Author: rakesh

Dare’s short and sweet post on the Apple iPhone summarizes my two comments on Apple’s product announcement from this week:

1) I find it hard to imagine being happy with the entirely software-based touchscreen interface that the iPhone will offer. I tried a Treo 650 once upon a time and using the on-screen dialpad with my fingers was incredibly annoying, in part because the whole screen is recessed. Of course the Treo 650’s touch screen is really just designed for use with a stylus, so it’s not the fairest comparison. But I’m going to give the iPhone a chance on this one. I’m sure Apple’s done something different through a combination of the touch screen technology and the software. But going in, I am skeptical.

2) Will this thing sync with Outlook and Exchange? I don’t care about email so much because I use the mobile version of Gmail, but having my calendar and contacts synced from outlook is important. Nothing I’ve read about the iPhone seems to say whether or not the device will sync with Microsoft’s stack on the PC, even though it has been mentioned (without any details) that the iPhone will sync with a PC. I’m hoping that Apple is will go after corporate users who will want the iPhone to sync with Exchange/Outlook… considering the high price of the device, it seems like this would be a wise strategy.

I’m not concerned about the issues that I’ve heard about other people sound off about… lack of 3G (I don’t really care because I’ve never had a phone with 3G), lack of removable battery (I don’t think I’ve ever bought a replacement battery for a phone, my phones always die before the batteries do), and closed system — ie no 3rd party apps (the fact that the phone has a browser built-in makes this a moot point, IMO).

UPDATE: Kathy Sierra writes about the iPhone user interface. When I said that I’m going to give Apple a chance on the touchscreen and the UI as a whole, this is why.

I’ve just kicked off about 23 simultaneous export jobs (give or take) from within Picasa — I’m exporting the more than 8,000 photographs that were taken by me, Johanna, and Donnie at my sister’s wedding at the end of December. It should keep my PC busy for a little bit… the question is whether Picasa will crash or not. I certainly hope it doesn’t.

An insightful quotation from Lev Grossman’s Time Magazine write-up on the Apple iPhone:

When our tools don’t work, we tend to blame ourselves, for being too stupid or not reading the manual or having too-fat fingers. “I think there’s almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment,” says Ive. “We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we’re trying to use.” In other words, when our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.

I love the Onion. Today, they have this article on cell-phone TV. Lyor Goldberg, fork-lift operator says: “Big deal. Get back to me when I can watch TV on my cat.”

And in other news, I just heard that while at school today, my daughter Ananya took off one of her shoes, went to the sink, and filled it with water. Because she thought it was dirty and wanted to clean it.

Seems that Yahoo Go TV is no longer being promoted through the Yahoo.com website. It used to be located here:

http://go.connect.yahoo.com/go/tv/get_started

…and now these page redirects to Yahoo Go, Yahoo’s rich client for mobile devices.

UPDATE: This post in the Yahoo forums says it’s a temporary mistake. Possible I guess.

UPDATE 2: As Pablo from Yahoo points out in the comments, Yahoo Go TV is back up and running.

About 8 months ago, I wrote about my switch over to Gmail as my primary work email client. Seems I’m not the only one doing this based on this story in today’s New York Times (which, incidentally, I first read in my car on my Cingular 2125 Windows Mobile phone while I was driving into work this morning and then read again on Google Blogoscoped). The one thing this article misses, in my opinion, is a key reason I made the switch: productivity. Gmail has some massive productivity enhancers that are absent from Outlook and other Windows-based email clients. Conversations, quick and always-works search, effective spam filtering, instant filtering, instant mobile access, and tags are some of the productivity enhancers.

I’m back from CES this year… managed to catch an earlier flight yesterday and got back to Houston in time to catch a great basketball game — Rockets vs. Lakers — last night.

I’ve had several conversations with folks about the show, what I saw there and what was interesting. Katie over at Om Malik’s blog has a good post on the Top 5 Trends at CES. I agree that THIS year’s CES was incremental, but I thought this was in contrast to last year’s CES. Last year’s CES was all about content — Google announced the availability of CBS and NBA content on Google Video, Intel announced content partnerships as a part of their VIIV campaign. Last year everyone was competing to see who could get the bigger celebrities in their keynotes (Yahoo had Ellen Degeneres, Tom Hanks, Intel had Morgan Freeman and Tom Hanks, Google had Robin Williams). Just a few months before CES, Apple had starting making TV shows available through iTunes. Last year’s CES was all about video content deals, and this was big and different news. In contrast, CES this year was only incremental. No big new technologies or products, just people trying to improve their digital devices — higher resolution, more functionality, access to more content, etc. Things that the companies exhibiting hope to improve user experience and drive volume for their products.

🙂

I’m at CES from today until Wednesday afternoon. If you are interested in meeting up, email me or call me at 713 446 7725.

Today, I mourn the death of James Kim.