Productive Organizer

I tend to agree with Jon Buys view here that when you buy a few Apple products it creates so much synergy that buying a product out of the ecosystem becomes difficult.

It helps that Apple’s product is so simple to understand and do what you tell them to.

Now that cannot be said for Google’s ecosystem. Sure they are ubiquitous and good to use, however they don’t grab you in a way Apple’s products does.

I recently stepped outside the cozy Apple ecosystem and purchased an Android phone, theHTC Desire. It was on sale at a steep discount, and I thought I would be able to integrate itinto my work/life flow. I was wrong, and the phone is being returned.

The phone was powerful, and had some very interesting features, but it was so entirely different from the rest of my Mac setup that nothing felt right. I could go into detail about application crashes, frustrating hardware, the sordid Android Market (I wouldn’t let my kids browse through it), and other annoyances, but suffice to say that it simply didn’t measure up to the expectations I’ve developed from using Apple devices.

Apple is the only computer company that creates all of its own hardware and software; they control the entire package. Personal computers are a mishmash of parts and pieces from different sources. Hardware from one company, software from another. By contrast, many modern smartphone and computer makers get hardware from one place, and an operating system from another. BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion is a notable exception to this rule, but a recent interview with their co-CEO Mike Lazaridis seems to suggest the company’s leadership at least has little sense of what smartphone consumers really want.

[Read the full article here >>]

I think I have commented enough on why I think Android’s model is faulty and that is why its is not a good productive device.

But I never expected that someone could be in such an agreement with my views until I found this post by John Gruber from Daring Fireball.

John, being a first and foremost iPhone and iPad user, takes a stab at why the Android just did not work for him.

It shocks me that many of his points is what I feel hits the nail on the head what is wrong with the platform. He is not an apple fanatic and he draws enough examples from other platforms as well.

Critics of both Apple and Google should take a look at this.

Here is a summary of his argument:

1. The quality of Android apps not the quantity

I’ve complained, numerous times, about the “how many total apps are in your store?” metric — the idea that Apple is “winning” because there are more iOS apps than there are apps for any other mobile platform. If quantity of app titles were all that mattered, we’d all be using Windows, not Mac OS X, right? Having the most apps matters, but having the best apps matters too. The sweet spot for a platform is to do well in both regards.

Quantity of titles is, in some way, a measure of a platform’s strength. But what I care about are the great apps. Where are the great, or even good, exclusive third-party apps for Android?

Popular third-party Android apps clearly tend to be of a decidedly lower design quality than popular iOS apps. (The key word in that sentence is popular — let’s concede that the majority of all apps, at the unpopular end of the long tail both in the iTunes App Store and Android Market, are junk.)

Not all popular third-party Android apps are sub-par, design-wise. But those that are well-designed, in most cases, are the ones which are not exclusive to Android. And the ones that are both exclusive to Android and well-designed, from what I’ve seen, seem to be apps that only make sense on Android, insofar as they wouldn’t be allowed in the App Store.

Compare and contrast with the library of exclusive games for iOS. Just in the past few days alone, I’ve bought three new exclusive iOS games, any one of which would surely beat any of the exclusive Android games on Ahlund’s list of all-time best ones: Astronut from The Iconfactory, Rage HD from Id Software, and Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner from LucasArts. (Total cost for all three games: $9.) That games of this caliber are all exclusive to iOS is, arguably, the biggest hole in the argument that Android is to iOS what Windows was to the Mac. Say what you want about the quality edge that Mac software holds over Windows, but Windows has always had the games.

2. Where are the killer third party apps exclusive to Android?

Let’s sort all Android apps into the following categories:

1. Apps from Google.
2. Third-party apps that also exist on iOS.
3. Third-party apps that are exclusive to Android.

From my time spent with the Nexus One early this year, I know that Google’s Android apps are pretty good. These include both the core system apps, and the closed-source “Google Experience” apps like the dedicated Gmail client and Google Maps.

There are definitely a fair number of apps in the second category — those ported to both iOS and Android. Examples: Amazon’s Kindle client, Pandora, and a few popular games, such as Angry Birds and Doodle Jump.

But what I find striking is that the apps in the third category — those exclusive to Android — are almost entirely unappealing or irrelevant to iOS users.

3. Top Apps on Android are things to manage the phone!

In the free list, the top five apps are all available for iOS,² or, in the case of #5, Barcode Scanner, have equivalent if not superior iOS alternatives. The first app in the list that’s exclusive to Android is #6, Lookout — an anti-virus app.

In the paid list, Android exclusives include Root Explorer (a file system manager), Advanced Task Manager (a process monitor/killer), a collection of home screen widgets, SetCPU for Root Users (a hack for overclocking your device’s CPU), and CacheMate for Root Users (for manually managing system caches). Spot a trend?

In fact, the Android Market, as a whole, bears a lot more resemblance to the Cydia app store than it does to Apple’s official App Store. This is both in terms of content (system hacks, geek utilities, lower-quality UI design) and audience (the sort of users who put “task killers” and home screen replacements at the top of their favorite app lists). Browse the Android Market apps listed at sites like DoubleTwist and AppBrain, particularly the most popular lists. Then browse the listings in the Cydia app store, and tell me there isn’t a strong similarity.

The mere existence of things like task killers and anti-virus apps for Android — let alone that such utilities are popular — erodes consumer trust. Inherent to the console model is that third-party software can’t — not shouldn’t but can’t — damage or gum up the system.

4. Android not meshing the right model compare to iOS

When you think about competition between platforms in other fields, like game consoles — Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo — there’s a strong correlation between device sales, developer support for the platform, and software sales. In mobile computing, it’s not so much that there’s no correlation between hardware sales and the app market, but that there really is only one console-like app market: Apple’s.

1. Apple has carefully constructed iOS and the iTunes App Store to support this “app console” model.

2. Developers, large and small, have swarmed to Apple’s app console model, with consumer-friendly apps, design, presentation, and pricing.

3. iOS users understand the app console model and have embraced it — both in terms of a willingness to look for and install apps, and a willingness to pay for them.

None of those three things are true for Android.

I spoke to a source at a very successful iOS game development shop earlier this week, regarding the company’s plans for Android. According to my source, the company is investigating skipping the Android Market entirely, and working out exclusivity deals with handset makers to bundle games on Android phones.

iOS’s exclusivity for a bunch of big-name mobile games — Need for Speed Undercover, Star Wars: Battle for Hoth, Monopoly, Tetris, The Sims, Assassin’s Creed — has been broken. Not by Android, where none of these games exist, but by Windows Phone 7, a one-month-old platform.

I urge folks interested in such debate to view the original article

[Full Article here >>]

Evernote and Dropbox have become 2 defacto standards for cloud note-taking and file storage.

I enjoyed both so much on PC and now with the smartphone revolution I enjoy using them even more. Take a look here at how Dropbox works. its free! [Link here>>]

Evernote and Dropbox allows you to access your files from any computer. Now you can even access them on your WebOS, Blackberry, iPhone, iPad and Android phones.

For most people, what they are looking for is taking notes on their tablets like iPad and Galaxy Tab and then being able to view them on the desktop MAC or Windows.

NoteShelf for the iPAD looks to be the solution. It allows you to export to Evernote and Dropbox.

This will likely work much better than Evernote’s iPad or iPhone’s solutions. In fact NoteShelf is part of Evernote Trunk Program.

As one of the editor on GottaBeMobile notes, actual use of it lives up to expectations:

Noteshelf recently added the ability to export documents to both Evernote and Dropbox. This is huge in my work flow. I’m able to choose whether to export a page or an entire notebook to either Evernote or Dropbox. I can send the document as an image or a PDF. All of my notes for productions eventually make it into Evernote anyway. You can also export your notes to iTunes or via email. But what has me excited about this functionality is that Noteshelf is now essentially extensible in ways that it wasn’t before. By the way, other Digital Inking Apps use the Dropbox APIs as well, but Noteshelf is my choice of the moment.

Last night after a long day of rehearsal I needed to gather up my thoughts from my notes to prepare the agenda for our production staff today prior to the next dress rehearsal. I could have just opened up the notes on my iPad and sat that device adjacent to me while working on my MacBook Pro. Instead I just opened up the PDF file on the MacBook, and used that to create today’s agenda.

This functionality in Noteshelf makes this App really shine on top of its already excellent Digital Inking experience. Hopefully the next update will allow for Fast App Switching now that iOS 4.2 is out. I would have probably been able to eliminate the MacBook from the process I just described if that had been available.

Interested to know more about Getting Things Done with mobile applications on the iPhone and Android? Take a look at our Getting Things Done series on step by step guides to apply GTD in everyday life.

Can the RIM Playbook and Android platform provide applications to do this? If you want a cult status or recognition that your platform is up there among the best and most user friendly platform, you got to garner more reviews like this.

One such musician that has been a passionate supporter Apple’s newest baby would be Damon Albarn, previously of Blur and now Gorillaz fame.  So how much has he embraced the possibilities that the iOS brings to the table?  He has went as far as to speak publicly about his current efforts to release the first ever album both recorded and produced on iPad.

When speaking with NME.com, Albarn was quoted as saying:

“I hope I’ll be making the first record on an iPad. I fell in love with my iPad as soon as I got it, so I’ve made a completely different kind of record.” — Damon Albarn VIA NME.com

The rest of the tablet market needs to get their profile raised. This iOS network is growing because celebrities like Gorillaz is becoming unofficial spoke person for it.

Can you name me a celebrity that openly endorses Android? probably there are for Blackberry but I haven’t come across any that openly speaks about Android.

I got a chance to go down to the local store to test out the Archos GEN8 101 and 70 extensively.

Let me just say that its not as bad as what the guy faced in this article here, but its not very complete yet.

The touch experience

On the whole my experience navigating is not very good. Particularly, I think its highly attributable to the screen protector they lay across that is making it not very sensitive. We need to re-evaluate this one.

When the touch experience is not there, it impedes my overall user experience

Live Wallpaper needs to be turn off

The live wallpaper makes the 2 devices laggy, turning it off makes a marked improvement.

Essentially if you have an android phone, you should always turn off live wallpaper if you are a productive user like me.

The weight of the device

Much Much lighter than the iPad. It makes it more portable. But I get the feeling after prolong holding typing I will still get tired.

7 inch vs 10 inch

Ah the size comparison. Which is better?

Because the 10 inch is 1024 x 600, it looks like an elongated 7 inch.

Now I understand why the iPAd is 1024×768 because reading magazines on a wider device makes so much more sense.

I can view comfortably on 7 inch or 10 inch. That is not a problem.

But the 7 inch is so much portable. In fact for portability  is the right size.

But if I were to use it as a reader, I would prefer the 10 inch.

In terms of value for money I think the 10 inch is more value than the 7 inch.

Reading PDF books

This is something that I would like to test and sadly the device does not come with a PDF reader. However I was able to download one from the AppLib.

I tested with 3 books

1. 66 MB Magazine – takes a long time to render. It renders by 4 squares for 1 page
2. 7 MB Magazine -  faster than the 66 MB but still slow
3. 5 MB Technical book – same speed but the good thing is that you can view it without needing to zoom in zoom out.

One thing to note is that I played them off a microSD card which my friend says is slow speed.

A better test would be to move it to the flash disk which would be faster.

Also the reader is questionable as it kept crashing. Adobe Reader or Repligo would be much better.

AppLib

A very limited marketplace, but it still has tons of things. I believe a lot of people can make do with it, but there is always an official Android Marketplace hack.

Overall Assessment

After seeing this, I went to Sim Lim to take a look at the China tablets and comparatively the ARchos is so so so much better than them.

But when I was using it, I kept thinking why the touch sensitivity lacks so much of what the iPad can achieve. I can stand waiting and lagginess. But I really don’t like touching the same thing twice to select.

I will keep my options open. There is still the Creative resistive device and likely more release according to my reader here so it pays to wait.

I am not discounting the iPAD at SGD728 as well.

I was over at forums.archosfans.com and saw that many have gotten their hands on the Archos GEN8 tablets.

It’s a great device from the youtube videos that I have posted and makes you think that for once we have finally got something:

1. Good screen size (7 and 10 inch)
2. WIFI and BT
3. Good processor Cortex A8 1 GHZ
4. adequate ram 256 MB (wish it was 512MB)
5. Micro SD card expansion
6. And a whole lot of others

This could be the one that will kick iPad’s ass.

Sadly it is not to be. I find that the offerings once it reaches Singapore is expensive.

For an Archos 10 inch comparable to iPad at 8GB is SGD 499 and 16GB is  SGD 599.

An iPAd 16GB WIFI version is SGD 728. That’s only 128 bucks more than the 16GB Archos 16GB. It makes a tough decision but if the Archos delivers greater value than the iPad, it might be worth while to go with the Archos GEN8 101.

Archos greater value than the iPad?

The thing that Apple does well is release a device with good quality control and for the iPad it has a lot of value because it has

1. a lot of good todo list
2. a lot of good note taking app
3. a lot of good ebook readers
4. a lot of good pdf readers

The existing third party apps really add value and it is easy to find them on the app store.

Compare this to the Archos

1. No Android Market place (that is without a hack). The softwares on AppLib is much lesser than that of Android Marketplace
2. There are good ebook readers, both with kindle and nook and kobo support
3. No good PDF readers that are prominent
4. Note taking apps are not meant for 7 or 10 inch
5. Same for To-Do apps.

In terms of quality control, Archos seems to rush out their tablets such that the people at the forum is facing a lot of issues

I have spent all afternoon having nothing but problems with my just received Archos 101

Most of the issues are due to the touch screen but also the firmware. I had to do a low level system restore to get it out of a perpetual rebooting.

2 times I have got it stable and reload some apps only to find that I put it down for 1/2 hour and its unusable.

I called the supplier who I purchased it from and they said 25% of those shipped out are being returned.

Archos seem to like there name being associated with carp unreliable buggy equipment, how can a company survive when they let out such equipment for sale. No wonder there will be non available for another month, its because they might have finally twigged that it a bad idea to Piss 25% of your customer base off.

A not very happy 101 owner (not for long though)

Now I wonder how many people generally encounter this on the iPad

Here is a buyer of a Viewsonic Tablet and what he thinks of his purchase:

I have the viewsonic, let me tell you if you think archos rushed theirs out wait til you get this one. The hardware is impressive HOWEVER:

- no 1080p avc(or even 720p)
- my wifi works 20% of the time
- you need to reboot whenever you put int an sd card for it to see it
- no flash
- no app store
- random factory resets on it’s own.
- touchscreen keeps going dead in spots.
- screen angles are terrible(only real hardware complaint)

Viewsonic says they don’t know what’s defective hardware and what will be fixed with FW, and FW will come “sometime in the next month”

don’t get me wrong this platform has amazing potential, but for now it’s going back and i’m thanking my lucky stars I kept my a101 pre-order alive.

And comments about the support:

I’m used to messing around with the kit and so will most people here. If I was in isolation I would have considered I was unlucky. But when I call tech support for the company I purchased it from they said 25% of the sales were in the process of being returned. 25% that 1 in 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I purchase a product I do not expect to have to do system resets, reboots, calibations every 1/2 hour to keep it going. £300 is a lot of money to me. I wanted the tablet and stumped up the money to purchase it against my normal practice of being cautious and letting things settle first.

Now I was really Pissed of when I made the first post. I waited in for 2 days while delivery people failed to bother to deliver adhere to there “next day delivery” promise. Then only to find that it failed to work. I did not say though either that the acceleration failed to work at the start either. I had to do every thing with the screen upside down to the way the stand wanted to be laid out. Only after the first full reboot

The reason I have not posted before is I only had got the device today, but I had been reading the forums in anticipation. So when I get pissed of were do I go? I make my self herd.

If you read my posts I do say that if your one of the 75% who’s does work then all well and good, I hope you fall into that camp. But a device that can change from minute to minute, there is something wrong and until they sort that I cannot recommend it.

Remember what I said 25% returns, I feel sorry for the retailer.

Remember that in Singapore I pay almost 100 SGD more for the Archos if I buy it. But that is probably the cost of having warranty. Warranty and Support is very important if you do not know how well the product is built.

Pricing

I have highlighted some problems with Android’s identity and Custom ROM issues but essentially if these manufacturers wants to compete they really have to

1. Focus on delivering what the user wants
2. Have adequate support and build a good community via responsive feedback and support
3. Being a great systems integrator
4. Great price for value given

We are not seeing this currently.

In this ZDNet post, the author talks about competitors still cannot reach iPad’s pricing point:

In recent days, tablet pricing details have emerged. To wit:

• Samsung’s 7-inch Galaxy Tab will run you $499 for a Wi-Fi version (top right). That price matches Apple’s iPad pricing and Samsung is packing in some key hardware features. But Samsung isn’t likely to move the needle on thwarting Apple.
• ViewSonic announced its ViewPad Android devices (bottom right). The ViewPad 7-inch version will run you $479. The 10-inch version will run you $629. Both versions are Wi-Fi with no 3G.
• The HP Slate 500 has Windows 7 will cost you $799. Even though the HP Slate is geared for business use, there were plenty of chief information officers with iPads at the Gartner powwow last month.
• Will Research in Motion’s pricing on the PlayBook even be in the ballpark? We don’t know yet, but it’s unlikely.

These prices illustrate how aggressive Jobs was at the iPad launch. Apple had the device and the pricing to arguably grab at least an 18-month lead.

So what happened?

• Apple built its own chips to take on an industry that clearly wasn’t ready for the iPad’s launch. It will take the Android ecosystem another rev on the product cycle just to approach what Apple has today.
• The players taking on Apple all have some sort of restriction. Apple has its own components, software and design specs. Apple also doesn’t give a hoot where it gets its parts. Now contrast that with rivals. Samsung as a massive tech conglomerate has a few built in advantages, but it’s Korea’s champion. The company is not going to go to China for parts.
• The software ecosystem isn’t ready. Microsoft is cramming Windows 7 into a tablet. HP has the webOS waiting in the wings. Android isn’t quite tablet ready yet. Apple had the ecosystem and operating system. Apple just had to add a 10-inch screen.

A few weeks ago, it appeared that Jobs was just ranting about Android on the company’s earnings conference call. But one thing he had right in that well-documented rant was the pricing model as iPad mote.

“Our potential competitors are having a tough time coming close to iPad’s pricing even with their far smaller, far less expensive screens. The iPad incorporates everything we’ve learned about building high value products from iPhones, iPods and Macs. We create our own A4 chip, our own software, our own battery chemistry, our own enclosure, our own everything, and this results in an incredible product at a great price. The proof of this will be in the pricing of our competitors’ products which will likely offer less for more.”

Conclusion

I was pretty hyped up about these Archos Series. Now not so much really. As an end user, I want a great user experience at great value.

I thought the Archos GEN8 101 or 70 could be it. Now I am not so sure. I could probably get a better reading, surfing, personal information management experience on the iPad, even though its out of my pricing range.

All in all Android is a great OS but the manufacturers are still not getting it.

By now you might have heard that Barnes and Noble have decided to take the difficult route of releasing a color ebook reader.

Why do I say difficult? This is because it is easier to read on an e-ink reader as there is less glare and better on the eyes.

Switching to LCD probably destroys the image of NOOK as an ebook reader. People talk about this practically giving Amazon Kindle its business and being submerge in the lost sea of mediocre tablets.

What is my take?

I think NOOK is enhancing their reader. They probably do not want to play the tablet game, but Android is a good platform to build on and their main aim is to position the NOOKcolor as not just a ebook reader but also a magazine reader.

To read magazine, you need color, you need the reader to be responsive. If it’s a custom HTML based magazines its easy on the RAM and processor.

But if you read a PDF magazine, you better make sure your tablet have adequate performance.

One thing that i find about this iPad craze or news fetish that we are getting now is, WHERE THE HECK IS THE COMPETTION!

Is it their strategy to let Apple walk away with this Scot-free?  Perhaps its the case they don’t want to clash with the release of iPad so that consumers have a clearer visibility.

Today we got announcement of the specification for HP’s Slate:

This is basically a PC, or a Netbook, or whatever HP wants to call it.

It runs on Windows 7. Great OS, but its not an OS that runs on ROM. Can you imagine every time you want to take notes or minutes on this you have to wait 10 seconds for it to come out of sleep or hibernation??

It goes for USD 549.  I don’t think its expensive. Certainly its got more to offer hardware wise. Its netbook pricing.

1.6 GHz Atom Z530 with UMA graphics and  an accelerator for 1080 video playback. 1GB of RAM which cannot be changed. Now how does this  add up on Windows 7? I can tell you OS is good, but this combination will not own the iPad. iPad is optimize such that the software you run on it will be fast. you will be trading fast softwares for a wider range that you are using currently.

32GB flash storage. This is ok i feel. heck i survived on 80 GB home pc for a long time. Its all about optimization sometimes.USD 50 more and you get 64 GB.

5 hour battery. I dunno about battery life but i see this HP Slates battery dying earlier than iPad.

8.9-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive multitouch display. Almost same here. But i’m telling you, Firefox or IE on a 600 height can be pretty irritating. Your viewing range is drastically limited.

an SDHC slot, two camera, a USB port, a SIM card slot for the optional 3G modem, and a dock connector for power, audio, and HDMI out. basically PC peripherals but the SIM card slot is a bonus.

You can see that this aims to be more of a multimedia movie watching device. My overall feel is that this thing is not for me.

For the financial trader who wants to trade on the go:

I have used the Atom with Windows 7 and largely the performance is OK. The plus side is that all your web brokerage and financial charting softwares will work on this baby.

For the gamer:

If you are looking for a nice gaming experience this ain’t gonna cut it. The iPad will be much better.

For the professional looking to be more productive in note-taking, calendaring and task management:

Stick to the iPad. If you need to wait for it to boot up or come out of hibernation or sleep, that hinders you. You think you can live with it but sooner or later that precious second will tick you off.

The productivity apps on the App Store does a much better job. But one thing going for it on the slate is Microsoft OneNote

Tablet PCs

HP Slate to cost $549, have 1.6GHz Atom Z530, 5 hour battery?

By Nilay Patel posted Apr 5th 2010 5:59PM

Exclusive

Well, well — what’s this? We just got our hands on what looks like an internal HP Slate presentation given to cool down some of the iPad hype amongst HP employees, and it just happens to have specs and pricing details on the elusive Windows 7 tablet. As we’d heard, the Slate will run $549 in its base configuration, which has a 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive multitouch display, a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor with UMA graphics and an accelerator for 1080p video playback (we’re assuming it’s a Broadcom Crystal HD chip), 32GB of flash storage and 1GB of non-upgradeable RAM. There’s also a $599 version with 64GB of storage, and both models will have a five-hour battery, an SDHC slot, two camera, a USB port, a SIM card slot for the optional 3G modem, and a dock connector for power, audio, and HDMI out. Of course, what this spec list doesn’t cover is software, and we still haven’t seen much of how HP plans to make

We are going to see many of these kind of great apps targeting students and i believe this will really help the iPad take off for education.

I am pretty big on note taking so this one is a big plus for CourseNotes!

Have talk a fair bit about what i think this product can do for us here on Productive Organizer so no need to keep blabber about it.

I found this article by Bill Hill,part of the original guys that created the ClearType on Windows for easy reading which we are all enjoying now and he likes the look of this iPad.

Alot of us can only visualize what the iPhone did for us and relate it to a larger screen but this is a guy that have been a forefront not just in the digital age but also in the publishing industry.

[Read the full article here >>]

His initial guess before the announcement:

“Apple could easily create a really elegant Tablet which looked just like a larger iPhone. With the iPhone, it already has a keyboardless UI which millions of users have found easy and convenient to use.“

“With a Tablet device, Apple could enter both the NetBook and eBook markets at the same time.”

“Apple has shown with each of its devices – PC, phone and music player – that there are millions of people who’d happily pay a premium price for a great user experience.”

“If Apple can get reasonable battery life from an iPhone-like Tablet, it’s going to make the Amazon Kindle screen unacceptable.“

Where he thinks Apple have truly got it:

It’s a great-looking device. It’s sleek and elegant – exactly what you’d expect from Apple. But that isn’t why it will dominate the Tablet category. It’s because Apple understands that computers have made a transition from “computing devices” to “consumer devices”. Apple has built its huge success in recent years by becoming a company which creates great end-to-end consumer experiences.

Where he thinks EInk and Kindle fails:

The trouble with the Kindle is that for all its vaunted modernity, it’s really a backward-looking device. So is the eInk technology at its heart. Both are aimed at creating an experience close to paper. But that’s not the Future of Reading. The future will be created by first equalling, then going beyond, paper. It is books with full color, books with video, books which update through the Web. Kindle was good enough to jump-start the digital book market. But it’s not good enough to keep it. eInk was acceptable only until the appearance of a color screen with acceptable battery life. And the iPad’s 10 hours is more than enough to knock it off its pedestal…

His view on the problems with Microsoft’s tablet endeavors:

When TabletPC began at Microsoft, it was a research effort – outside of the regular Windows organization. Once it was re-organized into Windows, that was the kiss of death. I never really thought much about this while I worked there, but it’s my belief that despite all the lip-service paid to end-users, the only Windows customers with any real power are the Windows Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).

They’re the customers Windows really has to care about – because most people get their OS upgrades when they change machines. And the Windows OEMs never seemed to get what TabletPCs should really be about. Most of them shipped machines which were basically conventional laptop PCs with Tablet functionality implemented like an add-on. They all had keyboards, and converted to tablets by swiveling a standard screen.

He likes Windows OS but talks about the Mac book pro being his best Windows PC:

This MacBookPro is the most trouble-free Windows machine I’ve ever had. I could never get a Windows laptop to Sleep and Wake instantly. Even if it would sleep when brand-new, inevitably the Sleep capability would fail within a few weeks, and I’d be forced to use Hibernate instead. My MacBook Pro still Sleeps and Wakes reliably, months later.

ClearType is better than what apple implemented but hey Apple wins because Microsoft fucks it up:

ClearType was one of the things we did get right at Microsoft – even if it took ten years to get it into the hands of most customers.

I’m not revealing any confidential information here. Anyone who saw Bill Gates’ keynote speech at Comdex in 1998 saw me on stage demonstrating ClearType. And they heard Bill say – in pretty emphatic terms – that it would ship in Windows.

Well, it shipped in Windows XP, right enough. But the Windows team buried it so deeply that most users never even found out it was there, or how to turn it on. It wasn’t until Vista that it was turned on by default for all users. And that shipped in 2008. Ten years after we first showed it before we truly got it into the hands of our customers!

What ClearType Addresses and where iPad might not do so well, reading texts:

we invented ClearType specifically to solve the problems of creating highly-readable text at normal reading sizes (between 9 and 13 point). There’s a lot more technology going on than simply utilizing the RGB sub-pixels on LCD displays. Apple’s clone creates text whose characters look more like the original print fonts at those sizes than ClearType does – but the price they pay is a lack of sharpness and clarity, and text that’s slightly blurred at the edges. That means I still prefer to do all my reading on Windows, with “genuine” ClearType – even on this great 133ppi display.

My only misgiving about the iPad is that its screen is 122ppi. If Apple implements its current ClearType clone on it, we might end up with text that’s slightly blurry, and could cause problems reading for sustained periods. That’s only speculation, though. I can’t say for sure until I’ve held one in my hands and tried to read on it for several hours.

He got farked for saying Windows Pc Makers don’t measure up:

But my BootCamp experiences led me to ask the question – publicly, in this blog: “How can Apple make a better Windows machine than any Windows PC maker?” (That turned out not to be such a good career move for me at Microsoft. Take my tip – never tell the Emperor he’s butt-naked, unless you’re sure he’s big enough to see it as an opportunity to buy new clothes).

If you install Vista on a Mac using BootCamp, and run the Windows Experience Index diagnostics which rate its capabilities, you end up with better scores than the vast majority of Windows machines. This machine rates a WEI of 5.3 – and I’ve never seen a score higher than that.

People are willing to pay for good user experience:

Even in these tough economic times, Apple has proved there are plenty of people who’ll pay a premium for a great device. It has been creating winners for years now. There were plenty of cheaper MP3 music players available long before Apple’s iPod appeared. Yet the iPod owns the market - even though it was both later to market, and more expensive. Checking out eBay recently, there were only 3 used iPods for sale (and over 1000 Zunes…)

His new phone and his experience with the Windows Mobile Phone:

There are plenty of mobile phones around. But Apple’s much more expensive iPhones (both the phone and the service) have been flying off the shelves. I’ve had a Windows Mobile phone for years. But compared to the iPhone it’s a complex, fussy, unfriendly brick. I had been meaning to get rid of it for a long time, but I don’t use a mobile phone that much, and I still read books on it using Microsoft Reader, so I’ve been hesitant about making the switch.

However, last week I dropped my Windows Mobile phone in the water. It was DOA when brought back to the surface. So now I need a new phone. No way am I buying a Windows Mobile replacement. I really grew to hate that phone. I’ve checked out the new Google phones, and I don’t like them much either. No, I want a great customer experience – so I’ll go with Apple.