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Showing posts with the label apple

Why any product needs "Mac Users"

First the Disclaimer : This is not a mac fanboy post. I am loosely stereotyping the 3 kinds of users based on the 3 OSes - Mac, Windows and Linux. This is mainly to drive home the point of how an "ideal user" will help your product become better and better. The "Mac User", who I call - can also be a Windows, Linux,BeOs,OS 390.... user.  OS X has been successful mainly because of their Users - look at the amount of podcasts, fan sites, hints sites, magazines for this platform alone. Apple listens to these feedbacks - and incorporates some into every release of their OS. I am tending to call these "ideal users" as "Mac Users". Had linux/windows had the same level of success - will be labeling them likewise. Shall we move on? :) Here are some reasons why you need Mac users. 1. They demand Perfection This is from my personal experience. Some of the CxO users, ex-Entrepreneurs who use our product - just cannot stand mediocrity or minor bugs. As develo...

Breaking the Reality Distortion Field!

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I did it ! I broke the Reality distortion field cobweb of Steveji and joined the Android Brigade! It has been more than a week since I bought my first smart phone - a Samsung Galaxy S ( on the left - yes it does look very iPhoneish ) and it is Enthiranistic ( hehe :) ) It was a tectonic mind shift for me. I love Apple products - my first laptop was an iBook. Then I bought iMac, iPods. When the 1st gen iPhone came I wanted it badly - but as a rule I never buy 1st Gen Apple products ( can't afford the Apple Tax ). Recently I decided ( the power above approved rather :) ) to go for a smartphone and my obvious choice was an iPhone. Despite the attenagate I wanted to buy the iPhone 4. However I started reading more and more on the iPhone vs Android wars and found how closed Apple had become. In the iconic 1984 Super Bowl Ad when Apple introduced PCs to the IBM masses - a lady with a hammer hurls it on the Big (Blue) Brother who preaches : " Our Unification of Thoughts is ...

What is the secret sauce of Apple,SAP,Nintendo...

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First the disclaimer - I don't have the answer to the question - What is the secret sauce of these companies. It is a rhetorical question. Today morning I woke up to be greeted with iPod shuffle - and Apple has released a simple but very useful feature ( unlike the shuffle feature they bragged about in shuffle's first release ). Now shuffle can talk to you about the song or the playlist name - very neat. Most of the time when you are working out or driving - it is hard to switch playlists - now this feature has made it really easy to use an iPod. I hope Apple updates its firmware so my iPod classic gets this feature. But it makes me wonder how Apple can consistently come up with "cool" features. Is it the culture, is it because of Steve Jobs, is it some magic potion they put in the employee's food? I really wish Steve Jobs writes a book on Apple. Nintendo is in the same league as Apple. Their graphics is rudimentary when compared to PS3 or XBOX 360. But Nintendo...

Dell Studio 17" vs MacBook 13"

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I purchased a Dell Studio 17" for 58,000Rs. I am a big fan of Apple and I am now going to say a sacriligeous thing - Mac is ****ing expensive - atleast in India. Even before I considered the Dell laptop I went over to Apple's India store and drooled over the laptops - but the ones I wanted were all in 6 figures - over 1.2 Lakhs. The starting price of MacBook was 56,800Rs. I dropped the idea of buying an apple. So I went over to Staples and looked around. Acer was the cheapest less than 30k. Then lenova,compaq and HPs were in the 45-55K range. Thanks to Vista having the windows performance index - I was able to quickly see how these machines perform without even checking their processor, memory information. Only Dell had a 5.0 or higher. Dell Studio 17 registered a decent 5.0. The XPS laptops registered even higher. The rest of the pack - HPs, Acers had between 3.5 and 4.5. Also the rest had unnecessary freebies thrown in - audio system, choice to pick 2 gifts from some 10 ...