Ken Berger’s Blog

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So, Google mobile search for iPhone, including voice search ability is finally out.

It’s very good: you don’t have to press any buttons, lifting to your ear starts it and removing from ear stops it. But it only works w/ straight-up search, not maps or contacts. And its success rate at understanding clear spoken English is not too stellar.

I’m jaded because I’m testing another app, which so far kicks the G-app’s butt. Will write (rave) about it as soon as the embargo lifts.

What’s w/ the term ‘embargo’, anyway? Thought that was for rogue countries…

I made a killing on Wall Street… I shot my broker.

-Groucho Marx

For all the dissing I’ve done about the iPhone (see previous posts), it’s true that as with any platform, it’s all about the apps.

MS DOS was nothing until spreadsheets and word processing ran on it.
Apple was nothing until home publishing ran on it.
Heck, even the TV was of questionable use until a killer app showed up: The Milton Berle Show.

Not sure if this belongs in the same exact category, but SHAZAM for iPhone and Android G1 is MIND-BLOWING.

When you hear a song you like but can’t identify, you launch the app, point the phone’s mic at the nearest speaker for less than a minute, and it identifies what’s playing. The album cover appears on your phone, along w/ artist, song, and album info. It also points you to related YouTube videos, and to iTunes where you can buy the track and related songs. Not a bad business case.

The server seems to have an uncanny knack for getting it right, no matter what part of the song, and a deep rich database that recognized some obscure tunes.

You also become a walking evangelist for it when people give you the puzzled “what are you doing?” as you’re standing there at a cafe pointing a device upward like you’re reading a meter or something.

I had the chance to attend this. You can hear me ask a question (”how really locked is sim-locked?”) here at 36:30 http://www.t-mobileg1.com/g1-announcement.aspx

My question stems from the big obvious drawback to “open” here: that as with the iPhone, this product is stuck to one carrier. However, once the platform actually goes open source, we could look forward to seeing entire new devices that work on other networks. Engadget talks a bit more about this: they expanded upon my question in private afterwards, and got a more encouraging answer. I’m still dubious as to how other carriers may take to this or fight it, but this is a big start.

Also to note: The word “iPhone” must be taboo amongst the companies involved. In the response to my question, where I mention iPhone by name, he says “the device you mention”.

Re the device itself, I don’t have much more than what’s already been said. I’m definitely impressed that for something that came out so relatively quickly, and it being just the 1.0 version, it’s a very slick-looking and -feeling gadget. Not quite as sexy as iPhone’s screen and pinch functions, but it’s close and adds a real keyboard.

Also, re core PIM apps and messaging: At the moment, I love Windows Mobile, mostly because since I’m already bought into the Microsoft vertical (Exchange), it’s a seamless experience. Similarly, the G1 launches really optimized around gmail, gCal, etc, and for now your experience will likely be dictated by how tied your life is tied to the Google vertical. But give it a chance to launch and attract some developers (Good Technology-type outfits, and indy developers) to write Exchange clients etc, and this platform could be promising long-term.

I’ve long held that while I’ve loved the iPod since first launch, the major piece missing has been the DJ’ing functionality– I often times would rather “outsource the DJ” (have a smart program control my library) rather than do it myself. I have 40GBs of music and often can’t think of what to play.

Finally to the rescue: Apple’s new Genius feature, which I put to the test. The functionality centers on basically being Pandora for iTunes (this concept agreed to by Apple people I spoke to during the launch).

When you first activate Genius in iTunes, it takes a while for your entire library to communicate with the server. I imagine this is because your songs now get some sort of dna-type tag so iTunes can identify them by genre, feel, etc.

You can then ‘Start Genius’ based on any song in your library you choose. I chose “Us & Them” by Pink Floyd, assuming I’d then have a solid stream of dreamy yet strong tunes for when I’m motorcycle cruising around in the mountains.

Well, the list was interesting and entertaining. But oddly curious. Not really sure how the list it generated was really “songs that go great together”, and whether simply hitting the ‘random’ function would fare much better. Smart list? It didn’t suggest any real oddballs, but I’d hesitate to call it ‘genius’. Still, an interesting feature, fun to use, and I was entertained on this weekend’s Pocono Mountains ride.

One thing to note, the way I used it was to open iTunes, generate the Genius playlist and copy the list to the iPod. It is killer to have this on the go, but that is only available on the new Nano and 1 or 2 other brand new models. The 1-year-old Classic can NOT be upgraded for this. And the richness of the list is certainly affected by the depth of your collection, so small hard-drived iPods like the Nano will be challenged.

I snapped this phonecam shot at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event in SF today. The onscreen caption says it all. Although he sure looked thin.

What a travel gift I discovered today: JFK airport in New York City has a row of free motorcycle spaces.

This takes care of two issues I have as a NYC frequent traveller:
1. Far and away the fastest, most flexible, cheapest way to get to and from the airport.
2. Solves where to keep my scooter when I’m gone, since I normally park on the street.

I checked it out today and it’s legit.

View Larger Map

To get there, get to Lefferts Blvd from Nassau Expressway/S. Conduit. As you approach, you won’t miss signs that say “Kiss & Fly” (cute too) and “long-term parking”. You’ll then see clear signs that add “motorcycle parking” to Kiss & Fly, leading to the small lot (as pictured in the embed above). There’s about 15 spaces. No time limits. The AirTrain to all terminals is directly above and is free too. A variety of bikes made it seem safe: some hi-end sportbikes, some covered, some locked, but some just sitting exposed. There’s also a 24-hour security booth right there, though of course parking is at your own risk.

From now on, as long as it’s not snowing and I only need 1 carry-on or large backpack, this is the way I’m gonna fly.

PS: tomorrow’s trip will be largely 2-wheeled for me. Once I arrive in downtown San Francisco, I’m renting a bike to get around town to conferences and meetings in the City.

5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

iFail: tough to buy one of these suckers.
I claim “engineered scarcity”..

One of the biggest ironies I know of in mobile tech, is that these days Microsoft (via Windows Mobile) is (I would argue) the most open platform. It’s a little computer I can put in my pocket. I can use the browser and go to websites, I can freely develop and install apps, I can completely ignore the carriers’ and devices’ app stores (T-zones, VCast, and now iPhone app store) if I want to. The OS is really carrier agnostic and you can usually unlock the phone (if it’s a US GSM, to use another carrier’s SIM). It’s so far from perfect, and not even close to as sexy or stable a device as the iPhone, but the freedom attributes shine.

Apple is certainly just about the least open. And the iPhone is wedded to a current campaign where you are forced to be bound by AT&T, thus making you want to hate them, by design. The whole thing is set up that a 2 year contract w/ the carrier is a penalty for having the phone. How about the old fashioned free market idea of building customer loyalty to attract and keep subscribers?

Sadly, it turns out that the vast majority of U.S. mobile users just don’t care about open. Or free. Witness Nokia’s recent “Open” marketing campaign here, which was curtailed fairly quickly when they began to realize this (click on image to expand):

The following article does a great job of explaining why now, despite the impressive new features on the iPhone 3G, there remain important distinctions that are very anti-”do no evil”:
5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

Friendfeed is now doing to Twitter what Tribe.net et al did to Friendster.
At least in the reliability aspect.

Twitter is so well-loved and popular that it’s failing frequently under its own weight.
While it can be argued that there’s worse problems to have, (first part of prior sentence), the second part of that sentence means that some folks will seek alternatives, as asserted in this TechCrunch article.

And so it goes: free market forces inspire movement among providers. Despite my early counsel to Friendster’s founder (who I informally advised), the site was unable to mend its tech difficulties fast enough when its popularity first peaked.

But there is a key difference here: people still love Twitter. There is great brand loyalty, and it would be tough to argue that there is any kind of backlash or “yesterday’s niteclub” kind of thing, as might be argued right now against Facebook. Friendster lost people in droves due to a revolution: the founder made some key decisions that angered or alienated some early adopters, banning some and attempting to enforce quality measures including what people could include as content on their page. Tribe, and later Myspace, came in and served these people, as evidenced by the hideous and browser-busting pages allowed to exist on those sites. This, together w/ terrible page load times and outages, rallied public exodus and folks publicly declared their jumps over to Tribe.net and a few others, never to return.

Twitter now sits at a critical time in its history. And it can certainly coexist along side Friendfeed and others (they’re different services). Hopefully its tech issues will be solved soon enough to do so.

Recipe goes like this: Rally supporters and build hype via unprecedented viral marketing, but schedule release for 10am local time instead of midnite (it’s a global product, people!), AND make it impossibly unclear as to when exactly on the release date the dload will be available, then for the first couple hours have all the related servers pointing to the dloads not able to withstand the load that your campaign actually more than succeeded in achieving…

Yes, I live by and love FF, yes I know it’s an open source product and I’m free to run back to Microsoft if a massively more well-capitalized product is my first priority, but still I hate to see such successful and noble PR go to some waste.