Month: October 2009

Chauncy Gartner

A series of remarkably uninformed (yet typical) maunderings coming out of the Gartner Group. First, we have:

Google’s Android will have more than quadrupled its market share by the end of 2012, market watcher Gartner has claimed. But Symbian looks set to remain the dominant smartphone OS for several years to come.

Android’s market share stood at a paltry 1.6 per cent during Q1 2009, but will grow to 14.5 per cent by the time Q4 2012 […] The main reason for Android’s market share growth will, Gartner VP Ken Dulaney told website AppleInsider, be because “unlike Apple, they [Google] license their OS to multiple OEMs”.

I see. And it’s also safe to assume that, even with this remarkable and unprecedented market growth, the apologist claims will remain that Android is optimized for the “next” generation of smart phones.

But let’s address the nonsense about OEMs. While that was somewhat true (or at least arguable) for personal computers, it will never be true for phones, or at least not in the near future. Android is at a serious disadvantage precisely because it has to support a panoply of devices, each with its own strengths and weaknesses which each affect the user’s interactions with the phone(s) in unique ways. This is precisely why the iPhone is so polished: Apple has put real effort into making its weaknesses seem normal, or at least liveable and the strengths seem transformative (even when they’re only relatively iterative improvements or even just a fresh coat of paint on a given feature present in other phones). With even a handful of platforms to support, the OS can no longer be tuned in this way…every little quirk or petty slow-down seems like the end of the world, especially when you’re just trying to call Granny or find that photo. Apple’s rapidly growing marketshare with its one and only phone and solitary, much dislike carrier seem to back this up in spades. This is what they’re achieving with AT&T as a partner! Imagine what they could do with dumb pipes.

You’d assume at this point that Gartner, though wrong, would have more or less shot its idiotic claim wad right there. You’d be wrong:

Windows Mobile’s share will grow from 10.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent during the same quarters

How? Windows Mobile 6.5 is universally regarded as a stunning failure, with it’s predecessor being no better (ie, it can’t soldier on for a decade á la XP while Microsoft figures out how to fix it). During the time Microsoft spent developing 6.5 Apple released the iPhone. Three times. Microsoft has no chance. Verizon is aligning with Android, Motorola dropped Microsoft long ago. HTC is hemorrhaging money on the back of Windows Mobile; they’re its largest vendor. If Microsoft/Windows Mobile is even in the top ten of this list come 2012 I will buy and then eat my hat.

Kevin Drum provides a link to this excellent chart (dark blue where we spend more than expected, orange where we spend less than expected, lighter-blue what we should expect to spend adjusted relative to our economy/population/and other systems). He also helpfully cites the specific line-items that ultimately cause us to spend more on (and yet still get less from) healthcare in this country:

  • We pay our doctors about 50% more than most comparable countries.
  • We pay more than twice as much for prescription drugs, despite the fact that we use less of them than most other countries.
  • Administration costs are about 7x what most countries pay.
  • We perform about 50% more diagnostic procedures than other countries and we pay as much as 5x more per procedure.

Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.

Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times columnist, and (clearly) Lemkin fan.

The two App Stores

marco make a convincing case about the “two” app stores; but this section really struck me:

The primary screenshots of each game also show a clear difference for people who did select either app for more information:

Skee-Ball is immediately recognizable, well-known, and obvious. But Ramp Champ looks likely to lose out on nearly every impulse purchase from people who don’t want to spend much time looking into it — which is nearly every buyer for App Store A.

It’s really remarkable just how terrible most screenshots are. You’ve got four or five slots to focus attention on what’s best in your application, and that’s assuming a buyer is willing to look at more than one or even two. But even major developers tend to waste them all on views that either aren’t instructive, or repeatedly bash the same point into the ground without really illuminating overall functionality. Bento, to name but one, uses three of five screens to show us that:

  1. different kinds of libraries are possible

    2. –[AND]–

  2. you can use something akin to coverflow to choose between them

And this from a $5 app created by FileMaker, a subsidiary of a company called Apple. Nothing in there to imply that you can sort, sync, and customize databases between your phone and computer. Not that those are important features, apparently. Why not show us a to-do list, a shopping list sorted by need, a library inventory, and tasting notes complete with pictures and a calculation field for scores? Anything, really, would be better than what they do show: Hey! We have some different stationery pads in here.

And it’s not just Apple/FileMaker. Most apps, it seems, suffer from the “does this even do what I think it will?” syndrome with regard to screen-shots. Presumably, the creators hope you’ll just roll the dice on a sub-$X purchase such that the most basic visual information is all that’s required. The fact that most people won’t, at least not the people in the “B” app store, those with exceedingly specific ideas about what this app “needs to do,” figures into Marco’s overall equation mightily. It lands those apps with lousy descriptions or poor screen-shots directly in the “A” store, where I think it’s pretty well established: nobody cares what you’re doing unless it’s cheap and/or very popular for some reason.

Worth noting that Tumblr’s app: excellent selection of screen shots that detail exactly what it is you can do with it in informative little usage scenarios. And it’s a free app.

Compare and Contrast

Taliban: We have seen no change in his strategy for peace. He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan. He has not taken a single step for peace in Afghanistan or to make this country stable… We condemn the award of the Noble Peace Prize for Obama. We condemn the institute’s awarding him the peace prize. We condemn this year’s peace prize as unjust.
GOP/RNC: The real question Americans are asking is, “What has President Obama actually accomplished?” It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain – President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.

I will accept this award as a call to action – a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century and a renewed call for the GOP to confront the challenges of the 20th.

–Barack Obama, slightly revised and extended…

[T]he unmistakable message of the award is one of the consequences of a period in which the most powerful country in the world […] became the focus of destabilization and in real if limited ways lawlessness. A harsh judgment, yes. But a dark period. And Obama has begun, if fitfully and very imperfectly to many of his supporters, to steer the ship of state in a different direction. If that seems like a meager accomplishment to many of the usual Washington types it’s a profound reflection of their own enablement of the Bush era and how compromised they are by it, how much they perpetuated the belief that it was ‘normal history’ rather than dark aberration.

Josh Marshall, nailing it.

In a carbon-conscious culture that’s looking for new ways to get from A to B, is it time to reconsider the unicycle?

Billy Baker, Globe correspondent, in what may be the ultimate “trend” piece statement of all time. I consider this particular segment of journamalism to be herewith: complete.