A Great Story About Apple

I spent the day in a special meeting where we had a former Apple employee share a very interesting story about the development of the original iPhone. It isn't protected by any confidentiality agreements and so I thought I would share it in my blog to help illustrate the point of making proper technology decisions.

Many years ago Apple decided to create a new product called the iPhone. They didn't make phones at the time but had an idea of what smartphones should look like. They had a hardware division that would create the physical device. They also had a software division that needed to build software for this new piece of hardware. The software team had to decide the basic operating system that they would use. One group felt they should take the existing operating system running on their computers and modify it so it would run on the much less powerful hardware. Another group wanted to start with a different operating system that could already run on it.

If you take the short-term approach, there is a lot less work involved in using an operating system that could already run on the planned hardware. The downside is that Apple would then have to maintain separate operating systems for their computer and mobile devices. Taking the long-term approach meant doing more work in the beginning but simplifying maintenance and code updates in the future.

Ultimately the long-term approach won out and proved to be the better decision. This made it much easier for Apple to switch their computers from the Intel platform to the same ARM platform they run in their phones. It also shows that taking a long-term approach opens up more possibilities for future product development.

I Miss My Smartwatch

A few weeks ago I noticed that my watch was having difficulty holding a charge for any length of time. A quick Internet search revealed that the rechargeable battery probably needed to be replaced. I boxed it up and sent it to the Suunto service center in Ogden, Utah. Suunto even provided me with a UPS label so I didn't have to pay for shipping. At least not yet.

The service center has had my watch for 3 weeks now and probably will for a few more as they have a large backlog of devices to fix. I really miss my watch. While it is helpful for telling time, it actually does so much more and so I eagerly await its return.

A lot of millennials don't wear watches because they just look at the time on their smartphones. I figured I would give that a try until my watch is sent back. All I can say is that pulling my phone out to check the time is kind of a hassle compared to looking at my wrist. I don't check it enough and find myself being late to quite a few appointments. For this reason alone, I am thinking of picking up a cheap watch to use until my Suunto 9 is returned. Fortunately a lot of the millennials that have refused to wear a watch have fallen in love with Apple's Smartwatch and have started wearing them. This doesn't explain why they are still always late but let's hope that gets better.

The second thing I have noticed is that I am not exercising as much as I did when I had my Smartwatch. I still try to get out for my daily bike ride but I have stopped taking as many evening walks. The exercise feature of most Smartwatches allows you to track distance walked, steps taken, and pulse. These are all great indicators of how much exercise I am getting and something I track daily. I really miss this information and am thinking about getting a cheap Smartwatch with these features until my primary one is returned.

I used to constantly check my sleep quality when I first started wearing my Suunto 9. Fortunately I have learned what habits contribute to good sleep and don't check it nearly as often as I am sleeping very well. When I don't have quality sleep at night, I know it and adjust my habits to fix it. I guess that is something I don't need in a temporary replacement watch.

My wife is probably tired of listening to me complain about my missing watch. Last night she suggested that I find a temporary replacement until mine is returned. I guess I had better set a budget and minimum features I can't do without. If I use the health features on my phone, I can probably just get a simple watch that is waterproof and tells time. Time to go do some research.

Smartphones at Disneyland

I know it is winter and I never like to leave home during ski season but I spent last week at Disneyland. My son gave his two kids a trip to the "Happiest place on Earth" for Christmas and allowed me and my wife to tag along. As it was our grandchildren's first visit; we had to go. Now that I am back, I can say I didn't mind taking a few days off from skiing. We have not had snow for a few weeks and the mountains could use a fresh coat of paint.

We arrived Sunday evening and prepared for our first trip into the park on Monday. I made sure to print out our tickets as well as the QR codes for our reservations as they are required for the park. I like having printed copies of things but that is the old-fashioned way of doing things. Before leaving home I had also loaded the Disneyland app onto my smartphone and that held the keys to the kingdom (pun intended). All I really needed to do was to just log into the app with the same e-mail I had made my reservations and everything transferred over. That is what my son did he didn't have to worry about carrying a bunch of paper printouts.

For those who have not been to Disneyland in a long time, Fast Pass no longer exists. Instead you have the option of paying $20 per day and getting access to Genie+. That allows you to use your smartphone and reserve a spot in line for most of the rides. We didn't understand that and quickly discovered that not getting Genie+ meant waiting in long lines even during off season when the lines are not supposed to be that long. 

For the second day of the trip we headed to California Adventure. Unfortunately there are not a lot of rides that benefit from Genie+ so we opted not to purchase the $20 feature. In hindsight, I think we made the right decision but I have come to hate standing in line.

We headed back to Disneyland on the third day and once inside the park immediately purchased the Genie+ feature. Then we booked our first ride at Space Mountain right at 9am, when the park opened. As we had a 2-year old that couldn't ride the roller coasters, we then used the baby-swap feature to ride immediately again. That allowed 4 of us to jump to the front of the line, swap a guardian for the little one, and 4 of us to ride again. We probably rode twice as many rides on Wednesday as we did on Monday.

The Disneyland app is not just useful for jumping to the beginning of lines. We used it to discover that the ride whose line we were in had broken down. Sometimes that spurred us to jump out of line and go somewhere else. You can also use the app to order food and have it ready when you go by the restaurant.

I am fairly technical and am not afraid to use my smartphone to its full potential. There are quite a few Disneyland guests that aren't so comfortable with technology and I had to wonder how they enjoyed the park. My guess is they get one of the younger members of their party to take care of streamlining their visit with the help of technology. While I am not a fan of the Disneyland app, it did cut down on a lot of waiting and I appreciated that.

My Wife's New Favorite Trick

I had a rare occasion today where I got to ski with just my wife. I had planned to go hiking and skiing with my son but the place we intended to go did not have enough snow. My son decided to take his wife and just hike with snowshoes instead. So my wife and I woke up at a relatively late hour (I am still fighting jet lag from Japan) and got ready to go skiing. Fortunately we made it to the ski hill just as the lifts started running and discovered a very uncrowded ski resort.

On our 3rd chairlift ride of the morning my wife excitedly showed me her new favorite trick. We had tried to contact my brother when we arrive in the morning but he did not pick up his phone. So on the chairlift, my wife said, "Hey Siri, read me my last text message." Her phone woke up and read her the last message she had received. She didn't have to take it out of her pocket and get her hands cold. She didn't have to press any buttons. She just had to say, "Hey Siri."

I had to admit that I knew about the voice activation feature of iPhones. I also know it works with Android phones. Both require a fairly simple set-up procedure but I have yet to do it on any of my smartphones. Knowing about a feature and actually using it are two very different things. My wife showed a practical application of technology that would save me from very cold fingers. Perhaps I should get around to setting it up.

YouTube Traffic vs. Blogger Traffic

My little experiment with sharing a blog article on LinkedIn has spurred a number of questions. I talked with a couple of my buddies about it at lunch today and they provided some interesting insight. I thought you might find it interesting as well.

I wondered aloud with them as to why people would click from LinkedIn to my blog but not continue on to see any of my YouTube videos. One of them suggested that people will often keep up-to-date on their social media feeds via smartphones. Smartphones lend themselves to viewing blogs much more easily than to videos. You can read a blog on the train or quietly at your desk. Watching videos usually requires some sort of sound output and that can cut down on people's willingness to watch.

Both blogspot.com and YouTube are owned by Google and come with extensive analytics. I thought I would go through and see if my buddy's hypothesis is true. To do that I looked at the platform people use to view the content I have created. Sure enough, the overwhelming platform that people use to view my YouTube videos is the computer. My blog entry I promoted on LinkedIn is most often viewed on smartphones.

This has me rethinking my video content. There are a number of spectacular videos that don't need narration. My favorite ski videos don't have someone talking over breathtaking powder montages. They may have some pumped-up music synchronized with the movements of the skier. Perhaps I need to cut down on the amount of narration I have in my videos.

Playing with the analytics definitely gives me something to think about and ideas to try in my next videos. I have two that I am working on now and make adjustments accordingly. If you have any ideas or comments, please let me know. I am trying to get better at what I do and help from the outside is always welcome. 

New Product Hype

Apple just released some new products this week. A friend of mine caught me in the gym and commented about how the reporting on the iPhone is not really that objective. I had to agree with him to a point. I have come to the conclusion that iPhone reviews come in only two flavors: lovers and haters. Lovers talk about all the merits of the new device and think it is the greatest invention ever. Haters talk about how there is nothing innovative about it and how other smartphones already have those features.

It is important to look at all new product reviews and try to figure out if the author is a lover or a hater. Some reviewers have been burned by products in the past and try to dissuade anyone from buying anything from the manufacturer ever again. Other reviewers are simply looking to get free products and will say nice things about mediocre products.

I have yet to see much of anything about Apple's new phones but am not really looking. I currently have 3 different smartphones and am not in the market to replace any of them. One of my phones is an iPhone SE and it works just fine for me. My other 2 phones are both Android ones and also work amazingly well. Given the $999 price tag for some of these new phones, I'd rather spend the money on a better laptop and get a cheap phone. You may think differently.

There's an App for That

Yesterday I attended a conference in Tokyo and one of the subjects included mobile phone applications. While you can generally use a web browser to access a number of useful websites, some of them provide smartphone applications to custom tailor the user interface experience to better fit the small screen sizes. My personal preference is to use the phone's browser instead of cluttering my phone with a bunch of apps that I rarely use. This places me in a specific category of users. The point of the presentation showed how much you can learn about a person based on their smartphone app usage.

The thing that I found interesting about the presentation is how accurate of a picture can be painted about you simply based the smartphone apps you use. Similarly that same information can be gathered from the websites you visit and how you use your computer.

For most of us, this isn't a big deal as we don't really use our computers for nefarious purposes. For others, this is rather bothersome. Fortunately the examples provided in yesterday's presentation were used to categorize users in to various demographic groups for ad sales purposes. However imagine if someone were to use that information to deny insurance benefits or keep you from getting a new job. It leads me to believe that we all need to be rather careful of our digital footprint. After all, someone might discover you have a clinical addiction to chocolate-chip cookies.

No Substitute for Paper

Recently I headed out with my family for a day of rock climbing. As a fairly novice rock climber, I usually make sure to purchase a guide for the area I plan to climb. Then I just throw it in my equipment bag and reference it before starting the climb. On this particular trip, we arrived at the climbing area just after two guys from California. They started pulling out their climbing equipment and I wanted to check that we were in the right area. They confirmed it and so we parked the car. Next I pulled out my trusty guide book to determine where we should set our equipment to begin our climb. Our new friends from California took a peculiar interest in the book.

A lot of people rely on smartphones to provided directions to specific locations. Rock climbing is no exception. Unfortunately we all decided to climb someplace so remote, none of us had mobile phone reception. The guys from California drove to the correct location based off of stored GPS coordinates but didn't have the rest of the information needed to start the climb. They consulted my guide book and found a nice place to go so we would not interfere with each other. They also took a picture of the guide book page for the area in case they needed more help.

Smartphones and the ubiquitous Internet have really cut down on how much printed information we need on a daily basis. However every once and a while you may find that there is no substitute for paper. I am not sure what our new friends would have done had I not come along with my trusty guide book.

Laptops, Tablets, Phones, and Paper

I have several hours to kill while I wait for my next flight and so I am hanging out in Delta's Sky Club at the Los Angeles International Airport. Technology continues to evolve and so I thought I would look around to do a non-scientific survey of what devices people are using while they wait for their flights. The lady in front of me is working feverishly on her Mac laptop. In fact most of the laptops in here are Macs. About the only exception is the guy to my right with his Dell. However he is using his oversized iPhone, so does it count? In fact the majority of the people in the airport lounge are actually mostly staring at their small smartphone screens. I wonder how many of them are playing Pokémon Go?

I do see one or two women using tablet computers. All of them seem to be reading. Amazingly I don't see a single book out. I wonder if that is because there is a plethora of electrical outlets here, so everyone seems to be taking advantage of them to recharge batteries. Most of the aforementioned phones seem to be corded to the outlets as well.

Finally the older woman to my right has taken over her table with an old-fashioned paper notebook. Papers are spread everywhere as her husband carefully guards a small corner of space for his bowl of chicken chili. In a large room filled with about 50 frequent fliers, she is the only one using paper. Considering the lounge provides a stack of newspapers and magazines for everyone to read, I find that interesting.

As for me, I have my Mac laptop out as I prefer a full-sized keyboard over the simulated one on my phone. Earlier today I completed a Powerpoint presentation for my meetings this week and now want to top off the battery before my next flight. While I know there will be a power outlet by my seat on the plane, it still feels good to have a full battery just in case I need it. I also used my phone to call my wife and talk about her exciting morning without me. Yes technology is everywhere and most of my fellow travelers seem to be taking advantage of it.

The PS4 is Coming

This Friday the PlayStation 4 will be released. I am a PlayStation fan and so it is hard for me to gauge how big this release is going to be. I am wondering if there will be lines around the block Thursday evening with people waiting for units to go on sale at midnight or if nobody will care. I know large number of consoles have been presold before this weekend and Sony believes they are going to sell 5 million units before the end of March. Will that happen or is Sony as overly optimistic as I am?

Smartphones and tablets have changed the gaming industry. Why tether yourself to your TV when you can take a tablet and go anywhere to play games? I work at a video game company, yet I spend a lot of time playing a simple game on my iPhone. Do consoles gaming systems really matter any more?

I will have my new PlayStation 4 on Friday morning and my 17-year-old son has invited a lot of his buddies over that night to play games at our house. We will set up both of our PlayStation 3 consoles in another room to give others a chance to sample our extensive game library and connect the PS4 to our 60-inch flat screen coupled to our THX certified sound system. We will probably crank up the sub woofer so loud we will need to replace windows Saturday morning. I plan to be a fly on the wall Friday night. Only then will I be able to tell if Sony has a success. Stay tuned.

Vacation From Technology

I just got back from a three-day vacation with my family in California. I brought my laptop just in case someone from work needed me to take care of something. I worked late the night before having to get up early for our flight and was sure I would need to fix an emergency while I was away. Fortunately I had some people at work who refused to contact me knowing that I was on vacation. I didn't bother to turn on my computer and check mail. The funny thing is that I could have done so on my phone. I just would have rather spent time with my family.

I blame the girls for ending up at Disneyland. My daughters are 19 and 23, yet they both wanted to go to "The Happiest Place on Earth." It was very crowded and I just assumed that other parents were paying as much attention to their kids as I was to mine. It surprised me as I rode the train around the park and watched parent after parent turn to their smart phones to check e-mail and play with apps. Aren't you there to spend time with your kids? How about talking to your kids instead of looking at cooking class coupons from Groupon?

When you go on vacation, it is perfectly fine to take a vacation from technology. I managed to pull it off and you should too. Your kids will thank you for it later.

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving day and I thought I would jot a quick note about what I am thankful for with regards to technology:

1. The Internet. The Internet is truly amazing. It allows us to communicate with each other over vast differences. We can send e-mails, use Skype to video conference, broadcast messages, share pictures, get directions to Grandma's, purchase Christmas gifts at the lowest cost, and find out all sorts of useful and useless information.

2. Apple. They continue to innovate and make products that really are better than their competitors. That keeps the rest of technology moving forward. If the auto industry had a company like Apple, cars would be significantly better and the world would be a better place because of it.

3. Smartphones. It took me a while to give up my regular mobile phone and get a smartphone. Now that I have one, I find myself being much more efficient.

4. Flat panel displays. I have two on my computer at home and four on my desk at work. They are much lighter than their CRT counterparts and take a lot less energy to run. Go Green!

5. Desktop and laptop computers. Let's face it, without computers, we wouldn't have the Internet. Continual computer development is what made cell phones and smartphones possible. They have also driven the advancements in display technology and are part of the reason TV technology has changed so much.

Yes, technology is great and it is what allows me to have a job. However when you put things in perspective, it doesn't matter at all when compared with the good times spent during the Holiday season with family and friends. So I am off to spend time with the people in my life.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!