Commentary – Page 101

The First Five

Today I installed 5 iPhone apps on top of iPhone OS 2.0 which was made available early through an Apple ‘phobos’ link. There’s a good chance it’s final but it’s refreshing to have something new to play with. Alas, it actually makes me want an iPhone 3G even more. Remote: Use your iPhone as a … Continue reading “The First Five”

Remote: Use your iPhone as a remote for your iTunes. You need to be on the same WiFi network as your iTunes-bearing Mac or PC but it allows you to select song or playlist, select multiple speakers (on AirTunes) and play or pause or whatever. It’s free. So why the hell not (and it means that during a party you can leave your precious Mac hidden away so you can control what plays from your phone and prevent guests from futzing with it. Perfick!)

AIM: it’s AOL Instant Messenger. On your iPhone. And I’m uninstalling it. It’s buggy as hell. Please. Someone. Make. A. Good. Instant. Messenger. Application.

Exposure: if you use Flickr, it’s going to be hard to justify not using Flickr Premium, the Â£5.99 version of this free app. But for me this is going to be uninstalled. I don’t use Flickr. And the ‘photos near me’ thing is, frankly, creeping me out. Brrr. It’s amazing what ConnectedFlow has done and again, Fraser Speirs proves that he’s a master of providing what’s interesting to photographers. He’s now a master of social photography. But this ain’t for me.

Super Monkey Ball: More than anything else, this is the best technology demo I’ve seen for the iPhone. I’m not fussed on Super Monkey Ball as a game in itself but this is a thing of beauty. I think the kids will love it. The thing that surprised me more than the amazing visuals was the speed of it. The graphics scroll really smoothly and when it gets up to speed, it’s simply breathtaking. It’s a steal at Â£5.99.

Twitterific: It’s beautiful. The scrolling is slow and jerky but other than that, this is even better than the desktop version in my opinion. Craig, if you read this, I love it. Now, fix the scrolling.

So, those were my first five. I was expecting some other apps to be up there and it’s a shame they’re missing. I reckon as the weeks go by we’re probably going to see heaps more.

Ones I’m considering?

South Park ImaginationLand?

EverNote?

Any you think are fabulous?

Contentment. To be both avoided and strived for.

Mike Cane describes why Microsoft’s execs may have issues in the future: All of those people are now fat, contented cats who no longer have to chase after mice. If they all lost their jobs tomorrow, they could sit on their fat asses and watch TV. They donâ€™t have to go out and hunt for … Continue reading “Contentment. To be both avoided and strived for.”

Mike Cane describes why Microsoft’s execs may have issues in the future:

All of those people are now fat, contented cats who no longer have to chase after mice.

If they all lost their jobs tomorrow, they could sit on their fat asses and watch TV. They donâ€™t have to go out and hunt for their daily food. Theyâ€™re vested and rich and contented.

Bill Gates didnâ€™t come from an impoverished background, but he still had a hunger.

I think I was mulling over a similar thought over the last week since Bill Gates’ departure. In late June, some internal memos came to light from inside Microsoft which showed me several things.

Microsoft used to be great.
Bill stopped paying attention and the company got sloppy
Once sloppy, it couldn’t be turned
Bill decided to leave.

I’m going to be talking a bit about Microsoft, including highlighting some of the great work they are currently doing in some areas but I am expressing concern that, being an Apple consumer, I may have done a disservice to Mister Gates.

Bill Gates, for all of his faults (and convenient memory lapses during the Department of justice investigation into his company’s wrongdoings), was an exceptional person and should probably be remembered as such now that he’s no longer working in the industry. It’s a shame though because there are few people who could turn Microsoft around again and the Redmond giant is now going to experience some of the succession pains that Apple will have to go through in a few short years. There’s no-one obviously to fill Bill’s shoes and that’s such a terrible shame.

Mike continues:

…what about Steve Jobs? Heâ€™s old too.

Yeah â€” but heâ€™s still a mad malcontented son of bitch who causes trouble and shits on everyone elseâ€™s efforts

Contentment. To be both avoided and strived for. It’ll kill you.

Microsoft outlines Vista strategy

InformationWeek has some choice quotes from Microsoft executives: “We’ve got a pretty noisy competitor out there,” Brooks said of Apple whose “I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC,” commercials criticize Windows Vista. “You know it. I know it. It’s caused some impact. We’re going to start countering it. They tell us it’s the iWay or … Continue reading “Microsoft outlines Vista strategy”

InformationWeek has some choice quotes from Microsoft executives:

“We’ve got a pretty noisy competitor out there,” Brooks said of Apple whose “I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC,” commercials criticize Windows Vista. “You know it. I know it. It’s caused some impact. We’re going to start countering it. They tell us it’s the iWay or the highway. We think that’s a sad message. Software out there is made to be compatible with your whole life.”

Considering the number of anti-trust suits Microsoft has had to file and the lawsuits regarding their blocking of compatibility with SAMBA and other network clients plus the arguments over the Office file formats, it seems ironic that Microsoft talks of compatibility.

“We broke a lot of things. We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain. It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in?” So Brad Brooks, Microsoft’s VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, fessed up publicly this week.

Microsoft has a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars in order to rectify this. They’re going to spend it on marketing.

“Windows Vista is an investment in the long term,” Brooks said. “When you make the investment into Windows Vista, it’s going to pay it forward into the operating system we call Windows 7.” All the more reason, Brooks said, to upgrade to Windows Vista sooner than later.

Translation: Please buy Vista now and then Windows 7 in about two years time (assuming it ships on time).

This month is going to be bumper….

June was pretty busy with me racking up 99 posts in 30 days. Currently this is the 41st post in July, in 8 days which means around 5 per day which means, if I keep this up, there could be nearly 150 posts on the blog this month. I think people would get sick of … Continue reading “This month is going to be bumper….”

I think people would get sick of reading very quickly so this is just a warning. In fact it could be worse…

iPhone 2.0 software is being released this week. There’s going to be a lot of playing with this while I figure things out.
AppStore is being opened this week. Just browsing the App Store is going to be an adventure in itself and looking at apps which have, til now, been under NDA.
MobileMe is coming Half a dozen web apps which should change completely the way…uh…okay, I’ve been doing this all along…
Applications will become VIRAL. Trust me. There’s going to be apps on my iPhone, apps on HerIndoors iPhone and apps on friends iPhones. It’s going to be messy. And cool. And some people will be able to afford pimp cars.
iPhone 3G will be about this week and there will be endless comparisons to the old one and against other models. Nokia N95 users will still tell us they have it better.
No less than 5 apps will be downloaded to my iPhone. No less than this. Maybe more. And games. And grainy photos of same.
This weekend is the 12th July and I’m in Northern Ireland. This guarantees roads will be closed and I will be annoyed. And lots of pollution-spewing tyres will be burned.
OpenCoffeeClub BBQ is on next Wednesday and I’m going. I’m going to be speaking to some interesting people and eating lots of half-cooked meat.
I have a job interview tomorrow. Big step.
I’ve been getting in contact with lots of ex-pats who have been successful in technology, digital content, software and media. Should be heaps to talk about.
I have a stag do to attend sometime between now and month end. Mine…
I’m getting married on 1st August.
HerIndoors is considering switching to a HTC Touch Diamond
My honeymoon is a two week cruise around the Baltic. Stopping off at Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Wernemunde and Copenhagen. On the way over we’re stopping for a night in London to see Wicked.

My…the next month is just packed!

der-da-ler-da-lerd-da-ler-da-lerd-situation!

I’ve never seriously considered leaving Northern Ireland. When I was younger I did have the urge to run but, truth be told, I enjoy being Irish in Ireland as opposed to being Irish elsewhere. I like the atmosphere, the humour – I even like the weather. I’ve talked to and about people who have left … Continue reading “der-da-ler-da-lerd-da-ler-da-lerd-situation!”

I’ve talked to and about people who have left the island for pastures greener and it’s always surprising to see that someone is an ex-pat and doing awfully well for themselves whether they’re a stalwart actor with the respect of peers or a singer who spent a year or two here and seems adopted by the locals. When you consider that the head of Yahoo Europe is a local, and we’ve got locals in senior spots of IDG, CNETand some who have successful careers with Lucasfilm and Atari among our ranks – we have to consider that Northern Ireland, with only 1.8 million people is punching well above it’s weight. We have the advantages of modern technology, significant foreign investment (there always seems to be a growth industry here), good command of English (for the most part) the lingua-franca of the Internet.

And, to the title of the post, I present some Nor’n Iron culture as witnessed by the Toll Trolls (from 98FM, a radio station south of the border).

Mobile Cohesion shuts doors

ENN writes: Belfast software firm Mobile Cohesion has ceased trading. The company, launched in 2002 by software industry veterans Denis Murphy and Richard McConnell, made software that enabled mobile operators to manage their relationships with content providers. A spokesman for Enterprise Equity, which had provided funding for the firm in 2006, confirmed that Mobile Cohesion … Continue reading “Mobile Cohesion shuts doors”

ENN writes:

Belfast software firm Mobile Cohesion has ceased trading. The company, launched in 2002 by software industry veterans Denis Murphy and Richard McConnell, made software that enabled mobile operators to manage their relationships with content providers. A spokesman for Enterprise Equity, which had provided funding for the firm in 2006, confirmed that Mobile Cohesion had closed but could provide no further details.

That bites.

Mobile Cohesion was set up in 2002 and raised $4.8 million in 2006. but…

…they had some issues…

The company had racked up accumulated losses of almost Â£10.7 million by the end of the financial year to March 31, 2007, up from Â£8.9 million a year earlier. This represented an increase of almost 20 per cent in the companyâ€™s accumulated losses.

Despite its losses, the companyâ€™s turnover increased significantly in the year to March 31, 2007. It reported turnover of Â£228,572, up from Â£41,097 in the previous year.

Its software uses internet tools to make it easier for mobile operators to roll out a range of multimedia services.

It’s a bit of a blow to the local market that a digital content operator failed but it’s worth spending time investigating why. Obviously having revenue of Â£228,572 when your operating costs are ten times that is one of those reasons – was the product wrong? Too early? Too late? Too specialised?

Why the App Store makes things different

Ewan from SMSTextNews about the problems enterpreneurs face when approaching the mobile market …don’t bother… …your concept is good but the market is shite. … Pick any one person of the street and theyâ€™ll tell you they phone people and they text people. If youâ€™re really lucky, youâ€™ll pick someone whoâ€™s actually â€˜used Googleâ€™ on … Continue reading “Why the App Store makes things different”

Ewan from SMSTextNews about the problems enterpreneurs face when approaching the mobile market

…don’t bother… …your concept is good but the market is shite.
…
Pick any one person of the street and theyâ€™ll tell you they phone people and they text people. If youâ€™re really lucky, youâ€™ll pick someone whoâ€™s actually â€˜used Googleâ€™ on their mobile. Or, if youâ€™re exceptionally lucky, youâ€™ll find a teenager whoâ€™s used Facebook Mobile.
…
There are some shining lights. Appleâ€™s iPhone Application Store is leading the way there. Finally thereâ€™s an outlet for Graham and his Gardening idea. He can easily develop, deploy and monetise his offerings. Whatâ€™s more, his audience can, thanks to Appleâ€™s end-to-end deep thought, probably learn to use Grahamâ€™s service in a few moments.
…
But what of the LG users? The Samsung users? The Orange usersâ€¦

I want to buy this man a drink.

This is why I’m excited about the iPhone and the App Store. It’s not about whether the N95 has better features, the experience is still shite. It’s not about whether you’ve got the latest HTC Touch Diamond, it’s about whether you can do anything other than what is provided. Sure – the feature phones can view Youtube and live TV and get you the weather and WinMo phones can get a huge range of software (and all with individually crap UIs) but how many people buying the HTC Touch Diamond are going to get them. It’s part smartphone and part fashion accessory.

The iPhone did well because it was the first time I’d ever seen a browsing experience which acuurately reflected browsing. My previous phones were rubbish at this because they pushed their mobile-optimised and totally standardised mobile portals at me. I didn’t want to see Sport, News or Flirt online so their portals were pretty much useless to me. And getting off their portal was an absolute pain.

I see a goodly amount of traffic on blogs and twitter from people with N95s asking their friends whether they’re going to ‘upgrade’ to an iPhone and then backslapping each other when they agree not to. Well done, guys, you’ve just placed yourself as the Windows-using Beige Box owners.

It’s fine for the techno-literate to struggle their way through Symbian but it’s just not right for other people who end up thinking that their phone can’t do more. I consider myself to be pretty geeky but only ever downloaded one app to my SonyEricsson K800i and then, once downloaded, I never ran it properly or paid for it because the UI was so awful I just deleted it minutes later. My SO has never downloaded anything to her phone (but if she goes ahead with the Touch Diamond, then she’ll expect it to be as easy as her iPhone).

Consider the experience. Looking for an application? Let’s say two apps. One being a game and the other a personal accounts manager. Where does the novice user go? Let’s look at this as a novice.

On the iPhone, you just click the AppStore button and look.

Nice and easy…

On my SonyEricsson, I have to know to go to somewhere like Handango. I have to know what OS I have. I have to know what device I have, which brings a click-through to see all devices if it’s not recent. And the K800i isn’t listed on Handango. Turns out it’s not Symbian. But it has games and email…gahhhhh

The experience for ‘more modern’ phones is not much different. You have to know too much!

What does a deadline look like…

This, apparently There’s been a lot of chatter on Twitter regarding the 7th July deadline for app submissions to the opening day of the App Store for iPhone. Based on what I could see, I’ve seen twenty or so applications just within my Twitter streams. Looking forward to Friday. Related posts: iPhone vs Android: software … Continue reading “What does a deadline look like…”

This, apparently

There’s been a lot of chatter on Twitter regarding the 7th July deadline for app submissions to the opening day of the App Store for iPhone.

Based on what I could see, I’ve seen twenty or so applications just within my Twitter streams. Looking forward to Friday.

The Changing of the Guards

Gentlemen, he said, I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes, I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards. I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan for as long as I can … Continue reading “The Changing of the Guards”

Gentlemen, he said,
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes,
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan for as long as I can remember. Somewhere my father has a recording of me as a three year old singing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” which is probably as creepy and morbid as you can get. And in First Year in Rathmore we had to do a music project – of our favourite soloist and favourite group. The other kids picked Madness or whatever was popular at the time. I picked Bob Dylan and the Beatles.

I’m feeling butterflies. I don’t know why. Part of it must be because I sense my time with $BIG_CO is going to end soon and part because I feel something exciting is going to be happening. I was speaking with some NI ex-pats in the realms of digital content, online services and gaming this week.

I’ve shined your shoes, moved your mountains, mark your cards. Brace yourself, for the Changing of the Guards.

AndroidGuys mix it up with GTalk web app

Oh for god’s sake. I wouldn’t have to write so much about the iPhone if people would stop being clueless about it. AndroidGuys have a rant about the web-client version of Google Talk that was released a couple of days ago. A few days ago, Google released the official Google Talk app for the iPhone … Continue reading “AndroidGuys mix it up with GTalk web app”

Oh for god’s sake.

I wouldn’t have to write so much about the iPhone if people would stop being clueless about it.

AndroidGuys have a rant about the web-client version of Google Talk that was released a couple of days ago.

A few days ago, Google released the official Google Talk app for the iPhone and itâ€™s not exactly what you would expect. The problem I found with it was that in order to receive instant messages, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser. Otherwise, your status will be changed to â€œunavailableâ€ when you head off to another browser window or app, only to have your Google Talk session restarted when you return.

They claim it’s a limitation of the iPhone SDK that the web browser page needs to be open on your device in order to start working. It’s actually more a limitation of being a web app – of running in the Safari sandbox. It can’t take advantage of the new Push service that Apple is releasing later this month for all iPhone users.

Why can’t people take into account that leaving a network application open completely bollocks your battery life. We can see this already with the difference between ‘standby’ and ‘talk time’. The difference is that IP network usage is considered talk-time and the iPhone does well in that regard with 5 hours of network access. For a device that might be with you all day, 5 hours ain’t a lot especially when all you’re doing is waiting for people to message you.

Seriously, who wants their chat program set up so that the only time you can talk with friends is if both people have the exact same websites up on their phones at the exact same time?

The same sort of idiot who thinks a web client of any sort is the best solution for a mobile device?

The rant finishes off with some pipe dreams about running an XMPP based service with built in Skype/GTalk VoIP which will undoubtedly get a zillion hours of battery life using just the charging provided by plugging your mobly into a lemon for an hour.

All the hype in the world isn’t going to turn Android into the jesusPhone just as a hack version of Android installed onto a Nokia N810 isn’t going to prove that it’s a workable product. Let’s see what Android will actually deliver when they deliver it. I guarantee I’ll buy one of them and see what the fuss is all about. By the time decent handsets are shipping, Apple should be about due for another iPhone revision.

We’ll also see if Google release a native version of GTalk complete with the Push service when the App Store comes online and the Push service is available. If they do, kudos due. If not, then it’s incredibly disingenuous of them. Do no evil. Sure. Easy to say when your money is based on advertising.