Thursday, July 24, 2008

I Love Google


..... continuing along the theme of large companies that are always developing and adapting, Google is right there.


Today I went online to http://maps.google.com/ one of my favorite sites, I wanted to see how to get to a meeting I had in the City of London. I usually go to the site find where I am and then figure out either by moving the map or by using the directions feature and then chart my own way as I am either walking or riding a bike and car rules don't interest me.


This morning I entered the points and hit Get Directions to discover what I always wanted, a new function By Walking!!!! This is amazing.




Keep those improvements coming........


what do you think?

Monday, July 21, 2008

Apple going to $1,000 a share

It was just about a year ago when I wrote about the first revision iPhone.

(http://effys.blogspot.com/2007/09/unlocking-iphones-true-potential.html)

I was very impressed with the device but more impressed with the hacker community working to improve the phone.

The greatness of a company is its ability to listen to the user community and adapt. It is impressive and amazing to see a $140b gorilla move and adapt like a start up. Their software releases and iPhone o/s changes have incorporated what the hackers were doing and what users were asking for.

I was playing with the new 3g device (my pal Jamie Bambridge line up, or rather queued, as he did this in London, on the first day to get it)mainly to see what version 2.0 is like ( O/S 1.2). They have done it, they have listened and adapted, since 1.0.1 they keep making changes and as I see it, incorporating what the hacker community is doing. Of course the drive behind Apple's quick adaption and incorporation is driven by increased revenues. Let face it, though the iPhone is a very profitable device ( costing approx $173 to manufacture ) it is really just a platform which is supposed to generate lots of revenues and not only from air time.

Adding iTunes downloader to the iPhone two O/S's ago was key, this was obviously missing from the original device since the iPhone is supposed to be an iPod too. Being an iPod you want to be able to buy that song when you hear it regardless of where you are.

The latest major change is their application installer (or store!!), allowing to install applications onto the iPhone, competing with the famous open source Nullriver Installer (http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/) this a welcome change and as apple know to do best a great revenue stream as they sell apps and games and upon release it is already populated with many.

I am sure they will therefore very shortly also fix their mediocre SMS application, it is still missing forward, copy/paste and MMS functionality. As revenue is the driver I am sure this fix is in the making as it will cause more people to SMS thus increasing Apple's revenues.

Apple is surely going to $1,000 a share...........

what do you think?