Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

Yes, I said it. Look at all the Windows 7 launch day hardware. What do all those all-in-one PC’s with multitouch have in common? Well, looking at the photos quickly it would seem they all have glossy screens. Really!? As if having touch features on your primary screen wasn’t bad enough they had to make it glossy.

Example Dell’s Studio One 19.

While Apple and the Microsoft Surface along with other research has clearly sparked the entire multitouch movement. Right now is not the time for people to be going crazy and buying these PC’s. Apple is at least being smart about it and only adding it where it makes sense, handheld devices, touch pads, the Magic Mouse. You probably won’t ever see Apple add it to an iMac screen.

On the PC at this point I’d probably tell anyone who asked to fore go the expensive multitouch desktop PC’s and simply buy Wacom’s multitouch tablet.

It’s not even really that the features for multitouch aren’t there in software. Windows 7 and Snow Leopard both have awesome support. Right now at least the hardware just doesn’t match reality when it comes to usability.

Multitouch for desktop PC’s really isn’t going to get anywhere till we have real haptic input via a secondary display surface that can replace both the keyboard and mouse. A good start might be Senseg’s stuff. There was another thing I remember seeing but can’t find the URL at the moment.

Imagine just having a surface below your primary screen that’s a secondary display that replaces your keyboard and mimics the feel close enough. The feedback areas could easily change with what’s being displayed on the secondary display. To the right or left of the on screen keyboard could be an area for your entire hand to control and touch multiple pointers, see 10/GUI.

This is the sort of control surface that’ll replace the mouse and keyboard in time. It’s certainly not going to happen over night, but until the technology really gets to this point, multitouch displays in the primary vertical orientation just don’t make sense.

I honestly don’t know what’s with PC manufacturers, they just don’t seem to get what Apple clearly does. Here’s another example from Dell, their new Adamo XPS laptop. From the looks of it, a pretty amazingly cool piece of hardware. I’d love to know just much time and energy was spent on adding the ridiculous heat sensing strip. What real purpose does this serve? Speaking of strips that serve no purpose Dell yet again with their EdgeTouch on the Z600. Engadget has it right, “makes overcompensated CEOs out of us all”. Why the hell does anyone really need a touch sensitive strip on the right side of the laptop screen that’s going to require some crapware that undoubtedly causes more issues than anything else.

Dell isn’t the only guilty party. It’s not like Toshiba, Sony, HP, you name it have decently designed crap that isn’t just a bunch of plastic. Microsoft Hardware has done their fair share of stupidity as well. Compare the new Apple keyboards which are simple and refined to some Microsoft keyboards and you’ll notice a bunch of extra multimedia buttons those F-Lock functions, you name it. Then each new generation they change what’s included as well as the behavior. My original Natural Pro has a complete different set of buttons than my Entertainment 7000. I prefer the Natural keyboards over Logitech and Apple and just about anything else. Microsoft has an *amazingly* awesome sense for ergonomics far above Apple, that’s for sure (I’m looking at you Mighty Mouse nipple). But they’re far from perfect. I don’t really get why it’s so hard for everyone that isn’t Apple to figure out how to make decent hardware.

There’s probably 2 or 3 well designed and well made machines from both HP, Dell, Sony, hell some even like Lenovo laptops. But the bulk of the crap that’s put out by the industry is rehashed plastic crap that has bloat inside and out.

Jonathan Ive’s was right, it’s not about what you add but what you remove. This doesn’t just apply to the design of the products but the entire product line.

Decided to sell my D430 with docking station today. I don’t have a clue how much it even cost me 3 years ago. It’s still a good laptop, I guess… I’m just tired of its plastic case and the general crud feel of it. I’ve punched the screen a few times out of frustration.

I was browsing through my RSS feeds and noticed an Adamo video which was just horribly uncomfortably bad. I won’t even link to it. To see if it was just a fluke I went to the Adamo website. Unfortunately the same VP of design was in the video. To view it go to the Encounter bit then see how the story of lameness begins.

The odd thing was that while watching this video it totally reminded me of Apple’s MacBook design video. What really let me down about the Dell video was the tackiness. When you need lame models and stupid sets and crap to sell your laptop design, you’re on the path to failure. Apple’s video highlights the machine, the design, the engineering, pure and simple. The way Apple has done for ages.

As I watch the Apple video right now, I think it’s just dawned on me why Apple systems rock. This argument for me has nothing to do with Windows v. OSX, that’s irrelevant to me. Why my next system will be a Mac is because I get the feeling that their hardware has a tyrannical asshole genius dictating every minute detail.

When I watch the Dell video I get the feeling that attention to details wasn’t done because they’re insane about these things. It was done to play catch up to Apple, to say, see we can be cool and come out with good design if we want to.  That’s no way to convince me. Sure it’s Dell’s hottest machine ever, but the rest of it failed to deliver. Amusing to me as well is how the second best laptop Dell ever made, the X1, was actually a Samsung laptop rebranded but I digress.

Like the title suggests, I personally compared the Adamo to the 13″ MacBook. I’d get the MacBook. Now I know it’s actually being compared to the MacBook Air. This is definitely a good compare, while neither system have me wanting… if I were forced to pick one I almost think I’d still go with the Air. The Adamo’s only saving graces are the additional built in ports at the back (where ports should be imho). Otherwise the Air is cheaper, lighter, and faster. Whoa, *not* cheaper than a Mac?! WTF, ah, SSD, at this point in time – meh.

So with that, I guess I’m going to put my laptop up on Craigslist and hope I get somewhere. I think I’ll probably end up actually getting the 15″ MacBook Pro if only because I can’t be arsed to install my own 7200RPM drive into the MacBook. Plus the 15″ has a discrete nVidia GPU too. I just wish the display was 1920×1200.

I wish I were an asshole genius. Then I really would dictate the perfect system.

Taking my last post a bit further… Sure any smart phone can pull up bus times. But had we tried this with my old BlackJack II with Windows Mobile 6.1 we probably would’ve been waiting till 9:45 for it to return the same results. Either that or I would’ve gone down stairs, waited for the laptop to come out of standby and then pull up the same results. I really loved my old Windows phone, but it just didn’t work the way you’d want it to. I could start the GPS at home, get to work and it still wouldn’t have a lock and that was with Google or Windows Live. I don’t think we would’ve even had been able to pull up the King County Metro site on that phone thanks to Internet Explorer.

Microsoft is really playing catch-up now. How the mobile team got so stagnant is beyond me. It really seems like nothing major has changed in their product for years. Unlike the Internet Explorer stagnation though this one goes way beyond that. Why? Well Windows Mobile has sold millions upon millions of units and gained a lot of market share. But for some crazy reason they’ve just let that go to waste and have let Apple jump ahead and lead the innovation party. Heck, it’s gotten so bad HTC has had to come up with UI to hide Windows to make the phone desirable. Of course there’s also Google now with Android, but I doubt they’re too worried about it. You know, at least not until more manufacturers jump from Windows Mobile to Android then Netbooks start shipping with WiFi and 3g with Android, then thin desktop clients…

Apple really does the entire end to end solution really well. Sure they force the Apple way or the highway but usually Apple’s way is pretty damn good. Google really does cloud services amazingly well. Sure they only really make money on the advertising but they’re not stupid. They’re building each piece of the puzzle little by little. At some point soon, they’ll be set to complete the picture and deliver something amazing that could potentially deliver a massive blow to Windows, Office, and Microsoft cloud services. Google has been combining pieces that’s just amazing.

The key difference between Apple, Google, and Microsoft? Honestly, I’m not sure, culture maybe, age in the case of Microsoft and Google. A dictator in the case of Microsoft and Apple. Who knows.

The thing I notice about Apple and Google though is that while Microsoft may have better business models to make more money on more things. Apple and Google are necessarily spreading themselves thin. Apple delivers a small product line really well and concentrates on a few things it can really deliver 100% on. Google makes strategic choices on where to concentrate resources to connect things. Neither company seems concerned with delivering products and services it really has no need to.

I mean I don’t see Apple going out to make their own maps service for the iPhone or their own stock service or their own search. Instead they partner with Google and Yahoo. When searching Google you’ll get links to 6 different services when searching for “stock MSFT“, you’ll get linked to a third party flight tracking service when searching for “BA49“. Or when you search for Led Zeppelin you’ll get an album listing with ways to purchase from multiple online stores and when you go to the song listing you’ll get linked to multiple lyrics websites.

When Microsoft does the latter what happens? Well first you go to live.com and get normal search results, if you click the first link for xRank you get to see some useful information and some search volume indicator thingy. Next if you want to dig further you click on the album but now you’re no longer on Live Search (or is it Windows Live Search), you’re on MSN Music (hello Mr. Butterfly). The option is presented to buy and download from Microsoft Zune which is good and multiple options are given to buy the CD from various online stores, also good. There’s even an option to compare prices. If you go to the track listing you can even hear samples, sweet… So what’s so bad about this?

Well, immediately this tells me there’s a lack of focus and execution. There’s a total of 3 products and services involved with that entire process, Live, MSN, and Zune. They all feel different and don’t share a seamless experience. Why is MSN Music delivering content that should be delivered directly by Zune?

There are so many places where efforts are duplicated, clear vision is lacking, and the execution is 20% off target. It’s frustrating to me as someone who really honestly cares and desires elegant perfection.

Microsoft has every piece of the puzzle needed. It can do amazing things when it needs to and definitely isn’t dead. What’s needed is a bit of a reset really. Time to refocus, clear the air, and start executing and connecting everything together in the right ways. I really just hope that it’ll happen soon.

MSFT has been flat for 10 years. What the company needs is a real renaissance and to deliver 100% on its innovations. Microsoft has been ahead of the curve thanks to many products that were ahead of their time and thanks to MSR. Microsoft has many times entered new markets and gained popularity only to lose them later by the lack of follow through and evolution.

The software Microsoft makes is amazing, there’s no reason why that can’t continue.

Yesterday Morning I woke up around 7:30 or so and go ready for work. Erica woke up as I was about to leave. She reminded me, that I forgot to remind her, that I wouldn’t be able to carpool her in to work. Instead she’d have to take the bus in. Not wanting to get out of a warm bed she went right for the iPhone sitting on the side table. She popped open Safari and went to King County Metro’s bus schedule to find her bus time. I got done brushing my teeth and noticed what was up.

Still wanting to beat the West Seattle Bridge to 5 north to 90 east traffic I just showed her instead how to use Google Maps on the phone. Quickly set the starting point as the current location, the end to her salon on California Ave. Swapping the directions to public transit, it showed the bus she’d normally take first thing. Then hitting the load more times showed all the times for the morning and the best time for her to catch the bus to arrive at work by 9:45.

Awesome, just awesome.