Thinking About Mobile

The idea of the "Mobile Phone," has morphed and shifted into the new reality of the "Mobile Web." This has largely occurred largely on the shoulders of a single company. That company? Who else but Apple.

Think back 2 to 3 years. Look at any mobile carrier and compare any regular or smart phone to the iPhone. If you're honest, you realize how mediocre the hardware and software has been. Add to it that going to a mobile carrier like Verizon was akin to taking a trip to the DMV. Going in, you had the knowledge that when you walked out the doors, there was a high degree of certainty that you would come away irritated, pissed off and maybe even a little helpless, cause you where at their mercy.

And that is how Apple has been able to gain so much traction in the market so quickly. All they really had to do is stay, "Apple." What does that translate into? Words and principles like, "Experience economy, quality, elegant, ease of use, functional, intuitive, High quality customer service and comfort."

It might seem like a million years ago, but pretty much everyone scoffed at the thought of Apple even having the notion that they could walk onto the playing field. That notion was reinforced by a dismal product known as the Motorola "ROKR," that was Apple's way of seeing what the water temperature was like.

What was Apple's problem? Hadn't they heard the words, "Motorola, LG, Samsung, Blackberry, Verizon?" Every thought Steve Jobs was either, drunk on Apple culture, mentally insane or some combination of the two.

Looking back now, as people gleefully purchase their iPhone and download their favorite app(s), it all now looks so inevitable that Apple would succeed. How could you have ever lived without Safari, my Kindle App, Twitter, Skype, Epocrates and the 10,000 other apps that are available?

As I work on some applications and test the iPhone 3.0 Beta 4 software, I can't help but think, this is the new reality of "personal computing. Our data is ubiquitous (as long as we have a wireless connection). It really can be everywhere you are. This is especially true if you have Microsoft Exchange, Mobile Me or the fledgling Google contacts and calender "Push," enabled in your Gmail settings panel. The expression "Cloud," computing is truly meaningful within our lexicon.

To use a Bill Gates expression, the new mobile experience is about, "rich," immersive experiences facilitated by applications as the connector. It's about having hardware/software that is so well designed that when you don't have it you feel naked or discombobulated without it, because it seems so natural. It's having a phone where you don't need a book to figure it out, it just fits into your life.

The notion of "Just fitting into your life," is something that Apple does very well. On the horizon is the soon to be released Palm-Pre. Google Android, while a good first effort has had setbacks because the hardware has not been powerful enough to allow the software to shine. As we move along the technology curve, look forward to having richer, unobtrusive, connected experiences. In the future when you hear the words "desktop," or "lap-top," you'll put them in the same category as 8-track tapes or VCR's.

Mobile life is a good thing. Enjoy as much as you can, just drop the crappy hardware and software.

Jaye Morris

Verizon Hates Us All

Here's the best summary of what it's like to deal with Verizon, that I've ever seen.

A Week With Windows 7

Windows 7 Beta has been a pretty good experience overall. What seems to detract from it is Internet Explorer 8. Since so much of what we do is browser based, that makes its being so half-baked, so particularly disappointing. As a matter of fact, I'm making this post from Google Chrome, because of the numerous problems with IE8.

Windows 7 Beta as an OS itself is surprisingly good. Installing SQL servers, CF, Flex, etc... has been flawless and very manageable. The actual OS overhead is far better than Vista, where the systems can be "punishing," to use a word. That's the good.

Now for what might be bad. There are two area's to look at. First off, going from Windows XP to either Vista or Windows 7 is a dramatic change. Things are moved around, the work flow is very different. In and of itself, change is not a bad thing. The problem is introducing change without being intuitive. The end result is frustration for so-called "regular," computer users. They want to work on their task. They don't want to spend 45 minutes trying to figure out how to change their profile picture. It's relative to the system shock of going from Office 2003 and office 2007. I've had to help a lot of frustrated people because the paradigm shift was so extreme.

The second thing which is idiotic is the number of versions of Windows Vista and planned versions of Windows 7. Currently there are four (4) versions of Vista. That's ridiculous. Most people could deal with 2 versions of XP, home or pro. That made sense to people. Four versions is just opening a can of worms and introducing an elephant to a pool party. You don't want the complications. Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm a Apple fanboy, but there's a reason for that. Do you know how many versions of OS X Leopard there are? One. You can use it for the home network or corporate network environment. It doesn't matter. You pay only one price (99.00 USD). What could be better. Microsofties for being so smart are impressively dumb, when it comes to stuff like this. If they continue with the same pricing structure and confusion, it will be proof that Microsoft is not learning from their mistakes.

Jaye Morris

Getting Things Done

Over at Fast Company's WorkFastTV, I caught a video with Robert Scoble interviewing David Allen, at GTD expert. Pretty cool stuff.



Enjoy,

Jaye Morris

Can you say Vlingo?

Vlingo is an iPhone app that I just discovered, that does voice recognition. Since software version 2.0, I've been looking for a good "Voice Recognition," (VR) and have only been met with disappointment.

Prior to trying Vlingo, my last big attempt was using the "Google Mobile," app which was impressively lame. I was standing there tilting the phone to my ear, wait for the "duhn, duhn" sound, which was sometimes there and sometimes not. When I did get the VR signal sometimes I didn't speak fast enough and would get only a partial submission in there. It left me just feeling frustrated and angry that they could not get it right, after all they are Google, so I expect an Apple-like experience, not a clumsy piece of crap which left me feeling rather dumb.

Enter Vlingo. First off, I was willing to give it a spin for one simple reason. It's FREE! So by trying it, I'm not out of anything other than the time I invested on the install. Upon App start, Vlingo offers a series of tips under the title of "What can I say." This is really important, since it helps you with all the key phrases, which are natural and easy to remember.

The key voice recognition phrases are "Search, Google, Yahoo, Call, Find, Map and Social." My example is "Map, Wicomico County Youth and Civic Center, " You tap the red button indicating that completes what you are looking for and boom, up comes "Map It," you press the key and there it is. Snap! You can say, "search adobe coldfusion," and search results popup for Adobe CF. by default the Yahoo! is the default search engine, but you can go into setting and change it to Google. There's no love for Ask or Microsoft Live Search, but that's how they roll. No big loss there. Everything works as expected and as it's supposed to.

The above said, there is a really cool treat. Remember when i said, you could say "social?" Well guess what? You can Facebok and Twitter update via VR. It's insanely easy to do. You configure our account, hit the social button, say what your Tweet is and your words appear on the screen, giving you a word count to boot. The accuracy is nothing short of astonishing. You hit the update button and it posts to your account. Nice.

If you are looking for Voice Recognition software for the iPhone, I really think Vlingo is it. I'm really impressed. Give it a try and post back here to share your experience. As I said, it's free and you can't beat that. Enjoy.

Jaye Morris

Interested in Getting Things Done

I've always been interested in task management apps. I have way to many requests and demands on my time to easily remember things. Its also important to say that it's not that these tasks and requess are not important, but more like I'm in data overload.

Using the Outlook task manager was okay, but it also tied my to my laptop, which I don't always want to carry with me. When I had the MotoQ is was a litle better, but still somewhat clunky.

After I got my 1G iPhone, I was really bummed out, because there was zero task management available. But with 2.0 that was the first type of application I started looking for.

Enter OmniFocus. I ponied up with my 20 bucks. I felt that it was slow but robust. Some of the features and workflow was a little hard to figure out. But I was introduced to something that I was not familiar with... GTD (Getting Things Done). You can learn more about it from David Allen It's a methodology for becoming more productive and effective.

Since that time, I've been looking for an easy implementation to integrate into my life via my iPhone. I heard about desktop and iPhone application called "Things." The desktop version in available as a free preview. It's surprisingly impressive and feature rich for an alpha version. There is a really cool video demo on screencast.

Connecting both the desktop and my iPhone literally took about 30 seconds. That's no exaggeration. The iPhone app is guick and effective. It certainly doesn't feel as bloated at the Omnifocus and it's half the price (9.99).

The only drawbacks that I have found is that it does not have the "tags" like in the desktop version, but that's an easy fix. The other drawback is there is no "search" function. Those two things are kind of minor and it really is an outstanding app. And if you ask what my criteria was, in judging that, it's simple. I'm "getting things done."

~ Jaye

Get ready for a fire sale

Circuit City just got a de-listing notice from the NYSE. They have fallen below the "criteria to be on the exchange and have 30 days to get it above 1.01 as an average. That's pretty big. You can read more at CNET.com. Personally, I hope they survive. They have a lot of employees that will be out of work and I do like them better than bestBuy.

Jaye