iMessage has been out for a couple of weeks. It’s transparent, so I don’t really seeing any real impact yet. Don’t get me wrong. I know my SMS quota will intact by the end of the month.
Now, the next thing that I’m anticipating is iMessage coming to OS X. iMessage is instant messaging. It should and has to be on the desktop.
I was reading an article in the papers today about Google saying Siri is competition to their search business. This is something that many people have been talking about, i.e. Siri changing the paradigm for internet search etc.
In my opinion however, what Siri really threatens is Google’s advertising business.
For those unfamiliar with Google’s advertising business, Google basically has 2 products, namely Adsense and Adwords. In Adwords, advertisers bid for keywords and air their advertisement on websites that displays Google Adsense. Google decides what advertisement to display based on user’s history, keywords on that user search etc. One problem with this model is that users are searching for contents and information, not the advertisements.
In Siri however, the search is very specific. If I tell Siri I want to get a pair of shoes, Apple can throw very specific advertisements to me. The conversion rate and effectiveness of the advertisement is significantly higher because Google Adsense is very passive compared to Siri. The advertising experience become personal rather than guesswork in Google’s case.
Apple has not done targeted advertisements yet in Siri’s search results, but I think they would do so soon as Siri matures more over the next few months. When this comes, Google’s going to be in an awkward position since their main revenue source is from advertisement. Bear in mind that Facebook has already splitted a portion of the pie, so Google is going to lose more should Apple grow the advertising business.
A friend posted this article on my Facebook wall.
http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support
This article talks about how the various generations of Android phones are left behind while newer phones get the latest Android.
I don’t to leave this open-ended and have people think that I’m an Apple fanboy. I’m a Linux admin and I have been using Linux on my office laptop for a very long time. So why iPhone and not Android phones?
I have never owned an Android phone. The number 1 reason is that I dislike the customizations that the individual phone makers do to the OS. The implication is that certain models will be left behind in the upgrade process. We have been this in the Windows PDA phones in the past. Because of the difference in hardware, there’s tremendous effort for the phone makers to ensure that every single model runs the most current OS. So the easy way out is to leave them behind. I forecasted this since the very first version of Android and I have been proven right all these while.
So came the Nexus One. Google supported, plain vanilla Android. I was actually contemplating getting that but I chose the iPhone 3GS. Why? My choice was very much affected by my experience on the Mac.
While I still use Linux on my office laptop, I find myself doing most of my work on my Mac. I bought my first Macbook in 2007 and after using OS X, the impression was: It just works! No tinkering. No fiddling. I don’t getting into the situation where I need to solve the machine problem even before I get down to doing work. It’s a lot of time wasted.
Similarly on the iOS, a lot of things just work out of the box. One example was configuring of L2TP over IPSEC VPN on the iPhone. It takes less than 2 mins to get the iPhone setup and connected. 3 steps to get to the configuration screen, enter configuration details and we are done. My colleague tried it on their Android phone. The first phone took us close to 10 mins to figure out how to configure the connection. He later gave up his Samsung Galaxy for a new iPhone 4.
Now Google has announced that the Nexus One is not getting the latest OS. To fair, I haven’t read the details and I’m not sure what’s the rationale. But if you look at the chart, even the iPhone 3GS gets iOS 5. While some features are not available, the major key enhancement are made available to the 3GS user. They are not left behind.
I was thinking of getting the Nexus Galaxy actually after looking at the features of Android 4, but it looks like my next phone will still be a Apple phone after all.
My 2007 Macbook has been sitting idling since I got my new Macbook Pro in September. The old Macbook has a 500GB hard disk and tons of junk inside, so I have been waiting for reinstall OS X from scratch.
Apple has this Internet Recovery feature now with Lion, where we can install Lion from scratch without the use of a DVD like the older OS X versions. Since the intention is to clean up the hard disk in my Macbook, I decided to have a go at Internet Recovery.
To start the recovery, press Command+R and boot up the system. The system will come to a screen with a few options to choose from.
My hard disk contains at existing OS, so I have to go to “Disk Utility” to erase the target partition. If it’s a new disk, just go direct to “Reinstall OS X Lion”.
The recovery procedure will connect to Apple and verify the validity of the machine. Apple ID is required, so I think the procedure validates if a purchase been made from the App Store. So, for those who did not get a copy of Lion from the App Store, I suspect the recovery will fail or you might be prompted to purchase Lion on the spot from the App Store. By the way, the recovery can be done over WiFi.
The recovery downloads the packages from the internet, so the internet connectivity is important. I’m subscribed to the the M1 Fibre Broadband at home, so I’m downloading at about 35Mbit/s. The package is 3.79Gb, so the download takes about 30mins.
Once the download is complete, my Macbook reboots and starts installing the OS. This takes another 20mins or so.
After 1 hour, I have a spanking clean OS X Lion on my 2007 Macbook. Thumbs up for Apple!
I’ll just like to share my 2 recent experiences with Apple’s Service Centre and why they have convinced me to continue using Apple products.
Like many people, I own a couple of Apple devices, from my first Macbook, to my iPhone and iPad. In general, the products have not given me much problems. In August last year, my Magsafe adapter decided to quit on me, after about 2 plus years of very rigorous usage. I bought another adapter from the Apple Store which unfortunately broke down after a couple of months. There’s this Authorized Service Centre near my office so I popped by and checked if they could repair the adapter.
At the Service Centre, the staff went through the usual procedure to check etc. I was expecting them to take in my adapter for repair then. The folks there checked the serial number from the adapter (yes the adapter has a serial ) and managed to verify from their system that the adapter was less than a year old. So, what did they do? They gave me a brand new adapter on the spot. No questions asked. I was impressed.
Just yesterday, I went back to the same service centre to send in my iPad. The iPad screen was not sensitive at times and it would hang intermittently. I was trying hard to replicate the problem before going up to the service centre, but it just wouldn’t hang when I wanted it to do so so badly. The staff again, went through the usual checks for cosmetic damages and took in the iPad. They explained to me that they did not keep spares there and they had to send the iPad to the HQ at Ang Mo Kio for diagnostic. They also told me to expect 3-5 days for troubleshooting and processing.
This afternoon, I got an SMS from Apple. My iPad was ready for collection. Impressive right? 24 hours and they got everything sorted out. No haggling with me on repairs, no holding on to my iPad for weeks. They simply replaced my set. It’s clearly a refurbished set, but there’s no cosmetic damages. From what I understand refurbished units get new batteries.
Frankly speaking, after years of buying gadgets, I have yet to come across such painless experiences with Service Centres. I’m sure many will agree with me. Next Apple product, Macbook Pro. :)
The Service Centre I went to is:
Micro2000
138 Joo Seng Road
#04-03 Trivec House
Singapore 368361
Tel: +65 6295 3998
Fax: +65 6487 3179
A friend wrote a long piece on why he thinks Natural Scrolling in Lion is the way to go, complete with illustrations on his theory. I particularly like his analogy of pulling pieces of paper down to your lap and you eventually run out of space.
So, is it ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’? You decide!
http://miniliew.blogspot.com/2011/07/macos-lion-natural-scroll.html
Some friends complaint about the Natural scrolling feature this morning. It’s now consistent with iOS where it goes in the direction that your fingers swipe. This is great for web browsing but terrible when using applications like MS Excel. Everything goes into the opposite direction of where you intended the mouse to go.
Anyway solution is to disable the scroll if you can’t get used to it.
I got on the Lion bandwagon this morning like all the other excite Apple fans. Prior to this, I did a backup with Time Machine. Can afford to lose anything except for my photos.
1. Downloading the 3.7Gb package was a breeze. I have a 20Mbps link that maxed out during the download. Apple did their content distribution as usual with Akamai, so I was able to download from a local server.
2. First boot was slow. I’m using a 2007 White Macbook with 4GB ram, so I was quite skeptical about the performance, so much that I’m ready to fallback to Snow Leopard if the speed is intolerable. The worry was unfounded. After the first boot, everything speed up subsequently, even faster than Snow Leopard. I’m amazed how Apple can do this, speeding up OLD machines with NEW OS update.
3. I don’t have multitouch, but I’m not left out totally from the new LaunchPad and Mission Control. Apple lets you configure Hot Corners from the Mission Control Preference. No need to even think about it. Apple had it all figured out for their customers.
Mission Control and Hot Corners
4. The full screen Chrome and Safari needs some getting used to, but it’s a nice feature.
5. Disk IO seems to be reduced. I can’t quantify it, but I can feel that applications are loaded faster if they have been opened before in the same session.
6. One last important thing before I end my post. After downloading the package from Mac App Store, you can actually hijack the installation package in DMG package format. This package can be written into DVD for installation without going through App Store. You can also copy the package right into the target machine and perform the installation. I’m not suggesting any form of piracy though. The main reason for me doing this is to save the downloading when I install on my other Mac. It’s just $29.90 USD. I would have paid for Windows in the past if they didn’t sell it at crazy prices. The instructions are here.
These are observations for the time being after 12 hours of use. Hope the information here is useful for people who are skeptical of upgrading.
One of the first painful things when switching to a new mobile phone is migrating the contact list, especially when you are switch to a totally different brand or platform. Last week I got the iPhone 4 for my wife as Christmas present to replace her Nokia E71.
Prior to the switch, I have already configured the E71 to sync her whole phone book to Google. We are using Google Apps Domain, which is Gmail and all the whole suite of Google Apps, but using my own domain name.
The telco was pretty efficient in activating the micro sim for iPhone 4, which is not expected. We were at the mall and her old SIM card got deactivated and the new card activated, barely one hour after signing up the mobile package. The staff told us it’s going to take 6 hours or more to have the new sim card activated. I’m not complaining though.
Under normal circumstances, having the old sim deactivated means she had to lookup her old phone for contacts and key in into the iPhone if she’s trying to make a call or send a message. What I did was I configured the iPhone to sync with Google on the spot. Within mins, her whole phonebook was downloaded into the iPhone from Google and the phone is fully functional. No PCs and sync software involved. Cool?
This means I can switch phones anytime, as long as the phone supports ActiveSync. Google has implemented ActiveSync for syncing Email, Phone Book and Calendar. Both Nokia and iPhone supports ActiveSync.
Here’s more information on how I did it.
http://www.google.com/mobile/
When the promotional video finally lands on the iPad, Motorola zings Apple by saying the iPad is nothing more than a giant iPhone.
Well, all the crtitics can keep laughing and making fun of iPad, but Steve Jobs has the last laugh when he sits down to count the tons money he made from selling the product.
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/20/motorola-calls-ipad-a-giant-iphone-in-honeycomb-teaser-video/