The graphic really started it all for me. Most love it, I think it is dreadful, and actualizes one of the worst things that could happen to apple.
It shows Steve Jobs - doing what? - looking down at Apple from above - his eternal gaze fixed on the company? His specter will wander the halls of cupertino for some time to come - his DNA is embedded in the company.
That I think the graphic is terrible - but it is a matter of taste - I know many like it - but what it embodies is an Apple that looks back - not forward. I can't believe that people are clamoring for it to become the new Apple logo. It is exactly the worst possible thing that could happen to Apple. A company that fails to look forward because it is always looking backward - towards the legacy of Steve - constantly asking itself (under the ghost like glare of Steve) "What would Steve do?". This is a classic scenario for decline - one where the company becomes held hostage to a legacy. This happened to Disney. There was a gap where after Walt Disney died, Disney Pictures made a series of lousy movies - but eventually they escaped it.
Steve Jobs worked hard to make Apple what it is today. I sorely miss him - like many. I have witnessed too many great people die in my life.
The logo points to a crippled, wounded company. I would hope that instead - let Apple be Apple - not Steve's Company. This is the only way the legacy can truly be alive. If people want to wear it on a t-shirt - fine - I think (and hope) ultimately it goes the way of the American flags that everyone had on their car/SUV after we invaded to Iraq. But they will need to let go at some point - and be willing to accept that Apple will (and should) move on.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Goodbye Zune
Microsoft's Zune is dead. It really has been a zombie undead platform for over a year now, as Microsoft shifted focus on their mobile phone platform.
So, the phrase "(fill in the blank with some technology or product) got zuned" never caught on. The reaction for some is that the device was nice, but was always too late to the party. It is, in a way, tragic of course, but ultimately it was a crippled product that didn't offer enough of a reason not to buy an iPod. Wifi on the device was crippled at a time that Apple didn't have a mobile media player with Wifi. The Windows software was a severely weak link; many didn't really like it, and there was no software for the Mac or other platforms.
The upside is that Microsoft learned a lot from the Zune (or so I hope) - the new mobile platform has a nicer UI, and there is the Xbox 360 - which is the greatest single argument that I can make that Microsoft really is capable of making great consumer products (yes, including their desktop OS and software applications). Pinning their hopes on a mobile phone OS is a good call indeed, and with Nokia as a strategic partner - I actually feel much more optimistic that this might actually be successful. Certainly, another competitor to Android and iOS would be welcome - generating new ideas for UI design, user experience, feature sets. Stay tuned (not zuned) indeed.
So, the phrase "(fill in the blank with some technology or product) got zuned" never caught on. The reaction for some is that the device was nice, but was always too late to the party. It is, in a way, tragic of course, but ultimately it was a crippled product that didn't offer enough of a reason not to buy an iPod. Wifi on the device was crippled at a time that Apple didn't have a mobile media player with Wifi. The Windows software was a severely weak link; many didn't really like it, and there was no software for the Mac or other platforms.
The upside is that Microsoft learned a lot from the Zune (or so I hope) - the new mobile platform has a nicer UI, and there is the Xbox 360 - which is the greatest single argument that I can make that Microsoft really is capable of making great consumer products (yes, including their desktop OS and software applications). Pinning their hopes on a mobile phone OS is a good call indeed, and with Nokia as a strategic partner - I actually feel much more optimistic that this might actually be successful. Certainly, another competitor to Android and iOS would be welcome - generating new ideas for UI design, user experience, feature sets. Stay tuned (not zuned) indeed.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
dear hp
please do not stick webos in your printer division. have a real vision and either give webos away, and let anybody develop devices with it. partner with other companies to deliver content and work on your cloud services by yourself or with others. tie all of your devices and those of others to it. if it sounds familiar, it is.
android needs a legitimate competitor. it isn't what it could be, and may never be. it's time for a decent alternative with a better interface.
this is a path fraught with potential. you just have to believe and be willing to think different.
google will continue to figure how to lock people into their ecosystem. they bought motorola for their intellectual property and their set top business. cable boxes powered by google. they couldn't get google tv right, so this is another tact that will be more successful.
hp.....google will eventually dig into your business. they will be happy to concede the printer business. because who will care 10 years from now. hardly anyone will have a printer at home.
please..... do something. webos is too good to throw away. it may instead figure into your future in ways you haven't imagined.
android needs a legitimate competitor. it isn't what it could be, and may never be. it's time for a decent alternative with a better interface.
this is a path fraught with potential. you just have to believe and be willing to think different.
google will continue to figure how to lock people into their ecosystem. they bought motorola for their intellectual property and their set top business. cable boxes powered by google. they couldn't get google tv right, so this is another tact that will be more successful.
hp.....google will eventually dig into your business. they will be happy to concede the printer business. because who will care 10 years from now. hardly anyone will have a printer at home.
please..... do something. webos is too good to throw away. it may instead figure into your future in ways you haven't imagined.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Good bye, Hello, Good bye
In the last few weeks we have seen three major events happen with three of the most powerful corporations in digital information appliances (we used to call them PC's).
Many may miss the rationale for Google's purchase of Motorola. It has to be understood that Motorola has struggled since their heyday with the Razr. They were never able to make a killer followup product with the same kind of iconic styling. It was a breakthrough product that was quickly copied, just as the iPad is being copied now. Their Android handsets were pretty good, and had some name recognition (Droid), but it wasn't the industry dominating device - because the market was flooded with Android handsets.
The assumption is that Google simply wants to be Apple - build the whole ecosystem of device/service. They would make killer smart phones and tablets, tie it to their services (aka Chromebook - who actually bought one of those?), sell them cheap, and people will flow to their service.
But Google doesn't have a good history with building great user interfaces or consumer products. GoogleTV was a big mess from day one - an ill-defined product that offered no compelling reasons to buy it - given there were cheaper/better products already available that were more focused and worked better. Logitech can't give them away.
Android itself is a mess. Ask any developer that develops for both the iPhone and Android - which has the better store - which is easier to write for - which one makes the developer more money. There isn't a truly consistent guideline for application UI design, and what is there is was patently lifted from Apple, and then changed a bit (often for the worse). What is worse than plagerism? Ripping off and not even appreciating what has been ripped off - just a cut and paste job. There is a reason why Apple's iPhone only has one button on the front - they designed their smart phone for people who have never had a smart phone - or even a mobile phone at all. Android handsets have lots of buttons, with little cryptic symbols on them. Application user experience is largely hit or miss. The device manufacturers themselves can't even agree on a standard on how a keyboard should be handled in software - developers have to write for more than one handset. Insane.
So....I have no inside knowledge obviously. I don't work for any of these companies. But....if I was Google.....I would be building reference platform devices with nailed down UI's that were damned nice and easy to use. Make developers and handset makers mad who want freedom to design their own user experience. Instead, let the device manufacturers focus on feature sets, form factors and cost. Treat the remnants of Motorola's handset division as a big bundle of patents and expertise.
If Google does get into the handset business.....it will be a downward spiral. It isn't in their DNA to build consumer devices. They bought Google Docs, and have done nothing of note with it beyond some modest feature enhancements. It doesn't talk to any of their other services - Picasa, Maps/Earth, etc. They just don't have that vision, although they have had some of the pieces all along.
Instead - I believe the part of the business they really want to emulate is Apple's cloud services and online retail services, which are tied to their handsets. This is the business that is perfect for Google - they can afford to almost give the handsets away - if you will let your handset only work with their services, let them data mine you, etc. You get a rich set of tools and access to media services. This could be very successful.
Moving on - Oh, no HP. You killed your WebOS devices. Shoulda never bought Palm to begin with. Let it die because it deserved to die. Palm was horribly run, and by the time they finally got decent management, they were underfunded and a distant forth or fifth in the smartphone market. WebOS was the equivalent of a Hail Mary Pass - that was almost caught.
If any lesson can be learned from the $99.00 Touchpad frenzy - is that HP had it all wrong. They should give WebOS away. Make it an alternative to Android without the ties to Google. Focus instead on media partnerships - see a trend here? Make nice, affordable devices - and let other companies have at it too (just like Android). WebOS has a pretty interface trapped in underwhelming hardware - but that can be fixed in a jiffy. It is a case of what could have been.
Last - Steve Jobs resigns. This day had to come. He is dying. I heard an analyst say today that Apple now has about three years of products in the pipeline - and that Apple can be thought of as a company that has well programmed robots that will be running out of orders by then. Then - what happens?
The problem with this is that this analyst has been asleep for the last couple of years. The iPhone has been in development for a very long time - some estimate as much as 6 - 7 years. There were many false starts.....but they stuck with it and took a long view. Many companies would have given up.
Around the edges we have seen the rise of people inside of Apple who are talented and bright people, who have left a stamp on what Apple does. Jonathan Ive, Scott Forstall....many more. Apple is awash with talent, and a culture that puts design above everything. It is why the iPhone doesn't suck, and Android handsets do. There is nothing wrong with the technology in an Android handset - and that is all that Android handset owners can talk about - is the features - but they are often a series of compromises that normally would make sense for a consumer product - but that doesn't wash any more - you can't cut corners - use a slightly lower grade plastic - or make the phone just a little fatter because the skinny batteries cost more. Every extra button is another area of frustration - a lesson Camera manufacturers learned - cheap digital cameras are more automatic and have fewer buttons.....because that is what people want in an inexpensive digital camera. The Sony I have here has a setting that is automatic everything - and I bet it is where most owners leave it.
Apple and Google are both innovators in their respective areas - and now seems to be a time where their paths will cross. Google has a lot of talent and a culture that others admire. They are a big cloud based data mining and advertising company that would love to get into some new markets. And they will.
Many may miss the rationale for Google's purchase of Motorola. It has to be understood that Motorola has struggled since their heyday with the Razr. They were never able to make a killer followup product with the same kind of iconic styling. It was a breakthrough product that was quickly copied, just as the iPad is being copied now. Their Android handsets were pretty good, and had some name recognition (Droid), but it wasn't the industry dominating device - because the market was flooded with Android handsets.
The assumption is that Google simply wants to be Apple - build the whole ecosystem of device/service. They would make killer smart phones and tablets, tie it to their services (aka Chromebook - who actually bought one of those?), sell them cheap, and people will flow to their service.
But Google doesn't have a good history with building great user interfaces or consumer products. GoogleTV was a big mess from day one - an ill-defined product that offered no compelling reasons to buy it - given there were cheaper/better products already available that were more focused and worked better. Logitech can't give them away.
Android itself is a mess. Ask any developer that develops for both the iPhone and Android - which has the better store - which is easier to write for - which one makes the developer more money. There isn't a truly consistent guideline for application UI design, and what is there is was patently lifted from Apple, and then changed a bit (often for the worse). What is worse than plagerism? Ripping off and not even appreciating what has been ripped off - just a cut and paste job. There is a reason why Apple's iPhone only has one button on the front - they designed their smart phone for people who have never had a smart phone - or even a mobile phone at all. Android handsets have lots of buttons, with little cryptic symbols on them. Application user experience is largely hit or miss. The device manufacturers themselves can't even agree on a standard on how a keyboard should be handled in software - developers have to write for more than one handset. Insane.
So....I have no inside knowledge obviously. I don't work for any of these companies. But....if I was Google.....I would be building reference platform devices with nailed down UI's that were damned nice and easy to use. Make developers and handset makers mad who want freedom to design their own user experience. Instead, let the device manufacturers focus on feature sets, form factors and cost. Treat the remnants of Motorola's handset division as a big bundle of patents and expertise.
If Google does get into the handset business.....it will be a downward spiral. It isn't in their DNA to build consumer devices. They bought Google Docs, and have done nothing of note with it beyond some modest feature enhancements. It doesn't talk to any of their other services - Picasa, Maps/Earth, etc. They just don't have that vision, although they have had some of the pieces all along.
Instead - I believe the part of the business they really want to emulate is Apple's cloud services and online retail services, which are tied to their handsets. This is the business that is perfect for Google - they can afford to almost give the handsets away - if you will let your handset only work with their services, let them data mine you, etc. You get a rich set of tools and access to media services. This could be very successful.
Moving on - Oh, no HP. You killed your WebOS devices. Shoulda never bought Palm to begin with. Let it die because it deserved to die. Palm was horribly run, and by the time they finally got decent management, they were underfunded and a distant forth or fifth in the smartphone market. WebOS was the equivalent of a Hail Mary Pass - that was almost caught.
If any lesson can be learned from the $99.00 Touchpad frenzy - is that HP had it all wrong. They should give WebOS away. Make it an alternative to Android without the ties to Google. Focus instead on media partnerships - see a trend here? Make nice, affordable devices - and let other companies have at it too (just like Android). WebOS has a pretty interface trapped in underwhelming hardware - but that can be fixed in a jiffy. It is a case of what could have been.
Last - Steve Jobs resigns. This day had to come. He is dying. I heard an analyst say today that Apple now has about three years of products in the pipeline - and that Apple can be thought of as a company that has well programmed robots that will be running out of orders by then. Then - what happens?
The problem with this is that this analyst has been asleep for the last couple of years. The iPhone has been in development for a very long time - some estimate as much as 6 - 7 years. There were many false starts.....but they stuck with it and took a long view. Many companies would have given up.
Around the edges we have seen the rise of people inside of Apple who are talented and bright people, who have left a stamp on what Apple does. Jonathan Ive, Scott Forstall....many more. Apple is awash with talent, and a culture that puts design above everything. It is why the iPhone doesn't suck, and Android handsets do. There is nothing wrong with the technology in an Android handset - and that is all that Android handset owners can talk about - is the features - but they are often a series of compromises that normally would make sense for a consumer product - but that doesn't wash any more - you can't cut corners - use a slightly lower grade plastic - or make the phone just a little fatter because the skinny batteries cost more. Every extra button is another area of frustration - a lesson Camera manufacturers learned - cheap digital cameras are more automatic and have fewer buttons.....because that is what people want in an inexpensive digital camera. The Sony I have here has a setting that is automatic everything - and I bet it is where most owners leave it.
Apple and Google are both innovators in their respective areas - and now seems to be a time where their paths will cross. Google has a lot of talent and a culture that others admire. They are a big cloud based data mining and advertising company that would love to get into some new markets. And they will.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A Confluence of Microsoft - can they keep from killing innovation again?
Microsoft has made several moves lately to firm up their tenuous - or lack of - grip on mobile computing. Their strategy in the last couple of years has been fragmented; in fighting, non competitive products, cultural collisions and hugely missed opportunities.
A while back I offered the word "Zuned" to describe what outwardly looks like a good product, but when the details of how it works become clear - it is obvious that it is a crippled product not from a technological viewpoint - but from a software and philosophical view point. The Zune shipped with wifi well before Apple included it in their mobile products - but it was so completely crippled that it was not just disappointing - it had a implicitly damaged user experience which made it undesirable. Do you know anyone that has a Zune (particularly the brown one)?
The Hiptop was next - Microsoft bought them. When it came out - it was a slickly designed device that had some strong "Apple-like" aspects. The form factor was great. The business model was good - using a backend to massage web content so that it would work well in a low bandwidth environment. More importantly, it was a "hip blackberry" - strongly messaging centric - but cool in a way that Blackberry was not.
Wow - it is dead now. They still make them, but it is clear that Hiptop's day has come and gone. Microsoft bought the company - without a clear understanding of how it would fit into their overall mobile strategy. They bled intellectual capital - most of the programmers left.
The Kin/Mobile battle was next. The Kin so utterly, completely lost - and it should have. The UI was a mess. It was slow - an unforgivable sin. How could such a product slipped out - only to be killed shortly there after. It made Microsoft look bad.
Windows Mobile itself has a new version - and the world says "Who cares?". They missed their window of opportunity - I remember the iPhone coming out, and looking at a friend's Windows mobile device. My friend kept telling me how his phone had a lot more stuff (camera with video recording, gps and keyboard). But it was big and ugly. The keyboard started to fail after a year of hard use. Most Window Mobile devices looked like it - something only a geek would love.
So now they have bought Skype, and Nokia has announced a strategic partnership. I guess that Microsoft will end up buying Nokia's mobile division. Skype will be built into all the Microsoft products, notably their mobile offerings. Nokia still designs nice handsets - but they never moved quickly enough to address the iPhone. Wow - if they had adopted Android - it would have been huge. Android really needs good UI and form factor designers. The Droid is at kinda kool, but also a big pile of features and buttons with not enough cohesiveness. It has been a consistent problem with the Android mobile platform - which Google is now addressing - by tightening the reigns on UI programming standards. This has always been a strength of Apple - all the way back to the original Mac.
I remain skeptical - given Microsoft's track record - they have to stop playing "me too". It doesn't work. There is no Xbox phone - which is a big, glaring hole in my mind - their big hit product (even I own one, and it is great) - with great branding - but not in mobile space. It should have been out a year ago. Tapping into Xbox Marketplace would allowed them to tap into a downloadable App model like Apple, but the advantage is that they are doing this right now - it just has to be extended into mobile space. Now Apple is nailing down portable gaming space - which will bleed over into traditional game device space - if I was Sony and Nintendo - I would be concerned. That Microsoft didn't let the Xbox developers take a stab at a mobile phone - with Microsoft mobile underpinnings - it is just another milestone in Microsoft's move to 2nd tier status.
A while back I offered the word "Zuned" to describe what outwardly looks like a good product, but when the details of how it works become clear - it is obvious that it is a crippled product not from a technological viewpoint - but from a software and philosophical view point. The Zune shipped with wifi well before Apple included it in their mobile products - but it was so completely crippled that it was not just disappointing - it had a implicitly damaged user experience which made it undesirable. Do you know anyone that has a Zune (particularly the brown one)?
The Hiptop was next - Microsoft bought them. When it came out - it was a slickly designed device that had some strong "Apple-like" aspects. The form factor was great. The business model was good - using a backend to massage web content so that it would work well in a low bandwidth environment. More importantly, it was a "hip blackberry" - strongly messaging centric - but cool in a way that Blackberry was not.
Wow - it is dead now. They still make them, but it is clear that Hiptop's day has come and gone. Microsoft bought the company - without a clear understanding of how it would fit into their overall mobile strategy. They bled intellectual capital - most of the programmers left.
The Kin/Mobile battle was next. The Kin so utterly, completely lost - and it should have. The UI was a mess. It was slow - an unforgivable sin. How could such a product slipped out - only to be killed shortly there after. It made Microsoft look bad.
Windows Mobile itself has a new version - and the world says "Who cares?". They missed their window of opportunity - I remember the iPhone coming out, and looking at a friend's Windows mobile device. My friend kept telling me how his phone had a lot more stuff (camera with video recording, gps and keyboard). But it was big and ugly. The keyboard started to fail after a year of hard use. Most Window Mobile devices looked like it - something only a geek would love.
So now they have bought Skype, and Nokia has announced a strategic partnership. I guess that Microsoft will end up buying Nokia's mobile division. Skype will be built into all the Microsoft products, notably their mobile offerings. Nokia still designs nice handsets - but they never moved quickly enough to address the iPhone. Wow - if they had adopted Android - it would have been huge. Android really needs good UI and form factor designers. The Droid is at kinda kool, but also a big pile of features and buttons with not enough cohesiveness. It has been a consistent problem with the Android mobile platform - which Google is now addressing - by tightening the reigns on UI programming standards. This has always been a strength of Apple - all the way back to the original Mac.
I remain skeptical - given Microsoft's track record - they have to stop playing "me too". It doesn't work. There is no Xbox phone - which is a big, glaring hole in my mind - their big hit product (even I own one, and it is great) - with great branding - but not in mobile space. It should have been out a year ago. Tapping into Xbox Marketplace would allowed them to tap into a downloadable App model like Apple, but the advantage is that they are doing this right now - it just has to be extended into mobile space. Now Apple is nailing down portable gaming space - which will bleed over into traditional game device space - if I was Sony and Nintendo - I would be concerned. That Microsoft didn't let the Xbox developers take a stab at a mobile phone - with Microsoft mobile underpinnings - it is just another milestone in Microsoft's move to 2nd tier status.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
The Myth of App-lication of the Web
Just read a brief summary to two CEO's remarks concerning Apple at Web 2.0
Shantanu Narayen's bizzare spin on Apple was that it was about control, and that Apple was for a proprietary and closed ecosystem, which Adobe was for the opposite, allowing content to flow across multiple devices and environments - meaning those that actually support a current version of Flash, which Adobe is the only commercial developer of playback technology. OF COURSE, this is also cheerfully ignoring the fact that Flash is the poster child of what has gone wrong with web development in the last 5 years. We are in the twilight of the era of the plugin and Adobe knows this, but has no plan B.
Jim Balsillie, who is co-CEO of Blackberry, has this quote: users "don't need an app for the web". This is actually only partially true. What we call the "web" is now more than a browser that renders content. The web browser itself may be secondary to specific applications that use the internet and web standards to convey focused content. General design web pages that flow across platforms are hard to do, and even harder to do when attention is paid to design that interface in a way that makes best use of the device.
Apple figured this out with the introduction of the original iPhone, and it appears to me that some dstill have not grasped this message. I do not want to open a web browser to do a simple task. I want an app. It has to be remembered that when Apple rolled out the iPhone - web development was the way that developers were going to be able to write Apps for the iPhone, and even developed extensions for HTML 5 that have been adopted. Blackberry will be able to directly benefit from this. I seriously doubt that Blackberry would have had the vision to do this themselves. From all appearances, they were totally blindsided by the iPhone - confident that people wouldn't change because they were married to the Blackberry way of doing things - even though Blackberry's architecture still has legacy thinking tied to it's roots as a pager with a keyboard.
General content web pages aren't going away - but applications (whether web based or native) are definitely the future. Boxee is an excellent example of a company that understands this - how best to bridge the television experience with the internet? Build applications that can access web content and display it in a way that works on a TV.
Adobe has to begin the process of killing Flash to be at that curve. What is going to replace it? Have they even considered this possibility? I think perhaps the developers have, but upper management may not.
Remember Director? Where is it now?
Shantanu Narayen's bizzare spin on Apple was that it was about control, and that Apple was for a proprietary and closed ecosystem, which Adobe was for the opposite, allowing content to flow across multiple devices and environments - meaning those that actually support a current version of Flash, which Adobe is the only commercial developer of playback technology. OF COURSE, this is also cheerfully ignoring the fact that Flash is the poster child of what has gone wrong with web development in the last 5 years. We are in the twilight of the era of the plugin and Adobe knows this, but has no plan B.
Jim Balsillie, who is co-CEO of Blackberry, has this quote: users "don't need an app for the web". This is actually only partially true. What we call the "web" is now more than a browser that renders content. The web browser itself may be secondary to specific applications that use the internet and web standards to convey focused content. General design web pages that flow across platforms are hard to do, and even harder to do when attention is paid to design that interface in a way that makes best use of the device.
Apple figured this out with the introduction of the original iPhone, and it appears to me that some dstill have not grasped this message. I do not want to open a web browser to do a simple task. I want an app. It has to be remembered that when Apple rolled out the iPhone - web development was the way that developers were going to be able to write Apps for the iPhone, and even developed extensions for HTML 5 that have been adopted. Blackberry will be able to directly benefit from this. I seriously doubt that Blackberry would have had the vision to do this themselves. From all appearances, they were totally blindsided by the iPhone - confident that people wouldn't change because they were married to the Blackberry way of doing things - even though Blackberry's architecture still has legacy thinking tied to it's roots as a pager with a keyboard.
General content web pages aren't going away - but applications (whether web based or native) are definitely the future. Boxee is an excellent example of a company that understands this - how best to bridge the television experience with the internet? Build applications that can access web content and display it in a way that works on a TV.
Adobe has to begin the process of killing Flash to be at that curve. What is going to replace it? Have they even considered this possibility? I think perhaps the developers have, but upper management may not.
Remember Director? Where is it now?
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