Monthly Archives: March 2012

Mobile

7 Things I Hate About My Galaxy Nexus Android Phone

March 29, 2012 – 9:08 am

Hate is a word that seethes with maliciousness and bubbles with discontent. As you utter it you can feel the weight of the myriad curses it drags along with it. So it is with much difficulty that I use such a richly endowed word to describe my four months old Galaxy Nexus Android phone.

7 Things I Hate About Android

7 Things I Hate About Android

I’m also aware, that as in any relationship, strong emotions are usually felt in both times of joy and times of despair. In some sense the presence of things I hate about Android also foreshadows a number of things that I love about the device. (a list I will share in a future post).

In fact, if the list of things I love didn’t balance out my perception of the device I may no longer own it. As would be the case had I the misfortune to purchase a Windows phone. Thankfully I was able to use my friend’s phone for a sufficiently long period to realize that Windows Phone is a great OS for the market two years ago, but has far too many annoyances and complexities for me to tolerate using it for an extended period of time.

A betrayal ?

I always find it fascinating how employees of a company are expected to bow slavishly in reverence to products their company produces. As if somehow the part of our brain required to form an objective opinion is removed when we sign the employment agreement. As a disclaimer, this represents my opinion only and not my employer’s. There are many Google products I love dearly, and the Android phones are by and large great phones.

But there are a few things I hate

Performance – stutteringly slow and unreliable: It would appear that my phone is in a race with my Windows PC to see who can resurrect itself the slowest. Like a benign zombie giving the protagonist a few extra minutes to escape my Galaxy Nexus lurches slowly towards life. This could be forgivable, except for the fact that even when running the performance is unreliable. Sometimes it’s lightening fast, and other times I find myself pressing a control multiple times to try and get it to register.

Time is too exact and other niggling details: I have no need or desire to set calendar appointments or alarms to the exact minute. Yet Android forces me to scroll through every minute, making setting an alarm or appointment 12x as difficult as it should be. I notice this in other places in the UI as well – a desire to provide precise control that detracts from the overall usability.

Inconsistent UI: It’s like a game trying to figure out where the menu command will show up. Is it at the top, bottom or in pre-ICS style down below? While ICS has made some improvements I find it irritatingly inconsistent to have controls in gmail show below the app while all other ICS apps have the controls on the top.

Likewise it’s a mystery what the back button in the control bar will do in comparison with the global back button. Sometimes the app back button jumps back three steps (like in Google reader), and sometimes the global back button jumps out of the app entirely. I’m sure it made sense to someone at some point…

Big foot, only for hands: The Galaxy Nexus is a monster, I can barely hold it in one hand. All too often I find myself reaching for a control only to find I have tilted the phone at such an angle that the orientation switches. Since the accelerometer takes eons to detect a change it’s twice as frustrating to get it back to the right orientation again.

AirPlay where art thou?: AirPlay unlocks amazing cross device multimedia scenarios. Apple has made this an almost perfect experience and one I can’t live without. There are some apps for Android that support AirPlay (like DoubleTwist), but most don’t. I find myself forced to watch a YouTube video on a small screen when on any iOS device it is just two taps away to watching on my 46” Apple TV powered screen. And every time I find a video or song that is trapped on my phone I die a little inside.

Battery life: The Energizer bunny would long ago have disowned the Galaxy Nexus, which struggles to keep going past lunch. Far too often my phone barely makes it through to 7pm before battery warnings sound. My iPhone was no wonderful preserver of chemically stored energy, but it would always get me through a day on a charge. Sometimes two if I nursed it gently.

No hardware button: It’s not that I’m in love with the hardware button itself, but it provides a good guide when typing. For the first few weeks I found myself accidentally hitting the home key when I pressed space, and ever since then I accidentally hit b instead of space because I’m over compensating in the other direction. Not only does it make typing more annoying, but for the life of me I can’t figure out which way to hold the phone when I just pick it up. This is most annoying when I just want to tap a button to see the time, and I end up fumbling around all four corners of the phone.

In conclusion…

There is a lot to enjoy in the ICS interface but I must admit to pining for my iPhone. I gave it up for a Nexus S a few years ago. Foolishly thinking I was satisfied I continued to choose Android. We will see what the next release brings, but I am almost certain that Apple will entice me over with the iPhone 5.

What are some of the things you hate (or love) about your Android phone?

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Photo courtesy of laihui

 

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Computer Hardware

Okay Apple – You Win!

March 18, 2012 – 12:54 am

I’ve tried really hard to not make every device in my home yours, but I can’t stand it any longer. I’m tired of putting up with second rate solutions that half integrate. Samsung is light years ahead of the rest of the non-Apple hardware manufacturers, and still they fall short.

Apple Logo

First to the PC. All I’m trying to do is buy an ultrabook that is powerful, thin and light. Then hook this ultrabook up to a large monitor to get at least 2560×1440 resolution. Ideally the hookup would only involve one cable, but I can handle two.

Since I’m so used to Windows, and my previous attempts at OS X usage were dismal failures I started my search with Samsung. The Series 9 is an object of beauty and comes in lighter than the Macbook Air. Yet it falls woefully short when trying it comes to completing my setup.

The Samsung Central station is a great idea, but it’s supported resolution tops out at 1920×1080. The still-on-it’s-way Series 9 monitor handles the resolution, but there are no docking stations for the Series 9 laptop. So that also fails. Not to mention the fact that both the laptop and monitor are more expensive (shock!) than Apple’s offerings. If the wait for a Galaxy Nexus dock is any indication, then it will be a long time before I’ll be able to hookup a shiny new Series 9 laptop to a monitor.

Out the box the Macbook Air integrates with Apple’s monitors for a stunning 2560×1600 resolution. And it’s just two cables – a thunderbolt and a power cable that are needed.

The iPad and Airplay are my halo experience

Really for me, it all revolves around the experiences I have with my iPad, Airplay and Apple TV. The integration between these is so seamless, and is something I use every single day that I couldn’t imagine a world without them. And this forces me to make other decisions. Like which cloud music service to use, because Google Music and Amazon Music aren’t available on the iPad.

I could sync everything manually, sure. Yet as wonderful as the hardware experiences are, iTunes leaves something to be desired, and I’d prefer to open it as little as possible. Besides, I don’t want to go to all that hassle – devices are supposed to make my life easier, not add extra management to them.

Airplay is also another reason why a Macbook and an iPhone make more sense. My whole house is setup already to receive.

It’s also about phones

As much as I love the deep integration of Google services into Android (Google Voice and Google Navigation in particular), the entire experience still falls short of Apple’s perfection. It took months and months for Samsung to come out with a dock for the Galaxy Nexus. The choice of accessories and cases is anemic. Not to mention that the behavior of apps is inconsistent at best. I’ll hold out on my Galaxy Nexus through the end of the year, but I can picture very few scenarios where I don’t buy and iPhone 5.

Google and Dropbox have freed me

The wonderful thing about the cloud is, it can free you from the tyranny of a single platform provider. At least, from the platform that doesn’t offer such a seamlessly integrated experience across devices like Apple. Part of me fears that I’ll never be able to leave because they are so good. For the longest time there were really two things keeping me on Windows. First was my deep familiarity with Microsoft software that goes all the way back to DOS3.

Second, was Office. An in particular OneNote – even though I’ve had a rocky relationship with it in the past, their release of both an Android and iPad app rekindled my love for OneNote. Yet it became quite apparent how I would always be frustrated waiting for Microsoft to take advantage of the latest non-Windows platform trends. Within a day of announcing the new iPad, Evernote had already updated their app to take advantage of the retina display.

I’ve long since moved all my other document needs to Google Docs, and with Dropbox it’s now as simple as installing a plugin and all my files are available on my new machine.

What’s the verdict?

30 minutes after purchasing the Samsung Series 9 I had buyers remorse and cancelled my order. I’m going to wait for the next Macbook Air to be announced in the next 2-3 months (my best guess) and then go through the painful process of learning a new operating system.

I’m going to switch to iTunes Match and iCloud for my purchased music because I’m tired of waiting for Napster/Real/Microsoft/Google/Amazon/Rdio/Spotify/Slacker to offer a great experience for purchased music on the iPad.

I’m going to buy the iPhone 5 next year, and spend extra money to get a 3rd party navigation app.

Apple, you win.

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Tech Industry

Ignoring the Introvert – Why even tech companies get it wrong

March 1, 2012 – 8:57 pm

There is a certain meeting that is a staple at many tech companies – the user experience design review. It typically involves a designer or product manager presenting the design for a feature while managers, engineers and anyone with a suitable weapon proceed to beat the unfortunate presenter for an hour.

Introverts - ignored in the tech industry too

Introverts - ignored in the tech industry too

The other day I attended such a meeting, and noticed something intriguing. As our designer shared a solution for a particularly tricky interface challenge the room was silent except for a few voices.

Two senior managers dominated the conversation – providing insightful suggestions with rapid-fire certainty. In fact, their feedback was so fast flowing that barely a short pause was felt before the feedback was picked up again.

For just a moment one of the more soft spoken engineers seated in the back was able to get a thought out into the room. As it so happens this particular engineer has a tremendously strong sense for design and a natural ability for balancing engineering speed with elegant user experience. I was sitting there, thinking to myself, “Isn’t it unfortunate that he hasn’t had an opportunity to provide more feedback. I’m sure his insights would be valuable.”

Later in the day this event was still bothering me, and I thought about another of the engineers on my team who wields design deftly and a words with more measure. I’ve seen that at times it is difficult for him to have an impact appropriate to his experience.

Why is it so easy to ignore the introvert?

I know for sure there is no malicious intent, or any desire to exclude opinions. In fact on my occasions people have gone out of the way to foster diversity in perspectives. I think there are a few reasons why even those in the tech industry inadvertently ignore those who are introverted:

  • Everyone has great ideas: Most of your coworkers are smart, insightful and have relevant contributions to make in any meeting. It’s easy to have productive discussions that have the appearance of incorporating multiple perspectives while in reality only listening to a few voices.
  • The extroverts rise in the ranks: Even at tech companies, the most outgoing have the largest networks and are able to build support for their ideas among more people.  If your company is good these folks will have technical acumen as well, and their impact will be felt more broadly than a highly skilled introvert.
  • It’s hard to tell a high ranking extrovert with great ideas to shut up: I know, I’ve run meetings where I felt like only a few participants were being heard and I struggled to give everyone a chance to speak.

Including the introverts

All is not lost though, it’s possible to let those with quiet brilliance shine too:

  • Give them space to speak: If you see someone who is introverted trying to comment, give them a chance. Tell the room you’d like to hear from them, and then pause to let them collect their thoughts. Don’t rush them, or try to interrupt them, or complete their sentences. You might be buzzing at a hundred miles and hour – draw on your patience and they just might give you an idea that will save an hour of discussion.
  • Let them review beforehand: Introverts can be more deliberate, and thoughts take time to coalesce. Let them comment to you one on one, or if it’s a document, share it early so they have a chance to prepare. Speaking up can be difficult enough, without the added pressure to quickly internalize new concepts.
  • Slow down: If you’re in a fast paced, pressure cooker environment deliberately tap the brakes every now and then. Repeat a suggestion to make sure everyone has heard it, and give the introverts time to digest the stream of conversation.
  • Call on an introvert: When you know someone is an expert in an area don’t wait for them to butt in – give them an opportunity to share by calling on them. You need to be careful though, if they’re uncertain or don’t know the answer you’ll be placing them in a difficult position.

I consider myself an introvert and for years I was ashamed of this fact. I even took Toastmasters for five years to prove just how extroverted I was. All it did was make me good at public speaking, it didn’t change who I am. I’m slowly realizing that being an introvert is okay too.

As a product manager I’m often placed in situations where I can make the work environment more welcoming for introverts. I lead meetings, drive feature implementation and work across many teams. I try to be inclusive, but I don’t always do a good job. Every now and then it’s helpful for me to be the quiet voice in the room unable to get her opinion heard. It reminds me to pay special attention, and include the introvert.

 

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