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The iPhone 5S - Target of Misguided Perpetual Disappointment

Apple has announced the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C, and they are almost exactly as the rumors and leaks predicted. As many Apple fans suggested before the announcement, the immediate tales of disappointment have begun flowing. This is as much of an annual tradition as the iPhone announcements themselves it seems.

Just one problem...

These "disappointing" updates to the iPhone continue to result in record setting sales and very happy customers.

Misguided Disappointment

I have a theory on what drives this misguided disappointment. Two main points:

1. Smartphones are a mature market, expecting Earth-shattering news at every release is wasted effort.
2. Tech bloggers' unwillingness to accept that a few highly refined, beautifully executed, and relevant features is as good (or better) than a myriad of gimmicky features.

Smartphones are Mature

The smartphone market has flourished, and parts of it are still growing fast. Case and point, performance:

However, the point remains that the market is maturing, and deltas between product generations aren't what they were the first few years. (At least not the ones that get tech bloggers' underpants all wadded up.) Every year I hear that the updates weren't enough, yet every year the sales are higher, the reviews are better, and the iPhone is the benchmark of the entire industry.

Features that Matter

Samsung has made a name for itself by releasing a wide variety of phones, many of which contain a set of features that span the entire usefulness spectrum, albeit heavily weighted toward the bottom end. This approach gives tech bloggers more to talk about, maybe that's the appeal.

Apple's approach is, always has been, and hopefully always will be, to add features that have been incredibly well thought out, expertly designed, highly refined, and very well implemented. As Jony Ive said in the promo video today:

"We believe technology is at its best and most empowering when it simply disappears." 

This is Apple's approach; it is so evident in everything they do. It has worked well for them in the past, and there is no sign of there being a change in that trend.

Closing Thoughts

I don't know if people are really disappointed, or if they just want the clicks. Either way I don't consider the perspective to be all that well thought out. This doesn't mean you have to love or want an iPhone, it doesn't even mean you need to like the iPhone (or Apple). It just means that we're all getting tired of folks hitting send on the "I'm disappointed with the new iPhone" message that they had composed and ready to send an hour before the announcement.

Reality of the Day-to-Day with the Pebble Smartwatch

The Pebble has gotten a TON of press, so I'm not going to rehash my whole product experience. I'm far too late to the game to pull that. Instead I want to share some of the unexpected things I've found from life with a Pebble.

1. Battery life is not as advertised. It isn't bad, but 3-4 days is no 7 days. However, with a charger as beautifully designed as this one, I genuinely don't mind at all.
2. Do Not Disturb Mode - Your iPhone might adhere to Do Not Disturb mode, but your Pebble won't.
3. Light as a feather - really threw me off at first, but I love it.
4. Forget using it to golf. One of the top features I was looking forward to was using it on the golf course. I'm going to say, "there is NO golf GPS support." Then someone will reply, "Yes there is, there is Free Caddie." Then I will reply, "Exactly, there is NO golf GPS support." 
5. RunKeeper is a keeper. I walk 1-3x per day, and RunKeeper support is wonderful while you're using it. I just wish I didn't have to disconnect/reconnect/reboot the app/reconnect again httpebble every time I was finished using RunKeeper.
6. Dis-Connectivity. Bluetooth connectivity between watch and phone is incredible, no issues there. However, if you use httpebble for anything (watch faces with data on them for example) you'll find it disconnects 5-15 times per day, 100% of the time after using RunKeeper.
7. Limited to 9 watch faces stored on the watch.
8. Soft plastic face scratches easily.

This only looks like a list of (mostly) complaints because the praise has already been given. This is a very cool watch, it was very fun to be part of the Kickstarter craziness, and I still chose to wear it ever day. I like my Pebble, but it hasn't changed my life like I expected it to. It is exactly what you'd expect, a first revision product from a new (ish) hardware company.

I have high hopes for the company and their future. They made a splash in the industry disproportionate to their size in the tech world. Perhaps most importantly, they put wearable technology onto front pages of papers across the nation and into conversations of people who I would never have expected.

Summer with a Nest Thermostat

A Colorado winter with the Nest thermostat was nothing short of wonderful. Check out my Living with Nest post from just a few weeks with Nest as the weather began to turn cold. Now, we're several months into a hot summer in the sunniest state in the U.S. and the Nest continues to impress.

There are two features that stand out to me - Airwave and Leafs - both serving as great complements to Auto Away, smartphone/tablet apps, informative monthly usage reports, and reliable intelligence.

Airwave

Nest's Airwave feature is one of their eco-friendly, yet user experience friendly, features. Simply put, Airwave saves energy by shutting off the air conditioning before the desired temperature is reached, but leaves the fan running to run air over the ice cold coils in the air conditioner and deliver the cold air into the house as if the AC was still running.

The cost of running the fan is nearly nonexistent compared to running the compressor, so the savings during this time is tremendous. AC is not an inexpensive way to stay comfortable, saving 10 minutes of running the compressor every time the AC runs on a hot day adds up very quickly.

Leafs

It has been repeatedly proven that using games, or Gamification, to motivate and inspire is extremely effective. The theory is simple - create a game-like scoring or reward system to show users a quantifiable result of their efforts. It works with weight loss, it works with achieving goals, and it works with making eco-friendly (perhaps more importantly, wallet-friendly) decisions about how to heat or cool your home.

Nest uses "Leafs" to do just this. Leafs show you when your Nest is set in such a way that it is using less and saving you more. Here is my Leaf summary from my last monthly report and the first time I was in the top 5%!

It is addicting. I enjoy seeing the tangible results of my decisions, and it is very inspiring to see that this is possible without sacrificing comfort. We like to keep the house comfortable, so achieving this didn't require putting ourselves out in any way.

It has been a lot of fun to have such an exciting piece of technology to play with. The apps are well written, stable, and intuitive. After almost a full year with the Nest, including both summer and winter, I can say with high confidence that this has been a great investment that I continue to recommend highly to family and friends.

First In, Last Out - The Story of Waiting for my Pebble Kickstarter Watch

[UPDATE] I just got my tracking number! Finally, the email I've been anxiously waiting for. ETA is now Monday 7/29/13 - 471 days from the date of backing. It has been a heck of a ride; some ups, some downs, but above all excitement.

Make no mistake, I stand behind Pebble, I stand behind Kickstarter, and I stand behind my decision to back the Pebble project on Kickstarter... all 456 days ago (at the time of writing).

Let's back up. Like a lot of the tech news (absorbing) community I caught wind of the Pebble Kickstarter project on the 11th (day 1) or 12th (day 2) of April, 2012. It triggered that feeling we all have, the feeling of "hmmm, how can I justify 'needing' this tech to my wife...?" No convincing needed, she was on board.

Looking back now, it seems like an eternity between that point and April 14th when I finally pulled the trigger and ordered my white Pebble smartwatch. Cue the deep and longing sigh for a photo break.

If you did notice the subtle clues, I still haven't gotten mine. Using the Pebble-created tools*, I determined that by being a day 4 backer, I was "in line" at approximately 16,000 of 85,000 total Kickstarter preorders. There are no publicly available numbers to determine where I was in line with the white watch crew, but as of July 11, 2013 Pebble announced that 58% of white pebble orders were out the door. I can only assume that means the number of white Pebble orders were heavily weighted toward the beginning of the project.

To put that in perspective, when I backed the Pebble project, it had raised approximately $1,700,000. When the project closed about 5 weeks later they had raised over $10,000,000 - Ten. Million. Dollars. Clearly I wasn't really "first," but being within the first 20% of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in history was, and still is, very exciting.

So, what happened?

Pebble announced that all of the black, red, orange, gray (some still in transit), and 58% of white Pebbles had been shipped out or delivered to customers. The order the colors are listed corresponds to the order they were produced in, so inherent to that is the fact that any white Pebble backers would be getting theirs later than most. The catch? We didn't learn about them producing one color at a time or what the order was until February/March of 2013, well after their estimated ship date of September 2012 (not complaining).

When Pebble was so successful on Kickstarter they had to completely change their plans for production. They moved from California to China. They changed materials. They made upgrades (water resistance, Bluetooth 4.0, etc). They changed nearly everything. Despite angering many folks, it was the right decision. Given the extent of the changes, dates started slipping. When they missed the projected date in September 2012 and it became apparent that they were nowhere near shipping, they made the decision to withhold further shipping estimates until they were positive.

The lack of detailed communication from Pebble was frustrating at times. It is hard not to want instant and complete updates on anything of interest in the instant time we live in. Add to that a sense of ownership given the contribution to funding the project, you get a fairly hostile group of backers. The other group were those who understood how much work really needed to be done for such a project AND could appreciate the decision to do what the CEO thinks is best for the company and stick to that decision no matter what.

Dates kept sliding out, but finally we got a tangible shipping date - January 23, 2013. Excitement soared, and that is when I wrote my first article to project shipping dates. I foolishly stuck to the optimistic "maximum production volume" estimates, and took Pebble at their word that we'd all have our watches by the end of March. Missing that late March target was completely outshined by their extraordinary success, rave reviews, and stories from happy Pebble owners. The miss was also less of an issue because the folks at Pebble wisely gave all of the color backers an option to get a black Pebble instead, immediately no less. Add this to their list of great decisions.

I could barely contain my excitement after seeing how beautiful the product was, so I forced myself to "stop reading" about Pebble since it made the waiting seem to be that much longer. When I say "stop reading" I should probably say "read slightly less, but still follow on Twitter and anxiously await the Kickstarter Project Updates," but a little self-delusion never hurt anyone, right? I digress...

When the colored Pebbles went to production I kept kidding myself white would come next, it didn't. The "Pebble is finally shipping!" tech blog craze came and went. There was software update after software update. And there was my dumbwrist. My poor lonely dumbwrist.

So now "everyone" has their Pebble and I'm breaking my "just don't think about it" rule. Every time my wrist phone alerts me of an email my heart skips a beat. It could be any day now. Any minute now. Pebble landed a deal with Best Buy to get their products into the mainstream, to get their product out to folks beyond the early-adopter type. Cue more complaining from the few Pebble-less Kickstarter backers... "shouldn't you take care of the people that made this possible first?"

My answer: they already did, for the most part. Now, with the huge number of very big players entering the smartphone arena (Apple, Google, Sony, etc.), Pebble is doing what is best for the company. Given the size of the marketing wallets of their soon-to-be competitors, they're doing everything they can to be the name that is synonymous with smartwatch. It is their best chance at surviving this. It also helps that the other startups are trying to create smartphones for the wrist instead of focusing, like Pebble did, on simplicity and user experience.

Pebble has a long and challenging road ahead. They have come a long way. They made mistakes. They made headline after headline. Most importantly, they made PEBBLES. Damn fine Pebbles.

I just hope their "long road ahead" swings by my neck of the woods and drops off a white Pebble. Cheers to you and the team, Eric, from a very anxious day 4 Pebble Kickstarter project backer.


*The tools used were the (now neglected) ispebbleshipping.com and the 3rd party Kickstarter tracking utility Kicktraq. I also used my original article on determining the shipping date of your Pebble based on the available data at the start of the year, it proved to be wildly optimistic; though in all fairness, it was relatively accurate based on the numbers and information available at the time.

2013 Internet Trends

Is it meant to be ironic that the "authority" of internet trends is hosted on a site that reminds me of the AOL era?

2013 slides are out. There are over 100, but worth scanning through them. There are some solid numbers on how serious of a market China is. It shows the iPad growth outpacing the iPhone by 3x.

I think the biggest surprise in there is the focus on sharing sound clips. Video and photo I understand, digital voice/VoIP/video calling I understand, but uploading audio content to SoundCloud seems somewhat insignificant next to those. I must not be a part of that/those demographic(s), I'll have to take their word on it.

i(ve)OS 7 - Bring it on!

Tim Cook confirmed the new look at D11 in the usual Apple (read: vague) way, but that's ok. Ive is nothing short of a genius, and he's heading this thing up. I say "bring on i(ve)OS 7!"

Jony Ive's iOS 7 Influence Will Be More Than Skin Deep - MacRumors