Category Archives: apple

apple, entrepreneur, experience, startup

Why any product needs “Mac Users”

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First the Disclaimer : This is not a mac fanboy post. I am loosely stereotyping the 3 kinds of users based on the 3 OSes – Mac, Windows and Linux. This is mainly to drive home the point of how an “ideal user” will help your product become better and better. The “Mac User”, who I call – can also be a Windows, Linux,BeOs,OS 390…. user.  OS X has been successful mainly because of their Users – look at the amount of podcasts, fan sites, hints sites, magazines for this platform alone. Apple listens to these feedbacks – and incorporates some into every release of their OS.

I am tending to call these “ideal users” as “Mac Users”. Had linux/windows had the same level of success – will be labeling them likewise. Shall we move on? 🙂

Here are some reasons why you need Mac users.

1. They demand Perfection

This is from my personal experience. Some of the CxO users, ex-Entrepreneurs who use our product – just cannot stand mediocrity or minor bugs. As developers we gloss over things and we fail to cross the ‘t’s and dot the ‘i’s. But this irritates the hell out of these high achievers. When I look things through their eyes – it does make sense. Any aberrations – big or small – breaks the flow and harmony.

Switch to Linux Desktop. The flow gets broken everywhere. The applications are not consistent – each one I have to remember where I should go to do a certain thing. There are KDE apps, and Gnome Apps – and some apps who do not follow any school of UI philosophy. It kills me.  Linux as a Desktop has a very long way to go.

Windows 7 has come a long way from the Windows ME days. Still there are certain things that does not make sense – like exporting an Excel file as a CSV file – you have to put up with 3 dialog boxes – twice. This is sheer madness.

2. They improve your Product

The best part of working with the “Mac users” is they give great ideas. We built the initial product based on our knowledge / creativity. After that the product has grown from these inputs given by our users. They bring lot of expertise and cross-functional knowledge to the table. The earlier you identify them it is better for the product. Any prototypes you are building, or just want to bounce an idea about a feature – these are the users you should call first. They have a big picture view of your product – on functionality / usability / and even marketability.

Then there are the linux and windows users. Linux users will be bent on functionality without any respect to the marketability of the feature. Stay away. The Windows users might want a feature that is there in an X ( eg. in Tally or SAP ). They will not understand that building it will flush the usability down the drain – or how it does not fit with the overall design philosophy. Give them a hearing, explain why you might not incorporate – leave it at that.

3. The Best Part – They pay you


These demanding users also pay you – ungrudgingly. They do not haggle with you, they respect your business model, they do not ask you to sell Pizza online and give the product free, they do not ask you to do what X is doing and follow their model and hence give the product free. They respect what you have built – and pay because they see value. If they are not paying – then there is no value in the product. Loud and Clear.

Now going back to the 3 OSes – OS X, Linux and Windows – see the kind of users / followers each group has. Apple is lucky to have the kind of crowd following them ( Power users, artists, designers… ). All apple has to do now onwards is to listen – the best ideas come from their users – not from 1, Infinite Loop anymore.

So – have you identified your Mac Users?

android, apple, galaxy s

Breaking the Reality Distortion Field!

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I did it !

I broke the Reality distortion field cobweb of Steveji and joined the Android Brigade! It has been more than a week since I bought my first smart phone – a Samsung Galaxy S ( on the left – yes it does look very iPhoneish ) and it is Enthiranistic ( hehe 🙂 )

It was a tectonic mind shift for me. I love Apple products – my first laptop was an iBook. Then I bought iMac, iPods. When the 1st gen iPhone came I wanted it badly – but as a rule I never buy 1st Gen Apple products ( can’t afford the Apple Tax ).

Recently I decided ( the power above approved rather 🙂 ) to go for a smartphone and my obvious choice was an iPhone. Despite the attenagate I wanted to buy the iPhone 4. However I started reading more and more on the iPhone vs Android wars and found how closed Apple had become.

In the iconic 1984 Super Bowl Ad when Apple introduced PCs to the IBM masses – a lady with a hammer hurls it on the Big (Blue) Brother who preaches :
“Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.”

How ironic. You can now replace the Big Brother with Steve Jobs and the words still apply. You might own the hardware, but you cannot install any applications that you want to. You cannot hack your machine –  you will void the warranty. Want to transfer files – you have to do it with iTunes and nothing else.

And more importantly – Apple for some reason – hates India. The iPhone4 release date could as well be in 2011. iPhone 3 got released exactly after a year it got released in USA. Also Apple’s prices are illogically high in India.

Anyway – here are the things I liked on the Galaxy.

Swype – I am as fast as the Chinese Teenage kids when it comes to texting now.

Google Apps Integration – Whenever I want to add a contact and if I am near a computer, I add it in my Google Contacts – and it magically appears on the phone.

No Brainer Syncing – Since I am on linux I do not have iTunes -in fact my iPod is yet to be updated with Enthiran songs. However with Galaxy S I just dragged and droped the media files.

Internet Tethering – Worked out of the box – on Ubuntu. I did not expect that.

I am not sure how this phone pits against the Retina Display of iPhone. And this phone does not have a flash – which is a bummer.

One parting advice for Steve Jobs – just let it go. You have the best product in the universe. Why create gates and windows?

apple, inspiration

What is the secret sauce of Apple,SAP,Nintendo…

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First the disclaimer – I don’t have the answer to the question – What is the secret sauce of these companies. It is a rhetorical question.

Today morning I woke up to be greeted with iPod shuffle – and Apple has released a simple but very useful feature ( unlike the shuffle feature they bragged about in shuffle’s first release ).
Now shuffle can talk to you about the song or the playlist name – very neat. Most of the time when you are working out or driving – it is hard to switch playlists – now this feature has made it really easy to use an iPod. I hope Apple updates its firmware so my iPod classic gets this feature.
But it makes me wonder how Apple can consistently come up with “cool” features. Is it the culture, is it because of Steve Jobs, is it some magic potion they put in the employee’s food? I really wish Steve Jobs writes a book on Apple.
Nintendo is in the same league as Apple. Their graphics is rudimentary when compared to PS3 or XBOX 360. But Nintendo consistently captures the imagination of gamers – with their innovative products like Wii or a DS. Why is that Nintendo alone is able to rewrite the rules, while Sony,Microsoft keep staring like lost puppies.
SAP is another company I admire – they have built this really complex software that runs heavy business and does complex transactions – between continents, between various industries and suppliers, between various systems, databases. How did they achieve it? What is the secret process they follow – is it XP, Waterfall, RUP or some unique Technik.
There are so many successful companies and each one of them have a secret sauce.
What is the secret sauce my startup has?
apple, dell

Dell Studio 17″ vs MacBook 13″

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I purchased a Dell Studio 17″ for 58,000Rs. I am a big fan of Apple and I am now going to say a sacriligeous thing – Mac is ****ing expensive – atleast in India. Even before I considered the Dell laptop I went over to Apple’s India store and drooled over the laptops – but the ones I wanted were all in 6 figures – over 1.2 Lakhs. The starting price of MacBook was 56,800Rs. I dropped the idea of buying an apple.
So I went over to Staples and looked around. Acer was the cheapest less than 30k. Then lenova,compaq and HPs were in the 45-55K range. Thanks to Vista having the windows performance index – I was able to quickly see how these machines perform without even checking their processor, memory information.
Only Dell had a 5.0 or higher. Dell Studio 17 registered a decent 5.0. The XPS laptops registered even higher. The rest of the pack – HPs, Acers had between 3.5 and 4.5. Also the rest had unnecessary freebies thrown in – audio system, choice to pick 2 gifts from some 10 gifts etc. Thank you very much. It was an easy decision in the end – also Dell had onsite service, whereas for the rest I had to take my laptop physically to their repair workshops.
Coming back to the decision – I feel happier in the end. I feel I got lot of bang for the buck when I compare this with the high end Apple laptop ( which is 3 times pricier ) . Here is why.
What Dell Studio 17 has :
1. 17 inch screen vs 13 inch MacBook
2. Biometric sensor ( none of the apple laptops have this yet )
3. Backlit keyboard ( available only in the 1Lakh plus MacBook Pro)
4. 3GB Ram ( macbook comes with 2GB Ram )
5. HDMI output – the day when I get a High Def TV I will pat myself for the choice I made
6. 5.1 output – dont think macs have any
7. 320GB of hard drive space vs 160GB of a MacBook
8. Memory Card reader.
9. Dell support in India.
10. Choice of colors.
What Dell Studio 17 does not have :
1. Apple OS X.
Hmm…I have vista and what a poor copy Microsoft has managed to make. I tried a freeware for expose but its not the real thing. It is jerky and ugly. I have ubuntu running on the other partition and the compiz effects are nice – but still its nowhere close to the functionality and smoothness of OS X.
2. The apple touch.
I remember the ibook I purchased in 2002 ( G3,512MB Ram,30Gig Harddrive ). When I opened it a nice fragrance greeted me – they had sprayed a perfume on the keyboard. Then they had a nice glossy book about OS X, heck even the box that came in looked beautiful. I felt I was ripped but I was happy about it 🙂 And everything is so smoothly integrated and works as one piece – iTunes,iLife,expose – even the terminal is so well behaved.
Anyway if you are trying to decide between a Dell and a Mac – if you have enough money in your bank and your job is recession proof – go ahead and buy a Mac – its worth every paise/cent of it. However if you are in my position where I have to beg/steal/coerce someone ( in this case my wife 🙂 ) to buy me a laptop – get a Dell. 17″ is lot spacious and keep comparing it with an entry level macbook ( which costs the same ) – and you will feel 3 times good about it.
And speaking of 17″ laptop reminds me of this apple commercial
In conclusion – I hope this Dell Studio 17″ helps me buy a 17″ MacBook Pro 🙂