ScouseJournalist

Subaru Legacy 3.0R review:

2017-11-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

The 2009 Subaru Legacy. A car who’s name commands respect through anonymity

Legacy owners don’t have much of a stereotype as owners go which says a lot about the discreet nature of the car in a market dominated by Accords, Camrys, Mazda6s and Fusions.

All dull but "sensible" choices, with sensible stereotypes. Accords for aging people wanting something reliable, Mazda6s for people who want something like the Accord that isn’t an Accord, the Fusion for people who couldn’t be bothered buying a car and the Camry for just about every other unimaginative A to B driver in America. DULL.

Rebelling Against The Competition

Now I’m not going to say the Subaru is the pinnacle of excitement, it isn’t, but it has eccentric character and lovable faults that none of the others can touch. It’s the odd one out in the range by far and unlike the others it does things in its own un-sensible way, which is why I like it.
Unlike any of the other cars it doesn’t quite fit in their standard sedan range because of its odd, almost mid-ranged proportions. While they are all similar in spacious(I’d say bloated) capacities to comfortably fit a family, the Legacy is a car designed for those 127 hours enthusiasts. What I’m trying to say is the Legacy has little legroom, especially in the back. If you’re sitting in the back and someone over 5’10 like myself gets in the front you’ll be doing a fantastic James Franco impersonation with your legs by the end of the journey.

You know what though? I don’t care, and I actually like the fact Subaru’s engineers designed this car to take out backseat drivers. It sends a message to everyone who gets inside that this is a car for the driver, not for the passengers, so get out. The type of person who appreciates this type of car hates backseat drivers and their whiney opinions on leg room. Talking of seats, they aren’t exactly well proportioned either. The body support is decent but they are very firm and seem to be designed for slim people with square arses.

Unique Engineering

Another thing that separates the Legacy from its competition is its engines. All Subaru engines are a boxer set up. The only other major car manufacturer to use this set up is Porsche. Now that's something you can boast to your Camry owning neighbors or the guys down at the pub!
Although I wouldn’t expect Porsche performance from the engines. There is an industrious nature to the Legacy’s drivetrain layout.

The unique boxer layout allows for a straight drive shaft from the Engine to the rear wheels, making the car All Wheel Drive. This direct and simple engineering is what Subaru markets as “Symmetrical All Wheel Drive” because there is by design no mechanical interference to imbalance how the power from the engine reaches all four wheels(i.e. no torque-steer). This gives a huge performance advantage over the competition who are all, nearly identical torque-steering front wheel drive cars with V6 engines. Of course the trade off for power to all wheels rather than two is awful fuel economy. In my car specced with the rare 6 cylinder engine, I get an average of 17mpg. Yeah I’m sure Cletus in his truck gets that kind of mileage. Though I don’t think his truck sounds like a Porsche every time you get it up to its 7,000 red line.

It's Not a Fault, It's a Feature

I don’t think this MPG is entirely down to the AWD system either, the 5-speed Auto is a factor. It hates downshifts and there is something mechanical and industrious about the way it works with the AWD system. The Auto doesn’t feel like Michael Schumacher in the gearbox, it feels more like Butch the construction worker doing his Schumacher impression behind the wheel of a JCB digger. Which makes sense given Subaru’s connections with Fuji heavy industries.
The gearbox feels compromised between performance and functionality. Every now and then you get reminded of Butch’s sporty pretensions in 2nd to 3rd gear as the car gives the most mechanical shunt with a delayed “gid-dunk” and you're away again.

This is an issue that has plagued the range of Legacy’s in the automotive press. Subaru finally giving up on the 4 and 5-speed auto’s and going fully industrial with the construction vehicle sourced CVTs in the new generation of Legacys that are super smooth, with great fuel economy(up to about 31mpg) and no performance as a result.

They have also admitted defeat by giving the new car a spongey chassis and the sedan proportions Camry and Accord owners expect. Subaru sales people claim their sales have now gone through the roof with the new and sensible model. Curiously the ratings of the new ‘dull’ model have dropped in the automotive press from the old “flawed” one.

Secretly, they agree with me. What made the Legacy I own flawed was what made us like it. You see, the Legacy unlike its competition isn’t a car for people who want a dull daily driver(though it's actually very competent at that), it's a car for someone who pretends they are sensible like everyone else while covertly desiring a performance car in stealth.

Secret WRC Car....Almost!

The Legacy has a secret... Underneath the subtle exterior is a stretched Impreza chassis disguised as a sensible sedan, a road going rally car that strikes fear into insurance companies everywhere. The Legacy is about 90% Impreza without the boy racer image or the insurance costs!

The brakes are responsive with great feel, the chassis has some roll but is very sharp and chuck-able. You can easily trace road lines with one hand on top of the steering wheel. The car feels light and much smaller than it really is. It gives you great confidence and the communication from the AWD in the steering wheel always gives you this feeling of “push harder I’ve got plenty more grip”.

You Will Actually Look Forward to Winter

And grip it does. This car was driven through the 3rd worst Snow Storm in Mid-Western history and it was never stuck. SUV’s were getting trapped on the snow as this thing with its narrow tires and AWD cut through the deep snow with ease. While all the Camry drivers hide in winter or cause a highway pile up, I actually look forward to winter in my Legacy and taking the unplowed roads off the highway to avoid the aforementioned Camry Accord pileups.

If there is a stereotype to be made of Legacy owners it's that they are the most annoying and smug people you will ever meet in winter. Yes, I’m that guy who drives up that hill you're struggling up, reverses back down half way with the handbrake on and winds my window down beside you to ask if you need any help? Then drives back up and back down again to ask if you are sure you don’t need help in your wheel spinning Mazda6.

The 17MPG is worth every second of that smugness. Come summer it's not so smug but the chassis still excites you when the other loafer cars don’t and summer is the time you can let that boxer give its distinct mid-range growl on the highway. A characteristic of boxers is they lack low-end grunt but they really rev and like to be treated mean to get that kick of torque in the mid-revs they are famous for. Nothing like them and despite the criticism of the 3.0 H6 engine in the press as the worst engine choice they fail to mention the pros. It's a H6 like Porsches use, every person who has ever sat in this car as a passenger has commented on how uncanny the “911 sound” is when you put your foot down and when you aren’t; how unbelievably silent/vibration free it is on the highway.

The Automotive Equivalent of Smooth Jazz

I won’t bore you with a history or an engineering lesson about Subaru’s links with the aerospace industry. I’ll tell you this though, boxer engines were the engine of choice in propellor based aircraft for good reason. A setup like the H6 has mathematically; a perfect weight balance that counteracts the forces of the other. As one piston moves one way, another is swinging in the opposite direction at the same time that creates a neutral effect as they “box” outwards in this beautiful mechanical harmony. This translates on the road as a car that smooths out with power rather than vibrates from side to side like the competitors V6s do under acceleration. Subaru also claims the boxer setup creates a lower centre of gravity that improves handling. One thing of interest is the rarer H6 though more expensive to run, uses more premium parts like a metal chain rather than rubber belts, that according to owners forums makes it the most reliable engine of a car brand already known for its bullet proof reliability.

To date, I’ve not had a single issue with the car other than some minor fit and finish issues like the rubber on the window seal being off which may have just been the dealers fault. You get the impression this car’s mechanicals will long outlast its interior parts. The interior is modest enough all round and made of sturdy plastics but some things like the squeaky ‘happy meal toy’ plastics on the steering column and the flimsy covers on the windscreen frames look like they will fall off eventually. It has its novelties too.

Some Gimmicks

An electronic throttle Subaru calls “SI Drive”, that can be adjusted by turning a pie-tray shaped nob in one of 3 directions. Intelligent, Sport or Sport Sharp. Intelligent is what I refer to as the stupid choice, Sport as the regular one and Sport Sharp as summer fun. Intelligent cuts the peak horsepower and like Sport reduces the throttle response. Something that Subaru claims gives 10% more fuel economy. The thing is, all this does in practice is create the unresponsive effect of a sticky pedal or in intelligent mode, the feeling you have an egg under the pedal. Just an example, I want to quickly join some high speed traffic and I want to dart into that gap quickly. Gas....delay...delay...roar and it starts to pull itself gradually. It's really not confidence inspiring and you don’t feel as in control of the vehicle’s dynamics.

All this though is relieved by switching to "Sport Sharp" mode. Suddenly the car makes sense. It's a fun setting that really brings out the revving nature of the boxer engine on a winding B road. Thrash the pedal and it responds instantly with a fizzy sound and a kick of torque that can only be described as a raging harmony of growling tones. The bass kicking in around 3,500rpm and the mid-range growl layering over it at 5,000rpm. It's almost like the balancing of the cylinders creates a musical ensemble of equal timing. I love it.

So in conclusion:

The Subaru Legacy is a car full of eccentric flaws. See past those flaws and you’ll realize they make it a fantastic drivers car that you can rely on all year round to do everything, something you can’t say of the competition.

Thoughts on the Apple iWatch and Google smart watch market

2014-09-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't live in caves on mars, Apple unveiled the iWatch this week. Their first entry into the smart watch market kicked off by Google earlier this year.

This isn't a new thing for Apple to do. They're often late to the party with technology but they seem to have this gift for hyping it up and using it in a seemingly reinvented way that only Apple can do. Seriously, if you want to play a drinking game, watch Apple Live events and take a shot every time Tim Cook says "only Apple" to describe new products.

So what's new about the iWatch?

Not much as far as I can tell. It's an Apple interpretation of the Google smart watches we saw earlier this year. The differences are the same proprietary things you notice between iPhones and Android phones. There's nothing about it that made me think I want a smart watch now, anymore than it did when Google unveiled theirs.

Not really that surprising in the smart watch market

I think this is the problem I'm having with it. Apple usually takes a product/genre and transforms it with something full of design firsts or unique qualities. I didn't get that feeling with the iWatch. It felt like the only unique quality is that it runs on Apples proprietary software. What disappointed me with the design is that it looks like Apple joined its competition rather than distinguished itself as a product its own league. Look at it alongside the rivals below:

LG G Watch

Samsung Gear 2

Apple Watch

The Apple Watch looks better and more imaginative in its UI but...

Look again

Moto 360 (Credits: TheTechBlock)

Does the product at the bottom of the list not stand out the most? Not because of the gif but the fact that it does something that all 3 above aren't doing. Trying to be a watch?

Trying to be a watch, a unique concept in a smart watch market

Looking at the first 3 designs they're all competing for the same space. They're all trying to reinvent the watch by creating a 2014 interpretation of the future watch concept we saw the likes of Casio create in the 1980s. The same square form factors and outlandish futuristic designs.

While by contrast, the Moto 360 hides the fact it is a smart watch and is the only one with a round clock face. It's unique.

Being unique in the market place sells

Any of you who have read my previous blogs, my marketing recommendation to all my clients and readers is focus on your uniqueness. Usually this is Apple's forte but on this occasion it seems to me to be the Moto 360 and it shows in the way it continues to sell out.

This isn't to say doom and gloom for Apple. The Apple watch will be a resounding success, simply on the merit of it being an Apple product linked to the massively popular Apple software ecosystem. It will be the must have accessory to pair with iPhones when it releases in 2015.

It is a question of philosophy

It appears there are two approaches to smart watches forming. The ultra modern "look at me, I have a smart watch!" designs and then the Moto 360 "surprise! I'm actually a smart watch too" philosophy.

Personally I'm more of a fan of the latter because it solves some of the workflow issues we've been having with the smart watch concept. Is it a standalone product or a supplementary one that compliments your user experience with your phone or computer rather than a replacement for them.

It fits into the workflow by acting as a wrist based notification center you can quickly glance at and decide whether it is worth the more cumbersome (and antisocial) option of pulling out your phone or laptop. I don't want to replace my phone or laptop with it.

How will smart watches affect traditional watch sales?

A watch that is smart rather than a smart watch

I predict that Apple will conquer the high tech looking market and Google will grow the modest Moto 360 watch market further. What I'm really curious to see, is how these smart watches affect the sales of conventional watches.

Could we see Google partnering with brands like Rolex to make stylish shells for their smart watches to take on the Apple iWatch?

Automation is the future - robots will terminate your jobs

2014-09-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

Coming from the future to terminate your job (Credits: ComicBookMovies)

Automation of jobs is the ultimate goal of corporations to maximize profitability. This is not a trend, this is here to stay, this is your future.

Any of you reading this with a job that requires instructions or does something standardized (non artistic/creative) will find themselves replaced by robots. It's tragic our economically outdated education system trains us to be better robots who have no chance of competing against real robots.

George Carlin on education (Credits: EmilysQuotes)

Politicians and parents are constantly putting pressure on teachers to enact more standardized testing on students. Ironically this self defeating mentality is something they have been trained to think.

Teaching compliance instead of ingenuity

All these tests do is measure machine like compliance. Like a Borg drone trying to seek "perfection" rather than uniqueness.

"Comply! Resistance is futile!" (Credits: Star Trek)

Even the Borg assimilated uniqueness to improve their workforce

As we're collectively trained to stamp out uniqueness, it is the remarkable few that embrace theirs in the workplace that get ahead and have job security because they have things that can't be standardized.

Creativity, the stuff that makes us human.

Training people to be machines might have worked when they didn't exist but now they do, human machines aren't needed in the job market anymore. Like those dock workers in Baltimore to the factory workers in Detroit. You're yesterdays spare parts in the emotionless corporate machines.

Raging against the machine

Disconnecting from the old job collective can be difficult (Credits: Memory-Alpha)

The new normal is a scary place for those who fail to see this coming. As we transition from an industrial/factory economy to an idea based "dotcom" economy, those who cling onto the old normals will find themselves out of jobs indefinitely...

If you refuse to adapt you can buy yourself time running to smaller companies that haven't automated yet, eventually though, those machines will find your job and terminate you.

Modern rebranding and marketing of snake oil salesmen

2014-09-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

Snake oil salesman

You've no doubt heard the term snake oil salesmen but it is more often used in a historic context to refer to the sleazy opportunists in the "wild western" times of America selling bottled junk, marketing wild claims it will cure all your ailments.

Sadly those people didn't go away with history, they simply rebranded themselves...

Here's a list of today's snake oil salesmen:

1. Snake oil "marketers" = multi-level marketers, direct marketers, Amway,

and generally anyone who sells you something amazing without specifying what that amazing something actually is!

They're the first to tell you it looks, walks and quacks like a pyramid scheme but it definitely isn't one! It's "a lifetime opportunity"

Multi-level marketing is a pyramid scheme (credits: gnu-design)

2. Loan sharks = payday loans companies

Unscrupulous and parasitic, John Oliver explains just how sinister these legal loan sharks are:

3. Witch doctors = holistic/alternative medicine

If you can't hack it in medical school, set up a practice sensationally marketing treatments for the incurable, at prices cheaper than REAL medicine.

Here's a few examples of witch doctors from the FDA website

Dr Oz selling "miracle pills" (Credits: Health Copywriter)

What's sinister is many of these witch doctors will appear on Oprah promoting their junk or endorse poorly informed celebrities to undermine real medicine with their pseudo science conspiracy theories, like Autism is caused by vaccines. All so they can create an "expert" pitch to sell their pseudo science treatments.

4. Cultists = Scientology

The founder of Scientology and science fiction writer Ron Hubbard famously said:

"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."

I'll let that one settle in...

Scientology combines many of the above. It sucks in the vulnerable, the gullible and sells them another "opportunity of a lifetime" to cure themselves of all their ills if they just commit their sanity and money to what "definitely isn't" a religious pyramid scheme.

The junk Scientology will use to sell you more junk (Credits: Raymond Pronk)

5. Crooks = Politicians turned lobbyists

These are the politicians who have their campaigns financed by a corporate special interest group. Once elected, they predictably legislate in favor of that special interest group.

Then take a highly paid job working as a lobbyist for that special interest group when they leave office. Their job being to groom and recruit the next round of aspiring politicians to do exactly what they did.

Known by many as the "revolving door" of political corruption. Not so much a ploy as the system itself in American politics today.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

6. Robbers = Wall Street banks

To paraphrase the joke. If you want to make a little money and go to jail, rob a bank. If you want to rob everyone and get away with it, set up a bank. ($ee Wall$treet bailouts)

***All of these groups of snake oil salesmen have one thing in common. They're all technically legal, many because they can change so quickly through rebranding and new marketing, the law can never keep up (assuming the law isn't already in their pocket!).

Just because something is legal, it doesn't make it ethical.

So what do you think? Did I miss any on this list?

Tesla car quality in the media - Does luxury buy you reliability?

2014-09-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago I read a collection of media headlines about Telsa being a brand with quality issues, that kicked off a debate on what consumers expect from expensive purchases such as a $90,000 luxury electric car. Does money really buy you reliability?

In short...No.

$90k cars shouldn't have issues but headlines on Tesla's minor faults while failing to report the major problems of luxury manufactures smacks of an anti-Tesla bias.

Mercedes and Land Rover for example make cars far more expensive and horribly unreliable although you never see headlines about them. Nor have consumers stopped buying these expensive, desirable and unreliable cars (or GMs recall mobiles for that matter!)

Debunking the myth about pricing and quality

[Credits: Flickr]

Spending big money in the car market doesn't necessarily mean you're buying more quality. More money can mean you're buying more technology, design or performance.

Think of it this way...

An expensive German car full of technological innovations and style is a Mechanical Rolex Watch.

That cheap and dull Japanese car is a digital Casio watch.

The simple digital watch is far more accurate and reliable than the mechanical one while costing a tenth of the price... But which one do you want?

The Rolex or the Casio?

We're buying the status symbol

We don't buy things on utility so we shouldn't be surprised when car makers do not focus on making and marketing their cars on those requirements either.

Tesla Factory in California [Credits: Watchdog.org]

It's a marketed fallacy that spending more money on a car will buy you more quality. You definitely buy more of something, it's up to you as a consumer to work out what that something is.

As a general rule if you want reliability look where the car was made(the factory location not the nationality of the car maker) and how complicated/sophisticated the design is.

Tesla is theoretically far more reliable than conventional cars because like the digital Casio watch it has so few mechanical parts to go wrong and is built in a modern US factory with high quality control.

The media perception

Earlier I mentioned an anti-Tesla bias in the media. The company achieved the highest rating of any car on Consumer Reports ever and the NHTSA scoring it the safest car ever. The car seemed a little too good to be true that the media has been headlining sensationalist stories about the car catching fire ....after driving over a sharp metallic object like toe hooks in the road. Implying (wrongly) a poor design.

Accidents with Teslas make the headline news while Ferraris and Lamborghinis spontaneously going up in flames? Barely a peep.

These are cars that cost 2 to 3 times more than Teslas, perhaps the brand has set such a high standard the media holds their cars to it?

Common PR and Marketing "fails" your business can learn from

2014-09-01T21:47:00.003-07:00

Here's an introspective list of common PR and Marketing fails I've made in my career that you can learn from in growing your business:

1. Getting high on your own supply of marketing BS- As a marketing guy who spends the majority of his time promoting products in the best light, it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing your own hype and projecting that onto your audience. This is a classic marketing fail. If you find yourself writing copy that says ambiguous cliches like "innovative, unique, market leader" on a regular basis, please STOP! Everyone says those things, it's meaningless drivel.

Worst of all, the message is inauthentic. Pyramid sellers are inauthentic. Are you a pyramid seller? No, well start selling tangible things your market understands. Throw out the buzzwords and instead communicate value to your target audience, give them well researched examples of what your product actually does to solve problems they have. This is what resonates with your market.

"Don't get high on your own marketing supply"

2. PR instincts that turn you into a control freak- Do you find yourself constantly on the defensive, paranoid, micromanaging everyone (and everything!) on a campaign to the point you're actually getting in the way of everyone else's productivity? You probably haven't realized it yet, you've been too stressed to think about it. Take a break and ponder it for moment... A PR fail of mine was I reached this point to such an extreme I became the staff's dark overlord of personal blogs and the entire brand's voice.

I learned it was counter productive, unnecessarily stressing everyone out and strangling personalities within the company that made the brands message actually interesting. Learn to coach and trust in your team on campaigns.

"None shall pass!" the PR dark overlord

3. Doing what everyone else is doing in the market- Too often in benchmarking against the competition we let the design and marketing of our rivals products dictate our agenda. If they're doing something, we must do it but..more, bigger, faster and better! WRONG! This is exactly what your competition is doing too. In business there is no such thing as 2nd place. There's only 1st and last place for everyone else. If you're trying to do something better your competition is doing, you're already last!

You must do what your competition isn't doing. You have to take risks and create your own niche in the market. Own it, do things differently and be the 1st to do it. The trick in good marketing is convincing your market that what you offer is unique and no one else can do it.

Do you think your market will remember the brownest one?

4. Use traditional "interruption" marketing techniques- I'm going to shock you now with a controversial statement. TV ads, Newsaper ads, telesales and even online advertisements DO NOT work. They're an expensive waste of money and offer a horrible return on investment compared to other things you could spend the budget on. "If that is true, (I hear you ask), why do so many big names advertise on TV then?"

Exactly the same reason as people fail in the 3rd point I made above. "If everyone else is doing it, it must be working for them?" That's the marketing assumption they're making too and the trap is the dogmatic mindset that if it's not working I must not be doing it enough!

That is the very Einstein definition of insanity...

PR & Marketing logic

Please don't commit yourself or your company's wealth to this PR and marketing fail. What you should be doing with your business is something I will write for you in another more thorough blog.

In the meantime I highly recommend reading up on "Permission Marketing" by Seth Godin and reaching out to me with your questions in the comments section below or a message on Twitter: @scousejourno

Celebrity iCloud accounts allegedly hacked- Will this hurt Apple's iPhone 6 launch?

2014-08-31T22:44:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Lawrence photos leaked online (Image:Wiki)

This Sunday a stream of naked celebrity photos believed to be from hacked Apple iPhones leaked onto social media from a user on the anonymous message board known as 4chan.

Social media sites like Twitter and Reddit exploded with traffic as the leaks continued in an event domining the internet, that many dubbed "the Fappening". Celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton confirmed the authenticity of the leaks with speculation by social media users claiming the hacking of iCloud accounts as the source.

Celebrity leaks of this kind have happened before but they are usually isolated to just one celebrity and are from more local phone hacking methods like an unsecure bluetooth, email or wifi setting on the device. Never has there been an example of celebrity phone hacking of this magnitude featuring so much content, which suggests a more sophisticated hack occurred with a user gaining remote access to Apple's iCloud network.

What is Apple iCloud?

iCloud is a way of backing up photos, videos and other content from Apple devices like your iPhone on a "cloud" server rather than just memory on your phone. If a hacker manages to gain access to those iCloud servers, they potentially have a way of downloading anyone's backed up content on an Apple device.

The damage to Apple's reputation if this proves true could be huge with iPhone users scrambling to delete the backup copies of any compromising content on their iCloud accounts. (For those of you with Apple devices reading this, Mashable offers information on how you can improve the iCloud security on your iPhone).

If a broader iCloud breach is confirmed, the news of this celebrity hacking will cast a huge shadow on the highly anticipated launch of the iPhone 6 next week, that up until now has been expected to be a massive sales success.

[Update: Apple have confirmed they are investigating the alleged iCloud hack and have patched a password exploit in the "find my iPhone" app. ]

HTC ONE M8 - Google Play Edition Review

2014-08-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

HTC have released a Google Play Edition of their popular and favorably reviewed HTC ONE M8 handset

What is a Google Play Edition?

A Google Play Edition (or GPE for short) is a handset running the same operating system as Google's own Nexus range of devices.

This is usually the latest version of the Android operating system. What some like to call "Pure Android" because it is unfettered by hardware makers who layer onto it their own UI.

Advantages of GPE?

Having an unfettered version of Android means you have none of the bloatware that hardware makers and service providers preinstall.

Samsung's TouchWiz user interface has been known to be slower and less responsive when compared to the same hardware running GPE which seems to use less hardware resources in benchmarks.

Disadvantages of GPE

While it is nice to get rid of bloatware 3rd party apps and poorly optimized UI's like Samsung's Touchwiz, there are good manufacturer UI's out there like HTC's Sense 6 and equivalents from Sony that some argue have improved the Nexus UI.

Google's unified messaging system "hangouts" for example, has been met with mixed reviews.

My opinion on GPE

As someone who works in communications for a living I value "power user" things like battery life, reliability and speed navigating through menus without lag.

The GPE ticks all these boxes and I would happily trade a more attractive UI for these things.

Google hangouts was a friction point for me as the user experience was different to one I'd come to expect but once I figured it out that friction quickly went away.

Hardware

The Nexus 5 is a good phone but it is on the chunky side and looks mid range along side premium handsets like the iPhone 5S.

The HTC ONE M8 running the Nexus version of Android solves all of the Nexus 5 shortcomings by having that OS on more powerful hardware and a premium shell that makes iPhone owners envious.

The HTC ONE M8- GPE is a beautifully slim aluminum handset with a unibody construction that feels perfectly balanced in your hand.

The camera is average and feature's a gimmicky dual camera setup that creates a faux depth of field effect you'd get from a DSLR. It's inconsistent and would have been better served by one more powerful camera instead.

Daily Driver?

After one week of testing the phone has been reliable(only one app crash), fast(fluent UI), powerful (quad core) and surprisingly good as an entertainment device.

The front facing speakers are so powerful and clear people have said in other rooms to turn down the TV volume. A great compliment.

Similarly, on the things that matter that we rarely talk about, is the phone actually delivers as a phone. It has the best call quality(AT&T) and volume on any handset I've tested to date.

Summary

+Excellent call and audio quality

+Fluent user interface

+Reliable

+Beautiful handset

-Expensive up front costs

-Camera is gimmicky and average

-UI is basic

(Update: Long term review)

After 2 months heavy use, the phone has continued to be reliable with the latest Android update to the phone having no impact on the stella performance.

One grievance has appeared though. The back of the phone is branded with HTC written in what looks like grey metal. It is actually a sticker and by poor design, peeled off to look like magnetic letters on a refrigerator.

It is a bad design because this isn't caused by the care of the user. This is an area where heat-maps will demonstrate the phone CPU generates the most heat and melts what appears to be heat sensitive glue.

Although trivial, this seems to be a common issue on HTC user forums and something that undermines the perceived quality of an otherwise beautifully designed product.

My 5 essential gadgets

2014-07-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

As a tech enthusiast and someone who works in the gaming industry for a living, I'm regularly asked for recommendations "what gadgets do you use?". Here are my 5 most essential gadgets:

1. Vizio M-Series Smart TV

According to CNET in 2013 the best performing LED TV in its price range. Amazing detail and color accuracy for HD films. Fast refresh rate for gaming.

It even has built in WiFi to stream video services like Netflix and Hulu.

If you're looking for performance on a budget I highly recommend looking at the M-Series range.

2. Sony PlayStation 4

Working in perfect harmony with my smart TV I have the full next generation gaming experience in my living room.

Combined they deliver a 1080p (Full HD) detail and the intensity of 60 frames per second in games like Battlefield 4.

With exclusives like The Last of Us and Uncharted 4, the PlayStation 4 is my pick.

3. Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

This is the perfect reading device.

Although it costs that bit more, the newer "Paperwhite" version has a superior user experience with the touch interface providing more control and the higher resolution screen for reading images.

What I love is the wifi synchronization with my Amazon account. The purchasing of E-Books is incredibly easy (a bit too easy!), I've found it to be an indispensable tool in learning new skills or points of reference in my work because I can carry an entire library in my pocket.

I use it for all my studying, using it anywhere in any light (thanks to its ink display) and 30 day battery life!

I'd recommend the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite to anyone who reads heavily or as a gift for a student intimidated by books. The Kindle is one of those devices that genuinely makes it easier to read.

4. HTC ONE M8 - Google Play Edition

My phone and mobile workhorse.

Not only a beautiful unibody device, it's incredibly powerful. As a heavy user I opted for the Google Play Edition version of the software for the faster, reliable and more energy efficient user experience.

It delivers on all these things with 10hours battery life, a secure platform (Google Play Editions get updates first) and the fastest UI of any phone I've ever used.

As a bonus the phone has the best front facing speakers of any device currently on the market, I rarely fumble around with knotted headphones in my pocket to enjoy a quick YouTube video.

The only downside is the average camera and lack of water resistance when compared to its plastic rival the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Despite the camera, I highly recommend the HTC ONE M8- GPE.

5. Apple MacBook Pro (17 inch)

My laptop and mobile editing suite. Although it's getting old now, this discontinued model has the advantage of being the last of the 17 inch MacBook Pros, making it a perfect machine for video editing.

A testament to the OS is how the machine still runs like new, unlike the depreciating software bloat that accumulates in Windows machines over time.

Computer games and the fitness industry- a virtual reality future?

2014-06-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

The gaming industry in 2013 was valued at $93 billion and the fitness industry with a revenue of $23 billion. Two gigantic industries that were until 2006, unlikely business partners. So what changed?

In short, the Nintendo Wii.

For a long time the gaming industry had an image problem in the eyes of the fitness industry.

Gaming stereotypes thanks to South Park

Gamers were stereotyped as spotty teenage boys with an aversion towards exercise and a preference for basement dwelling.

The truth surprisingly is those gamers grew up a long time ago and the market research indicates the core gamer is, 31yrs old educated and affluent. In fact, 59% of the US population today are gamers.

The demographic disparity between male and female gamers have been changing too with the latter balancing out what used to be a male dominated past time.

What the Wii did when it released in 2006 was challenge this conventional market and tapped into a completely new one that many in the industry didn’t believe existed. The Wii appealed to people who in the past wouldn’t identify themselves as gamers.

New Market
Female gamers and the elderly were all curious to have a go at this cultural phenomenon that was the Wii with the pick up and playability of the unique controller interface.

The Nintendo Wii changing the image of gamers

This shift in product marketing resulted in the Nintendo Wii selling more consoles than the Xbox and PlayStation combined with Nintendo carving its own niche in the developing “family market”.

Nintendo moved away from the traditional market, often referred to as “hardcore gamers”.

The Wii expanding on its success ventured into the fitness market with games and controller accessories that encouraged more physical engagement. Games like Wii Sports and the Wii Fit became best sellers.

This spawned an arms race with the competition rushing out new technology like Microsoft with the Kinect and Sony with PlayStation Move aimed at improving upon the physical interactivity that made the Wii such a success.

Why the Wii Fitness bubble burst
Unfortunately for Nintendo, like the dotcom bubble, this market burst by the time they released their successor the Wii U. The Wii brand was a passing fad by then. The same fickle market that had jumped on the novelty of the Wii trend had moved onto the next fad as quickly as they had joined.

The Wii U comparatively has been a sales flop and the competition in the gaming fitness market much stronger.

Microsoft have removed the controller completely now with the Kinect and partnered with living room fitness trends like Zumba and Nike Kinect.

Zumba Kinect, every hardcore gamer's worst nightmare

The problem for all these products though is that the market in the mid 2000s that jumped on the Wii fad have moved on and what is left is the “hardcore” gamers who felt shunned by brands like Nintendo for catering to a market other than them.

They’re also passionately against the Microsoft Kinect (a product devoid of feel) that many of us in the gaming industry will argue was the unwanted and mandatory $100 extra that hurt the sales of the Xbox One.

A proposed experiment
All is not lost and being left with the hardcore gamers is not a bad thing. Breaking that market is more difficult yes, but they reward you with long term loyalty and higher consumption.

What I hypothesize is a modification of the gaming fitness philosophy to actually engage this untapped market.

The trick just as it was with the Wii controller is to find a familiar user experience to the target user that makes them forget they’re doing something they would otherwise find daunting/unfamiliar.

The Wii remote succeeded because it had a simple controller that resembled a TV remote, something all non-gamers are familiar using and the action of swinging it like a tennis racket was such an intuitive motion it didn’t require instructions to try.

I’d argue the same success could be replicated with hardcore gamers if the intuitive strategy was applied in reverse. Turn their traditional gaming experience into one that requires exercise/resistance in the controls that they do not even realize they’re getting exercise.

Instead of having hardcore gamers play a Zumba game or something else that simulates a gym experience (something unfamiliar), they should be playing their favorite shooting game while getting exercise.

You can have your cake and eat it while you get in shape
Effectively and unique to gaming, it is one of the few past times we enjoy that can be used as a way of getting exercise.

What’s amazing is we’re just on the verge of technology that will allow us to achieve this goal. Occulus Rift creates a virtual experience like the holodeck in Star Trek and we have conveyor belt like platforms that can take movement inputs from our feet to simulate walking or even running in a game.

Hollodeck exercise

The goal here should be to make these inputs superior in accuracy and immersion to a controller, so much so that hardcore gamers want to adopt them to get the optimum experience out of their games. To achieve this the developers and the fitness industry need to work in tandem with the hardware makers.

The challenge is to create hardware with resistance built in that players can like weights inclemently adjust the physical requirements to match their fitness level. This has to be adopted by developers who can think of fun and challenging ways with the hardware makers to immerse the players into this more physical experience.

If a player can “feel” more connected with what they’re experiencing in a game this enhances the gameplay because the player feels more in control. For example the platform they’re walking on in virtual reality increases resistance when they’re walking up an incline hill or through water and doing the opposite when they go down hill in the game.

Another example could be a MechWarrior game where the user has to lift weighted controls in various directions simulating the mechanical and industrial nature of the machine they’re controlling in the game.

Think Pacific Rim!

Introduce entertainment and turn gyms into fitness arcades
The beauty of this is developers working with hardware makers can craft amazing immersive experiences that gamers forget they’re working out and become more committed to the experience because they want to complete a challenge with their friends.

Some of this hardware will be expensive and this is why there is great opportunity for the fitness industry. Fitness hardware manufacturers can work together with gaming hardware makers to share the R&D investment in making these things happen and gyms can be the first to trial them.

Treadmills, weights and fitness arcade areas with machines networked in a way that they’re competing against or interacting with each other.

What I personally would love to see is a skinny gamer with the appropriate resistance level for his strength competing in the same game against a body builder in the same game with the resistance settings dialed up for their strength. I think this will break down boundaries in fitness seeing people of all different fitness levels and genders on a level playing field getting a work out together.

For those who aren't competing it could be the challenge of solving a problem in a game or exploring new virtual places they're progressing to that keeps them coming back to the gym.

It’s a radical concept
I think it can be done and potentially a revolution in both industries. The question is who will make the first move, the gaming or the fitness industry?

Why Microsoft failed with the Xbox One (from a games industry marketer’s perspective)

2013-06-20T20:45:00.001-07:00

Credits: Destructoid

There was a MASSIVE amount of trepid anticipation for the revealing of the next generation systems. Sony, in financial trouble seemed to have been pushed by anxious shareholders to break the silence and unveil their new console ahead of E3. The unveiling was a reasonable affair with a predictable, “not bad” response from the media.

Leaving opportunity for Microsoft with marketing hindsight to make improvements to their console to outdo Sony. Confidently they didn’t wait till E3 and had their own conference to deal the expected killer blow to Sony…

So…Microsoft got up, stood on a giant podium and bent their corporate arse over to flatulently insult consumers with an overly practiced PR fart. Gesturing this is what you'll be doing when you hand us 500 dollars worth of lubricant this 4th quarter!

The non consensual corporate behavior was so unsubtle and downright smug while Sony, the previous gens’ serial offender sat there like a reformed character seemingly humbled by their previous mistakes. Presumably like us consumers in awe at the sheer arrogance of their opposition, Sony delivered Microsoft a nervous kick up their (caught with pants down) arse much to the satisfaction of journalists and consumers alike.

Don Mattrick

Not so much a victory for Sony as it was a PR & Marketing failure by Microsoft.
Microsoft what happened to you? We know you’re a corporation but you’re meant to gloss over that with millions of marketing dollars to fool us consumers you care about us the little guy and you’re one of us gamers.
The presentation of their unveiling at E3 felt so corporate and artificially expensive like it was the “fun” brainchild of the suited yuppies on a lunch break giving all the presentations.

And Sony what happened to you? This role reversal with Microsoft, it wasn’t long ago with the PS3 their executive arrogantly told the media, consumers should pay more for their astronomically priced console AND were the most aggressive company pursuing patents for technology controlling the sale of used games (ask hacker Geohot).

It’s almost as if this was a plot to lure Microsoft into a false sense of security, that if Sony’s was expected to squeeze the consumer so can they? The latter I think there’s truth in but Sony seemed to have had a dramatic change of heart recently when it comes to the former:

-They’ve walked away from DRM ambitions to restrict used and shared games
-They’ve dropped the price of their hardware relative to their competition
-The PS4 is backwards compatible and region free

All the things the Xbox One isn’t. [Edit: or wasn't!]

While we’re mentioning the name Xbox One, let’s get on the topic of that marketing lingo. So the Xbox derives its name from Direct-X (boring software tech that Microsoft games run off), the natural progression was Direct-X box= Xbox.

With the second generation they apparently didn’t want to be outdone by Sony in numbers (yes their marketing team was that pedantic!) having the Xbox 2 up against the PlayStation 3 made them look smaller so they thought of a plausible number that was bigger than 2 and sounded more exciting than 3.
Boom! the Xbox 360 was born with some clever marketing “spin” to be derived from the circular term.

Why then did they go with the Xbox One? By their own Direct X logic, many are childishly calling it the “Xbone”. X1 sounds kind of cool I suppose, in an excel document kind of way. It seems the marketing team who coined it, chose “One” because of the marketing line they opened with at their console unveiling, about it being the “all in one” media hub for the living room and stuff about 3 operating systems running simultaneously on one device.

Honestly, I think I speak for most consumers when I say:

“Yeah that’s great but does it play games?”

Microsoft’s response “yes but first let us tell you about how great Kinect is and all the multimedia aspects of our new device everyone will want.”

The Xbox One gaming experience is like being a 90s kid watching MTV today for music… and when they finally showed off the games you get the impression some market statistics rather than a gamer focus group had decided the titles they put to the forefront. Sports games and the new Call of Duty game.

Superbowl popularity and the biggest selling gaming franchise. Seemed like an obvious choice and Microsoft expected similar kind of excitement but really the reaction was what my friends in the music industry would call “being too mainstream”.

Microsoft you “sold out”.

[Oh and for fanboy disclosure. I’m impartial, as a SEGA fanboy I’m not biased to any system though I’ve always leaned Xbox because of its online experience and controller design being derived from the Dreamcast]

Why Lincoln’s marketing department is getting it wrong

2013-03-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

So the latest bit of motoring sales data came out this week with this analysis of Lincoln cars not being the least bit surprising:

Selling barely a thousand cars this month!

Even after rebranding the company and a marketing campaign on what must be the most expensive advertising event on the planet (the Super Bowl) they still aren’t selling those cars.

Lincoln MKZ

Which begs the question, might it simply be the market isn’t there and people don’t want the product?

Lincoln’s rebrand feels contrived and just a rehash of what they’ve been doing wrong for years; that goes back to that Einstein definition of insanity:

“doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Lincoln logic seems to be if it’s not working, they therefore aren’t doing the same thing enough…

Brief History of NA car market

Perhaps confusing to Ford’s management (Lincoln’s parent company) while they’re doing great, their luxury brand Lincoln isn’t.

Ford has seen dramatic changes implemented by the new CEO Alan Mulany who applied his Boeing QA philosophy to Ford and imported excellent Ford EU products like the Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo (rebranded as a Fusion in the US) the company has seen a radical turnaround with Lincoln being the exception.

Ford NA’s previous attitude (like GM and Chrysler at the time) was to make cheap mass produced products, spend large amounts of money expanding factories in anticipation for large sales volumes and let the marketing department cover for the quality & innovation short comings against the better products from Europe and Asia. This is what happens when you let sales people run companies; you can only get away with this for so long before consumers catch up.

Those days are gone, the idea of selling to “All American” patriotism alone no longer washes with the general public who utter what is nowadays considered common wisdom “don’t buy American”. Quite literally, the market isn’t ‘buying it’ anymore.

Neither are they Lincolns who are the only mainstream car company in the US trying to sell cars to consumers stuck in the pre-recession car era and worse…affluent gray haired wonders who are frankly by their very nature, dying off.

There are only so many Florida pensioners with an irrational sense of patriotism you can sell horribly rebadged and overpriced Fords to. Also don’t tell them they’re driving a re-bodied European car made at a factory in my home city of Liverpool, England. (They may literally have a heart attack and that can’t be a good thing for Lincoln’s retiring demographic)

Ignoring the fact that most of that market these days are happily pottering around in dull but competent family vehicles like the much more affordable Toyota Camry. It returns us to the question why or whom are they selling cars to? They will go the way of those American brands that couldn’t change like the ironically named Oldsmobile.

So what’s really wrong with Lincoln?

Firstly the styling, the car looks uncannily similar at the front to a Pontiac Sunfire

A cheap, nasty product that was never aimed at a premium market in the first place and was credited as being part of the uninspiring design philosophy that many believe killed off Pontiac. Not something you want to replicate Lincoln.

Secondly, the targeting. As implied by “gray haired wonders” appearing all over their advertisements with beige interiors to match their skin tones, the targeting of these products are horrible.

Youth demographics like myself hate it. Marketing cars to ‘old people’ is product suicide. We live in a shallow world of consumerism where people don’t want to be reminded of their age by their purchases! Nor do younger generations want to be seen dead in the uncool car granddad drives to country buffet after chatting up the ‘young’ 70 something ladies at the bingo dancehall.

Perhaps a contradiction is their marketing emphasis on product innovation with gimmicky electronics that I doubt gray haired wonders could care less about or fathom the controls of (opting to leave them to the naturally tech savvy grandkids to play with).

Cadillac has proven it can be done

The automotive joke about Cadillac round the time they decided they wanted to change their image (2000s) was they have made great strides, from an average car buying age of 92, progressing with their new car to a 75 years old demographic.

Today in 2013 Cadillac are showing off young people in their car ads for the new ATS, barreling around European roads at high speed and sales stats saying that nearly three quarters of new buyers are those who have never bought a Cadillac before. That’s bold marketing, taking risks to sacrifice your old/dying core demographic and marketing to a wider healthier one.

Credits: Motortrend

Lincoln are set in their old ways and seem to be just as oblivious to the competition as Ford NA used to be.

You’ve got the Lincoln MKZ priced at $36k VS the class leader in that market, the BMW 328i priced at just shy of $37k. One is handsomely styled with a reputation for a great rear wheel drive chassis you expect as standard on a luxury car and the other is a tinselly 4-door Sunfire lookalike with a front wheel drive chassis taken from a Ford Fusion.

Disaster. Look around the rest of that market who at that price point; all start with superior rear or all wheel drive setups. You have the Lexus IS, the Audi A4, Mercedes C-Class and just recently the aforementioned Cadillac ATS that is having a huge success being marketed as the car primarily made to imitate and undercut the BMW 3-Series. The ATS being a car that according to the automotive press delivers on the majority of its product credentials, especially price.

The Lincoln doesn’t seem to be even attempting competition with any of them and they’re devaluing the already weak badge in a market dominated by the biggest luxury marques in the world. Why would someone spend $36k on a Lincoln when they could have a superior product from a renowned company like Audi?

Even better question, why spend $36k on an entry level front wheel drive car with a horrible Lincoln body kit and not save money buying the brilliant Ford Fusion/Mondeo it’s based on, that in top spec form costs $32k and everyone comments how it looks like an Aston Martin!

*So in summary, the product is weak, overpriced, the targeting is a small demographic of rich old men with more money than sense and dying of old age.

What I’d do

To symbolize the change of the brand I’d mix up the targeting by having young affluent buyers (IE BMW, Audi) seen in all the marketing materials and as a satire of the old brand have a gray haired wonder buying the car as part of his mid-life crises, marketing the car as “that’s the cool car you’re going to have a mid life crises with if there is one” with self depreciating salesmen across the country joking to customers “it’s too cool a car for me it looks much better on yourself sir.” Etc.

Kick out the sales and accounting people from future marketing discussions. Bring in the product people…

Instead of blowing money on super bowl advertising and rebadging existing cars actually invest the money in proper R&D of bespoke quality cars designed to undercut the best things the competition has to offer.
Yes this takes time (usually about 4 years) and investment but as the product guy responsible for the changes at GM will tell you, the long-term benefits are worth the wait!

The brand needs to accept it will be left field to the German brands. Lexus, Acura and Infiniti have struggled to break into that circle and always been the outsider with Lexus being the only one to squeeze itself in the same breath as the big 3 German marques who have essentially been copying and trying to outdo each other at the same thing.

German rivals (Credit: Autorevolution)

Change
Lincoln could market itself as the eccentric brand that does things differently to the identical German cars and identify itself as the unique brand with retro styling on the outside and modern technology on the inside. Something the new marketing people at Lincoln are trying to do but failing because their campaigns lack substance. Making references to classic Lincoln’s of old that the new car has no similarity with and nothing innovative about it.

Take some styling trademarks from classic models like the long swooping front ends and modernize them. Look at what Rolls Royce and Bentley are doing, they’re making retro-modern designs that are Iconic and synonymous with luxury. Sell the Lincolns as an affordable American Rolls Royce that undercuts Mercedes if you can’t sell it as a sporty BMW rival.

Throw in industry firsts you can bullet point onto a marketing document and advertising slides. “First with GPS keys you can never lose, first with automatically opening doors, first with rotating headlights etc.”. Distinguish the brand in the marketplace, not isolate it into pompous obscurity like it is right now.

Do PR campaigns with design and technology students at the nation’s top universities on R&D projects to come up with new innovations. Having the car engaged by young intelligent people talking about a car they hope to own when they graduate and become successful will change the brands image.

The linguistic connotations will change from: “old, irrelevant, dull” to “elegant modern-retro design, the American Rolls Royce, the most innovative car brand in America” etc. appealing to both a sense of patriotism and the American consumers new demand for quality.

If Cadillac can turn itself into the brand that undercuts BMW, Lincoln can turn itself into the brand that undercuts Mercedes.