Yet many of these technological advances would have had a harder time gaining traction if it wasn’t for User Experience (UX).

Apple – The UX company

Apple Computers is a leading UX company – not just through their software, but through everything they do:

• Marketing – Apple started in the music and high-end art / marketing groups and slowly propagated through those channels (where as Microsoft went to the Business market). The channels chosen are more exclusive – i.e. you have to have a good product, otherwise you fail quicker – but conversely, you will be held with respect if your products do hold up and the user experience is great.
• Products – Having owned several Apple products myself, it’s clear that Apple takes great pains to make sure the product won’t fall apart the day after your warranty runs out. From the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac ranges, everything exudes quality.
• Support – AppleCare is a huge success with its’ userbase because they offer straightforward replacement/repair should things go wrong, There’s less of the fine print that goes on with many other warranties, so that when things do go wrong, you don’t have to face getting past a policy or person in order to get things working again.
• Interconnected – If you own several Apple products, you’ll notice they’re designed to work with each other. Got iTunes? Your iPod, iPad, AppleTV can all work from one iTunes repository. You can stream content from your Mac computer to your AppleTV… and the ability to set up all of this is painless.

UX in your Car

As you can see from our Apple example, User Experience permeates everything they do; it’s not an extension of their products and services, it’s part and parcel – there is no separation. In order for the general public to accept a more leading edge technology based product, it must have great user experience and Apple undersands this more than most.

However when we look at the typical car, User Experience has not taken the same strides; That’s not to say there haven’t been advancements and considerations, but they’re more from the extension of the car, rather than being part of the car.

Simple Things Make All The Difference

Take for example heated front windows – if you’ve ever had a car with them and have found yourself in the middle of winter with a frozen windshield, you’ll know how thankful you are that you either don’t have to get out and scrape the window, or sit there waiting for the car to warm up in order to clear the window. I had one a 2002 Ford Focus, yet my current cars (Ford Mustang and Mazda Tribute) do not (and it wasn’t even an option for the Mustang – and I don’t believe it was for the Mazda either). You would think that 10 years on, car companies would have grasped that these types of features would be standard as part of a total User Experience. You can also extend that into other “extras” such as heated wing mirrors, boots/trunks and doors that open and close themselves, climate control, self-adjusting seats/steering wheels, etc.

When you also consider that many people now have their cell / mobile phone as an extension of themselves (it’s always there, always connected, always referred to), that the car should be considerate of this fact and be linked up to the phone – That is to say,  when the driver sits down and plugs their phone into a dock (wouldn’t it be great if docking stations were one size fits all including the connector!?!), or connect via Bluetooth (or similar) it knows their preferences for seating, climate, wing mirrors, the radio presets they favoured, the playlists they liked and connected them so they could make handsfree calls. Not only that, but it would be intelligent enough to use GPS, weather and traffic reports to help the driver understand if there would be any delays etc. and offer alternatives.

“My car already does that”

There are after-market players looking to solve some of these things, but there is no interconnectedness between any two manufacturers. Equally car manufacturers are looking at some / all of these types of additions, but rather than considering the User Experience, they’re addressed as premium extras.

Whilst I believe that there needs to be a premium model line for certain extras, there is no reason why some common user needs aren’t addressed as standard on many cars. And it isn’t just limited to the electronics of cars; simple things like seatbelts that don’t require you to reach back, oil filters and spark plugs that are easily accessible (I had a Buick that had to be hoisted up to access 3 of the spark plugs), folding seats that don’t require you to work out how to use them, storage capability that is well thought out, how the car adapts to you (and feels connected to you) etc should all be part of the Car User Experience. The car manufacturer that acknowledges that is one that will succeed over the majority.

Who Are The Players?

Right now there are a few to watch out for; for total quality vs feature it’s limited to a handful. The one that really stands out for me is Ford Motor Co.; they have worked significantly on the quality of their car and with the introduction of the Ford Sync they lead the way with in-car features. Kia and Hyundai are also making significant advances in their products, but neither has yet to completely adopt the right approach.

That being said, I don’t believe one car manufacturer has yet to embrace UX across all aspects of its’ products. It won’t be long until the public starts to demand a new standard of motor vehicle which integrates with other devices and adapts to the driver/passengers. Time will tell how the motor industry adapts to the new way of thinking; let’s hope given their lack of progress with the internal combustion engine that UX doesn’t face the same trials.

Image via Wikipedia

If you are like me and own an XBox 360 then chances are you either have currently, or have considered signing up to XBox Live Gold. As a recap, XBox Live is a service provided by Microsoft to enable you to connect with others, both socially and in games as well as consume other services like Netflix or Hulu. Microsoft has taken the humble games console and is (iteratively) changing it into a home entertainment service.

There are two flavours of XBox Live; Silver and Gold, with USD$0.00 and USD$50.00 price tags respectively. So why would you pay the premium for Gold?

Reasons For XBox Live Gold

• It provides a more reliable network / service than the equivilant Sony PS3 network (applies to both Silver and Gold)
• It integrates Netflix, Hulu and ESPN (and will also integrate other services such as Comcast Xfinity) – watch content through your XBox!
• It provides a social connection to your other friends – particularly if you all have Kinect, where you can video chat also

Reasons Against XBox Live Gold

• Pay to access the applications for Netflix, Hulu etc – then pay again for each service! Sony and Apple provide the apps for free!
• The member exclusives are generally not great (in my experience)
• Video chat? I’ll stick with one of the myriad of other options elsewhere (Skype, Facebook Connect, Google Hangouts) – they’re free!
• Pay for multiplayer ability? Again, Sony offers this for free
• Listen to personalised music using Zune Music Pass? How about Spotify, Pandora, or countless other music services, many of which have a free option

So should you buy XBL Gold?

Regretfully yes; even if you don’t indulge in multiplayer, Microsoft offer other services which make things convenient (a one-stop-shop), even if you do have to pay for third party services (again) such as Hulu. Also consider that the premium pays towards security of their network and the services they can offer – Sony has had far more issues with the PSN network (e.g. multiplayer gaming “lag”, security breaches, etc).

There are some ways to reduce the cost of XBLG – I use Amazon and typically save $7 – $10 on the cost of an annual subscription

Extra Tip

Don’t sign up your credit card – once MS have it, it’s very hard to remove it (you have to call customer services), otherwise the renewals are automatic.

It’s a beautifully ugly thing

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Flex as a platform; on one hand I found the to be much elegance and simplicity of the architecture – XML for layout; Javascript-u-like for code seemed a fantastic approach, particularly as it opened up the possibility of writing your own Flex app without the need of a $$IDE. However the delivery through what is basically a Flash container always concerned me as it limited the available platforms (no need to rehash why Flash/Flex doesn’t run native on Apple mobile devices).

So Moving Off Flex Is Good?

Strategically speaking this is the right move for Adobe; Using HTML5 + JS….

• Removes the run-time dependencies of Flash
• Creates a wider base of developer community
• Standardises on technology/architecture
• Adds more pressure on the less compliant browsers to man-up (Internet Explorer – why are you even still here?!?)
• Allows touch-capable mobile devices able to consume applications

However there are still challenges:

• We’re back to the browser inconsistency world; implementation of HTML5 is not standard across all browsers
• There isn’t yet one “go-to” Javascript framework implementation or standard

So there are still a few key open issues that need to be solved, buying Adobe some time to continue to support Flex with a view to moving folks to the next big platform. Once could argue that there needn’t be one Javascript framework as we’ve all managed fine for some time – but to have a reference implementation that is open and standard (as possible) would be a great thing.

Should Adobe Acquire?

If I was Adobe I would be deep in discussion already with the likes of the folks who make JQuery, mooTools, 960Grid, etc. with a view to acquisition. These Javascript frameworks have built a reputation of quality and capability which has made many developers lives so much easier.

JQuery would undoubtedly be everyone’s first choice as it has gained popularity in the community and has many extensible attributes and add-ons covering both User Interface elements and mobile device support. However, I cannot pass up an opportunity to mention and often overlooked framework which came out around the same time as JQuery and in my personal opinion, has a some architectural advantages (though cool architectures don’t always make happy users) …. I refer to MooTools. You can draw many parallels between mooTools and JQuery, although the former takes a hit in terms of adoption. There are many “versus” articles out there (here, here, here) for you to make up your own mind. I speculate JQuery will win if only for popularity.

Adobe did try their own framework of sorts (Spry) with limited success; partnering with a JS Framework might be a good first step, but without acquisition or co-ownership they lose control of the roadmap. Producing their own framework might be a bit late in the game, so it stands to reason that obtaining a popular and well supported framework such as JQuery with its’ vast community would be the best thing to do.

So What’s Next?

I foresee a roadmap to a new Adobe application which will allow the creation of HTML5 applications in replacement of the Flex Builder product. It will be a hybrid that takes MXML (layout/UI) and ActionScript (action / code)  and (somehow) compiled /assembled into an HTML5 app. We’re likely to see an announcement over the coming months.

Image via CrunchBase

I made a prediction, like many others a while back that the iPhone 5 would be announced in early October. Others also speculated that Apple would release a cut-down version of the iPhone 4 to grab a bigger market share, called the iPhone 4S. Personally I didn’t agree with that thought as I don’t see Apple as a mid to low tier mobile device provider – not to mention having “bargain” products can have a negative impact on the brand as a whole and Apple has done a ton of work on their brand image.

So October rolls around and Apple announce the iPhone 4S; an updated version of the iPhone 4, but not iPhone 5. The reaction from many corners was disappointment that Apple had failed to deliver after all the speculation of the next big thing. So what happened to the iPhone 5 launch?

“The forces are conspiring against us”

The main factors for no dual launch appear to be numerous and unfortunately and coincidentally timed:

Legal / Supplier Issues

Samsung used to supply many components for Apple; unfortunately Apple were feeling the pressure of very competitive products that Samsung launched (Galaxy S line) and took legal action to prevent Samsung from selling the product (see LA Times article). Naturally this caused a rift between the two companies and as such, Samsung no longer provides parts to Apple. Unfortunately for Apple, there are few other component suppliers who can offer both quality and quantity, so this will have caused disruption in their supply/demand chain.

Natural Disaster

The terrible earthquakes seen in Japan earlier this year also hit production of components – and some of those components were to be used in the new iPhone 5. Component manufacturers needed time to recover from the disaster and this has impacted Apple’s plans for the iPhone 5 production – source: Taiwan News.

Silicon Issues

Producing an LTE phone (which I believe is the intention for the iPhone 5) requires some additional silicon. With current silicon boards, this would mean making the phone bigger/thicker. Thinner silicon technology (32nm) is harder to produce and can yield high quality issues in production). Moving chip production to B-grade component companies has had impact there. It’s also suggested that the iPhone5 would receive a new processor (A6), also to find its’ way into the iPad 3. Again With the lack of a quality producer able to make the silicon in quantities and the expertise that Samsung brought, they’re having to rely on what they can deliver, over what they wanted to deliver – hence the 4S. See the conversation on this topic at AnandTech.

Why did Apple Introduce the 4S then?

The saving grace and probably the most compelling (certainly for me) is that Apple decided to upgrade the camera. To date, many phone cameras lack the quality that even point-and-shoot cameras posses and so any manufacturer to produce a phone that can take great pictures is sure to create a differentiator in the marketplace.

What makes a great camera – it’s not just megapixels

Megapixels do count (no pun intended); The more pixels on screen, the higher the resolution (potentially more detail) – however there are many parts inbetween which can make or break a great picture:

• Sensor – the sensor detects the image and turns it into a digital representation; If the sensor is not great at its’ job you might see purple fringing, poor representation of colour, etc.
• Lens – The lens projects onto the sensor – a poor lens gives a poor image, so no matter how good the sensor, the image won’t be great
• Processing – Time to take the picture and time to process the picture are important. Having a great lens and sensor but each photo takes 5 seconds to take makes taking photographs frustrating

Did the light go on?

The camera set up:

1. press the menu button
2. go down to the pencil
3. go down to #22 which is Built-in flash
4. press ok
5. go down to commander mode
6. press ok
7. Make sure that group A has a Mode of TTL
8. make sure to press OK or it will not save

The flash set up:

1. Turn it on
2. hold the ZOOM and the – button down until the screen changes
3. keep pressing the + button till you see a S shaped arrow. It should say OFF right above it.
4. when you see that press the MODE button. The screen should say ON
5. hold the ZOOM and the – button down until the screen changes again.
6. the screen should have a CH with a 3 above it and the word GROUP with an A above it.
7. now pop your flash up and you ready to go

Having tried the official method of going through Verizon support which resulted in a new (refurbed) phone, only 3 weeks later for the same issue to recur, I realised this must be something else. The good news it is, and is easily fixed!

From your DroidX home screen….

• Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications
• Click on “All Applications”
• Find “Multi-touch keyboard”
• On the next screen, under the “Storage” section, click “Clear Data”
• That should resolve the issue seen.

Having installed all of them, my personal preference is:

• Everyday surfing : Google Chrome
• Web Development : Firefox + extensions

That being said, I also have Opera still installed as I like what they’ve done with it; it’s very much similar to Firefox, with a sidebar which tries to extend the browser functions in the social space, filesharing, etc. Definitely interesting, but not something the masses will pick up.

As for browsers I don’t like? Internet Explorer (any version) and Apple Safari – neither have the usability or capability that I am looking for. What’s your flavour?

In this age of digital media, everyone is taking photos (JPGs), listening to music (MP3, OGG, FLAC), taking videos (MP4, DivX, MPG, MKV) – and there are plenty of other formats for each of those to choose as an alternative. Equally, there are many ways to consume those formats – Desktop, Laptop, tablets, PDA, phone.. the list goes on.

Over time you may come to realise that you have lots of files everywhere (SD cards, hard drives, USB memory sticks, Facebook, etc). – You probably have also wondered how can you organise them a little better so you don’t have to go to one place for pictures, another for music, etc. etc.

If you’ve not heard of NAS (or Network Attached Storage) already then this might be the answer for you!

What is NAS?

A NAS drive is one or more 3.5″ hard drives contained in an enclosure along with some additional bits and pieces to make it more than just a hard drive. For the technically minded, those bits and pieces are a network port, sometimes a USB port (to enable attachment of other USB devices including printers) and typically a micro kernal flavour of Linux allowing some other features such as the ability to automatically download .torrent files, FTP access, user management, etc. If you’re wanting yet more info, check out the Wiki article on it.

The NAS drive connects to your network router and provides the ability to store and retrieve data to (almost) any other device that can connect to the same network. To give you a flavour of just what this means, take a look at the possibilities below!

From this you can see that the potential to centralise all your picture, music and movies is pretty compelling. So what’s the catch?

What’s the catch?

NAS drives are as fast as the network they are connected to and the activity they are performing. For example, if you had 3 people trying to stream 1080p (HD) video on a 802.11B wireless network they are going to have to deal with slow network speeds and (potentially) one hard drive trying to squeeze 3 HD videos down a small network pipe. You can imagine that won’t work well! Also some devices have to do some extra decoding on the fly for certain content (usually video) – again that can add an overhead.

But it’s not all bad, is it?

Not at all – personally I have a single drive NAS drive (Iomega 1TB) which serves as a central store for all my digital content. It means I can share media across any device including XBox 360, PS3, laptops and Android phone. Slight frustration is with Apple mobile products; my iPad won’t connect without downloading (buying) more software or by routing the content via a PC / Mac which would have to be on to serve the content.

What else should I know?

NAS drives can be bought with the capability to house multiple hard drives. The main reason for this is to provide failover should one hard drive fail. You may have heard the term “RAID” – this basically means that whatever is on a disk is mirrored to another disk so that if one fails, the other disk has the same data to provide backup/failover. Read more about RAID here. This means that you could have 2 x 1TB drives with only 1TB of storage space but redundancy for that capacity.

NAS drives should also come as DNLA / UPnP and iTunes compatible so you have lots of options open to you  - many do, but this is just something to look out for.

Also look out for those NAS drives that can act as a Print Server – that means you can connect your printer to the NAS drive and any device on the network potentially can use that printer.

So what NAS drive should I buy?

There are many options; if you have the budget I would recommend getting a NAS drive with RAID, plus drives as big as you’re comfortable buying. Check Amazon, NewEgg and CNET for recommendations – I’ve heard lots of good press about Buffalo; I’ve had a good enough experience with my iomega NAS too.

Like this post? Please comment!

Image via Wikipedia

The number of Android devices spilling from manufacturers begs the question what this means for both the platform (Google), the market (manufacturers) and consumers. It seems every week you hear of another Android device being prepared for launch and in doing so are we heading towards a critical mass?

Google creates a beautiful monster

Google produces the Android operating system (OS) and licenses it to manufacturers, such as Motorola, Samsung and HTC, who in turn don’t have the costly overhead of developing their own OS – instead they can focus on getting the hardware right and other aspects to their product.

On the flipside of this, they are at the behest of Google releasing new and improved versions of Android to keep the ever hungry “next-gen” public satisfied (“Wow! This new version is great! When’s the next one coming out?”). This also creates a legacy question for manufacturers – e.g. should Google releases a new version, this might not be totally compatible with their existing or older hardware. This risk is mitigated in a number of ways, including Google working closely with those manufacturers to ensure the roadmap for their product is understood.

Manufacturers = Android + YMDB?

With so many potential vanilla Android devices, some manufactures provide “value-add” layers on top of Android to become differentiators – or Yet More Dumb Bloatware (YMDB). For example, Motorola introduced “MotoBlur” on many of their phones which aimed to provide a means of streaming your social media site conversations (e.g. Facebook, Twitter). Although this sounded useful, the reality was that many users did not like this “feature” and so Motorola now play this feature down The reality is that many additions to the already very capable software can frustrate users. Mobile carriers take note.

So what is it that drives consumers to buy these products? There are several factors, all of which interact with each other, including consumer profile, retailer conditions (price, availability) and manufacturer features. Let’s delve futher into these before we see how they interact with the mass of Android devices.

Who are the consumers?

Those buying devices today tend to fall into one of several categories:

• Budget Tech – these people tend to know their technology but want a device that’s fit for their budget; they know there will be reduced features (perhaps no camera or HDMI output), but really are looking for core capability (capacitive touch, good processor and memory). Extremely price sensitive.
• The Casual Curiosity / Novice – these folks tend to get seduced by the hype and want to dip their toes in the tablet water. They are moderately price sensitive.
• The Business User – annoyed with the thought of carrying unwieldy laptops and cables, probably hating the in-built trackpad mouse, these users want a device that lets them retrieve emails and work on documents efficiently. These folks are not extensibly price sensitive.
• The Power User – Heavily invested in all things technology, these folks will want a powerful, fast device that’s very flexible (typically they will want to “root” the device, or customize it in some way that makes it more “unique” for their purposes). These people are somewhat price sensitive but will pay premium for advanced features.

Now we have a pretty good picture of the key consumer categories, let’s look at how they interact with the market.

Keep the Consumer hooked, keep the order sheet booked.

Manufacturers tend to focus on a number of key things, including:

• How many units will I sell (what is the demand – and demand vs competition)?
• What is my price per unit vs the competition price for comparable devices?
• What’s in both mine and my competitors’ innovation pipeline (i.e. what’s next)?
• What is my market share? (How much % of the market do I have?)

What Drives Price?

There are several factors including:

• Exclusivity – how unique and desirable is my product (the more unique or exclusive products will drive their price up)
• Features – What feature set does my device have (this can drive price up or down, depending on what features are available)
• Competition – What are the competitive devices and their respective prices?
• Market Share – Low market share devices might want to set their prices aggressively to gain more consumers – or have some strategy that lures consumers to their products; products with high market share should also maintain their prices accordingly to retain that share.
• Production cost – Manufacturers need to make a profit so price their products so that a profit is determined at some point in the future.

When you put these factors together you get a very complex picture – each manufacturer is looking at all these different aspects to try and determine

Breakout of the Mobile OS Share; Source: Nielsen

Although Android commands the market share with 29% of all devices, because of its’ very accessible and successful adoption, many manufacturers are playing in this space

Android isn’t alone in this challenge; Windows Mobile – and specifically Windows 7 Mobile is starting to challenge the market – however there is still resistance to many users adopting the Microsoft platform for many reasons including dislike of Microsoft, being burned by previous Windows Mobile platforms, or just the perception of the OS.

The Difference is the Differentiator

Sounds obvious, but with perhaps little to differentiate products between manufacturers, it requires controlled innovation to succeed. Currently Motorola and Samsung are leading the charge by either producing new-to-market products (Motorola Xoom was first Android tablet) or enhanced products (Samsung offering high quality screens and dual core processors). As the market develops, these manufacturers will need to continue to develop their products to capture the market segments. This requires research & development funding which can only come from existing product sales, which in turn means they will have to charge a premium for their products. This can only be sustained so long as the brand equity is there and the consumer is prepared to pay that premium. With a glut of Android devices this may become an increasing challenge to maintain. Apple (and to some extent, RIM) face less of a challenge in this respect, yet need to keep at least in line with the Android innovations to retain their market share.

In Summary…

Mobile device manufacturers will face increasing challenges to maintain market share and fund / develop new products whilst retaining a unit cost which is realizable to the consumer. Additionally with network providers dropping their unlimited network plans, those devices may have to innovate in the communication space (e.g. reducing bandwidth requirements) which, especially in these increased economic sensitive times, would a differentiator that the price conscious consumer would respond to and help drive market share.

With Android as a platform being easier to adopt to a device, it begs question how will the multiple manufacturers provide relevant devices to the consumer and be different enough to gain enough market share and profit to be viable. I believe there will be three tiers that will emerge – namely, budget, mainstream and premium. Even then, those manufacturers playing in those spaces will face a great deal of competition. The difference then, is the differentiator.

More reading

Google Android 2.4 – What to Expect

They look pretty genuine right? To make matters worse, most PCs are installed with Java, and many versions of Java prior to 5.0 R6 have security holes which can be exploited by some of these programs.

What do I do?

I’ve already written an article about how to get yourself tooled up with some antivirus software – you can read it again here. On top of that I would recommend the following security software:

• Commodo Firewall – has proven to have excellent protection against bad things happening to your registry or trying to execute – get it here.
• PrevX – Small little app to protect you in addition to other software – get it here.
• Microsoft Malicious Removal Tool – If you’re already infected this can help get rid of what ails… Windows 32bit or Windows 64bit (if you don’t know what version you have go to Control Panel > System
• Microsoft Security Essentials – Excellent piece of software from Microsoft – if you don’t have a legit copy of windows, this will catch you out! Get it here.