apple

Why Google is Winning

Google is winning because it works.  People like things that “just work”. 

Let’s look at home computers.  They have become more complicated and error prone.  This has to do with Viruses, half-baked software, Microsoft engineering, and too many options on hardware.  Users get frustrated when their IT friend says, “Just buy a new PC from Best Buy”.  The answer is usually upgrade the hardware, wipe the drive, put better virus software on…. But the answer to “just make it work” is get a new PC.  Wonder why a lot of people are trying the Mac?

How about Google?  What “just works”? For an experiment I tried the Yahoo search bar in my browser first for two weeks. After a few searches I usually reverted to Google, and got what I wanted on the first page of results.  Today I’m switching my default search bar back to Google.  Remember “just works”?  Try putting “buy Mark lunch next Friday” in your Google calendar.  Yes, it will figure it out.  Google Calendar “Just works”. 

Rather than wrangling over features and functionality I’ve started just asking the question “Does it just work”?

What’s Wrong with the iPhone?

Apple is what is wrong with the iPhone. Apple tightly controls several aspects of the phone. The software development interfaces don’t allow you to access some of the core data on the phone. This means you won’t find a great replacement calendar in the App Store. In addition, Apple also does not allow programs to run in the background while the phone is off. This means that 3rd party programs can’t trigger your phone to awake if a new IM message appears or you reach a specific GPS coordinate. Forget about taking “Remember the Milk” to a whole new level by alerting the user when they drive by that convenience store on the way home!

If Apple had done a better job at some of the core programs this might not have been as big of an issue. The calendar program is attractive but is very lacking. I’ve listed a few items below:

  • Calendar Entries cannot be emailed. This was a real let down for me.
  • Calendar has almost no settings that can be changed. I’d love a default 15 minute alarm. Wouldn’t you?
  • No task list integration
  • No iCal support for external calendars, this should be simple
  • No OTA calendar synchronization

If there was an open API in this area, and you could convince Apple to put the program on it’s “App Store” there would be an answer overnight.

The second big issue is programs running in the background. Apple might have some good reasons for this but certainly there is a way to provide a hook or some rules to “protect” the platform. Even Windoze Mobile programs could do this (ouch). Let’s say I download a great streaming music program and want to browse the web or read an ebook. Not on the iPhone. Only the Apple iPod program can play music in the background and they don’t support streaming audio!

Apple please don’t forget that the “open market” principles work best on your platform and App Store too!

Great Commericals.

Apple has great commercials. The PC/Mac guy ads are always good for a laugh. Here’s one if case you haven’t seen them.

I recently got an iMac, 20″ LCD screen. I’ve mostly liked it. I’ve had problems with some of the graphics I created for my friend Steve’s website. The top graphic has a background with a slight gradient that looks great, except on my Mac. On the Mac it’s invisible. I assume it’s something about the Safari browser at first, but then FireFox on the Mac has the same display problem. I’m baffled. Maybe my windows graphics program creating some magic windows-only jpeg image!

Then coincidentally my friend Brian tells me about the new class action lawsuit on the iMac I bought. Now all of a sudden it makes sense. It’s the monitor! So I send the URL to a friend with a new macbook – he can see the image fine. It’s time to visit the mac store and make sure it’s not just my monitor. This would be a huge disappointment. I mean I’m used to computer companies advertising false things, using cheap stuff, and of course Windows.

Maybe I believed the commercials…