Apple TV: the glue which binds the ecosystem?

Interesting that Gordon Kelly at TrustedReviews.com thinks the "just one more thing" announcement at the anticipated iPad 3 announcement may also be around a significantly enhanced Apple TV:

Apple TV is the glue that will once again bind all Apple's products together. In an age of Cloud Computing Apple TV is the product which will provide the role of iTunes, the central hub that had to be smashed as Apple finally got with the times with iCloud. The vision is devilishly simple: content via iTunes, control via iDevices and Siri and connection via AirPlay. The integration of apps would be nice, but with AirPlay Mirroring in iOS and now OS X Mountain Lion it seems an unnecessary additional headache to give developers. 

Roll on first week March...

Osfoora for Twitter

Having tried Twitterific, Tweetdeck and the native Twitter client on the Mac desktop, I can't say I've been satisfied with any twitter client on Mac.  They've all been tolerable, the former 2 less than Twitter itself.  Clearly, I would love the Tapbots guys to make a Tweetbots for Mac and I'm sure lots of fans of their iOS products have asked for this.

In the meantime, I'm trying Osfoora. Good UX and feels intuitive. One plus if the fact can have multiple windows of twitter accounts to display and use. It's expensive at nearly £3, but worth a go.

The drivers for iTV

Really interesting view from Mark Sigal in relation to the speculation surrounding the proposed Apple iTV where he dismisses the conventional notion that Apple will release a HDTV product:

"Conversely, what if you could buy a set-top box that plugged into your modern, big-screen TV, and: 

• It just worked.
• Had every channel you currently get on cable.
• You could run those same channels as apps on your other iOS devices.
• Your TV could be controlled by any of those same iOS devices.
• You could upgrade to the newest version of the set-top box every 2-3 years (on a carrier-subsidized basis).

Who wouldn't buy this device? And why wouldn't the cable and satellite providers be all over this? After all, does anyone seriously like their set-top box?

As a sanity check, a carrier subsidy on a sub-$500 device is meaningful, whereas a carrier subsidy on a $1,500+ device like a TV set is nothing.

Wait! But, didn't Steve Jobs say that he'd like to make an integrated TV set?

Even if he did say that, do you really think that in his final official act as Apple spokesman, Jobs would telegraph to the world his company's grand intentions in the living room?"

Valid points indeed which may answer the go to market questions which Steve Jobs famously outlined at D8: AllThingsD. Perhaps I had this all wrong. Perhaps our attention should really be focused on a new set top box model now that the v2 Apple TV seems about to be replaced.

It's no wonder

When an opportunity came up to upgrade to an iPhone 4S and remain cost neutral, I took it. I mainly expected a slight performance bump given the reviews I'd read.

When I went from the 3G to the iPhone 4, it was a major bump.  Responsiveness, multi-tasking and all that good stuff felt satisfying.  So perhaps on this upgrade, my expectations were lower.

I skim read a number of reviews and thought that the only thing I thought I'd enjoy getting to grips with was Siri.

Surprisingly, I was wrong.  And on a variety of counts:

1. Firstly, compared to its predecessor, the 4S is much more smoother and fast. App loading and switching are all markedly quicker than before.
2. The screen is brighter and I see a better white balance and colour clarity compared to the 4.
3. Wifi performance now consistently picks up 28-30mbps on my fibre link.
4. Web pages, even on 3G load much quicker.  
5. Listening to Spotify streams and loading RSS feeds or web pages, feels seamless. Heck, even the audio seems more polished, but that could be for other reasons.
6. The cell signal for voice and data is a lot better.  Taking the same journey everyday to my office, I notice the higher bars on the voice side  I can read pages and tweet in places where the 3G signal on the 4 was borderline.

I could go on, but feel that's not needed. The only downside, is that the battery sucks down noticeably quicker. Same usage pattern, but I'm reaching for a recharge when I get home in the evenings. I doubt, it would get me through a day of travel the way the 4 or most Blackberry's would.

My experience seems to match up with AnandTechs deeply technical review.

Same appearance, but much better phone overall.  It's no wonder it sold by a record bucket load for Apple in FY11 Q4.

The trusted advisor

In my day job, I work in an internal services provider scenario, providing account + relationship management services to senior IT management in a range of countries. Managing service escalations is one part of managing business relationships in IT.

Over the last week, the specific escalation I had was an interesting one.  It related to a problem one of my countries was having was with their end-users when using the global VPN service from client or home locations.  When connected, applications were hanging. Our incident management and technical teams worked through the entire stack of infrastructure on the data centre hosting side. From networks to VPN gateways and to centrally hosted business apps - zippo problems or issues. This was not surprising, because all the other countries who use the service were not having any issues whatsoever. And there were a lot of other countries.

Due to the board level attention on the issue with the customer, the IT Director in the country piled the pressure on me to ensure the technical teams looked more extensively and engaged vendor support on the VPN solution.  At first, I was resistant because I saw it as a local issue the country needed to fix (based on the analysis at that point in time). One of my companies corporate values is putting yourself in the other persons shoes. It then occurred to me the enormous pressure the IT Director was facing and how he needed his board to understand that his country team were working intensively with my team to resolve this, and everything necessary was being done to tackle this effectively. It reminded me that in being a relationship manager, that at times, I take an independent view of what my service organization is doing or not doing. I have a responsibility to challenge and organise assistance to ultimately help my customer, regardless of what the initial facts suggest of whose problem that might be.  In that moment, being a trusted advisor.

To date, the escalation is still ongoing and lots of technical investigation has been collaboratively achieved by ruling out lots of unlikely causes. Most importantly, everyone involved has been fully engaged and fascinated in understanding the root causes and resolving the problem. My mental shift from representing the service organisation as the relationship manager only to being a trusted advisor of the customer and collaborator with the technical teams, enhanced my relationships across the board.

Lesson learned? Check your mentality on how you can help your customers, even when conventionally, it suggests that there's nothing you can do. Being a collaborator and trusted advisor for a customer adds value and develops deeper relationships.