Author Archives: mvcmendes

Larry Page, that’s a nice speech. Too bad Google isn’t listening

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During this year’s Google I/O, Larry Page got on stage after the 3-hour-long presentation to promote a message of optimism, peace and innovation. He made some excellent remarks regarding the future of mankind, preached optimism and cooperation between people as well as between companies, promoting a single objective: make the world evolve.

At some point, he said the following:

“And despite the faster change in the industry, we’re still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. And some of that has to do with the negativity. It’s about us versus some other company, or some stupid thing. We should be building great things that don’t exist.”

Beautiful, right? It’s shame that Google doesn’t believe in this utopia at all. Right before Larry Page got up on stage, during 3 long hours, Google announced a barrage of services. But they were not innovative services. They were not great things that don’t exist. Infact, everything they announced already exists. And everything they announced will go up against companies that have been established in their respective markets for years:

Google Hangouts: Google’s WhatsApp / Skype / Facebook Messenger / etc…
Yet another way to shove Google+ down mankind’s throat. It’ll be available for the web, as well as for Android and iOS. It’s a service that will unify Google’s countless chat services (Talk, Chat, Google+ Messenger). Dori Storbeck already confirmed that the system will soon embrace SMS as well as outoing voice calls.

Google Play Music: Google’s Rdio / Spotify / Pandora / etc…
This was an old rumor. The company will finally launch their own music subscription service. It’s hard to tell how important it’ll be or how worried every other company in this market should be, as they didn’t specify how many songs will be available or how many labels joined them. What we do know is that it’ll cost $9.99 per month. It seems that Apple is about to launch a similar service. Jason Snell made a good point about this. Did the world really need more options on this market?

Google Wallet: Google’s PayPal / MasterPass / etc…
Google’s digital payment service got more powerful. Now you’ll be able to send money via email as if it were an attachment. There will be an actual button labeled “Send money” in the message. They also promise to save you time by automatically filling form fields in a purchase page. Which is pretty much what PayPal has been saying they do since they first appeared in 1998. Yep, that’s 15 years.

Images on Google+: Google’s Flickr / iPhoto / Photoshop / Pixelmator / etc…
This part of the presentation ended up being comical because of how long it dragged on. The announcement was basically of a powerful system to improve and correct images, as well as a revamped posting and storage system of these images on Google+. Just like on Flickr, photos are stored in their original size. To show how much better than everybody else’s services this one is, they compared image sizes with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I really didn’t understand why they put Instagram there. But they did throw that punch.

Voice Search: Google’s Siri
If you’ve tried Google’s Voice Search you’ve noticed its differences when compared with Siri. While Apple’s service caused quite a buzz when it was announced, Google rushed and released this same service, with a superior experience (which according to John Gruber is really what Google is about). Now they decided to take it a step further, allowing search to be done in a more natural way, as if you were talking to an actual assistant. Adding Google Now to the mix, you’ll be able to say “Find me a nice bar near tomorrow’s 6pm meeting”, and the search will know what to do. It’s basically what iOS and Mac users have been asking since Siri came along.

WebP: Google’s JPEG / animated GIF
Yes, Google wants to change the standard for images on the web. During this segment they presented the advantages of the WebP, which according to them presents the same quality with a smaller file size. They compared a 468kb WebP with a 676kb JPEG.

VP9: Google’s H264
If you work with videos you know how magical H264 files are. You can convert a 200mb+ file into something as light as 2mb. Google compared H264 with the VP9 codec, presenting a 343mb H264 file and a 125mb VP9 file. They said that YouTube will soon support this codec. What they didn’t say, however, is that H265 is just around the corner, and it promises the same quality of H264 with half the filesize.

Stock Samsung Galaxy S4: Google’s Samsung Galaxy S4
That was a surreal part of the presentation. They announced the arrival of an unlocked Galaxy S4 running stock Android. Nobody seemed to care, especially after they announced it’d cost $649. No applause in that segment.

 

I’m not exactly sure where Larry’s speech goes here. What I do know is that every new subject this long presentation brought up, informed the world that Google was about to enter a new and established market. When something like this comes from a company that abandons without thinking twice 35% of their products and initiatives, this is quite worrisome. Especially when the current CEO says things like “Don’t Be Evil was the supidest thing I’ve ever heard” and “Sometimes the Internet needs a Delete button“.

Google Reader’s living proof of that. It came along, disrupted a well-established market for RSS readers, and as soon as Google got bored they killed it leaving millions of users out in the cold, as the other players in this market perished in this meantime.

Larry Page, that was a nice speech you gave. It’s a shame that the company you founded doesn’t agree with a single word of it.

BBM coming soon to iOS and Android

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Zach Epstein for BGR:

“BBM will finally expand beyond the BlackBerry platform. BlackBerry on Tuesday announced that BBM will launch this summer for Apple’s iPhone and for Android devices.”

Aa inexpressive as BlackBarry may be, i work with people who wouldn’t give up their BlackBerries for anything. That’s yet another (huge) nail in the coffin of the SMS.

Daft Punk’s new album available for free streaming on iTunes. That’s Sony Music Entertainment again.

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So guess what. Daft Punk’s label is Columbia. Columbia is owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The same Sony Music Entertainment that owns RCA. I’m sure that you remember that both Justin Timberlake’s and David Bowie’s new albums (both from RCA) were made available for free streaming ahead of their releases as well.

I’ll say it again: If Apple is about to launch a streaming service, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that Sony’s artists will be present in the catalogue.

If you like Daft Punk, all you have to do is click here to listen to all the tracks from the upcoming album, which will be released on May 21st.

Related post:
D. Bowie and J. Timberlake streaming for free on iTunes. Both from RCA. Interesting.

 

HTC First, the Facebook Phone, will be discontinued 1 month after its insignificant release

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Some ideas are dead-on-arrival. Some are just agonizing-on-arrival and die only a few short weeks after they are regretfully released into the world. BGR has just confirmed that the HTC First will be discontinued, a little over a month after its release.

That was almost as fast as the Nexus Q demise. Although this is a hard one to beat, as the Nexus Q never even saw the light of day.

Now what I don’t understand is how something like this can possibly happen. Especially to companies that should know better by now. I wonder if someone decided to skip the market research part of the process, or if it was the result of the research that was conveniently ignored. How the hell does a phone that nobody wants (not even for free) makes it all the way to the stores?

Microsoft suffering over the lack of iTunes for Windows 8

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Tami Reller, CFO of Microsoft’s Windows divison, in an interview for CNN Money:

“You shouldn’t expect an iTunes app on Windows 8 any time soon. iTunes is in high demand. The welcome mat has been laid out. It’s not for lack of trying.”

Meanwhile, I don’t see Apple asking Microsoft to pretty-please develop an iPad version of Office. Infact, the only person who thinks that people are frustrated for the lack of Microsoft’s Office on the iPad is Bill Gates. Everyone else has already found a replacement for it.

And quite frankly, the lack of iTunes is the least of the problems that Windows 8 users are facing.

Two-step-verification for Apple IDs finally rolls out to Brazil as well as other countries

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9to5mac made a post informing that the 2-step-verification process for Apple IDs had appeared for users in Canada, Argentina and Pakistan. I decided to check the control panel for my Apple ID (which is Brazilian), and was happy to notice that it had appeared over there as well.

I’m pretty sure that more countries have received this feature as well. Apple should update the list in their FAQ shortly.

What the fuck is this, Microsoft? [Updated]

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No, Microsoft. The Old Spice campaign isn’t exactly the best source of inspiration for your campaign trying to sell the key features of Windows 8.

I understand that when you don’t really have much to show to benefit your product you have to distract people a little to get your message across. Samsung has been doing this for years with their Galaxy ads. But this campaign looks like a journey through Steve Ballmer’s disturbed and incomprehensible mind. But hey, at least this time he didn’t work as spokesman as well.

Interesting to note that even in this campaign they actually showed the product.

Update:
Neowin reports that Microsoft has removed (or set as private) these videos from their YouTube channel. They speculate that maybe they were published before time by mistake. I speculate that the mistake was to make them at all.

Taking a closer look at all the genius of the Samsung Galaxy S4 ad

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Yesterday BGR posted a story with the following title:

“The genius of Samsung ads: Even the most gimmicky features look like must-haves”.

Ok. Last week I watched the Galaxy S4 ad and a week later I can still remember thinking “Again? Did they really need to show yet again that little trick of transferring files by rubbing phones? Haven’t they done that enough with all the other 10 videos promoting the feature? Even Microsoft mocked them by calling out ‘one-trick-pony’ when proud Galaxy users did their little bumping trick in the Lumia 920 ad.”

The BGR post goes on:

“Samsung isn’t doing anything new with this ad but is rather sticking to its very winning formula of showing how the Galaxy S4 makes life more enjoyable in real-world situations while using the right dose of humor to rib chief rival Apple. This new ad is particularly effective because it overwhelms us with new features whose cumulative effect is to make the iPhone 5 look out of date by comparison.”

I decided to watch the ad once again, paying close attention to all the features it presents.

Here we go:

00:23 – Answer the phone by waving over the device
00:36 – Transferring files by proximity
00:42 – Sequence shots in the same photo
01:00 – Keep pointing at the device to read a text message
01:13 – Remote control (with the tiny disclaimer Initial set-up required)

Next I looked up apps in the AppStore that brought the same features displayed in the ad. Before saying that the comparison isn’t fair, afterall not all of them are native iPhone apps, here’s a reminder that what we’re exploring here is the premise that iPhones are obsolete because they can’t do what the Galaxy S4 does.

00:23 - Answer the phone by waving over the device
Score! We start with an exclusive Galaxy S4 feature (although I’m convinced that Jaibroken devices can do the same thing).

To be perfectly honest, even if I had a Galaxy, I wouldn’t use this feature to answer the phone. First, I’m never in an environment that makes me use speakerphone. I actually think that it’s rude to use speakerphone in a public place. It’s like when people decide to listen to loud music in the bus. Nobody should have to listen to what you’re listening to. Same thing with calls. Now, could this be a nice feature to maybe use when you’re driving? Maybe. But does the Galaxy S4 come with the feature that pays your traffic tickets?

Second, when the phone rings and I can’t answer it, I just don’t. The possibility to wave at the phone wouldn’t change that.

In the end, I just don’t think this is a very practical feature. What demands less work? Answering the phone like this, or the way iPhone users are used to? And what caused more surprise (since what’s being discussed here is the capability to innovate, surprise and shift the paradigm?) when presented? Here’s the video for a quick comparison.

00:36 - Transferring files by proximity
There’s an app for that. For free. Since 2009. Bump is the 21st most downloaded free app for iPhone of all time, according to a list by Apple that’s at most a week old.

00:42 - Sequence shots in the same photo
There’s an app for that. That’s all.

01:00 - Keep pointing at the device to read a text message
Pretty much like the feature that answers the phone with the little wave over it, I just don’t think this is practical. Besides, in the ad everything always works. However we’ve seen that in real life things are… uhm… different.

01:13 – Remote control (Initial set-up required)
Initial set-up required? Oh, great. In that case the iPhone/AppleTV ecossystem sounds like the best option by far. There are so many ways to explore the interaction between the two that it’d demand a new article just for that. Not to mention that depending on your needs, you know, there’s an app for that.

Bottom line:
Except for the no-touch phone interactions, all (three) innovations that make the iPhone “seem obsolete by comparison” are not only available to iPhone users, but they’ve actually been around since before the Galaxy S4 existed.

I don’t know exactly what is the winning formula that the BGR post referred to. What I see here is infact another old formula. The one that adds existing features to the Galaxy. And, you know, the one that says that you’ll be cool if you transfer a photo by rubbing phones.