Open sourcing webOS changes nothing

A couple of months after the company announced the death of webOS, HP's new CEO Meg Whitman has thrown the OS a lifeline in the form of the open source community. The greatest takeaway from this announcement is the fact that webOS is not dead. It's now vastly in the hands of passionate developers to build upon and improve efficiently whilst being freely distributed for anyone to use.

From the outset, we couldn't have possibly gotten it better, open source developers as a collective can make changes and improvements much more quickly and efficiently than the vast bureaucratic corporate structure of HP ever could. And speaking from a consumer's own vantage, we have another free operating system to contribute to the highly valued element of choice. As well as being a free operating system, webOS exhibits polish, the kind of quality you'd generally expect to pay for.

Looking past the thin veil of optimism, none of this changes the fact that HP webOS failed tremendously, such to the point that it was actually dead for a period of time. It doesn't change the fact that there is yet to be any worthy complementing hardware for webOS and in no way does it contribute to the operating system's relatively minute app developer community. It offers no succour for the fact that iOS, Android and even Windows Phone already have significant market share to leverage whilst webOS has virtually none to boot. Most importantly, it doesn't change the fact that HP is still yet to find any significant value proposition in webOS to gain hardware partners.

It's quite clear that keeping webOS as a proprietary OS in the hands of HP was no longer a viable option. The fledgling operating system was already skating on thin ice even before HP's immense Touchpad failure, and the heat of the competition from Apple and Google was slowly melting away at HP's chances of even minor success. The Touchpad, as the inaugural HP/webOS tablet had to be pretty darn good, but it wasn't.

I've always believed that it takes multiple subsequent impressions to eliminate the sentiments from a single first impression, and HP's first efforts at a truly mobile operating system in webOS left consumers and pundits with a sour sour taste. It would take the bare minimum of two years to manufacture sufficient subsequent efforts to try and clean the taste, and even then, imminent slow sales could hamper the webOS image even further and render the $1.2 billion acquisition essentially worthless. It would be too risky. Leo Apotheker wasn't completely out of his mind to cancel HP's webOS project altogether.

So, as much as persevering with webOS would have been a desirable trajectory, the plan was ultimately destined for failure. HP had various other options including licensing and selling the operating system off. Both these options I believe would have been higher on HP's priority list given their capabilities of monetization. But licensing was always an unreachable dream given the free availability of an operating system in Android with a lot more to offer, and there simply isn't a discernible target market large enough for those hardware manufacturers wanting webOS purely for diversity. To add insult to injury, clearly nobody was interested in buying webOS from HP.

By the looks of it, open sourcing was just a last resort for an HP that had completely run out of ideas. They couldn't make it work for themselves, they couldn't license it, they couldn't sell it so they've decided simply give it away.

HP is a profit-seeking corporation, they certainly wouldn't want to open source and wouldn't have made the decision had they not be in a position that forced it. The soul reason that Google voluntarily open-sources Android is because they have an ecosystem to tie users into so they can profit from users consequentially by putting their services into as many hands as possible.

All HP has is a lonesome operating system, tied into an ecosystem with little value, and no web services aside from a fairly deserted sandpit of an app store attached to it. Open sourcing doesn't cater to HP's personal vantage aside from the distant goal that perhaps they could capitalise on webOS in any way in the future if it ever gains any traction - but that's a far-fetched dream with various apples and green robots obstructing the path to the gold medallion.

Despite the aura of optimism and excitement shrowding the open sourcing of webOS, webOS is still in a poor position to compete. I hate to be the pessimist, in fact, I'm usually the optimist - I believed for a long time that if Sony played it right they could compete against Apple's iPod, I still believe that RIM can get right back into the smartphone game and I believed that HP had a shot at tablet market share if the Touchpad hadn't been a year out of date.

webOS has polish, it has a clean interface, it works darn well but that's not enough for a world so invested in apps, content and cross device integration. HP's open source plan will maintain webOS as a niche platform for a community of passionate webOS die-hards, but it will never find the mainstream traction HP were hoping for simply because it doesn't have the ecosystem lever that companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft possess.

Carrier IQ isn't tracking you, it's helping you

With a class action lawsuit and the whole world against them, Carrier IQ have found themselves in a place they never thought they'd be in - a target for litigation with the torch of the public eye shining right in their faces.

Trevor Eckhart, a 25 year old man from Connecticut discovered a mysterious piece of software by the name of 'IQRD' installed on his HTC Android smartphone. It wasn't seen in his running programs list in task manager, but it was always running, and virtually impossible to stop. Through investigation, Eckhart discovered that this humble little software was capable of much more than any other application on his phone. It could see what he was doing.

Carrier IQ has software installed on almost 150 million phones, software which has the capability of tracking your every activity - your keystrokes, your text messages, your calls and even your browsing history. The company didn't do themselves any favours by sending a cease and desist letter to Eckhart. After all, telling someone to shut up, albeit in a orderly and business-like manner isn't too different from telling the rest of the world that you have something very sinister to hide. But this ill-informed perception multiplied by the sensationalist media is quite contrary to reality, Carrier IQ have nothing to hide. And surely nothing sinister to hide.

The whole scandal has been in most part an enormous public relations disaster, with what is genuinely a small issue being blow exponentially out of proportion. The phrase 'your phone is tracking you' has an unnecessarily dire ring to it and unsurprisingly it's been a phrase that the media has overused countless times throughout the duration of this scandal. The truth is, even though your phone is capable of tracking your every move, is it really? And to be entirely pragmatic, why would the carrier have even the slightest concern on the content of your text message or browsing history?

Sure, Carrier IQ, along with the carriers may have stumbled into a moral grey area by not clearly informing consumers of the presence of the tracking software on phones. But the basic use case of Carrier IQ's software doesn't deem it as a necessity. Despite the fact that Carrier IQ can see everything you're doing, the software acts a lot like a drug sniffing dog. It sniffs into every nook and cranny but only barks when it finds drugs. Carrier IQ reads everything, but only records abnormal or undesired behaviour - like a dropped call, unloading webpage or a failed text message. The software discards everything else almost as soon as it comes in.

At that, Carrier IQ is really just a mandatory process, another gear in the whole working mechanics of the carriers and your phones. Your carrier contract doesn't inform you that your calls and texts operate by sending signals to satellites and that your phone operates by passing electronic currents through wires and complicated circuit-boards. Why then, would it be necessary to inform users that their phone occasionally picks up abnormal data in order to ultimately better their phone experience? It's just part of the process.

By the hard stencilled writing of the law, the company have potentially acted illegally, breaching federal wire-tapping law. But to what good is the law when it can't account for crucial contextual detail, and in this case Carrier IQ have engaged in unlawful activity but whilst benefiting everyone involved. What they're doing simply isn't a bad thing.

To give the company what they've been handed in the past week is unquestionably unfair. As the world shoots at the company for immoral and unethical behaviour, this destructive negativity itself is in breach of ethics. It's unethical to throw metaphorical faeces at an innocent company simply doing their job.

Nobody's reading your text messages, nobody's looking at your web history, nobody is stalking you. Carrier IQ is helping you, while the media attempts to earn the ad dollars by selling the lopsided hyperbole they're here to write.

It's time that people got a look at the broader picture of the Carrier IQ 'scandal', instead of spreading the word that Carrier IQ is 'tracking you', 'stalking you', 'watching you' and a bunch of other bull excrement that the media put into their mouths. 

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The Social Factor

So, what is the social factor? The social factor is a collective term I like to use to describe a service or product that embraces active user engagement. User engagement not in the sense of poking and prodding said item physically, but personal engagement with a product and personal engagement between users. Thus, commenting and reviewing apps and music on iTunes can be coined as a product of the the social factor, communicating with Youtubers in a comment flame war is an element of the social factor and of course Twitter and Facebook among other social networks are examples of the social factor in its purest form - social networking.

The social realm has received a generous ignition recently, with the release of Google's own Google+ service as well as the revealing - not unveiling - of Microsoft's oddly named Socl service. It's a completely different landscape from not too long ago when the heavenly abode of social was occupied almost exclusively by Facebook and Twitter. Myspace was descending precipitously with the accolade of an also-ran.

Fast forward a few years, to now, and for the most part the social realm paints a fairly similar picture when looking at the colours of the raw hard numbers. Facebook dominates the social networking space with upwards of 800 million active users, and Twitter with a user base of more than 100 million still trumps that of a fast growing Google+. That's all not to mention actual user engagement, an aspect that Google+ has struggled to maintain following the pre-release hype.

Numbers don't count for everything though, and despite Facebook's considerable lead, Google+ isn't out of the game, and Microsoft Socl isn't dead on arrival. Far from it.

The term social networking is a particularly deceitful monicker given the image that most people have of what a social network is. To most people, a social network is simply what Facebook is - a platform for interacting with friends, and sharing content with friends. At that, Facebook's greatest value proposition isn't in the service itself, but the users that inhabit it. In such a business where the most effective way to get users, is to have users, anyone attempting to beat Facebook at its own games playing by the same rules will end up with a slap on the face and a disheartening, unsurprising disappointment.

Google+ and Microsoft Socl are both great platforms by their very own merits, they're not trying to be Facebook killers, and if they were, then they would quite literally be throwing an untrained army of 50 million against a heavily armed pack of 800 million. It's not possible. It will never work. It will never happen. Let's talk about Google+, and what this element of social plays for Google.

Jolie O'Dell of Venturebeat published a comprehensive article recounting Google's Bradley Horowitz's views on their very own 'social network', Google+. Initially, I assumed his general carefree aura on the, I wouldn't say failure, but perhaps under-performance, of Google+ could be none more than the typical cavalier executive talk. But, Horowitz revealed a vision for Google+ that not only negated my impulse expectations, but his trajectory for the Google+ was elegant and clever, bringing to light that the social factor has implications far beyond the superficiality of people interaction.

Google+ is all about an online identity, an online persona that we have - a virtual porting of our real selves. When you're able to put yourself into the products and services that you use, the seeming triviality of technology is put into perspective and given context. It transforms technologies that are passive, into an actively intricate emulation of our real social communications and inner selves. Essentially, even if social interactions form the core of what constitutes social networking and the social factor, it's greater purpose is to make technology that much more personal.

You see, it's basic human nature that we hold much more sentimental value to the things that are closest to our hearts. For most non-cyborg human beings, the 'things' that we are most emotionally attached to are the people around us, our friends, our family, our boyfriends, our girlfriends. Sure I'd cry if I dropped my phone off the balcony but I'd cry a heck of a lot harder if my mom died. I have a mate who was driving himself half bonkers because he misplaced a pen his girlfriend had given him despite that fact that there were many smoother and inkier pens lying around.

Taking into account this hierarchy of sentimental importance, it makes sense to integrate our personal lives into our products because it allows for a much greater degree of emotional attachment - a sly, but clever tactic to keep consumers loyal.

Microsoft Socl in many ways aims to pursue this same vision of a more personal technology, however aims to add more practical benefits to this.

I, as many are am a little spacey on the tid-bits and details of Microsoft's 'maybe not even coming into market' social network, after all, the only half-decent look we've had at it was when The Verge was granted some much appreciated hands on time. The interface design is fairly standard, calling upon the three column layout shared by Facebook and Google+. And Microsoft were not very creative with the colour scheme either with an eerily similar blue to that of Facebook's, though with a slightly lighter and perhaps more pleasant tinge.

A stand out feature though was something dubbed 'social search'. No, it's far from a revelation, but it shows what social is capable of, and why social is so important to completing a product ecosystem. Social search simply allows your friends to see the queries that you throw at search engines, with the hope that they'll be able to chip in too.

As experience should teach us, it's much easier to extract information out of knowledgeable humans than a knowledgeable website. Hence why we have teachers in classrooms as opposed to a Google homepage. With social search, a Microsoft Bing search has potential to provide better results than a Google search.

What's more, for Microsoft, social search finally allows them to put that tortured little Bing to good use, and as a moral boost, Microsoft can finally start telling people that their foray into search wasn't completely absent of fruits. Microsoft have reiterated that search is an important field that they needed to be involved in, and social search certainly does give it something to show for - a fully integrated Microsoft experience. Without Google. And social search gives Microsoft's Bing a reason to be, because currently, aside from the flashy backdrop of good photography - which, let's be honest is only remotely interesting for those who don't know what they're searching for before they arrive at Bing - Google's a better bet anyway.

The social factor is inarguably invaluable in providing a good ecosystem. Apple tried and failed with iTunes Ping, which demonstrates that even Apple is aware of the capabilities that the emotional and personal attachments of social can have on a consumer.

Aside from providing an online identity as Google+ aims to provide, Google+ unifies Google's too-many-laned highway of products into a flowing single vertical. By having a basic identity tied into all that Google provides, it allows the consumer to act as an umbrella over all the Google services they use and leaves them less chance to drop one, forgotten in the rain. It gives the user more control. Furthermore, Socl social search exemplifies the single greatest thing about the social factor by allowing a company to tap into their single greatest asset - the users themselves. 

How to win in television

As a backdrop to the all too common mobile device war, TVs are starting to capture the attention of technology enthusiasts with the rumours of an Apple television set possibly appearing sometime in 2013. The recently unveiled biography of Steve Jobs has revealed a vague trajectory of Apple's plans in an entrance to the television market. In the meantime, Sony warned investors a fortnight ago of an imminent 2.2 billion dollar loss on its bleeding television business, making it the fourth consecutive year in which Sony's television division has remained unprofitable.

There's a powerful demarcation to be made here - why would investors and pundits be potentially excited over the notion of Apple television when Sony, a long time and trusted manufacturer in this business isn't even capable of hauling in a profit themselves? Most of us, would have never pictured Apple building their very own in house television set, the Apple TV always looked about as far as they would be willing to dip their toes into the deep television pond. The deep television pond infested by manufacturers willing to reap the slimmest margins to undercut competitors.

You see, that's the biggest problem with the television business for Apple, and even Sony, - it's heavily commoditised and highly competitive. With its vast manufacturing scale and supply chains, Samsung is more capable than most other manufacturers of profiting from television, and even their performance remains modest at best. 

Apple as a newcomer to the competition couldn't possibly expect to be able to develop in-house and manufacture quality televisions at the same scale as Samsung or even Sony and be able to deliver an affordable product to the end consumer. On the flip side of the coin, if Apple were to outsource production and buy flat panels from existing manufacturers - like Samsung - then they wouldn't exactly be innovating with their product would they, which by all accounts would most likely oppose Apple's ethic entirely.

Television is a business where it's very hard to differentiate or maintain an exclusive, Sony's Phil Molyneux even criticised the nature of television labelling this monotonous line of similar products as the 'sea of sameness'. Given product differentiation is so difficult to achieve, price differentiation is the only remaining resort, turning television into the bleeding, painful and low margin business that it is today.

Apple doesn't like playing the game that way. Historically speaking, Apple enjoys exclusivity around their products - a business model that doesn't always equate to leading market share, but always pulls in a huge profit, brand loyalty and evidently a glorious stock price. A sweeping dichotomy from conformist television manufacturers. So how do you work around this? How can you win in a business when it's hard to even break even?

First off it's important to evaluate the importance of television in an overall vision, or perhaps more importantly, the role of television in the the direction of the technology industry as a whole. It's fair to say that the whole industry is leading towards an almost universally pursued four screen strategy involving smartphones, tablets, personal computers and of course the television.

When Google and Apple begin hinting at entrances into certain markets, you know things are about to get real, and for television, Google's already waddling in the water albeit with a little uncertainty and we're expecting Apple to take a fully committed chunky dunk. Apple revolutionised the music industry with its ubiquitous iPod. Apple almost single-handedly crafted the modern smartphone, and Google made it big. Apple created and revolutionised a practically non-existent tablet market and Google made sure there was a little more variety to suit everyone. There's no reason that in their monstrous tandem, these two will be able to revolutionise the plateauing television business as well.

Consumers aren't going to be prepared to pay anymore than they are already for a television, especially given the state of the economy. Even if manufacturers gathered to form a pact that ensures a handsome profit for every unit sold, consumers wouldn't buy, even if they had no choice. Televisions are costly, low replacement devices, so consumers typically only replace televisions when they really need to. And a steep price increase for already rather steeply priced televisions would only push consumers to eBay and second hand items. To pursue this current business model in selling televisions as passive displays is not a feasible model, it never was, but now, we have better options.

The analogue age was a time when devices could thrive even when operating on a shallow and superficial microcosmic level. Devices were sold on the merits of their hardware capabilities, the quality of its parts and its physical design, as opposed to its potential for customisation and expansion. That analogue era, was long ago, but for the most part, television is still there - with picture quality and hardware quality still very much on the priority list for TV buyers. To win in television, we must relay our focus completely from commoditised hardware and aim to sell on the merits of potential expansion, integration, connectivity and content. Aim to emulate Amazon's business model for the Kindle Fire tablet - make a small loss or just break even on the hardware, and aim to cover that cost in packaging good software and selling content.

Google TV was initially poised to be the redefining of television but I think it's fair to say that we all misjudged, or more suitably, over-judged it's potential. Logitech's CEO went so far to state that the company had made 'a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature', and the company had no plans to release a second generation Revue set top box. Sony hasn't achieved much success with their Google TV either.

Google TV never took off and still hasn't largely because it simply doesn't offer anything exclusive in the way of content, it contains Netflix and Pandora among other video and music subscription services but these services are all accessible through other mediums. And with all these content services being provided by third parties, once again we're not making much money on selling content and therefore unable to afford reaping negative or neutral margins on TV units.

But securing profits directly from selling content isn't the key, because most of the revenue is inevitably turned over in royalties to the content owners. In fact, the most popular online music store, iTunes, earned $1.9 billion dollars in revenue in 2007 according to Ed Christman, the retail columnist for the Billboard. However, taking into account royalties and operational expenses, Apple took away less than $400 million on its music store that year. Google recently sent out invitations to a Los Angeles event on November 16 which appears to be hinting at a music store, if Google has indeed struck a deal with the major labels I'll be damned if they're going to make as much dough per song purchase as Apple's iTunes store.

The idea though, in operating content stores is to provide a little extra change to allow for more flexibility when pricing television sets, after all, you can expect to subsidise at least some of the losses on unit sales with profits from content stores. Additionally, content stores that integrate well within an established ecosystem are just another incentive for consumers to want in - a core reason why Google TV has failed to catch on. Google currently has no music or video store and therefore no genuine reason for Android users to invest further in Google's ecosystem; adding insult to injury, the assortment of Google's cloud services like Docs, Gmail and Reader have no meaningful integration in Google TV.

The Google TV saga also serves to teach us that evidently, it's not enough to simply throw in some apps, integrate subscription services and allow native Youtube and web browser access to 'revolutionise' television. That's not enough because a consumer savvy enough to even adopt a young platform in Google TV would most likely be in possession of a tablet; and why compromise the display real estate of the television when you could be web browsing, Facebook-ing and Twitter-ing right from your tablet while watching TV. Essentially, the additions Google TV provides are more novel than genuinely useful.

You see, if Apple had simply thrown in a well-performing web browser, some fun apps and deep music store integration into a basic Blackberry form factor, would Apple still have revolutionised entirely the smartphone industry? No, not at all. Not even a little bit. So it's no surprise that Google hasn't done so with the television.

Apple revolutionised the smartphone because they changed the way we interacted with and used our phones. Apple turned scrolling into flicking, and pushing into pinching. Google on the flip side has only added quasi-useful functionality to television and we're still stuck with the same basic interface model of remote controls and navigational D-pads. Apple is now poised on the precipice of perhaps another revolution, and now couldn't possibly be a more timely hour for Apple given they've created a potentially revolutionary new way to interact with our devices, Siri. Siri, the voice interaction engine more human than anything we've seen before. Or heard before. If Steve Jobs' message to his biographer - 'I finally cracked it' a TV that is 'completely easy to use' - is anything to go by, then Siri is an almost certain implementation.

A lot of the time, it's not alterations in what we use a device for that cause excitement, but how we use it that strikes a certain spark in our fickle emotions. Take the Playstation Move and Xbox Kinect as a classic example, serving the same purpose but in two completely different ways. Sales figures can speak for this story. Siri can be our new remote control, and even then, it could probably do so much more.

We're standing on the very edge, the dividing line, the stepping stone to a new generation of television. And if any company believes that right now is a good time to depart the painful television business, then, well, bad move. Television is a crucial element in the completion of our technological circle, we'll always have living rooms - and to simply exit the business soully because of non-profitability is a little short sighted.

Previously, in the analogue age where products were sold largely on the merits of themselves, as opposed to their integration with other devices, television would have been a poor business. But today, television isn't heading towards being a lucrative business that rakes in an abundance of dough, but rather a crucial business which provides a little chump change. The rise of the 'ecosystem' and cross device integration has allowed for the creation of the 'prison', though more often than not this prison is one that we, as consumers voluntarily move into. Locking consumers in is priceless for those corporations hoping to capitalise on their existing user base, and of course, force loyalty from the consumer.

Apple TV was never enough for Apple because it's simply not enough to add your ecosystem to a television set when you're merely a 'connection' as opposed to the real deal.

This is why I am almost certain that Apple will make a television set, one which has unsurpassed integration with Apple's ecosystem as its highest value proposition. Because a great ecosystem and great software is the only viable path in an industry infested with competitors who are inevitably capable of making better hardware and selling it for less.

Having said that, Apple's not going to be reaping huge profits on television, in fact, television for Apple may very well end up being a loss leader. Apple will probably sell a television set at an enticing price point coupled with revolutionary interaction models (Siri), invoking an almost impulse purchase and naturally building a large user base for Apple's televisions. Sure, they've lost money on selling the television sets at such a price but they can subsidise that loss partially with content sales on the device, via iTunes. To place the cherry on the cake, one more Apple product in the hands of consumers, is just one more reason to invest further and deeper into Apple's ecosystem, equating essentially to subsequent profits from selling more iPods, iPhones, iPads and Macs.

It's a plan for the long term, and that's how you win in television. 

Rant: Blackberry Buzzkill

RIM earlier this week made the maligned announcement that the much anticipated Playbook OS 2.0 wouldn't be out until February 2012. RIM made clear that they wanted very much to have the product in our hands today, but unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to wait until they were confident they had a decent, complete and market-ready product. Well, that sure does speak a lot about the initial launch of the Blackberry Playbook, doesn't it?

The leaders at Blackberry have shrouded themselves in a cloud mushroom of lies and broken promises, and are desperately trying to make amends of their tattered public image by hiding behind a veil of PR small talk. Whatever it is they're doing, it's really not working because more than ever, consumers have lost faith in what was once the beloved makers of the Blackberry. A few months ago, the well-informed technology society was given the clearest indication that RIM was a breaking company. Aside from the declining market share and dwindling influence that was so plainly obvious on the outside, the open letter written by a disheartened RIM employee to RIM's senior management team gave us a snapshot of the turmoil residing inside RIM's inner sanctum. It became clear that it was not only a company that was losing a battle to the competition, but a company that was a losing a battle to itself, a company run by people who forgot their goal and were too busy playing catch up to recognise what they were really here for.

RIM's response to this letter funnily enough encapsulated entirely what was so wrong with this company - they were, and still are, completely out of touch. The letter response dodged every single valid question and objection posed to the RIM senior management team, cluelessness was haplessly disguised in phoney statements of optimism and opportunity pursuits, written by a person who much like the group he represented had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

Which brings me to now, and why I'm writing this rant today.

Back when the Playbook launched, the RIM leaders promised a native email client, a native contact client and a native calendar app 'soon'. We later found out that the root cause for the delays of these instrumental applications was deep within the foundations of RIM's system itself. We accepted this, so we gave RIM time. After Blackberry World 2011 RIM representatives told the press that we would be getting native email sometime this 'summer' without a specific date. We waited. We never got it. We were then told Playbook OS 2.0 would be made available in mid October after Blackberry Devcon America. But it wasn't. And now it's been pushed back 4 months to February 2012 which will make it little less than a year for an update that really should have been available from day 1.

Buying the Playbook always meant taking the good with the bad, and with the Playbook it meant filling a few gaping holes with a few tolerable compromises. Being an early adopter means buying products not for what they are, but for the potential that you see in them. When I bought the Blackberry Playbook, I didn't turn my back on it and make snide remarks on the absence of essentials, but I saw it for the multitasking prowess that QNX possessed and the ways it could integrate with RIM's acclaimed services and their overall vision.

Early adopters drive the market, and they drive competition. Without them, there wouldn't be a tablet market at all, but merely an iPad market; because what sober person, save for the Apple haters, would pick up a Honeycomb tablet as the product it is today against the iPad 2 as it is today. I'm trying to remain as objective as I possibly can here, so here's a few points you can't possibly argue against - Honeycomb has a serious app deficiency against the iPad and Honeycomb is unarguably a less stable operating system. And a few subjective points that I hold against Honeycomb are the inconsistency of aesthetics within the UI and the utter uselessness of multiple home-screens on a large display.

But I digress. The crucial point here is that early adopters are driven by promise of what will be delivered in the future. As an early adopter of the Blackberry Playbook I was fed by the promise of native email, native calendar, native contacts 'soon', 3 essentials that would make the Playbook a more complete utility - something that the product wasn't when it launched. It's taken more than half a year and deducing from RIM's sly previous efforts at PR, these three native apps are nowhere close to fruition.

Congratulations on killing the buzz, and absolutely butchering the first year of your entrance into the tablet world RIM. Stellar job. You failed to excite the average consumer market, you failed to entice the enterprise, and worse, you made the early adopters second guess their risky investment in buying your incomplete product. I don't regret purchasing a Playbook, not at all. In fact, despite its glaring omissions I'm still proud to say it's the greatest tablet on the market. But, had I known RIM were going to take their sweet time in blessing us with native email, contacts and calendar then I sure as hell would have taken my time in buying one too.

When things start to get a little out of hand

'Super size me,' is what the smartphone told the world. And so we did.

The inexorable rise of the mega-phone, or the super-phone or the jumbo-phone pretty much sums up the trajectory of the majority of smartphone vendors - Power = bigger and bigger = better. I talk a lot about the superficial and non-pragmatic spec wars that so many Android vendors are focused on, attempting to make their phone that 1% faster for succeeding generations instead of making the basic phone experience better. It now seems that this focus for more powerful, more 'mega' and more 'super' is now translating to the phone's physical size - in a way saying 'I made this phone faster, but since specs are nothing more than a whole lot of coded tech jargon to most, I'm just going to make the screen bigger so you can easily see what I've done.' And yes, we can see what you've done, because now your phone is that much harder to grasp in the hand.

Whatever happened to small and chic? 6 or so years ago when there was no iPhone or big touch screen phones and the only successful smartphone was a Blackberry, small was in. Small was hip, and miniaturisation was definitive of high-tech. People were amazed that you could fit so much awesome into something so small. The whole line of Siemens phones comes to mind, a market failure no doubt but still undeniably cool. As a kid I didn't know a friend who wouldn't have pounced on a Siemens handset had they the cash - which is unfortunately something that elementary school kids inherently lack. Successful examples of handset miniaturisation are the Sony Ericsson W880i - a supermodel handset and the Motorola RAZR both emphasising their merits for both thin and small.

Fast forward several years and at the rate we're going we'll have six inch phones in a couple of years, and I hate to be the one to break it but the human race won't have hands big enough to account for such gargantuan gadgets in 2 years time - evolution is not that fast. Evolution isn't running a 1.2ghz dual-core, in fact it's probably running the same piece of junk hiding shamefully inside my graphics calculator.

I claim no hatred against these 'larger' phones nor do I consider myself a Luddite desperately clinging onto the simplistic past, but perhaps I do long for a society and a technology industry that embraced more the notion of holding a cute little pebble to my ear as opposed to a pancake to the side of my face. Times change implacably though and the altering physical form factor and size of smartphones is the most obvious simulacrum of the new way in which we communicate with our phones.

The iPhone augured a significant shift in phones, the paradigm shift in phones from passive to active. Phones used to be the passive device, a device that alerted us when someone wanted to contact us but was otherwise expect to remain discreet - seen but not heard. Hence, why make a phone big when we're meant to pretend it's not even there, why make it big when the only time we're meant to have it with us is when someone wants to contact us or when we want to contact someone else. Phones were passive and discreet, so they got smaller and smaller. Enter smartphone - a phone that we're always meant to have with us, and one that we're always using. Phone call or not, we're always on them because we can do so much more from them - we can browse the web efficiently, we can play worthwhile games and we can keep updated on the latest. With these smartphones, we're not waiting for them to surprise us with a phone call, we're not waiting to see what it's going to throw at us because we're hoping that it handles the tasks that we want to throw at it. Smartphone has to be a superlative in power and size to handle our growing demands, so it's getting bigger and bigger.

But something's got to give and these immense display sizes are actually subtle inconveniences in real world use. This preternatural display growth has got to find its limit, before it becomes borderline tablet.

To illustrate the point of the 'subtle inconvenience' I'll call upon an interesting article written by Matthew Panzarino on 'The Next Web'. He stated that designer Dustin Curtis had done a test in which he found that the disparate display sizes of both the iPhone 4 (3.5 inches) and the Galaxy S II (4.27 inches) made a genuine difference in terms of their usability and could perhaps pose a niggling issue for the Galaxy S II through time. He found that the display size of an iPhone 4 allowed every icon on its home screen to be reached with the thumb whilst holding the phone with one hand, whereas the limited thumb span proved too small to reach to the further edges of the display when using the Galaxy S II. To the left is a diagram that designer Dustin made to complement his contention.

Sure, you have to make a few sacrifices if you want the big and the better. That's how life and nature works right...a little give there and a little take there. But I don't think that's how it works for phones - because a smartphone is meant to materialise a vision for easy, portable computing. And traditionally a phones have blessed us with the advantage and accessibility of quick one-handed operation; the fact that phones have increased in brain size and processing power shouldn't compromise this one distinctive trait. Smartphones need to retain their one-handed usability and size because it's the only characteristic that preclude the smartphone and tablet from convergence. It's the only reason why they're still different things. Heck, if I could grab a tablet and hold it in one hand and use it with that one hand with ease I wouldn't need my phone, because my phone would just be a smaller and more eye-straining version of something I already have.

So I'm here looking at the new Galaxy Nexus and its 4.65 inch display, and I'm thinking to myself 'how big are your hands?' You might think I'm overreacting and these seemingly minor nitpicks are all in for the sake of a more spacious experience. But more than you think it's the insignificant things that leave an otherwise perfect product completely smitten - thumb hyper-extension and unnecessary two hand use are just a couple of those things. I use a 3.8 inch HTC Trophy daily and for me and my average sized hands that's just about the limit. Again, this is all completely subjective and for some of you this large screen size may suit your needs, and your hand-span, but strictly from my own personal vantage and I'm sure that of many others anything above 4 inch is a heck of a size, and anything larger than the Galaxy S II is really really pushing it.

Super size? Are you really lovin' it?

TECHGEEK.com.au - Design Talks - For the iPhone 4S critics

Be sure to check out my article on TECHGEEK.com.au discussing the importance of product design and its applications to the somewhat ill-received and unexciting iPhone 4S. 

"Perhaps one of the most important lessons that Steve Jobs taught us in his tenure is that design is important. In fact, design is often more important than the very things inside that make the magic happen. That’s not to say that you’re better off having an aesthetically marvellous rock than a turd-shaped phone, but it’s saying that from a very very direct and impressionistic stand point, design talks to an audience much more than specs and inner hardware ever can..."

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs - You Changed the World

There are people in this world that either love or hate Apple, and there are people in this world that either love or hate Steve Jobs, but I know that there is not a single person in this world who doesn't respect Steve Jobs for not only his achievements, but with what heart and passion that he has managed to achieve them. Jobs' is the embodiment, a personification of unparalleled genius. His incredible foresight and vision for seeing how products interweave into the very cobweb of our lives has made this place we live in a better place. With this genius, and creativity he has brought us products that have revolutionised markets, the technology industry and the way people live their lives. Without any connotations or mockery, to describe Steve Jobs' leadership as 'magical' is truly justified.

These are all in the making of what makes Steve Jobs so incredible, but without a doubt the greatest thing that Steve Jobs takes with him, is the simplest, the most obvious and the most primal of his traits - and that is his passion. To meet a man with such love, and such enthusiasm for the things he does is rare, and with this, Steve Jobs has inspired us to pursue our dreams not for secondary and reactionary means as finances and stature, but purely for the satisfaction close at heart - because it makes us happy. 

To put it in his own words - 'The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.'

Steve Jobs story is almost a fairy tale of where passion and love can take us, and his love and passion augments and provides for the immeasurable genius and creativity that the man has been blessed with. We can all be happy knowing that Steve Jobs died doing what he loved the most. Even with his diagnosis of cancer several years back, Steve Jobs' love for Apple never waned, and he was there at Apple for as long as he could possibly be, with the baby he crafted and nurtured himself. And if getting fired from his own company came to prove anything, it was that Apple only truly has one father. 

So here we are, typing away on our Macbooks, slicing fruit on our iPhones and tapping away on our iPads - embracing ourselves in the magic that Steve Jobs has provided us. We're all saddened by the news of his passing, the world only ever gets one Steve Jobs and it's such a shame that the appreciation has only really been expressed openly once it's all gone. But Steve Jobs probably wouldn't have it any other way, loving our Apple products is our way of saying a subtle thanks, and thank you Steve Jobs so very much.

It feels strange imagining the tech industry without a Steve Jobs, but how much stranger and how much different would it be had he never even come around. So to quote the wise words of Dr. Seuss, 'Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened'. And Mr. Jobs, the radiance of your innovation makes us all smile, every, single, day.

Sly social

Facebook's F8 event event and it's subsequent announcements marked a major turning point in social media. Mark Zuckerberg announced a slew of new features at the event which all put hands into one resounding theme - sharing. Netflix and Spotify integration are all about sharing our media and content, the new Facebook timeline is all about sharing our past, the new profile 'cover photo' is all about sharing a bit of who we are and new application permissions make it easier for third party apps to share some little things about ourselves. But what is it with Facebook's plain obsession with making us users share as much of our lives as possible, and why do we so contently oblige to such seemingly unhealthy amounts of transparency?

Myspace, before the rise of Facebook was insanely popular simply because it allowed us to take full control of our image on the internet. People didn't spend the time pimping up the Myspace profiles and adding the auto-playing song onto their page because it was fun, it was because it would contribute to the way that they wanted their friends to see them. Our Myspace spoke a lot about our character, and through the way we're inescapably wired, getting ourselves out there is very important to us. Ironically, social is a predominantly solipsistic medium that is driven almost purely by our self-obsession. As users, we are so blindly content with sharing every aspect of our social lives on Facebook because we feel the need to inform others of the kind of person we are because hey, we're important. Why do we people bother checking into places? We do it because its important that our friends know that we're not a hopeless low-life who leaves the house less than the trash can - and perhaps checking in at a library will help us build our character as an intellectual or checking in at a football stadium will help us build our character as 'the sports fanatic'.

Facebook is taking all the steps to make sure they foster and provide for this growing online culture of self-obsession; they're adding the features to make sharing and individualistic behaviour that much easier.  The announcement that apps will only be required to ask once before posting activities to our walls breaks down that fence that has so long separated the virtual technological world to the real organic world that we live in.

Let's take this fictitious, though entirely plausible scenario for an example - perhaps we're going for a run and there's an app on our smartphone that tracks and monitors our run with contextual metadata like calories burnt, distance and speed. This app connects to our Facebook and allows us to post this information on our walls to share with our friends. In the past, this would require a prompt in which the app asks us permission to do this, but now it only has to ask once, the very first time. Essentially, the things that happen in the real world become immediately synchronised with the virtual word of Facebook, in a sense making the service a deeply connected attachment to ourselves. Facebook now becomes a parallel and always up-to-date technological porting of our lives.

So, what's the significance of Facebook's timeline feature? The timeline feature simply augments and manifests upon the idea of 'the Facebook second life', because when utilised to its absolute fullest the timeline becomes practically our life story. We're currently living in an age where it's not ridiculous for a new-born baby to have a Facebook profile. Naturally, Mark Zuckerberg encourages this, particularly with the release of the new 'expected child' feature. However, it's not solely because Mark Zuckerberg wants to endlessly increase Facebook's user base, but it's because he wants to connect with the user base. He wants Facebook to connect to the user base in such a manner that deleting a Facebook profile would be almost equivalent to semi-suicide. By unethically, albeit cleverly taking advantage of clueless new-borns, Facebook is hoping to inaugurate a generation of Facebook users who will have timelines that really do begin with their lives. Imagine growing up as one of these infants and trying to delete your Facebook profile in 15 years time - an archive of your life story that you've had with you since the day you were born? Yes, it is semi-suicide.

By cleverly leveraging upon the idea of user self-obsession, Zuckerberg will have locked us users into his service in such a deep personal way that we can't ever quit. And what better time to force the loyalty of users than now, a time when Google+ appears genuinely threatening.

Sure, it's easy to say I won't get hooked on Facebook and I won't get trapped, but the simple fact is that most of us already are. How many of you could quickly and easily delete your Facebook profile and tell yourself honestly that this decision will be entirely regret-free? It's time to just stop and have a look at the direction Zuckerberg is leading us in social media, we can't allow ourselves to be turned into mindless zombies for transparency living an inescapable second life that we never even asked for.

As Windows 8 propels Post-PC

Not too long ago, Microsoft pulled the wraps off the developer preview of its next generation operating system. I say 'next generation' intentionally as opposed 'next' because Windows 8 truly does signify a revolution for not only Microsoft, but personal computing as a whole. With Microsoft's pre-beta release of Windows 8, I can say without hesitation that computing is without doubt driving head-on into the age of direct manipulation computing, or 'Post-PC' if you like.

Anybody who counts Microsoft out as being an influential figure for the next decade of computing would have to be incredibly short-sighted. Eric Schmidt pointed out earlier this year that he considered his gang of the four most influential consumer technology companies to be Google (naturally), Apple, Amazon and Facebook. Microsoft did not make it into his little clique. This itself would seem almost a mathematical impossibility when you account for Microsoft's market share in the PC arena and also a direct affront to the 'chain of command' given the many ways that Microsoft indirectly and directly affects the lives of people and companies around it. Sure, Microsoft doesn't have the strong-hold it had on multiple markets 5-10 years back, but heck, Microsoft has commanding, monopoly-enabling market share in PCs – and market share means power.

We've all seen Microsoft's success as an underdog, and their success has always coalesced with the idea of 'slow and steady wins the race'. And perhaps slow and steady manifests Microsoft itself as a corporation, an influential giant completely devoid of the agility of its start-up days. The world was sceptical about the Xbox when it launched, it took time to gain traction but Microsoft eventually broke through with the product and it is now the best-selling console in the United States. Windows Phone still sits at the bottom of the smartphone pack with a single digit market share to boast, but Microsoft are in no position to give up on Windows Phone (I'm glaring at you, HP). With Nokia paving multiple new pathways and opening new doors for the platform, there isn't much to justify the opinions of anyone who believes Windows Phone is going down. I can see why analysts are bullish on their prospects for the platform.

At that, there's no reason why we as the consumers shouldn't be bullish on Microsoft and its Windows 8 project either. By all intents and purposes if Microsoft decides to dump the Windows monicker in the same way that they dumped 'Windows Mobile' for 'Windows Phone' it would not be completely out of line. After all, the new OS does not look, or more importantly, feel like Windows at all. It's touch-friendly, it's intuitive, it's animated...it's fun. Microsoft made a big case for touch technology at its BUILD 2011 event, slanting heavily towards an ideology that touch is the future of computer interaction, and I agree wholeheartedly.

As we all are fully aware, Microsoft's approach to slates and tablets has always appeared as half-hearted, not bothering to put in the full effort to have an OS optimised for iPad-like devices with the belief that a powerful operating system could justify the poor ease of use. Consumer reception has likewise been half-hearted. Microsoft obviously overlooked the fact that the power factor of the full Windows experience is only sufficiently augmented with the presence of a keyboard and mouse. So when it comes to slates, looking at Windows 8, despite its often frustrating switches between interfaces it's relieving to see that Microsoft has managed to acknowledge the writing on the wall and subsequently put their heart in the right place.

I guess we can thank the iPad for its applications as an impetus for a stagnating PC market. I believe that people and innovators are the creators of their own fate - yeah I know it's corny and it's cliche, but it's true. The technology market, or automotive market or any market that thrives on innovation isn't and should not be bounded by the perceived limitations of eras or times. I get the feeling that people believe that things have to remain a certain way until a specific time comes that rings a bell for a revolution or an overthrow of the current. Perhaps a good example to illustrate this very point would be flexible display technology - we'd all love to see flexible displays right now and the prospects are exciting but there's always going to be the consensus that the concept is simply too far ahead of its time. I'm glad that Microsoft has shown the gut to propel the industry with a revolution in Windows 8, instead of yet another evolution of Windows 7 which would only vitiate the industry's implacable transition into touch and 'post-PC'.

Windows 8 is not a perfect operating system, it's far from perfect and will most likely take a generation or two to eradicate legacy requirements which are by far its biggest gripe. I'm not predicting that Windows 8 will sell like hot cakes, will be insanely successful or by all means, not be a Vista. The developer preview of Windows 8 though is purely representational of Microsoft's trajectory, and the most I can say is that Microsoft have pointed their unwieldy ship in the right direction. They have proven themselves in the past that they are more than capable of winning a game slow and steady and have proven their ability to successfully leverage their assets and integrate tightly their cobweb of products and services. As far as I can see, these are a few crucial underpinnings for imminent success.  

TECHGEEK.com.au - Saving the future of 3D

Be sure to check out my opinion article on TECHGEEK.com.au with my views on the flailing 3D technology and how to save it from imminent demise. 

"The whole 3D dilemma is very much a Catch-22 situation – content producers aren’t willing to bet big on 3D production because the potential consumer demographic simply isn’t large enough to deem it highly profitable. Conversely, one of the primary reasons why the consumer base for 3D is relatively small is because there’s not enough available 3D content to justify an upgrade or the price hike....."

Categorising Samsung's Galaxy Note

No doubt, one of the most talked about unveilings at IFA is the Galaxy Note. A 5.3 inch Android 'device'. Categorising this device into smartphone or tablet is becoming an interesting dilemma - too big to be a mainstream smartphone, too small to be a tablet, and too advanced to fit into the PDA crowd. Hear me out as I provide my insights into what Samsung's Galaxy Note really is and what it means to us.

This year, I believe that the world of consumer technology has created and embraced what I see as the three musketeers of our computing lifestyles - PC, tablet and smartphone. All these devices augment the experiences of each other, and thus far none are capable of fully replacing one another. I couldn't possibly replace my phone with a tablet, and my tablet is simply not powerful enough nor practical enough to replace this laptop I'm typing on at this very moment. I think that one of the main things that holds back any of these devices from convergence or replacement of each other, is something that by its very nature simply cannot be fixed - its size. If people could comfortably fit an iPad, or even a Blackberry Playbook into their pockets and hold it to their ears during a phone call, people would very well do away with phones.

Unless you're the highly materialistic type like I who simply loves to bathe in collections of electronic devices, the lesser the number of devices that you have to deal with and manage is better. Hence the popularity of smartphones because they take on the purpose of a multitude of devices. All of this makes the unveiling of Samsung's potentially category pioneering Galaxy Note at IFA in Berlin all the more interesting. Cutting back from the trivial matters of detailed specifications, the Galaxy Note is a 5.3 inch 'device' with an incredible high resolution Super AMOLED display. As you can probably see from the image above of DJ Lee holding the Galaxy Note, the device is larger than Samsung's already large Galaxy S II smartphone but without looking entirely out of proportion. It's hard to believe that what is in his hands is a 5.3 inch display, which is certainly workable for a pocketable mobile workspace.

So, can this Galaxy Note succeed in converging tablet and smartphone for those who want to be burdened by less? It's certainly a compromise. Personally, the pockets of my jeans will only just hold a device of this size with a convincing shove. And then, it's not the greatest feeling (or look) walking around feeling a huge rectangle in my pocket pressing against my leg. On the other end of the spectrum, its size can also be considered to be too small. Even the Blackberry Playbook was criticised by many as being an inch or two below adequacy for a great web experience. Sure, the Note is great for the people who are willing to make the compromise to streamline their own device portfolio, but for the users looking for the best end to end experience, it's not going to happen here.

We can't look at the Galaxy Note and attempt to categorise the product simply based on its size. It comes with a stylus, which has been shunned by Apple but in actuality has some really useful practicalities. We've already seen such a stylus implementation in HTC's 7-inch Flyer tablet. The stylus was used to draw at a level of accuracy that fingers alone do not permit and also to highlight, circle and make notes on the screen at any time. The concept was great because it emulated the way we like to manipulate content in the traditional way of pen and paper and how we often highlight and underline things. The stylus of the Galaxy Note takes this idea and integrates the stylus deeper into the product as such allowing us to use the stylus to navigate the device as well instead of just drawing. From use cases demonstrated in the official promotional video we can really get a sense of the wide-ranging possibilities of the underrated technology of touch-pen input.

Perhaps, Samsung isn't looking at the convergence of the devices, but rather creating something...semi-new. It could be called a tabphone? Meh. Or perhaps a smartlet - that's cute. The point I'm trying to make is that I personally don't see this as a really really big smartphone for really really big people.

As the name suggests, the Galaxy Note is perfect for such use cases like note-taking which is something that is actually abominably hard on touch keyboards. It's funny how we often don't notice these little things that we want until someone shoves it into our faces. That's what Samsung have done here; taking notes on any touch screen keyboard of any size isn't a situation we dream of being in, let alone having to take such notes in speed. The stylus merges the benefits of both traditional handwriting and the digital capabilities of mobile devices - given the Galaxy Note is able to handle accuracy and speed simultaneously, we could have a really capable 'jotting down' PDA-like contraption with unprecedented versatility. The problem with pen and paper is that once you finish writing things down, that's really all you can do with it. For it to be digitised, the convoluted process of scanning must be endured, and even then the simple image file that it becomes is limited in its capabilities. The Galaxy Note can change this simply through its digital nature.

I know you're thinking that a stylus isn't a huge innovation, in fact it's really not an innovation at all as styli are considered by many as previous generation technology for when we didn't have effective capacitive touch displays with big meaty buttons for our big meaty fingers. But the stylus isn't dead and it was never dead, it's just that everyone is simply so engrossed in the smartphone spec war to embrace true innovation and forward thinking.

The Galaxy Note is certainly not for everyone, but for those who are blessed with large hands and don't often wear skinny jeans will probably love the practicalities that this 'little' contraption provides. Living with a tablet for a month (Blackberry Playbook), I can't imagine my life without one, it is honestly the most liberating feeling being able to take almost the whole quota of my digital lifestyle with me everywhere without being weighed down. With Galaxy Note, if one embraces what this device offers I'm sure it will eventually morph into an essential in much the same way.

So is the Samsung Galaxy Note the start of a new trend? The return of the PDA? To be frank, it's niche factor is too large for it to be embraced by other manufacturers. I still stand by my digital trio of smartphone, tablet and PC. The Galaxy Note probably won't be purchased on its merits as a note-taking device or a PDA if you like, but for anyone that has pockets capable of housing 5.3 inches of Super AMOLED goodness and is looking for a smartphone - meet 'smartlet'.

iQuit - An Apple with Steve Jobs and an Apple without him

There aren't many times when we can look back at a CEO and say honestly that they changed the world. Sure, there are many CEOs who have changed their companies, improved operations and maybe even lead to some pretty successful product launches, but Steve Jobs I believe is the manifestation of true success. Not only did he revitalise Apple, but he managed to influence and even create several markets, when most leaders struggle to even touch one. 

Regretfully, due to poor health Steve Jobs has made the hard decision to resign as CEO of Apple. This very event has sparked a mass amount of praise and respect for Steve Jobs from people of all shapes and sizes, even from those who do not spend all their time reading technology blogs and playing with their Apple products. Strangely, it has even opened the hearts of some of the infamous Apple haters. But it has also sparked massive debates between pundits, analysts and the like regarding Apple's future. Is Apple capable of maintaining its success without Steve Jobs and sustaining the growth that it has experienced in the last decade? Can Apple still excite people and remain, well you know...cool? Or on the flip side, will Apple fall in the same fatal path subsequent to Jobs' initial departure?

Well, let me just say that the Apple that we see today will by and large be the same shining red Apple that we'll be seeing for at least the next 5 years. With products and strategies most likely laid out for the coming years, it's hard to imagine any plateauing in growth or anything that we wouldn't expect of the Steve Jobs Apple that we're well and truly accustomed to today. Tim Cook has assumed the role of CEO in the past during the events of Steve Jobs' health bouts, so it's safe to say that he's already well-versed in the operations and procedures of the captain's seat. Steve Jobs' resignation was simply reiterating in ink what was already written in pencil for Tim Cook. 

However, when the day comes that Steve Jobs actually isn't there, we definitely won't be speaking of Apple with this same assurance. It's not a bad time to start forecasting an Apple without Steve Jobs.

Allow me to just answer one budding question that has been foolishly debated - can Apple be the same without Steve Jobs? No. It is foolish to believe that Apple can remain the same without Steve, thus why the need for Steve? If his vision, his achievements, and his capabilities can and could have all been entirely replicated by someone else, Steve would have been a useless leader. Steve Jobs' became CEO of Apple because he had capabilities that no one else in the company had, thus his absence will leave a hole in the company's core. Steve Jobs leaves behind some enormous shoes that even a person of Tim Cook's calibre will have feet too small.

To me, Tim Cook has always felt like an emergency as opposed to a permanent solution. He would come in and keep the big boat afloat while Steve Jobs was away, and then Steve would come back and really propel the cruiser forward. The perceived permanence of this week's decision tells us that Steve probably won't be coming back to the helm, which only leaves me with an uneasy feeling regarding Apple's future under Tim Cook. There's just this little something that tells me that Cook is more of a numbers guy, a negotiator, or an operational guy as opposed to a creative and idea driven guy. Steve Jobs managed to create an unprecedented culture of innovation within his company, and if Cook is driven by entirely different motives it will only destroy the morale within Apple that has taken it to such peaks of success.

So how will Apple change? It's a big question with a big many answers. Perhaps it is only fitting to look back at the things that add up to what simply can't put any better than unprecedented genius.

This is quite a cliché statement but I'm going to repeat it because I believe it's one of the most monumental things that Steve Jobs will be taking away with him - his vision. I've always gone by one of my own sayings that vision is what separates those that make a profit from those that make an impact, and I can't think of a better illustration of this very idea than Steve Jobs. Sure, we can all be like Samsung and make multitudes of phones without thought and make a truck-load of money and earn market share, but will we look back on the age of smartphones and say that Samsung made a difference? I'll be damned. Steve Jobs didn't just sell his products, he sold his vision and that has made all the difference. 

Jobs has the uncanny ability to think ahead of the times and almost design the future like an architect, and then be willing to bet big on it. I'm sure we can all remember the semi-transparent iMac without the floppy drive which was insane at the time. In spite of that, this omission propelled Apple into the future of compact discs. More recently, the iPhone without a keyboard was laughed off by Steve Ballmer as being unsuitable for businessmen, it has proven a revelation. And the download-only Mac OS X Lion is only the very start of a rising era.  

Having said this, there's probably no greater exemplification of Steve Jobs' incredible forward thinking than the originality of the iPad. There are few people in this world who can look at people, live their lives and find the holes in which ideas and potential products could fit in. Whilst everyone else endlessly filled the vacancies with compromises, Jobs saw through this and without an inkling of market research he dreamt the iPad purely through the roots of his own creativity. Competitors are having a hard time fighting against the iPad because they're pursuing a vision that is not their own, but that of Steve Jobs, which is one they're not entirely sure of. If we look back in time at the most innovative and inspirational leaders and entrepreneurs, most did not believe in the 'effectiveness' of market research. Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony Corp. famously said 'Carefully watch how people live, get an intuitive sense of what they might want and then go with it. Don't do market research.' The man created the Walkman which revolutionised our lifestyles and the music industry purely through intuition. Market research only tells us what people are buying, but not necessarily what they want, and Steve Jobs knew this. 

Oh yeah - did someone say Apple keynote without Steve? Not sure, because I can't imagine one. I simply can't imagine a keynote without Jobs up on stage in his trademark black turtleneck and junners with such subtle child-like excitement, love, and admiration for his own products. Who's going to be up there to say 'it's magical' or 'it's just fantastic' or 'one more thing'. Jobs' is a natural salesman. I could probably write a couple of thousand words on Steve Jobs' capabilities as a salesman, someone more intelligent could probably write a thesis, heck people have written books on how to be insanely great at speaking and persuading like Steve Jobs. Jobs' keynotes weren't him telling us features and specs that we could read ourselves, it wasn't him playing the commonplace PR game, nor was it him attempting to excite us over dreams he may or may not deliver. He spoke of the things that mattered to us at the most primal level - the magic of a product, how it changes 'everything' and he spoke about how things were beautiful and amazing without sounding like he fell out of a rainbow. We can only wait and see whether Tim Cook has charisma enough to get people waiting overnight in lines to get their hands on the next iPhone or the next iPad, or even the next Mac. 

So now what? What will happen to Apple? From where I stand, I have no doubt that Apple will continue to be successful for the next coming years, or even a few years after Steve Jobs takes the last step away from the company. But I hate to say that there will come a time when without a visionary like Steve Jobs at the helm or in the higher ranks, the company will stagnate when it comes that time for a revolutionary idea to keep the company in the limelight. That doesn't mean that the company will stop being successful, it simply means that the company will cease to become highly influential. 

Do all good things come to an end? Maybe. Unfortunately for Apple it seems that they've reached peaks so high that the only way for them to go is down. It's hard to imagine a visionary beyond Steve Jobs' calibre. With the culture that Apple have established within their company they're sure to find and attract talent but I doubt, I highly doubt we will find someone so talented in so many ways as Steve Jobs. Let me tell you now, Tim Cook is probably not going to cut it. It will be interesting to watch Apple's Steve-less evolution churn out. What's important for the people at Apple isn't to keep thinking 'what would Steve do?' Following a vision that is not your own is always, always second to following your own. In spite of everything I have confidence that Apple will be able to find someone who isn't quite Steve Jobs, but is just like him in a completely different way. 

HP's webOS riddles

Less than two years ago when HP acquired the fledgling Palm company, I was a half-hearted with the notion. HP, being a relatively professional and straight-edged company didn't quite seem to fit the Palm profile of curved and cute devices with a...well curved and cute OS. I expected, and in retrospect would have preferred the likes of Nokia or Sony to have acquired the innovative Palm. However my dreams were left unrealised and Nokia is now committed fully to Windows Phone and Sony are heading towards a deep investment in the Android ecosystem, its amazing how times change. Join me as I recount HP's problem leading up to the discontinuation of first party webOS devices.

The outcome of webOS under HP's tenure has been disappointing, even looking on the bright side it has drastically fallen below the excitement and hype that the initial announcement of the Touchpad and Pre 3 had warranted. When HP unveiled the Touchpad at their Think Beyond event in February, the prospects and the possibilities were incredible and seemingly prosperous. The Touchpad wasn't perfect though, page turning when reading eBooks was choppy and the user experience as a whole wasn't up to scratch. It didn't feel like a finished product. But we were all excited because we figured heck, the problems should all be ironed out prior to the launch in 7 months time, and perhaps the hardware upgraded to keep in close quarters with the fast progression of consumer technology. But it wasn't. Looking back at the bug-riddled launch of the Touchpad I simply can't help but wonder what the hell went on in that lengthy 7 months. 7 months is plenty of time to perfect bugs and polish a product that was definitely already in the later phases of semi-completion. Believe it or not, I even expected HP to launch the device early and surprise us.

It's odd, because this whole time I believed that the acquisition of Palm by HP was what would be instrumental in preventing a late and sorry launch. Palm, prior to HP simply didn't have the resources to go about it on their own, they didn't have the manufacturing scale that HP possessed, nor the cash to effectively market their products. More importantly they didn't have the human resources they needed to quicken general operations. HP had this, but taking 7 months to launch an imperfect product disappointingly shows that it did not translate for webOS. 

Looking from the outside, HP's webOS failure could be attributed partially to a lack of focus, a fatally distracted vision for webOS. By no means does a distracted vision necessarily have to be a poor vision, and this was exactly the case with HP webOS. HP were hoping to expand the platform across all their devices, including printers to share a common ecosystem amongst the products we use most. I'm not going to lie, it's a brilliant idea, but fantasising over unrealised dreams while delivering an incomplete foundation in the company's smartphones and tablets only spells trouble. Dreams are like anything, you have to keep feeding them to stay alive, and feeding them lackluster products with insufficient marketing doesn't assist in building a large enough consumer base to springboard other projects. We all know what happens if you start building the top of a skyscraper before the foundation is complete - it collapses. 

Which brings us to this morning's bombshell of an announcement, HP is stopping production of its webOS hardware altogether. You read right, it's just the hardware, which is not surprising given how out of touch the Touchpad's hardware is in comparison to the competition and the times. Despite only cancelling the hardware and almost certainly going ahead with the idea of licensing the OS, the whole ideal has just been one huge PR tragedy. Announcing the cancellation of hardware production for an operating system that only has one hardware vendor is the right way to give everybody a wrong impression. HP now run the risk of not being able to find a licensing partner within the timeline that they have set to officially cancel webOS device production. If this does end up being the case which lets face it, is entirely plausible, then it would be correct by definition to officially call webOS dead, after all, nobody's making any webOS devices. 

Let's get real, is there anyone who really wants to invest in webOS? Samsung and HTC are the two most likely vendors, doing anything and everything to expand their portfolios. Both are already heavily invested and clear leaders in the Android ecosystem, however with offerings in Windows Phone which will most likely be undermined by the looming release of the Nokia Windows Phones. So, webOS wouldn't be a terrible idea but then we must ask the question, why? Why would they bother supporting a dying ecosystem when they're already high and mighty in a thriving one? Sony Ericsson, LG and several others are also possible candidates, but I doubt that any of these companies have the resources to risk in investing in an ecosystem that has failed...twice - once under Palm and now under HP. 

Its sad, but ultimately true that HP have dug their own grave. Palm had built an image of freshness and innovation behind the Palm name, being one of the most advanced touch-screen smartphones of its time, whilst maintaining a highly approachable and friendly industrial design. I know friends who wanted a Palm prior to the HP days simply because of the curved design, and the invitingly simple look and feel of the OS. By ridding and replacing the Palm name with HP subsequent to the acquisition, HP threw away the oh so precious image and value of the Palm brand. Strategically, this move made sense in order to bring webOS both physically and symbolically closer to the HP family. However HP didn't have the confidence nor the skill to turn webOS into a game-changing product, and are now trying to license the operating system in a much less valuable incarnation than what they initially purchased it for. 

So can webOS be resurrected? I used to think so but in a connected world where growth grows upon growth, webOS is really struggling to just make the inaugural step. On the other end of the spectrum, Android and iOS are making exponential strides. In spite of this, there's a little bit inside all of us that knows webOS can still make it, and then there's a big part in all of us that really wants webOS to make it. The world doesn't need anymore Android slabs, but we could sure as hell do with a sweet OS like webOS. I think its clear that webOS's square peg doesn't belong in the circle of HP. So here's hoping that HP sells it off to a company that can treat it with the respect it deserves. Any takers?

Willy-nilly Walkman

A fortnight ago, Sony unveiled a selection of new Walkman MP3 players namely a new 'A series' touch screen Walkman, 'S series' compact Walkman, and 'E series' basic video Walkman. Walkman unveilings are always interesting particularly in analysing how Sony responds to not only the grave challenge of Apple's iPod and cheaper MP3 players, but also their attempt to maintain consumer relevance in the gradually dying market of dedicated music players. Sony's recent Walkmans have been ultimately a let down, hence the most recent one that evoked any hype was the X series in 2009 which is currently either dead or dormant. My loyal readers will know that I'm a Walkman fanboy at heart, forking out the same sum of money of an iPod Touch on an infinitely less capable Walkman X. Yet I stand by my Walkman devotion, because nothing beats out of the box noise cancellation and the raw beauty of Walkman sound quality.

From where I stand, there are many things that hamper the potential success of these current Walkmans. But ironically it has nothing to do with strong competition coming from Apple's ubiquitous iPod, Sony is shooting themselves in the foot. Purely from Sony's vantage, the Walkman works because the brand has been able to carve a niche for itself throughout its last decade in the digital MP3 market. Where the iPod has struggled to gain respect, the Walkman has been embraced with open arms. I'm referring to the audiophile community, the people who still carry around a dedicated music player because it provides marginally better audio fidelity than their phones, and the folks who will fork out more on headphones than on the actual player. This is the consumer demographic that appreciates Walkman for what it is, and this is what Sony's target market should be. 

Somehow, I don't get the feeling that Sony are fully catering to this market, and half wasting their time on the long lost game of the average consumer market. The new Walkmans, save for the E and W series all come equipped with Bluetooth technology. I understand that Bluetooth has many practicalities beyond unwired headphones, but unwired headphones, judging by marketing is Sony's primary offering with Bluetooth technology. Despite the general subjectivity on the scale in which Bluetooth degrades sound quality, it's simply not debatable that Bluetooth does pale in comparison to a direct 3.5mm stereo jack connection. Long story cut short, the Bluetooth transfer requires compression which by its very nature reduces sound quality. So why would an audiophile want this, when what an audiophile really wants is the best their money can buy? Sure, average consumers would enjoy the convenience, but average consumers would enjoy an iPod too. 

And then there's the larger problem at hand, and that's by and large the Walkman's inability to enjoy any consistency in its brand and lineup and its inability to integrate with similar Sony products and services. Like I said, the Walkman's relationship with audiophiles won't be going anywhere even in the face of major strategic blunders, because let's face it, the Walkman will always sound great. What concerns me is the inconsistency and dilution of Sony's use cases for the Walkman name. Currently, the Walkman monicker is present on Sony Ericsson Walkman phones and obviously Walkman MP3s. Yeah, it's only a couple I know but both these devices are acutely different, they are in two completely different universes, heck they're not even made by the same company. Sound quality on Sony Ericsson Walkmans fall tremendously short in comparison to the dedicated players. That doesn't help the brand in any way, a brand that sells itself on its sound quality. 

The Walkman will never shine with its old luster, but the least Sony could do is to try and leverage what they do have with the Walkman to boost other aspects of their business, or just as usefully, use current aspects of their business to boost the Walkman. What naturally pops into my mind first is Qriocity, the media streaming service by Sony that has gotten quite a bit of stick from journos regarding the hacking matter from months ago. Nevertheless, Qriocity is satanically not available on any Walkman. The matter is a loop-hole free no-brainer - a music streaming service for a music player. 3G is the issue here, but Sony need to find a way to get Qriocity onto Walkman devices because if there's one thing for certain it's that it's sure going to open more doors than it closes. Not only would this work to create a really solid offering that matches up against the times, but Qriocity users would then find it practical to use Qriocity on other supported devices to gain value for money thus indirectly forcing consumers to buy further into Sony's ecosystem. The Walkman as it stands is a lonely product.

My sentiments regarding the Walkman are iffy, I'll always be a Walkman consumer but not everyone will be and the path they're taking isn't going to take them to a handy destination. The Walkman brand could be likened to a headless chicken, alive simply for the continuity of an iconic brand, but with ultimately no foreseeable vision or trajectory ahead.