Doing Words

Choice is more often a feeling than an action

// October 29th, 2007 // 0 Comments // platform, Products

Duncan Riley is copping some criticism on Techcrunch over his opinion that OS X Leopard’s widgets are newsworthy enough to report on.

I think it’s an interesting feature of Leopard, but not really significant to the widget sector (is it a sector yet? covered by TC.

Unlike most other widget platforms, OS X’s widgets are hidden in a Widget app that you need to open first, reducing the number of views/user. They aren’t cross-platform, and Leopard’s market share is only a slice of the total OS X installed base. I don’t know what share of the total OS market OS X enjoys, but it must be small. Growing faster than other OSes, likely, but from a very low base.

Microsoft, with it stated aim of being the Internet OS – and its long-developed habit of copying Apple’s interfaces – may eventually copy this ‘create your own widget from the browser’ feature, but at MSFT’s current rate of innovation, count on seeing that some time >2020, by which time it’ll be Mozilla-based browsers, not IE, that will have dominant market share.

The other thing to consider is what percentage of users will make their own widget given the opportunity to do so. My experience working on personalisable homepages for portals suggests that while everyone ticks “yes” when you ask them whether they want their own personalisable homepage, when the product goes live, most of those yes-tickers will never take the time to personalise their homepage. My observations suggest that ease-of-use has no bearing on that result – it doesn’t matter if it’s one button on the toolbar away.

Personalisation is like fast-food – knowing that the fast-food franchise lets you choose your own fillings gets you in the door rather than the competitor’s door. But 98% of us choose the off-the-shelf burger after we walk in and view the menu because it’s quicker, easier, and we figure whoever decided that pickles and ketchup go together must know what they’re doing. Mistakenly…

We think we want choice, but what we really want is the feeling that we could choose if we wanted to.

Canon Pixma MP600R: drama of the good kind

// May 25th, 2007 // 0 Comments // Products

Hey, is this thing meant to glow like that?…

Unfortunately experience teaches us to expect drama of the bad kind when installing a new multi-function printer on a home network. But the new Canon Pixma MP600R I installed tonight completely blew me away with some drama of the positive kind, and I’m still smiling from the memory.

After all, it wasn’t until I brought home my HP PSC-2210 that I discovered Mac network drivers hadn’t yet shipped and that I’d have to search high and low for compatible open-source drivers that would work. And it wasn’t until I tried to scan for the first time that I discovered that was one of the many features the PSC-2210 only offered over a USB connection. And it wasn’t until the power supply failed just out of warranty that I discovered HP’s appalling policy of not offering service for out-of-warranty inkjet devices in Australia, its terrible policy of not making spare parts available for inkjet products to third-party repairers, and its shameful policy of not offering recycling for printer products for home and small business customers. (HP, I hope you get buried in a landslide of your own dead printer products.)

Talk about drama of the bad kind! Not so with the Canon Pixma MP600R… so far, it’s been all drama of the good kind.

What’s wrong? Sceptical that a multi-function printer could be dramatic? How’s this: when I turned it on for the first time and flipped up the bright, clear colour LCD, the printer popped open its own paper tray during the power-up.

Surprised? I was. But not nearly so surprised as when I discovered the individual ink cartridges light up with a warm red glow when you’ve plugged them in correctly (or, according to the manual, a bright orange if you get it wrong.)

Holy self-destruct-sequence-on-the-Nostromo-batman! Plugging each of the cartridges in one-by-one was like something from Mission Impossible or Star Wars, more like re-enabling the tractor beams on the Death Star than installing a mere printer. Cool!

The MP600R doesn’t fax like the HP used to, but the only thing non-recyclable in the entire box was the foam packing inserts – all the other plastics and tape were recyclable. And it scans over the network, over wifi, to a Mac, with Canon Mac OSX drivers.

Cool!

Canon Pixma MP600R: drama of the good kind

// May 25th, 2007 // 0 Comments // Products

Hey, is this thing meant to glow like that?…

Unfortunately experience teaches us to expect drama of the bad kind when installing a new multi-function printer on a home network. But the new Canon Pixma MP600R I installed tonight completely blew me away with some drama of the positive kind, and I’m still smiling from the memory.

After all, it wasn’t until I brought home my HP PSC-2210 that I discovered Mac network drivers hadn’t yet shipped and that I’d have to search high and low for compatible open-source drivers that would work. And it wasn’t until I tried to scan for the first time that I discovered that was one of the many features the PSC-2210 only offered over a USB connection. And it wasn’t until the power supply failed just out of warranty that I discovered HP’s appalling policy of not offering service for out-of-warranty inkjet devices in Australia, its terrible policy of not making spare parts available for inkjet products to third-party repairers, and its shameful policy of not offering recycling for printer products for home and small business customers. (HP, I hope you get buried in a landslide of your own dead printer products.)

Talk about drama of the bad kind! Not so with the Canon Pixma MP600R… so far, it’s been all drama of the good kind.

What’s wrong? Sceptical that a multi-function printer could be dramatic? How’s this: when I turned it on for the first time and flipped up the bright, clear colour LCD, the printer popped open its own paper tray during the power-up.

Surprised? I was. But not nearly so surprised as when I discovered the individual ink cartridges light up with a warm red glow when you’ve plugged them in correctly (or, according to the manual, a bright orange if you get it wrong.)

Holy self-destruct-sequence-on-the-Nostromo-batman! Plugging each of the cartridges in one-by-one was like something from Mission Impossible or Star Wars, more like re-enabling the tractor beams on the Death Star than installing a mere printer. Cool!

The MP600R doesn’t fax like the HP used to, but the only thing non-recyclable in the entire box was the foam packing inserts – all the other plastics and tape were recyclable. And it scans over the network, over wifi, to a Mac, with Canon Mac OSX drivers.

Cool!