WWDC just around the corner

Posted on May 23, 2014     Leave a Comment

wwdc14-home-branding

Apples’ annual developer conference WWDC is now only days away the rumour mill is rife with what to expect during this years event.

Last year I was convinced that the iWatch was going to finally be previewed during the keynote speech but I was left disappointed – industry insiders are still doubting that Apple will feature this at the event this year and with a release of Apple TV SDK also being touted as unlikely it really is making me wonder if Apple are going to announce anything worthy of note that will really get me excited!

It is expected that Apple will announce iOS 8 but my view is that this will not be radically different to iOS 7, the significant changes in the current version of iOS caused a lot of upset amongst consumers some of whom did not like the radically different interface, it therefore stands to reason that any update is likely to be more akin to evolution rather than revolution. Perhaps this year we can expect to see a more radical overhaul of OSX, my concern is that won’t be enough to keep consumers excited about Apple’s Innovation.

I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that Apple need to find a game changer and announce the next big thing! The last true innovation announced by the company was iPad and that was released back in 2010, 4 years in technology feels like a life-time and as a true techie i’m desperate to be wowed! I fear that from what i’ve read so far this year is not going to be that year and we may have to wait until 2015 to see a true innovative twist! That said I will still hanging on every word of the keynote speech on 2nd June and can’t wait for the spectacle – Apple really do know how to put on a show!

A Speech at the Wedding of the new Mr. and Mrs Roberts

Posted on August 4, 2013     Leave a Comment

Now this is technically nothing to do with technology (although it is very social). My best mate Mike Roberts got married yesterday and I thought it would be opportune to post a copy of my speech online ….. lets call it an act of public record 🙂

Ready Mike?

Now before I sit down …. As Mikes best mate I think it would be wrong of me not to break with tradition and say one or two words to ensure that the assembled company gets a full picture of the man that we all know fondly as Mike Roberts

I got to know Mike way back in 2005 when we both started University. We’ve got to know each other pretty well during that time and it also means that I have a number of stories that I could tell; some are very appropriate for an occasion as Mike and Keri’s wedding – and some I imagine he would like me to forget.

Having not planned this in any way ….. I have decided that I would like to share one story with you today – but I think it only fair that Mike should select the story that I tell.

So Mike …. I have 3 envelopes ….. would you like me to share Story 1, Story 2, or Story 3?

(Story 2 was chosen)

Story 2 – Amsterdam

During the 2nd Year of Uni Mike and I were given an opportunity through the Students Union to have a free trip to Amsterdam. Now, it would be fair to say that Amsterdam has a certain reputation; and it would it would also be very unfair for me to disclose everything that may or may not have happened on that trip – after all, for my own sake, and the fact that I value Keri as a friend, what happened in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam – isn’t that right Mike?

Now Mike, to my knowledge has always been good, never done drugs or experimented with things that he shouldn’t. So as students of good standing when we in Amsterdam we decided to see the city by hiring bikes.

Now Mike and me have never been the most active of people – and riding around all day on a bike is probably not our idea of a great day out.

Fortunately, in Amsterdam the weary are able to rest and recover in one of the many “Coffee Shops” within the city. Now coffee shops have a certain reputation and Mike as a good Christian boy didn’t abuse his standing as a good student – but he did spot sitting on the counter a very nice display of cakes – he bought one ….. and the waitress very kindly pointed out it was buy one, get one half price …… and it would have been rude not to ….. right?

So he came and sat back with the group and started to nibble his cake when suddenly someone shouted, “its five to six, the bikes need to be back by 6 – we need to go”.

So not wanting to carry the cakes home, Mike picked up the first cake looked at it, shrugged his shoulder and in one big gulp, swallowed it whole. Not content with eating only one cake he then took the second cake it went the same way.

Announcing he felt fine, we left the coffee shop, got back on the bikes and off we go.

Now previously Mike hadn’t been a very enthusiastic rider but suddenly found new energy and took off up the road and quite a pace.

It would be fair to say that initially the bike was ”wobbling” a little bit. But the space cakes lived up to there name, the Bike stopped and without taking his feet off the pedals both Mike and the bike fell smartly to the left landing with thud on the pavement.

Mike wasn’t in a good way for the rest of the day – he managed to attend a meeting with the reps of the travel company – announcing in the loudest voice you’ve ever heard that couldn’t hear what the person at the front was saying, that’s the person who paid for the trip …. And he actually didn’t care.

He slept for a good part of the day in the “Hans Brinker Hotel where we were staying – and if you remember Mike this is the hotel that announced proudly on posters in reception ….. “New for 2007 ….. doors”

He did make it up later in the evening for a tour the city – but I think for the purposes of today this story has probably gone far enough …. After a few later tonight I’ll be happy to complete the tale should anypne want the full details.

On that note …. It is a shame not to share stories 2 and 3 – but I won’t – I want to take this opportunity to say that Mike is quite simply an amazing guy – the best friend anyone could wish to have and someone that I am very proud to have in my life.

When you met Keri it visibly changed your world, and it changed the world of those who know you best.

I think you’ve found a wonderful girl Mike and I can’t wait to get to know more of Keri’s family as the day goes on. On behalf of all of your friends in Chester I hope both yours and Keri’s dreams come true and that together you are able to go on and Change the world.

Love you both

@United Airlines: How not to do customer service

Posted on June 19, 2013     Leave a Comment

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m the first to give credit when customer service works but also believe that when companies fail it needs to be pointed out so that they can improve for the benefit of everyone in the future.

This is especially true when a company is attempting to use technology to better assist customers – or in this example further frustrating customers by not using the technology effectively.

The background
I came to America for the Apple World Wide Developer Conference flying with United Airlines. The plan was to fly Manchester to Washington, Washington to Pheonix, Tuscon to San Francisco, San Francisco to Newark, Newark to Manchester. Lots of flights but I’d made sure that on every leg of the journey there was plenty of time for connections and was genuinely very excited.

What went wrong?
Now we all know that things do sometimes go wrong and sometimes it’s about how companies respond that can make or break the situation.

The first flight was great, we landed in Washington and everything seemed spot on. Unfortunately there was a short delay (2 hours) on the Pheonix flight but that wasn’t going to be a problem as we would still land in time for me to get the last shuttle to Tuscon.

We boarded the plane – unfortunately due to a technical fault we were left sitting on the Tarmac for 3 hours while engineers attempted to fix the issue. It became apparent that the fault could not be fixed so we were asked to get off the plane and head to an alternative gate a 30 minute walk away. We then boarded the new plane and were kept waiting a further hour while bags were transferred before finally taking off – landing in Pheonix around 7 hours late meaning I had to sleep in the airport for 4 hours as I had missed the last shuttle. My 24 hour journey became 35 hours

The flight from Tuscon to San Francisco was without incident.

Returning home was an entirely different story. First I arrived at San Francisco to be told that my baggage was over weight. Now this seemed odd to me as it was the same weight as when I arrived in the US – I hadn’t added anything to the suitcase.

The flight was initially delayed by an hour due to storms in Newark, they boarded us onto the plane and then made us wait on the Tarmac until takeoff. They openly admitted that we were going to travel in a smaller plane than originally planned but the jet they put us onto was not a suitable size for a 6 hour flight in my opinion.

On the way into Newark we were put into a holding pattern for 45 minutes before landing some 90 minutes late. The connecting flight to Manchester had also been delayed (i guess fortunately) by around 2 hours resulting in an extended travel time back to the uk.

Flights get delayed all the time?

This is true, and is not what has promoted this article; throughout my whole experience with United I have found them unreceptive, and unwilling to offer customer assistance and support.

What I expected vs what I got

I thought it worth while to publish some constructive feedback for United that may assist them in making sure that customers like me are happy in the future even if there is a delay.

1. Poor signage – on several occasions during the trip the airline failed to update the signs accurately often stating incorrect destinations on gates, or just not advising passengers what was going on. This just leads to frustration and confusion …. Get the simple things right.

2. Airline staff not present – when there is a delay we like to talk to someone in the know about what’s going on. My experience with united is that checking desks are typically unmanned with little or no information being posted. This leaves passengers frustrated and over time leads to angry customers – I witnessed one example of such frustration being taken out on a member of staff which could easily have been avoided.

3. Delayed in Washington for 6 hours meant that all of the passengers needed food. No one wanted to eat at 1am when we eventually took off so it would have been a nice gesture to offer passengers a meal voucher as compensation – nothing materialised.

4. United did offer a compensation of a reduced internal US flight to passengers on the Washington flight. Clearly no consideration here for international passengers. It would ave been better to ask passengers how they could help. I’d have been delighted if there had a shower available to use.

5. Don’t load passengers onto a plane until it’s ready t take off. Sitting on the tarmac is not a fun experience especially if its several hours before a long haul flight. If you are going to do this at least offer passengers a cup of coffee – it’s only polite!

6. This is where technology hits. United have a Twitter account @united that claims to offer customer service to passengers. I tweeted @united several times during my trip and found that they tended to ignore me. Now I admit I maybe sent a few to many tweets, but the irony is that the more they ignored me the more I tweeted. If you are going to use social media as a means of customer service then you need to engage your passengers; asking what they can do to help and then ignoring the response only infuriates people. I would have settled for an apology, maybe a free cup of coffee?

They asked me what they could do so I tweeted back “give me an upgrade, or a refund” at least answer and say that isn’t possible and offer an alternative – as it stands I have the impression they were only paying me lip service and never actually intended to do anything which begs the question why are they using twitter at all?

7. If a bag is heavy on the way out charge for it then ….. If you carry the bag out of the country you surely have a duty to bring it back?

8. Always make sure there is a meal on a long haul flight. There wasn’t one from San Francisco to Newark – 7 hours including the delay is to long to go without food.

Now I’m not saying that doing all of the above would have made me happy about the delay; but I would have walked away thinking that @united had done all they could to make the situation better and that they cared about me as a customer.

As it stands I’ve left thinking that @United Airlines actually couldn’t give a stuff about me or how their failures have impacted my trip. I’ll certainly avoid flying with @united in the future and I wold strongly encourage others to do the same.

Maybe the true test of United’s customer service is how they respond to this article. Will they take on board the suggestions? Issue an apology? Admit they got it wrong? Do @United actually care?

Have you had any good or bad airline experiences? Maybe you to have flown United – what was your experience? Comment on the blog or tweet @United to let them know!

WWDC: A view of the world

Posted on June 14, 2013     Leave a Comment

So WWDC is drawing to a close. I thought it worth drawing together my thoughts on what has been an incredible week for technology, innovation and for Apple.

1. iOS 7

This week Apple announced the all new iOS7. Having now been at the keynote where it was unveiled and having discussed it with several people I think it would be fair to say that the general reaction is very positive. The new UI is slick, it offers developers new opportunities to do some cool new things with their apps, and (although others criticise this) it learns from the best of what others have done. In my view, if a feature, or design element works well on another platform there is no reason why Apple re-invent it and incorporate it into iOS. I do agree with the statement made by Tim Cook that this is “The Biggest Change to iPhone since the iPhone” and I applaud Apple for that because it will clearly change the way we think about and use the iPhone – it does however, kind of leave you wondering, what next?

 

2. OSX Mavericks

It has some cool new features, i’d argue its nothing to really write home about though. Tags are going to helpful, and I also like the ability to be able to use tabs within finder – the most helpful thing from my own perspective is the multi display improvements but i’m very conscious that this will only really be of great benefit to power users. For me that’s where the functional excitement ends – if the battery life improvements really do come to fruition then of course that will be useful but i’m still not convinced that its worth all the hype.

 

3. The stats

My experience this week has reinforced how far Apple are ahead of the competition especially in terms of the App Development market. The key statistic that has stuck in my mind this week is that Apple have now paid out $10 billion to developers which is more than all of the other platforms combined. From the standpoint of a developer it is much more attractive to build apps for iOS as opposed to other platforms and that suggests that the App ecosystem offered by Apple is much more sustainable in the long term. I doubt a developer conference for one of the other platforms would sell out in 71 seconds – what do you think?

 

4. Do Apple need Jobs?

I continue to be a little worried for Apple in that I still don’t see anything “new” and if i’m honest I haven’t seen anything new since 2010 when Apple released the iPad. Apple have enjoyed an excellent run over the last 7 years first wowing the world with the iPhone and then repeating the performance with the launch of iPad – the time is now ripe though for something brand new, something exciting, functional and different. If that doesn’t happen next year than in my view Apple are going to start loosing some of their momentum. Within Jobs leading the way in terms of idea generation I fear that Apple could loose their way.

 

All of that said I have had the most amazing week here at WWDC, it is an absolute must attend for any developer who is serious about developing for iPhone, iPad or Mac – if you want to discuss my view on how iOS7 is going to change the world tweet me @stevewestgarth

 

Data Access in America

Posted on June 13, 2013     Leave a Comment

You may remember that last year I blogged about the costs associated with Data Access in Europe. Coming to America I knew that using my mobile wouldn’t be cheap; or at least that was my assumption before I travelled. I have, however, come up with some innovative solutions that have surprised me as to how cost effective communicating transatlantic can be.

1. O2 TuGo

My mobile phone contract in the UK is with O2, thanks to the new TuGo app I can make and receive calls and send text messages from anywhere in the world via wifi. They charge me as if I were using my handset in the UK so any call time or texts comes out of my contract minutes. If you haven’t found the app yet or want more information take a look at this website.

2. An American Sim Card

Fortunately I had remembered to ensure that both my iPad and Mobile phone were unlocked so I have been able to purchase American Sim Cards for the devices. This obviously makes data access significantly cheaper; unlimited data on my mobile phone costs around $3 per day.

What surprised me more though was that for an extra $10 I am able to make unlimited calls to UK landlines.

Both of the above solutions has made me realise how far behind we are in the UK in terms of data and calling plans on our mobile devices. I called O2 before travel and was told that using my phone abroad would cost more that £1 per minute to make calls and around £0.90 per minute to receive calls. It seems to me that there is something amiss here – why is it cost effective for American carriers to offer reasonable calling plans but not for UK carriers.

What is your experience of calling and using data from abroad?

A View Worth Admiring

Posted on June 11, 2013     Leave a Comment

photo

I just couldn’t resist sharing this. This is my favourite photo of WWDC so far. You will also love this panorama 

Meeting People through the use of Technology

Posted on June 11, 2013     Leave a Comment

When I arrived in San Francisco on Sunday I didn’t really know anyone and had no plans for the day. I had been using a great app called Glassboard to share ideas and experiences with other attendees so posted a message asking if anyone else was at a loose end.

Within a few moments a message popped up from another developer also free and very quickly we ended up heading out for some lunch.

A similar thing happened on Monday, someone posted on Glassboard looking for people to have dinner with, within 30 minutes 12 people had congregated in the foyer of Moscane West and we all headed out for an Indian.

In both of these cases technology has enabled me to become more social, had I not had access to Glassboard I might well have ended up eating dinner alone and wouldn’t have made new and exciting connections.

It seems to me that social media is often viewed in he wrong way. People often consider that technology is causing people to become less social and live their lives online but the more I use social centric technology the more I realise that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Has technology helped you to be more social recently?

Why do we bother to queue?

Posted on June 10, 2013     Leave a Comment

This week is Apples word wide developer conference in San Francisco. I’m here for the week, it’s 3am and I’ve just joined the queue for the keynote speech (7 hours to wait).

It’s got me thinking about why people queue in this technology savvy era. The videos from this conference will be available online, it’s rumoured that they will be released during the conference itself to all registered apple developers. Given that information why didn’t I just stay at home and watch the conference online?

For me, I think I’m here for the atmosphere and the buzz. We as humans as social animals and we like to share the experience with others.

This raises some interesting questions as to how fulfilling social media really is ….. Can online communication ever be as effective and fulfilling as actually being together with other like minded individuals?