litl’s SDK plans, revisited by Xconomy
Chuck Freedman, litl's developer evangelist, demonstrates the BakeSpace recipes channel on the litl webbook.
We shared our plans last week to release our first-ever software development kit (SDK). It’s pretty exciting news: starting this summer, hundreds of thousands of developers will be able to build custom applications or “channels” for the litl webbook. Better yet, these developers will be using Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1, the newest version of the ubiquitous web platform.
Our channels make the web—especially fun content like photos, music, games, video, recipes, and even news headlines—more useful and entertaining. Check out our Facebook Status channel, for example, to see how our users can already keep up with their social circle from across a kitchen or bedroom (or even on a large-screen television). Our BakeSpace recipe and NPR podcasting channels are worth a look, too.
Over time, we expect the new SDK will lead to many new channels for the litl webbook ... and many new ways for our users to enjoy the web. As they say, that’s a good thing!
Wade Roush from Xconomy sat down this week with litl's James Gardner, head of marketing, and Chuck Freedman, chief developer evangelist, to learn more about the SDK and its potential significance. He writes:
“The company announced last week that it’s getting ready to release a software development kit (SDK) that will enable Web and software developers to create their own custom channels for the Webbook. These channels are all built on Flash, the lingua franca of Web animation and the one type of content that doesn’t work on the iPhone or the iPad.
That’s good news for Litl customers, and it could also benefit developers. “By putting another screen, another kind of experience into homes, we’re bringing a unique audience into the market and giving independent and agency developers another audience to build for,” says Chuck Freedman, Litl’s chief developer evangelist.”
Read the rest of Roush’s article here. If you’re a developer and want to learn more, visit our developer resources website here.
Thanks, Wade, for your interest in litl. We appreciate it.
Photo courtesy of Wade Roush and Xconomy. Trademarks and copyrights referenced are the property of their respective owners. No endorsement is implied or intended.
Thinking a litl differently
Gregory Huang and Wade Roush from Xconomy teamed up today to capture reaction from the Boston and Seattle start-up communities to Apple's newly announced tablet. Their article, "The Apple iPad’s Impact on Mobile, Gaming, and E-Books: Local Techies and Startups React", is well worth reading.
Our CEO, John Chuang, added his perspective, concluding that we're pursuing a fundamentally different vision for the future of personal computing:
Ultimately, we are about a much bigger change in how operating systems work and how computers work. We are about [the] operating-system-as-a-service, about being extremely maintenance-free, about content, about synching. [The iPad] is more of a traditional device—an extension of the mobile platform, which we’ve seen, but at the end of the day it’s still local hardware, with local storage, and that’s not what we’re trying to accomplish.
As John's previously described, litl is premised on the fundamental belief that personal computing, especially at home, will continue its rapid move to the cloud. Email and photos transitioned first, but casual gaming, web video, video chat, social networking, and even productivity apps are all following fast. And yet, the hardware and software tools we use to enjoy the web are still mostly based on "pre-web" thinking: powerful on-board processors with large hard drives supporting local operating systems and standalone software.
We don't think this mismatch between consumer behavior and computing devices can endure. More than anything, it creates unnecessary complexity and compels consumers to become de facto systems administrators. Outside of the technical community, few consumers have an interest in updating software, backing up hard drives, or patching their operating system: they want the web to be fun and they want it to be easy.
The mismatch also stunts innovation by tying manufacturers and consumers to outdated thinking. John Gruber, technology observer and pundit, lamented the dearth of innovative thinking, "If a small startup can build the Litl, why couldn’t a big company like Dell or Sony? People today still love HP calculators made 30 or even 40 years ago. Has HP made anything this decade that anyone will remember fondly even five years from now? Inkjet printers?".
So, we at litl have chosen a very different path from the tablet and other traditional computing devices. Learn more about it on our website. And, if you agree with our thinking, please tell your friends and help us change the world a "litl" bit 
Photo credit: John Harvey