Back in the day, I was a PC guy with some UNIX history.  I made fun of Mac users with their non-multi-threaded OS and silly smiley faces.  Then came OSX.  Having seen the NEXT boxes that they were vaguely descended from, I was at least preliminarily intrigued.

Fast forward a bit to my first G4.  I was working on a Apple-related product at the time, and we needed some test machines.  That box was a thing of beauty, as soon as I added a 2-button mouse.  Sturdy construction, easy access to the insides to add new drives, and solid as a rock.

For various reasons (don’t ask) I needed to zip up thousands of files.  When batching the process on a PC running XP, I could get through a few hundred files before the machine became unstable.  On the Mac, with a quick bit of Applescript, I could run ALL the files in one pass.  Nice.

I added a Mac Mini a year or so later for some other projects.  Nice little box.  I also bought an early generation iPod, which was awesome.

Most recently I bought a MacBook running Parallels and Windows XP right alongside OSX.  It’s a great little laptop.  It bugs me that the built in mouse only has one button, but I’ll get over it.  Built in Wireless N, Bluetooth, 100Base-T, decent drive etc etc.  And already demonstrably more reliable than the Sony laptop I owned previously.

Apple do a lot of things right.  Great design.  Good branding.  Solid products (mostly) and decent support.

But here’s my beef with Apple.  If you sign up for Apple gear, you are irrevocably committed to paying Apple Tax.  I don’t mean the price delta on their hardware — it’s really not that different to an equivalent quality PC at this point.  What I mean is the stupid BS they pull that is UTTERLY irrelevant to the design, form or function of the equipment.

Some examples:

1)  My Macbook has the truly fantastic mag-lock powersupply.  For the unfamiliar, it means that the power cord connects to the laptop via a magnetic connector.  If the cord gets stuck, tripped over, pulled or otherwise messed with the cable comes unplugged without harming the laptop.  I’ve seen multiple laptops killed by power cable incidents, my own included. The other fantastically cool thing about the power supply is that you can pop off the two pin plug and replace it with a longer grey power cable, doubling the length of the power cord.  Coooooool.

But a couple of days ago, user error lead to one of the pins on the grey power cord being broken off.
  Now this is basically a standard power cord, but one end has a proprietary Apple connector.  I stopped at the Apple store to buy a replacement.  They DO NOT SELL that part.  If you need a new cable, you have to buy A WHOLE NEW POWERSUPPLY for $79!  Everything else works fine — I just need the one cord, but now I have to buy a whole damn powersupply.  Being cheap, I’ll sacrifice form for function and just cut the plug off the cable and replace it…

2)  The MacBook has a Mini-DVI socket for video out.  For whatever reason, adding a full size video socket couldn’t happen.  So I get to buy a wacky little cable just to get video out on my laptop.  My other Macs have regular DVI out, and come with a DVI to VGA converter that’s basically an inline chunk of plastic.  So I figured I could just buy a MiniDVI to DVI cable  and use my existing DVI to VGA converter to make sure I could plug in to a VGA setup.  NO.  Apple tweaked the DVI out on their regular Macs so that it’s almost but not quite a regular DVI socket.  The only item impacted is THE CONVERTER.  Can’t use the converter with the MiniDVI cable, even though everything is an Apple product.   So I had to buy TWO separate converters, MiniDVI to DVI and MiniDVI to VGA.  $20 EACH.

3)  My iPod battery died.  I don’t even recall how ridiculous the replacement cost was.  Not to mention that it has to be sent away for a week or so.

There are MANY other examples of Apple doing this — 2 year AT&T contract and a send-away battery replacement on the iPhone for example.  If I were being picky, I’d add the fact that I always need to buy a two button mouse too.

But the Apple Tax is a feature they just don’t seem to be able to let go of.  They act like some kind of desperate huckster always fishing for an extra buck.

This may seem like griping (it is), but I don’t get it.  For me, it tarnishes an otherwise great experience.

Look at the math:  I paid $1300 for my MacBook.  The powersupply and video cables represent an Apple Tax of about 10% on the purchase.  The iPod Apple Tax is more like 20%.

Why do they do this?   I’m fine with paying a modest premium to hang with the cool kid on the block, but the nefarious Apple Tax needs to stop.

Categories: Old Posts
241 Comment »http://blog.nicholasnapp.com/2007/07/20/its-a-love-hate-thing-aka-the-apple-tax/It%27s+a+Love+Hate+thing+a.k.a.+The+Apple+Tax2007-07-20+23%3A21%3A00NickN

a.k.a.  How disconnected are you from your customers?

I relocated from AZ to NC last year with my family.  I grew up in the UK and my wife grew up in Puerto Rico .  So inevitably, we travel quite a bit by plane.

We all know that flying mostly sucks.  Personally, I’ve had consistently good experiences with Southwest and British Airways.  But there are two airlines in particular that I will no longer fly, unless I have absolutely no other choice: Delta & American Airlines.  I’ll even pay more money (and I am CHEAP) not to fly them.

My experiences with these two have been so bad, they actually blend in to one giant ball of suck — ADD Airlines: We Suck To Fly. 

Some recent experiences:

1. Flight time moved up by 1 hour with NO notification (they had two cell numbers and an email address but "couldn’t contact us").
2. Zero accommodation for the screw up and an 8 hour delay (with a baby in tow — fun!) except for two crappy meal vouchers worth $7 each
3. No pre-boarding of any kind
4. Lost our stroller — no help or compensation offered
5. Broke our stroller
6. Refused to heat water for baby formula
7. Repeatedly ignored requests for warm water (for baby formula)
8. Insisted we not change a diaper outside the bathroom, but the bathroom had no changing table.  The attendant suggested we "use the lid of the toilet" to change the diaper.  Oh and it was a small #1 not a nasty #2 and we had the whole row of seats to ourselves.

This is just a sample, not the whole list. 

I was reminded today of reasons why these companies both really suck
(my blog, my personal opinion, free retraction with every C&D…) because ADD Airlines sent me an email.

Apparently ADD would like to expand their routes in Chicago.  Apparently they’d like me, as a valued (!?) customer, to sign a petition to help them expand.

Personally, I am more likely to give birth to sextuplets than help them in their hour of need.

Now I get that they don’t know my not so secret identity as Really Irritated Customer #1,000,001, but:

(a)  How can they POSSIBLY be unaware that they have a HUGE customer service problem
(b)  How can they POSSIBLY expect a blind nothing-in-it-for-me email to generate a response
and
(c)  How can they POSSIBLY fly planes when their heads obviously are not, shall we say, exposed to the world?

You don’t even have to admit that ADD has treated me and millions of other poor saps with the tenderness of a Militant Nun.  Just offer me a little bribe and MAYBE I’ll think about helping you out.

And you know they spent plenty of money on this campaign.

Perhaps they should consider connecting with their customers for real, actually listening to their problems (none of this can be news, surely) and FIXING THEIR OTHER PROBLEMS before asking for help.

P.S.  Go Southwest!  You’re kicking ADDs butt by connecting with your customers and giving a damn.  Nyah nyah nyah nyah.

P.P.S.  The actual airline with the Chicago request was AA, in case you were wondering…

Categories: Old Posts
23No Comments »http://blog.nicholasnapp.com/2007/07/19/do-you-mind-if-we-piss-you-off-before-you-help-us-out/Do+you+mind+if+we+piss+you+off+before+you+help+us+out%3F2007-07-19+23%3A46%3A00NickN

In a previous post I had highlighted the shortcomings of a mystery institution I referred to as the ReallyBigBank of America.  In a nutshell, I switched to Wachovia because they were prepared to bend over backwards to help me out, whereas RBB of A could have cared less.

But something weird happened just a few days ago.  I got a call.  From a guy named Doug at Wachovia.  As soon as he said who he was, I was holding my breath waiting for a sales pitch on credit protection, personal loans, life insurance, house insurance, pet insurance… whatever.  BUT NO!  Doug was calling to see (and i quote) "If I was happy with my experience setting up a new account with Wachovia"!!!  And, "to let me know that ATM cards had already been sent out and your checkbook will ship later this week".

Of course, I initially assumed that this was merely patter to get me ready for a sales pitch.  But that was it.  No pitch, just Customer Service.

And that deserves a Tip O’ the Hat.  I’m impressed!

Categories: Old Posts
22No Comments »http://blog.nicholasnapp.com/2007/07/18/it-aint-natural/It+ain%27t+natural...2007-07-18+15%3A06%3A00NickN

We see a pattern in Data Organization, and it’s one we hope to change.

It goes something like this…  New tools for organizing data come on line.  People start using the tool.  For the first few months or so, everything is wonderful.  And then the volume of data reaches some kind of critical mass, and the efficiency of the tool starts to decrease rapidly.

In the days of 16k RAM packs and tape backups, I used to think it was just a matter of storage space.  But space is the least of our problems today…

Take Wiki’s for example.  I love Wiki’s.  I’ve set up and used a bunch of them.  But once they get to a certain size, Wiki Fatigue sets in.  It becomes hard to find the data you’re looking for.  You can’t figure out where someone on your team has put something.  The organizational utility of the tool breaks down…  In the worst cases, you’ve created a data Black Hole that sucks up information…  And almost nothing escapes from a Black Hole…

And then there’s email.  Almost no-one on the planet has an organized inbox.  We all lose stuff in email all the time, from messages to attachments to updates we’ve made to attachments.  Another Black Hole.

Local hard drives?  Network folders?  The list goes on.  Any typical corporation is littered with disparate disconnected data silos, many of which turn in to Black Holes of one kind or another.  And the pattern just keeps repeating.  After you’ve used a tool for long enough and added enough data, it inevitably gets less and less efficient.  And that usually leads to a new tool, which is great for a while until…

It’s time for that to stop.

Categories: Old Posts
21No Comments »http://blog.nicholasnapp.com/2007/07/17/how-many-black-holes-have-you-helped-create-today/How+many+Black+Holes+have+you+helped+create+today%3F2007-07-17+18%3A47%3A00NickN

Like any entrepreneur, I am often far too close to what I’m working on.  The most common result is the glazed/confused expression on people’s faces when I explain what I’m up to.  Fortunately (IMO) , my co-founders seem to share my taste in cool-aid, so within the company at least we all more or less make sense to each other.  But third parties take a bit more work…

Our rather excellent Advisory Board has consistently (and appropriately) given me a hard time about this as I write and re-write our business plan and pitch.  Steve and Sam have both been especially merciless — thank you gentlemen!

I feel as though we’ve finally reached a point where we can explain ourselves to normal folks without inducing too much glazing, and the current incarnation of the business plan finally reflects that.

Having written a fair volume of copy, plans and other documents in my time, I’m well aware that heavily revised documents tend to suffer from typo creep… Things slip in and don’t get caught by the author.  On Friday, it was time to call in the ultimate proof reader, my Mum…  She’s reasonably computer literate, uses email, eBay and a variety of Microsoft Office products, but she’s also been a lifelong admin person and is excellent with spelling and grammar.

Apart from some funny Americanisms that are now firmly part of my vocabulary, the document passed with mostly flying colors.  But what was interesting was the conversation that ensued afterwards.

First of all, the plan made sense to her.  Now of course I’ve been on about this for a year or so now, so she had some background, but it was good to hear that the plan seemed to be in readable English.

But then she shared some recent experience that made a lot of sense within the context of what we do.  The gist of it was this (Mum: please excuse the paraphrasing).  A non-profit she had worked for had gained a computer for every member of staff.  While everyone was glad to have a computer, they had an organizational nightmare on their hands because everything was stored locally and everyone had their own way of organizing their data, ranging from a fairly sophisticated hierarchy of folders to "saving everything in C".  This lead to some real problems when they needed to collaborate, or when they needed to access data without the author being present.

Now in the not too distant past, administrators tended to be the creators of documents within companies, and they certainly had control of most if not all of the information within a company.  Managers would  dictate letters etc to their Secretaries and Administrators, who would then create the documents, go through an approval cycle, send the document to its destination and file a copy.

So the group that created the documents for the whole company also filed and organized them.  But they did so as a unified team with a common system and set of goals.

Since administrators had experience with this sort of thing, they could quickly create efficient filing systems for all the documents.  Once a document was created and stored, they’d act as gatekeepers.  Anyone who needed the document would just ask an administrator.  And it was usually in one of just a few filing cabinets.

Since the authors controlled the organizational system it was a nice closed loop.  The volume of data wasn’t that large and nobody really minded having to work with an admin, because it sure beat learning to type and figuring out how to file things…

Fast forward to today.  Almost no-one has a Secretary (in the traditional sense) any more and everyone is an author.  The volume of data has exploded, but company-wide, there are no gatekeepers to turn to.  There is no common system based on common goals (unless you’ve spent a fortune on a Content Management System).  And a handful of filing cabinets just isn’t going to get the job done anymore.

So one of the side-effects of the computer is that we’ve all become our own admins. 

If you’re like me, you have a way you like to organize your files, and that method works for you.  But I can state with some certainty that my system would not work for 90% of the folks out there.  So if I want to collaborate with someone else with today’s tools, I have four choices:

1. Force everyone else to use my system
2. Suck it up and use someone else’s system
3. Agree on a compromise system that all parties hate to some degree
4. Give up on organization and do it all by email — let the inbox sort it all out

Now (1) is great for the ego — flex those CEO muscles!  But it leads to a less than ideal solution for everyone involved except me.  (2) is bad for me, and bad for anyone else that wasn’t the creator of the system.  (3) sucks for everyone equally — this is a win because no-one is happy and we have a common drop in productivity .  Then there’s (4), and plenty of companies work that way.

We think there’s a much better way to do this: let everyone organize their data however they want, but if two or more folks have to collaborate don’t force them all to use the same system.

And it’s nice to know that even your Mum can find a use for the product you’re building…

Categories: Old Posts
20No Comments »http://blog.nicholasnapp.com/2007/07/16/whered-my-secretary-go/Where%27d+my+Secretary+go%3F2007-07-16+15%3A25%3A00NickN