iPhone and Consumer's Mistaken Desires.

Admittedly, it is rather trite to write about something as contemporary as the iPhone. In a month, you're not likely to find a single post about the thing, and right now the net is awash in commentary on this single topic. Amazingly, interviews at CES focused heavily in Apple, who doesn't even attend CES! Remind me to hire Steve Jobs to hype my next invention. It doesn't have to be an original idea. It just needs a minimalist approach and he'll declare bold, and the world will declare it good. In the days following the announcement stock for Apple jumped over $10/share, adding about 10 billion dollars to their investment portfolio. So many companies think that solid revenue earnings, reliable growth, and reasonable ROI (return on investment, I looked it up) are the key to making your stock price. But that's not the case. It's all about public opinion of the company. Do they come out with cool new things with Steve Jobs hyping them? If they do, they get $10 billion. If they don't, they end up in the innovation slush pile.
But forgive me, this is turning into a bitter rant, and off the topic I wish to actually address. The iPhone is an excellent case study in consumer confusion. Now, I must insert a disclaimer. I am actually relatively new to the area of product development, having only been involved for 2.5 years. In that time, I've seen right and wrong ways to do things. Through it all, one fact remains abundantly clear: People don't actually know what they want. They think they do, but it's an assumption. This is my gripe with Apple: They don't release products that are actually good for the consumer. They release what the consumer believes they want. The customer is happy, true, but ultimately worse off for buying into a company that panders to their desires rather than try to educate them and make them more wholly satisfied.
Given the huge number of Mac'philes that aren't reading this anyway, I'm going to insert another disclaimer regardless: The iPhone is not a bad piece of engineering. It's no doubt marvelously constructed, and has several features that are both innovative and endearingly clever. However, they're not worth $600, and some features touted and getting consumers genuinely excite are actually not what consumers really want. Specifically, I'm referring to the touch screen and complete removal of a keypad. This is a topic where, despite my lack of experience, I can claim some degree of authority. People like tactile feedback. 'Old school' phone designers have put tremendous amounts of effort into the tactile response of their keypads. The RAZR is sexy/slim, but also has a rewarding keypad. Touch screens obliterate the clicking sensation. You can't replace it with a sound, it's something you have to feel. Most people don't know this. They've never bothered with touch screens or, when they do, use a stylus. For products I've worked on, the development schedule has actually taken a hit to better improve the feel of a button, because don't like it unless you can feel and hear that satisfying click. Everyone believes that 1) Apple is a house of total innovation and 2) Apple comes out with new products therefore conclude that Apple is innovative. I beg to differ. There are maybe two or three features in the iPhone that are truly unique, but alternative products (all in ones, not separate products) exist already that either meet or exceed this products capabilities, for equal to or lesser prices.
The difference? Steve Jobs. He knows what people think they want to hear, and tells them that. For that, he gets $10 billion for his company, and people receive a product that will ultimately make them suffer. You've got a product with an unsatisfying touch feedback, and you're out $600. Sure it's hip, and you're a cooler person to own one (my mom thinks I'm cool!), but form has truly conquered function.

On the topic of social networks

I have a facebook account. My wife has a myspace account. One might argue that we should both either an account with facebook or myspace. Or, barring that agreement, have dual accounts. I disagree. A few months ago, shortly after an old friend invited me to join facebook, I had the luxury of sitting through jury duty. While waiting for my number to get called, I had the opportunity to stare at the ceiling and watch the paint peel. Alas, it was a well maintained building, and a lack of entropy in my surroundings left me to my own thoughts. It's stuff that shows up in places like that that will end up tarring the whitespace of this blog screen.
I began to consider the value proposition of social networks. I'd recently read an article on the topic of etiquette in these realms. Friendships in the real world were getting hurt by these sites. "But why?!" you might ask, "Are friends using a website to talk to each other when they can just talk to each other?" That's when it hit me. Social networks exist for the sake of distant friends and acquaintances. One of the things that discourages me from calling up old friends to chew the fat, as we once did, is the fact that we must first catch up on all that has happened. That could take hours, maybe months! What's more, you're going to have to do it every time you call up some other old acquaintance. Social networks free you of this responsibility! You want to catch up? Read their posts. Where are they living? Read their background. That way, the nature of your relationships with distant friends does not change as much. You really can chew the fat as you once did.
Do not, however, add people that you see daily to your network. This service is not intended for them. A social network is a band-aid to allow friends who don't have the luxury of seeing each other daily the opportunity to keep up without the heavy maintenance. They don't need to read about your day, they were already there! You cannot wax nostalgic over something that happened two hours ago. It's not the good ole' times if it's still going on.
That is why my wife browses myspace, and I browse facebook.
That, and we're too lazy to create more pages. It's hard enough updating just one.

My 1st blog

Like several other hundred thousand, possibly even several million people, I have chosen to create a blog today. It is my hope that what I write will not so much be an account of what I do from day to day (as I'm a rather boring person), and present more of what the grey matter has been processing lately.
Let's get a few things straight:
1. I like to write.
2. I don't have the best taste in movies (re. Godzilla)
3. I am a nerd, but an introspective one.
That said, I think I'm going to go to bed without dropping a single insight.
No reason to push myself, as few, if any one, is ever going to read this.