Archive for: April, 2008

The Apple Magic

Apr 12 2008 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product

One of my favorite web sites is Low End Mac. Be forewarned that this is truly the Mac fanboy/geek paradise, with articles on what to do with antique Macs, antique Mac of the day, profiles of said antique Macs etc.

The website also has very interesting articles about using the new Macintoshes, stories of folks who have moved from the Windows to the Mac world and various opinion pieces.

Charles Moore runs Low End Mac and he has a recent piece entitled: “That Old Mac Magic Isn’t Gone, but It Is Fading” .

He concludes the article by saying:

The Mac is now close to mainstream, and whatever else it is, the mainstream is not magic.

This is really interesting.

Apple has been using the “Think Different” concept in its advertising for many years. The old “computer for the rest of us” slogan from 1984 was just the beginning of that trend. In a way, it was a David-vs-Goliath, support-the-underdog appeal. It was also an appeal to the rebel in many of us: why be like everyone else when you can be different? Indeed, even the recent PC guy vs Mac guy advertisements imply this: the PC guy is dressed up all conservatively while the Mac guy is casual, hip and progressive (in the non-political sense).

This positioning has been effective. Macintosh sales have been very robust, especially among the don’t-want-to-be-like-my-parents, cool-is-everything college crowd. A recent report(from JPMorgan) went as far as to state that, unlike the other PC manufacturers, Apple sales will not be affected by the currrent period of economic uncertainty.

Unfortunately, the end result is that owning a Mac no longer let you stand out as much as before. Futhermore, with the move to Intel architecture, Macs are now even more like the average Windows PC, with the only difference being that the Macs come with a different operating system.

This reduction in “status” can be seen in resale values. In the past, Macintoshes kept their values very well. Owning a Mac was like owning a Lexus.  I sold my two year-old, second-hand 12″ PowerBook for just $100 less than the price I paid for it. In contrast, my fall 2007 MacBook is probably worth less than $800 (almost half its original value). Why? Because Apple sells a refurbished MacBook with slightly more advanced features for less than $900.

The changing perception of Mac ownership and increased market share means that Apple will have to review some aspects of its positioning soon. It will be hard to show that you are “different” if almost everyone else has the same computer.

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Ubuntu: A Windows Vista-wannabe?

Apr 10 2008 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product, The Daily Geek

For the purposes of work, I just installed Ubuntu 7.10 Linux on a Parallels virtual machine on my MacBook Pro.

For some strange reason this morning, the Ubuntu virtual disk was just going on and on, spinning away and responsiveness was near zero.

Running “top” showed that a daemon called trackerd was eating a bunch of CPU cycles.

A quick search on Google revealed that trackerd indexes your hard disk for quicker searches.

Does that sound familiar?

Anyone who has encountered Windows Vista would have seen that same problem: the total lack of responsiveness in the user interface while the hard disk chugs away.

One would think that the Linux folks are generally more “progressive” than the people at Redmond.

But nooooo! As they say:”Fools seldom differ”.

OS X Leopard also has the same problem.

I think the issue is that no one in a product development organization goes through the end-to-end experience of an average user. Usually, someone has a machine all set up and all he does is to plunk in new binaries and run them.

On the other hand, the average user has a brand new computer and has to go through all that initial set up (and indexing à la trackerd/Vista).

So development organizations have to sit at the place of the end user and really examine every step the user goes through. Only then will their products be really user friendly.

I am still waiting…

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Apple: Surprising the user

Apr 10 2008 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product, The Daily Geek

And I am not referring to that blue screen of surprise that earlier versions of Windows are famous for.

Increasing numbers of people are shopping online. Usually, at the end of the shopping process, after you have entered your credit card information, you get a web page that confirms your purchase and includes any additional information to track or use the purchase e.g. order number, software registration code.

Common sense tells you that you should print out the web page and save it “just in case”.

Trouble is, you either end up with yet-another sheet of paper to misplace or you are at the airport with no access to a printer.

Here’s where Apple continues to pleasantly surprise.

OS X has always had the ability to print to PDF files (unlike Windows). This means that you don’t need to fork out mucho $$$$ for a copy of Adobe Acrobat to generate PDF files.  All you need to do is to print the document and then select the option to route the output to a PDF file.

With Leopard, Apple has gone one step further by automating the creation of the PDF file and where to place it. See the screenshot below.

If you just made an online purchase, all you need to do is to print out that last order confirmation page, click on the PDF button and select the “Print PDF to Web Receipts Folder” option. The confirmation web page is automatically converted to a PDF file, and saved to that folder, which is found in your Documents folder.

The screenshot below is of my online registration for the Santa Cruz Wharf-to-Wharf race. The PDF file is saved as “SignMeUp.com – Payment – Wharf to Wharf Race 2008″. How is that for a totally meaningful file name?

Rather than spending years coming up with a whiz-bang Windows Vista equivalent, Apple concentrated on features that actually makes sense to the average user. That is why as I continue to use my MacBook Pro full-time (work, school etc), I continue to be amazed at all the new stuff that I can do.

When Windows tries to be smart, it feels paternalistic: that it knows better than you and you spend time arguing with it.

OS X, on the other hand, makes you feel smart because you can now do all this new stuff!

Export to PDF

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Anthropology and the Notebook Computer User Part 2

Apr 07 2008 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product

In a previous article, I talked about how notebook computer users don’t really care how long their notebook batteries last. This was because users will plug in the AC adaptor whenever possible, thereby making these notebook computers nothing more than portable desktops.

Here is another observation: many notebook computer users prefer to use an external mouse instead of the touchpad or pointing stick that comes built into their computer.

Why is that?

I asked one such person whom I have observed rolling an external laser mouse on a sofa. Her response was that it was easier to use an external mouse.

So the question is this:

Is there an inherent usability problem with the touchpad/pointing stick?

The question is interesting because its answer may indicate a business opportunity.

Here is a non-rigorous validation:

Every notebook computer comes with a mouse device. Yet, travel(small size) mice are popular items at computer stores.

I would assume that these travel mice would only be used with notebook computers.

I don’t know what new innovation can make notebook pointing devices (touchpads/pointing sticks) more usable. Apple’s multitouch is probably not a solution. I have it on my MacBook Pro and have trouble using it. One reason is that I don’t remember the gestures: think Palm Graffiti language.

So if you are reading this, start thinking. There is an entrepreneurship opportunity here somewhere…

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