The iPad Dilemma

As I start writing this, its 3am and in the 9 hours since Apple introduced the iPad, and I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel let down. Everything about the event was perfect. Steve Jobs, as usual, put on an excellent show. He could sell you a used mattress and you’d be leaving happy. The device however was an utter disappointment, and the reason Apple gave for selling it is even worse.

They say they are trying to bridge the gap between the smartphone and the portable computer, that it has to excel in key things like: Browsing, Email, Movies, Music,  eBooks. But Apple has forgotten that they have already made products that to these things, and they do them well.

iPhone 4 Necessities

As I crawl through hundreds of unread feed items each day, a certain Apple handheld device is sure to be mentioned a few dozen times. As it stands, the iPhone is the most popular phone probably ever, and since 2007 has been revolutionizing the mobile industry. It has forced competitors to innovate, yet as of yet no other device has been able to stand up to the might of the iPhone.

Apple are in a great position right now. Sales have never been higher, even more incredible is the fact that this is during economic turmoil. The iPhone native App store now has over 100,000 applications, compared to a measly 1,000 apps the Palm App store has only just reached.

The device itself is simple enough to use, yet powerful enough to create amazing software (as long as it doesn’t interfere with the device’s core functionality), elegant and possibly gives the best user experience from any device I’ve ever used. Having said that there are always problems with any device, and the Jesus Phone isnt any different.

So as a new year begins and the flurry of blog posts about the all-but-confirmed next iteration of the iPhone are published, I just want to outline a few things I think are essential for the iPhone to get that bit closer to perfection.

Google Chrome – Potential

Google Chrome is on the verge of being my default browser on any machine that I use. True its missing features, and true it still doesn’t have as many extensions, but it’s faster than Firefox, cleaner than Firefox and simpler than Firefox. You can even sync your bookmarks natively without installing a 3rd party extension, something the Mozilla crowd is working on, but have failed to deliver as of yet.

A Designers Desk

For me, having a setup that both looks and functions well is paramount to doing any design jobs. Well actually it helps with anything I’m doing You work better if your desk is tidy (no distractions), its just common sense.

Listing on Bing? Coz It’s Kinda Important

Bing.com, the new “decision engine” from Microsoft builds upon, Live.com and of course MSN.com. Because of this you probably think that your site will automatically be listed. Turns out mine had some trouble being found by Bing so I had to do it manually, which you can do here.

But why is pinging Bing so important? Surely it has no dent on Google.

Well, recently stats came out for June and it recieved almost 50 million vilitors for that month. You may think that 50 million is pretty small, but lets just put this into content. It got more than Twitter, which is getting publicity left, right and center. More than Digg, a very popular user generated news site, and more than CNN, one of the most accurate and well-respected news sources in America. I know that Microsoft arent competing with these sites, but to get more than pretty established websites in the first month of launch, its great. For any site that is a hug achievement, but its a momentous one for a site that Microsoft owns.

Now how did they get it? Well obviously most of that was redirected from Live.com, and even more obvious is the influx of new visitors, dying to see what the whole fuss is about. But to keep 50 million users a month, they need to start getting people to make the switch. How? Relevant searching. I’ve started using Bing, whilst going cold turkey on Google, in order to see if it has any effect on my daily search needs. For the most part, no. But there are a few things missing from the “decision engine” before I decide  to make the switch permanent. Things like money conversions are missing. The extended features the US site has is missing, we have localized search and that is it. And I dont think its integrated enough with the rest of the Microsoft websites.

Overall getting listed on Bing may not be a priority right now. But soon, we might have Microsofts second coming. And I cant wait, Google is getting boring.