Choosing Smarter

Why Apple gets a free "ignore the faults" pass from the phone market

Blogger Alec Saunders recently asked why the market has largely ignored the iPhone's many flaws, whereas they won't cut Microsoft any slack when its products are less than perfect. He suggests that Apple's propaganda machine is simply steamrolling Microsoft, but I disagree that this the main reason the market hasn't focused on the iPhone's issues.

Actually, I think Alec answered his own question with the last sentence in his post "I love my iPhone, warts and all."

No-one loves Windows, warts and all, because Windows does what you need and expect it to do, and nothing more. I don't think I've actually been impressed with any Windows feature since version 3.11's addition of networked file sharing like 10 years ago or something. Maybe plug and play hardware. But certainly nothing in the last 5+ years.

The iPhone, however, impresses me. It does being a phone better than I expect any phone to. I still find little features that impress me after 3 months of owning one.

In terms of functionality and usefulness, the iPhone has lots to love and lots to hate, so the love cancels out the hate. With Windows, there isn't much to love. Just lots to hate.

New MyChoiceBot video

I've spent that last few days working on some videos to explain what MyChoiceBot's all about to new users who may not have heard of us yet (I know, I know... it sounds crazy, but yes, there are still people who haven't heard about us yet.)

The first fruit of my labours: 

Any comments and suggestions are much appreciated -pls leave them in the comment field for this post if something jumps out at you (or fails to jump out at you). Thanks.

Cool new MyChoiceBot features

Some of you may have noticed that, about two weeks ago, we updated the MyChoiceBot application with a bunch of new features and minor fixes. I think some are cool enough to merit a mention on the ol' bloggerino:

1) New "Top-ranked product" icons. Thanks to a great suggestion from TravelPod GM Luc Levesque, the "Best combination of features" callout that appeared beside the currently top-ranked product has been morphed into a "first-prize"-looking badge/ribbon thingy with a better label. For first-time users, this further clarifies that products are being ranked from overall best choice (i.e., the "winner") to worst, and are not being ranked based on a single feature:

         
 
When a reader overrides the reviewer's criteria for a feature, the graphic changes to emphasize the fact that the product rankings are now being based on the reader's buying criteria:

2) Stats tables for each feature. Of you look below the sliders for any feature, you'll see not only a description for that feature (if the ChoiceBot creator added one), but also a stats table that shows you how the products in the ChoiceBot break down for that feature (the Price feature is shown in this screenshot):

 
Gotta love Web apps... everyone has been automatically upgraded with the new features automatically as of about 2 weeks ago. More cool stuff in the works.

MyChoiceBot: Defender of democracy

OK that might be reaching, but we just created a very cool ChoiceBot to help Canadian voters decide which party to vote for in the upcoming Canadian federal election. Here it is if you want to give it a whirl:

Just as with with ChoiceBots about products, you'll be looking at the most intelligent, informed decision you could ever make within a few minutes, but in this case it's parties being ranked instead of products, and issues instead of features. Exactly the same app, though.

We'll be creating one for our US friends shortly -stay tuned.

As always, feedback (good or bad) is always welcome and appreciated (my contact info is on the right of this page).

Update: Alec Saunders just posted his own voting decision using ChoiceBot on his popular blog. Thanks Alec!

Below is just a thumbnail so something shows up in the RSS feed for this post (we're working on getting ChoiceBots to show up directly in RSS readers).

The iPhone and what it means to be a "phone"

A recent post by Alec Saunders on his excellent blog asked the question re whether the iPhone has redefined the category of smartphone. Of course it's been successful by any measure, but has it earned the title of "category redefiner"?

Yes.

But not because it has more features than other smartphones (it doesn't) or is comparably priced (it is), though. It has "just enough" features to not have any blatantly missing features for most people ("fatal flaws" in ChoiceBot jargon) and it's pricey but clearly within reach of at least 12M people (and counting).

The product category redefinition comes from the incredible reduction in learning curve and the number of actions required to complete a task. I can discover a new iPhone feature, learn how to use it and complete any task with it far, far faster than I can on any other phone. Even tasks like setting the alarm clock require 75% fewer user actions and 75% less time than other smartphones, and require no "figuring out" whatsoever. This means that I am 4 TIMES more productive with an iPhone than a conventional smartphone. SOLD!

My previous phone had a camera and could do email. How many pictures did I take and email out? 6, I think. In 3 years. I'll do that many in a week with my iPhone because the hassle barrier is so low.

Alec's DOS/Mac analogy is very valid when comparing previous smartphones to the iPhone. Mac/Windows didn't have more features than DOS (they arguably had fewer), but figuring out how to do what you wanted to do and getting it done thereafter took far less time, keystrokes and clicks. The reduction in learning curve made Macs/Windows PCs attractive to 100X the number of people that DOS PCs could ever interest. This is clearly what's happening in the phone market now. A quantum leap in usability is making smartphones way more appealing to way more people. And it's about time...