Got rocks in their head

News today that the Nokia Lumia is barely selling shouldn't really come as a surprise. Supposedly for every 1 Lumia sold there are 100 Samsung Galaxy S2's sold. No matter what your thoughts on Windows Phone 7 (I'm fairly neutral on the platform) the fact that Nokia seem to think that people will pay as much, and indeed perhaps even more, for an unknown proposition that an iPhone 4S or Galaxy S2 tells you that the people in Espoo nead a reality check. And soon.

MS Office for the iPad 2

More thoughts on the topic:

If MS had confidence in their Windows 8 tablet strategy surely they'd hold out the port of MS Office for their own kit. Wouldn't it be the definitive tablet killer app? Maybe, maybe not.

It would be the first time that MS were producing a major product for a platform they didn't control (yes I know that office for mac has been available for years - but it hardly counts). Scary new territory.

Wot no e-mail?

On this day when the Entente Cordiale (sp?) definitely took a hit on the chin let me do my bit for Anglo - French relations by praising a French leader. No not sulky Sarky - who more than likely won't survive his bid for re-election in 2012 - but Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos, who has decided to phase out internal e-mail over the next 18 months. Inspired leadership.

MS Office for the iPad

A few posts back I speculated as to whether Miscrosoft would bring Office to the iPad. According to recent tech news Microsoft is indeed in the process of porting its Office suite onto the iPad. If true this is an interesting development. You would have thought that such a move was counter productive given that it could hold off and port Office directly onto the Windows 8 platform for both PC and tablets.

I wonder if they'll get round to doing an Android port?

You can't be sirious!

When Siri was launched at the iPhone 4S product launch it was dismissed by both Andy Rubin of Google and Craig Mundie of Microsoft. The initial dismissal was along the lines of "people don't like talking to phones" which seams a bizarre statement when you think about it.

Now Microsoft seems to have rethought its objections and is now running a series of TV commercials about the voice integration that currently is in place in the Xbox 360.

I'm not going to get into the semantics of Voice Control versus quasi artificial intelligence but Micrsoft's lame TV commercials really don't do anything to help their case.

Size Matters 2

In a tech interview the late Steve Jobs indicated that Apple had done a whole lot of research on optimal screen sizes before launching the iPhone and iPad devices. As per my previous post I don't think that there is much debate that 3.5" - 4" appears to be the optimal size for a mobile screen.

The debate for tablets, however, seems unresolved with devices between 5" and 10" being launched at various times over the last two years. To anyone following the tablet market it comes as no surpirse to realise that Archos, Dell, Blackberry and others have had no luck with the smaller form factors between 5" - 7". Indeed Amazon's much lauded 7" Kindle Fire has recently come in for some poor reviews to do with poor browsing experience among other complaints. So does this mean that anything short of Apple's 9.7" is inadequate? Well I don't think so and it wouldn't surprise me to see a 7.8" iPad3 - Apple has allegedly order a large number of these screens - released next year complimenting the existing form factor.

Why? Well rumours are that the 7.8" screen was a very close second to the 9.7" screen that Apple launched the iPad with. Also if you think back to the days when a lot of pressure was brought to bear upon Apple to enter the netbook market Apple actually responded with an 11" Macbook Air despite Job's earlier statements that anyting under their existing Macbook range of 13" screens was sub optimal. Anyone like me who previouly owned a late, great 12" iBook or PowerBook would realise the flaw in that statement.

Size Matters

There was a time when manufacturers were pulling their hair out trying to make mobile phones smaller. Handsets like the Ericsson GH 337, Nokia 8210 were noteble for being the smallest handsets on the market when they were released.

With a new smartphone form factor established by the iPhone and followed by a horde of iClones that trend appears to be somewhat in reverse. Indeed many Android handsets are now being launched with screen sizes between 4" and 5", trumping the iPhone's screen which has remained unchanged at 3.5" since launch.

Recent reports that Apple has secured the supply of a large number of 4" screens has led to speculation that the iPhone 5, when it arrives next year will be bigger than it's predecessors. Will that be the case? Well I believe the answer is yes and no and here's my rationale.

Take a ruler to you current iPhone and measure the 3.5" screen diagonally. Now stretch that screen size by an extra half inch and its easy to see that a 4" screen could easily be fitted into the current form factor of the iPhone without compromising much. Effectively we'd lose some of the banner at the top (which houses the speaker) and/or the bottom (which houses the home button). Whatever happens I'm pretty sure that the mechanical home button - a component of questionable durability - will not find a place on the iPhone 5. Indeed there has even been speculation that the button will disappear totally. I'll leave Jony Ives and his team to do the rest.

And my new phone is ....

Some time ago I speculated that when the time came to replace my trusty old iPhone 3GS I might well consider an Android handset. I like iOS but the allure of a new toy that does everything the same as my iPhone at a premium price might just tempt me away from Cupertino's finest. Lo and behold I have now chosen my new handset for the next couple of years of mobile service and it is ... my trusty old iPhone 3GS running iOS 5. So what gives?

Well after two years of reliable service my phone is still pretty much like new. I've upgraded two major iterations of the operating system and everything still runs and performs fine. Best of all since Apple are still selling the 3GS new it's going to be supported for at least another year or two. So go figure droidheads, do you think that you'll get 3+ years of service from your latest IceCream Sandwich munching device? No, I thought not

Behind the times

I love technology but hate the way that it is highlighted and reported on the news. Here's an example. Back in June this year I wrote a blog about the smartphone being the ultimate convergence device. Low and behold the BBC's technology flagship show - Click - just ran a story about the same thing. Only true to form they sat on the fence when it came to the sum up. Typical.

Show me the money!

I'm no Donald Trump, Alan Sugar or even a Jerry McGuire for sure but here's a fact that might just shock you. Sony have made a loss on every single television it has sold in the last seven years. This means that the best way to do harm to them as a company is to buy a TV from them.

So is this an isolated practice? Let's look at some others:

- Amazon are subsidising every Kindle Fire sold to the tune of $50. This kind of makes more sense when you understand that the kindle is a mobile portal to the Amazon shopfront. Nonetheless the fact remains that if it were priced with a reasonable profit margin it would most likely cost another $150 more. How would you feel paying $350 for a Kindle Fire? It doesn't look so tempting now.

- Google have not made a cent out of Android. Again Android is a loss leader (well a giveaway, actually) in order to ensure that the google advertising revenue stream is retained in the mobile world.

In this world of artificial stock market valuations, ipo's, market shares it's worth actually stopping once and a while to figure out that companies have to make money to survive and invest. And the only company I can think of that genuinely does this is Apple. I can't imagine Apple running a product for seven months at a loss, never mind seven quarters or seven years.

Every now and again it'll launch a device that doesn't meet expectations. Remember the iPod Hi-Fi and the G4 cube. However when these misses occur as a company it is ruthless in cutting its losses and focussing on products that are doing well. And that's just as it should be. Loss leaders and market share grabs are fine but somewhere down the somebody needs to show the money .. or else what's the point?

Flash in the pan

For the last couple of years one of the supposed advantages Android holds over iOS has been its support for Adobe's Flash Player. The argument being that if you want the full web experience iOS just doesn't cut the mustard. The fact that devices that block flash have noticeably better battery life never gets much coverage.

Personally I've never missed flash on my iOS devices, indeed I've even installed a Flash blocker add-on to Firefox on my work laptop. Still this doesn't stop the Flash argument being trotted out every now and again. I wonder how that's going to sound in the future now that Adobe themselve seem to have given up on Flash in favour of HTML5.

Perhaps Steve Jobs was right after all in his open letter on the subject.

iPhone 5

Earlier in the year I speculated as to whether we would see an iPhone 5 or a 4S. That question has now been answered and my hunch that we'd see the former was wrong. I also speculated that we might see an iPhone Nano or cheap iPhone. Again I was wrong. But the most interesting thing is that the iPhone 3GS which is now occupying the low end of the iPhone market is selling like hotcakes in the us *(if AT&T's figures are to be believed).

So droidheads ... I dare you to name a 2 year old Android hansdet that is comfortably running the latest OS and will be supported for at least another 2 years (the lifespan of contracts currently being sold). My 3GS is still going strong and second hand values are still good. As I've previously stated in posts about Mac ownserhip - the upfront costs may seem higher but as a total cost of ownership Apple gadgets are heard to beat.

Two trick pony

I've had the misfortune to be upgraded to Microsoft Office 2010. IMO it's a horrible piece of bloatware that tells you all you need to know about what's gone wrong at Microsoft. It somehow manages to muck up the casual and power user experience - which let's face it is no mean feat. However, what it does have on it's side is legacy, legacy more legacy.

If we accept for a moment that we're about to begin a journey in the the brave new Post PC world then we have to accpept that one of Microsoft's two big ticket items - Windows - will also wither on the vine. This will place extra pressure on the Office suite of products. So my question today is how long will Microsoft resist writing a native port of Office for the iPad?

One trick pony

Some people think that Google is a technology company. Some think that it's a search company. The truth is that it's neither. Google is the worlds most successful advertising company and the vast majority of its profits comes from just two products, AdWords and AdSense. All the rest - Maps, Streetview, Earth, Books, Docs, Android, Chrome, Picasa, TV, YouTube, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc is belly button fluff.

Google acquired Android as a defensive strategy to cover the bases and be able to offer advertising revenues from mobile search. In doing this we're led to believe that Eric Schmidt double-crossed the Apple Board and Steve Jobs. How do Apple respond? Litigation yes, but also product acquisituion. Siri for voice cuts Google out of the search equations and C3 3D maps will cut Google Maps from iOS.

Apple's blanket refusal to negotiate its iPhone/iPad intellectual property and patents to Android maybe high risk but if it comes off we may be wondering where Google will be in ten years time.

The Post PC era

If you read back in this blog you will understand that whilst many people initially dismissed the iPad as a glorified iPhone without the phone, I predicted that it would be a hit. I now believe that iPad (or tablet computer) is primed to replace the PC as the default tool of choice by the information based workforce.

Why? Because for many employees a tablet, whether iOS or Android based, will meet most of the functions they now use their desktops,laptops and blackberrys for. Email, word processing, spreadsheets, voice & video conferencing, BI dashboards and reporting consumption, web enabled data entry, etc. can all now be done using an iPad style device. The tablet is also poised to become a collaboration device in the way that the PC and even laptop can't. More than that I believe that iOS will win out over Android.

Can you imagine software using NFC and SIRI to record attendance, minutes and actions of a meeting and then automatically update time recording/project tracking software of its occurence and cost. I can.

So here's what I'd be doing (and I have suggested this to my CIO).

1. Read the following http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/02/07/i-want-my-ipad-avoiding-it-consumerization-pitfalls/

2. Stop handing out Blackberry's. They are the dead man walking of the mobile industry.
3. Put your Windows 7 upgrade plans on hold whilst you evaluate a mobile migration.
4. Pick your mobile os of choice. Yes folks - It's just like the Windows vs OS/2 argument again. iOS or Android. My money is on iOS as it is more secure, less fragmented and Apple will most likely win the current round of patent wars.
5. Incentivise and support a pilot program of your chosen Mobile OS.
6. Encourage employee's to BYOD's to work.
7. Evaluate Mobile BI offerings.
8. Investigate a custom mobile development strategy. The question remains whether you want to develop generic HTML5 WebApps or dedicated native apps (Objective C for iOS or Java for Android)

The Network is the Computer 2

In an earlier post I extolled my beliefs from 1997 that the Network Computer would be big. Of course it flopped and the PC carried on as the main business tool of choice but one of the revelations from Steve Jobs biography is that the iMac that Apple launched in 1998 upon Steve Jobs return to the company was originally intended to be a Network Computer. It's not surprising that given the closeness between Larry Ellison, the NC's father, and Steve Jobs and their shared ambition to take a chunk out of Microsoft that they will have discussed such things and shared ideas.

Of course the price of PC's plummeted and undercut the savings of the NC. So whilst I may have been wrong in my beliefs at least I was wrong in good company - namely Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison.

Technology meets Liberal Arts

Anyone who studies the origins of the Qwerty keyboard will get the irony that they key layout was designed not for humans but for machine limitations of early physical typrewriter (i.e. to reduce interference between the 'typebars').

I've always felt that Apple might have attempted to change this legacy by coming up with an ingenious new way of interacting with a computer via a new sort of keyboard. And in a way they have - but not as I was envisaged. Note that as I've already stated in previous post I'm not suggesting that Apple have invented anything new here. Apple's strength is not innovation but lies in picking up available technologies, usually poorly implemented, and hitting the sweet spot of user adoption which Jobs described as the intersection between Technology and Liberal Arts.

This happened with the original Apple PC's (Keybaord/screen), then with the first Mac's (Mouse/GUI) then the iPhone/iPad (touch) and now Siri (voice). Let's just think about that for a moment. At the intersection of every one of these user interaction is Apple. That's an amazing track record.

So what's next - my money would be on thought interaction - but that's a long way off I guess. Will Apple still be there. I guess that will depend upon just how much Steve Jobs did or didn't control everything at Infinite Loop.

And now the end is near

I've somehow managed to avoid owning a Blackberry all of my career ... until now that is. My current employer is still in the slightly delusional belief that Blackberry's are an essential corporate tool. So I now carry a brand spanking new Bold 9780 in addition to my personal iPhone 3GS which is still going strong.

I expected that there would be pros and cons between the two devices but I just can't get over just how bad the Blackberry is. Nothing is intuitive and the screen is truly awful. Indeed the one thing that should be great, and what Blackberry are reknowned for, is the keyboard. However, even that is crap. My old Palm Treo had a much better physical keyboard.

So if RIM can't make a great smartphone, can't make a decent touchscreen phone, can't make a decent tablet, can't keep their back end servers running then what can they do?

I guess not much - and judging by the latest reports (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/03/rim_market_value/) the market tends to hold that view also.

Calling Mr Ford, again!

In the past I’ve made mention of my admiration for what Henry Ford did for manufacturing with the introduction of the production line. I’ve long been convinced that this sort of rationalisation of IT is overdue.

My question today is about infrastructure, hardware and software environments. An inordinate amount of time goes into the design, build and maintenance of these environments. Virtualisation, in theory should make this process easier but as always technology cannot fix what is essentially not a technology issues.

When I worked for a large investment bank they had a novel approach to this. They would size the production server and then buy six identical servers. These identically built boxes would cover the DEV, TEST, UAT, PROD, Failover and DR servers. This was an elegant but expensive solution to the problem.

My question today is why we cannot do something automatic with server offerings like Oracle Exadata. If you’re listening Larry why don’t you offer me a box where I enter some simple performance and sizing metrics, install a single pilot environment and then flick a switch and have my 3/4/5 or six identical environments built.

Come to think of it automated version control software migration would be nice. Now I am really dreaming.

An O/S too far

For a long time I’ve believed that desktop operating systems are too complex and hampered by a legacy of DOS or UNIX underlying technology. I include in this assessment Mac OSX, Linux and Windows. A hundred odd thousand files just to manage and PC operating system just seems excessive to me.

Therefore I am interested by the recently released Google Chromebooks. Interested but not convinced. Whilst I would love to adopt a simple network based, dare I say cloud based, computer I’m just not sure that wifi and 3G services are reliable enough yet.

I am also perplexed by Google’s mixed messages on Android and Chrome OS's. When the iPad was released there was a lot of speculation that there just wasn’t space in the market for a new class of device. Maybe this will be true of the Chromebooks. Time will tell, but for now I’m not tempted to buy a network handicapped netbook clone.

Maybe that's why Google are keeping it all very much low key!

When September Comes

It’s no secret, if you've read this blog, that I am a fan of the Cupertino based company, together with their inspirational CEO. I love the design of their products and the simplicity of their product range. At home I choose to use a Mac and I also own an iPhone and an iPad.

Does this make me an Apple fanboi. Probably. Am I embarrassed about that fact. Definitely as I'm wasy too uncool. Fanboi for life though? Well no I don’t think so.

My current phone, a 3GS, is getting a bit long in the tooth. Time will tell whether iOS 5 cripples it but even so it is two years old. Therefore I will watch to see what Septembers iPhone announcement brings but just in case Apple disappoints there are certainly plenty of alternatives out there.

One friend, who I still think secretly harbours a grudge about the iPod killing off the MiniDisc, has recently got a Nexus S. Whilst it may not be superior to an iPhone 4 it is certainly close enough and came on a very attractive plan. Another friend has ditched his iPhone 4 and is raving about his new Samsung Galaxy S 2. I must admit it looks good and he is really enjoying the ‘freedom’ offered by Android over the closed shop that is iOS. Another friend is even raving about his Windows Phone 7 device so maybe when Nokia bring out some new hardware that may be worth a look.

I must admit that there are times when I’ve even been tempted by low end smaller 3.2” screen Android handsets like the HTC Legend and Wildfire or even the HP/Palm Pre. The long and the short of it is that there is a lot riding for Apple when September comes.

iPhone 5 & iPhone Nano

The iPhone 5/4GS rumour mill is well and truly alive and most of the debate centres on whether this year update will be an iPhone 4S (i.e. a speed bumped iPhone 4) or whether we will see an entirely new model (i.e. the iPhone 5). There is also some speculation that we might see two new models – an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 5 Nano.

I don’t think it will be the first option. The Android market changes so quickly with new and better phones being released by the week and deals that undercut the iPhone. Apple cannot rest on their laurels and it is not in there nature to do so. The iPhone 3 to 3GS upgrade happened whilst there was a lot of activity in the original iPad. There are no such excuses this last year. Besides what have the iPhone hardware designers/engineers been doing for the last 12 months? The software guys have been busy with iOS5.

So will it be the second option or the third options? Who can say but what is clear is that Cupertino must offer a mobile device at a price point to be competitive with reasonably specified Android devices. Failure to do this will see them lose the battle like the original mac did to the PC.

The ultimate iPad?

I have owned my iPad (first gen 32Gb wifi) for over a year now. By coincidence I just happened to be in San Francisco on launch day and just couldn’t resist getting one. I predicted that they would be a massive hit and so far they have been.

How is it bearing up? Well to be honest it has been a mixed bag. Part of the original justification for purchasing the device was for my wife to use it surfing the web and to avoid scalding her lap but also the long battery life would be a distinct advantage. In reality this benefit was never realised because she still prefers to use the laptop for web surfing. I have to say that I agree with her.

Browsing the web - Don’t tell Steve Jobs but the truth is that surfing the web on an iPad is a bit of a disappointment. I often hit links by mistake or whilst trying to pinch or scroll. This tells that either the device, or my finger, isn’t optimal or precise enough for web surfing. Roughly translated I imagine Cupertino speak for this would be ‘website design has some way to go to be great on a touchscreen device’ but that’s another point. And don’t get me started on Flash because in this case I’m with Jobsy here. The fact that RIM is heavily promoting Flash compatibility on the Playbook just shows how far off the mark they are. Anyway, here’s a rundown feature by feature.

Battery life – is outstanding. Nothing more to say.

Perfromance – I’ve never had any CPU or memory related issues so again all is good. Wifi performance has been poor compared to my laptop on the same network though.

Screen – Despite not matching the ‘retina display’ resolution of the iPhone 4 it is still great. The colours are vibrant for watching movies and playing games. The retina display is rumoured for the iPad3.

Camera - I bought my iPad with my eyes wide open knowing that a camara equipped version (iPad2) would be waiting in the wings. In fact I could never understand at the time why the original iPad didn’t have one. We now know that it was because of graphics limitations with the A4 chip which are now resolved with the A5 successor. Anyway, this is now resolved.

USB/SD Card – Being locked down by iOS to iTunes is part and parcel of the new paradigm of mobile operating systems. This will change to the new iCloud services later. Should we need a file explorer in the 21st Century. I would like to see an inbuilt SD card reader though in the next device.

Keyboard – The iPad’s virtual keyboard is surprisingly decent for typing but I remain confused as to the position of some of the more obscure keys every now and again. The lack of a numbers on the front screen is painful as they are often required for passwords. I ended up purchasing a Bluetooth keyboard which I use when typing on the iPad for any duration.

Design – Both the original iPad and the successor, iPad2 look a cut above any other tablet out there. Top marks to Jonny and the team.

Case – My official Apple rubber/neoprene case hasn’t aged well. It still does the job but looks tatty and I have to remove it when placing the iPad in a dock stand. All resolved with iPad2 and smartcovers.

Apps – Like the iPhone I’m still a bit perplexed by hundreds of thousands of iOS apps. Yes I have a few dozen but as ever these appear to be more about marketing than actual use.

Conclusion – so what more is there to say. The original iPad has been a runaway hit and the iPad2 fixes some of the first gen issues. The inclusion of a USB/SD card port might be my only bugbear but I could fix that if I forked out for the adapter.

The fact that we still prefer to use a laptop at home for web surfing and the fact that I often use a keyboard with my iPad however leads me to think that perhaps the ultimate iPad won’t be the iPad3. If Steve can lower the pricepoint of the next Macbook Air it might just be that.

Travel Happy

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald there is an article discussing the relative merits of the iPad as a travel gadget. Of course the iPad was used as a hook and the comments descended into the usual pro/anti Apple rant.

I have previously discussed the merits of the iPhone as a convergence device but many of the same points apply to the iPad. After all it is just a big iPhone without the phone, isn’t it?

To recap my previous post: A few years ago I was used to lug away on holiday a mobile phone, iPod, PSP, DSLR, camcorder, point and shoot digital camera and occasionally a laptop with all the respective cables and power supplies. I resisted from adding a portable dvd player to this collection. After I got an iPhone I decided to gradually phase out all these devices with the exception of my DSLR.

I now travel on holiday with a combination of iPhone, iPad and DSLR. My phone generally stays switched off. There are obvious advantages of this approach in reduced weight and cost. Also I only need to carry a single charger (my SLR is AAA battery powered) and I invested in an Apple video display cable to which displays the iPhone/iPad video onto hotel TV’s.

As always with convergence devices there are compromises to be made. The pros - iPad battery life, screen quality and build are excellent. The cons - the keyboard is adequate for most tasks but surfing the internet I find inferior compared to the precision of a mouse. Maybe website design just needs to evolve to better satisfy mobile touch screen devices. I also refuse to pay for an SD-card reader that really should be built in as standard.

Am I an Apple fan. I suppose the answer is qualified yes but I’d happily consider the respective Android alternatives out there when the time comes to replace my iPhone and iPad. To avoid vendor lock-in I have so far resisted purchasing content from iTunes and have only paid for a small number of iPhone/iPad apps.

The only device of genuine interest to me remains the Kindle. The iPad is NOT a great eReader. Now only if Amazon would start selling eBooks as cheaply as paper ones.

Is that a computer in your pocket or are you .....

One of my New Years Resolutions was to use Facebook a bit more. My wife is a facebook junkie and whiles hours away on it sat in front of the TV. I just don't get it but each to their own. Having started to use Facebook a bit more my question for today is where is facebook's strategy for tablet computers. The mobile app is fine but is a cut down version of the browser experience so why no app for the iPad for example.

I was intrigued at Mark Zuckerberg's definition of mobile technology at their recent Mobile press event which simply failed in any way to acknowledge the tablet computer as a mobile device. So according to him PC's and smartphones are important but tablets are not.

Link that back to Steve Ballmer's quotes recently about everything being a PC (including tablets and smartphones) thereby all being candidates for Windows (God forbid) and also the recently cleared up confusion from Google about where Chrome and Android sit and we can see that the Cupertino tablet has really caught the competition on the back foot. It seems to me that Job's vision and strategy is the only complete one on the market today.

So back to Facebook. Not only should people be asking why there's no app for the iPad but more importantly is where is the Facephone or FacePad.