this site (as well as to anyone who has ever met me, I think), so it’s no shock that I really enjoyed this thing. But what really

I’m not going to bother explaining what the iPad is. If you’ve been anywhere near a computer today, you’ve seen it and formed an opinion on it. My opinion, predictably, is of the OHMIGODITSTHECOOLESTTHINGEVERIHAVETOHAVEIT variety. That said, I understand that some people aren’t as enthusiastic. They ask why it’s preferable to a laptop. They say it’s essentially an oversized iPhone or iPod Touch. They question its purpose, and the purpose of tablets in general. In short, they don’t “get it.” That’s understandable, and honestly there’s nothing wrong with that. And while I’m not an expert in theories of media consumption, I have been thinking about the issues raised by the iPad and by other recent technological advances in some depth, and would like to offer my perspective.

The iPad is revolutionary in its functionality. More importantly, however, it is revolutionary in the conceptual theory behind it. Simply put, the iPad challenges existing paradigms of media consumption in ways that no device has since the advent of the Internet itself. A bold statement, to be sure, but if you’ll allow me to explain, I’ll do my best to convince you that it is also a well-founded one.

Consider your personal concept of home computing. You’re most likely reading this piece on your laptop or desktop computer. Over the years, the various devices that you’ve used to connect to the Internet have changed in appearance, OS, and power, but the way you use them has remained essentially the same. To use a computer, you sit down somewhere, place it either on a hard surface or (if you’re brave) on your lap, hunch over slightly so that you can see your screen properly, manipulate the small pointer icon on screen either by a track pad or by a peripheral sitting on another hard surface, and point and click your way through your computing experience. Now, there isn’t anything objectively wrong with this process. However, because it is the only process that the vast majority of computer users have ever experienced, there is a very strong sense that not only is it the “proper” way, but also that there is no need to improve upon it.

In short, the paradigm through which we view our computers and the ways we use them has become rigid. Even programs that do new and innovative things still conform to the basic rules of this old paradigm.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with this system, insofar as it is functional. But the question Apple is asking with the iPad is, “Is there actually a way to do this better? Is there a mechanism through which individuals can interact with their personal computers that would be superior to this traditional point-and-click interface, that would open up not just new programing possibilities, but entirely new functionalities?” It’s the same question Nintendo asked when it developed the Wii, casting aside twenty years of video-gaming tradition and embracing a new model of functionality. It’s the question that Apple itself asked more than a quarter-century ago, when it abandoned the dominant DOS format of computer interaction and replaced it with the point-and-click interface that we’ve all used since. These weren’t just leaps in functionality; they were conceptual leaps, leaps that depended upon the genius of particular individuals who were willing to challenge the dominant paradigm of technological interaction.

This is what Apple is doing with the iPad. It is challenging the dominant paradigm of computer use. It is stating boldly that there is another way of interacting with our computers that may be functionally better than the old way of doing things. This is a radical notion, especially when one considers how ingrained point-and-click is in our computing culture. Apple is essentially asking people to abandon the lens through which they have viewed computers their entire lives, and to accept that there is another, potentially better way of doing things. For many people, this is asking too much. But just as DOS was cast aside by point-and-click, and just as motion-control in video games is rapidly becoming widely accepted, so too might the iPad philosophy of personal computing use come to be embraced by the world at large. It won’t happen overnight, but it may happen.

But there’s another aspect to what’s happening here that I think bears mentioning. As a senior at Middlebury I took a class with Professor Jason Mittell (that’s him in the sidebar) about television in American culture. One of the projects I worked on in the class was  presentation on how new technologies are changing the way that we view television, not only practically, but also conceptually. For every media user – and we’re talking about computers, television, music, everything – there is one question that above all else determines how we interact with the various devices that we use in our everyday lives. That question is: what is media – the content and functionality or the delivery mechanism? It’s an important question, and not as easy to answer as you might think.

Consider television. Do you have to be watching a physical television set to be watching television? A lot of you probably say yes. But if you are watching the same programming that is being broadcast to your television on your computer through Hulu, or on your iPod through a video file, why don’t you consider that watching television? Its the same content, the same functionality, just on a different screen. So why isn’t it all television?

Think about music, a media that has thrived in the digital space. In the old days, an “album” was a physical record that you could touch. You played it on a device that require physical contact. Then we made the move to CDs, and an “album” became a disc that slid into a laser-based device. And now we’re in the age of digital content, where a physical unit isn’t even required. Now we download “albums” from various sources. Three different delivery mechanisms – and yet they’re all “albums,” because the content is essentially the same. (To put it simply: no matter how you hear it, Frampton Comes Alive will always be Frampton Comes Alive.) And yet despite the fact that we’ve accepted that notion when it comes to music – and I say that as someone who LOVES vinyl records, mind you – we are reluctant to accept it with television. For most people, television is still what you watch on your television set. There’s nothing objectively wrong with that view, but there are alternatives, and I believe that within my lifetime, we will reach a stage where television becomes a multi-platform media in the same way that music has.

So now we have to ask the same question of our personal computers. What is our personal computer, conceptually speaking? Is it the traditional physical unit, or is it the content? The old paradigm says that the personal computer is the device, and that the device must conform to a rigid set of principles – i.e., television must always be only a TV. The experimental paradigm – the paradigm upon which the iPad relies – says that content and functionality is what defines a media, and that the notion that a personal computer must always be in the traditional form of a personal computer is foolish. A personal computer can be on any screen, in any setting, using any method of interaction. It’s not tied down to an old-style unit. That’s the same principle that created a pocket computer in the form of an iPhone, and it is the principle at work in the iPad.

So the iPad, then, is the intersection of two radical notions: that there may be new and better ways of interacting with our computers than we are using now, and that the computer conceptually is defined not by our traditional notions of its physical form, but rather by its content and functionality. And that is hard to accept. The iPad demands a fundamental change in the way that individuals view their computers. A lot of people will not make that change. Even among those whose habits wouldn’t even push the iPad’s technological boundaries – which is to say, a majority of people – accepting the idea that they could interact with their computers in a way that doesn’t require a keyboard and a mouse is a huge leap. And for those of us who demand quite a bit of our computers; who engage in heavy photo and sound editing and play videos games that require heavy processing power, accepting a less powerful machine as our primary computing tool is inconceivable. But to lean on the computing structure that has been conceptually unchallenged for a quarter century and write-off any possible alternative is just plain narrow-minded.The iPad as it exists today is far from perfect. I’d have loved to see multitasking, but I’m confident it will be included in this June’s iPhone OS update. More critically, I’d have liked to see a webcam of some sort, and a firewire port would have been very nice. But to nitpick at tiny features that I’d have liked to see in the theoretical tablet is pointless.

You see, the iPad isn’t the end of Apple’s tablet experiment. It’s the beginning. It is the first major step forward in tablet computing in forever, and the first tablet that has the potential to truly go mainstream. What that ultimately means is that it is the first major challenge to the widely-held notion of what personal computer use actually is that we’ve seen in the Internet age. And while it may not ultimately supplant the traditional computer system of keyboards and mice, it will almost surely change the way we look at our computers. Regardless of how successful the iPad proves to be, the fact that Apple is even trying to push those boundaries is cause for celebration.

The two desktop clients that I’ve been using with some regularity are Tweetie and Echofon.  In terms of appearance and UI, Tweetie is untouchable. It’s beautiful to look at, allows easy access to multiple accounts, and just plain does the job.  However, the long-awaited update – Tweetie 2 – is still in limbo. And while we’re all waiting, the thing has just fallen behind in terms of features; it still uses old-style retweets, doesn’t support lists, doesn’t support geo-location, etc. All of those things are on the Tweetie app for the iPhone, and are presumably coming soon, but the wait has been a killer.

Echofon, on the other hand, has those features, and is both simple to use and very powerful.  Unfortunately, it’s interface makes multi-account use a bit of a pain.  It also does sync with Echofon for the iPhone, but I don’t use that app with great regularity.  Right now, Echofon is more or less my default Twitter tool on the Mac, but I can’t help but think that there is a better one out there.

So any of you out there who may be reading this, I’m looking for advice. What is the end-all be-all of Mac Twitter clients?