moses choi

How important is good design to you? If I could live a 2nd life or if I could do things again, I think I would have considered going into design as a career. Specifically, the type of design I’m referring to is industrial design, human-centric design or product design for the purposes of solving problems, closing the gap in a poor product offering or simply producing something of value for its own sake.

I’m not the most artistic person out there, in fact, I am not artistic at all. But the world of design is very attractive to me. If there was a way that I could fuse design with business/making money while providing solutions to the masses, I would be very satisfied.

One of the top companies in the world in this field is IDEO. It has consistently been ranked as one of the most innovative firms in the world by Business Week magazine. They are experts in both design and business and have worked on some really interested projects over the years, bringing to market some of the most compelling solutions to problems sometimes we never realized we had.

Good design, good user experience and aesthetic appeal makes good business sense especially in the fickle consumer marketplace. In many ways, it helps define the brand. Over the years, unbeknownst to me, design has become very important, but not in isolation. Form and function has to of equal salience. I admire companies like Samsung, Apple, and Porsche for their commitment to both form and function. Contrast these firms with lets say, Bang & Olufsen. It seems to me that they are more about form over function for the purposes of serving a small segment of the market with a large amount of disposable income.

To answer my own question, design is very important and the companies that are able to bring both design and utility in a singular package will end up winning the very limited funds in my wallet.

First of all, I love the fact that I can blog from my BlackBerry.

Today was a good day. It was a good day at work for me and a good day for tech geeks out there. Apple finally held its product announcement event and to nobody’s surprise, a tablet was presented to the public.

Here are my thoughts on the iPad in point form.

- Most significant factor is the pricing. $499 starting price is awesome!

- The Apple cool factor. There is no denying the impact Apple’s brand and industrial design has on people’s purchasing decision. It is what allows perfectly rational people to pay more for products that otherwise might be sold for less by other manufacturers.

- The iPad allows Apple to capture part of the growing netbook market without bringing its Macbook line downmarket. The challenge is really convincing people that an iPad is really all you need if you’re looking for a netbook (even if you’re one of those people looking at the new netbooks out with Intel’s “Pine Trail” atom processor).

- Along with a surprisingly low price, the other significant factor may be revealed in the coming weeks in the form of additional content deals. Apple has shown that it can help content providers and publishers stay relevant in the digital age.

- I feel that typing might be an issue on this device. I can see typing being a bit cumbersome.

- The smaller than expected flash hard drive capacity was a disappointment.

- Battery life could be better.

- Lack of USB ports.

- Flash support and multi-tasking capabilities yet to be confirmed.

Overall, I feel that the device will be successful. It will likely impact netbook manufacturers, but not as negatively as the impact the iPod has had on all the MP3 makers last decade. For smartphone makers, it might cause some people to opt not to get a smartphone and get an iPad while keeping their regular feature phone a bit longer. I can see some people delaying their smartphone purchase, but the iPad will not replace the smartphone.

It looks like Apple did a good job of making sure the iPad isn’t a do-it-all device to prevent cannibalization. Their ideal consumer is someone who uses an iPhone for everyday mobility, an iPod nano for the gym, an iPad for light browsing and multimedia, and a Macbook Pro/iMac for heavy computer use. In other words, this is a complementary device that perhaps completes someone’s consumer mobile needs.

With Nokia’s hold on the smartphone market worldwide at around 50%, Windows Mobile taking a big chunk of the market and RIM’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone capturing the rest of the market, is Google’s Android platform going to be a disruptor or just another player? I have been thinking about this since Google’s announcement of the Android platform but wasn’t sure how to answer this until I saw this, an official demonstration of Android. It really makes analysis easier when you see something in action instead of trying to visualize an abstract description in your head. After watching the demonstration, I’m convinced that Android has the potential to be a disruptor, however there are hurdles involved in that there are huge incumbents that can throw money at development and to a large extent replicate the experience. The hope would be that with the release of the Android SDK, the development community, as a collective force, can create innovative software. To provide incentive, Google has set aside $10 Million in prizes for the best applications developed.

Google will likely bid on the upcoming 700Mhz spectrum auction and if they end up acquiring it with or without a carrier partner, it is a huge step for the search engine. What started as an extremely sophisticated search algorithm has morphed into a company with the 4th largest market capitalization in the US and the backbone of the internet. It is without a doubt one of the most innovative companies of this generation. The purchase of spectrum and the release of Android signifies what pundits all over the world have been talking about for years, that the internet will move to the mobile wireless arena and its growth will be exponential. Just recently there was a report published saying that global handheld sales outpaced that of desktop PCs. Convergence of the internet, wireless service and computers will continue and only those companies that can re-invent itself will be left when the dust settles.

Android, internet, spectrum and the organization of the world’s information are the ingredients for Google’s strategy in these rapidly converging industries. I think in the longterm, Android will end up becoming a huge threat to the Windows Mobile platform and will overtake them. As for the BlackBerry software, there is nothing, that the Apple or even Google (with current information) can do to penetrate the enterprise market that RIM holds so dear (as for the consumer segment, the jury is still out on that). The main difference between RIM’s strategy and everyone else’s is that they provide end-to-end solutions for email starting with the email server, network infrastructure to hardware to the OS. This is the crux of RIM’s strategy, success and survival from the enterprise perspective. As long as they can keep that barrier to entry by way of defending their IP, they will be good for many more years to come in the enterprise space.

What makes Google so dangerous to the traditional carriers, handset manufacturers and software developers is that they aren’t jumping into wireless to make money in the same way that everyone else has been, but to provide yet again another platform to deliver its services like Gmail, Google Search and Google Checkout, which all of course serve as platforms to deliver targeted ads. The more accessible these services become, the more sticky or convenient it is for people. It will be through the way Google operates itself in wireless, rather than through the actual product they offer that it will disrupt wireless.

Whatever the outcome of the spectrum auction or the adoption of Android, I would love to see Google, RIM and Apple battle it out for the consumer space. Competition from these guys will only benefit the little people like myself.

Here are my initials thoughts on Apple’s latest rendition of Mac OSX. I just received my upgrade DVD from Apple even though I ordered it in the middle of October and was told via email that I should be receiving my copy by October 29. I waited until October 29 only to be disappointed that I didn’t receive it and that the tracking number given to me meant nothing and did nothing on the Purolator and Canada Post website. I called into Apple’s call center and was put on hold for about 20 minutes before I was told that my DVD could not be tracked and that they’d send me a new one instead. I was told the new order should be delivered by November 5. It arrive on the 5th and on the 7th, I received my original order in the mail. So now I have two copies of Leopard.

I installed Leopard and it was simple and painless. All it took was a couple clicks on the mouse and away it went. About 40 minutes later, my MacBook Pro was rebooting and the new dock and the translucent menu bar was up on my screen. After using the new operating system for about a day now, I like it. I haven’t tried out bootcamp or time machine yet, but spaces works well and I do like the improvements here and there. Like Walt Mossberg from the WSJ wrote, this is an evolutionary upgrade but a worthwhile one. I’ve read about the controversy over the new dock and I personally don’t mind it at all. I kind of like it actually.

If there’s anything strange that comes up while using Leopard, I’ll be sure to document it here!

Back in March, I wrote that I would love to see the next iPhone without the telephone functionality as a future ipod.  It was probably expected by many, but when the announcement came about the new iPod Touch, I was happy to see the form factor and also that what I desired came to fruition (sans the voip) but was disappointed with the storage capacity.  Given some time, the iPod Touch may end up taking the place of the iPod Classic as the regular iPod when storage capacities allow.

I haven’t actually played with the iPod Touch, but if it’s anything like the iPhone, I think I will be pleased with the experience.  However, as much as I’d like to fork over some money to get the updated iPod Touch, I will wait until I see at least an 80gig flash HD in the unit. Until then, I will have to continue using my 5th gen ipod.

I was able to get a pretty good deal on a pair of the acclaimed Shure E4C IEMs. I’m looking forward to them and will be posting my thoughts on them when I do get them sometime this week. I’ve always been a fan of inner ear monitors (IEM) as they provide the isolation I want and usually good bass. Back in 2000, I got my first pair from Pacific Mall in Toronto from an importer of audio goodies from Asia; they were the Sony EX71s. I loved them while I had them and used them with my MD players and later with my 3rd gen. ipod. However, my tastes evolved and over the last year and a half, I was able to experiment with some other IEMs and headphones such as the Grado SR80s, Koss KSC 75s, Senn CX300s, JBL 220s and briefly the Shure E2Cs. The E2Cs blew me away and was what convinced me to put down the big bucks for the E4Cs.

I’ll be selling my Senn CX300 and JBL 220s, so if you’re interested in them, let me know!

On to the ipod. We all know what the iPhone will look like and by the time it comes out, we’ll have seen the LG Prada phone and the Samsung touchscreen either online or in stores, depending on what country you live in and how passionate you are about cellular devices. I think the new ipod should keep the iPhone form-factor and take out the cellphone functionality, keep the wifi, and – this is what I think could be killer – make sure that there’s VOIP functionalities on the phone. So, basically, wherever there is an internet connection via wifi, the user can use the phone interface on the ipod to make/receive calls! Now whether that is through some sort of iChat solution, or an independent VOIP solution, or a product from Cisco would be up to the brilliant guys in Apple product development to decide. However, the Cisco solution is interesting because it can actually happen because of the deal between Cisco and Apple which put to rest their patent lawsuit.

I really hope the new ipod can also have fantastic battery life too….One can dream right?

Maybe by the end of the year, I can be using my E4C with a brand new ipod!