AJ Schrier - AJ Schrier

Thursday

Aug192010

Facebook Places: Cool, But Scary

Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 9:30PM

Well, Foursquare isn’t for the cool kids anymore.

Facebook Places is now out and in full force in their iPhone client and moble site. This seems like a logical step for a service that is not only 500 million users strong and growing, but as a site that’s previously been used for documentation of the user’s past life. Of course by “past” I’m referring to events that have occurred in the past several days. The location feature, however, is allowing for an even more immediate documentation of the user’s activities during a given day or night. Previously, this was limited to status updates and mobile image posting. Even with the immediate postings through mobile clients, making a complete documentation of an event utilizing all of the features and experience of the Facebook application requires some post production through the browser.

Excellent idea, right? Make the experience even more immediate and thorough than it already is? There can’t be anything wrong with that. Right?

... Right?

Well, along with seemingly every other major feature that has been rolled out there are it’s fair share of “Wait, why the hell is that doing that without asking me first” and “Dammit, this is really sketchy” moments. I’m looking at you, Beacon. You too, News Feed.

For the devil’s advocate portion of the evening, the service works well in integrating current services such as Foursquare and Gowalla into the service, not only reducing the effects of check in fatigue but presumably preserving the business models of each service. It doesn’t have to kill those services because those userbases don’t have to jump ship or even change their application settings.

However, Mr. Zuckerberg, et al. have created another reason for people to wonder when this whole opt-in principle will ever occur, if at all. If anything, it’s reinforced their fears. Users who check in to a given location are able to check their friends in to that location for them, similar to image tagging. The opt-out process for that particular feature, is just as frustrating as any other privacy setting on the site. There have been several blog posts on how to opt out of the service, and they are all LONG.

I’m interested to hear the stories of problems arising because of a user checking another in to a location that would be embarrassing, personally damaging, or the like. I also hope that this doesn’t take away from the lustre of the principle of check in services by weighing it down with erroneous posts and spammers.

I have high hopes in principle, but it still scares me just a little that it’s more of the same from Facebook.

AJ Schrier |

My Case Against the iPad

Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:46PM

I know this is a little late, but with the international release of the iPad imminent, there's a new set of people that are engaging in this debate as we speak. The conflict is the use case and necessity of the iPad in general, and has stretched into how the device affects the life cycle of personal computing. Everyone and their mother (literally, considering that Apple is marketing the device to the common consumer) seems to have their reasoning for wanting one or not, or why this is the cornerstone of mobile computing or the return of the Tablet PC or what have you.

I, personally, don't want one.

My reasoning differs from many others on the anti-iPad battlefield. And I bet that many of the people who would agree with my stance would disagree with my reasoning. Sure, I don't want to be locked to AT&T's 3G network (I own a Verizon Mifi), I want to be outside of the closed ecosystem of the iTunes Store (a la Android's ability to install apps outside of the Android Market) and that it's a luxury device (with the amount of media I own, I can only justify the $699 64GB model). The real reason I don't want one is Apple's pride and joy in the device: the interface.

Yep. That's right. I don't like the interface.

It's not that I don't like the touchscreen. I am an owner and daily user of an iPod touch, and I enjoy it wholeheartedly. However, the primary method of controlling the the on-screen controls is swiping my wrist without moving my finger or arm. In my interactions with the iPad, however, this use interface of the iPhone OS doesn't translate to the larger screen. Navigating the home screen with this method caused the screen to spring back, and of course long drag motions were impossible. In order to properly use the screen, it required me to move outside of my comfort zone. I know it sounds lazy, but that doesn't do it justice. It's better described as awkward.

I'm not discounting the device. I can't argue that it doesn't do things well. I'm sure that its a great device for video. In fact, its probably the only mobile device suitable for Netflix Instant Watch. That being said, the usability only differs slightly from the iPod touch or iPhone. It's dead in the water without a good 3G or Wifi connection. Take the connectivity away from any one of these three devices and their abilities are shockingly similar, especially with the wide variance in device pricing and monthly pricing for data.

What do you think? Am I weird? Lazy? Wrong?

AJ Schrier |