Why I find Apple Annoying

Let me begin by saying I really don't care that much about Apple one way or the other. My friends love to try and get me riled up about various subjects*, but I honestly don't really give a damn about Apple computers. If you need a new computer and you are willing to pay a premium price, go for it. I think there OS is better then the last few M$ OS's I have used, but I walk a different path then both of those.

With all that said, I really get pissed when I see Steve Jobs say shit like this, "It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it."

So let's think about both of these ideas, the first one is where I get my most anger. The second is just silly.

Let's take the second first. Task Killers. Steve...it's been a while since I used a MAC, but I am damn near certain that OS X has a way to kill tasks. Does that mean that you blew it on your flag ship OS? Now, maybe you don't have a task killer proper, but I seriously doubt you went through the effort of making it impossible to run kill -9 from the shell**. So let me know when you get that right, and I'll buy your expensive and beautiful hardware.

The first thought really chaps my ass though. It just seems to be another case of Jobs just pushing his own agenda on style. Look I understand that a stylus is annoying when you have to use it for everything you're doing, but is it really that hard to imagine how a stylus could be super useful? Let's go with two quick examples.

1) Students: Maybe just maybe students would like to be able to download lecture notes, and annotate them directly on their light weight and portable tablet in class. That way you are reading the notes and making your own notes at the same time. That's right kids, all your thoughts about the subject in one handy place. Yeah...that would be blowing it Steve.

2) People who have to go to presentations all the time: Now this a broad category I know, but let's spit ball a couple of ways this could be awesome. How about an app that let's everyone connect to a site where a presentation is being given, and various people can annotate a presentation as it's happening. You can either work on your own copy or you could have a shared copy that everyone is writing ideas down on. Yeah...that would suck. I much prefer the meeting notes that often make little to no sense and are hard to correlate back to what was actually happening.

Since going green is all the rage, wouldn't be it be great to be able to go to a
meeting, and instead of getting tons of handouts everyone gets their on copy of
the hand out on their tablet that they can mark up any way the wish? Companies it
crap like that up.

Again, I believe over all Apple is a solid company. They are not (in general) my cup of tea, but I can see why people like them. However when Jobs says bullshit like this it drives nuts. Maybe...just maybe Steve, there are many people out there with different needs then your own, and maybe just maybe a more open approach would allow you to increase your market share even more. Or maybe you're simply not interested in that sort of thing. Your call.




*usually with a good bit of success.

**For those who are not into the Unix, kill -9 is how you cause any process to end on a *nix OS. OS X is built off FreeBSD, which in turn is similar to Unix. Got all that?

*** A solid argument can be made that it is in fact his job to push his agenda

A Truce

I have been thinking a good bit about marketing lately and I have come to realization, while the iDon't and the "There's a map for that campaigns" coming out of Verizon have been fun, they don' do a good job of selling to the right market. Look 16 year old kids are going to buy the iPhone. It makes to much sense for them. Who need to flag down are the tech nerds and the business users. That is how you truly compete. Once you have all of those people in your hip pocket, you go after the other companies market. First build your own then steal theirs. Rinse repeat.

Verizon Droid

Let me start of by saying that I am 100% in love with my droid. I feel it was the perfect phone for me, and my needs. I do not think it is the perfect phone for everyone. I feel that for the non-power user the iPhone might still be the best phone out there.

Some things that I think the iPhone has over the Droid.

1) The camera on the iPhone is a million times better. The camera on the droid so far has given me terrible results. However I couldn't care less about this. I'll explain why later.

2) I am willing to bet that searching the iPhone app store from the phone and web is actually a bit better then from android. Not a huge deal, but there is room for improvement. Like say being able to filter out pay or free apps after a search like "Terminal"


My expeirence with iPhone is pretty limited since I have never owned one and only used my friends phones, but some things I am in love with about the droid where the iPhone comes up short.

1) I don't really do much on Facebook, but the Facebook integration into contact is the win. I only wish you could add a face book account to someone in the case where there Facebook name is different from what you call them.* Due to this feature I don't really need the camera to work very well b/c It will simply use my friends Google or Facebook profile photo. No real need for me to have the camera.

2) If you are one the desciples of Google, the integrated Google Contacts, Calendar, and Email is 100% the win. There is another Google app that deserves it's very own bullet point.

3) Google Voice for the win. I can't say this strongly enough. While Google voice is still only in BETA and invite only, it has changed the way in which I view my phone. It allows me to have it take over all of my SMS and Voice Calling. To put this in perspective, you can in theory use zero minutes and zero SMS messages if you use a Google Voice number. FOR THE WIN.

4) VPN support out of the box. Well kind of anyways. I have yet to figure out how to get this working with CISCO VPN. I will have it solved before to long though.

5) It runs Linux. Look...this matters to me. Deal with it.


Overall for the non IT/Software Developer set, the iPhone is most likely still the phone for you. If your a youngster not super interested in technology or extreme control over your device, get the iPhone. There is nothing wrong with it. It's a VERY solid device. However if your the type who wants to be able to admin a server remotely and deal with your corprate life as well as your social life all from one phone, then the droid is the win.

*I am looking at you Alissa

It all comes back around

Note: I would like to see some of my more graphic design oriented friends tackle this topic in a more in depth manner*, but I have been pondering how aesthetics move in cycles.

When the iPhone first came out, I was blown away by how pretty it is. All those beautiful rounded edges. How it's so damn minimal. Just the one button on the front. It was so sleek and clean. It was truly something to behold. So what happened? Everyone ripped off that look**.

Now the Droid is coming out friday***, and the design of this phone (while similar to the iPhone) is kind of a throw back. I have seen all kinds of people talk about how the Droid isn't "sexy". I have no idea when we decided inanimate objects that are suppose to be utilitarian became "sexy", but it seems that it happened. Well maybe it's my clear (and rampant fanboydom) but I can't help but enjoy how the Droid looks. I love it's through back to more rigid and boxy shape. It doesn't look like every other phone, with their smooth and clean lines. It's rigid and terse. It looks like technology use to look like.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? My bet is that people will start ripping off this look and my pendulum will swing back the other way.


*I'm looking at you David and Patrick

**No blame here. If I was running a company, I would have done the same.

***I promise to stop talking about this damn phone soon.

Maybe I am OCD

I can't seem to stop thinking about the new Android phone from Verizon. I am constantly pondering it's abilities, what calendar support it will have, how it will sync with my Linux boxes, and oh so many other things. The thing I have probably spent the most time thinking about however is the ad campaign.

I am far from a marketing guy. I find lots of things about the field to be somewhat evil, but on occasion people make what I would consider art, or at a minimum something that is very interesting and is worth of critique.

Last night I am watching baseball with a close friend, and we starting talking about the various adds we have seen a 1000 times now.* So during one of the breaks my friend and I get to talking about the android phone. We start ripping into the details of a 45 second add spot.**



Now my friend contends that the add doesn't actually tell you what the phone does. However, I have to disagree with him. I am the first to admit that I drank the open source Kool-Aid a long long time ago, but I don't think this is my blinding love of all things Open Source effecting me here. Can we go to list form for a minute? I want to just rattle of some points about why this add is amazing.

1) In the first part it nails the entire asthetic that Apple has been using for their branding.

2) It uses that branding to mock apple at the same time.

3) Then out of no where they take that entire look, and turn it on it's head.

It's awesome. I couldn't be happier with the add.*** They tell you several things the phone does by pointing out the short comings of it's supposed competitor. It's genius.

Now, here is the REALLY REALLY cool thing that the fine folks at Verizon did to promote the phone to the media.



That's right, the gave out some R2D2's. That's just sweet marketing. Sure you should give out some C3PO's so that his feelings don't hurt****, but I can live with this.

Now, look I have no belief that this will hurt apple. Their brand is so powerful right now that it's scary. There is a HUGE culture of people who buy into it and all it's trappings. That's a great job by them. I will however say that the fine folks about RIM should be really worried.
*When you watch every playoff baseball game you get beaten down by the same products over and over and over again. I'M LOOKING AT YOU FRANK TV!


**You'll be shocked to hear this, but we don't have girlfriends and not a single girl hit on us during the game.

***Here I will admit to a bit of fanboydom. Though the add is good.

****He is rather sensitive after all

Things I didn't know.

Appearently the MacPro's at the store will often times call the Mother Board of a computer a logic board? Why in the holy fuck stick would they do this? Why re-name something that is already well named and has been called what it is for so long?

Are these the same asshats who changed Constantanople to Istanbul?