MobileMe – it could be worse…

MobileMe DOA?

Shared via AddThis

I’ve written before about the problems I’ve had with MobileMe, and that it doesn’t seem as rock-solid as we’d like.

I’ve had problems with data syncing, needing to re-set sync data on 2 occasions, and one problem needing to reinstall a combo updater.

Many pundits have written that maybe this is proof-positive that ‘the cloud’ is not and indeed cannot, live up to its promise – a totally reliable, always backed-up, always available media-rich experience.

I’ve decided to give MobileMe the benefit of the doubt and use it ‘carefully’ and with a constant overseeing to make sure that all is well.

I’ve commented in a recent post, that with all the problems Apple had and continues to have with their cloud, maybe we are seeing the limits of their competence and maybe after all, Microsoft with all their expertise, can do it better.

I’m glad to be proved wrong.

Microsoft just doesn’t care…

It’s hard to know where to begin with this. Microsoft bought a company called Danger in early 2008, and basically took a perfectly functioning online service for T-Mobile’s Sidekick users and whilst performing an upgrade, totally screwed it up in the worst way possible.

They actually lost their data. Forever. Gone. No backup.

What’s Microsoft current market cap? $230 Billion?

How is it possible that this could happen?

And more importantly, why do people constantly continue to deal with this loose collection of morons that dare to call themselves a company?

In all my criticisms of MobileMe, I have never lost even one ACSII characters worth of data. It’s been a pain to reset sync, and I’ve invented at least 4 new swearwords when I was troubleshooting Apple’s cloud, but Apple have made sure that I never actually lost anything.

Well done Microsoft for allowing confidence in the cloud to be dented even further than it was. Morons.

No such thing as bad PR?

Windows 7 doth approach, and Microsoft, in it’s wisdom have organised ‘Windows 7 parties’ to encourage the poor deluded majority to bet, once again, that this version of Windows is the one they will actually enjoy using.

The one that will at last, be intuitive, won’t crash much, will be free from viruses and malware, just like those other computers that they don’t like to mention very much.

The general reception that the Windows 7 party idea has had is predictably consistent; it’s an awful, cheesy, cliche and pain-inducing idea that only reinforces the idea that Microsoft are so totally uncool and unhip, that it’s a wonder their bums don’t fall off (to quote Zaphod Beeblebrox).

However one excuse for all the fallout has been, ‘there’s no such thing as bad PR.’ Meaning that it doesn’t matter that the idea is awful, it doesn’t matter that everyone is laughing at Microsoft, the number of column inches it generates is worth all the bad press.

However I do not agree.

Many years ago I worked alongside a person who I had great respect from in the creative and advertising industry. Our team was tasked with creating a straightforward campaign for a large supermarket chain to advertise a sale.

This advertising took many forms, but one part was bus-shelter posters.

Now being trained graphic designers we new that the thought process for the consumer was thus:

You hook in the consumer with a gimmick, an offer or an angle.

You then hold there attention with an attractive, easy to ‘consume’, flowing, logical design.

You then let them go, away from your adverts influence, with a thought, or memory of your offer.

The last part is the most important. The consumer will spend infinitely more time away from your ads influence, than being exposed to it. You don’t have long to get your message across and that message has to hit home first time, and it must stay with them when you ad is long gone.

This period is the time where your influence has to be positive so that the consumer can pass your message along to another person.

This is why ‘viral marketing’ is a difficult and dangerous approach. You have to get your message and every possible interpretation of that message absolutely right.

Anyway I digress a little- back to the supermarket’s ad.

We created what we thought best fulfilled those 3 critera, to hook, to hold & give right memory. However the client didn’t see it that way.

They wanted something much more direct, simple and gaudy. Put simply they wanted their ad on a dayglo green or orange background, so that it ’stood out’ and shouted their message.

It certainly would hook & hold, but the memory? My colleague commented that, “We’ve hooked them in, the ad will be noticed most certainly, they will even read the ad, but what memory are they left with? a cheap and nasty one.”

The client, whose product was most certainly not cheap and nasty, finally relented, but this experience made me think about the Windows 7 party.

It’s getting the column inches, and we’re certainly hooked and held, but what’s the memory we are left with? What are we saying to others about this approach?

Microsoft seems to think that any news is good news… I don’t think so.

Forward delete is an oxymoron…

Mac 101: Forward delete on a Mac laptop

Posted using ShareThis

As part of my job, I come across dozens of Windows users every day. They have used Windows all their life and have little or know knowledge of the Mac.

These are, to coin a few phrases, the other 95%, the drones, the job security for hundred’s and thousands of IT Managers up and down the USofA.

Occasionally this ‘majority’ have to sit down and use a Mac for a period of time and it’s here where their ‘muscle memory’ of using the upside-down and back-to-front version of the Mac (i.e. Windows), comes into the realm of the way it was done first, and done correctly – the Mac.

One way in which this surfaces is the forward-delete key. This was first brought to my attention when a bemused PC user, typing a document, said, “where’s the delete key on this keyboard?’

My first reaction was that they couldn’t be blamed for not knowing. There’s nowhere on a mac keyboard that says ‘delete’. It’s the key with the left facing arrow, as a Mac user, I just know this through years of use.

However the PC-user, upon testing this said, “No, that’s the backspace key.”

“No it isn’t”, I remarked, “the backspace key on a Mac is the left arrow key, along with the up, down and right keys”.

Not understanding what ‘backspace’ meant, I then learned about ‘forward-delete’ from this PC-user. It’s always been on a Mac keyboard, but I’ve never used it, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. And neither does ‘backspace’.

To me, the word ‘backspace’ does not mean a destructive action. Backspace means, ‘to move back a space’, i.e. the left arrow key.

‘Delete’ means to delete something you have just done. i.e. You type a word, it is wrong, and you, going backwards using the delete key, delete that word. Where does the term, ‘forward’ make any sense in this?

You don’t place your insertion point at the beginning of the word and then when you press the delete key, expect it to move forward along the word, deleting it.

That’s counter-intuitive isn’t it?

I suppose this all comes down to what you’re used to, but ‘forward-delete’ to me doesn’t make any sense to me as a concept.

However as the ‘majority’ use it, I must be wrong, right?

FM tuner done the Apple way…

Steve, you genius...

Apple – iPod nano – FM Radio – Listen to the radio in a new way.

Posted using ShareThis

So it’s over. Steve looked fine, new iTunes, new Touch, new Shuffle, new Nano, iTunes LP, blah, blah, FM tuner, blah, iTunes at 70-odd%, Microsoft at 1% (silent laughter), blah, blah, no Apple TV.

Or iTabletslatepad.

Wait a minute – FM tuner?

How can you get excited about an FM tuner? the one thing that you would have bet your Mac that would never be in an iPod?

Ah, with an Apple twist – you can pause live radio and tag songs for later purchase in iTunes.

Steve, you bloody genius. Now you see why it’s never been a feature until now, until Apple made it actually useful.

I will probably buy it just for that feature, but it’s US-only – for now.

Queue the articles about Steve’s health in 3, 2, 1…

Apple = Microsoft Calacanis? Yeah right…

The recent diatribe that Calacanis scribbled out has been difficult to comment on.

I’ve commented on it on a few blogs, and my basic approach is that the content of what he wrote is pointless drivel, it’s the effect that it has on his profile that matters.

If he was serious in his comments, then:

a) It would have been much shorter and to the point

b) Would have been better researched and water-tight

c) Wouldn’t have seemed like the rambling writings of someone writing off the cuff, wanting to say something, anything controversial to make himself relevant again.

But, with all that aside, when you condense the it all down, you can say that the point of his ‘article’ was to point out that Apple either is, or is in danger of, becoming evil.

You know – evil. Bad. Not good.

Just like Microsoft was accused of being, but worse. A lot worse.

Calacanis apparently left Microsoft a decade ago and embraced Apple, but now he’s saying that Apple is even worse.

The cheques must have bounced.

But how bad were Microsoft? Some would argue (and I’m amongst them), that nothing has changed and Microsoft are just as bad as they ever were, they’ve just got better and covering their tracks, but how low are Microsoft willing to go?

Take a look at this very interesting article over at Rixstep, entitled, “Windows: The Next Killer Application on the Internet.”

Choice comments from the “lovely, not evil at all, and is not evil as Apple” company are:

They were going to replace the DNS with their own proprietary technology.

They were going to replace electronic mail with their own proprietary technology.

They were going to replace the world wide web with their own proprietary technology.

They were going to replace the DNS with their own proprietary technology.

They were going to replace electronic mail with their own proprietary technology.

They were going to replace the world wide web with their own proprietary technology.

This was 1994, but again, as Calacanis’s article content isn’t the point, it’s the underlying message, the same applies here.

The same people, the same attitude, the same evil, still perpetuates at Microsoft.

What’s Apple been accused of? Nothing that a few policy changes wouldn’t fix.

What’s Microsoft been accused of? Nothing short of making a fascist state of the internet.

To say that Apple are worse than Microsoft is insulting, and shows that Calacanis’s reasoning is flawed and suspect. I don’t trust him – or Microsoft.

Microsoft’s retail stab in the dark…

Upon thinking about Microsoft entry into the retail space, a few thoughts occur.

Microsoft have a really deep seated envy of everything that Apple does. Now, they’ve always had this from the very first meeting about Windows 1.0, and in the past they could get away with it.

After all, despite all Apple’s efforts, they were not a mainstream company. Microsoft and their partners dominated and no-one outside Apple’s niche had ever heard of them.

All the great unwashed saw was ever greater ‘innovation’ coming from Redmond. They did not know that this innovation was a photocopied, me-too agenda based upon what Apple did.

This approach works fine, as long as Apple remains a niche.

Can you really say that Apple Inc. is at this current moment ‘a niche player’?

Group together everything that Apple does, the Mac, iPod, iPhone etc, and their approaching 10% market share (and even greater mind-share), I think not.

Why does this make a difference? Well, Microsoft can keep up the pretense of being an ‘innovator’ as long as no-one (or at least the majority) knows that Apple exists.

This is all the more difficult, and one very good reason this is getting harder, is because of those pesky Apple Retail Stores.

People used to listen to their ‘geeky friend’ on what computer to purchase, which was usually, if not always Windows.

That’s not the case now, they see an Apple Store, go in, and more often than not, purchase. I don’t know what their footfall conversion rate is (the % of customer who enter a store and either do or do not purchase something), but according to Apple 50% of those purchases are to Windows users.

So what is Microsoft to do? Well there’s only one thing to do, fight fire with fire.

But Microsoft has a problem, and it’s a problem that cannot be got around. The PC model is proprietary OS on open hardware. Apple’s model is open OS (sort, parts of etc), on proprietary hardware.

Now I don’t care what people say, Apple’s model gives us more reliable computers, Microsoft’s model gives problems – lot of them, with more chances to go wrong.

Apple’s model is naturally fits the retail environment. People enter Apple Stores for an experience. Yes, they take their computers in to be fixed, and Apple manages that quite well, as their model keeps those fixes down to an acceptable level.

Microsoft? Their model invites problems, how the hell are they going to manage all those PC users with viruses, spam, malware and faulty hardware because their ‘geeky friend’ made their computer?

This should be interesting to watch…

Microsoft to open retail stores?…

This is going to be fun to watch…

Imagine the scene: Microsoft opens it’s store, hoping that people will walk through the door and fully grasp that Microsoft software can help their digital life and will be wowed by everything they have to offer and they won’t go to that funny fruit store down the street.

However what will happen is that Joe Sixpack will walk through the door walk up to the counter and say, “Ug! Computer not work, you fix!” (Along with the 20 people behind them with similar complaints).

The patient (and butt-ugly) Microsoft genius with say, “I’m very sorry sir, but your issue is a hardware issue and I’m afraid Microsoft only deal with software, I can give you the number of the Dell support-line?”

Mr Sixpack will then say, “Ug! Dellman say your software got virus, you fix!”

The Genius eyes will then light up and say, “Aaaah, yes sir then we can help you, we sell virus killing software starting at $59.95 per month for our basic package.” He then hands him a leaflet.

Mr Sixpack numbly hands over his credit card, “just make computer work – me want pr0n!”

At the end of the month Microsoft will say that their software stores are a great success, having sold millions of software packages that help their customer get more from their computer purchase.

If anything, this will force more consumers into Apple stores because for the first time, Microsoft will meet the great-unwashed PC buying public – and their problems. I really don’t think Microsoft realise that aspect at all – they really are that arrogant and full of themselves.

The will not be able to cope – it will be a PR disaster. All Apple needs to do is air a well-timed Mac vs PC add that targets this sh*t storm, and watch them come through the doors.

Microsoft, please, please, please – carry on.

Psystar breadcrumbs…

 

 

 

Apple’s recent complaint against Psystar has unearthed a brief insight into the hard work they have been doing behind the scenes.

18. On information and belief, persons other than Psystar are involved in Psystar’s unlawful and improper activities described in this Amended Complaint. The true names or capacities, whether individual, corporate, or otherwise, of these persons are unknown to Apple. Consequently they are referred to herein as John Does 1 through 10 (collectively the “John Doe Defendants”). On information and belief, the John Doe Defendants are various individuals and/or corporations who have infringed Apple’s intellectual property rights, breached or induced the breach of Apple’s license agreements and violated state and common law unfair competition laws. Apple will seek leave to amend this complaint to show the unknown John Doe Defendants’ true names and capacities when they are ascertained.

The emphasis is mine. In order of emphasis, here’s my translation:

1) Apple has evidence that Psystar doesn’t really want to sell cheap Mac clones. The whole exercise is a front for a plan by one of Apple’s competitors, who, knowing full well this would end up in court, are trying to destroy Apple’s business model.

2) Various individuals and/or corporations. Microsoft & Dell. In that order.

3) When Apple finds out enough evidence to prove this, things are never going to be the same. This could finally end the technical dead end that Micro/Dell have led us all down. If we can find proof – it will finish them both.

Of course I have no proof. But obviously Apple has a few leads. Whoever this is, they had better make sure that the breadcrumbs don’t lead to them.