The Far Side of Tech

I’m always one for the underdog, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a big part of why I chose to purchase a Helio Ocean last winter. At the time, I was looking for a slick smartphone that wasn’t a Blackberry, had 3G (so the iPhone was out), and generally appealed to my geeky sensibilities. The Ocean, Helio’s flagship phone, fit the bill quite nicely–so I eagerly made the jump.

(Honestly, I was waiting for the release of Google’s Android phones, but knowing that they wouldn’t show up until the end of 2008 (at the absolute earliest), I decided that the Ocean would tide me over for the next few years.)

But, like every underdog tech product/company I’ve loved (see: HD-DVD, the Rio Karma), it looks like Helio is ready to call it quits. They’re selling to Virgin Mobile, who will be getting rid of the Helio brand and making all Helio customers Virgin subscribers. Read the rest of this entry »

I think we all agree: The Macbook Air is a gorgeous machine. During his keynote presentation, Steve Jobs whipped the entire Macworld audience into a fervor with his trademarked Apple enthusiasm for this new member of the Macbook family. With the Air we have an insanely light computer that still manages to fit in a 13.3″ screen and a screaming fast Core 2 Duo CPU.

But while it’s undoubtedly a singular machine, is it really worth the $1799 price tag when you can get much of the same functionality with Asus’s $400 Eee? I understand that the Air is more in competition with Sony’s TZ line that Jobs mentioned in his keynote, but it seems foolish not to compare this sleek new laptop to Asus’s wunderkind subnotebook.

[Note: Please take notice that this article was written in January 2008 and is a comparison of the original 7" Eee, not the later models. Although I would argue the later models prove my case even further.]

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It has occurred to me that despite being some of the most heavily used devices in our daily lives, not enough people pay attention to their mice and keyboards. I’m not just talking about dirt and grime, although you should regularly clean them to prevent the “dirtier than a toilet seat” scenario. What I’m more concerned about is usability. In my experience, too many people continue to use the cheap and oftentimes barely-usable keyboards and mice that come with their computers. And if, perchance, they get the opportunity to purchase something different, they often just settle for the cheapest thing they can find.

The “Logitech Revolution” (Courtesy of darkphoenix939)

This seems to me a serious case of misplaced priorities among general computer users. After all, these are our main sources of interaction with our computers! They should get as much consideration as the hardware living inside your computer. It seems as if people just tend to settle for a lesser user experience either because they don’t know there’s something better available, or simply don’t care enough to make a change. If something is “good enough”, why bother to change it anyway?

I would argue that there are many reasons not to simply settle for the default or cheapest input devices that you can find. Choosing the right ones for you can offer many benefits, including those of the medical, productivity, and aesthetic variety. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know how I managed it, but somehow I had never heard of the Technology Review until a few days ago. Yes, I know, shoot me now. Thank goodness I was bored and wandering around the magazine aisle in the library, because I knew instantly upon gazing at their sexy cover of the Helio Ocean that it would become a staple of my tech diet. But this post isn’t about the Ocean, though I covet it so, rather I wanted to point to an excellent piece by Daniel Turner about Apple’s much-lauded focus on industrial design.

It’s long, but oh so worth it. Much has been written praising Apple for their industrial design sense already, but Turner’s article is by far one of the most enlightening. I especially liked this:

“Critical to Apple’s success in design is the way Jobs brought focus and discipline to the product teams,” ­Norman says. “[Jobs] had a single, cohesive image of the final product and would not allow any deviation, no matter how promising a new proposed feature appeared to be, no matter how much the team complained. Other companies are more democratic, listening to everyone’s opinions, and the result is bloat and a lack of cohesion.

“The difference between BJ and AJ, Before and After Jobs, is not the process,” he continues. “It is the person. Never before did Apple have such focus and dedication. Apple used to wobble, moving this way and that. No more.”

While Apple consistently churns out great products, it sounds like it would be a truly awful place to work if you cared about your opinion mattering when it came to design elements. And although I’ve decried it in the past, it seems that Steve Jobs’s tyrannical management style is also the key to their design success:

“Jobs is a dictator, but with good taste,” says Norman. “He is good and driven to the perfect experience. He doesn’t want good design; he wants great design.” Brunner similarly lauds Jobs’s “driven, singular focus.” And Rolston says, in what is perhaps the best explanation of Apple’s design ascendancy, “It’s a happy coincidence at Apple that the designer in chief is the CEO. He has a fantastic sense of what people want. And after all, that is design.” Read the rest of this entry »