Apps - The Webs Librarians

Why is the iPhone so successful? I believe the most important reason are Apps.
Why are other Smartphones as Blackberry losing market share? I believe the most important reason, again, are Apps.
Why is Android generally only considered to be 'second choice'? I believe the most important reason is that the Apps are not of the same quality. No way its because of the OS - Android is fantastic. Also not because of the phones. Some of the HTC's may even be better than the iPhone.
The difference are simply Apps.

The slick User Interface and the unbelievable usability of the iPhone in particular and other Smartphones with Touchscreen in general are only the foundations for funny, entertaining, supporting and intelligent Apps and the full user experience.

This and the upcoming Mac App Store (eventually followed by an equivalent Windows market) are reasons enough to think about the role Apps play nowadays. By the way, I purposely call them Apps and not Applications or anything, because in my view, they are no fully featured Applications, but well, simply Apps. They serve a single purpose or fulfill a few very specific Tasks (Hotel Finder, Flight/Train Connections, Facebook, Weather). I don't think I use any App for more than 2-3 minutes per session (maybe some games, but by far not all).

The fact that, so far any mobile Web Browser sucks in some way (Surfing the Web on a Smartphone is horrible, all this zooming and scrolling and totally naked "mobile optimised" Websites) and the fact that I have around 100 Apps on my phone which are all little helping goblins made me believe that Apps are actually the librarians of the World Wide Web.

This is totally awesome, because instead of starting your notebook, starting your Web Browser and opening a few Tabs to look for a route or a restaurant near your girlfriends place you just use an App, what is just way more convenient.

Most (helpful) Apps work as follows:
a) They offer you a simple and clean GUI (sure, they are built around 1 main functionality)
b) They search for what you want, through the whole Web, through APIs, through everything
c) They neatly display you what you wanted

After that process which perhaps took around 40 seconds, you close the App and are enlightened. I think this is the same as a librarian is doing:

Most (helpful) Librarians work as follows:
a) They offer you a human UI (you should be able to get on with that)
b) They search the whole library for what you want, or give you further information on where to find your desired stuff
c) They give you what you wanted (Your books or at least a note with some further information)

I think Apps are the main reason why mobile internet is so exciting and popular nowadays. Simplicity and information rich, just a tap & swipe away. And Apps really are a driving factor of the semantic web (lots of stuff is communicating via APIs with each other) as well, because thats pretty much the essence of their workings, you tap search and the App is doing the rest.

Smartphones, Foursquare and the Long Tail of Real Life

As more and more people are owning Smartphones, such as the iPhone or any Android phone, and location based applications such as Foursquare gain more popularity, an interesting consequence results, which I like to call, the Long Tail of Real Life. In case you are not familiar with the principle of a Long Tail Economy, you should read Chris Andersons famous book on the very topic.

Essentially, a Long Tail Economy, which can be observed on the Web (e.g. at Amazon), can be described as the rise of the niches. For example, in a normal book store, only the most popular books are sold, as in a physical shop, there is limited space, and thus, niche products are only hardly to be found at a normal book retailer. The reason is simply, that only a few people buy those special interest books, whereas the large majority buys books, that are on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Amazon for example, has no retail shop. So every book they offer online is just another record in their extensive database. They are able to offer any book that is being published, because they are not restricted by physical shelf space. As having a special interest is not really unusual, we are buying those books on Amazon, as they are easy to find there. This is again resulting in serious sales numbers of large amounts of special interest books - many niche products that sell few numbers.

With handheld GPS devices, such as every modern Smartphone is, and with fun applications as Foursquare or others, this Long Tail behaviour also shifts to the real life in the sense of places. The more people you follow on Foursquare the more places you haven't known yet - even if its in the city you live in - you are likely to explore.

Also, as on Foursquare you have pretty much the same Follower-principle as on Twitter, meaning you are following people you haven't even met in real life, you are very likely to explore completely new places (as you perhaps know the majority of places your real friends visit). Thus, a simple Foursquare check-in at a nice little Cafe is a pretty mighty marketing tool, way better than, say, a poster in a train station near that little Cafe.

So a Foursquare check-in pretty much is like an oral recommendation, a word of mouth. As Foursquare is not only a location based service but also has gaming features, your are pretty likely to add a certain location to the map (say your little hidden Cafe), because you get points for it and because maybe, you are going to have another mayorship.

Of course you have to filter a the interesting places a little as many check-ins are at ones home, work or at train stations, but if Foursquare manages it to filter out the interesting places, such as shops, restaurants, clubs and cafes, the Long Tail of Real Life will be reality. So with this, the rise of the niches is also happening in Real Life, with the consequence of being able to explore many new places, in your own city.

GeekTours - Bruges: Simon Stevin statue

If you are travelling with the Geek Atlas by John Graham-Cumming in your bags and are just visiting Brusselles or Paris, the beautiful flemish city of Bruges and the statue of 16th century flemish mathematician Simon Stevin is not far away from you.

Bruges is comfortably reached by train from Brusselles (about 1 hour, 12,90€ for 1 way) or from Paris with the high-speed Thalys train (2 1/2 hours, 25€ if you book early enough for 1 way).

Bruges itself is easily discovered by foot on 1 day. The Simon Stevinplein is a little way South-East from the market square (the large central square which is dominated by the Belfort), down the Steenstraat. Get the Google Maps directions here.

Simon Stevin (1548/49 – 1620) himself was a flemish mathematician and engineer who is perhaps most famous for his proof of the law of equilibrium on an inclined plane. Indeed this proof is also visible on his statue in his left hand. There are also other interesting scientific engravings at his monument.

Unlike the Geek Atlas, I won't, and can't 100% reliably respectively, provide you with a little science as I don't want to give you any wrong information on the subject. So just follow the Wikipedia Link to get some more information on Simon Stevin and his works.

The statue is dominating the Simon Stevinplein and is flanked by a nice alley, various shops and cafes. The Steenstraat is one of the main tourist routes leaving from the main square but the statue is, in majority, passed by the many "normal" tourists, so you can have a quiet view on his proof and relax a little on the square.

PS: Belgium is famous for its tasty beer and its special double deep-fried chips (see the picture of my special-chips with ketchup, mayonaise and a huge load of onions...).

GeekTours - Review: Eiffel Tower, Paris

Ok, so this is my first hands on review and its also a warning. I've only recently visited Paris, and of course, the Eiffel Tower is a must see for every tourist and, as John Graham-Cumming says in the Geek Atlas, also for every geek. He is right as the whole Tower can be seen as a monument for science, with the names of famous french scientists (Foucault, Arago, Fresnel,...) written around the Tower and a bust of Gustave Eiffel at its foot.

Now the warning: If you decide to go up, you spend 99,99% of your time with waiting. Waiting to buy a ticket to go to the first balcony, waiting to get into the elevator to get onto the first balcony, waiting to buy a ticket to get to the top, waiting to get into the elevator to get to the top, waiting to take the picture, you want to take at the top and finally waiting for the elevators to get down again.

Of course, the view over Paris is magnificent but there are other places from which you can get an equally good and cheaper view over Paris (e.g. from the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon or Sacre-Coeur).

The whole Eiffel Tower journey took me around 5 hours (with the majority spend in queues) and cost around 17€ (12€ to get to the first balcony, another 5€ to get to the top). My recommendation would be to either visit the Eiffel Tower in the coldest Winter (assuming that their will be less tourists, but it will have felt -50C° on the top) or to just enjoy the Eiffel Tower and the Park behind it from the bottom. I have to admit that it was more impressive to stand right underneath the Tower (the Tower is massive, around 326m in height) than on top of it.

GeekTours - An Introduction

The world is full of science, but places of scientific interest are sometimes quite hard to find. They are not always locked in museums but are often hidden in the oddest places. The Geek Atlas by John Graham-Cumming gives the geeky mind a treasure map full of red crosses where one has his scientific interest satisfied.

Since I bought the Geek Atlas I was looking forward to taking it with me to my next journey - and I was not disappointed. The book gives you a lot of background information about every place, along with some science on the subject and practical information on how to get where you want to go. It also opened my eyes, that there are many interesting places hidden somewhere in the world that want to be discovered.

So I decided to write reviews (including pictures) on every place of the Geek Atlas that I visit and will add some places to my personal Geek Atlas that I discovered myself. The feeling when I found my first scientific location, the statue of 16th century mathematician Simon Stevin in the old town of Bruges, Belgium, was thrilling. It was much like the feeling I felt at christmas when I was 3 years old.

So whenever you see the Prefix "GeekTours" in the headline, you will know that its about either a "hands-on" review of a place in the Geek Atlas or a place I discovered on one of my midnight wanderings...

HowTo: Make Screenshots on Mac OS

Alright, shortly a small overview on how to make Screenshots on Mac OS (because I tend to forget it myself...).

• Shift + cmd + 3: Screenshot of whole screen (Mac OS pastes the Screenshot on your desktop)
• Shift + ctrl + cmd + 3: Screenshot of whole screen + the Screenshot is "saved to" the clipboard
• Shift + cmd + 4: get crosslines to select an area for a Screenshot (Screenshot will be on your desktop)
• Shift + cmd + 4 followed by [Space]: take a Screenshot of a whole window (Screenshot will be on your desktop)

Don't forget to warm up your fingers before taking Screenshots...

PS: You can change the default Screenshot format as follows:

1. Open Terminal
2. Type in "defaults write com.apple.screencapture type
3. Example: defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

Yet, another speculation on Apples antenna issue

So far, there has been quite an amount of fuss about Apples curious antenna issue, and, yes i know, i am a little late to the party, but anyhow I'll give you my never appreciated and surplus comments on that thing as well.

First, I'll give you a little summary of what we know so far and then I'll give you my conclusions, I swear I'll keep it short this time.
So we know, that if you touch your brand new iPhone 4 with your greedy fingers on the wrong spots (the Interweb calls it the 'touch of death', but I prefer 'cold grip of death'), you short wire your phones antenna, which is resulting in the loss of any carrier signal, what is leading to dropped calls. This is itself leading to a pissed off girlfriend and boss, what is inevitably leading to a broken up relationship and a lost job, in short, this antenna thing is straight leading to a ruined life.

So the main question is, why didn't Apple fix that prior to the release? Were they so much under pressure with the set release date? - Unlikely. Did they have not enough manpower or brains to fix it? - Nope, neither that one. My guess is, that Apple wasn't even really aware of this curious bug until the first load of flashy phones got shipped to their customers.

Let me explain: Apple is quite secretive about their new products, but of course something like a phone requires field testing. So what they are doing is disguising their gadgets. What Apple did to their 4th generation phone model in the field test was, wrapping it up, so it looked like a normal 3GS. This guess is supported by the lost/stolen prototype, which was completely wrapped up. So if it is wrapped, there is no antenna issue.

It is quite unbelievable to me that Apple spent such an huge amount of time in improving the speech and general phone quality (Quite every review says that the speech quality, even on busy streets, is really excellent) and didn't recognise that every 4th to 3rd call was suddenly dropped because of a connection loss.

So lets say, all phones that left Cupertino, where wrapped and therefore without the antenna issue. Remain the phones inside the holy halls of One Infinite Loop. I am sure, they did have some dropped calls there, due to the cold grip of death, but they paid not too much attention to it. This might have something to do with statistics. When we consider that the majority of phones where outside Cupertino (and therefore wrapped), say 100 phones, and only a small minority was inside the Apple Labs, lets say 20, there follows a picture like this:

In real life 25% - 30% of calls are dropped because of shortwiring the antenna. So we take this figure to our 20 phones inside Cupertino. When we say that each phone makes 10 calls a day (normally we would assume there would be a huge load more calls outside Cupertino, as this was real field testing, but for the sake of the sake we don't do that), then 50 - 60 calls (25% - 30% of 200), of a complete number of 1200 calls, have been dropped. Now this is a considerably low number, making only just around 5% of the total. When we add the fact that ALL dropped calls happened more or less in the same area (within Cupertino), then we might understand that Apple may recognised dropped calls, but didn't follow up this issue, due to statistical insignificance.

Now I am many things but NEVER EVER would I be a fanboi of anything, but it would seem reasonable to me if a company dismisses an issue because of these figures. Of course they made the error (if all my speculations are true of course) in thinking that all their tested phones where more or less equal, but a low number of failure, which all happened in the same place, are normally argument enough to dismiss something as less relevant or even completely irrelevant.

Now I wouldn't torture you, my dear reader, with all those wild speculations and boring calculations and then don't come up with a proper solution for all your pains, because there is a wrap for that. Check it out and tell me if it was worth the 10 credits. If not, I'll probably just put some tape over the hotspots, this gives the phone a nice vintage look :-).