An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Galaxy Nexus

MG Siegler:

Unfortunately, the system still lacks much of the fine polish that iOS users enjoy. The majority of Android users will probably think such criticism is bullshit, but that has always been the case. I imagine it’s probably hard for a Mercedes owner to describe to a Honda owner how attention to detail makes their driving experience better when both machines get them from point A to point B. As a Honda owner myself, I’m not sure I would buy it — I’d have to experience it to understand it, I imagine. And most Android lovers are not going to spend enough time with iOS to fully appreciate the differences.

This pretty much sums up why iPhone users feel different about Android phones and why Android users don’t get it.

Kindle Fire, A Grown-Up E-Reader With Tablet Spark

Walt Mossberg:

When compared to the iPad 2, I suspect the Fire will appeal to people on a budget and to those who envision using the iPad mainly to consume content, as opposed to those who see the larger tablet as a partial laptop replacement. For instance, while the Fire has a decent Web browser and a rudimentary email program, it lacks basic built-in apps, such as a calendar, notepad or maps. However, for people primarily interested in reading books and periodicals, the Fire may seem too heavy and costly when compared with a low-end Kindle or Nook.

Source: allthingsd.com

I want you all to give a hand to someone that you know whose health is very bad at this time. But for someone who, and his company, took the challenge in making his technology accessible to everyone, in the spirit of carrying and moving the world forward: Steve Jobs. Because there’s nothing on the iPhone or the iPad that you can do that I can’t do. As a matter of fact, I can be talking to you, you can be looking at me, and I can be doing whatever I need to do, and you won’t even know what I’m doing. Yeah!
Stevie Wonder, an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist.

Source: tuaw.com

Designers vs Coding

viafrank:

“Do I need to know how to code?” is a question that comes up with sure-fire consistency in design circles. I’ve seen it asked by so many, from uncertain design students in classrooms worried about their chances of landing a job, to seasoned professionals at conferences seeing their pool of print projects slowly evaporate. The question is being asked with even greater frequency as of late, because Adobe has launched their product Muse, which promises designers the ability to “create unique websites without writing code.” So, if a designer wants to work on the web, should they take the time to learn this dastardly “code” or instead rely on software like Muse?

Read More

(via viafrank-deactivated20120702)

Facebook Groups is a better approach than Google Circles

There are two types of relationships:

  1. One that is not bound by time & place - family, high school classmates, friends from previous workplaces.
  2. One that is bound either time or place - friends, people sharing hobbies, neighbors, friends from current workplace, commute friends.

In the first group, the underlying relationship is the same but the degree of the relationship is different. My relative is also my father’s relative. Three classmates have the same underlying relationship but the degree of friendship will be different. Big groups can be broken down by a factor and still the underlying relationship will be the same. Neither time nor place can change the underlying relationship between members of the groups.

In the second group, time and place greatly influence the relationship between two or more people. People could share a common hobby until someone gets bored and move out. Similarly, your current workplace colleagues will never be the same. The underlying relationship and the degree of relationship are variables making it difficult to organize them in to meaningful groups. Even if one is able to organize them, maintaining them will be complex due change in events, time and places.

Organizing Social Networks
Organizing the people belonging to the first group is fairly simple. It can done through a collective process. It will be faster and easier to add classmates to a group when done by many people. Not everyone might be connected to each other in a social network but could still be part of a group.

Organizing the people belonging to the second group is not that simple mainly because there are too many variables. There is no underlying relationship and people have different degrees of friendship.

Schools of thought
Facebook users did not use lists probably because it was not intuitive or the users were not keen on adding their fiends to lists. So they introduced Facebook Groups where people with common interests or those that belong to common group could participate in conversations. On the other hand, Google+ introduced a feature where every user should add people to Google+ Circles. Google’s approach is a 1-to-1 relationship definition whereas Facebook’s is many-to-many.

If we were to organize people based not he two types of relationships, Facebook Groups would work better in most cases.

Family members would be a common group or circle for everyone. In Facebook’s approach, there is very little work for everyone to quickly get connected to other family members. On the other hand, every user will have to add family members to a Family circle. Since the circles are private, every member has to add their family members which is a redundant task for every user. The same would be applicable to classmates. Planning a reunion would be a nightmare if users followed the Google+ approach. The information will most likely be missed because one of the planners does not have all the contacts in her circle. This would not be the case if a communication was sent to people belonging to a group.

Now coming to other group of people that is bound by time and place. Google+ Circles will seem to be the best solution as long as there not many changes. It will get difficult when you or other members of the group move out. Also, while creating a circle users will have to make assumptions based on the members of the circle. For example, one would assume all members of a hiking group are interested in hiking or are the people the user hikes with. Due to change of events, new members can come in or existing members can leave. Now everyones circles should be updated based on the change in events. If a Facebook Group was created, it would be a lot easier to manage members.

The look and feel of Google+ Circles is enticing but using it get complex after the first 30-odd members.

There is a higher probability of users freely engaging in a conversation when they know other members of the group as opposed to engaging on a user’s stream.

Do your users a favor - remove the complexity by letting algorithms organize groups.

Post on Quora

What are some good user feedback management tools?

There are a few factors that you need to consider before selecting the feedback forums:

How to integrate with your website - embed code vs. redirect URL vs. downloaded software

  • Where is data stored - on your servers vs. vendors’ servers
  • Who can post - anyone vs. your users [single sign-on]
  • Who can read - anyone vs. your users [single sign-on]
  • Integration with your ticketing system
  • Cost - comes with anything good!

There are many feedback tools but I am listing based on my usage with such tools.

Features & Ideas:
Allow users to suggest ideas and enable other users to vote on them
UserVoice [www.uservoice.com]
Get Satisfaction [www.getsatisfaction.com]
UserEcho - Service to Gather Feedback [www.userecho.com]

Feedback Forums:
Forum-based feedback where admins or other users can help.
Get Satisfaction [www.getsatisfaction.com]

Feedback Forums with Helpdesk:
Tools that integrate or replace your ticketing system and also offer knowledge base for users.
Assistly [www.assistly.com]
Zendesk [www.zendesk.com]
Tender Support [www.tenderapp.com]
UserVoice [www.uservoice.com]

Surveys:
Ask direct questions to get feedback on questions you want answered.
KISSinsights [www.kissinsights.com]
Survey.io [www.survey.io]
ForeSee Results [www.foreseeresults.com]

With the increase in social media, there are many more products that allow users to interact with employees and other product users. Though not a primary, it would help your customers if you monitor the conversations on Quora topics, Twitter profile, Facebook pages.

On Quora: What are some good user feedback management tools?

Facebook Messenger: Unlike SMS and Chat

In the recent past, mobile apps such as Kik Messenger, GroupMe and Beluga (company) became popular because it allowed smartphone users to communicate across mobile platforms.

Facebook has a plethora of apps including Facebook Messages in their Facebook Mobile offerings for iOS and Android (OS). However, Messages probably did not see much traction hence Facebook acquired Beluga and released a standalone Facebook Messages app for iOS and Android.


Some call it a SMS replacement while others think it is chat application. I think it is between an SMS and chat. While both address instant communication, there are few fundamental differences:

  1. SMSes are sent between telephone numbers whereas chat is sent between user IDs.
  2. SMS offer interoperability and can be sent to any mobile phone irrespective of the carrier. Whereas chat offers little to no interoperabilty in the sense it can be used by users within the same network.
  3. SMS support text and chat support text, voice and images.
  4. SMS is primarily meant for mobile phones whereas chat is meant for instant messaging on PCs.

To establish a chat session, users should be logged into the chat network and share there presence. Since a user has a mobile phone at all times, the user’s presence is always online.

This is probably a reason why people get confused when a messenger application is available on a mobile phone - the user interface is like a SMS app and also enables communication between two mobile users or a mobile user and a user on a PC.

Facebook Messenger is unlike SMS or chat for the following reasons:
  1. Like chat, there is a network dependency: both users must be on Facebook Messages.
  2. Like SMS, online presence is not required since they are always online when using it on a mobile phone.

I think iMessage blends SMS and chat more seamlessly because a user uses the same application to chat with other iOS users and send SMS to non-iOS users.