Microsoft Kills Live Mesh Remote Desktop

Here is a shocker. Microsoft is killing the Live Mesh service, which includes file sync and remote desktop functionality across multiple platforms and over the internet. They are replacing it with Sky Drive, which of course lacks any remote desktop functionality, and I believe it also lacks the ability to sync files directly between computers, skipping the cloud.

Over the years, this is just another item in a long list of apps Microsoft has dropped for consumers. I learned my lesson on this a long time ago and there are only two Microsoft products I use now: Office and Windows. What they make is more often than not top notch quality, but they are quick to kill items that they perceive no longer fits into their portfolio or doesn't generate enough revenue. Money, Outlook Express, Tax Saver, Zune, etc. The list goes on and on.

I'll continue to use Office and Windows because for me they are exceptional tools to get done what I need to get done. You'll not catch me using their other products though because I have zero confidence they will be around in a few years, and it is easier to start using a similar but competing product from another company that needs that product to survive, whereas Microsoft seems to treat these products as "let's throw this competing product out there and see what happens, and we can kill it later if we want."

They usually do.

AnyLists Makes Sharing Shopping Lists Easy

My wife and I have a whiteboard on the refrigerator that we use to write down whatever we need from the grocery store. It makes it pretty easy as when you are low or out of something, you just write it down. AnyLists for iOS makes this really easy.

The problem with the whiteboard method is if she leaves before I do, and I add something to the board, it gets skipped until the next trip to the store. It also fails if I decide to run by the store on the way home as I remember little of what is on the list at home.

AnyLists for the iPhone eliminates these and other problems. I created a list for various stores and then shared them with my wife. Now we can add and scratch off items and the list on the other's phone gets updated instantly, provided both phones are online.

It does work on the iPad, but as an iPhone app, so only in portrait mode, and only at 2x resolution. Of course, you'd never take an iPad shopping but it is a great device to add a bunch of stuff to the list since the keyboard is larger.

Anylists tries to automatically group items by grocery store sections, like produce, bakery or health & beauty. If it doesn't know, it sticks it in "Other" and you can move it manually. It also has a pretty big database of items to pick from. Type "rom" and romaine lettuce will show up. This saves a lot of typing on the tiny iPhone keyboard.

The app also has recipes from a lot of different sources, like Epicurious, Martha Stewart, and several dozen others. Of course, you can just click on the ingredients in the recipe to add to your shopping list.

It also works well for other stores. I have an Amazon list that we keep up to date to bundle items and reduce shipping charges. We have Amazon Prime, so I really don't need to worry about it, but I feel guilty using Prime for a $4.99 item.

The price of the app is exactly right too - free. I'd give $0.99 to $2.99 for this app in a heartbeat given how useful it has proven in recent days. You can get it here in the App Store.

Links In iMessage Hard To Tap On

Is it just me or are links in iMessage really hard to activate? I have no problem on web pages, in emails or other apps, but in iMessage, I may tap on and around a link 10 times before it activates.

This is on an iPhone 5 and iOS 6. Never really noticed on my iPad as many links are via SMS (from IFTTT, Twitter, etc.) which are on my phone only.

 

Posted with Blogsy

The End Of An Era

I first got this Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC as a gift when I was an editor at Pocket PC Thoughts way back in 2003. It served as my primary device for at least 2 years, even though I purchased others. Even after I eventually moved on, this device remained my alarm clock until two weeks ago.

I never could get my other Windows Mobile/Phone devices to be an effective alarm clock because if the sound was on, I'd get email and text notifications during the night. If the sound was off, then the alarm wouldn't sound. Pretty useless huh?

That changed with iOS 6 though. The new Do Not Disturb setting and the ability to play an MP3 file for my alarm has made me switch to my iPad as my primary alarm clock. The reason I don't use my iPhone is you cannot have vibrate set to on for calls but off for alarms, and I despise vibrating alarms, so the iPad is the best choice. It is always by my bed and goes with me on trips.

Farewell iPaq. You served me well for almost a decade. How many other gadgets can make that kind of claim?

One Month With The iPhone 5

iPhone 5 Screen

On September 21, 2012, Apple shipped the iPhone 5 to those that signed up early enough and I got mine late in the afternoon. It is my first iPhone so I thought it would be interesting to see what I though one month after switching platforms.

First, you should know my bias. Everyone that writes any sort of review has a bias. I've been a Microsoft Pocket PC/Windows Mobile/Windows Phone user for years. Apple products have held very little interest for me. I've always said, I don't use the operating system, I use the apps, and there are a number of apps critical to me on Windows that keeps me from looking seriously at any OS X machine. Similarly, on the phone (or back when they were just PDAs), the best apps, for me at least, were in Microsoft's platform. They were far superior to what PalmOS apps could offer me.

Then Apple released the iPhone in 2007. It had no third party apps for the first year, just web apps. It wasn't until the iPhone 3G came out in 2008 that the app store was opened. So, at the time Windows Mobile still was the best choice for me.

Then in 2010 Microsoft rebooted their mobile phone platform with Windows Phone 7. I got a chance to play with it a few months earlier and I was very impressed. To this day, I think Windows Phone has the best platform. However, that isn't enough. I forgot why I used platforms. It wasn't for what the platform itself does, but is what the apps available for the platform can do for me. That was a mistake I had to endure for nearly two years.

Two years later, the app story for Windows Phone is still anemic. I don't care about numbers. Yeah, I know, nearly 100,000 apps, but honestly the earlier version, called Windows Mobile, had a richer app story even though there were far fewer apps. I got sick of reading articles at sites like Lifehacker or in magazines like Fortune, Time, Money and Runner's World that had useful apps, none of which ran on Windows Phone. That is still the story today.

In March of 2012, I got an iPad 3, or New iPad, or whatever Apple wants to call it. Other than an iPod Nano I got for running in 2010 (the awesome little square), the iPad was my first true Apple computing device, and I got it primarly for one reason - Evernote. Yup - the apps drove the purchase, as it should be. I fell in love with the iPad, and still use it daily. I've added great apps like Drafts, Kindle, Blogsy, PocketBible, Feeddler, Sworkit, Pocket, Skitch, and more. Every financial institution I do business with has an app for iOS, eight for eight is not bad. Windows Phone only has one, and it just got it in the last 30 days, and is for a credit card I rarely use.

My phone contract was up in 2011 and I had an unlocked Windows Phone 7, an HTC Trophy, for Verizon. Again, the phone and OS itself are really good, but the apps, well, I just didn't enjoy using the device. I stubbornly stuck with WP though because the OS itself is superior.

After having the iPad for a few months I knew I wanted to try the iPhone, but decided to wait until the 5 was released. By now, my two boys and wife had each picked up an iPhone 4 in early-mid 2011 and I was sick of borrowing their phones to deposit checks.

So, I got up early on September 21, and ordered a white 32GB iPhone 5. The thing is simply a work of art. I am not going to bother posting pics of it - there are better images on Google than I could take anyway.

So what do I think after a month, and do I miss Windows Phone at all?

Well, honestly, I don't like the iPhone 5 as much as I like the iPad. On the iPad, everything can be used in landscape mode, which is great for typing. On the iPhone, many apps won't rotate, like Facebook. I really don't like typing in portrait mode. This isn't an issue with built-in apps like Safari, iMessage and the mail app, but a surprising number of third party apps simply won't rotate. The iOS UI I also think is better suited to the iPad. The latter lets you keep 6 apps at the ready and you can quickly go back to the previous app or home screen with multi-fingered gestures, which cannot be done on the iPhone. I am afraid I am going to wear that little home button out with all of the single and double tapping. The iPad's larger screen holds 20 apps plus 6 on the bottom app bar and none of it appears cluttered. On the iPhone 5, it too hold 20 apps (compared to 16 on its smaller screened predecessors) plus 4 on the bottom bar, but the screen is much smaller and it feels busy.

The app experience though is amazing. As I said, all 8 financial institutions I work with (think savings, insurance, credit cards, 401(k), brokerage, etc.) are fully supported on the iPhone. Evernote on the iPhone is good, though I prefer the iPad version simply because of the screen real estate. But then there are all of the apps I've read about that make the device so useful - apps like Fooducate, The Consumerist, Amazon Video, Hulu+, PocketBible, SugarSync, Starbucks, Slice and more. Then there are lesser known apps that are useful for me, like Wonderful Day, Recall, Find Friends, and Stroll Free. Heck, I even like the new Passbook app from Apple. American Express and Starbucks have both integrated well with it.

The OS itself still lacks in many ways compared to Windows Phone. Live Tiles on WP are phenomenal compared to the grid of icons on an iPhone. Compared to WP, iOS integration of Facebook is a total joke too.

That said though, the iPhone experience for me in the last 30 days has been vastly superior to what Windows Phone was delivering, and it is 100% due to the apps.

I also feel better about my iPhone purchase. The iPhone 4 devices my family own are all running iOS 6, just like my brand new iPhone 5, so when you invest in an Apple device, Apple will take care of you. I am 100% confident I will have iOS 7 and iOS 8 on this new phone in the next few years. With Windows Phone, you may or may not get an update depending on the whims of the carrier, and for the second time in 2 years, Microsoft is abandoning 100% of their users by requiring them to buy new phones to get Windows Phone 8. That leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

Bottom line is, I am very pleased with the purchase. I miss the slickness and deep integration Windows Phone provides, but iOS 6 isn't shoddy in the least. In fact, many aspects of iOS are very well refined and insanely intuitive. iOS also has more features than Windows Phone. The only area of confusion in iOS is in the Settings icon. It can take a long time to find a particular setting. Just one example is the useful Do Not Disturb feature, a feature that allows you to have your phone, or iPad, turn off all calls, texts and other reminders at night, or whatever hours you choose. You can set it to also allow certain phone calls though, like from family members in the event of an emergency. The problem is, I had to do a Google search to set it. To configure DND, you go to Notifications, not the Do Not Disturb setting.

With iOS I find I have the opposite problem I had with WP when it comes to apps. With WP, I was looking for no-named alternatives to popular apps and rarely finding them. With iOS I find I install too many apps because there is such a fantastic selection.

Knowing now what I know, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to by the iPhone again over Windows Phone or Android. (See here for my reasons for not seriously considering Google's mobile OS.)

Will I ever go back to Windows Phone? Maybe. First the share of the platform would need to be 15% to 20% at a minimum  I figure it would take that much share to get mainstream app developers to really take notice and support the platform. I would also need to see a pattern of upgrades available in a timely manner from the carriers for WP devices. That latter point also applies to Android, though the propensity of Android device makers to heavily customize the UI still turns me off to the platform overall.

And the hardware... the iPhone 5 takes a back seat to no other phone when it comes to fit and finish. The build quality and design are excellent. From a hardware standpoint, it is the best there is in my opinion. From a platform standpoint, I would like someone to go in and redo the Settings to make it easier to find things, and from a UI standpoint, I'd like to see more icons with live information. After all, it isn't always sunny and 73 is it?

There are things the iPhone excels at, and others where it doesn't do the best job compared to the competition, but overall, it is the most intuitive and integrated device available.

Microsoft Announces Xbox Music, Tells Windows Phone Users To Pound Sand

Microsoft took the wraps off its new Xbox Music Service today. It will initially be available on Windows 8 and the Xbox 360 platform. Windows Phone 8 support will likely follow when that platform is released later this year, and iOS and Android users will be able to get it in 2013.

The new service will not be available on Windows 7 machines, but unless your PC is really old and barely survived the upgrade to Windows 7, you should be able to upgrade to Windows 8.


The story for Windows Phone 7 users is very different though. Microsoft will not provide upgrades for existing users, even if you buy the flagship Nokia Lumia 900 today. The Xbox Music service is the first of many features you'll need to buy a new phone for.

I am sure users of iOS will need to be on the latest, iOS 6, to get this, but if you have an iPhone 3GS, made in 2009, Microsoft has you covered. But a brand spanking new Windows Phone7.x device, well… not so much.

Think carefully about who makes the next phone you buy. If you never want it to do more than what it does the day you walk out of the store, buy whatever you want. All manufacturers honor their warranties. If you want upgrades though, remember some companies have better track records than others.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Amazon's Business Sense Continues To Impress Me

Amazon is nothing if not savvy when it comes to operational excellence. They proved it to me again today. I went to a forecasting seminar this week and there was one book highly recommended. I downloaded the free Kindle sample and got about 10 pages of it. I decided it was worth it. Because it had a number of charts, tables and the like, I opted for the dead tree version as much of that doesn't look great on a Kindle.

I am a Prime member, which gives me 2 day shipping free on most things. I wanted to read the book this weekend though so I opted for the $3.99 upgrade to overnight shipping.

I also wanted to get a copy for a colleague in our corporate office. When I went to check out though, there was a $7.98 shipping charge. I didn't realize the $3.99 was per item! I didn't need her copy until next week as that was when the normal intercompany pouch was going out, so I cancelled her copy, ordered mine expedited, then ordered hers using regular Prime. That saved $3.99. I thought it was dumb on Amazon's part to do this though ad shipping 2 overnight is healer that shipping one overnight and one second day.

Well, someone on Amazon's shipping team thought the same thing. They bundled my orders into one and the box arrived this morning.

More companies need to encourage and empower employees to make these sorts of decisions on the fly.