1 Sep 2011

Sobriety & Lost iPhones

One might not thing these two are related, however it appears Apple may need to begin a reconsideration of the apparent correlation.

Apple Loses Another Unreleased iPhone

The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco's Mission district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Maybe they need to consider a Vow of Sobriety for all Apple Employees who are testing the new iPhones.

27 Mar 2011

Branding in Commercials

One of the most successful recent advertisements that highlights brand is the Verizon iPhone commercial. Check out the commercial below and let's discuss what they highlight after.

The key to this commercial and to most commercials that highlight brands well is that it highlights the best features of your content.

In this case:

  1. iPhone - design of the phone is clearly the highlight
  2. Verizon - a network that actually works

Apple has always been known for their design, and this commercial visually highlights that brand position very well. Again brand is not always about stating a message, it can be communicated very effectively through visual presentation of the product.

Verizon has a strong branding regarding the quality of their network, and for years has engrained the "Can you hear me now slogan?" into most of their advertisements. So why change that, especially when the one major complaint about the iPhone is in fact dropped calls via the carrier AT&T. They have beautifully woven the design of the iPhone and the strength of their network into this commercial. It serves as a great example for a quick advertisement (30 seconds) delivering a strong brand message to consumers.

1 Jan 2011

iPhone Alarm in 2011

Woke up this morning, and both iPhones' (mine and my wife's) alarms had failed to go off. Set a few test alarms, restarted the iPhone and still the same result? I'm calling it the Y2K10 bug, Y2K's Revenge. Update - Macworld reports the fix:
The workaround for this is easy: set your alarm for New Year’s Day to be an “every Saturday” alarm. According to a 9to5mac report, this bug lasts through January 3, then fixes itself. I haven’t had a chance to test that claim.
13 Jul 2010

Consumer Reports iPhone 4 Study Flawed

Some good insight into the test by Consumer Reports here from Bob Egan.
Bottom line. From what I can see in the reports, Consumer Reports replicated the same uncontrolled, unscientific experiments that many of the blogging sites have done.
13 Jul 2010

iPhone 4 - Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports has posted their full lab test and review of the iPhone 4. Of interest are the following quotes:
Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that "mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength."
The signal problem is the reason that we did not cite the iPhone 4 as a "recommended" model, even though its score in our other tests placed it atop the latest Ratings of smart phones that were released today.
On top of all other smart phones, sans the signal testing/issue. There still seems to be a lot of people without the issue, or better phrased, without a noticeable effect, but those that do have the issue are very outspoken about it. This review seems pretty thorough, and Apple has acknowledged an issue. The question is: will Apple be able to fix it in time?
8 Jul 2010

Dive Into HTML 5

A great sneak peak of what is shaping up to be an amazing resource from Mark Pilgrim. HTML 5 has already, and will continue to change web standards. This has implications for businesses and non-profits alike, who want to stay current, relevant & harness what the web can do. HTML 5 specifically is changing what we can do with web pages as well as empowering our pages to handle browsers from a wide array of devices. Dive Into HTML 5
Dive Into HTML 5 seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML5 specification and other fine Standards. I shall publish Drafts periodically, as time permits. Please send feedback. The final manuscript will be published on paper by O’Reilly, under the Google Press imprint. Pre-order the printed Work and be the first in your Community to receive it. The Work shall remain online under the CC-BY-3.0 License.
2 Jul 2010

Multifunctional Irony

For years we have been waiting for the single device that does it all. I recall back in 2005, when the Motorola Rokr was announced that maybe this was it. The Rokr was a collaboration between Motorola and Apple, and was set to take the best of both and combine them into one device. For the first time, the opportunity to have one less device to carry around was within reach. Granted, we still had our Palm Pilots to carry with the phone, but one less is one less. I learned at a young age that pockets are valuable real estate in a man's life. I remember going shopping with my dad as a little boy, and the key factor when he would try on khakis was if the pockets were big enough. Geeks have long desired less gadgets to carry in our pockets, nevertheless it would be irresponsible to not ensure that the real estate is available. (More accurately: our significant others have desired that we carry less in our pockets.) The Rokr was not exactly the device that we expected, however it showed that the possibility was there. I mention it first because it was Apple's first foray in the phone arena. Many other manufacturers had already been and continued to develop phones and devices under the concept of unification and multifunction. The Rokr was certainly not the first attempt at this. The smartphone has been with us since the 90's, the first smartphone being credited to IBM's Simon. The smartphone makers developed and maximized as many features as they could into a single device. The limitation was typically what integration the manufacturer was able to achieve with outside service providers, or what applications had been written for the OS. Since 2003, I was a faithful Sony Ericsson devotee. I was astounded with my t610 and even able to download and install software. I was loyal to SE over the years and my last phone before an iPhone was the P1i. It was very functional, but the touch screen was annoyingly slow, and it had a pretty limited selection of applications. iTunes, whether you use it or not, really changed the way we store our digital music and our music purchasing habits. I used Winamp in my pre-Apple days, however after seeing iTunes and then the iTunes Music Store, I could never go back. Did Winamp work? Absolutely. I could do a lot of things with it, some things that even iTunes could not. The fact remained that Apple's well executed development at an early-stage in the digital music era, surpassed everyone in the industry. iTunes' usability was astounding. Further, the same principles were implemented in the iPod and it revolutionized what we originally called mp3 players. Recently, I have only heard them referred to as iPods (even if they aren't Apple's.) The release of the iPhone mimicked this principle of design and execution. The functionality, usability, and design of the original iPhone were astounding. However, a few months later the real game-changing announcement came into reality when Apple opened the App Store. When iTMS was launched, the question was which record labels would sell their content there? Apple astonished everyone with some industry deals and a strong representation by the major labels. When they announced the App Store, a similar buzz was stirring: what major companies and developers would be releasing Apps? Clearly the result has been much the same. The shear volume of apps alone is not only significant, but the industry representation in the App Store is astounding: ElectronicArts, Facebook, Twitter, Google, even Microsoft. What's even better is that while the heavy weights are in, there are still some amazing apps developed by small developers and they have been very successful. The real shift in thinking came with the App Store. Apple allowed any developer, with a few straightforward steps and payment, to develop an app. Without going into details, there are still some confusing areas of the submission and review process, but the bulk of apps are approved. The mantra became There is an App for that.. There really is. I am of the opinion that pundits and news media are missing the bigger picture, much the same as they did with iTunes and the iPod. This isn't about the phone. This is about the platform. What really boggles my mind is this: often times I am on my laptop and I want to check Twitter. My first instinct is to open Tweetie Twitter for iPhone. I settle for an OS X application, but it feels different. The more I use my iPhone, the more iOS apps I try to launch on my MacBook Pro. The irony that I find in all of this is that for years we have been cramming feature after feature into our software, ending with what is commonly known as bloatware, or at least in terms of features and the variation of the Pareto principle (80/20). Features that 80% of the users may or may not use. While I agree with the premise of Joel Spolsky's post on this, and his post is more about the size of the software and the lite versus full featured software. I think it is worth noting that the iOS platform has changed the game, the delineation is not the size anymore, or even the full feature set, it is the simplicity and usability. Developers are on a pretty even playing field, a field with a very low barrier to entry and a large market awaiting the next great app. So in the race to develop the single device that will do it all, it is interesting to see what has worked and what hasn't. The minimal approach of individual applications has prevailed, and in stark contrast with our traditional desktop environment, it is often preferred. Even when compared to other smartphone manufacturers who tried to develop their own feature driven phone OS (bloatware), this approach has prevailed. When I use iOS apps, they usually do one thing, but they do that one thing very well. So well in fact that I want to use them even when I am not on my iPhone.
25 Jun 2010

FaceTime, Carriers & Data

I recently read John Gruber's post on FaceTime, the new video calling technology Apple has implemented in the iPhone 4. He says:
More importantly, you don’t need to initiate a FaceTime call using a voice call. You can start the call using FaceTime directly, in which case the entire process takes place over IP networking. The advantage to starting with a voice call is that you’ll get a voice connection even if the recipient isn’t on Wi-Fi at the moment.
Now this is a great feature. The ability to initiate FaceTime calls without a voice call is a step in the right direction. The reading starts to get really interesting here:
But surely, someday, there will be a non-phone-carrier wireless networking technology with far greater range than Wi-Fi. FaceTime, I think, is a first step in the direction of a mobile “phone” with no mobile carrier. If and when FaceTime is supported over 3G in addition to Wi-Fi, it’ll be data, not voice — megabytes, not minutes. And immediately, starting today, it’s a step away from tying your iPhone’s “calls” to your carrier’s network.
Considering that two major carriers are moving in the opposite direction of this megabytes, not minutes concept, by cutting back unlimited data plans: Verizon hints, AT&T Does, it sets up an interesting future. So Apple with FaceTime and Google with (Google) Voice are both changing the way we use our phones with new technology. At the end of the day I agree with John's point that it is megabytes, not minutes. The megabytes will prevail in the end, and the real question is if the carrier's path is to cut down the megabytes, who is going to provide a larger than Wi-Fi coverage technology.
23 Jun 2010

iOS4 Wallpaper

Steve Jobs, following his true-to-form quick email reply, answered a user about the lack of custom wallpapers when running iOS4 on a 3G:
The icon animation with backgrounds didn't perform well enough.
The demo performance looked something like this.
5 Jun 2010

iPhone Data & Tethering

Well AT&T has caused another revolt with their recent announcement to change their data plan and tethering options, or at least a revolt amongst heavy users. However, they have stated that the majority of users would be best served by the new categories; as well as released more detailed data on usage.

I am not an AT&T subscriber (luckily for the sake of the people that I call). I live in another country. Pertinent to this post, I live in a country where tethering is an option that was not just announced but that already works. I agree that the unlimited usage might be overkill for *most* users, however I think tethering could change that. I know for certain that a lot of business travelers would gladly tether their iPhones to laptops while on the road. Personally, I prefer not to tether, but have used it often when out of reach of WiFi or when I really cannot accomplish something with just my iPhone. With that said, I do prefer the charging scheme that my provider gives: time based charging. I can opt to pay a flat fee for a period of time browsing. This is very similar to the likes of WiFi hotspots throughout the world in places like airports. I think it is the most suitable type of charge for a tethering options, because honestly I think keeping track of the MB's used is difficult.  AT&T has created options for keeping track of this which is a definite plus, however, just like cell phone minutes, I think data minutes are more effective and easier to track.

About Me

I am Dave Overton, techonomist and entrepreneur. I co-founded @gloryreborn a non-profit medical organization with my wife and I recently launched my startup @sym_ph.