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Saving PC sales

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So today I’m reading that Dell may be stepping away from the consumer PC arena. What could a prospective PC retailer do to save sales?

While I’ll be ranting about Canonical, Ubuntu, Linux and GNOME a lot, please note that this is just a mention of a possible platform a device maker could have opted for. Same goes for Dell: I’m talking about them, but it mostly applies to others. And what I’m talking about is that people want an integrated (but powerful) solution that ‘just works’.

Figure out that people want the sleek and fancy. Steam is fancy. App Store is fancy. iTunes is fancy. Intel AppUp from 2011 was decidedly not fancy, and in fact, it was a prime example of the “old” way of doing things one the PC: let’s just pack random garbage in front of the customer and hope he’ll not only bite it, but happily chew it. (Just remember all the “photo handling” software that shipped with your digital camera, or “antivirus protection” demo software shipping with your shiny new PC.)

Thankfully, the latest version of AppUp from 2012 is a bit fancier, although still somewhat weird.

Figure out that people want to do things differently. How happy are users with the operating system you’re shipping? I personally like Windows 7 a lot lately (more on that later). But how integrated it is with your product? What does your product do? Is it just another box? Admittedly, it may be a neat, shiny box, but what does it do? Oh — this thing on it isn’t your product? Uh-huh, so you’re just another box-maker?

Hint-hint: end users like custom (but usable) stuff. At one point, aforementioned Dell has promoted Ubuntu on its machines. What they haven’t done is sit with Canonical and decide how to make Ubuntu the operating system for their machines. Not only that — they should have thought about how to make Dell’s laptop the machine for running Ubuntu.

Dell and Canonical could have figured out what exactly people want and how they want it done. In my previous life as a Linux user, I was quite “needy” and I desired customizability, shunning Ubuntu for Debian. But that’s not what people want. People want stuff to “just work”. I want it too nowadays. I also want a company to figure out how the user interface should work, and make it work that way instead of me. I want them to figure out what is the best way for me to achieve my goals.

And then I want them to proscribe that as sacred rules to developers on their platform. Then I want them to justify why those sacred rules exist. (The way NSDocument class works in Cocoa frameworks has recently allowed Apple to introduce “recent files” list for an application in Lion’s Expose for an application’s windows, as well in the Dock icon menu.)

I want those sacred rules to be sane and enabling to the developers, instead of arbitrary decisions slapped together by a bunch of monkeys. (And I’m not pointing fingers at a single platform or library here — but pretty much at most platforms and libraries out there.)

Figure out that people want to do stuff with their machines. After securing a deal with Canonical, Dell should have attempted to secure a deal with, for example, Adobe to port at least their flagship product Photoshop to Linux (or more specifically Ubuntu). There are bound to be many, many hurdles along the way. But instead of toying with The Gimp and waiting for them to actually make a tool that is usable by real people, getting Adobe to bring their product over would make the platform (and products) stand out and appeal to an audience. And if Adobe doesn’t want to cooperate, invest those profits in your long-term gain: look at Photoshop and replicate it under Linux, including keyboard shortcuts and whatnot.

Go and fix OpenOffice’s interface, or at least lift what you can in designing an office suite that works and looks as an office suite should. Or write your own — Apple surely did with iWork, and they worked on that even before iPhone and iPad were insanely profitable like today. Compared to today, iPhone was only mildly popular.

Can you see the big picture now? Can you see how a platform could have and should have come together to save, for example, Dell?

As Apple has built their OS on the strong base of BSD userland and Mach kernel, Dell and Canonical could have delivered integrated products based on GNU userland and Linux kernel. They should have worked on securing partnerships to deliver key products to what was (and is) a nascent desktop environment.

Apple did not use window compositing to bring you toys like a 3D cube, but to bring you tools to switch between windows and apps. Dell and Canonical should have and could have slimmed down Compiz. GNOME 3’s window manager is a nice experiment in this direction, but on the first look at it, it lifts off of Apple so blatantly in some ways that I can’t help think they should have and could have done better. It could have and should have been better than what Apple does.

Figure out how to cut the stuff out. As mentioned, I personally like Windows 7 a lot lately, but it hasn’t struck the good balance between exposing whatever a power user needs and hiding anything that a common user doesn’t need. It’s still too complex for a common user, and at the same time, any attempt at simplification and hiding stuff just means the actual stuff you need is now hidden behind menus and behind more menus and behind more menus. See: attempting to configure just slightly more complex wi-fi setup in Windows 7. Something is seriously wrong if it’s easier to change resolution and color depth in Windows 95 than it is in Windows 7.

Compiz needed to be cut and configured to sane defaults. Or it should have been thrown away and a custom manager should have been written.

As long as we stick to the UNIX principles wherever possible, I can take your window manager and throw it away. Or I could write my own settings app. But if you do a good enough job, I will not want to.

I currently am not inclined to go away from Mac, and the amount of customizations I do is minimal. Some people use custom app launchers, I’m satisfied with launching apps through Dock or Spotlight.

But in case I want to move away, I’m hoping GNUstep takes off and provides a viable way for people to port their OS X apps to other platforms. I hope for a healthy GNUstep ecosystem where people are free to share code, but also to sell the fruit of their labors.

But I am not really interested in moving away right now, because Apple delivers a good, complete, healthy ecosystem today, along with an integrated hardware+software stack where things like driver issues are rare and shocking events happening mostly to early adopters — definitely they are not common daily appearance for most users.

To save your sales, deliver a healthy, integrated hardware+platform+applications ecosystem. For a corporation as big as Dell, any investment into their own platform would have been an investment into long term future. It would have been diversification and it would be a way to stay unique long-term. And not doing a good job on creating a platform when you’re a multi-billion dollar company, especially in cases where you can already take other people’s work, should be inexcusable. In fact — I’m not sure if not even attempting to do it may be an even greater sin.

Make yourself stand out with an outstanding product that “just works”. Half-assed experiments with Linux just because it’s Linux and “free” won’t save you and will flop.

Delivering a complete product starting with a laptop designed around a platform (which may be based on Linux), and delivering a complete platform designed around your laptop is a good way to start.

NSURLConnection submits GET instead of POST with HTTP 301 Moved Permanently error

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If NSURLConnection seems to submit via GET instead of via POST, you may want to check whether server responded with HTTP 301 code. It appears that NSURLConnection forgets all about having to POST if it’s redirected. Strange.

Note that I’m currently using RestKit, so it may be a bug in RestKit, too. Doesn’t seem that way.

Why am I currently NOT thinking of targeting Ovi Store?

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Hey there, Nokia. It’s me, a small indie developer who wants to support your phones. Really, I do.

First of all, let’s talk about the phones. I wanted to be more focused on Ovi Store, and I will be. Just a few short words on the phones and the platforms. (Or skip the rant.)

The Phones and The Platforms.

I love N900. I don’t own it, because I’m cash-strapped a bit, but it’s almost the thing that I want to own. I would’ve preferred it if you just upgraded N810 to have a phone, and if you didn’t mess with the UI, but still, N900 is closest to the ideal Linux phone one could have. Choosing Debian package management system was a great move on your part, Nokia.

Yet you gave up on Maemo. You wanted to move on to Meego, you wanted to move away from GTK to pick up Qt which you purchased and switched license from GPL to LGPL. All noble choices. But this means you gave up on tons of work you had done on Maemo. This has just spread confusion among users, including me: will you stick to Meego or abandon it as well? Looks like you picked the latter one.

With regard to Symbian, I am a bit more confused. There’s too much choice with your phones. I have no idea how to develop apps for Symbian, nor am I really interested in it; there’s no way I could test on all the phones, and some of them are really slow. Not really good target for my game apps, right? (And Java phones are totally out of the game, since there’s no way in hell I’ll be writing games in Java.)

The Ovi Store and its presentation fails

Okay. Who am I? I am a small developer, primarily a programmer. I’m a terrible designer, based on people’s comments when I design user interface. I also suck at “extracting money” out of unsuspecting victi… Uhm, I mean, “users”.

But there’s just a small thing that prevents me from looking seriously at distributing apps on Ovi Store. This is total lack of confidence with regard to commercial success of paid apps. I don’t intend to develop games that feature ads. I want my users to pay once, upfront and go away happily with their new game. Your Ovi store does nothing to present paid apps to new visitors on the site.

When looking at the Ovi Store, it feels like you’re deliberately trying to promote free apps. Is this in hope of your customers being extremely happy that you are offering them free stuff? If you look closely at the first screenshot I’m including in the article, you can notice that you are offering them a trailer. Yay! I can get a trailer for free off an app store. Wait, what? A trailer on an app store? And it’s featured?

Ovi Store 1 - Featured page lists only free apps

Not only that, but the homepage — entitled “Featured” — presents only free apps. Believe it or not, I have noticed this many months ago, when first seriously investigating viability of porting the app to Nokia platforms (or at least Maemo). Every time I look at the homepage, it “features” only free apps.

It feels like you are treating developers like they are not your customers. It feels like you only appreciate developers that are happy to fork over money for access to Ovi Store as a distribution channel only to offer free apps.

If I develop a paid app, I expect to have a fair chance to be featured on the homepage. You’re even featuring free version of Angry Birds Rio, not the paid one.

So, let’s say I am an end-user. An uncommonly enthusiastic end-user, very willing to fork over some money to a developer — and Nokia, don’t forget, you as well! I want to do that because I want “good” apps. I don’t want trailers, and I don’t want limited versions of games. I don’t want “FREE Sweet Love MSG 2 Share” (also featured on the main page — is anyone vetting the apps that appear as featured at all?) — I want a fun and entertaining game.

As you can see, I am an uncommon user — I want to search for stuff instead of being served stuff.

So I want Games. I click on Games – luckily it’s very well exposed.

OVI Store 2 - After clicking on Games, still only free games

Oh, come on! This is ridiculous, Nokia. Again I am served free apps only. At least I have a choice between Top Free, Best Sellers and New.

But it’s gray, faded out, small and unnoticeable!

So I have all these big icons of free games, which I see I don’t want, and I’m tempted to close the window already, but only then I miraculously notice that I could, perhaps, switch to Best Sellers. Let’s see what that does!

OVI Store 3 - Finally, paid games!

Oh! Lord! I am saved! I can finally see stuff that people are willing to fork over money for!

To be honest, I still have no idea if I would fork over money for any of those games I see there. Or perhaps… Tetris Revolution by Electronic Arts sounds nice. Why isn’t that thing featured?

So Nokia, consider that this is how a developer thinks. And I suck at marketing. But I don’t really see that you are making it easy for users to discover great paid apps or games, and hence you are not making it easy for developers to sell apps.

By now the project is too far along. It’s written in Objective-C, and is optimized solely for iPhone resolution. We’re still thinking of creating a version targeting your phones, but it’s by no means a priority.

Ovi looks like a great store. You have a great market base. You have a nice deal with operators (having them charge for apps means better exposure than having people pay for apps via credit card).

But what were you thinking when you gave enormous exposure to free apps, and so little to paid apps? Are you surprised that developers are chased away, and that sales are (probably) low? I think they are, despite the success of free apps.

Do I have any, at all, hope of gaining exposure for my paid app even if I join the still relatively small marketplace? If Angry Birds with their massive exposure on other platforms and in mass media are not a top seller… what can a newcomer like me expect?

I really hope that you intend to address the issues at hand. Deal with Microsoft can only help in a sense that they might do a better job at marketing paid apps than you. I would however prefer an independent and strong Nokia, with a good model for charging apps directly from user’s operator. Frankly, I don’t want a Silverlight-and-C#-based platform, and I want to deal with you.

But you are dropping platforms like rain is dropping from the sky (and unfinished platforms at that!) You are marketing apps poorly. You are avoiding questions on what great paid app successes there are and redirecting me. Too bad I can’t dig out the entire history off Twitter, only a single post, but I was directed to some marketing pages where free apps were again praised more than paid apps.

I want to be a partner and sell apps on Ovi Store. But I see no reason to invest loads of time to write a paid app when you care more about free apps.

Apsurdi u podizanju dokumenata

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Potaknut sam na ovaj post današnjim iskustvom s domovnicom. Ono radi čega trebam domovnicu — nemam pojma zašto im treba domovnica. No to nije niti bitno.

Priča prva: Domovnica

Dakle, zaboravio sam domovnicu doma. Iovako ionako htio sam napraviti novu; ova je relativno stara, i ako već moram predati dokument, nije mi problem dati 20kn. I tako saznam da kad sam već u gradu, mogu otići kod Zapadnog kolodvora i tamo napraviti domovnicu.

Vraga.

Ispada da zato što sam rođen u Osijeku, i zato što je tamo napravljena domovnica, ne mogu napraviti domovnicu u Zagrebu neovisno o tome što tu živim već skoro 20 godina. Moram, naime, prvo obaviti “prijenos upisa” u svoj lokalni ured (pretpostavljam matični ured) koristeći domovnicu iz Osijeka.

U redu. Pazi ideje. Imamo informatiziranu državnu upravu (žena gleda u računalo), a Internet omogućuje povezivost kao nikad dosad u povijesti čovječanstva (na mobitelu u tramvaju mogu pristupati sadržajima posluženima s bilo koje lokacije na ovoj našoj plavoj lebećoj kugli). No ta naša informatizirana državna uprava nije sposobna koristiti isti softver, dignuti servere, ili koje god da su im prepreke — i opslužiti me s jednim papirom za kojeg sam još uvijek sretan i zadovoljan što ga imam.

Ne, nego moram raditi “prijenos upisa”, i zatim moram izrađivati domovnicu u istom uredu u kojeg sam “prenio upis”.

A šteta na ekonomiju da kojim slučajem nemam tu domovnicu? Ne zaboravimo, svaka škola i fakultet je voli de facto oduzeti dok god je osoba upisana u tu školu ili fakultet. Što bih tada morao raditi, da mi iz škole ili fakulteta ne mogu ili ne žele dati moju vlastitu domovnicu? Što bih radio da je moram istog dana imati, a subota je ili nedjelja?

No, ajdmo drugačije. Jednostavno pretpostavimo da ne mogu doći do domovnice ili da je nemam i točka. Šteta po ekonomiju je jedan radni dan – zamislimo plaću od 35kn/sat (izmišljam), pomnožimo s 8h, i zbrojimo s cijenom povratne karte primjerice vlakom do Osijeka… koja iznosi 193kn (bez odabira povlastica i slično). Dakle, šteta je 473kn za jedan propušteni radni dan i prijevoz do Osijeka.

Opcionalno? Mogu slati zahtjev i nadati se da će poštom stići u nekakvo normalno vrijeme. Tada bi me trebalo koštati oko 20kn. Jest ušteda, a gdje je vrijeme?

Usput, državna službenica je bila izuzetno neugodna, izvrijeđavši moje nepoznavanje u koju općinu spadam i slično, što bi iovako ionako za mene kao građanina trebalo biti posve irelevantno. “Sramota je ne poznavati grad u kojem živite” – a mora da je onda i sramota pokušati raditi u tom gradu, plaćati porez, a bogme je sramota i čuditi se gospodi u državnoj upravi koja su Dubec smjestila pod primjerice katastar u Sesvetama.

A da ne spominjemo da kad se službenici 10min prije toga pokucalo na vrata, dvije službenice su sjedile, gledale u prazno i rekle “Malo sačekajte”.

Priča druga: Izvadak iz matične knjige rođenih

Prvo, jeste li znali fascinantan podatak da je izvadak iz matične knjige rođenih posve druga stvar od rodnog lista? Eto, ja budala pa nisam. Ub’me ako ima neko objašnjenje.

Drugo, jeste li znali fascinantan podatak da kao osoba rođena u Osijeku nigdje u Zagrebu ne mogu dobiti navedeni papir? Da, sustavi nisu povezani.

Jedino mjesto u okolici Zagreba na koje su me uputili jest… Dugo Selo. Izvan zone ZET-a.

Dugo Selo je stvarno prelijepo. Dolazak tamo je isto predivan. Kontakt sa službenicom u Dugom Selu je bio fantastičan, jedno od najboljih iskustava u kontaktu s misterioznim entitetom koji zovemo Država. Dođem, kaže “Trebate osobnu, ovo, ono, i tolko-i-tolko kuna biljega.” Nije me se vrijeđalo za nepoznavanje pravila, za rođenje u drugom gradu, nije se bilo živčano. Nije bilo čekanja. Sve je proteklo u najboljem redu.

To ne znači da nisam izgubio jedan radni dan na odlazak tamo.

To ne znači da pojedini formulari ne traže apsurdno veliku količinu dokumentacije, uključujući i navedeni “izvadak iz matične knjige rođenih”.

Priča treća: Promjena prebivališta

Još nisam prebacio prebivalište. Bojim se krenuti. Zadnja dva puta kada sam to pokušao napraviti, prvi put krenuo sam od Policijske postaje u Sesvetama, koja me uputila u Petrinjsku u Zagreb. Drugi put krenuo sam od Petrinjske, koja me pak uputila da prvo moram stvari riješiti u Sesvetama.

Odgađam to već poprilično dugo. Svjestan sam da time sigurno kršim određen broj propisa, no bogme bi se neki klasični postupci mogli staviti u jedan lijepi PDF, objaviti na stranici primjerice Ministarstva uprave, pokrenuti kampanju da je to objavljeno (kako bi ljudi znali da toga ima) i lijepo hyperlinkove postaviti u PDFu kako bih mogao u requirementsima, kad znam da mi nedostaje neki dokument, lako mogao kliknuti na link i vidjeti kako doći do tog papira.

No, eto.