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How To Fail, By Google Voice

// March 17th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // annoying, communication, stupid

This week’s episode of ‘How To Fail’ is brought to you by Google’s new Google Voice service, formerly (currently, for me) known as GrandCentral. Google purchased Grand Central in July 2007, nearly 2 years ago, and promptly did nothing with it (unsurprisingly). The service has been active for existing users, but new registrations were closed off, and beta invites were removed, as well. There have been no new features, and I’ve even seen a few things disappear, such as the easy way to begin a phone call from the web interface.

Last week, on March 11 2009, Google announced that GrandCentral had become Google Voice! Finally, some action, with new features, including the much-needed SMS support, and a new voicemail transcription service! There was much fanfare, with several video walkthroughs posted and everything. Sounds great, right? Yeah, unless you’re one of the unlucky users still stuck with GrandCentral.

That’s right, despite having 2 years to get things ready, there are still, 6 days later, users left without the update, staring blankly at the same GrandCentral interface we stopped using a long time ago (though I use the service almost daily, I don’t login to the web dashboard ever). We do get a nice plain banner, though:

That’s it. If you click the ‘Read the blog’ link, you’re simply taken to the Google Voice announcement post, as if to tease you a bit more. Jerks.

For those folks reading this blog, here’s what NOT to do when you launch a service, or upgrade an existing service:

1. Announce it with big fanfare, but with randomly limited access.

2. Not offer any information about why a particular user might have been left out. Even something stupid like, ‘We’re starting with user #1, and you’re user #2562348, so you might have to wait a bit’ would be better than just ‘sorry, not yet, keep checking like a dork, thanks.’

This is just a big fat FAIL, there’s really no other way around it.

Update: Not long after posting this, I received a comment from Vincent at Google Voice, letting me know my account had been updated. While that doesn’t change the prior situation, it does make me happy to know that Google is actively keeping up with conversations being had around the web about their products. Excellent way to handle an already bad situation, Vincent.

Irony At Its Finest

// February 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Mobile, stupid, technology

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I don’t pirate stuff. Obviously, I have OS X running on a Dell Mini 9 (though I would argue that’s different, another post for another day). You can follow me online all day long if you want to get more details than that. In any case, I *do* get bothered sometimes with the stupidity of humans, and today that reached a new high, adding arrogance to the mix. Here’s the setup:

There’s this developer, who created an application. This application’s sole purpose is to ‘crack’ the various applications found in the iPhone App Store, so that users can access them for free, when they should be paying for them. It’s not like iPhone apps are expensive, most are under $10, and there’s apparently a major selection of $.99 apps. So this guy writes an application that is designed to discount all these developers’ hard work. Nice.

The great irony, then, is that some other dude comes along, sees that the original developer didn’t register any of the ‘Crackulous’ names around the internet (crackulous.net, the crackulous username on most social networking services, etc), and is charging folks $10 for the application. Even better, he’s spreading the word that sites offering the application for free have probably inserted a virus or something in it, and to report them immediately!

As you might have guessed, the original developers are pissed. Pissed because someone is now working to prevent them from benefitting from an application that they worked hard to create. Wait, what’s that? The very application THEY’RE fighting for is designed to also prevent the original developers of iPhone Apps from benefitting from an applicaton that they worked hard to create?! You really can’t make this stuff up, folks.

The folks at Gizmodo had an interesting conversaton with the developer, as well.

The moral of the story, though, is if you create a product, before you launch/release it, make sure you’ve registered all the domains/usernames that would be appropriate.

MSN Music UK Is Ignorance Defined

// January 21st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Mobile, stupid

Today, in the ‘stupid’ category, I present MSN Music UK, which just started offering mobile music downloads. Sounds cool, right? Who wouldn’t want instant access to over 1 million tracks, 25,000 ‘realtone’ ringtones, and even 10,000 music videos? Well, for starters, me. I don’t, not at these prices, and with these restrictions.

Let me spell this pricing out for you – first off, it’s all DRM’d. DRM stands for Digital Rights Restriction Management, and basically makes sure that you only play back your media on specific devices. Imagine if you bought a CD, but it would only play in the car you were driving when you bought it. To play it in your friend’s car, or in your home stereo, you would need to purchase a new copy. Completely silly. With MSN Music’s new tracks, they’re DRM’d to only play on the DEVICE you bought it on – yeah, that’s right, you can’t even back it up on your computer to play back there, or move it to a new phone without paying.

So, now that we understand the ‘freedom’ in the music, surely it’s cheap, right? Wrong. You’re looking at 1.50 GBP for each full music track, 3 GBP for each Realtone ringtone, and 2 GBP for each music video. Wait, what?! Yes, you would pay twice as much for the ~30 sec. ringtone than you would for the whole stinkin song. Amazing.

Now that we’re apalled at the pricing by itself, let’s compare to some other online music stores. First up, the requisite iTunes: .79 GBP per track, with DRM that allows for multiple devices and computers. Nearly half the price of MSN Music. Amazon.co.uk is as cheap as .59 GBP, and those are actually straight up DRM-Free MP3s, you can play them on nearly whatever you want.

Anyone noticing a trend, here? It sure looks to me like DRM’d music is MORE expensive, increasing with the level of restriction. Amazing. MSN Music U.K., you’ve failed. Miserably. And you Brits out there, if any of you purchase anything from MSN Music, you’ve failed, too. Congratulations.

Gizmodo Wants The iPhone Pro, AKA The Nokia N97

// December 29th, 2008 // 16 Comments » // Mobile, stupid

I came upon this post from Gizmodo, one of the leading technology blogs out there. They’re unabashedly huge fans of the iPhone, but thought of a few features/aspects that the current iPhone lacks, that they would like to see, and so they created the iPhone Pro.

Features of this desired ‘iPhone Pro’ include a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a high-resolution camera with flash and video capture, and a high-resolution widescreen (16:9) touchscreen display. They also want a front-facing secondary camera for vide0 chatting, and gobs of internal storage. Sounds great, right?

So great, in fact, that Nokia already designed it, and announced it a few weeks ago. It’s called the Nokia N97. It features a 3.5″ 16:9 widescreen display (bigger than the current iPhone’s, actually), stereo speakers, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It also packs a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics. The N97 can capture video at 640×360 resolution, which is somewhere between VGA and HD quality, I believe. It’s also got 32GB of internal storage, with a microSD card slot, so you can load up even more.

However, because they’re a leading publication, they can’t, not for a minute, admit that perhaps they desire a Nokia product over an Apple one. That would just be dorky, right?

n97_vs_iphone_pro

A Guarantee Of What?

// December 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // marketing, stupid

Guranteed?

I’m not sure if you can read the sign on the back of this bus, but it says, ‘Exam within 15 minutes of your appointment, Guranteed.’ It’s for a Diagnostic Imaging office, promising prompt service. What struck me as odd is that there’s no explanation of what happens if you *don’t* get your exam within 15 minutes. Do you get it free? What if your insurance was covering it, anyways? You get a lollipop? Perhaps a free surgery?

What is a ‘guarantee’ worth, if there’s nothing offered in case it’s broken? While this is a great marketing idea, it really offers very little value to consumers. It’s also slightly misleading, similar to the car dealerships who promise that they will not turn you down, regardless of your credit. Sure, they won’t turn you down, but don’t expect a realistic interest rate, either, especially if you have the type of credit those ads typically attract.

So then, what is the purpose of a guarantee that’s not backed by something?

Sacrifice For The Relationship

// November 14th, 2008 // No Comments » // annoying, marketing, Mobile, stupid

I’m an S60 fanboy, and I don’t have a problem admitting it. I’m rather proud of it, really. To be fair, I’ve used every other smartphone operating system on the market, save for Android. I’ve used a Palm, several Windows Mobile, and even a BlackBerry and the iPhone (which isn’t really a smartphone, imo, but that’s another can of worms). Think about those other operating systems, though. Picture them in your head……think about whatever experience you’ve had with one of them.

Now, save that and study the image in your head. Chances are, there’s a distinct image. With WinMo, it’s likely that little flag thingy, and if it’s a Palm, you’re likely seeing a big orange circle. Android brings that cute little robot/alien thing to mind, and the iPhone looks like…well….an iPhone.

So what about S60? What is there that’s ‘familiar’ about S60, that you can bring to your mind when you think about it? Not much, is the truth, specifically if you’re in the U.S. Is that cause there’s no S60 on the market (read = offered through a carrier) here? Probably. However, the last few S60-powered phones to hit AT&T, you probably wouldn’t realize they ran S60 anyways.

Nokia/S60 has a problem with AT&T, and have been succumbing to the carrier for a few years now. I’ve owned the E62, N75, and now the 6650, the last three S60-powered cell phones offered through AT&T. What’s annoying and frustrating to me is that these phones don’t really resemble my unbranded S60-powered smartphones much, visually.

For instance, on the 6650, the Nokia Download! app is nowhere to be found – it’s been removed completely, along with the convenient Switch application that makes it easy to swap between phones. Not only that, but most of the icons in the menu have been changed, and there’s no option to change them back. This 6650 has no less than 10 applications preinstalled that I, as the user, cannot uninstall.

One feature that I rather like about S60 is the ability to reorganize the main menu as I see fit. I have a very specific layout that I like to use, to keep things in the same place on all my phones. Unfortunately, AT&T coerced Nokia into allowing them to hardwire certain applications not only to the main menu, but in the exact position on the main menu.

How frustrating! And how is S60 supposed to grow its market share in the U.S. if it keeps allowing others to overtake it, and coerce it to do things that it’s not designed to do, such as limit the user? How is S60, and soon, Nokia, supposed to build recognition and brand loyalty if they don’t stand their ground on the very features that make them stand out?

Am I the only one that sees a major identity crisis here, with S60?

Verizon’s CEO Is An Idiot

// July 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Mobile, stupid

Wow, and people wonder why CDMA handsets and networks, in the U.S., are so locked down, and why I’ll stick with GSM regardless. Here’s a recent interview with Ivan Seidenberg, that’s the CEO of Verizon, proclaiming that mobile carriers will be able to resist turning into dumb pipes by locking everything down so that consumers don’t have any choice but to use in-network garbage.

As someone who’s been happily using AT&T’s data network with unlocked/unbranded Nokia S60-powered smartphones – and paying them monthly for unlimited access, I can easily say that with this guy in charge, there’s no way I’d sign up for Verizon’s service – period.

I do believe that this is the same CEO who sounded shocked a while back that someone would expect their mobile phone to work inside their home. Yeah, he sounds like someone I’d want in charge of my mobile network……