Microsoft's iPad FUD compaign

 Posted on January 11, 2011  |  Erik

Well it appears that someone is finally waking up and taking note of the iPad over at Microsoft and no longer just laughing it off as a “big iPhone”. Notes from ZDNet, Business Insider, and CNet have information and links to the Microsoft presentation where they spell out why the iPad isn’t manageable like a Windows desktop or portable. Which of course, misses the point entirely, especially with the fact that Microsoft parters like Citrix and VMware are aggressively marketing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and thin client iPad solutions. [Read More]

Changing media consumption habits

 Posted on January 7, 2011  |  Erik

Its now been about six months since I acquired the iPad and upgraded my aging iPhone 3G to an iPhone 4 and I’ve noticed some significant changes in my media consumption patterns. Podcasts The commute has become the place to listen to podcasts. There is a ton of really high quality content available. To the point that I have to use the iPhone’s 2x playback speed in order to get through everything I’m subscribed to and I regularly revisit the list and eliminate the dross. [Read More]

eBook platforms (Kindle still wins)

 Posted on December 22, 2010  |  Erik

I’ve been a fan of the eBook concept for a long time, and a participant in the marketplace going back to the Palm based readers. Currently we have a range of choices that cater to just about any taste and budget. But I still see a number of problems that stem from legacy contracts and politics that are going to ensure that the Kindle platform will stay ahead of the rest. [Read More]

OmniFocus looking nice

 Posted on December 22, 2010  |  Erik

Wow. I’ve always been a fan of the products of the Omni Group despite their premium prices. Generally speaking they are well worth it - OmniGraffle is a gem that I use just about every day. But in the domain of getting myself better organized, I have been constantly on the lookout for a better way of doing things. TaskPaper, Simplenote, and a variety of other to do list managers have come and gone without any success in getting me to adhere to them. [Read More]

Complement to the eBooks article

 Posted on December 21, 2010  |  Erik

As a complement to this note, whats getting really silly in this mess is the current spate of brick and mortar eBook stores that take a globally readable electronic document and reduce it to an even smaller subset of possible clients that require a specific non portable device with DRM lock in. Where is the interest of a Barnes & Noble reader device which is tightly tied to a single store? [Read More]

The iPad as a paper replacement

 Posted on December 21, 2010  |  Erik

There have been a number of stories recently covering the iPad that is being used in various government and corporate environments specifically with an eye towards reducing paper usage. Shockingly the ROI for a $500+ item is actually pretty quick in many of these environments. I find the Canadian government one particularly touching as in a previous life at the beginning of the desktop publishing revolution I managed to push Consumer and Corporate Affairs to accept Times Roman and Helvetica as accepted typefaces for official documents (other than monospaced Courier) in order to save paper. [Read More]

Thoughts on the Mac App Store

 Posted on September 28, 2010  |  Erik

I’ve been reading and listening to much of the commentary regarding the proposed OS X App Store and thinking about the long term impact. There’s a lot of noise in both directions, with the pro camp coming from people like the OmniGroup who have an application suite that are a perfect fit for this type of new retail channel. They have 100% OS X applications, that easily fulfill the App Store requirements that are sold at a reasonable price, that’s to say, under $100 so the 30% cut is a deal compared to the cost of selling of a boxed application through traditional retail channels. [Read More]

Creation, consumption and communication

 Posted on September 17, 2010  |  Erik

In mulling over the various critical articles about the iPad I’ve seen that the discussion seems to have become an oversimplified view of the world that reduces the choices to creation or consumption. This binary view of things splits the computing landscape into the camps of traditional PCs, be they Macs, Windows or Linux PCs, and this new type of device like the iPad and smartphones, driven primarily by tactile input. [Read More]

Kickstarter & Glif

 Posted on September 5, 2010  |  Erik

If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter, I strongly recommend heading over to see what new and interesting ideas are out there that you can help fund something that’s outside of the traditional investment model for getting small ideas off the ground and many humanitarian projects that can use direct funding. The current cool project that I just found is something I’ve been looking for since I got an iPhone 4: the Glif. [Read More]

Analyst view of the world

 Posted on July 7, 2010  |  Erik

I love stuff like this - it demonstrates just how disconnected the analyst community can be from the people that are actually out purchasing things. This one comes regarding the iPhone 4 launch and the associated availability issues. “Consumers, questioning Apple’s supply chain management capability, have started looking for alternative devices." says Tina Teng at iSuppli Uhhh - no, I doubt seriously that consumers are questioning Apple’s supply chain management capability. [Read More]