Worm in the Apple iPad

Despite the iPad not yet being officially released in our little ‘pore yet, apparently Singaporeans are one of the most iPad-crazy countries in the world, judging by data from auction website eBay. (see here)

Image via CrunchBase

Apple said that it will release the iPad in July for another nine markets, including Singapore, however, after much fanfare, to tell you the truth (though I still love the iPhone) Im getting sick of the whole Apple = gawd routine.

Lets check in on the grass roots indicator on iPad:

Technometry friend who has played with the Ipad says: no expandable storage, no go.
Work colleague who has also got her hands on them says; just like a big iphone, – can play Angry Birds on bigger screen, but thats about it

Did a search on features that suck on the iphone, and all that came up were marketing articles that touted that the iphone was actually the best thing since sliced bread.

Till I play with one, I gonna be very skeptical, just like I am about the whole Apple 4g lost phone scenario.

Shopping in the 21st Century

Shopping is like breathing to us all. We love to spend money. We have to spend money. On essential items like food, clothes, utilities and other more luxurious items like bags, jewelry and prissy non-essentials.

Since the dawn of the wheel and barter and trade we humans have become one with exchanging goods for money. It was when I was wandering through the Ion shopping mall on Orchard Road on Sunday when I started thinking about how technology had its special effects on how shopping malls function.

It’s not just the touch screen directories that allow you to navigate your way through the mall to make the shopping experience more convenient and enjoyable. Look at the back end Point of Sale systems that are setup in each Retail store – tracking sales and centralizing the accounts so the Mall can take its desired commission from sales.

The Ion happens to also have a huge outdoor billboard that advertises the malls brands, products and services to the masses. Blasting our commercials and awareness to consumers.

Location based sms messages are also a handy media campaign to create consumer purchases – whereby consumers are sent txt messages with discount offerings based on the signal sent from their GPS enabled phones.

Foot traffic is monitored for every consumer that walks in and out of the multiple entrance so that marketers can calculate peak periods and when best to have events.

The ION even has its own iPhone App where consumers are encouraged to review and share their dining favorites, upload pictures of tasty meals and be informed of the latest dining offers. This goes hand in hand with the social media campaign on Facebook and twitter – not to mention the trusty email mailing list.

They even provide complimentary cellphone charging for shoppers. In case you get lost and run out of power while you are trying to escape the maze and windowless labyrinth that is the ION.

The megalith that is the ION is a living and breathing monster a shopper’s paradise or a shopper’s peril.

The tech difference between NZ and Singapore

• Singapore has free wi-fi, almost everywhere,
• It takes more than a week to schedule an appointment to set up broadband connection in NZ. When the set-up guy arrives, hes the one that tells you where the router is suppose to be. We assume because he was too lazy to go up the stairs….
• No Kindle in Singapore
• Telephone plans and mobile phone call charges in NZ are EXPENSIVE: lack of telco competition
• Extremely slim pickings in choice of phone/technology in NZ: just too darn far away from everywhere else to make importing worthwhile?
• Download speeds in NZ suck. Severely. Continuously. Its like sucking a chocolate milkshake using a cocktail straw modified with a tourniquet. Talk about a quick hack to frustrationville!
• Both countries have amusing names to their tech-dept stores: Singapore has Harvey Norman and Best Denke. New Zealand has Dick Smiths. The loser? Yep.

Revisiting The Matrix, Again…

Be warned as this is a series of non-related questions I ask myself when I think about the technology.

I spend 98.9897% of my working hours in Outlook. Organising, Sending, Composing and Replying to emails. If it’s not Outlook then it has to be Gmail or an Active Exchange application on my Mobile. I believe many of us ‘Desk Jockeys’ do so as well. It brings me back to the days when life was simpler and I only had one email account to check – I used to carry my university email account on a single 3.5 inch floppy disk @stonebow.otago.ac.nz.

I shouldn’t digress – Humans love attention. That’s why we like to be connected with such things as Facebook Notifications, Text messages, Phone Calls and meeting up with all your friends on a Friday night. (Incidently, I’m blogging from Outlook via sending my wordpress account an email.)

I will get to my point – when will we see a fully integrated Facebook Microsoft Outlook client rather then a plugin (FBlook)? Are we able to combine and consolidate all these connections with the same people we interact with on a daily basis. HTC/Android have come up with an interface that allows that – but this is only on a mobile platform. We need a desktop version.

We have our reasons for using multiple platforms – Business, Pleasure, Connectivity and Convenience. I suppose for the simple reason that we are human and we evolve – we just want to make things better. Google Voice is on the right track with One Number for all. Airline Carriers have a similar idea where they have formed an alliance to ensure flights are always full.

So when will we see one interface combing all accounts – Blogging, SalesForce, Skype, LinkedIN, Twitter, Emails, Facebook, TV, Music and whatever else the next gen organization is planning on coming up with.

From a completely different perspective – Im growing tired of having to remember all these passwords and usernames. And the danger to all of that is that you end up with using the same password for all these accounts – making everything highly risky to hackers.

I once heard of this policy within an organization where they were limited to a certain number of emails per day. In that respect employees were forced to interact more with their colleagues and spend more time meeting clients and on the phone.

Imagine enforcing some of these policies in the real world? That would give us more time to go to the gym, interact with family and friends, learn a new skill, go on holiday. Where is technology taking us as a race? Is it making life too easy? Carpel Tunnel Syndrome/Occupational Overuse, Short Sightedness, Obesity from sedentary activities and just too much information overload.

More and more, everyday we inch one step closer to a real life matrix. If that is the case – plug me out!

iPhone Attack on the MRT

I was on the MRT the other day happily making my way to orchard station when I suddenly found myself in the middle of an unprovoked confrontation. I was outnumbered and outflanked 6 to 1. It wasn’t looking good, infact it was looking like I was in a whole world of trouble. I may have been able to handle two of them on my own – but six, not today!

They pulled out their weapons of technology and started interacting with their Apps. Tapping and swiping away furiously. One of them pulled out a game similar to Sushi Chef and started serving her virtual customers. She was an expert on this app. Dishing out plates and collecting credits with a single swish of the finger.

The taller less assuming male on my right started building a playlist on his music player app and the female executive seated to my left began messaging. I kept my HTC pocketed so as not to escalate the situation. I knew if I had pulled out my Legend I would have a battle on my hands.

I watched the iPhone users flick and fiddle away on their power hungry touch screens as they circled me with teeth gnashing and tongues wagging. I thought of isolating them and ambushing them with some of my HTC apps running simultaneously, knowing that they could only run one App at a time. The freedom of free apps on the Android Marketplace would ensure I had enough Apps as ammo. And hey I don’t even need to store my creditcard details with Apple iTunes/AppStore – I definitely had the upper hand.

I had the superior weapon yet I was still going to be outnumbered. Looks like someone was going to lose an i in this battle. In the back of my mind I knew I could take out 3-5 of them as my battery would last longer. But I knew I would need to live to fight another day and put more thought into my exit strategy.

As the doors opened to shine the light of freedom on my face – I quickly whipped out my seamless aluminum encased HTC Legend to shield me from the iPhone App attacks and made a swift dash for freedom.

The HTC Legend lives on.