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And it’s probably going to sell well. It’s a good phone.

3 days ago on Samsung Galaxy ads a perfect Mac vs PC response?

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They are two totally different people. There won’t be another “Steve Jobs” as there won’t be another Larry.

Steve built success by viewing the world in a very black or white way. Something was either amazing, or it was shit. He surrounded himself with the absolute best he could find and built Apple along the same philosophy. If someone did “shit” work in his eyes, they were gone. When he returned to Apple, he focused the company on a few goals which allowed for hyper focus on only a few products at a time. Save for a few rare examples (MobileMe, Ping, etc), Apple didn’t fail at this. Obviously he didn’t do all the work and had a tendency to take credit from others, but he was able to pull the best out of his employees to make the best products on the market. He was also an excellent presenter, as seen by numerous MacWorld or WWDC keynotes, and could sell Ice to Alaskans. Steve made no qualms about being a dick to protect Apple and Apple’s customers (wanting to crush Android, etc).

Looking at Larry and Google, it seems the exact opposite. They allow for many different ideas and projects at once, pushing for a very diverse work culture. They’re also not afraid to put things out there that will probably fail (services they’ve killed, Nexus Q, etc), something Apple never would have done. Larry has more of an idealistic view of the world, in that Google is a company that can provide excellent tech and services to better people’s lives.

The problem is that Larry won’t admit they’re a business. It’s nice and all to push “Don’t be evil”, but in the long run, their end goal is to make money. They may make that money by being an accessible and fun company, but if anyone encroaches on their space, they will try to crush it as any other business will.

I think they’ll get farther with their message if they admit that and act like it. It’s OK to burn your competitor when they try to burn you. It sounds bad when you try to say you don’t do those things then turn around and do it.

I’m no Apple apologist. I use products from both companies daily and rely heavily on Google’s services. But this fanboy-ism of Google being a saint is not true.

4 days ago on Larry Page as the next Steve Jobs 1 recommend

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You had a fine response. I didn’t see it until after I posted :(.

4 days ago on Samsung Galaxy ads a perfect Mac vs PC response?

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What? Samsung shipped 10 million, not sold to end user.

Shipped means they fulfilled orders from retail stores/distributors/dealers. Those haven’t landed in customers’ hands yet. The store then needs to sell the phone to a customer. I’d assume some of those go unsold, are eventually discounted, or returned to Samsung for stock balance (not sure how they do it).

Apple reports on units sold/activated. Those are in customers’ hands. That is a much more reliable number.

Prime example of shipped vs. sold:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/08/facebook-phone-price/

4 days ago on Samsung Galaxy ads a perfect Mac vs PC response? 2 replies 1 recommend

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I thought the same thing until I impulse bought one with a gift card. Not sure of their price in Brazil, but for $99 it is amazingly well put together. I view it as a way to get my streaming services with my iTunes content in one place with minimal effort.

5 days ago on What makes the iPhone so good? 1 recommend

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Design aesthetics are very important to me, almost on par with performance. If I’m going to be using the device all day And paying a high price, it has to look and feel good. Bad plastic is an immediate dismissal (Samsung). Glass, metal, and functional plastics and rubbers are winners.

Apple, HTC, Nokia, and Sony understand this (and LG to an extent, I love my N4).

5 days ago on looks and design are subjective

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The thing that keeps me from buying anything Samsung is absolutely poor hardware design. There’s no need for a physical button with modern Android and the materials they use for their phones are shameful for a $600+ product.

5 days ago on Android OEMs: Faults 1 reply

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Microsoft was too late to the game.

Apple was the first to make the smartphone business a consumer market and made a big land grab that took existing manufacturers a while to catch up to.

Android came along and offered a similar experience on a ton of carriers with wide manufacturer support. Again, they had high consumer support due to consumer focus (gmail popularity, Google services, etc) while the market was still growing exponentially in 1st world countries. The market was also flooded quickly with cheap devices that were appealing from a cost standpoint to people who would have normally got feature flip phones.

For Microsoft to catch up, they need to create a very compelling reason to switch. With poor app selection and limited manufacturer support, they will fail unless they pump a ton of cash into WP8. They simply do not have enough devices on the market to satisfy the low end smartphone user nor combat the brand power of iPhone.

5 days ago on What Windows Phone needs to do to get a jump on Android

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There are a lot of cool ideas out there but if they’re outside the focus and core knowledge of the company it might not be good to invest a ton of money in it. Cheaper to cut it loose, let them develop it, and license later if it makes sense.

6 days ago on How two Valve engineers walked away with the company's augmented reality glasses

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It’s confusing because MS decided to include something that looks like the desktop. Other than Office, what is the point of having it? It’s a UX nightmare from the Win 8 Start Screen to the Desktop. Pick one and go with it.

MS is trying to say they’re being bold, so be bold. Decide what the OS is for and design it for that purpose.

6 days ago on Windows RT is Windows 2 replies

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Nexus 4 or iPhone 4S. I own both, use both constantly over my day, and have no problems with performance or quality.

The 4S is going to be a bit long in the tooth if a new iPhone comes out this summer/fall, but you’ll probably get updates for a good while.

7 days ago on Which phone - HTC One X , iPhone 4S , LG Google Nexus 4 , Samsung Nexus ?

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I use an iPhone 4S and an N4. While the N4’s camera isn’t as good as the 4S, it was $300 and I realized I didn’t care.

8 days ago on Does everyone who owns a Nexus not care about cameras on a smartphones? 2 recommends

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Pure speculation, but there was a lot going on this past year that could cause some collisions and delays.

With the departure of Scott F. and Ive taking over, I’m sure the previous plans for iOS 7 were scrapped or modified. If any upcoming hardware relies on new software, you gotta delay the device as well or modify to remove that feature.

9 days ago on Why did Apple decide to go 6+ months with no product announcements?

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We had to wait a long time for Spotify to cross the pond so we’ll call it even :).

It’s quite good. It’s obvious Google focused on frustrations with current streaming services and the features really reflect that. The web app is a little jankey, but I’m sure that’ll get better. The app on a Nexus 4 and 7 works great.

9 days ago on Google I/O a disappointment? 1 recommend

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iCloud is just a part of it (there are parts that could be better, especially for 3rd party app support). Google has come a long way with this, but the experience of buying a new device is great. New iPhone, just log in and everything downloads immediately.

As for build quality of PCs, that’s my exact point. There are good products up at the same price tag as Apple. It’s hard for me to switch because I’d basically break my productive ecosystem.

9 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool?

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Because they work well. No other company can sync content between devices like Apple can. Google is getting closer and works quite well, but not the same experience.

I’ve used Mac computers for close to 20 years now and I use software that isn’t available on any other platform. Sure there are fine alternatives (music production) for Windows, but I can’t find a Windows computer outside of a handful that give me exactly what a MacBook offers in function AND form. If I’m going to spend 8+ hours a day interacting with a device, I want it to be comfortable and appealing. Most Win PCs are made of nasty materials and have poor keyboards and trackpads. While the specs may be “similar”, the other important pieces don’t even come close. That may not matter for others, and that’s fine.

Since I use Macs, most of my content is in Apple’s ecosystem. An iPhone and iPad is a no brainer to keep all of that together. They’re good devices as well, and class leading.

That being said, I have to carry two phones. I have an iPhone from work and I carry a personal Nexus 4. I got it because I like Android and wanted to try something different (I have a Nexus 7 as well). I avoided the Samsung Galaxy series because while the specs are nice, the device itself feels nasty and looks horrendous. The Nexus 4 feels great, looks good, has some power, and someone attempted design on it (Nokia and HTC get design as well, Samsung does not).

While you may find some people who bought an iPhone/iPad/Mac because it’s “cool”, I would guess the majority either had a reason for doing so or they had a good recommendation from a friend that played with the brand power Apple has.

9 days ago on Do you buy Apple products because they are new and cool? 1 reply

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This was pretty huge for devs:

- Android Studio
- Big needed features to Play and app management
- Cool map API updates

Consumers got a lot too. The music service works well, I cancelled my Spotify sub this afternoon.

They don’t need to have a major OS upgrade every time and I’m kind of glad they haven’t yet.

9 days ago on Google I/O a disappointment? 1 reply 10 recommends

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Basically any music creation software. Android has some, but it’s limited or very very poor quality.

11 days ago on What are the best iOS apps that are not in Play Store yet? 2 replies 13 recommends

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I’ve seen some slowdown. Nothing drastic (I really only read and browse on it, so it may be more apparent in games).

For a $199 tablet I’m pretty happy.

16 days ago on For those with a slow nexus 7