Philipp Moehring

Category: tech

tech

  • Why Android is stuck

    Funny how “legacy design” is an issue for a 5 year old platform. Things just move that quickly these days.

    Miner told me the grand vision for Android: it would be a solid foundation for mobile phones, based on Linux, that would work with many types of hardware, and it would be fully customizable. It would provide a “basic user interface,” he said, that “could be changed by the carriers and manufacturers to fit their goals.” The hardest part of building advanced mobile phones, he reasoned, was writing the lower-level software that the operating system uses to communicate with the hardware, including the radio baseband and audio/video controllers, so Android’s goal was to solve those tough engineering problems really well. The carriers and the manufacturers would then be freed up to focus on differentiating the experience at a higher level, at the user interface and experience level.

    via Nothing in Android makes sense except in the light of its original vision by Dustin Curtis.

    In my eyes, the clarity of the original vision is amazing, and makes a lot of sense. In hindsight you might say “of course these idiots people (the phone companies) don’t know what they are doing” – but back then, the phone companies were the ones who made all the phones and software.

    The resulting Android platform and the corresponding platform fragmentation are not really fixable by now. Actually, if you look at Amazon and their Kindle Fire branch of Android, it’s not very revolutionary at all – they are working along the original idea of Android. Curious to see if some phone companies will step up their game in terms of a UI layer (I doubt it) or faster adoption of core Android updates (1% on ICS by now?).

    The latter would be welcome, because i don’t think you can suggest any Android phone to anyone, if it’s not a Nexus device. Sorry, my Googler friends. You can’t.

  • Can’t wait for the really cool photo apps on tablets

    I really love my cameras. I put a lot of hours into learning to use them, figuring out particularities, buying lenses and filters, etc. I am by no means a prosumer or even expert, but I know a little bit about taking pictures, composition, and aperture, exposure, blablabla. In high school, we had a very cool photography lab, and since my aunt was one of the arts teachers at my school, I could basically use it whenever I wanted. Thus, my love of pictures.

    Now, since I use Instagram on my phone, I use my camera much less. These photo sharing apps are especially nice because they almost force you to use filters, making every picture look artistic and sophisticated. BUT: I can still take much better pictures with my SLR.

    So, when will Instagram offer a simple desktop or even web version, to allow me to a) use these filters on bigger pics, and b) feed my stream from somewhere else, or c) allow me more immersive interaction with my photos?

     How about that bigger screen?

    Here’s a thought: All these camera apps on the market have very similar features (take photo, tweak it a little, publish to stream), and don’t go far beyond those. I will take out the ones like Path (private activities) and Eeve (group albums), as I think they have a great niche where they can grow and add more value.

    BUT: creation and tweaking, and also photo storage, management, and ordering across devices is still done in an app as annoying as iPhoto. How about these get thrown into the next generation?

    I would love to see an app that allows me to take pics on my iPhone, edit them on my iPad (easy to do with iCloud photo stream), and share them anywhere. Simply integrating the iPad into this experience will be a great opportunity to do more.

    Next step: instead of creating photos only, create collages, mosaics, GIFs, and other formats. Now, sharing these on your social networks will be much cooler and allows for much more of a story being told.

    Please, build this.

  • Startup Metrics

    Got asked about this twice in the past week – here are two very good videos about basic startup metrics and their application to your business.

    Dave McClure at Seedcamp 2009 about “startup metrics for pirates”, a talk he has given in lots of places. It’s a good and fun overview of what you should think about and look at.

     

    and the accompanying slides:

    Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp, Sept 2009)

    View more presentations from Dave McClure

    And Ryan Carson of Carsonified with a more direct, and very numbers-focused talk from last year. He goes through a very detailed example, explains concepts like CAC, churn, lifetime value, and will give you an idea what unit economics are all about.

     

    He talks about this spreadsheet, which you can copy and play around with easily, giving you a good idea of what your own numbers can look like.

  • I am addicted to my Kindle

    I bought a Kindle about a month ago, and it was the best gadget purchase in a long while. I read about a hundred pages per day on it, because I take it everywhere (and I always think “it’s awesome” when I see it lying on my table).

    I actually pre-ordered it when it was announced, but reneged on my decision to get the 3G version – which stupidly put me at the back of the waiting list when I reconsidered.

    Why is it awesome

    Reading on it is great. Period. I prefer it to a book now – here’s why:

    • It’s smaller and lighter than a book and fits in a coat pocket easily. I just have it with me all the time and take it out on every bus or tube ride.
    • It’s better to hold in one hand than a book. You can grab it at every corner and you dont have to awkwardly bend the spine by spreading your fingers.
    • The screen is perfect for text. Forget an iPad for reading a book (or lots of them, for that matter) – it will strain your eyes.
    • You have all that stuff with you – books, magazines, articles. I always travelled with at least one non fiction and one fiction book, and got the economist and some fun magazine at the airport. Lots of dead trees to lug around – not anymore.
    • I use Instapaper like a madman now. You can bookmark long articles on the web and they are automatically synced. My own personalised magazine, and givemesomethingtoread.com has great content (hat tip to Johannes).
    • Do not think iPad vs Kindle – purpose, size, weight, value, and most importantly the screen are not comparable. You buy this to read books. Think discman vs iPod.
    • Doing only one thing means you are focused, and it carries over from a paper book. You can’t do anything but read with that, either.
    • I love buying books, and paper, and the smell, and all that. I am not missing it at all. I own a ton of vinyl, but I love my iPod – you get the point.

    Features and 3G Version

    I’ve yet to put a value on a lot of features like notes, clippings, and the 3G usage. I am only reading on it, and I am already hooked. The question of 3G or not is not really important – if you can afford the extra 40 pounds, just get the 3G version, I am sure you’re only gonna miss it when travelling a lot.

    I like simplifying my life, and scratching the huge bookcase from my moving list feels great. Get your partner one for Christmas (I hope Isa doesn’t read my blog).

    Oh, and check out my case:

  • Switchin’ things

    Yeah, how could I not write an article on how I switched to a Mac and the world got a better place. Don’t read it, it’s useless.

    I did not really have to debate getting a MacBook Pro, because they are simply the best made laptops. I was just a bit curious about the choice between a stock 13″ model and a somewhat higher specced 15″ with a high definition, matte screen. I bought the 13″, and I am quite sure it was the right decision if just for size and ability to carry. Still, the 15 inch matte screen is beautiful and way better to work on than the mirror mine carries – i hope there will one day be a 13″ high definition matte (if not Retina) screen available. I hope.

    So, other than that it’s not really something to write home about – i work in webapps mostly, Chrome works nice on OsX (although it’s a bit buggier than on Windows), and Office for Mac is an incredible heap of user interface mishaps. As I said, nothing new.

    One thing I can really recommend to switchers is to give up on any other machine for at least a couple of weeks to really get the hang of it. Otherwise, you will only be annoyed by the unusual keyboard and shortcut layout and some basic things like file handling, settings, and the like.

    So, here are my favorite apps so far and what they replaced:

    Texter –> Text Expander a little program that uses shortcuts to paste much needed snippets of texts. i use it for emails, forms, and cross-application error correction. Both work almost identically.
    Notepad++ –> Notational Velocity the most awesome improvement, NV does exactly what I want – note-taking in pure text form, searchable and syncable through simplenote. And don’t tell me about evernote, way too much bloat.
    Mesh –> Dropbox Mesh (Microsoft) is a bit cooler because it allows you more specific folder syncing, but Dropbox is just plain and simple, which I like. Also, the different way of handling files on Mac OS makes it the difference no problem.
    Filezilla –> Transmit well, ftp. Whatever.
    Win 7 snap –> Better Touch Tool this program that improves customisation for the magic mouse (ouch, RSI!) adds a little gem: the Win7 window snapping and full screen windows. I always thought Mac people had some kind of fetish for overlapping window soups, until I found out that you cant use full screen at all. Well, now you can.

    Things i still use:

    Office i hate it on Mac – moving to Gdocs more and more, especially to replace Excel. Plain and simple, i like. That said, someone told me Office for Mac 2011 would look  a lot like a real grown up office suite. There is a decent formula editor, ribbons, and not as many crashes. Not available yet, though.
    Chrome Better and more advanced on Windows, but hey, it’s a browser.
    VLC best video player for everything.

    Things I am still looking for:

    A jetpack and a time machine. Oh, my Mac has a time machine!

  • What is Apple actually doing with “facetime”?

    So, Apple introduced “facetime” with the new iPhone. A lot of critics came out swinging after the keynote, ridiculing Jobs for adding something to a phone that was never used for several years on basically every other device on the market.

    I felt the same. Video calling? Only on Apple devices? Only via wifi? Thanks, Steve, that’s awesome.

    Today I realized that it’s probably something else. It’s not only about using your phone for video calls, rather, it’s about establishing a new standard for voice/video chats. Just as Apple introduced bonjour in 10.4 to make computers communicate (and using it as a backbone for iChat), it is now trying to establish facetime as the actual chat protocol to allow for a deeper video/audio/chat/collaboration experience. According to a rather short wikipedia article, the facetime protocol is based on a couple of open standards that made me scratch my head:

    Source: Wikipedia

    Audio and video make total sense. SIP as a voice protocol is pretty straightforward as well, but the last two are the most revealing: technology to traverse firewalls and technology to deliver media streams via VOIP. Through this, screen sharing should be in there at some point, probably tightly integrated into OSX. Overall, Apple wants to eclipse Skype, which is one of the most used chat and VOIP apps on Macs. The main point is the usual Apple way of going into new markets: making stuff simple and easy to use (traversing firewalls is pretty important in this case).

    Of course Apple is also keeping everything close to its chest by orchestrating the open source development. This is probably going to look a lot like Chrome/Android, where Google makes the best implementation themselves and adds to the OS project in a major way.

    So, there you go. The cheesy video is just for fun, the big stuff comes later. Let’s see if I am right in a couple of months.

  • The next big thing oder so.

    Mein Aufruf nach Blogthemen auf Twitter hat ja wunderbar funktioniert. Da schreibt mir also mein Chef und will wissen, was das nächste große Ding ist…na gut:

    @pmoehring: WHat's the next big thing? by bibrue on TwitterDas nächste große Ding ist nicht Foursquare und auch nicht Groupon, die gibt es ja schon längst. Foursquare hätte man vor einem Jahr nachbauen können, nachdem es beim SXSW so fulminant angekommen ist. Den Gaming-Part des ganzen muss man aber wohl erst einmal erleben, bevor die Genialität sichtbar ist, daher hat es nicht geklappt mit einem Klon. Groupon wird umso härter (und schneller) kopiert, man mag gar nicht glauben, welche Auswüchse das mittlerweile annimmt. Ich habe heute auch mal die Fernsehwerbung von Citydeal gesehen, ich denke schon, dass das in der Masse ankommen wird (Auch wenn die Europäer nicht so eine Coupon-Mentalität haben – die Deutschen lieben es jedenfalls, zu sparen. Wir sind schließlich die Europameister des Discounts: Lidl und Aldi in CH und NL sind ein guter Beweis dafür).

    Was kommt also als nächstes?

    Ich habe es ja im Interview mit Veronika schon einmal vor mich hin gestottert: Ich denke, dass mit der immer stärkeren Penetration von Smartphones endlich der wirkliche lokale Markt im Netz losgehen wird. Da wir aber in diesem Falle noch ca. 1-2 Jahre hinter den Staaten liegen, werden die Location based Services sich noch ein paar Monate Zeit lassen. Man bedenke: vor genau einem Jahr war Foursquare in den Staaten bereits in aller Munde, hatte also bereits ein funktionstüchtiges Produkt und eine aufmerksame Nutzerschaft. Ja, es gab auch in Deutschland schon mal Places. Über Timing sollte ich vielleicht mal einen etwas ausführlicheren Post schreiben…

    Also, nochmal von vorne:

    Was kommt als nächstes? Groupon und Co zeigen eine tolle Nische auf, die ich (abgesehen vom Geschäftsmodell mit immensen Werbekosten) für absolut reif halte: Die Verbindung von Online und Offline*. Was lässt sich mit dieser Nische noch anfangen? Zum Beispiel Milo.com. Milo zeigt Online-Shoppern, welche Produkte in welchen Geschäften in ihrer Nähe verfügbar und vorrätig sind, natürlich gleich inklusive Preis, Rabatten und Coupons. Die Daten sind vorhanden, die Systeme müssen lediglich angebunden werden. In diesem Stile lässt sich weiter spinnen: Arzttermine online buchen, Medikamente in der Apotheke per Internet bestellen und á la Packstation abholen, iPhone Apps, die freie Parkplätze anzeigen, und so weiter, und so fort. Ich bin gespannt, ob sich so etwas bewahrheitet, sehe aber auf allen Seiten Chancen: Probleme der Nutzer werden gelöst, bestehende Geschäftsmodelle unterstützt, win-win, wie es besser nicht sein könnte. Bonus: die “Offliner” meckern weniger über das Internet, das ja alles kaputt macht.

    *Wer diesen Spruch nicht mehr hören kann, ist bei mir herzlich willkommen.