Life, Liberty, and Technology

I recently read an article, The Geek shall inherit the Earth, which basically states that non-technical people would be wise to follow the advice of those with technology knowledge. As a technology consultant, I obviously agree that people should seek the counsel of those who have more experience or a better knowledge of something they are not as proficient in. But the reality is that in today’s technology market, people need to be careful whom they are getting their advice from. There is a big difference between a technology “geek” and a trustworthy technology consultant.

In the past, yes, “geeks” were largely responsible for the technical education of the “rest of us”. And I say this as a fellow geek, that time has passed. That was the Old World of Technology, where technology knowledge and decisions flowed from the top-down. That was the era of trickle-down technology, where usually big business and organizations set the direction of technology. The big IT departments were the ones who standardized the technology for their organizations, decided what the employees would use, and ultimately most people in the home would use what they had at work. And honestly, this was not optimal for individuals and small business.

We have now entered the New World of Technology. Consumers and small business owners by and large are no longer waiting for technology to trickle-down to them (and those that do are writing their own epitaphs). Empowered by user-friendly devices and cloud computing, they are making their own technology decisions. Top-down has been replaced with bottom-up. IT departments are no longer dictating end-user technology; they are in fact now being told by their users what they are expected to support (to the great consternation of many in IT). Users are no longer sheep and the geek is no longer the shepherd. This is a good thing, if not a truly great thing.

The danger with geeks offering advice is that too often they only view technology from their perspective, which is a perspective quite unlike that which most people have. As we geeks know, life is a lot different when you have a deep understanding of technology. Tech seems a lot less scary and we are able to do things with technology that most people wouldn’t have the first clue of. However, that viewpoint changes our priority on what features and benefits are important when it comes to technology.

Where we geeks often put a premium on technological specifications such as gigahertz or the number and type of ports a device has, the average mainstream technology user out there could care less about those things. They just want things that work and empower them. We as geeks care to a great degree about the tool itself. Most people don’t care about the tool. They care about what the tool can do for them. We geeks don’t mind some technical glitches or awkward user interfaces. We are comfortable enough with technology where we can just work around little problems. Average users don’t want the tool getting in the way of getting things done. They feel defeated when glitches pop up or are stymied with awkward user interfaces.

For these reasons, it is no wonder many who consider themselves technology savvy are truly shocked and surprised at Apple’s success. Geeks just don’t get the allure of the easy-to-use Apple products and services. And that is exactly why geeks shouldn’t be offering their advice and recommendations to average, non-technical users. Until they finally do get why Apple products have captured the mainstream of society, what they value in technology – and what they would personally use and recommend – in most cases just isn’t relevant to the rest of the world.

It frustrates me to no end when my clients inform me they purchased some Android phone because that is what the sales person at the cell phone store or Best Buy recommended for them. Or because their nephew has one and told them it was “the best”. That’s a geek making a geek recommendation and you are not a geek! Sure, I’ll make more money from them because evidence has shown they’re going to have more technical issues with their Android phone than if they had purchased an iPhone. But I really would rather have clients who are happy with their technology and are looking to do more with it instead of clients who call me because they are frustrated with their technology and need it fixed.

The key difference between a “geek” and a trustworthy technology professional is that trustworthy professional can take their knowledge and give good advice to technology “laypeople”, who almost certainly use technology in a totally different way than they do personally. It takes quite a bit of acumen, for example, to recommend an iPhone to someone who is getting their first smartphone, when you personally prefer an Android phone. You must first come to grips with how the other person uses technology and their comfort level with it, and then match what will give them (not you) the best user experience.

So please, if you are a geek and are asked by a non-geek for a technology recommendation, don’t give them the same advice that you would give a fellow geek. As the old saying goes, if you can’t say something nice, then say nothing at all. When it comes to the New World of Technology, offering Old World advice simply isn’t nice and saying nothing at all would be much appreciated.

* Technically I am a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, which is a Korean martial art. Kung Fu is a traditional Chinese martial art, which I’ve never actually trained in, but I have done my own studying on. Either way, Chuck’s famous phrase was “I know Kung-Fu”, which was the same thing that Neo from The Matrix said. So it just wouldn’t have been the same to say “I know Tae Kwon Do”. And it’s my blog and I can do what I want to so there.

It continues to amaze me what a mess the Android platform is. Take two articles from last month: Android, too complex for its own good and Is Android too hard for the average user to figure out? Both articles highlight points I’ve been making all along about the failings of the Android platform from a user experience perspective.

Take the Nexus 7, arguably the best tablet currently available for the price. When first introduced just a short while ago, Google made a big deal about how the Jelly Bean version of Android finally ran as smoothly as the competition.

What’s interesting about this statement is the fact that Google made a big deal of how this latest version of Android finally runs as smoothly as the competition, which almost certainly means as smoothly as Apple’s iOS. It would seem to me that “running smoothly” is a pretty big deal and should have been something that was done right in version 1.0, not version 4.1. But hey, “running smoothly” is just a little user interface detail. It’s just “polish”. What users really care about is gigahertz, how many ports a device has, and other arcane technical details, right? Wrong.

Regardless of what Android fans say about how technically superior their new favorite Android phone-of-the-month is, the bottom line is that user experience is *everything*. If it had taken Apple 4 versions to get the iPhone “running smoothly”, do we think we would still be talking about an iPhone today? There is a reason that the iPhone spread like wildfire. It was because the average, everyday person finally had a technical device that they could use without the help of a geek. The iPhone just worked and it empowered the user as no device ever had before. It wasn’t because of technical specifications or heavy advertising. It was entirely because of user experience, of which the user interface is the largest part of.

The other large part of user experience is reliability. Unfortunately, the Android platform is no where near as reliable as Apple’s iOS platform. The following is just one example:

That only lasted a few months as Google pushed an update to the Nexus 7 that broke the smooth operation affecting all aspects of the tablet’s performance. Scrolling is herky-jerky in all apps and for general system operation. The biggest improvement in Android since its inception has been broken by Google.

If Google can’t even keep Android reliable on their own Google-branded device, what chance do any of their OEM partners have? Evidence shows they aren’t doing so hot. Again, if Apple had issues with reliability on the scale that Android has had, do we really think there would still be an iPhone to be talking about?

If Android is dominant with respect to market share, why did Apple’s iOS-powered devices wipe the floor with Android when it came to Thanksgiving and Black Friday online shopping?

For all the boasting by Google and Android fans that Android has a larger smartphone marketshare than the iOS, they can’t answer the question as to why the iOS beats Android when it comes to usage metrics, such as web browsing share, app developer profitability, and most recently, holiday shopping figures. Why the discrepancies? For all the claimed marketshare numbers, why does it seem that iOS is the only platform that people actually use? There really is no great mystery to me why Android is a lame-duck platform, and it now finally seems others are catching on.

I think it comes down to one rather simple but key difference between the two platforms. iOS is easier to use than Android. Or, flipping that around, Android is too hard for the average user to figure out.

Can it really be that simple? Does it really boil down to the fact that iPhones and iPads are just so much easier to use than the plethora of Android devices out there? Of course, most technology “experts” would never believe that user experience could play such a factor, but then most of those experts still think they are in the Old World of Technology. In the New World of Technology, ease-of-use absolutely plays a critical factor in technology usage. Now that average people are heavy technology users, it is not shocking they gravitate to easy-to-use technologies, while still ignoring difficult ones. The trouble with most technology pundits (and technology companies) is that they don’t realize just how fine a line technology walks between being easy or being difficult for the average user. The fact that Android is a lame-duck platform should open their eyes to this fact, but don’t hold your breath.

Apple has spent a lot of time and money creating commercials that show its products being used to solve real-world problems. As short and as simple as these ads may be, they give owners — and potential owners — an idea of what the iPhone or iPad can do. That might seem extremely basic, but it gets people to explore the potential of their iDevice.

Compare this to ads I’ve seen for Android hardware, which seem to focus on the device itself rather that what it can do for the owner.

Well, duh. The Android market is dominated by hardware manufacturers trying to differentiate their products from the multitude of other Android copycats. What else can they differentiate on if not hardware specs? Of course, as I’ve said many times, most people don’t care about hardware specs. They care about user experience. As long as Apple is the only company that is truly committed to complete user experience – in hardware, software, and ecosystem – Android will continue to be too hard for the average user.

Fellow guys, I need to let you in on a little secret. When it comes to smartphones and women, I’m sorry to say, size does matter – but it’s not how you think.

We’re being constantly inundated by commercials from iPhone competitors bragging how big their screens are. One would almost think they were watching an Enzyte commercial from how much they gush over how big they are compared to the iPhone. Or that those other phones have a certain type of … umm … envy. The problem is that most people don’t care. Especially women. In fact, large phones can actually be a turn-off to women. Why? Two very simple reasons.

First, large phones are harder to transport. They don’t fit as easily in pockets, they are more cumbersome on hip clips, and they don’t fit as well in purses. But more importantly, women simply have smaller hands! Big phones are harder to hold and use when you have small hands. Pay attention to the people who think big screen phones are desirable. I’m willing to bet that 1) most of those people are “techies” and 2) aside from the rare geek-chick (with large hands?), they are almost all men.

I remember one of the complaints I heard about the iPhone when it first came out was that it was too big! Yes, this complaint was primarily from women, who had gotten used to the slim flip phones of the pre-iPhone era. Now that women for the most part are used to the size of the iPhone, I’ve heard from several women that they don’t want anything larger than an iPhone. I even had a client return a Samsung Galaxy S III because using the phone hurt her hands. Granted, she says she has slight arthritis, but it just goes to show that large phones aren’t necessarily better.

Some people may be assuming that if women like smaller phones, men probably like bigger phones so it just washes out. The reality is the influence women have on the smartphone market is disproportional. To this point, I already wrote that the secret to the explosion of the iPhone and the New World of Technology is women. Because it seems that iPhone competitors are ignoring women, they continue marketing to the wrong demographic! They still market their phones like they are “built by geeks for geeks”. That may have worked in the Old World of Technology but in the New World, it is the average consumer who is calling the shots – and a huge segment of that market is women.

So my advice to the iPhone competitors is to quit bragging about the size of their junk and start paying attention to the things that most people, especially women, actually care about. Things like ease of use, reliability, and overall user experience. Because it really doesn’t matter how big it is if she won’t play with it. And you can take that to the bank.

Samsung has been saturating the airwaves with their commercials making fun of iPhone owners and touting their “S Beam” feature where data can be transferred between phones by touching them. Plenty has been said about how Samsung’s commercials may be offending their potential customers who currently own or want iPhones, so I won’t rehash that. Instead I’d like to point out how Samsung is touting certain features as new and exciting when they are actually worn-out relics from the past.

The commercial that is getting the most airplay shows two people transferring a “playlist” by touching their phones together. Seems simple enough and sort of a neat thing to do. Of course, the fine print shows that the S Beam feature must be configured ahead of time before the touching feature will work. Suddenly touching phones isn’t so easy anymore. Plus, the S Beam feature only works with other Samsung Galaxy S III phones. So it’s not likely that people will even get the opportunity to use it all that much. And let’s not get started on the unanswered security questions regarding NFC technology.

But even ignoring those deficiencies, the whole touching of phones idea just seems backwards to me. We live in the New World of Technology. These devices are phones, for crying out loud! We have virtually ubiquitous Internet access and a plethora of cloud services. The days of needing to physically transfer data went out with the floppy disk! We have far more need to transfer data when we’re apart than while in physical proximity of each other. It’s perfectly fine to have the S Beam option, but to tout it as some amazing new feature – “The Next Big Thing” – is ridiculous!

Similarly, Samsung is also running commercials for their Galaxy Note 10.1 showing off the use of a stylus as “The New Way”. Stylus use is a throwback to early tablets, PDAs, and smartphones. It’s hardly “The New Way”. In fact, consumers have pretty much eschewed the stylus as an unnecessary accessory, something that has to be kept track of and prone to loss. If Samsung is hinging the success of their product on the fact that it uses a stylus, they’d better find a “new way” themselves.

Now let’s talk about something that is actually important to mobile device owners. The Galaxy S III was released in late May and Google released Android operating system 4.1, Jelly Bean, on July 9th. Samsung must have (or should have) known that Google was preparing an OS release that would be available near the introduction of their new flagship phone. They should have been preparing to support Jelly Bean on the Galaxy S III the whole time. However, it wasn’t until October 17th that Samsung announced the Galaxy S III phones would receive the upgrade to Jelly Bean. It took over 3 months for Samsung to officially acknowledge that it would even offer an upgrade for its flagship phone – an upgrade that was made available by Google just 6 weeks after the phone was released. Even then, it was only an acknowledgement that the update would be available “in the coming months” and “the specific timing and update method will be announced by each carrier partner.” Whether this was due to some sort of technical complexity surrounding the Android upgrade process, or that Samsung simply didn’t prioritize this upgrade, it doesn’t speak well of Samsung. Either they are incompetent or lackadaisical … or both.

The bottom line is that Samsung Galaxy S III owners are still waiting for “The Next Big Thing” to arrive on their phones, possibly waiting a total of 6 months or more until Samsung and the carriers get around to releasing an Android OS upgrade.

I tend to think that the ability to bump phones is much less important than say:

• owning a phone that isn’t virtually obsolete the day it is purchased
• waiting over 3 months to know if it will stay obsolete
• waiting about 6 months after an upgrade is available to finally receive it

All this because it takes 3 different companies to coordinate the “specific timing and upgrade method” before an OS upgrade can be released. This is a major problem with the Android platform, but of course you never hear it mentioned in the slick Samsung ads. Compare this situation to Apple, where in just a little over a month of release, iOS 6 was installed on 200 million devices. Regardless of carrier, iOS device owners knew if their device was supported for an upgrade well ahead of time and those who could upgrade were able to do so on the first day of its release. It also appears not many customers care that none of those 200 millions devices came with a stylus, by the way.

So for all the chest-beating Samsung is doing on the airwaves about the little whiz-bang technical tricks their devices can do, they still don’t get the big picture. Phone bumping and styli are relics of the Old World of Technology and most people just don’t care, no matter how many commercials you run.

I write another blog that focuses on technology history, This Day in Tech History. During my research for today, I found that October 12 was the day back in 1988 where Steve Jobs’ NeXT, Inc. introduced their first computer, simply named the NeXT Computer. While the NeXT Computer was never commercially successful, it should be noted that the operating system for the NeXT Computer is the direct ancestor of Mac OS X which was the foundation of the iOS, which of course runs the iPhone and iPad. On the heels of the Lost Steve Jobs Speech from 1983, I thought it was interesting to note that the seeds of the iPad were planted in the 80’s as well.

It is also interesting to note that Steve Jobs said that NeXT Computer was five years ahead of its time in 1988, just as he said the iPhone was five years ahead of its time in 2007. I wonder if staying five years ahead of the rest of the industry was Steve Jobs’ strategic plan for Apple – and if Apple is committed to it now.

After the huge response to The “Lost” Steve Jobs Speech, I took the time to read a lot of the comments people left all over the Internet regarding the talk and the almost prophetic comments Jobs made back then. What I found was that most people were genuinely in awe of the vision Jobs possessed as far back as 1983. However, there were a fair number of people who didn’t share that sentiment.

Real artists ship. – Steve Jobs

Some people want to downplay the accomplishments of Steve Jobs. They might say he wasn’t the first to think of a certain concept or he didn’t invent the technologies himself. But that simplistic line of thinking completely misses his genius. Time after time in his career, he brought products to market that completely changed not only the technology industry, but the world as well.

No, he wasn’t the technical brain behind the Apple I and Apple II. Steve Wozniak was the one who can largely be credited with actually building those computers. But without Steve Jobs’ vision and input, the Apple I would not have been much more than a hacker’s hobby – if it ever came to fruition at all. It would have been just another footnote in the history of technology as many computer kits from that era were. It was Steve Jobs’ uncompromising view of a computer that average people could use that created the Apple II, the world’s first practical personal computer that truly ignited the personal computer revolution. Without Apple’s huge influence in creating this runaway market, the IBM PC would not have happened in the way it did. Without Steve Jobs, the PC industry would have been completely different. Even Microsoft owes its success to the genius of Jobs.

True, he didn’t invent the graphical user interface nor the computer mouse. But while those technologies were languishing unrealized in research labs – research labs of companies that didn’t have the vision to bring them to market – Steve Jobs saw the future. He envisioned a “computer for the rest of us” and set out to make it happen. While the technology industry at first derided the Macintosh as a toy, they eventually adopted the main elements of the Macintosh themselves.

The iPod wasn’t the first digital music player, nor was it necessarily the one with the best technical specifications. But it was the most consumer-friendly device and users flocked to it. If Steve Jobs had stopped there, the legacy of the iPod was that it changed the music industry forever. And that may have been enough for most people.

But Jobs wasn’t done. He recognized that mobility was the next evolution in the personal computer. While most technology “experts” thought Apple was crazy to introduce a phone in 2007, Apple did anyway and completely changed the world – again. But the iPhone was just the first punch in a technology one-two combination. As I recently uncovered, his vision for computing as far back as 1983 was for a “book” device. The iPad was Jobs’ real masterpiece. If the iPhone kickstarted The New World of Technology, the iPad entrenched it – and started closing the door on the PC era.

There is a distinction between leadership and management that many people don’t understand. Leaders provide the vision and set the direction of their organization. Managers carry out the mission that the leaders have defined. Steve Jobs was a visionary. Steve Jobs was a true leader. It is largely irrelevant that Jobs’ wasn’t the first to think of some idea or that he didn’t actually build the devices himself. He put the wheels in motion and steered the ship in the direction that he wanted it to go. Which was often a direction where others didn’t have the foresight or guts to go. Plus his uncompromising attention to detail created products that were more than just good enough. Steve Jobs wanted “insanely great” products and that is what he made sure his company delivered. That uncommon vision is why Apple is the world’s most valuable company today.

While others could talk about futuristic devices or make cardboard mock-ups or design movie props, Steve Jobs made them real. That is his legacy and we are all in his debt for his accomplishments.