Say Hello to Android

It’s only “G1” but it looks like the iPhone may soon have a competitor.

Godin is Wrong, Microsofties are Extremely Gung-Ho.

Reading Seth Godin’s post today I couldn’t help but be struck by how misinformed he is.  I don’t know where he got his information but he’s written:

Question: When was  the last time you met an Apple employee who was truly passionate about the products she made or sold? My guess is this happened the last time you went to an Apple store. When was the last time you had a similar experience with a Microsoft employee?

Umm…well I live near Redmond, and I know a lot of MS employee’s.  I’d say their truly passionate about their products to a fault.   And that’s the crux of Microsoft’s Problem.

Microsoft is an amazing company for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is their ability to rally their troops. The company rents out stadiums to hold meetings.  And these meetings are incredible moral boosting events.

Microsoft is awesome at fostering talent.  I believe most people in the company are driven to excel.

But a major problem facing the company is that their employees are so gun-ho about the company and their products that they have difficulty empathizing with the outside world. 

Employees spend so much time at work,  invested in the company, it’s products, etc. that they cannot often see things from the perspective of the outside world, or at the very least, beyond the world of tech.  I’d liken it to a “group think” phenomenon.

If I’d had a say I’d mandate that employees spend more time away from work.  I’d make this especially true for the marketing department.

Say what you will, but you can’t accuse Microsoft Employees of not being passionate.  And you can’t point to passion as the issue.

Apple Responds to “I’m a PC”

 

About a year ago but hey it works.

Microsoft: ‘Meet PC.’

Microsoft’s latest ad campaign has received a lot of buzz thanks to a reported $300 million budget that included hiring Jerry Seinfeld for $10 million.

While the campaign itself has received a lot of buzz, the ads have been rather terrible. Positioning Gates and Seinfeld together was a really bad idea. Gates is best when he’s talking about his passions, or here.

Microsoft Thinks We’re Idiots
The second of the Gates Seinfeld ads was just ill conceived. The ad put Seinfeld and Gates together with ‘the people,’ Microsoft’s customers, in this case an idiot family.

Microsoft, if that’s how you see your customers then you’re clearly out of touch. The ad above is an insult.

Apple’s ad is turned against Apple.
The latest ad however is very good. They’ve co-opted Apple’s PC meme shifting Apple’s clunky and buggy PC image to a computer user.   This could effectively shut apple up. Co-opting the meme gave Microsoft a lot of options for presenting assumably real PC users as at least as cool and functional as the fictional ‘Mac’ character in Apple’s commercials.

Now, with this new advertisement the ‘PC’ caricature will no longer represent the clunky buggy computer metaphor, but it will now represent those ‘real’ people from the Apple ads.

With this change, the Apple ads are the ones that would come off as insulting. They can’t insult PC if PC is a user and no longer a box. This could effectively ‘shut Apple up in terms of it’s current ad campaign.

Apple could bring the meme back to being about a box, but that may be difficult if Microsoft is effective it’s going to be hard to put this cat back in the bag.

See Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” ad here:

 

Update:  I hadn’t seen this image before, but it shows clearly that Microsoft is trying to turn Apple’s PC the box, into PC, the computer user.

What’s Next For Microsoft?

While a there’s been a lot of discussion recently about the failures of Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 Beta, and the Yahoo, Google, MSN flurry, the attention has been taken away from something much more interesting coming out of Redmond.

If you’ll remember an earlier post Create experiences that combine the magic of…blah…blah…blah, you’ll know that Microsoft’s current Vision statement is one that moves the company away from the desktop and windows, toward a more “clouded” hybrid. What was the full vision statement?

“Create experiences that combine the magic of software with the power of Internet services across a world of devices.”

Yeah, see how clouded that is?

OK today it became a little more concrete for me. From hello://internet:

Recently Microsoft announced that it was developing an operating system (code named Midori) that “is centred on the internet and does away with the dependencies that tie Windows to a single PC”.

Check out this video highlighted by Ahassan:

Did you just see that?  Makes a lot of sense for the company doesn’t it?  Talk about a new platform.  It’s worth reading more of what Ahassan says about Midori’s potential.

Essentially what this means is potentially a complete conversion of the web.  Right now we have websites, and web “applications.”  We’ve seen many applications sprout up as products like Picnik, and Photoshop.com. Of course you can’t for get Zoho and Google Docs, or even Mobile Me? This Silverlight based applications approach however points towards something even more robust, with more implications.

By the looks of the video Microsoft has something very compelling here, and if they could get a foothold they have a potential to supplant, or at least be the gateway to great many web services/applications.

Like it or not this, I have to say, is much more exciting than anything like Windows 7.

How does an Appstore App Get to you?

 

How an app goes through the App Store.

Joy of Tech VIA [Gizmodo]

Update: MobileMe works on Linux

Just wanted to post an update to say that MobileMe now lets Linux Firefox users in.  I haven’t made extensive use of it yet, but so far everything has worked great.   Thanks Apple!

Apple TV: So close, yet so far

I’ve recently been bitten by the urge to jump on the HDTV bandwagon.  Cable and FiOS are both very expensive options, in the neighborhood of $60/month with a DVR.

One of my friends dumped cable and went 100% AppleTV.  Even if I don’t save money going that route, I’d at least get to keep the shows after watching them.  I wrote down a list of the shows I watch and poked around the iTunes store to see what’s available.  I was pretty disappointed with what I found:

Many shows don’t have a season pass option, meaning you have to pay full price for each episode – and I think that also means you have to seek them out each week; iTunes won’t grab them for you.  Most shows I looked are not available in HD, but I realize this was a recent update so I won’t complain about that too much.  “NOVA,” an excellent documentary program that I can watch for free on PBS.org is $4.99 an episode on iTunes – and that isn’t even in HD!

On top of all that, I think the iTunes store interface is fairly convoluted, TV series don’t seem to have their own landing pages, and clicking on some of the breadcrumbs doesn’t result in any navigation.

I don’t know who’s dragging their feet here, Apple or the networks, but it’s bad enough that I’m going to stick with cable!

iTunes 5002 Error, can’t Update Your Apps?

If you have a problem updating your apps because iTunes refuses to go to the updated on the App store there’s a little fix that may help.

Got to your applications section of iTunes.  

Then right click on any app and select show in finder.  This will pull up your entire apps directory including prior versions.

Select everything in the directory and drag it into iTunes.

iTunes will warn you for many of your apps that your importing an older version or something to that effect, decline to import the older version.  This may take a bit of clicking.

Once all the apps have been added the links back to iTunes should be established and you’ll be able to click on the regular link to update the apps as you’d expect.

OMG the iPhone is Cool Again! (2.1 update)

 

Apple

My iPhone 2.1 update went off without a hitch and did not “re-lock” my iPhone.

I’ve had the 2.1 update installed for a few hours now, and everything seems to be functioning better. the install went off without a hitch, this is how iPhone 2.0 should have launched.  Hopefully the luck continues and I others won’t run into problems.

My phone isn’t jailbroken for the moment, the iPhone Dev Team is at work on an update to allow for non-Appstore apps to be installed on the 2.1 update.  However I’m better off for the moment as I my iphone now feels very usable.  Before the update it was a very different story.

 

Apples Recent Failures

Apple’s 2008 WWDC Launch included a notoriously flawed Mobile Me introduction.  People who depended upon the service where left in frustration as the service went up and down and reliability issues struck.  Apple has since acknowledged their errors, issued a formal apology, and gave some consolation to Mobile Me members, extending account expiration dates.

Less talked about by the company but disseminated throughout blogs, and forums, was the constant problems face by users of the latest iPhone software 2.0, 2.0.1, and 2.0.2.  Intermittently iPhone users with phones Pwned or not, faced dropped calls, weak 3g signals, 12 hour sync and backup times, corrupted backups, resets, freeze ups, non functioning app store apps.  The simple thought of connecting the phone to the computer for a podcast update became daunting.  It was, in short, ridiculous, and highly uncharacteristic of the company.  

These two recent product launches begin removing that idea of “it just works,” often spoken on behalf of the Apple brand.

Despite the problems the iPhone really is an amazing tool.  It’s still light years ahead of the competition.  The caliber and utility of many of the tools (often free) introduced thus far are awesome.  And while the phone it self is pretty awesome, it’s those applications that really make it a competitive product.

However, if Apple is going to continue on the growth path that has made competitors take notice of it’s growing market share and dominance in media distribution, computers, smart phones, software and portable music players, it’s going to have to get on the ball with product quality.  Otherwise they’ll find themselves facing the same criticism they themselves are dishing out to Microsoft.