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Friday, August 17, 2007

iCon

Recently, I've been working with a lot of Mac lovers at my workplace. They're passionately loyal to Apple products. It tickles me to find anyone so passionate about certain things. In this world of a million options and cheaper alternatives, I believe it takes something special to inspire brand loyalty. And looking at an iMac, I can easily see how it captures the imagination!

I like to look behind a success story and figure out how/why it happened. This is true of both people and products. Lots of times, people only see the finished end product and go, "Oh, they had it easy" or "Oh, that's intuitive enough. Nothing new". I think the real interesting success story lies in the making of a product/person. And if you look closely enough, you'll find a piece of the person in the products that they create.
I was curious about Steve Jobs. So I picked up "iCon: The Second Greatest Act in The History of Business", a biography of Steve Jobs and started reading it.

First off, this was a good read unlike some other biographies. It doesn't bore you with unrelated stories and vague statements. It is simple, straightforward and dishes out criticism as well as credit. It amazed me that for someone who talks a lot about karma & philosophy, Jobs sometimes can be ridiculously silly! :) Goes to show that genius in one field doesn't mean any kind of maturity in general. Sure enough, when you read through Jobs' life story, you see some elements of his character in Apple products -- for instance, the austere simplicity of Apple applications or the easy aesthetics of the UI.

Whether you love Apple or not, it is definitely an inspiring read about a man who changed three industries -- computers, music and movies. In the book, Jobs makes it clear that his final ambition would be to overtake and defeat his main competitor -- Bill Gates. Almost all his moves in the computer market have been toward making Apple a viable alternative to Windows boxes. And I have to say that he's getting closer.

I am a hardcore Windows user and I don't have many complaints against it. But I was simply blown away by the Mac recently. I got a HD camcorder recently. It came with Sony's crappy bundled software, Picture Motion Browser. Windows MP doesn't support the AVCHD format for HD movies and I had to use PMB. And by golly, was it crappy! Frames were dropped, the picture was grainy and Windows kept crashing with some strange error. On the other hand, I plugged in the Camcorder on a Mac and the experience was a lot different. Mac automatically opened up iMovie, imported the movies and played it back impeccably! The quality and user experience were simply too smooth. I loved it and am seriously considering buying a Mac for various other reasons.

Anyways, I just had to rant about this on a Friday..:) And this is my response to RS' book tag a while back. Go read iCon.






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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

The Curious Incidents of the Rude Callers

There's something wrong with me and phone calls. People seem to love hanging up on me cutting me off mid-sentence! I am not really in the habit of yakking away incessantly to strangers. But can I not be allowed to finish my sentences?!

I never go to beauty parlors. I think the people who run most beauty institutions are really snooty. At long last, last month I mustered up the courage to call a parlor for an appointment.

"Hi, this is blah."
"Hello"
"I was looking for an appointment --"
"Ok."
"Would next week --"

"Listen. I gotta go now. ok? If you can, call back."

And then she cut me off mid-sentence and hung up! What in the world? No courteous "Excuse me" or "call back please". Anyways, she lost my business.

Next comes my Apartment office dunderheads. I never had any respect for their intelligence at any time. But today took the cake! This annoying, idiot lady called me at work. I am already overaging 100 minutes on my phone plan.

"Hi..can I speak to Sabshuni Sppriineewasan." (For the love of God!)

"This is she."

"Ok. You've got a late fee on your rent."

"Err..ok. I was only a day late. Could you please consider waiving it?"

"No."

"This is just the first time, right?"

"Yes"

"How much is ---?"

Click. She'd hung up. What in the blue blistering barnacles? If I don't know how much the late fee is, how can I pay it?

And then it was this Aunty who called me out of the blue about something she wanted out of me. I was midway explaining about it. And then she decided she'd had enough of me and said,

"I'll talk later."

Click. No waiting for response. Nothing. Why call me if you don't have the time to talk?

Hmph.









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