November 4, 2010
October 29, 2010
Even Faster Web Sites
Web Directions South - Even Faster Web Sites View more presentations from Steve Souders.
October 27, 2010
This is why Microsoft is on the decline. Microsoft Surface, great concept. First to market product. This video is from May 2007. It is now October 2010, this has yet to evolve into a mainstream consumer affordable product.
October 19, 2010
I have got to say that I have been dismissive of Palm in the past, but I am really impressed with HP webOS 2.0.
October 18, 2010
Android Versus iOS, which is better or which sucks less?
The short answer, for those with ADD, they both suck.
For the rest of you…
Each of these mobile operating systems suck in their own unique ways.
One problem with Android is that everything seems like a beta, unfinished. On the plus side for iOS, most applications and UI feel like a finished product.
But when it comes to iOS, it’s Apples way or the highway. If you want to share a photo, to bad you can only use email (who uses email anymore?)
On the plus side with Android, I can share data based on the apps I have installed, Have facebook installed, fine share it with facebook. Have Evernote installed, no problem share it there. Unless you received a photo via MMS, then your screwed. You can look at it, zoom in or out on it, and that is about it.
Want to view that site with the embedded flash file, good luck on iOS, but no problem with Android.
Want to click on a notification you just received in your Facebook app to view it, well on iOS, no problem, on Android you get shot out to the Facebook mobile site so you can relive the pain of the Internet in 1992.
Feel like turn by turn directions live updating on your mapping app, no problem on Android, on iOS … they have an expensive app for that.
Bluetooth on iOS, basically ornamental. Does nothing useful. Android, no problem what do you want to do with it, it will do it.
I could go on like this all day, but the point is, what we need is for Apple to share a little and Android to finish something. Or better yet a mashup of the two.
September 24, 2010
September 24, 2010
Are you a tool?
It’s no mystery that I am huge fan of mobile computing. I am a bigger fan of the potential in geolocation. But I am pretty disappointed with the current offering of geo aware applications like Foursquare and others.
Here is my problem with the current lineup, they make it an effort on my part to use them.
When it comes to technology I have a little saying “You are either the tool, or the operator. Don’t be a tool.” The trouble is, most people are tools. What I mean by this is that most people change the way they operate to use technology instead of the technology adapting to the way they operate. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, not add a layer on top of our already busy lives.
Take Foursquare for instance. I pick on Foursquare because they are the current rage. Here is a thumbnail of how Foursquare works. I arrive at a location, say the local Starbucks. I break out my phone, search for this location, or if I am lucky it will show up in a list of nearby locations (I am never lucky.). At this point I select that I want to check-in. It tells me how many points I earned for the check-in. Right it’s a game too, I don’t really get this part, but bragging rights (bragging to whom?) is a compelling draw of the app. It asks me if I want to fire off this information to my “friends,” or spam my twitter feed to let everyone know I am at Starbucks.
Do you pick up on the issues? My phone already knows my location. But I have to do all this stuff, when all I wanted to do is drink a coffee. To be fair, the end game is to get revenue from the venues you check into, so they want to know specifically where you are and have made it seem like you want everyone to know you are at Starbucks in order to get the check-in and they have had some moderate success with this with McDonalds, despite the early sensational (and highly inaccurate) headline.
But is it really what you wanted?
Isn’t what you really wanted was for friends to know you are in a location, and if they are nearby to contact you and maybe you could get together? Google Latitude already does this, but it has some issues, like accuracy of my location and it’s not reliable at informing me when one of my friends are nearby. But that is the way Google works, the toss a good idea out, get it started, and if it catches on maybe they will throw some resources at it, maybe not.
Well an interesting application is about to be released that has the potential of being the tool that geo aware apps should be, called geoloqi. It is an app that will let me leave a note, so when one of my friends are at the place I left a note, they will get it. Ever wondered what the historical significance of that interesting building is, well if you are standing by it, geoloqi will send you a link to it’s wikipedia page. ReadWriteWeb had this to say about it:
“The consumer service could make the dream of passively consuming ambient information about our surroundings a reality”
I haven’t used it yet, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
So get out there and stop being a tool.
September 22, 2010
Picking up where McNealy left off.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to mobile devices.
First is the popular one right now, though it’s limitations are becoming apparent. This is the Apple School of thought. This consists of a three tiered solution beginning with your semi-portable laptop or desktop home/office computer as your hub. You have a tablet as your around the house/office portable. Finally you have your smartphone mobile device.
The devices start very powerful and slowly get more utilitarian as you go. Data is owned by you whether this means created by you on your powerful machine or purchased by you from Apple. Data is moved about by a means of a file shuffle from one machine to another as your context changes.
The downfall is that creation of content is very limited away from your main machine and you need to plan ahead for all the data you will need while away from your main machine. Yes, they have a fledgling solution for this, but it’s expensive for what you get and not very elegant.
The second school of thought is that of Google. It centers around an old Sun Microsystems white whale of platform independence. Your data is in the “cloud” and you are always connected to the Internet. You can access your data from any platform with the goal being content creation from any platform. A vision that won’t be realized until their Chrome OS tablets arrive on the market.
The Google system is all about getting things done. It’s about collaboration. It’s about access to any of your data whenever you need it.
It’s a lofty goal, but they are well on their way to accomplishing it.
Despite it’s current lack of refinement and total elegance, Google’s method will inevitably win.
Mobile computing is rapidly overtaking desktop computing. It’s a matter of time before this happens. When it does the Apple model will break down and need to be changed.
One player that just doesn’t seem to have down either of these methods is Microsoft. If Microsoft was to get it’s game together and develop a “cloud” based transition that is both elegant, like Apple, and task oriented with collaboration built in, they could once again become market dominant. If not there market share losses are going to rapidly hit the elbow (or in this case the knee) of the logarithmic graph and in ten years they will be a niche player trying to survive. They need to take the hunger they have in Bing and get the whole company behind it.
In the meantime, I am totally in the Google camp.
September 16, 2010
Seriously, in the age of mobile I have to print out a coupon?
September 16, 2010
The idea of using inaudible sound is brilliant.
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