That's Not A Phone Ringer, It's The Death Bell For WindowsPhone - IMRAN™

"Microsoft Windows smartphone sales collapse. Down 76%!" reports Computerworld.

That's not a WindowsPhone ringing but death bell of Microsoft's phone platform strategy that you do not hear, because when was the last time you heard a WindowsPhone ring except for the expensive product placements on TV shows and in movies? 

It was a mere $8-10 BILLION write off which destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Nokia employees. Please stand by for a similar LinkedIn write off in 3 years for about $30 Billion. They could have cured Cancer or built 1000 hospitals worldwide with that money!

Imagine me, a MacOS lover from Day 1, working at Microsoft (in strategy / cloud / consulting though) for 3 years. Ironically, I was already sick and tired of the 200 years old iOS UI (user interface) that has STILL not changed since it launched, and the UXdesign (user experience getting worse) from Apple in EVERY area. 

So I was actually happy to see Microsoft's WindowsPhone interface as one of the few things they did not steal from, I mean, copy from Apple, and something actually better. But, the problem was not the technology. It was, and likely still is, the people of Microsoft.

It is a company with MANY smart people who made so many stupid decisions again and again, but never learned. A most senior leader liked some ideas I had to build a WindowsPhone ecosystem. He connected me with an Indian guy (not Satya Nadella) who was the VP responsible for WindowsPhone app and ecosystem development. I wish I remembered his name now. 

On each proposed step I discussed, he laughed and said, "We are Microsoft, We do not need to do that." And, "Developers are begging us to develop on our platform."

I wish I could have recorded that conversation for entertainment value alone.

Imran Anwar

From "It Just Works" To "It May Still Work (After Apple Software Update)"! - IMRAN™

BUX: Apple's Falling Reliability & Incredibly Inconsistent UX On 2 Identical Brand New iPhone 6S+ - IMRAN™

The BUX Stops Here. Bad User Experiences are everywhere. I give examples, and name names, even of companies I love. 

The goal is to inform users of the problems that go on for years, to call attention of these companies to their lousy design or quality control choices, and to help UX designers and product managers improve both the customer experience and the quality of their loyal user's experience. 

Here is an example from a company I generally love, Apple. But I have been griping about the constantly falling reliability of the Apple user experience even from when Steve Jobs was still alive. It seemed like getting it out the door even at 90% reliability became acceptable instead of at least aiming for 99%. 

Under Tim Cook, and especially with the worst OS upgrade I have ever experienced from Apple with El Capitan, and parallel bug nightmares on iOS 9 show that it seems getting things out the door even at 80% is now acceptable at Apple.

The bug I am discussing today is a problem in November 2015, 3.5 years after similar problems have been discussed on Apple's own discussions forum in the past (2012 for example).

I have 2 BRAND NEW iPhone 6S+ 128GB phones, 100% identical in everything, including carrier and even color,... everything except for their device names. 

I even shot identical photographs with them (to use in 3D photos). I connected both devices to iPhoto. The first one's photos ALL came in without ANY problem. The second one's import into iPhoto fails over and over, and the iPhone even disappears from the app and has to be unplugged and replugged in for iPhoto/Mac (Image Capture included) to recognize the device again. 

Even Image Capture failed to import the images either all together or even one by one. I even switched to the cable the other phone's photos came over fine on. Nope. Everything failed. Emailing myself dozens of large image and video files was not an option as some discussions mention. 

I even turned Bluetooth off as others had found to work in past similar bugs. (That by the way is another reason I consider having to play such games of twisters to get things to work making the Mac user today sometimes seem like being a Windows user). 

I did manage to send the photos from the iPhone to the Mac over AirDrop and they ALL imported into iPhoto just fine. There were NO problems with ANY of the photos. Plugging the phone back into the Mac and iPhoto even correctly shows that the photos on the phone now already exist in iPhoto. Meaning the problem was NOT with the photos at all.

Yet the actual routine import of photos failed and the user experiences were smooth vs nightmare on two IDENTICAL devices bought literally the same week. That was the kind of thing you expected to happen with two lousy Windows PCs where they would act differently and inconsistently. But now it is a common Mac thing.

I have been an Apple user since the start of the platform but the more Windows-nightmare-experience-like it becomes the more I shake my head, and the more I can't stand when people think pointing out the falling reliability of the OS releases and apps UX to be some sort of Apple bashing.

I was able to workaround my problem this time, but the problem's root cause is still unknown. That is why I am sharing it here so others may shed light on it if they have ideas. And to try to wake up Apple's quality and UX teams before loyal users start seeing Apple as just another vendor to choose from, not a company we identified proudly with the quality products and consistent high quality user experience of. 

What have been your bad user experiences with devices, products or services?

Questioning Rotten Apple Not Approved In PC (Politically Correct) Fawning Media? - IMRAN™

I have been an Apple user for 30+ years, and a Mac bigot since 1984. Even though my day job is at Microsoft and I use Windows laptops, Surface, Windows Phone Lumia, my personal life's work is invested (and sort of locked) in the Apple ecosystem.

Even my MS colleagues know, I would often be the only guy at an airport with a PowerBook laptop in a sea of Windows machines, which I was no fan of. But the decline in innovation and quality at Apple has been shocking. I’ve had MacBook laptops that had manufacturing defects that Apple hid and then stopped patching after warranty. I had to replace my iPhone 4S (a great device) three times because of static noise issues.

I cannot even buy an external fingerprint reader for Mac OS that would work while I have it built in my PC laptops. I have no touch on the latest Apple MacOS devices. The gorgeous near perfect keyboards of previous MacBook Pros now have been replaced by plastic types that even PC users match or exceed.

iOS and its boring icons are still brain dead and have not evolved since iPhone started. I barely have to life my WindowsPhone screen and still can see who emailed me, what the weather changed to, what the latest news are, what someone said on FaceBook, see my photos rotate, ALL on the home screen without touching the phone. Yes, the Apple ecosystem still has a million more apps but after my initial craze which led me to have 1100+ apps on iOS, I have been aggressively deleting apps since only a handful are actually used. Of those about 80% are available to me on WindowsPhone too. 

My latest iPhone 6 Plus has a lousy 8MP camera while my year+ old Windows Phone Lumia 1020 has 43MP that runs rings around it. But worse of all is the sheer number of painful experiences I have had and seen people report on Apple's own boards is mind boggling.

I used to complain about Windows control-alt-delete but with Windows 8 and now Windows 10 coming plus Windows Phone and super cool Live Tiles the user experience is far more innovative than Apple’s. Samsung users tell me even on hardware that company is beating Apple in new features. But the latest shocking defect in Apple hit me today.

You know how Bluetooth connects different vendors products for 15 years but can you believe Apple's latest MacBook Pro & iPhone 6+ fail to connect to each other even with latest Yosemite and iOS 8.1.1 !

In the old days all media did was predict Apple's death and I would argue against it. Now I see Apple non-stop defect laden launches but hardly any media express outrage or show coverage over it. I am not hating on Apple because someone at MS wants me to. After all, as I said, I have been invested in the Apple ecosystem and even my most used Mac apps are from Microsoft, including Outlook, Office/Word/PowerPoint/Excel and especially OneNote.

It is a pretty incredible switch of roles that I did not have any mail loss, data loss, issues moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and even Windows 10 Preview but I lost days of effort to resolving about a dozen separate known bugs and defects in upgrading the MacBook Pro to Yosemite and the iOS devices to iOS 8. That is definitely not how the yesterday’s gold standard of user experience and quality, Apple, worked. Is anyone a clear winner in that user experience war. Not right away. But at least today Apple’s clear lead in that area is gone. 

That is why the next personal devices I am lusting for are not Apple gadgets but the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, an Xbox One and a Microsoft Band. Hint, hint, if you really love me, and of course you do :-) , Christmas is around the corner. Just kidding!

What do you think?

Product Review: Eikon To Go USB Fingerprint Reader With Apple Mac + Windows Software

I have always believed in the convenience of biometric devices. They have been hard to come by on Macs, but for many years I have used and appreciated a fingerprint scanner (infrared pad to USB) from Microsoft, that only worked on Windows, though sadly now does not work in Windows 7.

This Eikon fingerprint scanner is a USB plug in type for the Mac and comes with Windows software also. I tested and use it on both platforms, after buying from Amazon.

The product itself gets 3 stars, but the 4th star is for the fact that they made the effort to develop it for Mac, and even more so for how absolutely wonderful both the seller (reseller) and the manufacturer were to my emails about the bugs and frustrations I encountered.

It is finicky, it often takes 2-3 slides of the finger(s) or one slow very accurate swipe for it to work. Often I wonder if the 2-3 attempts are worth the hassle of using the device. On the other hand (no pun intended) it does log me in quickly when I do it "right". Using it regularly and getting used to it provide the benefit that you can ( I did) make the password far more complex/long than when just typing it in my hand. E.g. &*mYpa$$word&*43!! Instead of just &*mYpas$$ etc.

The worst thing about the design is that it is useless to plug in to a typical MacBook Pro (i5 15" for this case) when anything else is plugged in. It is too wide. So, it comes with a maybe 6" USB extension, but then it makes it even less attractive, in visual and usage sense.

Now you have loose hanging thing twisted upside down or sideways sitting on the side of your laptop (as the cables often have an inherent 'twist' torque in them that flip the device on its side), and it is now even less usable as you almost have to grab is with one, hold it up firmly enough so you can swipe a finger from the other hand through it.

Since I use external USB keyboards with my MacBook Pros, I tried to plug it into the USB built in to Apple keyboards. No joy, as the device will not fit there and even if it did, it would be under the keyboard body and not usable. Hanging it by the USB tail extension I can use it but it will always move around, still requiring the 2 hand use, unless I scotch tape it. Then, it makes the laptop a little less mobile if I have to remove it every time I travel.

I am also disappointed that despite taking far more repetitions to learn a fingerprint than a 10 year old Microsoft infrared fingerprint reader (sadly not compatible with Mac or even Windows 7 now), it still needs the finger swipe to be so specifically accurate. But, it i doable, and when you get used to it, it does save time.

A plus is that I have it working on an office provided Windows 7 laptop. A disappointment is that it does not store finger prints on the device for MAC users. It does store the fingerprints for the Windows software! So, technically I think I can carry it to different Windows desktops/laptops without having to save fingerprints x 10 x 5 repetitions per finger on each machine, but for each Mac I would have to go through that process.

Based on just how cooperative the seller and the manufacturer have been, and the price, and overall tolerable usability, I am considering getting another unit so I can leave one taped to the desk and one to carry with me or use on the other laptop(s). Or, of course, I will be happy to buy the next great biometric device that comes out for my preferred platforms. 

But please be aware of the shortcomings (and advantages) before you order this or similar devices.

Imran Anwar

Technorati: Apple, Macintosh, Microsoft, Security, Technology, Windows, MacBook, Biometrics, Gadgets

Transitioning From Guesswork To Analysis In Predicting Apple Product Transitions

There has been some discussion going on about the direction of Apple next new models. Speculation became rampant when the Apple CFO referred to some product transition coming up, which may squeeze profit margins.

People are trying to guess if it means a switch from Intel to AMD, some new chipset from Semi, the company that Apple acquired, some new video chipset, etc. I can see that they can be called 'trasitions' - but then, so is changing the way a power adaptor connects to the laptop. I do not see any of these as having significant enough impact to warrant the CFO warning of some lower profit margins.

My prediction is that Apple may decide to let Mac OS X run on non-Apple 'Windows/Wintel' machines (which would lower margins and be a product 'transition' at the same time).

To keep pace with, while not really price-matching the low quality fares of HP and Dell, they would also reduce their own hardware prices somewhat, but still command a premium for additional things like Semi related chips, perhaps GPS and a WWAN capability built in.

And, finally, perhaps it is time for the granddaddy of the old and defunct Apple Newton, bring in a TouchMac. A tablet style MacBook Pro with touchscreen, iPhone like functionality, and 3D display capability.

It would be cute to call them TouchBooks, but Panasonic may object based on their Toughbook trademarks. That would be tough to book as a trademark!

What do you think?