A Pony For President

That screen above is the alert that appears every single time I try to turn a page in the Kobo Books app on my Blackberry Playbook after upgrading to OS 2.0. I’ve tried reinstalling the app, restarting the Playbook, signing in and signing out of my Kobo account - all attempted, all failed. 

I absolutely refuse to factory restore my Blackberry Playbook, I simply shouldn’t have to. A new OS, should be working flawlessly the minute that it’s shipped. In a competitive industry like this where RIM isn’t even a front-runner, anything that doesn’t meet this consumer expectation is a failure. No excuses.

We all waited 6 months for this new OS to come out and deliver us what should have been day 1 features, and what we get is a buggy joke of an update which now allows me to add meetings, view contacts and send emails. 

If high fives are indeed shooting across board rooms in Canada, I pray for RIM’s future. If they’re proud of what has come out of this, then surely what they have in store for us in BB10 is going to be just as ‘good’. If I were Thorsten Heins I would be physically redirecting those high fives into the faces of incompetent engineers who need to wake the hell up.

This is not how you deliver software, this is not how you deliver software that you hyped for the good part of half a year. Obvious as a steaming horse’s diarrhoea bugs like the one’s shown above have no place in final release software, hell, it shouldn’t even be in beta software. 

Such a glaring oversight as this makes me wonder how that 6 months was spent, because it sure wasn’t spent in rigorous product testing. And it’s hard to believe that it would take more than 6 months to develop an email client. Even if RIM’s claims of having to amend their entire infrastructure isn’t a blatant lie, that sort of timing for major updates just isn’t going to cut it in an industry where the Android ecosystem gains leaps and bounds in practically weeks and months. 

If this update demonstrated more underlying problems than just incompetent inefficiency, then RIM better sell themselves now before they get eaten alive by competitors who are simply leaner and meaner.

I’m not just disappointed by the outcome of the Kobo app, after all that would be a stupidly measly complaint to dedicate a whole post towards. The main source of anger/disappointment/upset/madness is the fact that aside from what was promised, RIM didn’t give me any more. Print to Go was a welcome addition (and actually really useful), but I expected more than that. And there really should’ve been.

There should’ve been updates to the operating system all around - updates to the Adobe Reader app, a searching mechanism and a Facebook app with scrolling that doesn’t lag like a scratched DVD. And for the love of god, why can’t videos resume from where they were last left off. I mean seriously, RIM, that is ancient technology.  

RIM never promised anything more than the email, contacts and calendar, but they should have over-delivered, having so drastically under-delivered with the original release. This update was the time for RIM to show that they still had the capability to excite with a pleasant surprise, rather than being a perfunctory clockwork machine that only does what it’s meant to.

The good press surrounding this update is all artificial, people are just glad that the update even came. But really, RIM took far too long to deliver far too little. And that Kobo error is simply inexcusable.

Internet content piracy has been an issue for a fair while, but only lately has it really begun to hit its peak with the introduction, and subsequent failure of SOPA and PIPA, as well as the shutting down of many popular downloading sites such as BTJunkie and Megaupload. 

While us as the consumer shouldn’t expect to be able to download content for free willy-nilly, with the regulation and iron clad grasp that Hollywood has on their content, the MPAA and other media bodies shouldn’t expect consumers to readily shell out the cash for their content either. Particularly at prices that aren’t even reasonable.

Perhaps one of Steve Jobs’ greatest contributions to media aside from Pixar, was iTunes and his underlying theories on content piracy - that the only way to combat piracy is to make paying for content easier and much more accessible. His thesis is unquestioned as iTunes remains the most popular online media store. However Hollywood, almost a decade later still looks at the internet as a chaotic anarchy of deregulation where illegal behaviour is a norm and where reason doesn’t stand a chance. 

It doesn’t have to be like this.

What Steve Jobs acknowledged, and what Hollywood has to acknowledge is the fact that you can’t end piracy, it’s always going to be here.

Hollywood’s off base belief is that piracy combat is a front and center war where legislation and limitations are weapons of mass destruction to eliminate a complete pirate society. No, Hollywood. The piracy war is like a game of whac-a-mol, a game that you can’t win, a game that you can’t lose but one that if you play for long enough will suck your wallet dry and drive you absolutely bonkers. 

The media industry shouldn’t be trying to knock down this never-ending group of moles, but to turn the movie loving population to more appealing alternatives.

Unfortunately, Hollywood is spectacularly behind the times and are still trying to sell DVDs and Blu-rays as their primary content mediums and leaving internet content distribution to players like Google, Apple and Amazon who obviously have the technology chops. But, who are they kidding, does anyone actually still buy DVDs? Well of course, but it’s benefits are being largely crossed off as the world shifts to more digital, integrated and less vertical ecosystems.

When I buy a DVD I can shove it into my DVD player, enjoy it for two hours and then shelve it away. That’s 20 dollars of money I will never get back for entertainment I can only enjoy in one place - my living room. Can I put that DVD on my tablet? On my phone? On my hard drive? No, because of copy protection. There’s a stark value proposition issue here - what sane person would buy a DVD they can’t really enjoy anywhere, when you can pirate a free digital copy that you can enjoy everywhere? 

When I buy content in this highly connected age, I don’t just want to buy the content, the expectation is that I buy the right to use the content anywhere I want, because hey, I paid for it and it’s mine. That’s what the movie industry has attempted to do with its fancy new UltraViolet system, which is really just a new form of Digital Rights Management hidden behind a pretty name. The idea behind it is when you buy content either through retail or digital services, you have paid for the right to play it anywhere, any time on any service. 

It sounds functional in theory but beyond that, the majority of users have belittled the system claiming it to be utter marketing bogus since the service doesn’t actually allow you to obtain a digital copy playable on mobile devices, henceforth defeating the purpose. Not only does this show that Hollywood has no idea how to build appealing technology, but it also shows that they are clueless to the desires of modern day consumers and that DRM, as has been tried time and time again is simply not the way. 

Leaving the internet to players like Apple and Amazon to deal with is a poor move; if Hollywood wants the internet to really work for them then it’s time they started putting a hand in it. Deliver a universal payment method for all content across all services, assign a universal login for movie purchases. If people constantly have to log in and log out of services, set up new accounts and punch in credit card numbers every time they want to purchase a new movie, they have every reason to drop their patience and just hit ‘Download torrent’ instead. 

For consumers there’s the cost motive too, paying for content has to be a lot, lot easier than downloading it for free. 

Hollywood’s problem though is that they’re not smart enough to do anything remotely logical.

Hollywood’s response to Whitney Houston’s death was to pull ‘The Bodyguard’ (a film starring Whitney Houston) from streaming services to cash in on DVD sales driven by the publicity of her death. Are you kidding me? Not only is this an unethical business practice, but it shows how short sighted they are in trying so desperately to revive their declining DVD sales instead of relaying their focus entirely to the internet. 

Additionally, for the past month Hollywood’s efforts have been focused on utilising legislation to eliminate the pirates, something you actually can’t get rid of, as opposed to a much more doable and logical approach of conquering the pirates. 

The way the MPAA and its head honcho Chris Dodd have attempted to influence congress to pass SOPA and PIPA is phenomenally alarming - 

“Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

This quote from Chris Dodd shows how corrupt America’s lobbyist political system can really be. It’s actually quite an unbelievable statement, as if Chris Dodd was completely oblivious to the potentially disastrous PR aftermath. Instead of innovating themselves around the piracy situation, Hollywood is attempting to selfishly introduce legislation that will benefit no one but them. Even though SOPA and PIPA are gone for now, once Chris Dodd gains his lobbying rights, ridiculous anti-piracy bills will be back stronger than ever.

If we handed the whole film industry to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs we’d probably be in a better place because they’re actually, you know, intelligent. Shitcan all the old fudgepackers at the top of Hollywood who only litigate, legislate and have no idea how to innovate. 

I was browsing away on Huffpost Tech a day ago, as per usual and stumbled across a headline titled something along the lines of ‘Twitter Could Cost Man’s Life’. My initial reaction was one of relative nonchalance being accustomed with the way the Huffington Post is particularly skilled at creating snark headlines to grab reader attention. For the most part, more than half of my own Huffpost visitings have been pure wastes of internet MBs. 

But someone’s life is bigger than Huffpost’s ability to spin sensationalist bullshit headlines at me, this one was worth a peek.

Given the often controversial and dangerous prospects of internet privacy, this could have merely been a story of an ill-informed gentleman who exposed too much of his personal information over Twitter only to find himself being hunted down by highly skilled Mafia men. No, this story is far more ridiculous, and far less forgiveable.

Over Twitter comments deemed disrespectful to Prophet Mohammed, Saudi Arabian blogger Hamza Kashgari could be executed in his home country. I don’t know who Prophet Mohammed is, I have almost zero knowledge of the Islamic religion, but the fact that the life of this 23 year old man is even in jeopardy over a ‘crime’ that purely superficially hurt no one is insane, and puts the integrity of the entire religion into question.

I’m not a hater of Islam, nor do I tend to let the past events of 9/11 cloud my sentiments of the religion, the majority of Muslim people are good people. All the Muslim people I know personally are some of the toppest blokes going round. Extremists are the ones that tamper the image of the whole religion, in much the same way that the stench of a single, steaming piece of shit can’t be masked by even the most liberal amounts of perfume. Muslim extremists are like extremely large pieces of shit, with extraneous amounts of stinking passion.

Passion is a good thing, and is really the single word that I want to dictate the course of my life. One without passions, one without dreams are the ones I pity most. Yet, like anything, there is a limit, and the mathematics of passion is much like an umbrella shaped parabola with a maximum turning point. You can love something and believe in something to a maximum point and doing so allows you to obtain maximum return from your conviction and belief. Take it a step too far and you’re rolling downhill, hurting yourself and others.

Muslim extremists are on the bottom of the other side of this hill, and quickly digging a very deep hole for themselves. When religion, which presumably was initiated to do good begins to dictate people, strip people of their freedom, hurt people and most heinously, ends up killing people, then I’m fairly confident that said religion is in serious need of reform.

Why the UN, or any other international human rights body would not seriously contend even the notion of executing someone over something so harmless as religion is honestly beyond me. Why Saudi Arabia has even allowed religion into their politics simply defeats the purpose of fair politics in the first place. Religion is primarily something that is run through fickle emotions, whereas politics and the law should be a stiff and unchanging system.

Maybe my opinions are moot having lived in a democratic society for far too long, maybe societal values are different in countries like Saudi Arabia - but human life is priceless, and priceless will always have the same value to the moon and back. It is not ethical to put a human life on the line unless it is for another, and certainly not for an intangible like religion. 

Religion is a belief, it doesn’t reflect the values of everyone in society and should therefore be separated from the governing politics that controls everyone in society. Mixing religion and politics in a melting pot is like forcing a vegan to down a Big Mac. It’s not for everyone, and it’s not fair. The goal of the world should be one that universally accepts free speech and basic human rights, one that doesn’t permits one’s life to be in the balance to simply voice his or her belief.

It is not a human right to bar your religion from disrespect. It’s a human right to life. Do the math. If someone insults your religion, be a man, grow a pair and get the fuck over it. Your way of life is not everyone else’s way of life, don’t shoot them for believing differently.

I hope that Hamza Kashgari gets what he deserves - his right to life, and to live in a democratic society where an opinionated blogger can truly thrive.

parislemon:

OH- “the best part of having an android phone is that my kids never want to play with it”.

— Bryce Roberts (@bryce) January 29, 2012

Despite reporting an operating loss of over 1 billion dollars, Nokia managed to pull off a feat to mollify the investors - 1 million Lumia Windows Phone device sales. That’s actually quite a respectable result considering the device has yet to make a showing in markets such as North America and Australia.

But aside from that, Nokia’s future doesn’t appear to be looking any brighter than it was a year ago, in fact maybe it’s even a little bleaker. What Nokia use to have in the market was exclusivity and scale. The tandem of those two factors ultimately led to Nokia’s commanding success. 

Nokia has neither of these two factors today, aside from the exclusivity of being a 100% committed Windows Phone partner, but really that’s only working for Microsoft. The N9 running Meego Harmattan was certainly an exclusive, but with the promised commitment to run full steam with Windows Phone, Meego Harmattan’s potential may never be realised, or at most, a peripheral pursuit. 

Of course, it’s not like Meego Harmattan had a big chance anyway.

And scale, is something Nokia simply can’t obtain given the R&D required to build any good smartphone, especially if you’re Nokia and really trying to deliver with a bang. Nokia’s now signature polycarbonate shell in the N9 and Lumia 800, 900 models is a feat of engineering that simply couldn’t have been achieved if the company had floored it and delivered a tsunami of Windows Phones in generic form factors and hardware variations. 

The only segment where any economy of scale is possible, is in feature phones, once Nokia’s money-reeling gem but now declining precipitously in developed markets. Of course, there’s still money to be made there, and with most cellphone vendors relaying their focus to encompass smartphones 100%, Nokia is really in a position to take full control of the feature phone market. But there’s a reason why the world and the industry is stepping with both feet into the smartphone pool, it’s because not doing so would be committing to a world that will cease to exist in a very short time.

For Nokia, it’s even more crucial than this. As a company undergoing a brand image overhaul, investing excessively into feature phones would do nothing but hamper Nokia’s planned course to become viewed as a forward thinking company. Consumers can’t think of Nokia and see number keypads anymore.

Aside from the fact that Nokia no longer has significant leverage in the development chain to pump their business anymore, there’s also the issue of getting consumers to sign a contract to their phones which run on a platform that hasn’t gained the amount of traction that the company probably thought it would. Aside from getting the nod from reviewers, consumers are yet to see the great value proposition in Windows Phone.

Sure, 1 million sales exhibits promise, but it’s early days. The company has most likely skimmed the piece of market that gravitated towards Nokia in the first place, but from now on, it’s war and Nokia needs to pose some real fight - not only to lure consumers away from the eminent iOS and Android, but also to funnel them away from the other Windows Phone vendors in HTC, LG and Samsung among others.

The latter, an easy task that the company should win, but the former being a spectacularly tall order.

It stands to beg the question of why Nokia didn’t pursue the Android paved path in the first place. I can imagine it being an appealing option, Nokia’s acclaimed hardware quality and design paired with an OS that has solidified its position in the marketplace. It’s always nice to be on a winning team. But Nokia took a risk with Windows Phone, as a consumer I applaud the path they’ve taken, and from Nokia’s vantage, I would’ve done the exact same thing. 

Success in Windows Phone will yield a significantly greater reward that would be irksome to supplant, whereas success with Android would simply be providing another option, as opposed to a different option. 

It’s an uphill climb from here, and by sucking dry their loyal customer base in the first million sales, Nokia is essentially running on fumes. But since when is business not an uphill battle?  Build beautiful things, make sure people know about it and you can’t really go wrong. 

‘The world isn’t fair’, is one of those lessons drilled through our ears and hammered into our brains as kids, and as teens and right through life. It’s cynical and pessimistic, but maybe that’s just how it is.

Despite this, I’ve always had conflicting thoughts. Though I’m not enormously religious, I sometimes catch myself believing in a god because it would be great, he’d better than the police, a moderator of the world - taking care of the logistics of fortune and making sure it gets distributed in the right proportion to the right people. A god could give us karma, providing people with what they deserve as opposed to the police, who simply protect us from what we don’t deserve. 

I’ve always wished, and believed that the world worked like this, I just never had the evidence to back it up. Apple’s last quarter performance finally gives me the closure I’ve been looking for.

Apple’s products don’t hold any sentimental value to me, but Apple as a company has always represented the pinnacle of greatness and Steve Jobs, as a visionary has always represented where the world takes you if you have the audacity to take your passion far enough. 

$46 billion in revenue is a great achievement, sure, but that’s not what makes Apple great, it’s merely a result of Apple’s greatness. Making money should never be a goal, it’s an achievement, whereas greatness is only truly achieved in the way in which people, or corporations conduct themselves. How someone does something is always more important than what they get out of it.

Samsung makes money too, so does RIM, so does Foxconn. But what sets Apple apart is that business, selling, market research and all those trivial things were always in the periphery for Apple. Making beautiful products and perfecting the little things was always the focus of Apple’s sights. 

The greedy corporate guy would scoff at that while crunching the numbers, analysing with scrutiny the market research and throwing in the dollars to create a brand image.

And really, there’s nothing wrong with that, Apple does it too, but once these ideals overtake the product-oriented ideals that created the company in the first place, you’re no longer great. You no longer create products because you have a great idea, you do it because someone else did. You no longer have faith in your own conviction, but try to supplement a lackluster idea with the deceitful play of business. 

The greatest innovators know that you can’t buy consumer perception, you can only earn it through the products that you make. The greatest ones know that passion can’t be redeemed for cash, it’s priceless. And the greatest know that only products delivered from the heart, can speak to the heart.

I respect Apple because Apple has always been like this and has always known this. The company never looks at how they could level with the competition, but are always in pursuit of their own vision, creating better products for the end consumer. Apple never let go of what they believed in even if it was hurting them financially. Mac OS wasn’t always a success, but the fight that the Apple team exhibited in persevering with Mac OS was, and it paid off. Love it or hate it, but Mac OS is objectively a fine operating system.

I’m definitely not one that likes to engage in delicate sentiments when discussing technology, but this is bigger than that. Siegler, Gruber, Federico Vittici and Stephen Hackett have all expressed immense pride in Apple’s blockbuster achievement, and it’s so much more than the money. It’s confirmation for me at least, that the world is indeed fair, and if there isn’t a god then the economics of life is indeed an impartial system.

The world is rife with winners and losers, most of the time it’s unclear why some are winning and some are losing, but over time things tend to unravel and the ones most deserving rise to the top whilst the others fall from the heights of their short term grace. I guess what Apple’s success proves to me is that it’s good to fight a losing battle if it’s one worth fighting for - because often times when we pursue our convictions and it’s just not working, it’s just life asking us whether we have the guts to fight for it or not. And that makes me happy.