Fran's Blog

While I’m on the iPad tip. I wanted to get the multi-tasking issue off my chest. It plagues the iPad, iPhone, and soon the Windows Phone 7 I own none of these but want to take an unbiased view.

I agree with Apple (and really, Microsoft) though. GASP! I do though. Any good product manager or developer has to consider at least 1 thing about the user. The user is stupid. I don’t mean in a bad way, I mean, they don’t know how to use the product as well as they would. It makes for better product development. The iPad has, apparently, amazing battery life. Now, take your average user. They open Spotify, they open the Word processor, they open the browser, they open their Mail app. They keep doing this, and never close anything. That kind of behaviour is just dandy on a usual PC or Mac, the processor and RAM are ample. They can do this. On a mobile device, it isn’t so good, yet. The processor will be using all this and the battery will just die. I haven’t even started on the badly written apps that some guy with a Mac decided to try on his weekend to make a quid or two.

So if multi tasking was enabled. The user would be saying “since that latest update, the battery lasts 2 hours, it’s a crap product”. So either way, Apple and Windows Phone 7 can’t win.

However, there is a thing here. As my good friend and life mentor Mr Mathias Hellquist once told me. “Keep it Simple. If there is a way of faking it, fake it well and make it look like it’s working”. At a tech day by Microsoft I went to today, they really showed this. The new Windows phone OS is really damn nice. What they do is they don’t multi task, but they pause an application when the user opens another, they then allow it to stay in a state to receive notifications, taking up much less resources (and I think the iPhone does the same as well). It’s great, it looks like the process is running in the background, but really, it’s just faked. Excellent.

I think, even more than this, the developer should be able to opt to run one application in the background, e.g. an audio application. They could register as an audio app, then the user could only run 1 audio app at a time in the background. The device could then run a few categories that the user may want, but only have one of that category running. It still tricks the user, but they could listen to audio while emailing their someone else. It’s also as close to multi tasking without the potentially hundreds of apps (or even tens) running at the same time.

Anyway, until devices are more powerful, we have to put up with less multitasking, the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 (which, by the way, is really very nice. Microsoft gone and done good! Ground up re-builds always mean some serious work has gone in) and the iPad are all powerful, but they are not laptops with anything like the same power. My Android phone frequently runs out of battery and slows down to a crawl if I run multiple apps (Spotify and email simultaneously). It’s a great phone, but it is early days, and I know this, unfortunately, the general non-tech user just wants their stuff to work and don’t know/care about the ins and outs of it.

I sometimes have no idea how this happens, but if you want to do something. And I mean REALLY want to do something. Time can almost be made. I just read this little snippet: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1619-theres-always-time-to-launch-your-dream

And it’s true! There is time. Say you are working on a side project away from work. You get home. The last thing you want to do is more work. If you really want to do it, you won’t even think about “oh but I’m tired now” you think “right, home, food, tea on desk while I do this”. Sometimes there are factors. The kids, the family etc. But somehow people can make time unless they are working 22 hours straight, but then they’re just screwed.

Right, pep talk over. I’m off to watch TV. Cup of tea?

Let it be said now. I hate the news. I’ve reverted back to childhood where watching the news was considered not cartoons and hence boring. Actually, it isn’t boring, it’s just annoying. They report what is going on, how the world is ending etc. etc. then, just because we might not be scared enough, they ham it up.

Let’s go back to the 7th July 2005. A horrible day! Yet the news were happy, so happy because they had a story, hell yes! Something they could legitimately report on the same old crap for the next week at least (hell, they had 11th September 2001 going for at least a month). No more news was really coming out about the event, just the same old crap. Then, a reporter decided to add a little bit. He stood proudly outside Kings Cross Station and said “King’s Cross has become synonymous with disaster, 20 years ago there was a massive fire here”. Erm… 20 years ago? That’s not synonymous, every time I hear Kings Cross I, and most people don’t immediately think “fire” some might, but most don’t. It is unfortunate though.

Something that has been baffling me for a while is the number of people who consider themselves, or are considered experts on the internet. I read an article about the future of the web, and sometimes I think “are you really qualified to guess?”. I found out recently what my problem was, a lot of these “experts” see the internet as non-technical. They harp on about what will be new in design, strategy, media etc. but I rarely see technical. New Media Age, Campaign and the like almost avoid mentioning anything technical like the plague to the point the idea of a technical award is unheard of, even listings of new work will show Create Director, Designer, Copywriter, Account Director, MD, MD’s dog, but no technical. I’m not saying the other areas should not be looked at; they are important, but the technical side should at least be considered because without a technical team (or someone technically minded) there would be no website, or, well, internet!

I was recently reading an article about Sweat shops. In fact it seems to have been something of a topic for a while, with programmes showing on different levels. I did watch one very interesting programme last week where they sent 4 young whipper snappers to Mumbai, India to see the conditions. Something that I found very interesting though, was the attitudes. At first these kids were saying “this is disgusting, it’s horrible”, then they spoke to the workers who were saying “if we didn’t do this, we’d starve”. By the end of the programme, the youngsters had 2 views on the subject.

Now, I’m not a sweat shop advocate, far from it, I think the conditions are appauling. But maybe we should think this through in a less black and white way, yes, they work all hours God sends (as some of the workers said, it is (some of the time) their choice, the more they work, the more they get). Taking the work over to LA (as American Apparel are doing) is lovely, or simply not buying clothes made in India, it stops sweat shops, then the workers without jobs in India claim income benefit? No, they potentially starve (along with the families they are supporting), or, go to another sweat shop to work.

Sometimes I get the feeling I am the only one who realises a failed company before it’s set up. In fact, I’m sure everyone else does before the company realises itself.

Take for example the Gizmondo, the handheld gaming device. It had no chance. It was competing against Nintendo’s stronghold in the handheld gaming market, also the PSP and the mobile gaming market. But still, they thought “I know, we’ll set up another handheld devied, with GPS, and a mobile built in”. Lovely idea, but it cost a small fortune. Knock in the fact that they had no deals with the big games developers (or any good ones for that matter). Add to that, the hugely expensive shops on Regent Street etc, and , BAM! 1 year later, it’s nowhere.

Ahhh, Valentine’s day. i’m not even going to lie to you, good reader, I hate it. I could go on some ranting mission about the commercial aspect and various card making companies to sell cards for this lull in the year. But no, the reason I hate it is ‘cos it hates me. Or it did. As a single young scamp a few years ago, it would inevitably end up with EVERYONE going out, me ending up drinking on my own (and getting pleasantly drunk) thinking “here’s to another lousy year”.

I have to admit, I’m in love with Google. I tend to do this, once a company gets a bit evil, I go for it. I have no problem with Microsoft, it’s mainly what company has the best software etc. Apple is now known for its sweat shops etc. but people still think they’re good, so maybe it’s just subjective.

Anyway, not intending to bash companies. My thing is Gmail. I think it is fantastic. The spam filter is second to none, the features are brilliant, and, for the first time, I am considering ditching Outlook for Gmail as my default mail client. “So why don’t you?” you ask. Well I don’t want to use a gmail address. I have my own domain name which I use. “But you could use that with Gmail”. Yes, yes I could, and this is where Gmail’s secret comes out. If I send an email from my domain email, it makes my from field: “xxx@gmail.com on behalf of xxx@xxx.com”. Not great. I don’t want people to know my Gmail address.

Over the last few years, I’m sure you are aware, that there has been a big rise in trying to get people to go green. And for good reason, Global warming etc. I’m trying my best here, but I just can’t grasp it. The problem is that no one seems to want to help us, it seems to be this backward step rather than trying to improve what we have, we get “use less electricity”, “don’t travel”, “wash your clothes cold” etc. I’m all up for switching lights off, but surely it should be “we need to sort out a green way of supplying electricity”, “our planes need to be greener” etc. I washed my clothes cold this weekend, still dirty.

So today I was looking at a swear word list for a site I am building at work, I found quite a useful site here:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=228

There is a useful section on how bad people see the swear word. I was not shocked by most, but the racial terms I was surprised actually came underneath the obvious swear words as mild. Although I wouldn’t class these as swear words as such, they are words which, in my mind, should never be used. Ok, the N word is used a lot in music, but I am shocked (especially at the P word), it actually silences me when I hear these words anyway (especially when used at me), so the mild rating was interesting to see other people’s views.