Like many people, I used to be a slave to my work inbox. It's hard to maintain a decent work/life balance when you're receiving business emails during evenings and weekends. Sometimes it's due to a workaholic colleague, or someone in a different timezone, or just those damned automated reminders from the finance system. I don't want to carry a separate device, and I know I can't rely on will-power alone. So, I've been using Samsung's "Peak Schedule" feature for its Android phones. I know I…
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Many years ago, I worked with a chap known only as D.C. That's how he introduced himself, that's how people referred to him, that was his name. Eventually, I asked him what his real name was - and why he preferred "D.C." He replied "David Copeland". For those of you in America - imagine someone being named "Tim McVeigh", or "Ted Kaczynski" I don't think that anyone seriously thought that he was the same person who committed those atrocities and, for all I know, he changed his name long…
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So, after much delay, and many technical difficulties, BlackBerry have finally launched their BBM app on Android. Whenever I launch an app on Android, I'm immediately inundated with emails from companies promising me thousands of 5* reviews for only a few hundred dollars. I've never taken up their offer - it's unethical, probably illegal, and usually very obvious when a company has purchased their reviews. As noted by journalist Matt Baxter-Reynolds, something fishy is going on with BBM's…
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Update 2013-07-13 I've just received this email from Nate Tyler at Google. Hope you're enjoying the weekend. I work on the Google Maps team and just saw your post on Google Maps navigation. Thank you very much for the concern. Wanted to be sure you and your readers are aware that we have pushed an update to the latest release of Maps for Mobile to fix this issue. If there's any chance to update your story with this information we would very much appreciate that. And if you have any questions…
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We've all been stuck on hold to some call centre and heard a distant voice say "For your security, and our training purposes, your call may be recorded." I've always wanted to say to people "just so you know, I am also recording this call." Well, now I can. A little back story... Around 4 years ago, I experimented with recording phone calls. It was quite a clunky process, involving conference calling in another line. Of course, Android has theoretically supported native call recording…
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There gets a stage in every large company's lifecycle when there are too many people working on a single project. This usually manifests itself in strange internal struggles over the heart of a product as different teams compete for their "vision" to succeed. What often happens is that the user is forgotten and a manager, somewhere, has to make a compromise which sacrifices usability for intra-company harmony. Let's take, for example, Google Maps for Android. This is an app I use every day…
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King of Google Eric Schmidt has written in The Guardian about how unfair it is that people don't think Google pay a fair share of taxes. He makes three pretty good points. Companies only pay tax on their profits. Politicians shouldn't make laws with loopholes. International laws need harmonisation. I agree with his second two points - although no-one is forcing Google to exploit the loopholes that it finds - but I am not sure I agree with the first. Fairness, so it seems, is…
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While visiting the USA, I came across a delightfully bizzare TV show - Doomsday Preppers. For those who don't know, this pseudo-documentary follows the lives of certain... eccentric... families who believe that the end of civilization is coming and they better get busy preparing for that eventuality. Whereas you and I might keep a bit of spare cash hidden away, along with some out-of-date cans of food, these guys go the whole hog. Vast basements packed with food, gallons of oil to run…
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Google's attitude towards its customers is a continuing stain upon its reputation. In an ideal world, no one would ever need to contact customer services. Every step of one's interaction with a company would take place online and be hassle free. All the information would be available on the web. Problems could simply be fixed by reading an FAQ. No mistakes would be made by either party. In those rare occasions where something did go wrong, the "community" would provide free peer-to-peer…
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I was chatting with a friend who expressed what I'm finding is a fairly common opinion. Well, yes, I'd love to move to Android - but all my content is in iTunes. I discovered that it wasn't apps which were the problem - buying them again is a pain, but most are free. It's media content which traps people into staying with services that they no longer want. Music, movies, TV, and podcast subscriptions. All tied up in Apple's little ecosystem. A very pretty noose to keep people chained to…
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One of Android's great strengths is its openness. The source code is (mostly) there for anyone to see. If you're a hardware manufacturer, you can use Android on your devices with just a few mouse clicks. But there's a problem in Android-land, one which has been growing for several years. Open Software has many advantages - one is the maxim "Many eyes make all bugs shallow". If you have thousands of developers looking at your code, it becomes easy to spot and fix bugs. When you have…
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Last night, Google held its second "Luvvies and Boffins" event at The Science Museum. Part of the Science Museum Lates - an adults-only evening event. As well as tours of the museum exhibits, there was a chance at some hands-on science. We were led by an excellent team from Technology Will Save Us. A group whose mission states: Technology Will Save Us is a haberdashery for technology and alternative education dedicated to helping people to produce and not just consume technology. So,…
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