ethomaz

It looks like we have another option to choose from when it comes to browsers. Google is announcing that Chrome, their open-source browser, is ready to go. More details here.

The space is getting crowded, but owning the browser experience is important from a strategic point of view. That is especially true if you are building web applications that threaten the monopoly of one of your competitors, as is the case between Microsoft and Google. Google can’t afford to let Microsoft cut their air supply.

Despite the significance of this announcement and what it will come out of it in the future, today’s highlight for me was how Google announced Chrome. They hired the great Scott McCloud to design a comic book detailing the browser, explaining their motivation for building it, etc.

As a side note, companies such as Apple and Google have spent the last few years developing apps that detach themselves from Microsoft and let them set their own courses. Both Apple and Google now have their own browsers and office suites.

I would also sleep better at night if my products didn’t depend on Microsoft to succeed (or any other outside company for that matter). It’s an expensive move, but it makes business sense. And Google has the cash. Whether people will embrace it is another story. There’s been a growing sentiment lately among users that Google is beginning to know too much about, track too much.

I am not a graphics designer, but I love good design. I am particularly drawn to logos. I can’t help but smile when I see a beautiful, well thought out logo.

There’s something really special about representing a product, company, place or organization with nothing more than a few characters or geometric shapes. It’s such an incredibly constrained design space.

Not too long ago I discovered an excellent web site called Logo Design Love. It’s awesome, and all about logos. In addition to compiling excellent logo design resources, there are some really interesting discussions going on in there.

Here are some of the highlights I’ve come across on the site. There is a post about logos that look alike:

And another about simple logo designs that work:

They also link to a site called Logólogos that attempts to represent logos with equations. If you are into logo design, you should definitely check it out.

Aside from a few days taking a break from it all, the month of August has been all about hard work at Slife Labs, preparing Slife 2.0 for Windows and also an update to Slife Teams. But August has also been the month of the Olympics.

I have to say I am impressed by the NBC coverage of these Games. What’s on TV at prime time is not bad and they’ve even shortened the athlete’s personal lives (drama) segments. But what has been absolutely superb is NBC’s online presence. It’s possible to watch anything, live or recorded, from the comfort of your office chair. I am sure productivity all over the world has gone down this month.

So, congrats to NBC for pulling this one off, despite the monstrous demand. There are only two days of the Games left and by now, Michael Phelps must be heading back to his tank.

The event I am excited about the most though, is the very last one: the marathon. There are some incredible runners in Beijing and this is going to be fun to watch, despite the fact that the Olympic marathon seems more like a lottery than other big long-distance races.

Lately I’ve been reading an increasing number of reports on the web and also in the newspapers about how Apple’s recent product introductions have been plagued with bugs, crashes and a not-so-stellar user experience. First there was the activation problem the day the iPhone 2.0 came out. Then, issues with the iPhone 2.0 software. And yesterday, Mossberg described Apple’s new MobileMe sync service as “too flawed” in his widely read review.

I am pretty happy with my iPhone so far, although I have to say I haven’t pushed its limits too much yet. Yes, there’s been a few glitches here and there. For example, I had my iPhone happily plugged into my MacBook yesterday when all of a sudden an error dialog pops out:

The first thought I had when I saw the dialog was how ridiculous it was. Very similar to the strange and obscure Windows error dialogs I usually make fun of (you can sometimes see them all over the place).

Designing a new phone and mobile OS from scratch is a major undertaking and Apple did an admirable job with the iPhone 1.0. It’s obvious that the need to keep pushing the iPhone at full speed ahead has put a major burden on the company.

It’s nearly impossible to match the expectation of Apple devotees. Apple should just take a deep breath, focus on execution and perhaps lower the pace of innovation for a quarter or two, in order to put the house in order. In a way, it’s already doing that with the Mac OS X.

Ok, I got an iPhone 3G. But I had to work for it more than any other product I’ve ever bought. True, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was for some people, but it’s still a bit silly to wait in line to spend some serious money for a product the day it comes out. That just goes to show how anxious we were to get away from Verizon and their Razrs.

Long story short, Andrea and I went to the Apple Store around 7:30AM the day the new iPhone came out. There was a huge line and it wasn’t moving. We checked two AT&T stores in the surrounding area and those weren’t much better either. We decided to go home and try some other time. We came to find out later that it was taking about 8 hours to get to the front of the line. But, with $200, you could buy a place from someone and wait in line for about an hour. Talk about a just-in-time market.

Thanks to our dog barking at squirrels, we woke up at 6:45AM on Saturday July 12th and decided to give the iPhone another try. We went back to the Apple Store and the line was smaller, but still not moving. I walked over to the AT&T store in the same mall as the Apple Store and there was just one guy in line! Before 10AM, the AT&T store opened and we got our iPhones.

This being my first iPhone, I am still learning how to get the most out of it. But the user experience is great. I thought the whole set up experience in particular was incredibly well done. I downloaded apps from the App Store without a hitch.

Two days after buying the iPhone, I took a quick trip to NYC. I was really hoping to use the iPhone to get situated in Manhattan, but it could never find my location. Blame it on the tall buildings. Somewhat expected. Being able to check email and browse the web on the road anytime has been terrific.

I’ve been having a few issues sending email from the iPhone, but other than that, things are good. I am still hoping I will be able to share the iPhone’s 3G data connection with my MacBook some day. That would be the icing on the cake for me. Looks like you can do that with some Blackberries and the Nokia N95.

(Image courtesy from http://theiphoneblog.com)

A few years ago, while working at France Telecom R&D, I was tasked with the development of an audio streaming plugin for the Opera browser in the Nokia 6600 phone.

I really enjoyed working with the 6600, which is a fairly open and ‘hackable’ phone. However, writing software on top of the Symbian operating system was worse than going to the dentist. I hated it. As a development platform, I think Symbian is awful.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was quite surprised when Nokia decided to acquire the rest of Symbian it didn’t already own. Supposedly, they want to challenge the iPhone and the upcoming Android platforms with Symbian. The mobile OS market is hot, everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Nokia, however, is going to have a lot of trouble wooing developers to Symbian. The moment developers jump in the water they will realize how unfriendly the mobile OS is. And most likely, they will switch to something else instead of sticking around.

Unless Nokia goes through the effort of modernizing Symbian, they might as well write off this $410 million and come up with a different strategy to stay in the game.

The last few weeks have been busy, but Slife 2.0 is now done. It feels great to push a new software release out of the door. The part I like the most is the interaction with users who are checking the app for the first time. Lots of great ideas and feedback.

A big part of this new release was the introduction of Slife Teams, which I like to describe as Slife for teams and businesses. It’s still in beta and requires an invitation to use, but it will be available more widely very soon.

On the heels of two recent stories about personal productivity and information overload in the NYTimes and Huffington Post, I wrote a short post in the Slife Labs blog with a brief analysis of the problem.

You might want to check it out.

It was more than 4 months ago when Microsoft’s plan of acquiring Yahoo! became public. At the time, my prediction was that Yahoo! was going to be acquired, even though I personally didn’t like that outcome.

Well, after months of much tribulation, it looks like Yahoo! will remain independent after all. Both companies reported this week that any merger talks are now over.

Somewhat similar to Apple in the late 90’s, Yahoo! now finds itself in a tough spot. It’s hemorrhaging talent and handing a lot of its search ad inventory to Google, its main rival not too long ago. Many shareholder constituencies are suing the company and plenty of analysts believe the company is doomed.

Despite the bleak outlook, I still think Yahoo! will get back on its feet. But not before a major shake-up in its ranks and a new, strong and visionary leader comes in.

It’s way too early to declare Yahoo! a loser. It took a major fall, but if it comes back and becomes, say the top provider for location-based services, it’s back in the game.

Yahoo! is a very powerful online brand and a bazillion people visit the site every day. It won’t be a threat to Google for a long time, if ever, but it can still be a very progressive and successful new media company. In fact, Yahoo! has always positioned itself more as a media company anyway under the direction of its previous CEO.

Some agree that Yahoo! will regain its footing. Others disagree.

What happens when you create ads for today’s consumer products with the design aesthestics of many decades ago?

“In this contest your challenge is to take modern products and display them in a vintage light, through advertisements. You can also reverse the challenge and take vintage products and display them in a modern way.”

You can check the excellent entries here.