I've been fortunate enough to be able to use a number of different kinds of smartphones over the last several years, from iPhones to Androids, to Windows Phones as well as the MeeGo-powered N9. Each phone has its own strengths and weaknesses as well as quirks and each phone seems to cater to slightly different kinds of people.

The iPhone seems to be the most well rounded of them all. People shun the iOS for being "closed" but the reality is as far as quality of the OS and third party applications, the iPhone almost always comes out on top. The range and quality of the apps are far above the rest and it seems to be drawing the best mobile app developers on the planet.

The straightforwardness of the iPhone and the limited range of models (there's only three current models, the 3GS, 4, and 4S) allows developers to create a very focused feature set that's almost guaranteed to work across the board, ensuring maximum compatibility across more than 150 million devices currently in the market which includes the iPod touch and to an extent, the iPad.

Android is the most popular platform at the moment thanks to the massive surge in interest over the last year. Unfortunately Android phone manufacturers are in tight competition with each other and all are to eager to differentiate themselves which actually slows down innovation that is being delivered by Google through its yearly major upgrades to the Android operating system.

The majority of Android phones in the market today run version 2.3, Gingerbread, or 2.2, Frozen Yogurt (Froyo). These are years behind the latest version which is 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, released last October. Over 90% of Android phones run version 2 of the system. It's unfortunate that in the push to be different, the vendors would rather customize the system to their preferences and add on several months of work before it can be delivered to their customers.

MeeGo is the nearly abandoned child of the old Nokia regime. The linux-based mobile operating system actually holds a lot of promise and potential. It is arguably well designed, intuitive, innovative, very easy to use, and is very powerful and flexible for consumers of many persuasions. Its ease of use rivals that of the iPhone for the common consumer. Its extensible functionality allows power users to dig much deeper into the system and perform various customizations and modifications. it is therefore unfortunate that Nokia decided to shelf this in favor of Windows Phone. itself a very fine system from Microsoft.

Windows Phone is trying to be the comeback kid. Microsoft launched this successor to Windows Mobile in Q3 2010 and represents a clean break from the past by introducing an absolutely fresh interface, far different from what most consumers are used to. If iPhone, Android and MeeGo are icon based, Windows Phone is packed with tiles and text.

Windows Phone is clearly the most innovative work that Microsoft has ever produced and if it had been released a few years earlier, say 2009 or 2008, it would have broke new grounds and gave the iPhone a serious challenge. As it happens, Microsoft's launch partners back in 2010 didn't seem to be too interested in pushing this new OS as they put most of their money into Android. As a result, Windows Phone suffers from lack of recognition and in serious need of a boost.

In comes Nokia who is looking to adopt a strong smartphone platform to partner with Microsoft. Having decided to euthanize MeeGo, Nokia is hell bent in making Windows Phone its primary smartphone platform, pushing Microsoft's environment to its loyal band of customers. If this gambit fails, both Nokia and Microsoft will crumble and be left as footnotes in the history of mobile platform wars, but for what it's worth, Windows Phone deserves a second look and Nokia's Lumia series phones seem to be the right vehicle to deliver the struggling platform.

So which ones should you pick? It really depends on which ones fit your need. For most people, I would recommend getting the iPhone. It's mature, easy to use, has plenty of well made applications for just about every need, the games are abundant, and kids love playing games on the iPhone.

Android for me is too elaborate. It tries to mimic the iPhone as close as possible while at the same time trying to offer everything that the iPhone does not offer such as deep customization. The attraction in Android though, is that it offers a smartphone capability even in very low cost phones, so those who can't afford the premium range can still have a similar or close enough experience. At least in theory.

Many low end Android phones use older technologies and system software making them less capable or less easy to use, although perhaps this market segment wouldn't be too concerned wth fancy bells and whistles.

At the end of the day, the phones you pick should be able to do the things you want your phone to do. Whichever gives you the power to do more should be your choice. For me, I'm equally comfortable using an iPhone, a Windows Phone or a MeeGo phone. If I was to use an Android, I would only go with a Nexus device as it's the only one that delivers the true Android experience, at least until now, and it's the only one guaranteed to be updated on time as soon as an update is available.

It's been a while since I blogged anything here so I figured I might do an update on one of my older posts. A few months back I lamented about how slow things are progressing in Jakarta. The traffic, the red tape, the service, the whole lot. The only thing that's quick is commercial development which is not bing matched by the expansion of transportation infrastructure.

It took me a while but I think I may have finally figured out how to make it work. After settling into a new life late last year, I've been changing some habits with regards to my travels around the city and once you get into the groove, it seems to be working quite well. Unfortunately it may not work for everyone. Then again what does?

These past few months, I've had to readjust how to approach my days thanks to the changes in my life and it actually led me to being able to do a lot more in a lot less time. The simplest thing that actually made this work is the fact that I have to sleep early and wake up early as well, like dawn or pre-dawn. This lets me do my work before everyone else's day begins and before the calls for meetings and event invitations begin.

I start scouring the web for news to report and write about as early as possible, schedule them to be posted throughout the day, and then come up with one or two stories of my own to consider writing about for the day. On average, after following this routine for several weeks, I discovered that my day pretty much ends at lunch time, often before. Which means, I have the rest of the day to do just about everything else, like meeting people, dating, hanging out, attending events and chasing stories.

As I said earlier, it's not for everyone. I'm lucky enough for not having to be at one particular location to do my work. All I need is my Mac, my phones, and an Internet connection. When I'm mobile, a Rev.B USB modem comes along with me in case I can't find a free wifi network. Power to do more!

Here is another email interview I did about Steve Jobs. Business Week Indonesia had emailed me on Wednesday morning with four questions. This should appear in the next edition of the magazine, which is next week, if not the week after. 

As with the Media Indonesia profile, I'm pretty sure this will be heavily cut down especially since this is for a story on the reactions by Indonesians on Jobs' passing. I have no idea how many people were asked for their opinions, so if they decide to include even half of my answers, I'll be very surprised.

1. What crossed your mind when you heard about Steve Jobs' death?

Obviously, I was shocked that his time had come so soon. I knew that his health was deteriorating but didn't expect that he would be gone so suddenly.

2. What do you think about Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs was a visionary. He was leader who knew what he wanted and how to achieve it. He knew the kinds of people that he needed to realize his vision and knew how to get them. He didn't get what he wanted some of the time and sometimes what he wanted was too advanced for the technology so he went and made sure the technology caught up with his vision. In other words, he brought forward technologies that many people were still dreaming about or would see only in movies.

From the stories told by people who worked with Jobs, he was a very straightforward person. He didn't mince words, he didn't like pleasantries, he was always focused on what he wanted to achieve and hated distractions. Executives or public figures would often entertain the notion of awards being given to them, but not Jobs. He never cared about awards. To him, awards that were meant for him should be given to the company instead because any achievement would not have been possible without team work.

Despite being a public figure, Jobs was very private. His shares in Disney and Apple were valued at more than $7 billion but his house is very modest, there was nothing fancy about the way he lived except that he drove an SL-class Mercedes without a license plate.

You can learn a lot about Steve Jobs and his views from his 2005 Stanford commencement address.

3. How is the future of Apple's products, especially the innovations after Steve Jobs is gone?

Apple has always prepared products for two to three years ahead of the current generation, which means right now, Apple has a product roadmap all set until at least 2014 although it doesn't mean that the products are final. By no means they are final. 

In the last several years Apple had been building up a lot of technologies to create the future of consumer electronics. They are moving from platter storage drives to flash-based storage drives. They are shifting from optical drives to direct downloads, non-physical mode of data delivery.

These moves are foundations of future devices and systems that we may not even imagine yet, but Apple is already building them.

I wouldn't worry about innovation at Apple. Ideas can come from anyone within the company especially since Apple doesn't operate like any other company in the world. 

Apple can also purchase companies and hire people who have great ideas like what they did with Siri. They bought the company that made Siri in April 2010 for somewhere between $100 million – $200 million.

Siri is the latest component that will shape Apple's future as a consumer technology company. Right now it's still in beta and it will remain in beta until Apple gets it right. When Siri becomes a far more mature product in about two, maybe three years, you'll probably feel like you're living in Star Trek's world. Even right now with the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, it's already looking like that but 300 years earlier.

4. What makes you enjoy using Apple's products, what is so special about them compared to other brands?

Apple's products are not like any other because they don't follow the rules. If something is not possible because the technology isn't there, Apple builds the technology for it, like the Thunderbolt connector for example, which it designed with Intel. 

Apple pays extreme attention to detail and it shows in their products. Everything about an Apple product is thought of down to the very last detail. 

User experience at Apple is the most important aspect and not a lot of other companies understand this concept thoroughly. Not Google, not Microsoft, not HP, not Acer. Nokia once had this understood but it lost its way almost a decade ago but is slowly rediscovering it.

User experience isn't just about using the product, it's covers the period from before you bought it, while buying it, after you bought it, when you use it, and even after you replace it. Apple has all this covered.

Apple doesn't think about what will sell first, it's concerned with what technology should be available to help make people's lives better, and then, considers whether it will sell. For people who find that hard to believe, look at what the iOS devices have done. It allows doctors to monitor patients more closely, it lets people produce creative works of art from music to motion picture to paintings and more.

At the same time, there's nothing great about the hardware specification of the iPad. Many other tablets are more advanced technologically but they aren't selling at all. What makes the iPad a great product is the combination of hardware and software that Apple had put together to create a device that allows people to do what they need or want to do. Apple's products are enablers. 

I find it sad that a lot of people buy Apple's products because they think the devices are cool and trendy and they have no idea how to use them properly. They may be cool and trendy now but I buy Apple's products because they let me do what I want to do in a fun, practical, and easy way. 

I've bought Apple's products since 1999 and the company hasn't changed its fundamentals since then. It has always been at the forefront of the consumer technology innovation.

Media Indonesia published a profile of me in today's paper. You can read it online on the epaper edition if you're a registered member of the site (it's in Indonesian though). 

One thing I'm not too keen on with print publications is the fact that it's limited. Whether it's in broadsheet or tabloid format, you have space limitations which means parts of the interview had to be left out. The profile article is much shorter than this. Also, printed newspaper is really inconvenient to read while you're on the move, on the train or bus for example, you might also bother fellow passengers. 

In the interest of completeness, I'm publishing the full interview right here on my blog. Questions were asked in Indonesian but I've translated them into English.

[update] I switched the formatting of the text to make it easier to read. Don't know what I was thinking when I used bold text for the answers.

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This is arguably Apple's best event invitation design ever. Straightforward, direct, can't miss it. Tuesday, 4th, 10 am, 1 phone, map of Infinite Loop, Cupertino.

People say it's not the tool or the device that makes the work but the person using it. Sometimes it's true but not always, and certainly not when the device no longer works the way it's supposed to because it's too old, damaged, or worn out.

I've been working with a 2007 white MacBook. It packs a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor with 4GB of RAM. While that still seems pretty decent by today's standards, the stock 120GB hard drive has gone through so many cycles, it's probably wearing out because I'm getting slow downs that's really getting to my nerves.

A lot of the times the apps would beachball for no particular reason and if I'm lucky they'd return like nothing happened but often they would stay locked up and I have to force quit the app, sometimes multiple apps before the computer starts working normally again. In some cases, I had to restart the computer just to free up some memory and hard drive space.

If you've been using your Mac for a while and like most seasoned Mac users hardly ever turn off your computer, especially if it's a notebook, you're likely to find that your drive space diminishes even if you didn't add or generate files that are massive in size. When this happens, your Mac becomes slow since instead of looking for files stored in the RAM, it looks for them in the hard drive, which has a slower access time compared to RAM. Yes, adding more RAM helps, but there's only so much memory you can add to a computer and memory chips can be pricey.

Having a slow computer sucks. There's a couple of solutions but they're almost as unlikely as each other. If I switch my hard drive to SSD, it could help alleviate the slowness issue, but given that solid state drives are expensive, a 128GB drive to sort of match my current one would cost me half the value of this old MacBook. I could go lower but that would increase my dependence on my external drive which is already nearly full, but I digress. Bottom line, replacing the hard drive with an SSD is an expensive option.

Another option is to save up and buy a new MacBook altogether. Since there's no more white MacBook available, I have to compromise. I'd love to get the 11-inch MacBook Air, but I'll be stuck with a 64GB drive and back to relying much on the external. It also only has 2GB RAM. When you're used to working with 4GB, going back to 2 is unimaginable. Sure, the Air is still faster than this old Mac but I haven't had the chance to take it through its paces on a daily basis.

You can never judge a computer's performance based on in-store trial. Everybody uses their computers differently and rather than regret a downgrade, I'd rather go up a notch. Problem is, it gets more expensive.

Ideally, I'd like to get myself the 13" MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD but that's beyond my budget. The MacBook still works but it's slow. It affects my workflow when apps would beachball. It's also big and heavy. The MacBook is more than half a kilogram heavier than the Air and I'd rather have a lighter computer.

I tried using the iPad as a substitute for a few months but while it can replace most of the typing work, if I need to switch from one app to the other it slows me down since the apps run one at a time instead of side by side. Oh, and it still needs a computer to manage its contents properly and practically.

So, short of buying a new and relatively pricey MacBook Air, I'm stuck with two slow systems, and I can't say I enjoy it.

As per the news from Stephen Hackett at forkbombr, Apple has moved to decommission Apple Online Stores in Indonesia and Vietnam. No reason was given for the decision although at least for Indonesia, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Those who bought customized iPods from the online store will no longer be able to receive personalized replacements should they need to exchange them under service terms.

Apple Online Store for Indonesia first opened for business in November 2008 along with several other Southeast Asian store fronts though without much fanfare. The Southeast Asian stores were established as extensions of the Singapore Apple Online Store with all orders processed and managed from the city state.

Many Indonesians called for the legitimacy of the Indonesian Apple Online Store, saying that it's not really Indonesian since it doesn't operate locally and only serves as a proxy for the Singapore operations. Until this day, Apple does not have an official Indonesian presence in the country of any kind.

In December 2010, problems began to creep up with reports of undelivered purchases up to several weeks and rumors of the Indonesian customs office refusing to process delivery. Some time in January or February of this year, Apple halted all Mac purchases from the Indonesian Apple Online Store. Mac products are still listed but the store marks them as "currently unavailable" although non-Mac products are still available for purchase.

At least several days ago (perhaps longer), Apple had added links leading to a list of Authorized Resellers on product listings within the store. It didn't seem that strange given that it had refrained from selling Macs directly online. If you look at the store today, under every product listed on the store, there is a link to the reseller list and a note saying that the product is unavailable online.

With the news that the store is being decommissioned, it's still unclear at this point whether Apple will remove the store entirely or leave it online and updated, essentially, becoming the company's official catalog.

Having a regularly updated official online catalog would actually assist customers in finding out official prices of Apple products without having to go to reseller stores if they just want to check. On the other hand, many stores don't comply with the suggested retail price, electing to set their own. This sometimes lead to higher than expected prices, although at other times resellers elect to go lower for competitive reasons.

With the online store being decommissioned, those wishing to purchase Apple products now have to find themselves going to the nearest Authorized Reseller. If they happen to live in major cities in Java and Bali, it may not be too difficult but in areas with no Authorized Reseller store, they may have to cross islands or incur higher prices through unauthorized stores.

In any case, it looks as if Apple and the Indonesian customs office have reached a stalemate, to the detriment of consumers.

 

Every morning I wake up, I have to decide whether I should go to work or not. Given the nature of what I do, I actually don't need to be at the office every day, it's just that it's sometimes more convenient to be there since the office has a decent internet connection that I don't have to pay for and I get to have lunch on the house.

The thing about being at the office however, is I actually get to interact with my colleagues and sometimes do some actual work (HA!). At home, where internet access is a luxury thanks to lack of landline connection availability, it's difficult to get work done. Not to mention having a nearly 4 year old who thinks that when daddy is home, it means play time.

So between six and eight in the morning I decide whether to leave the house and do some work or stay at home and try to do some work. More often the case I end up doing a bit of work and the bulk of it gets done late at night between nine and two in the morning.

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How many of you seriously update your LinkedIn status? I don't mean updating your resumé on the site, I mean updating like you do on Twitter or Google+. If it's cross posted from Twitter or other places it doesn't count. If you do, why? Do you hang out at LinkedIn? Do you connect with people there the way you do here or on Twitter?

I don't see LinkedIn as bring useful for me. It's surely useful for those not happy at their current jobs or always looking for an opportunity but I hardly ever look for a job. I like what I do and I'm happy doing it. Sure I could do with a better income but that's not the main point of my professional career.

Everything I do can already be found online, all you gotta do is look up my name on Google or just open my about.me page. For me LinkedIn is the redundant network.

Google just announced its purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion on Monday. This was big news, as in massively earth shattering. The entire technology world probably just had its axis shifted towards Mountain View, California and the effects will be felt for a long time. 

Just to be clear, Motorola Mobility is a different company from Motorola Semiconductor, the former of which was spun off back in January of this year so it could focus on creating consumer electronics devices while the other Motorola can concentrate on manufacturing computer chips and components. The mobile division had been in a downward spiral for years and Motorola needed a way to cut its losses.

Google is now the purveyor of the most popular smartphone software in the world. Its Android powers around half the smartphones on the planet led by Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG, and Sony Ericsson. Should this acquisition passes legal deliberations in the US and Europe, which could take six to eight months to complete, Google will be competing with the very companies that are relying on its software.

This deal can still very well fall through. It hasn't been approved by the regulators and if they don't like this, they could spike this marriage, forcing Google to make good on its promise to pay Motorola $2.5 billion cancellation fee. This is a similar situation to what at&t is going through with its proposed acquisition of long-time competitor T-Mobile USA, who will receive around $3 billion from at&t if their merger fails.

What are the reactions of Google's other Android partners? In an eerie Stepford Wives-like response, quotes from executives from Samsung, SonyEricsson, HTC, and LG Electronics, which can be found on the announcement page, all say that they "welcome… Google's commitment to defending Android." That doesn't sound like a natural reaction to a deal which could completely derail their future plans.

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