{"id":33736,"date":"2017-03-06T02:29:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T10:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=33736"},"modified":"2017-02-01T20:13:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T04:13:28","slug":"upgrade-your-software-not-your-hardware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/06\/upgrade-your-software-not-your-hardware\/","title":{"rendered":"Upgrade Your Software, Not Your Hardware"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tokyo,
Tokyo, 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What has made Apple more successful than Microsoft? It isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the hardware, the horsepower, or the technical specifications. It is the software\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the user experience, the ease of use, and minimalist Apple approach.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hardware has hit a ceiling<\/h2>\n

I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve hit a hardware ceiling.<\/p>\n

Cameras are already good enough. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need any more megapixels, or better image quality.<\/p>\n

Laptops are already good enough. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need our laptops to be faster or more powerful.<\/p>\n

Smartphones are already good enough. They are thin, light, and powerful enough.<\/p>\n

Where is the next innovation?<\/h2>\n

There are only so few ways you can innovate on a digital device. You can add features, remove features, make it faster, smaller, bigger, or thinner.<\/p>\n

What we need to do in terms of innovation is to improve the software \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not worry about the hardware.<\/p>\n

Focus on the software over hardware<\/h2>\n

I actually quite like the direction Apple is going with macOS and iOS. The iPhone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s design is probably not going to change much anymore, nor is the MacBook computers. But Apple has invested considerable resources in improving the user-experience of the operating system (software). They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to streamline it, help sync all your iDevices, and simplify the process.<\/p>\n

If you look at Tesla, obviously they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re innovating a lot of the hardware of the cars (electronic batteries). But I feel the biggest innovation Tesla is going to do is in terms of the software (self-driving cars).<\/p>\n

How to apply this to our lives?<\/h2>\n

We think in order to become more innovative in life, we need to upgrade our hardware.<\/p>\n

We try to upgrade our phones, laptops, tablets, cameras, cars, homes, and other pieces of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hardware.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Yet, we should strive to upgrade our minds. Our creativity, our innovative ideas, our theories, concepts, or ideals. This is our mental \u00e2\u20ac\u0153software.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

How to upgrade the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153software\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of your mind<\/h2>\n

We have all the hardware we need.<\/p>\n

So how can we upgrade the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153software\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of our mind? Some ideas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Simplify<\/strong>: What superfluous features can you remove? What complications from your life can you subtract? How can you make your mind run more \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lean\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d by removing certain \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bloatware\u00e2\u20ac\u009d software?<\/li>\n
  2. Sync<\/strong>: How can we get all of the actions of our life to sync more with one another? How can we have our work, personal life, and spiritual life be more in-sync? How can we stay consistent with all the changes in our life, without any duplication errors, or losing any data?<\/li>\n
  3. Intuitive<\/strong>: How can we make the software of our mind more intuitive? How can we make our ideas so simple that a baby or grandparent can understand?<\/li>\n
  4. Streamline<\/strong>: How can we better streamline the software of our minds? How can we remove \u00e2\u20ac\u0153friction\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from our creative acts? What mental roadblocks can we learn to remove, so our ideas flow more smoothly?<\/li>\n
  5. Linking hardware and software<\/strong>: Rather than totally dismiss the hardware, how can we link the software of our minds with our hardware (devices and things we own). How can we make the best out of the cameras we already own, to fulfill our creative potential? Rather than upgrading the processing speed of our laptops, how can we learn how to be more efficient with our work and thinking? Rather than needing to upgrade our smartphone, how can we upgrade our minds to become less<\/em> distracted with notifications and superfluous applications?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The ultimate resource you have is your mind, ingenuity, and creativeness. Leverage that to the best of your abilities\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and never blame your hardware.<\/p>\n

    Never stop innovating,
    \nEric<\/p>\n

    Learn more: Creativity ><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What has made Apple more successful than Microsoft? It isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the hardware, the horsepower, or the technical specifications. It is the software\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the user experience, the ease of use, and minimalist Apple approach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/eric-kim-street-photography-kodak-tri-x-1600-1592.jpg?fit=1545%2C1024&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}