Seeking a quality control “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?” person? Need to fill out your Chief Devil’s Advocate position? Made some technological blunders and need a new perspective? Where do I apply?

Oh, what qualifications do I have? None really, but at this juncture that’s not important. It’s not my qualifications we should be questioning anyway. I do understand how “the dance” works though, so I’ve gotten my resume all polished and ready for the world. I’ve even given it the fun title…..

“Things I WOULDN’T have screwed up”

Palm Pre as a Sprint exclusive.

The company, after years of ineptitude, was on the ropes. The only remaining option to stay in business was a bold reboot of their product line. Palm went for the gusto and prepared to rebuild their ANCIENT phone software from the ground up. (It’s rumored it was coded under Methuselah’s direct supervision) The dust settled, and the result was their new flagship phone, the Pre. It was a well crafted combination of kick-ass software and hardware. The reception was overwhelming, and it was widely believed the company had turned its fortunes around. Then, perched atop the world, Palm made the BAFFLING decision to make the Pre EXCLUSIVE to Sprint, the Oldsmobile of wireless providers. Let me get this straight, you thought people would switch TO Sprint for your device? The phone eventually arrived on other major networks, but it was A YEAR LATER, and comparable devices were already entrenched.

The G1, Google’s first phone

iPhone mania was sweeping the globe, but out for over a year, the device was getting long in the, er… antenna. The Android G1 was looming on the horizon, and was generating SERIOUS buzz. It appeared situated as the first phone that had a chance of toppling the Cupertino Monster. Had I been under Googles employ, I would have shared my secret for creating the “(insert name here) killer” phone.

But I wasn’t there, probably because eating Dinty Moore out of the can during the interview was verboten. (Let history be aware that I brought an extra fork) Needless to say, the result of my absence wasn’t pretty.

The G1 (out of the gate) FAILED to match several features the iPhone ALREADY HAD. Some genius thought they could compete with the most media-centric phone ever made by….

1) Leaving off a standard sized plug for headphones (a mistake the 1st gen iPhone made)
2) OMITTING A VIDEO PLAYER
3) Providing no default method to easily sync audio/video files

Too busy creating their own shortcomings, they didn’t get near addressing those of their competition. Remember how people were bitching about the lack of video recording on the iPhone? Well, the G1, released SIXTEEN MONTHS LATER, ALSO lacked that functionality. At that point, any new features, such as the slick compass mode street view, just weren’t enough to overcome the G1’s deficiencies.

Yoda was so disappointed with you over that.

The Blackberry Storm

One day, technopologists will look back and examine the bizarre decisions involved in creating this device.

First, there was NO WI-FI. I really can’t emphasize how much of a screw up that decision was. It’s THE MOST standard feature of any device purporting to be a smart phone, and its absence provided the worst “comparison chart” fodder imaginable. I don’t care if it was RIM’s call or Verizon’s call, it was an absolutely stupid decision. I’m sorry to say, but the moment the spec sheet was released, the device was toast.

Another irritating design choice was the omission of flick scrolling. Without it, I nearly wore a groove in the screen swiping (or I should say swipe, swipe, swipe, swiping) through an article or email. Even worse was scrolling through the eternal Blackberry user agreement after installing a new application. After downloading a few apps, the callous on my finger rivaled that of a death metal bass player.

These features WERE included in the second iteration of the phone, but it was already a day late and a dollar short.

The Nexus One

I’ll avoid the whole “getting into the hardware being a bad idea in the first place” angle. What I won’t avoid is how the launch completely botched the concept and novelty behind the phone. The idea was that people were annoyed with top tier phones such as the iPhone, Moto Droid, and Palm Pre being exclusive to a single network. Google recognized this and attempted a different approach. Essentially, build an awesome phone and make it available on ALL networks! So far so good. What Google neglected was the second critical component, the AT ONCE part. What followed was a piecemeal release schedule (over months) that makes it no different than a Blackberry Curve, which also is now also available ON ALL NETWORKS.

If you’re going to be a bear, be a grizzly. Read up on RIM’s “World Phone” party trick and create ONE piece of hardware that works on ANY network.

Google Buzz

Let me grab my megaphone for a moment. ATTENTION SOFTWARE COMPANIES. What ever CRAZY idea you come up with, ALWAYS MAKE IT OPT IN!

No one mentioned that automatically adding everyone I’ve EVER emailed to my social circle was, INSANE? You REALLY thought I wanted “noreply-2343453@craiglist.org” with whom I inquired about shelving in 2006 as a social contact? Words can’t describe my astonishment at this decision.

As soon as I heard about Buzz, I was all “YO BRAH, Google just FLIPPED everything up with a crazy facebook/twitter hybrid!!!”. Five minutes later, after reading about the giant security holes, I told everyone to avoid it like the plague. From what I know, millions of others did the same thing. Significant privacy changes have been made since Buzz launched, but so what? Locking the barn door after the horse bolted is a reactive and pointless approach.

Talk about fail with a capital G.

Windows Mobile 7

Microsoft announced their new phone OS to the world at the Barcelona Mobile Conference and had us SALIVATING. Their stodgy old operating system was DESTROYED and replaced with an interface that takes design cues from a Ralph Lauren Polo catalog. It’s new, it’s different, and it’s slick. (The Polo catalog look on a phone, not the catalog itself)

*sigh* Are you seeing a pattern yet? Two minor oversights have dampened enthusiasm for the upcoming software. Apparently, usability things like “multitasking” and “cut & paste” were left on the cutting room floor.

I’m trying, and failing, to understand the logic. The engineering team sat around brainstorming, coming up with crazy ideas for a phone to be released in 2011 (you know, that flying car future we’ve all been dreaming about). I assume they went down the spec lists of the competition, noting what they’re doing well, what they’re not, etc. They took all this research, incorporated it into their ideas, and settled on the feature set for windows 7 mobile. Sounds like a good way to do business, except one thing seriously perplexes me. My whole rant hinges on the premise that Microsoft is gunning for the king phone slot currently occupied by Apple. So, why wouldn’t they address multitasking, the MOST GLARING FLAW OF THE IPHONE SINCE ITS INCEPTION? It’s not like consumers and tech pundits have been bitching about it for THREE YEARS.

NOTE: Technically, W7M features multitasking because apps can run in the background. That’s to say that programs will open to the same state in which they were closed. The problem however is if the device needs more memory, the OS will arbitrarily wipe out a running process. What the hell type of engineering is that? Microsoft even employs the same excuse Apple does, blaming their half-ass implementation as a bid to conserve battery life

Nothing is worse than compounding one stupid decision with another, and that’s precisely what Microsoft has done. Since they incorporated the chief complaint of iPhone users into their OS, why not go for the gold and incorporate the second? Yep that’s right, cut & paste, a basic function of modern computing (since added to the iPhone) was omitted. According to the horse’s mouth, people don’t use that feature. Yeah, who would do something crazy like copy an address from their email and paste it into the map application?

Well, a metric ton of outrage followed, and a week later we get this gem.

*cough*

We were going to add it all along, we swear!

Yeah, right.

Un Mas Cosa

I wanted to double back and make one more appeal to RIM, because the writing is on the wall.

Blackberry and their OS dilemma

It’s been 4 months since I gave RIM some heart to heart advice. Looks like I’m going to append it a bit.

Let’s just be blunt. Right now, RIM should take the servers that store their master OS code, set them on FIRE, and launch the ashes into the sun. I actually FEEL PITY for a company with a market cap of 42 billion. How is that even possible? I guess I hate to watch a great product/company fall from grace because of factors within their control. (See Palm) RIM makes some of the most advanced devices IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, but a few more years on their present course, and they’ll be competing with Sanyo for the $49 soccer-mom smart phone market. My GOD that’s depressing.

It’s become painfully apparent that modern interface design is no longer RIM’s forte. Their OS has become DOWNRIGHT STAGNANT from an appearance standpoint, and the usability is going along with it. Their attempts at software have fallen pitifully short as well, like their recent attempt at a twitter app (in beta, but still) which was mocked across the web. Even worse, alleged screen shots of their next gen OS have emerged, and let me tell you, a 3rd grader could have come up with a better design

You want to change course fast? Get out of the interface business. Start by acquiring Ubertwitter and other 3rd party companies for app development. Then for the OS, go hire The Astonishing Tribe and pay them whatever they want. (TAT designed the Android interface, and are well known in the design world for coming up with insane yet practical concepts)

Finally, take a page out of MS and Apple, and stop releasing so many damn phones.

So that’s my resume

I’m fully aware that you’re not going to make everyone happy all the time. Some phenomenally talented people design these devices and have probably forgotten more than I’ll ever know. That said, there’s some serious breakdown in either the decision making or feedback process these days. I’ll also sprinkle in some willful ignorance of tech history. If product X is missing a feature, and product Y wants to topple X, then it better include the feature that X lacks. It’s common sense.

If your people don’t want to do the scouting report on the competition, I’ll be happy to, for a nominal fee =)

Call me, we’ll do beer.