The iPhone – A Hot Mess

I recently stopped by the Apple store on Market Street in San Francisco to stock up on accessories for my ipod (like the new wireless headphones id been covetting.

As expected , the iPhone display tables were packed with potential owners test driving apples latest claim to fame. On a whim i decided to get some more quality time with it and see if it was a device i could ever love (in its current form).

Text Input Woes

I went straight to the web browser and the Messaging features (as these are the most important features i use) and typed in a url while looking directly at the onscreen keyboard. I hit enter and looked up…to my dismay the text i input read “www.rediffg.con” the instead of the intended www.rediff.com .

A similar issue came up when i tried to send a text message to a friend of mine.

It would seem that Apple in its rush to do a way with the stylus has alienated people who do not have slender fingers or long nails. A cardinal design flaw considering that usage studies conducted reveal most people do not hit the keys  on their key pads directly in the center . Physical key pads rely less on phone software and so handle these scenarios better than their virtual counterparts (they are not coordinate based). 

As a phone…

Apple claims that the iPhone is a BETTER PHONE.
A couldnt disagree more.

I hit the Contacts icon on the main menu and a rather impressive  contact list popped up .My initial excitement faded when i realised that i couldnt jump to an entry in the address book by typing a few words.  I have hundreds of entries in my address book and that i couldnt just go to the contact i wanted is plain ridiculous. (What if i was in an accident and wanted to call someone from my family…Getting to the “Rufus” Name would have taken 18 scrolls and who knows what would have happened by then

Inferior Email Capabilities

I have to say that if you use email on the go on a blackberry or a Nokia E-Series (with Blackberry Client) you will be sorely disappointed with the iPhones handling of email.

I send and receive over 100 emails a day on my Nokia E-series and i expect that my device of choice allows me to to do this quickly and efficiently. Even if I were to use the iPhone for a year im willing to bet that id be able to send emails quicker on my Nokia due it it superior input mechanism and dictionary.

In addition, it has no email search or sort by sender, size etc which my E-series does effortlessly, i have to manually switch between email accounts to retrieve mail from different sources which my Nokia E-Series does automatically. The kicker is that the iPhone only handles 200 mails (this is a joke – and a bad one at that).

Other disadvantages…

• Camera has no auto focus or settings
• No video recording
• No custom ringtones allowed
• Safari browser doesn’t support Flash and Java
• Really basic Bluetooth capabilities
• No Office documents editor
• No third party applications
• No 3G support (at least the US version)

So in the end, i walked out of the store with a smile on my lips (its good to be right) , a kiss for my Nokia N95 and a mental note to go home and buy some more Nokia Stock

PS: Im not ruling out apples ability to build a good phone in the future . I am however saying that the iPhone in its current form is for people who are taken in by pretty things without a thought for function. Net net its a great gift for your teenage daughter not for a serious phone / productivity device user.

Is the Google Phone Next <> The Google Phone is Next

Now that the iPhone Hubub as finally reduced from a deafening roar to a loud murmur… heres some more tech fodder for you … The Google Switch !

Googles Mobile Ambitions are pretty obvious now…

• The Bid to Wi-Fi San Francisco
• The Leaked Picture of the Google Switch
• The glut of Open Recs for Mobile Skilled Workers and finally…
• The Millions they are spending on prototype design

In Additon: 

The Observer of London is reporting that Google might be working with HTC and mobile/telecom giant Orange to build the Mobile Phone, which could possibly have Google software inside the device, and would be able to do many of the web tasks smartly. The device, article speculates, could go on sale in 2008. (Of course, we would all have forgotten by then… if it doesn’t happen.) Orange and Google, both declined to comment.

Their plans centre on a branded Google phone, which would probably also carry Orange’s logo. The device would not be revolutionary: manufactured by HTC, a Taiwanese firm specialising in smart phones and Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), it might have a screen similar to a video iPod. But it would have built-in Google software which would dramatically improve on the slow and cumbersome experience of surfing the web from a mobile handset.

Im excited …we will wait and watch

If Apple made a touchscreen computer

This is an amazing piece of tech art from “The Joy of Tech” entitled “If apple made a touch screen computer

Love the part where they say …”It will be sold as “the 30 in iPhone” Heh !

Building a Social Web Application : Pitfalls and how to avoid them

Experience is always been my best teacher and after 9 years in this game of which two have been spent researching and implementing new Web 2.0 solutions, its always nice to recap what ive learned along the way. Its not exactly the harvard biz review of anything but its definitely the best Dummy’s Guide to running SNS (which is sometimes the difference between success and failure).

1. Attention momentum: Dont underestimate the fact that you will need to acquire and sustain users thru some form of addictive functionality that keeps users coming back. 
2. Do a few things well: Dont focus on too many things or spread your resources too thin. (A few games of Age of Empires will teach you the same lesson).
3. Set a goal for yourself once you are convinced of your vision and execute to plan ( do not deviate). Alterations can happen once a stable framework has been created for your web service to run on. What makes google so formidable is that they never stop trying to be the best.
4. Transparency with users is key. Wired Magazing recently carried an article which talked about the new breed on CEOs who were finding that the only way to keep users after a service outage or mis-step is to be as open as possible about the problem and how it is being rectivied. It also talked about Google as a “reputation system” which i will reserve for another blog.
5. Build on your Knowledge Base by sharing other users experiences with the community. Both eBay and Flickr do this well.
6. Resist the urge to focus on how users will create value for other users by tagging, rating or syndicating their content. Instead focus on making it painless for a standalone user to use your webservice. (This may sound counter intuitive but it worked for YouTube).
7. Enable recommendations and Exploit Syndication Opportunities in the form of widgets or granular content. Its the only way your service will grow outside of itself.
8. Before you build a community around a theme. Its a good idea to explore how the community functions offline first. This insight is not compromisable and extemely valuable.
9. No Pla(i)n no Gain. If you dont have a business plan other than growing your user base its more or less over for you. Meditate on the “Monetize” Mantra.
10. See the wood for the trees (Focus on the Big Picture). When you are a company that has scarce resources the war is generally won based on the battles you have chosen to fight. Many startups fail to see the larger war they are fighting and  instead focus on a few explosive moments, resulting in burnout. (this comes in the form of “MASS MARKET AD CAMPAIGN FAUX PAS and putting too many eggs in one basket)
11. Last but not least beware of the Penny Gap Trap. (this builds on point 9 alittle)

 

The Rise of the Camera Phone

Its no secret… I love my N95. The only phone i would replace it with is the highly rumoured N95 8Gb Black Edition (pictures of which have just surfaced).

Having said that, another thing i love is Flickr’s Camera Finder which plots which cameras users are using to submit photos to the flickr community.

Up until a while ago it was no surprise that the leaders of the pack were Cannon, Nikon, and the newly launched Sony SLR.

Today however when i visited the site i noticed a sharp drop in the instances of photos submitted by these fine SLRs.  I did a little digging and here is what i found:

The % dip in the usage of the SLR cameras is more than made up for by the % rise in the usage of quality HD cameraphones like the N95, Sony Ericsson .

From the figures it would seem like the bulky SLRs (and uni-gadgets) are being traded in for more versatile gadgets that do more than one thing well. Personally i dont think SLRs are in any danger of being phased out, they will probably just be used less as time goes by.

Check out the camera finder graph :

Here are some great camera phones you should check out:

Nokia N73

Sony Ericsson K910i

LG enV VX9900

Facebook + Parakey: Social Operating System aka Web 4.0

Ive been playing around with Facebook for inspiration over the last few weeks and i have to say that their deep integration with 3rd party apps thru their much publicized Facebook Developer Platform is producing extremely interesting results.

The Facebook Platform reminds me alittle of  an early Windows with people calling it “the social operating system” on which you can develop your Web Apps.

Facebook confirmed their intent to venture into the Web OS space (by their actions only) when they acquired a company called Parakey, a yet to be launched “Web Operating System” created by the co-founders of Firefox.

Parakey is a platform for building applications that merge the best of the desktop and the Web. Like desktop applications, these applications work offline, offer more privacy than pure websites, run quickly, and integrate with your computer and its devices. But like Web applications, they are also more creative, visually alluring, accessible from anywhere and potentially accessible by anyone. In short, Parakey apps are designed to be both useful and social, a combination that is too rare today.

Facebook has shown great strategic insight by acquiring them and it remains to be seen how well they leverage their new child.

Did i hear someone whisper Web 4.0 ?

Television is dying

ComScore, the body for internet research and measurement, just released the results from the Video Metrix report for May 2007. The data says that the average American watched more than 2.5 hours of online streaming video during the month that the research project was carried out which is not surprising considering the quality of content on sites like the Google owned Youtube and Heavy. From an India perspective Rediff recently launched iShare (in open beta) and we are watching the average session time spent on Rediff reach for the sky.

It must be said though that there has been a noticeable instance of reverse moderation of contemptuous content. Google obliged Comedy Central Central by removing clips that were doing the rounds on youtube. Another notable removal was the new Harry Potter movie which some user managed to upload in entirety by breaking it into 3 equal parts.

The data and the trend is undeniable, we will increasingly consume media on our internet devices going forward and all that remains to be seen is whether the media barons will come quietly or be dragged into the maelstrom of this new business reality.

My advice is that they advocate the former. This is clearly bigger than them and politics.

Here are some more interesting stats related to these findings:

• 74% U.S. Internet users streamed video online.
• 5 % U.S. Internet users streamed video on YouTube.
• Average video stream duration was 2.5 minutes.
• Average online video viewer consumed 63 video streams, or more than two per day.

Top U.S. Online Streaming Video Properties* by Video Streamers May 2007 Source: comScore Video Metrix
Property	Unique Video Streamers (000)	Video Streamer Penetration (%)
Total Internet	131,915	100.0%
Google Sites	64,945	49.2%
Fox Interactive Media	52,737	40.0%
Yahoo! Sites	35,024	26.6%
Time Warner Network	29,479	22.3%
Microsoft Sites	24,394	18.5%
Viacom Digital	19,356	14.7%
Verizon Communications Corporation	15,030	11.4%
ABC.COM	10,799	8.2%
Disney Online	10,114	7.7%
MLB.COM	7,311	5.5%

*Comscore Rankings based on video content
sites; excludes video server networks

 

Evaluating Ideas and Oranges

More often than not, I am faced with personalities that over simplify solutions, discount details and compare oranges to oranges at the drop of a hat. This generally results in a surface level understanding of problems and and the implementation of an equally shallow solution.

I was recently told that “IDEAS were a commodity in the information age” to which I quipped “but implementations aren’t.”

I then proceeded to expunge my humble theory on comparison:“An orange circle does not an orange make”.

From far away they both look like orange circles but come closer and you will find that the orange is infinitely more interesting.
It, like life, has texture and depth and other “qualities” that make it refreshingly unique and undeniably complex. The orange circle on the other hand, is flat and 2 dimensional.

No this is not about fruit and orange cardboard circles…
What this is about is looking closer, going beyond the obvious face value because nothing is as simple as it seems while deciphering “what will work” (both in business and in life). And just because you have a similar products or services and comparable resources  doesn’t guarantee your success.

Let me leave you with one simple thought “There are no original ideas …only good implementations of them.”…
..and good implementations come from focusing on the details that differentiate the orange from the orange circle.So the next time you see an orange circle looming in the distance look closer it may just be the difference between success and failure.

PopBytes from the Edge : Mimobots

I have to say that i am in love with MIMOBOTS.

If you havent heard of them before, Take note . Mimobots or as i like to call them “USB drives in disguise” are the ultimate collectibles and whats more they are actually useful. Each Mimobot comes in 4 capacity variants 256Mb, 512Mb, 1GB, & 2GB and a variety of designs.

If you are someone with aesthetic sensibilities and doesnt mind paying $99.95 for a Gig of storage with a difference. Then you should check them out.

The Legend of the Mimobots

The original story of the Mimobot goes that they traveled a long time across multiple parallel systems to reach earth and were peaceful and joyful creatures essentially made of electronic silicon providing them with an extraordinary ability in memory.
no cure was to be near before our scientists discovered planet earth and the use by humans of electronic components to memorize information. at long last our maddest genius knowledgeus had the tools to complete his experimental flashportation process which theoretically could recreate and replenish a mimobot’s memory through an amalgamation of other intelligent beings’ memories.

Every time a human plugged a Mimobot into his computer he would re-charge the mimobots memory and add to it intelligence.

My Nokia N95 salute to the iPhone

So much is being written about the N95 vs. the iPhone these days . “Experts” quoting random facts and drawing up feature charts and stress test reports.  “Emotional Users” who claim one is is better than the other based on nothing but a thin understanding of both devices. Kinda stupid really…

Heres an unbiased review (ive used both):

The N95 is a superior internet device and phone. The Apple iPhone is a better media device. Simple.

Internet Browser: Comprable
The premise apple is trying to sell its iPhone on is laughable …so what if it can display youtube vids…the N95 does that and alot more. Its HSDPA (3.5G) browser effortlessly displays ajax and web 2.0 sites at breakneck speed that more than levels the safari browsers performance.

Phone Functionality: N95 Superior
The N95 is a better phone. It interfaces with multiple cell networks effortlessly which means your sms / mms success rate is way higher and more reliable and the voice quality does not break when you are in low signal areas. (This is what Nokia brings to the table).
Also the 3G capability doesnt hurt when you travel to places like singapore,paris and other parts of europe often.

Phone Design: Apple Wins Here
Apple is known for its sexy design sensibilities and they have used them to the max on the iPhone. Nothing ugly here at all.
The N95 nifty slider and its quick access menu is the best “design feature” on the Nokia.

Multimedia Handling: Comprable
Both the N95 and the iPhone have excellent audio capabilities where music is concerned. The iPhone displays the content much more aesthetically. The N95 is still fuctional in its handling of some media.

When it comes to the camera though, the N95 eats the iPhones lunch both in quality and on features. Clearly alot of work has gone into the N95 camera and this is definitely a feather in Nokias big fat 5mpx cap. The iPhone barely manages a good quality 2mpx shot.

Suming up the iPhone

It tries hard to straddle both worlds as a media device and cell phone, but does neither very well and so what it ends up being is a pretty device for novices who like pretty things. It needs to stake its claim as a rich media device that comes with a pretty decent phone. Nokia clearly owns the reverse end of that equation.

Its pretty and it is simple and thats exactly what the iPod was. What it isnt, is a good enough phone.

Summing up the N95

The N95 is a great phone and an even better internet device. Its loaded with amazing internet features and supports “over the air” EVERYTHING. In addition, its versatile enough to manage media decently and so the N95 is an easy choice for any one who wants a high-end stylish, reliable phone. The 5 Mpx camera sweetens the pot and i hardly use my old heap of a camera anymore. (I dont need to).

The Bottom Line:
Let it be known, i will probably buy an iPhone as well and use it as a media device (because im greedy for gadgets and i can) but unless apple offers me more storage (upwards of 30gb) on the iphone and makes it 3G capable / modular battery pack, it is unlikely that it will ever earn my respect or for that matter the respect of a sophisticated mobile phone user.