Q4 2014 review - reality

I had mentioned previously that I was quite excited about the new technology we were going to see in Q4 2014. While we’re not through Q4, enough has happened that its worth summarising things thus far.

 

• The successors to the Moto X and G were released; other than bigger screens, very little else has changed. Understandable, but slightly underwhelming. The Moto360 broke out too, and its distinguishing feature is that its round, and needs to be charged every evening. Hmmm. Again, underwhelming. Am I the only one who doesn’t really get this smart watch category ?
• The Nexus 6, which looks like its being made by Motorola, hasn’t broken cover yet - but its tipped to be even bigger. Yikes!
• The new iPad’s haven’t broken ground, but the iPhone 6’s have, and all the rumours were basically correct. Bravo to Apple on the Apple Watch, rumours of which have been floating but no leaks until release date, which is very impressive. Not as impressive as the watch itself, IMHO. I don’t see the point. It will be the best of a pointless category.
• We had the iOS 8 reboot; and boy oh boy, are we still rebooting. It feels like a series of Microsoft Windows updates. Unreliable, buggy and borked several peoples devices (at least, 8.0.1 did)
• We’re still waiting for Intel to hurry up and release those Broadwell chips. Come on guys, lets hustle a bit. The buzz around the 14nm production process had better yield some damn good results in terms of battery life.

 

Overall, thoroughly underwhelming.

Q4 2014

The last quarter of 2014 (which we’re effectively heading into now) should be interesting from a technology perspective! Its weird, but you get the sense that manufacturers keep all their thunder for Q3/Q4 in order to capitalise on the Thanksgiving/December rush. I would have expected them to shift it earlier to let the market settle and allow smart buyers to plan (these things cumulatively are not cheap after all). But living in the US, I can now see that most of it is catering to the impulsive (and generally misinformed public), and no human impulse is quite so strong as the good feeling you get from perceived savings from a sale - even if its completely artificial. I am expecting to see;

• a follow up to the Moto X and Moto G, both really solid handsets which seem to indicate to me, along with the Moto360 smart watch at least, that Motorola’s mobility division got its groove back (before Google decided to flog them off to Lenovo - lets hope this wasn’t a few hit wonder rush). I doubt I’ll order either (simply because there is nothing wrong with the ones I have), but if you’re looking for a solid Android device, these are pretty awesome; well priced, decent specs and solid build quality! Also relatively unmolested from the manufacturer
• a Nexus 6 running the rebooted Android L. Loads of rumours, no facts. So not going to speculate
• the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini with Retina 2 and two versions of the iPhone. Again, too many rumours so not going to speculate. To be honest, Apple’s announcements have become pretty stale in this arena and frankly uninspiring. I’m not expecting this to change with this slew; faster, more RAM (maybe) and bigger. Not inspiring
• an Apple Watch - for such a giant in the personal consumer electronics space to not have a wearable is insane; these rumours have been running for more than a year now, and given that all of their rivals have launched, the Cupertino behemoth would be insane to not deliver something to the market - but its going to have to be rather special for me to consider it (thats not to say it won’t sell millions; it will even if its garbage, because it’ll be the “best garbage you’ve ever seen”)
• reboots of the OS X and iOS for computing and mobile devices respectively
• Mass production of Broadwell-based Intel processors. Its time for a new notebook for me (run through the 3 year cycle), and its requiring all of my restraint to wait for the new processor architecture to hit Apple’s devices. Broadwell-based Retina 13” Pro, here we come. While I like the profile of an Air, it just simply does’t have the juice I would like, even though it only gets booted up when not at the office - and with the new architecture, it should comfortably whip the Air for battery life compared to what I’m using now

 

So overall, an exciting time!

Gazelle : Massive thumbs up!

I spoke of the site Gazelle in an earlier post; essentially an automated market place for trading in used electronics. I mentioned I was going to use it to trade in two phones. I had logged in and they had made two offers (one for each phone), which I accepted and that kick started the next phase of the process.

 

Two boxes arrived at the address I specified, suitable to ship the phones back in. Instructions were clear and unambiguous, and everything required (from the postage label to a sticker to seal the box) was included. I posted the boxes back on Monday, was notified by e-mail Thursday morning, and paid Thursday evening! Now that is prompt. A great service :-)

I get it, but I don't like it

Sitting in Santa Clara, living the iTunes Match dream, I get it. Streaming media, all devices can see all content, lets live in the "Cloud", etc, etc. I get it. But what Apple and Google seem to forget, ironically, is that most of the world isn't hyper-connected. Networks do go offline, and mobile networks aren't as reliable or as cheap as you would think everywhere in the world.

 

I say this is ironic, because while I'm sitting behind a pretty decent connection (50Mbps cable) here in the US, most of the engineers who built these products come from countries with the same, or worse, data connectivity problems that we have in South Africa, or with prohibitive costs.

 

There must be a harder, but more elegant, solution to this problem. Solving the worlds connectivity problems is going to take decades, and in spite of the great effort of initiatives like the Alliance for Affordable Internet, often times telco gear is literally ripped from the ground faster than its laid.

 

Stop pretending connectivity is ubiquitous and cheap, smart Silicon Valley people. Try harder!

Wells Fargo : no EFT's greater than $750 per day ?

I decided to use a bank called Wells Fargo when I arrived here; got an account opened up in a few hours, and was dealt with by a friendly and helpful banker. I've been pretty impressed with them, up until now. Its time to pay rent, and as you would, I ask the realtor to give me his bank, account number and branch code (in the US, a routing number). He correctly and accurately does this, and then starts the incredulity; there is no way to add an electronic payment / recipient to the banking site.

 

I phoned the call centre, expecting the answer to archaically be that I would have to come into a branch to set up a payment, only to be told "You can't make electronic payments larger than $750 per day using our system(s). For larger payments, we send the payee a cheque which they'll get in 5 business days". He was quite proud of their turn around time. What ? That must be the silliest thing I've heard of. The realtor alas confirms that this is true with Wells Fargo. What a fail :-(

Network locked phones

I and much of the IT industry in South Africa don't give ICASA much credit; there are plenty of complaints about them. But I can admire one thing they did; in 2001, phones that were sold were to be network unlocked.

 

What a big difference that made. We in South Africa take this for granted, but here in the USA, which you would expect to be a liberal and open market, phones by default are network locked. You have to generally pay more (to be expected), and wait longer (which you wouldn't expect), to get an unlocked phone. This is an incredibly frustrating process, which is usually made harder by the network operators themselves throwing up all kinds of false and artificial barriers. How long you have used the phone on the network, the type of service you have, etc, etc. See this article for an example by T-Mobile.

 

For once, our regulator did the right thing early.

 

Update: looks like the Obama administration agrees, according to this article.

Selling your iOS devices

Well, since the iPhone 5S and 5C were announced, there will be a plethora of older iOS devices available for sale. I have a 5, and my wife has a 4S, and I'd like to use this opportunity to upgrade to the newer devices, primarily to get supported LTE band support. It also never hurts to have the latest/greatest new devices :-)

So what to do with the old devices ? I'm going to give Gazelle a try. Essentially, you tell them what device you have, and they then ship a box to you which you put your device into, and at the other end out pops a cash offer to you. This seems to be the most effective and easy way to trade in your old devices.

 

I've submitted my requests for two devices, so lets see how the service works.

 

Google Voice

Call aggregation or simultaneous ring are possible if your carrier plays nicely. Most don't; I'm not sure why, but I'm not familiar with too many companies who have this at the core of their value proposition.

 

Google Voice does offer this; formerly known as GrandCentral, the service allows you to present a single number, which

• can receive text messages (SMS) and deliver them to all the capable devices and/or e-mail
• can receive voice calls, and ring multiple devices allowing you to answer the call on the most convenient one
• switch from one phone to another mid-call, as well as record calls
• provides a single voicemail service, which can forward the voice message via e-mail and transcribe it to text

 

In addition, it allows you to make international calls at lower rates, as a pseudo calling card / VoIP service. I've installed it and will start using it actively, if only to mask my true mobile number and allow for a single voicemail across office and desk phones.

Porting in 15 minutes

So back in South Africa, we're used to a number port taking a day or three, and usually failing or breaking. We've all heard the horror stories of the number in limbo, where the port failed or didn't go through. Not having personally experienced that, and ported twice, I was curious to see what the US experience was like.

 

I had initially taken out a T-Mobile voice and data service, having found their rates to be really good ($50 for unlimited voice, data and text) and more importantly, having a flat $10 service for unlimited land line and SMS to South Africa. But, their coverage in and around Silicon Valley has been average to mediocre, and often I would be without signal when deep inside a shopping centre, restaurant or building.

 

I decided to port to AT&T,  who have a mobile share plan which I decided to use. What a great experience - the porting that is. 15 minutes, all done :-) Now that is slick.

Bank accounts and car leases

So, a tale of good service, and a story that has an undecided ending. 

 

We opened up bank accounts with Wells Fargo, in the Mountain View downtown. The process, while requiring a lot of processes, was painless and made effortless by the very gracious bank staff. Although it took 2 hours, we left the bank with debit cards and cheque books, ready to transact as locals.

 

On the car front, things are a little shakier. We rented a Chevrolet Suburban, probably the largest SUV I've ever seen. It's the vehicle on the right in the picture below, taken at a stop at the local Sunnyvale market.

 

I had arranged to purchase two Volvo's before we left South Africa, an XC60 and an S60. The pick up of the XC was flawless; its a great car, very comfortable and the handover was very efficiently done.

 

The S was a similar experience, until I parked it after driving it. As I got out of the car, I noticed scratches on the bumper, which I hadn't caused.

Then, after a closer inspection, I noticed scratches on the textile B pillar of the vehicle, which I again didn't cause.

The dealer has been informed, so lets see how they deal with it and rectify the situation.

 

As an aside, we've also had a lot of fun taking the children to park's, which are plentiful and very well equipped. The kids are loving them :-)

Moving to Silicon Valley, California!

So, if you're wondering why this blog has been a little quiet, its because my wife and I have been executing on a rather bold plan; a move to Silicon Valley!

 

Work starts tomorrow, Tuesday the 3rd of September. I hope to post more as I settle down and get into the swing of things.