alexmanchester.com

We deserve the iPad disappointment

2010-01-29T20:21:59+11:00

It's true, there's no way it could have lived up to the hype, but yesterday when Steve Jobs and his crew finished demoing the new Apple iPad, I was left seriously disappointed. Not mad like this guy, but just seriously, seriously disappointed.

For all the reasons the world and his dog have posted, the iPad misses the mark. Just quickly, they are:

The name: Awful.

No multitasking: What? On a device with a near 10-inch screen I have to go 'home' and close apps all the time? I can't use streaming apps, or have Twitter pop up when I'm surfing the net. On a 10-inch screen. Really? Wow.

The big, wide, clumsy black bezel round the edge that screams 'cheap digital photo frame' or, worse, 'Fisher Price Toy' almost as badly as the one on the white polycarbonate MacBook does. Those iSlate concepts were so much sleeker. In the same way the 2G iPhone is far, far sleeker than the 3G/S, it seems to show Apple's once sleek design for such products is going backwards, big time.

The fact that, really, it doesn't do anything we haven't seen before. Except... OK I'll give Phil Schiller this one, 'a really fun new way to play with a spreadsheet'. Whoop whoop.

And viewing that last point from a slightly different direction, the fact that it's missing something really innovative. It is. There's just nothing genuinely innovative here.

Too much 'i': iPad, iBooks. Really? Why not just 'the BookStore on iTunes' (just like 'the App Store' - on iTunes).They even ripped off the iBooks app design from an Apple Award winning developer - after they'd poached all his staff. Real classy.

The rhetoric and acommpanying cheezy video: 'It's revolutionary'. 'It's magical'. No. No it's damn well not. It's a giant iPod Touch. Literally. It's a bigger screened version of a product you already sell. That's not revolutionary and I don't appreciate you trying to ram such rubbish into my ears. I won't agree with you, no matter how much you say it.

'It's so amazing - it's the internet in the palm of your hand!' Yep, we've heard that before, it's exactly what they said about the iPhone.

It's disappointing compared to things we've already seen from… Microsoft, believe it or not: Look at this Surface app from Shane Morris. That makes you go 'wow'. it makes anyone you show it to go 'wow' as well. What about Microsoft's Courier concept, leaked (previewed?) by someone late last year. Far more intriguing and seemingly innovative than the iPad.

The iPad also looks just like HP's slate device (pictured right) that Steve Ballmer showed for a few seconds at CES in early January. Big bezel, eBook capabilities and all. Thankfully the iPad didn't have the damn cover of 'Twilight' on it, but I digress.

Again, while it couldn't possibly live up to the hype, I was hoping, really hoping, for something that lived up to some of the potential that's out there for these tablet things. Something that did something special (just like they're trying to tell us it does), just like the iPhone really did when it was launched. Like the tablet and touch interfaces on this video, perhaps (the first video, not the parody).

But the iPhone launch was three years ago and I think Apple is a different company now. In hindsight, there was no way, no way in the world, that that 'wow' product was going to happen yesterday.

In fact, I'm beginning to think all of the endless Apple hype (that I myself have contributed to - and I do still think their other products are better than most), and the billions of dollars they're making, has told them one thing: They can now, more than ever, cripple their products, hold back on features that are common and relatively simple (yes, multitasking), lock down access to an unheard of degree, claim they're 'magical and revolutionary' when they're not, not even give us decent aesthetics, and still charge a fortune for them. And we'll buy them, in the millions.

The iPad is the result of us accepting what we should not have accepted, and the mountains of hype heaped on Apple. We deserve it. We've thrown so much money and praise at them it's gone to their collective, heads, and they're getting giddy with the idea of creaming more money from the likes of a million plus iPads and several million iBooks.

Truth be told I don't need an iPad (who does?), but sadly I don't actually want one, either. As first-gen products go I think they may have really jumped the shark with this one. There's nothing it can do that the phone I'm already paying $80 a month for cannot. A phone that is, by the way, really pretty amazing, although it's not as pretty as the one before it, still can't multitask properly, the 'Bluetooth A2DP' doesn't actually work with the majority of headphones that are bluetooth A2DP, that I charge pretty much consistently when I'm at a desk, that scratches unless it's sealed front and back in a nice protective blanket… You get the idea.

Conceivably, if the overall 'underwhelmed' sentiment on the web is anything to go by, Apple will not sell as many of these as it hopes and, hopefully, we'll see a much better second-gen product. But the first impression is gone and I bet the ugly betty bezel will stay for a while to remind us of that fact.

Let's not forget though, that the iPad will be put to innovative use by the army of third party developers who have already done some great work with the iPhone/iPod touch, despite the straightjacket constraints of the iPhone SDK.

iPad is not a bad product, it's just not great product. Not yet. Not even close. For me, and after weeks, months, years of anticipation around an Apple tablet (an Apple TABLET!), it needed to be seriously great. It needed to make me go 'wow', big time, but the best we got is an unconvincing 'bless my whiskers'.

Damn it.

Social media interviews from Melcrum and iPadio – Euan Semple first up

2010-01-25T17:50:35+11:00

In tune with the current research I'm working on with them looking into social media and internal communication, the Melcrum team are focusing on the topic in a number of ways this year, notably with a major social media conference taking place in London in a couple of weeks (9-10 February 2010).

Ahead of the event, Melcrum have teamed up with iPadio, a smart 'live phonecasting and social media service' to stream phone interviews with conference speakers.

The first set of interviews feature Euan Semple, Lee Bryant, Louise McGregor from ING and Helen Farrar from Virgin Media.

Euan's interview is below, and check out the others over at iPadio. For full details of the confernece, head over to the Melcrum site.

3D control for the 'iSlate'? [Interfaces]

2010-01-19T22:13:01+11:00

The Guardian is reporting on a new patent application from Apple that suggests the event next week to unveil its 'latest creation' - aka the iSlate - might see the unveiling of a brand new '3D interface'.

...The patent, originally filed under the names of three French inventors, is called "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Manipulating Three-Dimensional Virtual Objects" and describes "a portable electronic device with a touch screen display" which displays what looks to the user like a 3D layout....

This isn't the first suggestion of such an idea, but according to the article, it could be the most well founded rumour so far. The iSlate has also been rumoured to have an interface with a 'steep learning curve' and a more 3D orientation would certainly be new for many people.

All will [hopefully] be revealed next Wednesday.

Streamlining the 360° feedback process at Prophet (Video)

2010-01-19T17:03:11+11:00

Following on from AEP's 'Now Ideas' video from the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards, we often talk about using the intranet to save time, and to streamline common business tasks. This is all about taking a cumbersome existing process, and replacing it with an online version that works spectacularly well. The online performance evaluation system implemented by Prophet is a perfect example of this.

This 5 minute video interview with Jase Wells from Prophet shares details on their award-winning solution. Lots of great stuff for intranet teams and IT groups alike.

The video covers:

How was the process done previously?
Why build an online system?
How was it designed?
What were the benefits?
Advice for other organisations?

As always, full details and screenshots are available in Intranet Innovations 2009, the annual report that showcases the present and future of intranets globally.

[Via James]

Design is how it works [Interfaces]

2010-01-18T21:10:00+11:00

"User interface design is not just what it looks like; design is how it works."

Just one of many good reminders and points in John Siracusa's look back at a decade of Mac OS X.

The history of tablet computing [Interfaces]

2010-01-18T20:53:00+11:00

With the hypometer seemingly at fever pitch already, but still 9 days until Apple purportedly launches a new tablet device, Appleinsider has published a good article on the the history of tablet computing, dating back to the early 70s.

With the iPhone revolutionising mobile touch interfaces in 2007, and perhaps the tablet to do the same for bigger devices, Apple's role in this particular lineage of computing always makes me think. The Apple Newton was well ahead of its time and, not long after his return to the company Jobs famously cancelled that project in the late 90s as it wasn't a viable focus given the light Apple was in. It's also a lesson to learn: some ideas may be too early, but that doesn't mean they have to die.

Read the full article over at Appleinsider.

Saving millions with the AEP intranet (video)

2010-01-15T15:27:37+11:00

American Electric Power (AEP) has one of the best intranets, and best intranet teams, in the world.

In 2009 AEP won a Gold Intranet Innovation Award for 'Now Ideas' - a fantastic online ideas system that helped the company identify $8 million in savings in just a few months. All the ideas were from AEP staff.

From James, here's a video of William Amurgis from AEP, talking about the system.

This is the first of several videos Step Two will be publishing from the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards. You can check out more from 2007, 2008 and 2009 on YouTube.

Intranet conferences in 2010

2010-01-06T10:26:06+11:00

Over at the Intranet Focus blog, Martin White (@intranetfocus) has compiled a list of intranet conferences for the year ahead.

Ranging from Sydney to Paris, Frankfurt to New York and Miami to Oslo, there's over 20 events, covering all aspects of intranets, information management, content management systems, usability, enterprise 2.0 and more.

See the full list here.

Get involved: new research project on social media and internal communication

2010-01-05T15:41:22+11:00

Kicking off 2010, this week I'm very pleased to be starting a new collaborative research project between Step Two Designs and the internal communications research agency, Melcrum.

James Bennett (Melcrum's Head of Content) and I will be working on this and it will run throughout January, with the findings published later in the year in a full research report on 'Social media and internal communications in 2010'.

That's the working/umbrella title, and it will encompass a multitude of topics, including:

social tools and technology in the workplace
social media strategies
social media roles and teams, governance
measurement and ROI of social media
lessons learned
content, examples, models and more, all related to the internal/employee side of business.

Get involved
Given the scope, we're looking for input and contributions to the research, specifically: case studies, insight and examples from internal communications, social media, and intranet practitioners and consultants that have had experience in experimenting with, deploying and having success or failures with social media as part of an employee communications, engagement, collaboration etc. strategy.

Are you involved in this type of work, or do have an example to share or story to tell, short or long?

If so, we would love to hear from you, wherever you are in the world: alex [at] steptwo [dot] com [dot] au, or via any of the other links on the first right column of this blog. We're scheduling interviews and research work all the way through January 2010.

The end product of these research projects is a full report, an example of which you can see and download here, and there are many more excellent reports over on the Melcrum site, including the original 2007 report, How to use social media to engage employees, which I was also heavily involved with.

What's in it for you? Global recognition, complementary reports
In return for your contribution to the new report, your work will be profiled to the extensive and global internal comms and intranet audiences of Melcrum and Step Two Designs. You'll also immediately receive a complementary PDF of the full 2007 report, and PDF the new report when its launched.

Accompanying survey
James will also soon be publishing details for the accompanying social media survey which will is ready to go and will run throughout this month (I'll republish details here when launched).

Get in touch
So, as said,if you're working in this field, we'd be very pleased to hear from you.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-05T13:35:39+11:00

Welcome to 2010

Happy new year to all readers of this blog and beyond, I hope you had a chance for some fun, rest and relaxation over the Christmas/holiday period and New year too. I spent a fantastic couple of weeks in Queensland, the bulk of which was up at the idyllic beach resort of Noosa, where the weather was stunning for much of the time. The two weeks off gave me a lot of time to rest, recuperate, reflect on the highs and lows of the year that was (I think I came out just about even), and think about the year ahead and its first few months.

In terms of work:

Step Two: I'm aiming to putting my foot on the accelerator with my work. 2009, was a huge year for me in terms of intranet projects, the 2009 intranet innovation awards and a whole lot more. I worked with and spoke to a lot of great people, learnt a huge amount, and was constantly reminded that there's infinitely more to learn. As a consultancy, we're looking forward to many projects and products in the pipeline, one of which I'll talk about later today, and further developments in the field of...

Intranets: In various posts, my Step Two colleagues and I capped off 2009 with some tentative eyes looking forward. Where are intranets heading? Will they still be called intranets? What will future intranets do? I'm looking forward to lots more discussion and further development on these questions and more, with anyone who's interested. Drop me a line on email (contacts), Skype or Twitter or any other of the links on the first-right column.

There's also set to be a continuation and growth of the intranet strategy, redesign and CMS work we focus on, with several very interesting projects lined up for the start of the year and one client's brand new intranet launch that I'm really looking forward to seeing go live this March.

In terms of other things:

Goodbye 'news': as much as I love being 'topical' (as one of the things my friends call me), I've decided to trial the quitting all 'news' aside from work-related fields, tech journals/blogs, premiership soccer, basketball and a few other interests.

Why? Well, it depresses me, to be 100% honest - both in terms of content and quality, and I don't feel like I'm any better off for reading all the trash that comes out of the majority of mainstream media. Time may prove different and, of course, I'm sure I'll still read links and research that come my way, that come through via channels such as Twitter, and will no doubt pick up on any crisis that occurs. But, as of today, BBC news, the Financial Times, Sydney Morning Herald etc. have been stripped from my RSS reader and browser bookmarks. They're miserable, distracting, often full of second-hand information, and really not worth the effort or time any more, and it's pretty nice to say 'adios'.

Anticipating the Apple Tablet: The evidence is overwhelming, in late January we will see a new, big, tablet-style device from Apple and it might well be called iSlate (although iHope not – it's about as awkward as 'MacBook' was upon launch).

Will it be as big a hit as their little tablet they released in 2007? I hope so, and by that I mean I hope it's as wonderful and beautiful to use as the iPhone is. I still remember when I got my unlocked, 2G iPhone delivered from America at vast expense. Taking the lid off the box and seeing this super-sleek, black and silver device was just the beginning of a relationship that now means any other phone really struggles to even get consideration, let alone become a viable purchase.

More on interfaces: With the iSlate and what could potentially smash the bar for more computer-oriented, touch-based user-interfaces, I'm going to continue learning as much as I can about user interface and experience design. As written last year (see lower half of this post), and put nicely in a further Shane Morris presentation in late December '09, this is 'the age of user experience'. It's growing into the most exciting area of technology development and something that's of real interest and relevance to me both in terms of work and play.

So, that's enough just to kick off 2010, but undoubtedly there's plenty more to come. I'm hoping it will be a great year. How about you?