more apple bashing - sorta

i don't hate iphones as much as i might have led to believe in this blog. i hate many things about them (their fans, blind followers, seriously missing features, their fans, again - you're getting the idea). but looking at things from a wider perspective, a longer-timed one, the iphone has done to the modern mobile phone what nokia had once done to the digital mobile phone. with a couple of exceptions, the world has seen year after year of innovative mobile phones coming out of finland. they didn't always have the best phones around, but looking at the history, they've consistently delivered high-quality, innovative phones. the exception to that are the us (they were drowning in prehistoric motos) and japan (who have phones form 2014, today)

the iphone, of course, isn't a phone. it's a mobile application device that happens to have a phone function. think of the ipod touch, or the ipad: they're iphones without the "phone". the apple line of mobile application platforms has certain things in common: funky user interface, cool effects and capabilities and a relentless focus on the user experience. more importantly, it has fueled the mobile device innovation (intellectually, technologically and financially): if you can think of it, there's probably an application out for it. so the iphone literally changed how we think about mobile application devices: they're not mobile computers (think windows mobile and shudder), they're not phones with apps (think nokia), they're not email with a phone (think bb): they're something different altogether. they're iphones.

so why do i hate the iphone? well, there are a few things that make my cringe and never allow myself to buy one. the first is the simplest: the asshole jobs, and his minions. don't get me wrong, i appreciate his innovation, but i hate his black sweater and his attitude. it's not that he understands what people want, it's that he argues with them when they disagree. copy-paste, multi-tasking and video conferencing are functions he originally claimed that people don't really need, then he introduced them as "new" features. to be honest he's smart to do that: he realizes people are sheep and the minions will take his word for gospel. despite these being available on nokia ages ago, on the iphone they became "cool".

second, the less personal but more relevant reason: the iphone business model. apple has complete control over their phones and everything surrounding them, including the applications. they can decide what applications can be developed or not, and thus limit what developers can do. they are actually notorious for refusing certain apps or censoring others, with no clear guidelines other than jobs' whims. working with apple is bittersweet: the potential for money is great but so is the potential for risk. well fuck em. but there's more. how many models of the iphone are available for sale right now? one. apple, the iphone master, controls everything about their device. a high-end, expensive device, which has applications only they control.

then android came along. here was a platform that was just as cool (though admittedly far less mature), but it looked at things differently. first: the os was open source, which means that anyone was free to modify or make changes to it. second: open hardware, which means that anyone can build an android device (even tablets like android better). third: anyone can develop anything, including shit that changes the layout. in fact, they have a new development platform that allows the average george to build apps. everything was free except the hardware. how cool is that? when google's nexus one came out people were wondering if it was an iphone killer. it wasn't. it wasn't meant to be. it was meant to highlight what an android device could be - should be. it was a statement about how innovative platforms can look like.

so where does that leave us? well, i will refer you to two points in the past. the first: apple vs. microsoft. apple insisted on building computers that they controlled in. microsoft, on the other hand, just did windows and told everyone: get your own damn hardware. what that resulted in was macs that were consistently functional and well-built, but were expensive and "unique", but windows machines that were flexible and highly configurable. sound familiar? ms ran windows on every piece of hardware it could find: that created some slow machines, shit machines, but it was accessible. anyone could buy a windows machine. people still buy macs, but despite what you see in the movies, they're only used by either pretentious iphone owners or graphic designers. the second point stops at the largest seller of mobile devices by far. not apple or google or bb: the humble nokia. despite all the jazz around all the other handsets, nokia sells more than all of them combined. four of the five top selling phones of all time are nokia devices. looking closely, you'll not be surprised to notice that the top selling devices are, above all else, cheap. and that's the other place where android will always be different: you can run it anywhere. you don't need to buy a beautiful piece of hardware to get it. even today, you see "low end" android devices. they don't have the fastest processors or 147 megapixel cameras, but they do allow you to run a lot of android apps.

over the next two years, i see things playing out as follows. first, apple will still remain an innovator, in technology and user interface concepts. second, nokia will put its ailing symbian os to sleep and adopt android for their devices. third, android will become the windows of the mobile world: though it might not only player out there, it will be dominant. i do not hate iphones but i won't buy them for the same reasons i don't buy a mac. history has taught me that.

the cash cows

meet swipely.

a friend generously directed me to this link, demanding i blog it, banging the metaphoric table top, yelling about how idiotic it is.

i would ask her to calm down, and give people some slack. see although i would agree with her that it's idiotic in a sense, it's pure genius in another. maybe late, but genius. i am fortunate enough to have the advantage of working in the it industry and i know how people think that social networks in any form are christ reborn. i mean, who would've thought that a platform that allows you to broadcast what you had for breakfast or what you think about the news would prove to be such a force? or how about facebook? that same friend who recommended this adamantly refused to join facebook finally relented, despite the social overflow she suffers from it.

so from a startup/vc perspective, the idea sounds like pure gold. i mean, look at me omg i just bought a purse, ooooooo my friend's purse is so nice i need to buy one, blah blah. even some men will wet their pants about this. of course it's seriously late: there's foursquare, chattertree, facebook's website updates, last.fm, rdio, the list is infinite really for social networks, but hey, why the fuck not.

but it's really idiotic for the exact same reason: who gives a flying fuck what you bought? idiots.

out-sarcasting myself

so i am attending a training for our contact center solutions, one that allows us to demo the solution. one of the features is a web-based chat. so how do you demo a chat? you start both clients and start sending texts between them. what the demo designers didn't expect is having someone like me playing with this. i sent something, but to make things intersting, i replied with a witty reply. then i replied sarcastically to that. this back and forth for a while until i realized what i was doing. then i felt sorry for myself.

appholes

New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products

the sad truth about print press

Boston Globe Tailors Print Edition For Three Remaining Subscribers

before you unleash your eloquent comments on the internets

please consider the damage you cause to the minds and ears of those of us who actually know and understand english grammar. despite my best efforts, there seems to be little understanding of what an english sentence constitutes. to that end, i link you to english grammar 101! for everyone who's ever slept through english classes, for those who limit their reading to i can has cheezburger and 4chan, for you who hesitate (or not at all) before writing you're, that link is for you!

link link link link link link link

link

awesome - i love the workers!

android blues

so i got a new android device. for those technically challenged, android is, in addition to being a humanoid robot, a mobile device operating system (read: cell phone). it's cool in a number of ways, but the difficulty arises when you use it and the desktop one after the other. i find myself wanting to swap screens on my windows machine and wondering why words don't auto-correct or auto-capitalize.

lack of information

i had a peculiar professor back in my sophomore year in uni. he was the one to introduce us to signal analysis and he chew on his "r"s and somehow his italian education made him refer to square waves as sikware waves. despite all that he taught me something that will probably forever ring true. he asked us a question: what is information? people started giving all sorts of answers, but his question came from a signal analysis perspective. if someone gave you a number of facts, which of those is actually information? he simply defined it as the amount of surprise one finds in those facts. his example, applicable to the current (and frankly, most of the recent) historical context, was this: if you're listening to the radio and you hear "10 palestinians were killed by israelis", it's business as usual, no news there. however, if you heard something like "jerusalem has been freed" or "arabs sent first man to space", then that's news.

why i say this is because of the recent news about israelis attacking the peace flotilla (aid ships coming to gaza). i felt angry, appalled, etc, etc, but the one thing i didn't feel was surprise. what israel has been doing in gaza is a starvation war, which is apparent, so there really is no news there. what seriously annoyed me however, is the storm of twitternoise generated on facebook. i mean, most people who were posting shit are old enough to know that (a) there is no news there and (b) twitternoise is just that: noise.

my favorite comments, in ascending order, are:

4. omg lets spread the word that israelis are murderers and israel is a facist state and they should burn in hell. closely related to those were religious messages around the same topic.
really? so 60 years of occupation and doing whatever the fuck it wants, you just figured that out? why must you perpetuate the same stale bullshit?

3. join this group, join that group, we are putting pressure on the uk embassy, blah blah or some other dimwit bullshit. what pressure? are you threatening them with yelling really loud if they don't comply? or maybe come out in a demonstration? yes that's it, you will hold signs until the uk foreign office takes action. more power to you in that. turkey is no small power, yet they're just showing anger and calling it murder. european countries asked the ambassadors in. to do what? nothing, israel will just do whatever the fuck it wants.

1. announce a general strike in the west bank. i am torn between putting this or the next as number one, so they both are, but for fuck's sake, who are you striking against? strikes are designed to protest government/company actions, not starve your own people. nothing, and i mean absolutely nothing, will come from a general strike in gaza. in fact, it'll just fuck up businesses and hurt whatever tattered economy is left. stop it.

1. blame obama.
this one just enrages me. this attachment to the us, this putting hope on a single person to help, regardless of who he or she is, is the most naive thing i've ever heard. i quote: "obama: fail" (btw fail has burnt out in 2008) and things like "i am angry at myself for being happy when obama was elected". where are those people living? do they think that any single person in the us will act a certain way because of his personal beliefs? have we not learned, over and over, that the us foreign policy has always focused on (a) the acquisition of natural resources (or access to them) (b) the protection of american financial interests and (c) very closely related to (a), the protection of israel. some people think that the us protects israel out of ideological principals. well here's some information, it's all about the money. israel has the us by the short hairs of its balls by controlling key aspects in the government and the economy. a single person, even the president, cannot take any actions against that.
so who can we blame? let's wake up and see things for what they are: the arab and muslim countries are incompetent and lazy, their leaders are corrupt and they're running around in circles screaming their heads off. it's not obama's fault.