Confessions of an APPathetic User

I’m going to confess something that’s likely to cost me Twitter followers, kill future career prospects and launch a mild Comment war:

I’m not much of an app user.

And I can’t understand those who are, either.  Well, I can align with the casual user.  The few utilitarians out there.  Those discriminating sorts who reserve their precious device storage space for more valuable content.  Like songs, photos and LOLcats.  

Facebook is a social disease

I understand how computer viruses got their name.  It’s appropriate.  Little evil, invasive things that wreak major havoc on a system.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Facebook is such a bug, of the social variety.  I’ve never had direct relations with the service, don’t intend to, but still feel contaminated. 

Play-by-Air Gaming

A long time ago in a DOS-based world far, far away, there were Play-by-Mail games.

I was involved in one called Galactic Anarchy, run by a friend and  business colleague, as a tester and (of all things) cartoonist.  The concept was simple: a turn-based space conquest game played over snail mail (and later also email) populated by several character types (“races”), filled with interesting artifacts and of course founded on certain rules.  Players examined the status of their fleets and owned worlds, and then issued commands to move, attack, defend and anything else the command set supported.

Geography Lesson for US Tech Bloggers

Since the dawn of civilization, defining the center of the world has been a Very Important Activity.  Great wars were fought to stick a flag in this spot, where ever that turned out to be at any given time.  Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great and former US president George Bush all had different opinions on the L10N.  Various indigenous peoples have paid for its ever-changing identification by loss of land and gain of child-labored textile mills.

So given the constant confusion around this nebulous spot it’s no wonder many technically-oriented blog sites get lost… especially those in the United States suffering from a gross misconception of world view.

Never fear: this blog is here to help.

Because I say so, Really Mobile!

Listen, Really Mobile, it’s high time you grew up and acted responsibly.  Do you want to just review devices your whole life or get a real job?

Don’t tell me what your friends are doing.  I’m not their parent.  Yes, I’m well aware that engadget gets to do and say whatever it wants, reality be damned.  But engadget doesn’t get any respect.  There’s a connection there, kid, and I’m just waiting for you to get it.

And your grades.  Sweet mother of all that’s holy, how you expect to make it into the big leagues is beyond me!  The only thing worse than a bad review site is a bad review of a bad review site, and I’ve seen yours.  Yeah, you thought wadding it up in those raggedy pants did the trick, but who does the laundry around here, genius?  And if you think signing that felt good, you’re sadly mistaken!

Look, I don’t like having to come down on you.  When I was just a little blog my old man used to knock me around something fierce.  So I try to cut you some slack.  But this partying all the time… blowing money right and left… it can’t come to any good.  You need to act more responsibly.  No more trips to electronics shows all over creation.  You know there’s never anything worthwhile going on.  And for pete’s sake no more contests!  You think those prizes grow on trees?

You look like you’re getting the picture, so I’ll let you go.  Oh, one more thing: stay off slashdot’s lawn, would ya?  That guy is certifiably NUTS.

(note: this was for a contest Really Mobile is holding, so don’t think I’ve completely flipped!)

Purses and platforms

I last wrote about what companies could do to make large-screen Mobile Internet Devices (regardless of producer or actual name) more attractive to consumers.  To spare you having to read the epic piece, in summary my analysis is that everything comes down to the out-of-the-box experience.  Average users do not want to configure or code– at the most they want to install and go, with a ready path to any available installations.

When I say “large screen” note that I’m thinking 3 to maybe 6 inches diagonal.  Any less and it might as well be an MP3 player, any more and it might as well be a netbook or even touchscreen notebook.

I am constantly seeing a demand for such devices, particularly with uses such as ebook readers, portable internet, GPS, et al.  There are typically no complaints about the device size while it’s in use– the gripes come when transport between uses is the issue.

What hit home for me very recently, though, was that the MID transport issue is a problem for only one demographic:

Men.