The dash from convergence and how the web can save us if we choose

I wonder if the proliferation of devices we are experiencing give us a hint about what will happen to the web?

A few years back – when the first smart phones were making inroads, when the first all-you-can-eat mobile data deals were laid before a hungry audience, then it seemed to make perfect sense that convergence would arrive via the device.

Hell, I have a phone that can take picture, tell the time, calculate, run my diary... open documents, access my email, access the internet, play games and music, play video, show broadcast tv etc etc. Why wouldn’t we think one device could do it all?

And here I am packing a few items for some days away on business and finding it essential that I load up with a laptop, ipad, kindle fire AND iphone (4S)...

Little sign of convergence here. And I’ve never given up on wearing a watch either.

But platforms? Despite the vast variety of opportunity, there are only ever a handful of giants. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, for example

All start off with relatively focused aims. But over time they bloat – copying the ideas of others, assuming that the battle is on for the one social home we will become and remain loyal to.

But the more they bloat, the more we see the value in the specific, the more we spill out into those with greater focus on specific needs – the Pinterests, Instagrams, 4Squares of this world – and the thousands more behind them in the long tail.

I wonder if, given just a little more bloating from the big boys, we may rediscover the self-forming-group value of the web – that we need less direction and guidelines from those who would be our internet, and more purpose from ourselves to make our connectedness count.

The dash from convergence in devices may be yet another indicator that we are more comfortable with complexity than the reductionists would have us believe, that we value niche over lowest common denominator in a very powerful way.

And that’s a good thing – because it’s a much better match with the infinite variety of adhoc self-forming groups the web is built to enable.

The web is our salvation from the bland, from the mass, from the uniform. If we want it to be.

10 Things I love about the iPhone - no, really

Image via CrunchBaseSince I've given apple such a hard time over my iPhone. I thought I ought to consider why I persist with it.

The contract I'm locked into has much to do with it.
And I'd be lieing if the coolness of it doesn't help (though this is seriously undermined in the style stakes by the black rubber condom I sheath my new one in after I dropped the last.
(incidentally, perhaps apple could build in this kind of protection next time around? Or at least box new iPhones with a cheap protective case.)

My daughter told the genius at the apple store that I love my phone.

And she's right.

The iPhone and I have a stormy relationship. Moments of sheer frustration spread widely apart by good experiences.

So 10 things I love about my iPhone.
There are problems with how some of these function, as I've posted and tweeted in the past, but they are powerful.

1. The community. When I have problems with my iPhone I can always find someone who has faced similar, overcome the challenge and shared the result. Apple's real ace is that their customers do their customer service ( and marketing, of course, but that's another story.)

2. No walled garden: I'm on an O2 contract but I don't experience the Internet-as-controlled-for-you-by-O2, I get the real Internet - our Internet.

3. The interface. Not so great for one-handed operation but an unmatchable experience for the eye and speed of navigation. When you aren't walking anywhere.

4. The iPod. Their best yet.

5. The integration with email and calendar services. Easier to set up than most.

6. Intuitive. My daughter could take pictures with the iPhone at the age of 3.

7. Solutions. Updates to make the phone ever better are built into your life. Adding content from iTunes? Want a better phone while you are at it. Ok then.

8. The app store. Easiest installation and best integration of any phone (or computer, for that matter) that I have ever experienced. Some social recommendation to your phone would ramp it higher still.

9. Control of the desktop. That the user can rearrange navigation to suit themselves is a given.

10. The wifi. Connects seemlessly whereever possible. And that's harder to achieve than often credited for.

What do you love about your phone?

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iPhone - shattered screens and shattered illusions

I dropped my iPhone on Friday. Face down from pocket height to pavement. I don't know if the chill air made it more fragile, but the screen shattered.

It was still working. Just didn't look very nice or likely to last too long in that condition.

So I rang O2. Who didn't know who did repairs. Suggested I tried rivals Carphone Warehouse.

Actually O2 does have an exchange plan.  £156 and your phone has to be sent back to apple which will, only upon receipt, supply another. But the on-the-phone 02 people didn't know that.

So I rang Apple. They told me they didn't do repairs. (image courtesy)

They could do an exchange. And they would make an appointment for me with a Genius (member of staff) at my nearest Apple Store in Cambridge.

They made it for 3:15pm that day. It takes me some time to get into traffic-choked Cambridge. Even using the park and ride.

I had hoped to be working on a consulting brief that Friday afternoon. But staying connected is key for me. Needs must.

So, making the best of it, I trundled off to Cambridge with 4-year-old daughter in tow. She likes a ride on a double-decker.

And we arrive on time. And we sit down for our appointment. And just as the centralised apple care team had told us when making the appointment, there was no replacement screen available. Only an exchange could solve this customer's problem. But.

But.

They didn't have any in stock.

Let me describe a simple logic flow here.

Has iphone got shattered screen?
Yes

Is only resolution of this a replacement phone?
Yes

Has apple store got that phone available to conduct said exchange?
No

Should you waste an afternoon of your customer's limited time sending him into town on a Friday afternoon with zero possibility of a positive outcome?
Can you guess the right answer?

Apple couldn't.

So, there's a customer service issue here. And I didn't half take up some Genius time explaining that in store.

And my annoyance at my wasted time left me asking a range of other questions I really think apple should have a stab at answering:

How much does a screen really cost? Given they break at the drop of a phone (my wife dropped her Nokia yesterday- zero damage) why aren't Apple making cheap and quick repairs available?

Why do you think mobile phones are the width they are? It's because it is the ideal fit for the average human hand (Nokia's interaction designers have known this for a long time). The iphone's extra few millimetres of width make for a great screen but an inherently more droppable design.

Yes apple, I am holding you partially to blame for all those cracked screens. We haven't all just got clumsy. I've owned mobile phones since the mid 90s - dozens. And I've never broken a single one.

And what about this pricing? £200 for a replacement. Hang on a mo. That's what I paid for my brand new one on contract in the first place. I'm still on that O2 contract.

Yet the replacement phone is made of recycled parts (in a new case). And you get no periferals, no charger, no earphones.

I'm all for secondhand recycling, cutting down on waste - but why do you get to keep all the cash saved apple?

The apple store rang me on Saturday to tell me they did now have a phone for me to go back into Cambridge to pay them £200 for (and they get to keep my cracked one - to recycle and charge someone else £200 for. WTF?).

Over a barrel,  I went to get it.

Apple care were meant to have rung me at just after noon to explain how they would resolve and recompense for my wasted time.

By 3pm they hadn't called. I had to call them as I dashed for the apple store to make my 4:15pm Saturday appointment.

Poor. You will hear more. Just another day in my life with an iphone.

BTW: My PC was running the wrong time when I restored the iphone from itunes. Which meant to get the right time on my phone I had to reset the computer's time, restart it, restart itunes and then restore the iphone to factory settings and then finally restore all the content and contacts etc. To adjust the time. Ouch.

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Got a question for Clay Shirky?

I've got the opportunity to interview Clay Shirky on Tuesday this week thanks to the lovely people at Incisive Media.
I'm a big fan of Clay's work particularly his recent book Here Comes Everybody. (currently available with £8 off at Amazon)
I'll be video recording the interview to share later - using one of the just-arriving Flip Video Mino's. Just been sent one to test by Alex Myers - who responded to my bleating tweets for something simple to shoot and share with ( I am a-cursed with a 3G unjailbroken iPhone - no video recording!).
You'll see the results on this blog later this week.
And you can help shape the results right now: simply post a question you'd like to put to Clay in the comments below and I'll do my best to include as many as possible in the interview.

Cool is in your interactions, not in the phone you carry

An interesting battle is emerging in the mobile world. The G1 google phone was announced yesterday. The iPhone we already have. Touch screen, app-laden rivals are popping up left right and centre.

The first battle was about coolness of device. The iPhone is winning that hands down. The G1 looks less sex on a stick and more sack of spuds. And everyone else's efforts at out appling apple mean look-a-likes.

But the hardware may be a smaller influence on the outcome than many imagine. (image by ceekay via flickr)

Yes, I get that our phones are personal, always with us, an expression of self. Well, I get that they always were. But as they become more and more a true expression of ubiquitous computing, some of those computing requirements look like gaining the upper hand.

Your Mactop may be prettier than my pc but, what if no-one will buy it because you can't attach a web cam? (You can, I know... but you take the point?)
The iTunes store doesn't allow any apps which use the iPhone's camera... you have to jailbreak to be able to use qik etc

Is that wise?

There has to be good-enough software available for macs in order for apple to sell its computers. And there is. But in the computer world it's clear pcs have won on a global scale. They've won on price and because software for one runs on all (pretty much). More developers therefore create for the pc than the mac.

Simply, the pc can do more things because more people develop more things for it to do.

That's the route google is taking with the G1. Android is more open than the iPhone.
(But it ain't that open. An open phone wouldn't be locked to a network. An open phone would allow me to put any sim I like in. What gives here google?)

Anyway, what I mean to say is the battle for dominance in mobile will not be about who has the coolest handset, but it may be about who has the most effective way for developers to monetise their efforts - because that is the route to making your hardware do more.

And the closer your phone gets to being your primary point of entry to the internet, the further the hardware gets from being an expression of self. That's because the greater part of the expression of self will be happening digitally when you make your entry to the internet (ie you manage your reputation through each interaction on social network after social network.)

Cool is who you are in each interaction, not what phone you carry.

Mippin's making the iPhone work beautifully

By way of apology for not testing mippin before leaping in with this, here's mippin's video showing how utterly fabulously content renders and displays, via mippin, to your iphone. Thank you coalface!

Want FasterFuture on your phone? It's a stroll. Click here.

Apple & The Myth of Working Beautifully: Part IV

I really hope this is the fourth and final part of a series I never planned to begin...
I have finally achieved sync up between google contacts and my 3G iPhone.

The (not wholly satisfactory*, but I'll live with it) solution to this problem reveals the core issue with the itunes/iphone experience currently for me.

I don't mind things going wrong. I get that we're living a life in beta. I am a fan of unfinished symphonies after all.

What I would like is a bit of a steer. Experimentation, playfulness, building as we go, is all fun if we can learn from our mistakes. But apple's error messages are not helping us learn. In fact, they are misleading. Read frustrating.

Every time I tried to sync my gmail contacts via itunes I got the message that my google password was incorrect. I was damn sure it wasn't. Some kind folk I know suggested I reset my password and retry. Nowt. Most people simply couldn't understand what could possibly be wrong. Many nodded, smiled knowingly and muttered N95 ( a clearly better visual content creator compared to the iPhone's superior visual content consumption).

When I gave it a final role of the dice last night at home itunes wouldn't open on my pc. Complete freeze up and worrying beeping noises.

When I restarted I tried to repair itunes. It said it had succeeded. It had not (those misleading error messages again).

So I uninstalled itunes, restarted (again) and reinstalled. And this time, this time! It worked. gmail synced up contacts. I even took the opportunity to whack a load of pics into the 16GB void.

The error was not that I didn't know my google password. It was that apple didn't know itunes was phucked.

Finally; 3G is working, itunes is working, syncing is working. At last my iPhone world is beginnning to smell of roses.

And it could have done so much faster and more easily if only apple's error messages were anywhere close to accurate. C'mon apple. Give us a clue!

The rest of the story? 

• 1. Apple & The Myth of Working Beautifully.
• 2. Apple & The Myth of Working Beautifully II.
• 3. Apple & The Myth of Working Beautifully III
  

*Not wholly satisfactory? Well, all my gmail contacts (which I synced from my N73 via Nokia PC Suite) are now in my iPhone... but every field bar the name has been aggregated into the iPhone contacts 'Notes' field. So I have email addresses, phone numbers et al - but I'd have to dial each number or type each email address to use it. Better than nowt... just.

FasterFuture now available for iPhone

FasterFuture has long been mobilised: most notably via mippin.

Now there's a version for the iPhone, created on Mofuse.
You'll find it at: http://fasterfuture.mofuse.mobi/iphone/

It'll look a little something like this:

Apple and the Myth of Working Beautifully: Part III

My battle with my iPhone is settling into a series of guerilla skirmishes. A little fire-fighting here and there. I still have the syncing of contacts from either outlook (which I'd prefer not to have to use) or gmail (which itunes insists I don't know my password to) to tackle, for example.

But I thought I'd update you on the issues I had on the day I first used my iPhone in anger. On Friday I headed for London for a day of meetings - in several locations.

I travel by train. On my Nokia N73 I am able to check gmail and use twitter (via slandr) facebook, linkedin etc as pretty effective mobile versions. And these work all the way down the line between Huntingdon and London (barring the tunnels, of course).

But all the way down on Friday with my iPhone I got no signal. Safari said it couldn't reach anything - so no internet.

Arriving in London I wandered through King's Cross station and picked up the Cloud automatically - big thumbs up apple/O2. That worked a treat.

But as soon as I was away from wifi I got no 3G. No internet. Importantly for me; no googlemaps.

I ended up asking a copper for directions when I arrived at Waterloo station on course for a meet at the Young Vic. Haven't done that for a long time! Thanks iPhone.

I texted twitter for help (in the hope I'd find some wifi later to pick up the answers). Text and calls were working. So why no internet even at 2G (or 2.5G) speed?

Among the responses I got from fellow iPhone sufferers were:

"richjm @davidcushman If you get normal signal, chances are it's not the 2.0.1 update. 3G coverage is sketchy. Good around the City, Livp st though"

Chris_Reed @davidcushman is your network setting right? Might be just set to O2 not O2 3g? general>network>enable 3g on. Sorry if it's granny ...

otoburb @davidcushman settings->network->wifi. Disable it and then 3G should lock on. Make sure 3G is enabled somewhere under General->netw

And there was outpourings of sympathy/fun-poking too, of course.

Bear in mind that the people I tweet with are a fairly early-adopter technically adept bunch (certainly compared with the general population). Apple should have a little wobble at this. No one was able to solve my issue (Apple seems focused on enablijng self-help networks rather than centre-out customer services, so it relies on my fellow geek).

I stumbled on it myself, through frustrated experimentation ( I can't call it play, it wasn't any fun). If you can't get the internet on your iPhone try this: Reset the network settings. To do this, choose Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

And finally the beast came to life.

I popped into a Starbucks on Saturday morning to check the O2 claim about free wifi there. I could fine none. No surprise really as it's a T-mobile hotspot. Happy to be corrected though so if you know how I can get free wifi at Starbucks on my iPhone, post away!

I wandered into the my local O2 store to fill them in on my experience. Lots of sympathy but I was also told in almost these words: Apple doesn't want us to get involved in customer service. They want us to sell you the box.

Staff aren't even allowed to open the iPhone boxes - so they weren't even aware about the secrets of inserting the sim card.

One final criticism of the iPhone for today: I can't text with my thumb on it - which means I can't text and walk. That's a hardcore (read killer app) mobile phone function.

I'm getting used to the touchscreen typepad and starting to like it and what it can do... but it's not a joyful journey.

• Apple And the Myth of Working Beautifully
• Apple And the Myth of Working Beautifully II

Apple and the myth of working beautifully, Part II

I finally got my hands on an iPhone yesterday - the 16GB 3G version. And while the unboxing was a very fine experience... (see qik video with this post) most of the rest was not.
First things first; in store. I got a tip off that phones were in so I headed off for an 02 shop (I won't name the location to protect the uninformed) and avoided the queue nastiness that has put me off in the past.

See Apple And The Myth of Working Beautifully

Experience so far, good (cartoon, right, by Hugh). Asking questions of the staff revealed some flaws in the training (I'm being charitable).

To be fair, my first encounter was with a young girl labelled 'trainee' and wearing a iPhone promo t-shirt.

I asked about contracts and tariffs. She knew nothing about the costs of data. Pretty critical on the iphone you might have thought?

When a more senior colleague could join us they claimed the 02 iphone contract meant you could use wifi free whereever wifi is available. "Mcdonalds" she quoted (it's free there anyway) and Starbucks (which I think there is a deal in place with).

I assured her it was not possible that they could have done a deal to offer everyone's wifi for free. It's not an issue for me - just an odd and misleading claim to make while selling an iPhone.#

Signing up was easy enough.

And so the evening, and trying to make the bleeding thing work.

Instructions say simply connect to computer and iTunes will do the rest. What iTunes does is tell you nothing is going to work for you, sucker, because you haven't got a valid sim card in.

I know, I was kind of hoping you were going to tell me how to instal it since there are no instructions.

The 02 site and phonelines couldn't cope with the demand for help, so I went to ask my twitter pals.

Turns out there is a piece of card rattling around in your box with some archane heiroglyphics on (no words) which purport to show you what to do with an odd-shaped slither of metal - the sacred key that opens the secret door to sim card placement. A case of apple being blinded by its own brilliance.

Here's some of the tweets that followed:

Latest live from Qik [qik] - Iphone 3g http://qik.com/video/150269

• f'ck me. how stupid can o2 be? no instructions on how to open iphone or insert sim. genius
• otoburb @davidcushman It's that picture on the black insert with the strange looking metal piece.
• @otoburb er? ah thankyou.
• bellhead @davidcushman in the US they have the SIM already in them (done way upstream).
• btinternet downloaded itunes 7.7 at a stately 180kb at best. stand by my post re apple and the myth of working beautifully
• rmmarshall @davidcushman So good to hear someone else who isn't falling into the fanboy irreality trap.
• if i should die before i finally start this iphone, who would like it left to them
• ilicco @davidcushman thanks, but you can take it with you. also, if you want proper 3G, use JoikuSpot on a Nokia N82 and WIFI your iPhone
• hadn't appreciated iphone comes with watching paint dry app pre-installed
• @rmmarshall nokia would die before making it this hard to make a phone call!
• spanx @davidcushman iPhone tip. Turn 3G off unless you're using the Internet on the move. It's a battery killer.
• @spanx cheers. how's it done?
• spanx @davidcushman It's under the system settings thing. Badly needs a one-click 3G switcher app.
• rmmarshall @davidcushman It's such a UScentric idiom - they don't get phones. Like the paint dry app analogy - 59p from the appStore!
• technokitten @davidcushman ooh I'm feeling left out! I want a 'watching paint dry' app too ;)
• hmm a flaw. iphone opens itunes then insists on installing new version, without auto closing itunes first. dumb.
• golly. now its restart time. this better be worth it mr jobs
• apple. the walls of the garden arent meant to be for banging my head against
• superb. itunes install failed. now trying to repair
• ok. lets try a second restart. am very bored now
• finally itunes opens up. cant access some synch or other. i should try later?
• @gapingvoid thank you. apple and i aint buddies 2nite
• andrewgrill @davidcushman you should have bought an E71 ;-]
• 6consulting @davidcushman May I suggest placing it in the blender? seems to have worked for others!!
• neilperkin @davidcushman thanks for keeping me entertained whilst working at home :)

Hey Apple - mind if I manage my own music please?

Is it just me, or is the fact that the Iphone requires hacking around in order to use selections from your own itunes library as ring tones (in the UK) just plain bizarre?

Which part of that doesn't suck, apple?

I'd have thought selecting my own music as a ringtone would be core functionality for a device which is, at its heart, for managing your music and making and receiving phone calls.

There are ways around it. Jemima Kiss was kind enough to share this tweet from @samhs:

• "there is a simple method for converting songs in your library to ringtones.
• "Save song as AAC,
• "then rename from .m4a to .m4r"

But my point remains; why should we need a work round? They don't in the US (via Chris Reed who suggests saving songs into garageband as another work round).

Another myth of everything apple working beautifully exploded?

Chris, new to an iphone himself, added:
"It's worth the wait, but for me, for the first time ever with a mac, it hasn't worked as I want straight out of the box..."

And now after initially being told new deliveries of iphones would be arriving yesterday, we're seeing +7 days being added on... at least.

And every day that passes, my current operator, 3, makes me a better offer...

Apple and the myth of working beautifully

The myth of Apple = everything working beautifully, was soundly debunked on 3G Iphone Friday.
The fabulous 9838 error was just one among manifold user experience issues: queues, crashing systems, restricted supply etc etc.

Ipod's are less than intuitive ('I've forgotten how to switch it on', moaned my wife when she last picked hers up). And is it wise that there's no lock function (to prevent unwanted button-strikes) for something that often sits in your pocket? (that's fixed on the 3G Iphone)
Itunes is clunky and slow. Macs require their own suite of software.

I'm picking on Apple for a reason. They are among the very best at delivering delightful user experiences. So good at it that Jemima Kiss yearns for an Apple eBay (just watch a newby try to work out what to do with eBay and you'll get her drift).

And yet Apple still gives us iphone Friday.

There is headroom for better. Much better.

And it's worth going after. There is a large and cash-rich segment of the world's population who are not geeks, not prepared to fiddle, not prepared to kill two-three hours of their lives upgrading with new software, not prepared to learn their way around...

They want satnavs as easy to use as a book of maps, mobile phones and computers that transfer calendars, address books and applications from their old ones to the new (in a PAC-code, cloud-ready world why shouldn't your next mobile be pre-loaded, charged-up and ready to roll when it arrives?), they want search to find what they're looking for, digital cameras to upload, store and share without the need to get to a computer, peripherals with the software built-in rather than awaiting their attention on a CD etc etc.

Briefly: They want things to work, beautifully, intuitively, first time.

You can tell these people until you are blue in the face that if they master this or that they'll save loads more time (it's one of the stumbling blocks to getting more people to blog, for example).

But they need more than a promise of future time savings (in adspeak, selling the benefits just doesn't do it).

The experience, right from the start matters. Show by your actions. You need to act, not talk.

How easy/delightful is it to find out about the product or service?
How easy/delightful is it to buy?
How easy/delightful is it to use (from the box)?

The first and second hurdles are easily as important as the last.