Category Archives: Apple

The Future of Assistants

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Virtual assistants are everywhere these days. If you have an Android phone, iPhone, or even a Windows phone, you have a built in virtual assistant. On Android, you have Google Now. On iOS, you have Siri. On Windows, you have Cortana. These aren’t even all of your choices. There are more 3rd party assistants than you can shake a stick at. SpeakToIt’s Assistant, Hound, Amy, blah blah blah. And that’s just on your phone or tablet. If you widen the scope, you can’t help but notice Amazon’s Echo device.

Unfortunately, all of these assistants are flawed for a variety of reasons. Google Now has all the personality of a wet paper bag. Siri has virtually no customization options. Cortana is somewhere in between Siri and Google Now, but retains the faults of both. Most of the 3rd party assistants are even worse. I want to lay out what’s wrong with these assistants and how I hope we can fix them in the future to make something truly revolutionary.

Ubiquity

Assistants are limited by where they’re located. If you’re using more than one type of device, which many of us are, then you’re running into this limitation often. If you’re looking for information on your Android phone, but switch to your desktop, your desktop assistant (if you have one) isn’t aware of what you’re doing on your phone. If you ask Alexa a question, Cortana or Siri is clueless about that. There’s very little communication going on. That’s because these assistants are limited in their scope. Cortana doesn’t exist in the same space as Alexa, and Siri and Google Now barely know the other exists. About the closest you’re going to come is that they can pretty much all use Google Calendar and Contacts. Even when you’re using a 3rd party assistant like SpeakToIt’s, your assistant on your Windows desktop has no clue about your assistant on your Android phone.

Walled Gardens

I know the term has become famously (and justifiably) associated with Apple, but when it comes to assistants, that’s where all of them live. Cortana searches with Bing, Google Now with Google, Siri searches iTunes. Alexa shops Amazon. You have to delve into the 3rd party offerings if you’re going to have some choice in the matter. Even then, your choices are usually limited as most of them will go straight to Google anyway.

What We Need

So how do we fix this mess? What do we need for all of this to work together? In my opinion, we need an open source option. Something that can be put anywhere by anyone. The root of the problem with the assistants we currently have is that all of them are playing to the best interests of a single entity. Apple doesn’t want to promote Google, Microsoft doesn’t want to promote Google, and Google just wants to promote itself. If we’re going to break through the walls, we need a choice that isn’t limited by it’s origins or the shortsightedness of a single corporate entity. This works best when a project is open source.

mark1It just so happens that there is a project like this underway. It’s called Mycroft. I haven’t had the pleasure to use it yet, but on a fundamental level, I love what they’re trying to do. They have an Echo type device that brings your assistant into any room in the house whether you’re carrying your phone or not. Appearances suggest that there will be a Windows, OSX, and a Linux desktop version of Mycroft as well. This will let you use the same assistant on your computer you use in your house. Additionally, there appears to be an Android version in the works. The open source nature of Mycroft could make it the first truly ubiquitous AI assistant, and keep it from being walled in to a particular ecosystem.

I don’t want this article to come across as a sales pitch for Mycroft. I think their project is spectacular, and I hope that they are amazingly successful, but there’s work to be done for any of this to pan out. In my opinion, these devices need to be aware of each other. I’d like to see them communicate via a torrent communication network. End to end encryption between nodes. Each instance of Mycroft should be inextricably tied to the user. I want Mycroft to protect you from snooping at every level by offering TOR. I want Mycroft to have the option to communicate with more devices like the Roomba. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t love to be able to say, “Mycroft, vacuum the floor.” and have it happen. I want Mycroft to be able to communicate. I want to be able to say, “Mycroft, share the new video of my kids with my mom.” and have my Mycroft tell her Mycroft that I have a file for her and would she like to cast it to her TV. If she says yes, have the file transferred automatically from my location to hers and played on her TV without ever having to lift a finger.

A lot of these things probably seem like pipe dreams, but I think that Mycroft’s open source nature could make it all possible. Any developer can come by and create a skill and release it upon the world. Mycroft won’t be tied down by corporate greed. Really, the sky’s the limit. Hopefully, once again, FOSS can take a good idea and make it great.

Dick Tracy the Future?

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dick-tracyWelcome to the future. Well, Dick Tracy’s future anyway. The world has now been gifted by “smart watches”.

First, a disclaimer. I love my Moto 360. It’s awesome. You can argue that it doesn’t do anything that my phone didn’t already do, and you’re right. In fact, it does less than my phone. I think that’s just fine.

Here’s what I want from my smartphone.

  1. Notifications
  2. Maps
  3. Activity tracking
  4. Not much else

See, a watch is a convenience. Even non-smartwatches don’t do anything that a clock can’t do. The reason it’s there is it’s convenient. I don’t want or need it to do anything else, but there are those that disagree with me.

Now, let’s ignore the fact that Jonny Evans is a shill for Apple. He’s advocating for the Apple watch here, but it really doesn’t matter. His idea is that the watch “must ultimately replace the phone.” Personally, I think that’s a horrible idea. I think that the watch should be a phone accessory, and that the phone should ultimately replace the computer.

Watch as Phone – Dick Tracy Style

Let’s look at how this works. Your watch is your phone. OK, so how do you talk on it? It’s not exactly optimally placed to hold it up to your head, so you’re going to have to do one of two things.

  1. Speaker phone
  2. External earpiece and microphone

Speaker phones ultimately make any private conversation you’re trying to have public. Not to mention the damage powering speakers would have to the battery life of the watch. An external earpiece would be fine, but then you’re carrying extra stuff around with you just to make a private call. Neither of these options seems particularly good. Having a watch as an accessory seems like it would be just as effective. There are already several watches on the market that can make a phone call via wifi or bluetooth if connected to a phone. This solution seems like it would provide all the benefits that could be found in a “watch phone”, and only one possible negative: If you’re away from WiFi, you have to carry a phone with you.

Phone as Computer – NOT Dick Tracy Style

I see things going the other direction. I see the phone becoming the hub of our digital lives. I’ve written about this before, but I feel like I need to reiterate some of these points and clarify a little bit. I see, for most people, the phone becoming the only computer they’ll ever need. I think that in the near future, computers for the average user, will be overkill. People will own a phone that connects to their data in the cloud. If a person wants a desktop computer, they’ll be able to connect a single USB-C connector to their phone that will hook their phone to an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Their OS will automatically detect that they’ve gone into “desktop mode”, and switch from a single app full screen view to a more typical desktop setup with windowed applications and easy multitasking. They can easily carry their work and home life in a pocket and charge while they’re working.

Android is optimally placed for this to work. With it’s roots supported by Linux, it can easily accommodate any kind of device. Ubuntu is also a good choice. Android has good support for a mobile setup, but Ubuntu is better supported on the desktop. Both need work, but I’d put my bets on Google. News has already started to spread about a possible convergence between Android and ChromeOS. Google wouldn’t have to go full merger to make this work, just borrow some of ChromeOS’s functionality and add it to Android. Since both are based on Linux, it’s not a huge leap.

I don’t mean this for all people. I don’t think that desktop computers are going to replace servers any time soon, and I don’t think that phones will replace all desktop computers any time soon. There are just some tasks that you’re going to need a full workstation for.

Many, even possibly most, of the people I communicate with on a day to day basis will be among those that can never make a phone work as their only computer.

The trick is, the people I communicate with aren’t typical users. They code and do graphics and video production. They play games that make the most of what computer hardware has to offer. For these people, a phone is just not going to be a workable solution, but that doesn’t meant hat it won’t work for most people.

Sorry Dick Tracy, but I think you can keep your watch phone.

Disagree? I’d love to hear your perspective. Where do you think this is going to go?

 

 

Blackberry a Defense for Google Against Rockstar?

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If you haven’t been watching the news today, a big bomb was dropped on Google. The Rockstar consortium (Apple, BlackBerry, Microsoft, Ericsson, Sony, and EMC) has sued Google as well as Asustek, HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE. Is there an obvious and easy way around Rockstar?

Brief History

So what happened is this. Nortel was going bankrupt. Google bid for their patents, but lost out to a consortium of companies. That consortium includes Apple, BlackBerry(then known as RIM), Microsoft, Ericsson, Sony, and EMC. Even at the time, Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, wrote that Microsoft, Apple and others were engaging in hostile patent warfare against Android.

Silver Bullet?

So, how can Google and company get around this particular issue? There may be a quick and easy was to do it. Maybe. I won’t pretend to be a an expert at patent law, but I do know that one member of that consortium is not doing particularly well these days. In fact, they’ve been shopping around for a buyer. Blackberry. As a member of the consortium, they would have full rights to the patents owned by the consortium. A purchase of Blackberry by Google would bring ownership of those patents (at least partial) to Google, making the suits against Google moot.

Second Option?

Department of Justice

Even if a Blackberry purchase isn’t a possibility, there’s another possible solution out there as well. During the initial purchase, the DOJ investigated the companies involved because they were concerned (as was I) that the patents being purchased would be used in an offensive against Android. As it turns out, they were right about that (and by extension so was I). The DOJ only approved the purchase with the hopes that Rockstar would only use the intellectual property it purchased strictly to defend itself from Android initiated lawsuits. It may be that the DOJ may not take kindly to this particular aggressive action by Rockstar.

Summary

There’s quite a bit of worry out there today regarding these new suits against Google and the Android ecosystem. I’m not going to say that worry isn’t warranted, but there are options available to Google that could very well make this a minor bump in the road. We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out, but this lawsuit may not be the huge problem so many people think it’s going to be.

Antivirus for Linux

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It never fails to amaze me just how the same arguments keep coming up over and over again, like bad pennies. Most of them ignore facts so blatantly it gives me a headache.

The I’m referring to today is the one about Linux Viruses.

First of all, Linux Viruses exist. Yep, it’s true, they exist. There’s actually a couple of them. Wikipedia lists an even 30 of them. There’s even Virus protection for Linux Extra resources.

True, compared to MacOS and Windows, that’s a drop in the bucket. Barely worth noticing. And that’s where the same old argument comes up time and again.

“The reason that Linux doesn’t have viruses like MacOS and Windows is because it’s not as popular!” The argument is that if more people used Linux, there actually would be viruses for Linux. The completely ignores the fact that the desktop is the exception, not the rule. Linux dominates elsewhere. Servers, smart phones, super computers, etc. Linux is kicking ass and taking names. A virus that could infect all those systems would be hugely valuable both monetarily and for a reputation. Yet, it doesn’t happen.

Even  the ones that already exist pretty much suck compared to their Microsoft and Apple counterparts.

So is there a reason to even consider running anti-virus on your Linux computer? Shockingly, the answer is still yes, but not for the same reasons some Mac users and all Windows users should.

You should run anti-virus on your Linux machine as a courtesy to your non-Linux using friends. Their systems aren’t as impervious as yours, so even though your computer is unlikely to get any infection, the same can’t be said for theirs. This also helps you in the long run when all those non-Linux computers aren’t infected blasting out TBs of garbage data out onto the Internet, slowing your connection down and filling your Inbox with spam.

In the long run, we all win.

Phil Schiller Displays Apple’s Desperation

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Desperate AppleReading the comments made by Phil Schiller in a recent Wall Street Journal interview, you could smell the stink of desperation wafting off the pages.

“When you take an Android device out of the box, you have to sign up to nine accounts with different vendors to get the experience iOS comes with. They don’t work seamlessly together.”

It’s pretty obvious that Schiller has either no idea about the Android experience, or isn’t interested in telling the truth. Of course, he went on to talk about Android fragmentation (which really has no impact on the end user at all).

This follows up a rare tweet he made regarding Android security.

To me, as an Android user, all Schiller has managed to do is display a complete and utter lack of knowledge or understanding of the Android experience and environment. He suggested that Android phones are cheap giveaways by carriers, ignoring the fact that iPhones are also given away (you can get an iPhone 4 for 99 cents on AT&T if you’re a new customer or upgrading an existing plan). This is typical of Apple, where facts have never mattered. Now as they watch the mobile market slip through their fingers, the desperation becomes more and more obvious.

#boycottapple

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Just wanted to make a quick note about the #boycottapple thing going on on Google+ and on Twitter. I’ve read several people saying that boycotting Apple is dumb, and that the real problem is with the patent system. To the people pointing out that the patent system is broken I have one thing to say.

DUH.

We know this people. We’re not stupid. Here’s the issue though.

The patent system is broken for the entire software industry, so why isn’t anybody boycotting EA? Why isn’t anybody boycotting Adobe? Why isn’t anybody boycotting Attachmate?

The answer is easy. EA, Adobe, and Attachmate aren’t acting like assholes. Apple is. Apple is the one going “thermonuclear” on their competitors, and they’re the one using the broken patent system to do it.

Does the Software Patent system need to be fixed? I’d argue that it doesn’t need to be fixed so much as thrown out altogether, but I think we all agree that it’s broken. That’s not the point of the #boycottapple “movement” (if you will). The point is that Apple is being a bad player, and because of their behavior, they should be boycotted.

A Linux User’s Day with a Mac

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Oh $#!+.

Several days ago, I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when a received a new email. This is a regular occurrence for me, as I’m sure it is with most people in today’s office workplace. With not even a thought, I open it.

It’s not what you think. I didn’t get a virus or get fired or anything weird. It was a message from our corporate IT department informing me that my computer was due for a “refresh”.

What is a “refresh” you ask? Well, that’s when they take your computer and replace it with a new one. To top it off, I’d been selected to be a part of our Windows 7 pilot program. Our company is finally moving away from Windows XP and upgrading to Windows 7.

My reaction? “Oh $#!+.”

There’s no getting out of this, so I dutifully copy all my files that I hadn’t already stored on the network drive to a location where they will be safe. The IT department wants my computer “First thing in the morning”, so I drop my computer off at 8:00. They inform me that it will be at least 3 hours before my new one is ready.

My choices are now simple. I can either do without a computer for 3+ hours, or I can find a different system to use.

Casting my eye around my department, there is only one computer currently unused. One of our test systems. A Mac.

How bad can it be I ask myself? I used Macs quite a lot back in the 90s, and for a while was the “Mac guy” at the computer shop, fixing people’s broken Macs. Apple has always been renown for it’s ease of use and beauty. It was only for a couple hours. I could handle this!

Linux User

So, I’m sure anybody reading this is more than aware that my system of preference is Linux. I use Windows at work, but my home system is Linux Mint 12. I’ve made some changes to the default interface, and only use the top bar. I have no bottom bar. Most everything else is fairly stock.

My Thoughts on OSX

So, here’s where I tell you all about my experience. To put it as plainly as I can, it sucked.

First, the dock.

OSX, like Windows, has this stupid bar at the bottom. In the bar are your favorite apps, and running applications. Why should this be on your screen all the time? I know that you can have the stupid thing hide, but every time your mouse approaches that part of your screen, it pops up like some hyperactive chiwawa. It’s as bad as Windows. This is not something that needs to be on the screen all the time. The only time you need to see it is when you’re launching something new, or looking for something that’s already running.

Second, Exposé.

Exposé is actually the perfect solution for switching between applications, it’s it’s limitations in OSX make that impractical. Only applications not minimized show up in Exposé? Not smart. This is a much better way to pick between your windows rather than some nondescript icons where you can’t tell the difference between one terminal window or another. It effectively makes half of the dock completely useless. Why have that half of the dock when the functionality is better represented elsewhere?

Third, Spaces.

What kind of a half-assed hack is this? The functionality has been around in various forms of Unix since the 80s. It’s been improved upon and made very useful, but Apple’s version looks like something straight out of 1988.

Fourth, Exposé and Spaces?

Why the heck have both of them? In Linux Mint, hitting the super key on the keyboard brings up Mint’s Exposé type feature, with the virtual desktops along the right hand side of the monitor. They’re not seperate screens, and Windows can literally be moved from the existing Exposé type view to a completely different virtual space without leaving that screen. One screen, two functions. Apple’s method is straight out of the 90s, if that. It’s ancient, limited, and impractical.

Fifth, Macintosh HD.

On the system that I used, the only icon on the desktop was the Macintosh HD icon. This icon opened up to show your standard file browser type appliation, but what is all this junk inside of it? It takes you to a location that looks like / on a Linux box. Why the heck would you want to go there by default? You need access to your files! When I open Nautilus on my Linux box, it goes to my home directory! MINE. /home/mike. Not some random location with crap that I’m rarely if ever going to want to go to. I mean, “lost+found” and “Library”? What the hell?

Sixth, the Clock.

You’re probably wondering, what could possibly be bad about the clock? It’s a clock for pity’s sake. True, and as a time piece, OSX does very well. What I’m missing is functionality that I use every day in Linux but find sorely missing in OSX. Heck, even Windows does this. When you click on the clock on a Windows 7 box, you get a bigger clock and a calendar, as well as the ability to change your preferences. OSX is missing the calendar completely. On my Linux box, not only do I get a calendar, but on the right, I have a list of all my meetings. Below the meetings, I can open up my actual calendar application! Great functionality in the perfect place. Functionality sorely missing from OSX.

That’s what I found most about OSX. Missing functionality. Chances as making a good interface missed. In closing, I want to show you something. 

On the left, we see OSX, 10.0. Pristine the day it was launched. On the right, we have OSX, 10.7.3. 10.0 from 2001, 10.7.3 from 2011. A full 10 years difference. What’s changed? There’s a new, cool 3d effect on the dock. Color scheme has changed a bit. Yea, that’s pretty much it. This is the “innovative” OS? Are you shitting me?? Seriously?

Don’t even get me started on this iPad type launcher turd.

Conclusion.

So, how does the story end? When all was said and done, I was able to work in OSX. Corporate IT ended up taking 7 hours instead of 3 like I was hoping, so I ended up getting my new Windows 7 computer close to the end of the day. I can say it was with real glee that I ditched OSX to run (RUN I tell you) back to Windows (and that’s saying something). After starting some file transfers to get my personal files back on my hard drive, I gratefully went home, sat down in front of my “ugly”, “hard to use” Linux box and sighed with relief. I hope I don’t have to do that again for many, many years.

iPhone 3Gs – The Worst Phone I’ve Ever Owned

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Soon I will be celebrating the anniversary of one of the worst technology mistakes I’ve ever made. First, some back story.

My first son was born in July of 2008. At the time, I was using a an LG V. For a gadget guy, I actually haven’t own that many cell phones. I’d had the V for several years,and it was a nice, sturdy phone for me. Both my wife and I work, so unfortunately, we had to put my son into Daycare instead of keeping him at home.

Here’s where the problem came in. I didn’t like the fact that any time I was away from my desk (like when I was in one of my many meetings), I couldn’t be reached if I was needed by my Daycare. The building I worked in allowed for virtually no Verizon signal inside the building. Even just a couple feet from the window, and signal dropped to zero. The same was true for every other cellular network I looked into, with one exception. AT&T. We didn’t want to switch to AT&T, so we toughed things out for almost a year before it was just too much. So, after talking to my wife, we decided to switch from Verizon to AT&T so that I’d be reachable inside of the building.

So, since we were switching networks anyway, we decided to splurge, and get smartphones. Really, at the time on AT&T’s network, the only choices were iPhone or Blackberry. I really didn’t want a Blackberry, so even though I’ve never been a big fan of Apple, I sucked it up and we each got an iPhone. The 3Gs had just been released, so we picked up the most current model.

For a couple months, everything was fine. Then it happened. My wife got a job offer out of state, and we decided to take it. Our new city (as it happens, Phoenix, AZ) didn’t have the greatest AT&T reception. There were many “dead spots” in areas where we frequented. Even in our home we sometimes barely get any 3G bars. I realize that this isn’t the fault of the phone, but the network, but it’s here for context.

One morning, we were heading out to work, my wife grabs her phone, and it won’t turn on. Plugged in, unplugged, we get nothing. We take the time and go to the Apple Store, and talk to one of the “Geniuses” there. He plays around with the phone for about 30 minutes, and gets nowhere with it. Apple graciously replaces the phone for us since we hadn’t even bought it a year ago. Unfortunately, with the new phone, none of her apps transferred to the new phone. Any pictures were unrecoverable (couldn’t even crack open the phone and change out the battery), so we lost a good number of pictures and videos of our now almost 2 year old son. We were not pleased with this.

Not long after that, I started noticing my phone behaving oddly. The phone would turn off claiming the battery was dead when the meter still was reporting over 10% charge. When I say that the phone “turned off”, I mean that the screen just blacks out. No warning. Apps were crashing left and right, and the phone was virtually unusable. Again, we took it to the “Genius” bar. The “Geniuses” played around with the phone for a little while, and then reported to me that the reason the phone was doing that was that there was a bug in the OS software that was telling me there was charge when there wasn’t. He suggested that I completely reinstall the OS.

Under the mistaken impression that these “Geniuses” might actually know what the heck they’re talking about, I followed my orders. I reinstalled the OS from scratch, completely rebuilding my phone. No change to the behavior of the phone. Still crashes apps, still dies before the battery meter makes it even close to zero.

We take it back to the Apple Store. The “Geniuses” tell me that the bug that caused the problem in the first place is still present in the current version of the OS, and that the next version of the OS will resolve the problem for me. All I need to do is wait for the next release.

Still, for some reason, thinking that they might have some semblance of a clue, I wait. Next version comes, and it doesn’t solve the problem. I rebuild the OS from scratch again, and it still doesn’t help.

At this point, I’ve given up on the “Geniuses”. They know what Apple tells them. I can’t use the word “Genius” without heaping derision on it when referring to Apple’s employees.

The phone is getting worse. The phone dies with 30% or 40% of the battery still supposedly charged. Apps barely run on the stupid thing any more, and many of the ones that I actually liked fail to load at all.

With about six months left in my AT&T contract, the phone has begun shutting down with 90% charge still apparently available. I bite the bullet and buy a Case-Mate battery extender. This thing is really the only thing that keeps phone working. It fools the phone into thinking that it’s plugged in. The Case-Mate battery only gives me about 3 hours charge, but right now, the battery in the phone is giving me less than 15 minutes. I have to keep the phone plugged in virtually all day, and when I can’t keep it plugged in, I turn on the Case-Mate so at least the phone thinks it’s plugged in.

Now, with under a month to go until this AT&T contract expires, I will be running (not walking) to the nearest Verizon store to replace this nightmare of a device as quickly as I can. I will replace this spotty network, and I will replace this disaster of a phone. I can honestly say that the iPhone was the worse tech purchase I’ve ever made, and the only thing it excelled at was making me miss my LG.

To the people that tell me constantly that the iPhone is “Magical” or “Revolutionary”, I tell you that you can take this phone. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.

The countdown has begun.

There is an ending to my pain, and if I have my way, I will never own another Apple product again.

Pwn2Own 2011 is coming! Place your bets…

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The Pwn2Own 2011 contest is right around the corner. It’s going to be March 9th, 10th, and 11th. It looks like Linux will be not participating again this year with the exception of Android. Maybe that’s because it’s a foregone conclusion that it won’t be Pwned. Who knows.

Android is in the mix this year in the mobile category. Here’s the contenders:

  • Dell Venue Pro running Windows 7
  • iPhone 4 running iOS
  • Blackberry Torch 9800 running Blackberry 6 OS
  • Nexus S running Android

My predictions are they will fall in this order:

  1. iPhone 4.
  2. Dell Venue Pro
  3. Blackberry.
  4. Android.

I really was torn about 3 and 4 (but 1 and 2 were easy). Blackberry has been shown to be fairly security aware. I guess time will tell.

What are your predictions?