Archive for category Apple
Knowing Your Place
The big news from the blogosphere this week was that the leaked Powerpoint presentation showing store concepts for Microsoft were legitimate. Looking through the presentation, I get a very strong sense that Microsoft is trying to foster a similar experience as Apple has in their own stores. Then stories started breaking that Microsoft had hired Ex-Apple real estate guru George Blankenship who is known for finding ideal locations for retail. And today we find out where Microsoft is opening their first stores which are reportedly in “hot markets.” After reading these stories and looking at everything else Microsoft is trying to achieve, I’m more than a little perplexed by these actions.
Apple has had tremendous success with its stores and with their recent products. But the success came after they had focused on creating a premium brand. Apple is supposed to be in the most upscale retail locations because their brand is on par with other high-end, premium brands. Their stores would have failed in the local Home Depot shopping center. The Mac, iPhone, and iPod are all devices that carry the premium brand and are sold for a premium. The company continues to grow their revenue and report positive earning statements quarter after quarter. Even in this recessed economy Apple managed to post another record-earnings quarter for Q3.
Microsoft, on the other hand, posted their first loss in revenue in 23 years. It would seem that the executives in Redmond have become infatuated with what Apple has done and have decided to beat Apple at their own game. But why? By Microsoft’s own admission in a series of “Laptop Hunter” ads, they are the more affordable platform. Not to say “cheap” necessarily but they are certainly driving home the point that if customers choose to stay with Microsoft, they won’t pay as much. So why would Microsoft be positioning their upcoming stores in premium retail locations? This would be analogous of Lee Jeans opening a store in the swanky SoHo district in New York City. People accustomed to premium brands would find that brand laughable and walk on by. It would seem that a better strategy would be to open approachable stores in malls and shopping centers that cater to people looking for the most bang for their buck. The crowd they are already going after in their advertising.
And why are they getting so bent out of shape over consumer spending anyway? Microsoft’s bread and butter is their enterprise customers. And, apparently, enterprise is just fine with sticking with Windows XP. It’s not just Vista that businesses are shunning, it’s even the well-reviewed Windows 7 that businesses are deciding to pass on. Something I find interesting with both Vista and Windows 7 is that they seem to be trying to achieve a slick, consumer-focused operating system similar to Mac OS X. To me that seems very strange since their enterprise customers aren’t looking for slick, they’re looking for efficient and reliable. Microsoft needs to focus their attention back to the market that helped them create their empire. Microsoft should be focusing on very real competition from Google.
But they aren’t. Instead they seem to be focused on trying to out-Apple Apple even if it means reporting loss after loss. If Microsoft needs to learn one lesson from Apple, it’s that you need to stay true to your company and your brand. Apple got away from being Apple in the 1990s and it nearly cost them everything. Apple almost fell into oblivion until Jobs returned and helped them refocus. Microsoft can stop this skid if they get back to basics and focus on where they belong.
Fixing the iPhone Radio-Switch Problem
One of the things that has bothered me about the iPhone 3G is that the 3G reception at my house cannibalizes the telephone signal. A call works when I first connect but shortly cuts out with a “Call Failed” error on the screen. For whatever reason, this only happens in a few spots around town and my house happens to be one of them. Because of this I find myself switching the 3G radio on and off a lot. I also switch the WiFi on and off while I’m around town because WiFi is constantly searching for a signal which is a battery drain. If I know I’m not going to need it then I switch it off to help me conserve a little battery life and to avoid the WiFi-connect “nag” screen when I’m trying to read a document.
It turns out this is simply a pain. None of the switches for the radios are in the same place, hierarchically speaking. The Airplane Mode is a switch that turns off all radios and is located in the first level of the Settings application. The WiFi switch is located on the 2nd-level under the Wi-Fi menu. And the 3G radio is located on the 3rd level under the General > Network menus. The only one that is really easy to get to is the one I use the least which is Airplane Mode.
I believe there is a rather elegant solution already in use on the iPhone that could be applied to help ease this pain.
When you’re typing in an email address or URL on the iPhone and it properly detects the field, the keyboard switches to help make typing that format easier. At the bottom of the virtual keypad is a dot (.) key to help expedite typing the dot in .com or other domain extension. But if you tap that key and hold for a second, a sub menu pops up with some of the more popular domain extensions such as .com, .net and .org.
People either know about this or they don’t. If they don’t know, there’s nothing about it to get in their way. They go about their business. But if they do know about it then it helps save a little time finishing email addresses and URLs. This same user interface could be applied to the top bar of the iPhone screen with the same kind of results. If you know about it then it’s useful but if you don’t it doesn’t get in your way. The only thing the top bar is currently used for is clicking to bring you back to the top of any page whether it’s a web page or an email message. But the only clickable area is the area between the radio-signal label and the system icons and time. By making the radio signal button a clickable area the iPhone UI designers could add a sub menu with the different kinds of radio options and allow you to make a quick choice.
The one issue with doing it this way is with the nature of how the iPhone works. Apple clearly wanted to make this as user-friendly as possible so they created a way to have the iPhone automatically detect, and switch to, the appropriate network radio. This worked well when it was just Edge and WiFi but when 3G was introduced this became more of a hassle than it was worth. The problem is that 3G has to shut down and the phone has to find the Edge signal in order to make the switch. So when I’m on a call at my house and I forget to turn off the 3G radio, the phone ultimately drops the call because it can’t switch from 3G to Edge midstream. In order to use the system I’m proposing there would have to be a new preference menu under the Settings application that would allow you to toggle whether or not you wanted the iPhone to automatically detect the appropriate radio or if you would like to do it manually. If you choose the manual option then the iPhone no longer attempts to connect to any network unless you specifically ask it to. The default state of the iPhone in manual mode would be Edge. And you would have to use the sub menu navigation to switch to 3G, WiFi, or Airplane Mode. If you want to turn those off you simply choose the E for Edge and all other options are disabled. This would help with making the quick switch from radio to radio and also help conserve battery life since the other radios are being turned off.
I believe in making a user interface that is easy for the most basic user. But you should also enable ways to allow more advanced users to customize the experience to their liking. It’s a delicate balance but can certainly be achieved.
Software I Bought but Never Use
I just got done reading Alex Payne’s list of software he’s paid for but has since stopped using and I thought it would be fun to do my own. I don’t know what it is but I’m a sucker for new software. I love it. I like to try everything out and kick the tires but I often find that it’s not right for me and I’ve already given up the money. I don’t mind helping out the smaller developers but I really get irked when I dish out big money for a major app that ultimately goes unused.
Without further ado:
- Acquisition – Xtorrent killed it for me. At one time I used it like crazy though. – No Regret
- Adobe Design Premium CS4 – I use Photoshop, Illustrator and occassionaly Flash. Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat and InDesign sit dormant. There’s a slight chance I bust out InDesign but Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Acrobat are dead to me. The bundle was more cost efficient than buying those 3 programs 1 by 1. – Moderate Regret
- Apple Remote Desktop 3 – I bought this to help my Mom and my Grandmother with their Mac issues. When Leopard was released it kind of killed the need. – Moderate Regret
- Coda – I think Panic is one of the best app developers in the world. I loved Audion and I still love Transmit. But Coda wasn’t good enough to take me away from TextMate, CSSedit, and Transmit. I never use it. – Deep Regret
- Connect 360 – I still have it connected and I did use it a lot when I first had it. But when I bought an Apple TV that was the end of that. – No Regret
- DigiTunnel – I bought it to help me VPN into an ex-employer’s network. Why did I buy it on my own? Didn’t work anyway. – Deep Regret
- Disco – Ooh it makes smoke when burning a disc. That is all. – Deep Regret
- Fitness Brain – I used it to track calories for about a week but it was cheap. Developer abandoned project. – Mild Regret
- Intego Internet Security – STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. – As Deep of Regret as you get
- iTunes Catalog It sounded cool at the time. I bought this pre-Last.fm or pre-Twitter or any other social site. And I never used it anyway. – Mild Regret
- Memtest – My iMac RAM wasn’t the problem. Super cheap though. – No Regret
- Missing Sync for Blackberry – It worked better than Blackberry’s own Mac sync piece of crap software. But it was no iTunes/iPhone. – Moderate Regret
- NewsFire – I think I used it for a day or so before I realized that without the ability to sync, it was worthless. Moved to Google Reader and never looked back. Plus it became free after I bought it. – Deep Regret
- OmniPlan – I think Microsoft Project is a total waste of time for project management. Why did I think Omni’s version of the same software would be any better? I love OmniGroup and most of their products but this is too middle-management for me. – Deep Regret
- PandoraJam – It worked and I got some cool songs. But I just don’t use it anymore. – No Regret
- Pixelmator – Here was the thought: “I’ll get rid of all of the bloat and only run Cocoa apps!” Didn’t work. – Deep Regret
- Salling Clicker – This is still better than Apple’s own iPhone and iTunes sync. It was the bomb. I loved everything about it. I wish it worked with the iPhone like it did my Sony Ericsson K790a. Best bluetooth syncing software on the planet. – No Regret (none, zip, zero)
- Suitcase Fusion – Fat, bloated software. Having thousands of fonts was a necessity in the print design world but I’ve since simplified. A lot. – Mild Regret
- Taskpaper – Awesome and quick “Getting Things Done” task list. But it was too simplified. And OmniFocus worked better for me. Still cool software though. – No Regret
- Vector Designer – Same purchase date as Pixelmator and for the same reasons. – Deep Regret
The Mac in Corporate America
I use a corporate-supplied MacBook Pro in an environment that is almost exclusively Windows. It’s a challenge, to say the least. This isn’t the first time I’ve worked on a Mac in an all-Windows corporate environment and you quickly learn how to troubleshoot your own machine since many IT people do not have the slightest clue how to help you if a problem occurs. Luckily for me the lines between Mac and PC have blurred considerably since the old OS 9 days and working in a PC environment isn’t as difficult as it used to be. Most people I interact with who don’t know the computer I’m using will probably never know the computer I’m using. They assume I’m on a PC just like them.
If you’re ever concerned about moving to a Mac because you fear that the software will be different or you won’t be able to share files with PC users, I’m here to put that fear to rest. Here’s a list of software I use that keeps me working with PC users:
- Microsoft Office 2008 – Written specifically for the Mac and is completely interoperable with Microsoft Office for the PC. It has Entourage instead of Outlook but they are pretty much the same applications. I am on an exchange server, my calendar is in sync, I have access to the corporate directory, etc.
- Keynote 08 – This gem just kicks Powerpoint’s booty and there’s no sense in using Powerpoint. I do my own presentations anyway so I don’t need to share my files with someone else. On the rare occasion I do need to share my presentation with another person I just export my Keynote file as a .ppt file. I usually lose some of the nifty animations but the presentation is still better than anything you can produce with Powerpoint.
- Omnigraffle Pro 5 – Superior to Microsoft Visio 2007 in almost every way. The beauty of it is that I get to use such a great program for all of my diagrams and PC users never know the difference because I can open and save in the Visio format. I’ve shown other IA’s Omnigraffle and how you can quickly create a site map using the outline mode and they’re always blown away.
- OmniPlan 1.5 – I’ve never used Microsoft Project so I can’t make a direct comparison but OmniPlan does the job nicely and no one has any problems opening and viewing my files. The Omni Group is on the ball. They just make killer software with real-world business uses. I also use OmniOutliner (which is never closed) and OmniFocus to help me keep my thoughts and tasks in order.
- Adobe Creative Suite – No one outside of myself has any need to open a Photoshop document or Illustrator document but they could if they had the software. Just like Microsoft Office, Adobe created their software to be completely interoperable between Macs and PCs. Just don’t use PostScript fonts and you should be fine.
- Parallels – When push comes to shove and I have to use a PC because some business application requires Active X or I’m working with Sharepoint I can open Windows XP and work with Windows applications just like they were installed on my Mac. The move to Intel was one of the smartest moves Apple has made and the architecture allows me to use Windows at almost native speed in a virtual world. It works so much better than Virtual PC ever did.
In addition to these titles that allow me to work with PC users I also use Mac-only software that I couldn’t imagine living without. Programs like 1Password, Coda, CSSedit, Delicious Library, MarsEdit, Skitch, TextMate, and VisualHub. I use .Mac to keep my Address Book, Calendar, Bookmarks, Mail Accounts, and FTP sites in sync but that service has finally gotten a Windows counterpart with Microsoft’s announcement of the Live Mesh service. Even though .Mac has it’s problems (and it does) I still find it incredibly useful, especially the online disk space.
One of the biggest myths is that you don’t get good software on the Mac. There may not be as many applications produced for the Mac but the software that is produced is almost always superior to anything you can find on Windows. I’m trying to say that without sounding like a fanboy but I know I come across that way. I just think the Mac software developers take a lot of pride in their work and it shows.
The Mac is definitely making a comeback and it’ll be showing up in more and more businesses. There’s no reason it should be excluded anymore. I work on a Mac every day and I’m able to access our network, use Cisco VPN to log in remotely, share files, and open and save PC documents. It’s truly a business machine.
UPDATE: My friend Pat Charles pointed me to this article on InfoWorld that has real-world data to support my claim that Macs will be showing up in more and more businesses.
UPDATE 2: It looks like this is a timely blog post as there are many more articles coming out about this very subject. Check out Business Week’s The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit.
UPDATE 3: This will be my last update on this post but this has never happened to me before. Clearly I was on to something. Please check out MacUser’s “Macs in business: Making the case” for their perspective.
Design Approach for Desktop and iPhone Applications
It takes several months of actual iPhone development before you eventually realize that the iPhone requires a completely different mindset. Until that happens, you’ll make assumptions based on desktop experience, and that in turn will lead to a lot of bad designs.
This sounds a lot like what I just wrote about the move from print to web design. People know what they know and until they experience something different, they’ll try to shoe-horn what they know into something else, even though it doesn’t work. I think a few developers will nail their applications for the iPhone. But I also think there will be more useless applications for the iPhone when the App Store launches. It’ll probably be a while before it’s full of really useful, iPhone-only applications. Anyone that trys to simply “port” their application to the iPhone will probably fail.