2015, Marty McFly, and Programming.

Lots of internet posts, memes, and even videos have appeared to lament the missed predictions for 2015 from Back to the Future. However, one thing is for certain, we’ve seen a lot of other predictions come true.

We may not have a hover-board that will allow us to cruise across ponds, but we’ve got some awesome new tools.

1. Google Android Studio

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

This thing has some real potential. Until now most of our developers have been using Eclipse which isn’t exactly an Android IDE, but merely a Java IDE. Initial impressions: “wow”. Our clients may opt to just build their own droid apps with technology becoming so self-contained and interactive.

2. Wearables

http://www.android.com/wear/

We’re not there yet, but 2015 could be the year. Android beat Apple to the punch in 2014 but Apple is set to release their offering which is sure to inspire all manufacturers to imagine and put their best foot forward. What’s still missing (and we have some ideas) is what “else” can a wearable do? Google Glass for instance, really missed the price point in its first iteration, but we don’t expect that we’ve seen the last of that. On our wrists we want more than a watch, or calculator, or even view of our emails. What can be cleverly fit there? Expecting some big surprises in 2015.

3. Code Automation

http://macaw.co/

WYSIWYG has always managed to stay just a little bit too good to be true. I’m having flashbacks of Visual Studio form layouts that don’t quite look good enough “snapped to grid” only to end up meticulously go to the properties of multiple elements to adjust the dimensions manually. Or gosh, remember the Dreamweaver days of little golden shields? As dynamic content became more functional those little golden shields took over the whole WYSIWYG pipe-dream. 2015 may finally turn designers into full-on coders, but this is probably one of the least likely scenarios in the list today.

4. SaaS

We shall believe it when we see it. 2015 will bring about more offerings, and while Google Docs and TurboTax have managed to establish some niches, other common offerings continue to disappoint. The problem in this space seems to be lack of ambition. Just last week we had a client demonstrate their new provider as they moved from ADP to Abila. It was like a bad movie that makes you want to spend time and money doing the public service of warning the world to avoid. Other niche offerings like FreshBooks or even some of the web-based anti-virus systems are volume based propositions. They exist because they managed to keep pricing very low and volume high. A crap shoot to say the least. This is probably our most off-the-wall prediction in this list, but expect 2015 to see SaaS decline as developer tools continue to enhance productivity and organizations continue the trend toward in-house teams. What in-house team is going to allow their shop to pay FreshBooks any significant monthly fee to do what any decent developer can build from scratch in a matter of a few days?

I imagine that 2015 will surprise us, but we’re off to the races with some of these tools and looking forward to it!