Don't forget that Google is an advertising company

So I think we learnt a lot from Google's 2 hour keynote at it's developers conference but the overarching impression I got is that Google just wants people to use it's apps and services - it wants mass market. Almost everything they announced were cloud services or apps, rather than embedded Android features. This isn't a bad thing though, the apps and services announced looked very polished and very useful, the majority are also available on iOS (again proving they want mass market).

One could almost say that Google doesn't really care about Android - it doesn't care what hardware it goes on, it doesn't care what's in its app store or how much revenue it could make from it, it doesn't care what version consumers use (btw <10% are on the latest version - Android L), it doesn't even care about adding major new features - again, nearly all the new features were separate apps.

What it does care about though is that people are using Android rather than using Windows or iOS or any other operating system. The reason Google cares? They're a data company and they want (need) to know everything they can about it's users and the world around them, and they need mass market to do this well. Why? So they can deliver advertising to those users.

Now these aren't criticisms of Google, I think they're a fantastic company, but when people talk (positively and negatively) about Google as a business and it's products and services they forget that everything it does is to gather data to enable them to serve better adverts... and that's not a bad thing really.

The Apple Watch from a Non-Watch Wearers Perspective

I've never really worn a watch before. I've been given a couple of nice watches as presents and have certainly tried wearing them but have just never got on with them. I've always found them uncomfortable and actually kind of pointless - there's nearly always a clock around (in the car, in the office, at home) and I've always got my phone in my pocket. So when the Apple Watch was first announced back in September I was quite sceptical as to it's real utility and whether it would really be a hit, particularly given the number of people like me who don't wear a watch. Over the last couple of months though Apple's relentless marketing and video guides had persuaded me of the utility of the Watch but I was still a bit unsure about how non-watch wearers would take to the device. For wearables to be successful they have to be accepted by the general public (this is somewhere Google Glass went wrong) and I was not convinced the smartwatch would be.

However, given that I'm a bit of technology nerd and well engrained in the Apple ecosystem I thought I would give the Apple Watch a go and so at 8am on launch day I ordered the 38mm Space Grey Sport with Black Band - I think it's the best looking of the cheaper Sport model. I was given a delivery date range of 12th - 26th May but it was actually delivered just a few days ago on 1st May.

Now that I've had a couple of full days of use the first thing I've noticed is the comfort. The watch itself is remarkably small and light and the plastic sport band is super smooth and comfy. I genuinely hardly notice I'm wearing it and in fact on one occasion had a mild panic when I thought it had fallen off underneath my jumper - it hadn't moved an inch. For someone who doesn't normally wear a watch this comfort is a big thing.

It's all about Glances

One thing I have realised in just the few days I've been using the Watch is that it's really all about glances. Its absolutely not designed to be used for even minutes at a time but is for just seconds at a time. Swiping up on the screen when in watch mode (I'll come to this later) brings up something new and that is the Glances screen. This show snippets such as the top news story from BBC News, a snapshot of current weather in your current location only, an overview of activity etc. I've found myself uses these Glances far more than any other function and certainly more than the apps themselves.

Speaking of Apps, there's still a lot of work to do. Most of them are far too complicated and much easier and better to use on the phone making the Watch version pretty useless. The Twitter app is a great example of this. It loads about five tweets at a time and you have to press 'More' when you've read all five. The tweets themselves are kind of difficult to read with links, regular text, @s, and #s all blending into one lump of unreadable text. Images are also very difficult to see with no zoom functionality. I have come across some good Apps though. Amazon and Uber spring to mind as being very simple and easy to use on the Watch. I'm sure that as developers get used to the platform and get more and more feedback from users this will improve though.

Too Many Interactions

Most people pick up an Apple device and generally know how to use it with minimal instruction. The learning curve on the Apple Watch though is different and the reason, I think, is that there are far too many ways different types of interaction with the device - the only thing carried over from iOS is swipe down for notifications, everything else is different. On the side of the Watch is a small rectangular button which looks exactly like the lock button on iPhones but it does something completely different, it brings up your list of favourite friends. Instead the 'Digital Crown' acts more like the lock button, but also a bit like the home button, but not exactly. Swiping up on the screen brings Glances, but only from the watch app. Lightly tapping the screen does one thing and pressing the screen does something completely different, again, depending which app your in. There's just far too many different ways of interacting with the device and if you're not a techy like me I can see that it would just be confusing.

The best thing I've found with the Apple Watch so far though is the activity and workout tracker. Throughout the day the Watch is constantly monitoring movement, whether you're standing or sitting, and how much light exercise you've done. If you've been sitting down for too long then it reminds you to stand up and so on. This is a surprisingly good feature and something most people will enjoy using. For those more in to fitness there's a dedicated workout app which more closely monitors you via GPS (if running, walking or cycling outdoors) and the heart rate sensor. I, again, found this to be a really good feature and has to be one of the things the Apple Watch does best.

The downside of this great feature though is that it absolutely rinses the battery life. During a 40 minute workout I lost over 25% of the battery life. If you're using the gym in the evening after a days work this could prove to be a real problem. It shows how much battery the sophisticated sensors on the back of the device are using as during normal use I could have easily got more than a days life out of the battery.

Just an expensive notification centre?

So overall then I have to say I'm generally pleased with my purchase, particularly when taking in to account the fact that it's a first generation product in a completely new category. There's a few issues to be worked out - mostly software related which should be reasonably easy to fix in the coming months and years. If this wasn't a first gen product though I would be saying it's just a very expensive notification centre so let's hope these issues do get sorted before Apple Watch v2.0 is released.

Update (21/06/15): I have recently returned my Apple Watch for a refund. Although it is a very nice piece of hardware I struggled to find a good use for it. While I can see how some will find it very useful - probably those that rush between back-to-back meetings all day, those really in to fitness, and importantly those that actually want/need to wear a watch, I just couldn't find a use for it to justify the £300 price tag. I'm sure though that as app developers work the watch out properly I will come back to it. I imagine this wont be before Apple Watch v3.0 though

The Future of Personal Transport

Personal mobility and freedom is the ultimate for most people and I've been thinking recently about how people will get around our towns and cities of the future... and it's pretty exciting. Firstly let's throw away things like flying cars and personal jet packs - I'm fairly confident that we'll be keeping our feet firmly on the ground (other than the usual intercity, and maybe intracity, flights of course).

Looking at the current state of personal transport is probably a good thing to do first. The majority of people get around in a car, in fact in the UK there are 35 million registered cars on the road [1] and over 38 million people have a driving licence [2] which represents around 60% of the population. Even those that don't drive I'd say generally get around via friends and family and taxis.

Cars represent something that's quite intangible, they represent freedom and mobility on demand, for many they represent themselves, their wealth, personality, culture and so on. I can't see this feeling diminishing in the future. Due to this I do think that cars represent the future of personal transport.

However, we all know that cars are terrible economic decisions. The average car sits idle for about 95% of the time [3]. Think about it, you drive to work in the morning and back home in the evening - lets say each way is 30 minutes, then you drive to the shop in the evening, another 30 minutes both ways. That's 1.5 hours of use in a 24 hour period - little over 6%. The rest of the time this piece of metal and electronics (that you love) is sitting completely unused, yet you're still paying for it. Add to this that cars are dangerous and inefficient and you have to wonder why we use and love them so much (hint: look at the previous paragraph).

These are some big problems that the Millennial generation have realised. The number of young people getting driving licenses has fallen [4] [5] and people are driving fewer miles - 14% less in 2013 than 2002 [6]. In cities people are shunning the car altogether [7], helped along by the rise of technology giving us on demand mobility services like Uber, Lyft, and City Car Club where a selection of over 800 vehicles can be hired on demand from your smartphone on your door step (#nonspon). This gives us a glimpse in to the future of personal transport - on demand and non-ownership.

Within the next 10 years we're likely to start seeing autonomous cars on our roads, although a 'driver' will most definitely still be needed and in the next 20 years we could see fully autonomous, get in, press a button, fall asleep type cars available [8]. We already have cars such as the Tesla Model S that can drive autonomously on motorways (highways for the Americans) and we'll see this kind of technology trickle down in to the lower end of the market fairly soon as more driver assist technology is developed for the high end market. The trend for more and more autonomy can only continue.

So the combination of on-demand, non-ownership and autonomy gives a pretty exciting vision for the future of personal transport I think.

We may see the business models of car manufacturers change dramatically in the future - think something like mobile phone networks where you pay for a certain amount of data each month. I think we could be paying for a certain amount of miles each month in the future. The vision I see is cities of fully autonomous (electric) vehicles which can be hired on demand from your smartphone (or wrist, or whatever interface we have by then) just like you do now with Uber. You may have use of certain type of vehicle so you'll always get a BMW 1 Series or an Audi A4 or whatever it is you pay for - remember that for many cars represent themselves, but you won't actually own the car you'll just pay £x per month for y number of miles and when you're not using it someone else will be meaning utilisation will drastically increase.

Now that's a bit of a personal vision but given current trends I don't think it's too far off the mark, however, don't be expecting this too quickly given that truly autonomous cars won't be around for at least another 20 years or so.

References:

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/302409/vls-2013.pdf

[2] http://data.gov.uk/dataset/driving-licence-data

[3] http://www.reinventingparking.org/2013/02/cars-are-parked-95-of-time-lets-check.html

[4] http://www.kpmg.com/US/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/self-driving-cars-next-revolution.pdf

[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/14/the-many-reasons-millennials-are-shunning-cars/

[6] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28546589

[7] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20671090

[8] http://www.zdnet.com/article/ford-ceo-fields-on-autonomous-cars-big-data-tesla/

Top 5 Tech Events to Attend this Spring

Here's my top 5 list of tech events to attend over the next few months. March

1. Mobile World Congress

Easily one of the biggest exhibition and conferences in tech Mobile World Congress (MWC) attracts over 85,000 attendees and hosts the worlds biggest companies. Last years speakers included company presidents such as Ford's Stephen Odell and CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and you can expect more of that calibre this year. It's not cheap though with a conference and exhibition ticket setting you back €2200 (£1600, $2500).

This year it's taking place on 2nd - 5th March in Barcelona.

2. Internet of Things Summit

A somewhat smaller event that MWC but interesting nonetheless. This event run by RE.WORK brings together over 200 technologists, entrepreneurs and innovators together to discuss the rapidly changing Internet of Things (IoT) landscape. There are 50 speakers at the London event on 12th and 13th March including John Lewis' Paul Coby, Hugh Knowles from the Internet of Things Academy, and many other industry and business leaders.

April

3. TNW Europe

The NextWeb's European conference kicks off this year on 23rd April in the great city of Amsterdam. With 3,500 attendees and speakers including Neelie Kroes and Werner Vogels this year promises to be a must-attend event. For start-ups Boost offers the chance to pitch in front of conference attendees and maybe spark the interest of eager investors. Tickets are quite reasonable at around £400 and students can get full 2-day access for only £180.

4. IDTechEx Europe

On April 28th and 29th IDTechEx plays host to one of their largest conferences yet with six co-located events in Berlin. The co-located conferences include 3D Printing, Electric vehicles, Energy Harvesting, Graphene, IoT, Wearable, and Printed Electronics. They're expecting 2000 attendees with 150 exhibitors. Speakers from companies such as Qualcomm and Jaguar Land Rover means this event can't be missed for anybody in these industries.

May

5. TechCrunch Disrupt New York

TechCrunch's conferences are known world-wide as some of the best with their legendary Startup Battlefield giving new companies a once in a lifetime chance to pitch to attendees, investors and press, and be in with the chance of winning $50,000. Taking place on 4th - 5th May at the Manhattan Center in New York it also hosts some of techs best speakers with Aaron Levie of Box fame already confirmed. If you can't quite make it New York you have to get to their European conference which usually takes place in October.

Is Microsoft Back?

For the last five to ten years Microsoft has come under a lot of criticism, and quite rightly so, for constantly lagging behind in the consumer technology arena. It seems that under Steve Ballmer anything that threatened Microsoft's cash cows such as it's desktop OS (XP, Vista, 7 etc.) and Office products were immediately thrown out. This caused a long period of stagnation, as you can see in the chart below, and it wasn't until mid-2013 when Ballmer announced his retirement that the stock price began to rise again. Microsoft has seen some awful products over this time period with the most memorable being Windows Vista, Windows 8, the first Surface, and of course it continued to pump out useless versions of Internet Explorer.

It does seem now though that Microsoft is making some what of  resurgence - it's stock price is up, it has a new boss - Satya Nadella, and it's released details of some exciting new products. All is explained below.

Financials

Since around 2002 Microsoft's share price has been pretty flat at between $25 - $30 but since mid-2013 it's started to rise and now sits at about $40 after a peak of $50 in late 2014. This says to me that there's some confidence out there about the future of Microsoft and it's P/E ratio of 16 backs that up too.

The company's financials are also looking up. In 2014 revenue was almost $87 Billion which is $13 Billion more than 2012. R&D spending is up and so is profit which now sits at just over £22 Billion.

These increases are set to continue through 2015 with the introduction of Windows 10, probably a new Surface tablet and the expected upgrades when Server 2003 goes out of service.

Office on all devices

Something Microsoft has always done well with is it's Office products. Everyone learns them in school and everyone uses them in their day to day lives - they're pretty good products. However, under Ballmer Microsoft seemed very wary of messing with this cash cow. Office was never really available (and if it was it was unusable) on mobile devices and has always worked best on PCs. Now though they have developed versions for Android and iOS, and they're really quite good. They've also opened up to a new business model which is offering subscription rather than a one type payment which really works in their favour.

This is a great step in the right direction for Microsoft and one of their biggest products.

Windows 10

Everyone hated Windows 8 - it only worked properly on touch screens and some it did away with some basic features that users were used to on previous versions e.g. the 'Start' button.

Windows 10 is currently in Technical Preview (Beta) stage which is expected to end April this year and so far has received positive reviews. The interface looks clean, simple and brings back the start button. They're also bringing universal apps so developers can develop once for Microsoft and their app will then work across all Microsoft devices including mobile.

There'll also be a new browser, codenamed Spartan, which promises to be much better than Internet Explorer. Cortana, Microsoft's (better) version of Siri will also be available on Windows 10.

With an expected release date later in 2015 it should be a positive step for the company.

HoloLens

A really innovative future product for Microsoft, Hololens hopes to bring holograms to our everyday lives - and it looks pretty cool. This has to be the most innovative product we've seen from Microsoft and although it won't be a consumer product for a good few years yet it gives a great glimpse in to the way the company is thinking and it looks like they're thinking about the future rather than just iterating their current cash cows.

I'm not going to attempt to describe HoloLens - it won't do it justice. Have a look at this link.

Mobile

This is an area where Microsoft have really struggled in the past and I they're still not there yet. Even with the acquisition of Nokia mobile sales are no where even near those of iOS or Android and although the Surface 3 is a great tablet it's again not even coming close to the iPad in terms of sales. I'm sure Windows 10 will go some way to enhancing their mobile offering but I'm not convinced it'll make much of a dent. I think they should be going after the business customers that left Blackberry but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

On the whole then I'd say things are looking up for Microsoft. They've got some great products in the pipeline that look they can easily compete with the likes of Apple and Google as well as keep their loyal users happy. It'll be an interesting year for Microsoft that I look forward to following.