Beware of the Browser

I was given a fresh reminder of what a ‘web browser’ does behind the scenes.

I stopped using Chrome a long time ago, even after I turned off all data sharing options. I like Firefox but its a bit sluggish when a lot of tabs are open.

I tried to install Yahoo Axis, but it seems its not a browser, but an add-on/extension.

 

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‘Save’ us from itself!

My staple diet of Windows has made me compulsively save my work all the time. But according to Alan Cooper, managing disks and files is not a user goal. If a UI interaction is based on limitations of technology, then users have to learn a new behavior which might be counter-productive. Saving a file has no real-world metaphors and new users find it difficult to adapt themselves to this industry-wide standard.

So when I heard about the auto-save feature in latest software update for Apple devices last year, it sounded really exciting. Since then, I have been using Keynote on the iPad and have quickly got used to not saving any of my work. I didn’t miss saving my work. It didn’t ask me to save when I closed the file, and the file was there when I reopened it. (Another adapted behavior that are slowly fading away from Apple devices is not needing scrollbars).

The productivity app that I use the most at work is Powerpoint, and I wanted to find if it has auto-save. Turns out- it does!- well, sort of. But this auto save feature is hidden, complex and explained poorly.
This I think is the fundamental difference between the philosophies of the two companies. Alan Cooper describes this as implementation model vs. user model. In short, an interface should follow user goals, not the software engineer code.

Auto-save in Windows Office 2010

*The first-time user have to setup auto-save
1 File > Options
2 Save > Checkboxes (change default values)

*While working on a file, on closing the file you have to
1 Save dialog > always Choose Don’t Save

*When you want to open the file you didn’t save
2 Recent > Reset Unsaved Presentations
1.1 Crash the file

Auto-save in iOS

*The first-time user have to setup auto-save
Nothing to setup

*While working on a file, on closing the file you have to
Do nothing

*When you want to open the file you didn’t save
Files can be accessed in the Finder

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Android Settings Screen

Is there ANY logic to the way this list is arranged??

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Spectrum Allocation- Nuts&Bolts of Wireless

I’m re-reading ‘Being Digital‘ by Nicholas Negroponte. He gives an accurate description of the kind of services, products and media will be in the near future. It feels as if he had a time machine and travelled 10-15 years from 1995 to see how media is changing and wrote the book.

He also talk about fiber vs wireless networks. Wireless networks he says, have limited air space. And that a larger broadband connection is like turning up the radio volume to get more info.

Which brings me to this spectrum allocation chart of USA I saw a while ago (full chart). It shows in a colorful way how the spectrum is distributed among personal, corporate and goverment use. It looks pretty crowded right now. The demand for faster wireless networks is at its peak all over the world. It would be interesting to think how applications would be designed to run on networks of the future.

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ps: Steve Jobs thinks the apps will be a marriage of client apps and cloud services for a richer user experience.

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Reimagine

Can we reimagine stuff like Apple does? Here are some products, markets that Apple reimagined.

Tablet: Handwriting vs. Touch
While Bill Gates was pushing for tablets with styluses and giant touchscreen tables for years, the handheld touch-based interface is pretty much the standard of the next-gen computing.

Phone: Carrier does not dictate whats on the phone
No phone before this could make this happen.

Siri: AI vs. Search
When asked if he’s getting into the search business by purchasing Siri, Steve Jobs described Siri as an AI (Artificial Intelligence) company and not a search company. His vision is to refine voice interfaces to the point it can replace touch-based inputs. In this process, the concept of searching for answers will be replaced by asking questions.

Apple TV: Set top box vs DVD player
Steve Jobs said the competition for Apple TV wasn’t the set-top box, but the DVD player. Now that they are one of the biggest digital media retailers on the internet, they can distribute it through their rumored TV.

iCloud: HD in the sky vs data syncing
See Jobs’ vision of the iCloud in 1997.

Computers: Integrated product vs Licensing software
Apple had immense pressure to license its MacOS. They didn’t.

Songs: 3 songs for a Starbucks latte
Simple and sticky analogy, isn’t it?

Macbook Air: Laptops without state or an optical drive, thin like an envelope
Apple launched a device for the cloud 4 years before anyone.

iTunes Sharing media vs. tethering, syncing

Music streaming: iTunes Match- Making illegal music legal

Company: Thinks itself as a software company, not a hardware co.
Acquisition through hardware, Retention through software
2000-2010: Computer as the digital hub
2011-near future: Cloud as the digital hub

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Samsung is not copying Apple

Found this a while back, reading about the Samsung-Apple legal spat.. why doesn’t Apple show this to the Judge?

 

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Thoughts on Invention

The term ‘invention’ is messy

Out of the following people, who do you credit an invention with?

• The one who thought of the idea first (“He thought of this years ago!”)
• The one who first published the idea first through a blog, book, article or educational paper (the idea is shared among a small group of like-minded people)
• The one who first made the idea into a workable prototype (building the first proof of concept to pitch to the Moneylenders like VCs)
• The one who figures out to mass-produce the product (manufacturing issues are highly under-rated and not covered by media a lot)
• The one who makes profit from the product (coming up with a business model to make the product accessible to the maximum number of users while making a profit)
• The one who media propagates as the inventor (journalistic license is taken for the sake of sticky storytelling)
• The one who affected people’s lives- in a good or a bad way, with the product (People love products that help them kick ass)

While there is no one person who can be given credit for an invention, but anyone who propels the invention to the next level can be assumed to be a valuable contributor.

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Thoughts on Apple TV- 2

Now, is Apple TV its old set-top box with a new interface? Or a whole new TV? The TVs available today are dumb terminals with the rich interactive experience coming from the set-top box.

The current experience for interactive TV comes through a set-top box. The interface lets you play around with the tv schedule (record or make shows favourite), browse the web, watch photos. The problem here is that there are two interfaces- the TV and the set-top box. Apple’s TV aims (or would aim) to reinvent TV viewing the way Flipboard revolutionized RSS feeds reading.

Another crucial question is- how does one bypass the localization issue? Different countries have their own language channels, local cable operators who know what people want to watch and what they’ll pay for it.
How does one create an engaging experience across languages and countries?

The solution could lie in breaking down the content into its bare essentials. All TV programs are moving images and/or text. If we can scan whats displayed on the screen, we will have a lot of data in terms of text (ticker tape, stocks, headlines, team names and scores), and images (faces, objects, places). Now using the power of internet, these metadata can be used to show related information to get an enhanced viewing experience. This will work for multiple languages and across countries. Here are some examples of how the TV could display related content for news, music and infotainment channels.

For an example, the other day, I was watching this motor racing documentary on Audi team participating in Le Mans 2008. While watching, I had a lot of questions as to who won the race the next year, are the drivers still racing, how is Peugeot faring, and how do these cars help building the cars we drive. Now normally, I would have my laptop or iPad to look these up, but would be great if I can see it as I am watching the documentary.

Apple is about controlling the key points in a business in order to provide a seamless experience to the user. The main players in the TV business are content providers (channels), distributors and cable operators and tv manufacturers. In the next post, I will try to understand how Apple could cut the cable operators layer by redefining TV’s digital distribution.

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Thoughts on Apple TV- 1

Its been almost 10 years since Apple was rumored to launch its own TV. Apple kept denying it, mainly because it does not talk about their future products. But Steve Jobs kept dropping hints that they are constantly thinking how to revolutionize the TV industry. The release of Apple TV in 2007 was the first step. The goal was not to compete with a DVD player and not to be another set-top box. In 2010, he said the TV industry is based on a subsidized business model, and that the problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. Also, unlike the phone industry, which has a GSM or CDMA
standard, there are no global standards for TV.

Coming back to the current interfaces for popular TV set-top boxes include TiVo, Roku,  Google TV,  Boxee. As we can see, the software is good, but has lots of room for improvement in terms of an integrated experience.

Apple is known for making disruptive consumer products in already established markets, with new business rules. In the TV industry, I think the biggest block to innovation is the cable operators. They control the distribution of content and their set-top boxes run on software that is really, really not upto the mark.

In my next post (coming soon), I will show how I want my Apple TV to look and work like. Stay tuned.

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Android- Disruptive Innovation?

I read this great, though-provoking article on Android. It talks about the disruptive market that Google has created in the mobile space. Here’s what I understood from it-

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1 The Android strategy is defensive rather than offensive. The tactic is about protecting the core business of Google- serving web ads. As the Android market share grows, its less likely for Google’s competitors to display ads to a large audience.

2 Google is paying carriers and handset manufacturers to put Android on their phones and also gives a cut of the mobile search revenues to carriers. In this process, they’re also getting rid of ‘middlemen’ of the web- browsers like IE and FF. Google had to pay them to make its search engine visible in desktop browsers.

3 For most consumers, if the UI looks and works somehwat similar to the iPhone and has all features, that’s all they need. They will stick to Android like they did while Microsoft improved from Windows95 to Windows8.

4 iPhone revenue is generated with the same business model they used for Mac. So its unfair to pit them against each other. (Win vs. Mac is also a useless debate).

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I am not sure if users will click banner ads on their phones the same way as they did on desktops. In phones and tablets, apps have become the main way for people to look for information not search. Also, the real estate on phones is too little to display ads. Ads can be displayed inside apps, but the experience is mediocre.

Consumers, carriers, handset manufactureres, software makers are frantically trying to innovate. Only time will tell who is going to prevail. Have a read of the article and let me know what you think..

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