It's been a little over a month since Steve Jobs passed away, and I've toyed with this post since then. As is the case with everyone who knew he was battling cancer, it was expected and yet, it seemed sudden. As I opened up a new tab to apple.com, hoping against hope that it was just a twitter rumor, I was greeted by a page that carried the simple words, "Steve Jobs, 1955-2011." I spent the rest of the morning watching the news coverage highlighting his life and realized that a person's legacy is what happens when he passes, the people that are touched by the news, and the impact that has on everything we do.

Screenshot from apple.com, taken Oct 7, 2011

My obsession with computers can be traced back to 1988. Although, considering the timeframe, it focused on Bill Gates and Microsoft. I learnt over time, more so in 2002 that my calling was more about the story of Apple. That was the year I ventured into the offices of The Triangle, and continued to toy with Macs full time until I left in 2005. It was 2008 before I would get my hands on another Apple device, and I finally (happily) moved to an Apple computer in 2010. During the last few years, I've looked over the start of the computing era over and over, with movies such as Pirates of Silicon Valley and books such as iWoz. Now that I managed to get through Steve Jobs, I feel in a better place to put down this post.

Read the rest of this post »

As news of Steve Jobs' resignation flutters through the cyberspace, most people pronouncing this the end of an era. It is. Steve Jobs may not have had the agreement of every John and Jane Doe, but we definitely had the respect of a man who knew what he was doing, often way ahead of his peers.

What struck me is that this was a matter of time - not his first medical leave for one - and yet it comes with a level of shock and surprise, going to show how larger than life the man is.

A tribute to the man who envisioned a new era to computing, and pretty much got us there.

I leave you with a witty tweet poking fun at the awesome autocorrect feature (via GarethAveyard)

My early thoughts on the all-new Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion - image via Apple), in trademarked bullet-point style:

• I upgraded to a new OS for all of $30 and did not step out of my room. While this appeals to my height of laziness, you have to say that is an impressive way to function. The installation took about 35 minutes in total, not counting download time (a little over an hour).
  • (Update) Case in point, it just took me >30 minutes to download the 30MB new VLC.
• I decided to leave the new scrolling as is and test it for a while first. In a couple of hours, the new scrolling is happening a lot more intuitively. I definitely like how full screen apps are being handled - pretty much a separate virtual desktop that you can scroll in and out of easily. 
  • I'm having am amazing time using Twimbow - or I'd imagine any twitter-like application - scrolling through twitter columns is now identical to using an iPhone.
• Mission Control is a brilliant add-on. Actually it's not so much mission control itself, but the way this has been integrated with the new scrolling and the virtual desktops mode. Very seamless, intuitive to move around and it does what you think it would do. I also like that Dashboard has now setup its own screen on the far left (similar to the search screen on the iOS). It handles dual desktop better than before.
• What remains to be seen is how seamless the change will be between using a Magic Mouse and using the trackpad. At my desk I use an external keyboard and mouse, whereas often during the day or when out, I'm glistening about the trackpad. Now the gestures are a bit different between them for some of the tasks, so it might take more than one try to get it right based on the input device.

Read the rest of this post »

My thoughts on Apple's iCloud announcement, as posted on the Cognito blog.  

At a Cloud Computing seminar I attended earlier this year, I was surprised when one of the panelists - invited for his expert opinion on Cloud technologies - announced that not only did he have no idea why he was on the panel but that the thought the Cloud was an absolutely fad and waste of time. "I've read three books on the subject!" was what I recall him saying.

To me - and I've said this before - the Cloud is that avenue of technology that finally allows the actual technology to get out of the way of the user experience. Note that I'm not saying that it wasn't possible before, or that the Cloud is the answer to *everything*. 

Yesterday's iCloud announcement has, and will, cause some stir. Over the air syncing of all the things that matter - pictures, documents, applications and even music - using Apple's own data centers, for - and I think this is really important - free. Apple is paving the way for taking Cloud technology to the masses, and all those who wouldn't stop talking about how scary the cloud is. Free stops a lot of people from asking questions. Often, when speaking to customers about the fact that a lot of our technology offerings are based in the Cloud, you can already see that they've shown you the door. Talking to them about the benefits of the Cloud - the ease of use, availability from anywhere - doesn't seem to change their minds, until they hear the words, "unlimited storage", as is the case for email archiving in the cloud. Suddenly it sounds more interesting.

Read the rest of the post here>>

Originally posted at the Shufflegazine Blog

Even though this isn’t a psychology blog, it is always interesting to understand how we, as humans, react. And I’m referring particularly to technology. The reason for this train of thought is the hype and the reaction surrounding the release of Apple’s iPad last week.

Quite obviously, it’s hard to be upbeat about the name. I can understand Apple’s thought process – iPod, iPhone, so yeah: iPad. But they do have the iMac, so it isn’t just an i, P nomenclature.

Apple today has a unique fan following created by themselves. A set of classy, elite devices, in their own price and performance range, and a product lock, which tends to put some people off. Yet you find yourself in a publishing house, or even in management offices, and you will see over and over again, how Apple computers have found their way into the elite space. Most people that take the move towards Mac’s never look back. Apple customers may not be as large as the Microsoft customer base but they sure are way more loyal.

So what is it about Apple? Is it the classy, white/black, chic persona they give their devices? Is it the aura that comes with owning a Mac or an iPhone? Is it Steve Jobs? It’s probably a combination of all of these things and a bit more.

Last week’s release of the iPad marks another step in Apple’s revolution. Sure, there are a large number of folks were disappointed or feel that the iPad was all hype and no value. People said the same when the iPhone came out and look at it… today it has even become the choice of phone for the enterprise. Apple brought in the iPad because they felt that there was a gap between the smartphone and the laptop and iPad is a device that does combine features of both.

My points of concern? The camera. I’m really not sure how and why they didn’t put in something that obvious.

Consider, a tablet PC with video conferences, a 10in screen with 3G. It can easily become the portable device for the enterprise as well. The potential is there.

And Apple doesn’t go without putting some strong thought into their creative process. All the iPhone apps will run out of the box with the iPad. I think that was a well-thought out decision. The pricing is definitely a marker as well, considering most people expected a device of this calibre to start at $1,000.

Apple even launched their bookstore to go hand-in-hand with this. If Apple can cover a large range of books in a good range of languages – to the level that the iTunes and App store have reached today – people will adopt the iPad. Even if they’ll never want to call it that.