The Big Lesson Apple Learned In 2012

The Big Lesson Apple Learned In 2012:
By Sarah Kessler

This story originally appeared at Fast Company.



While Apple's new products are generally met with fawning praise and long lines, its first map app inspired nothing but complaints. It mislabeled cities, flattened the Statue of Liberty, didn’t include public transportation and is, by one estimate, three-times more likely to get you lost than Google Maps.

The company at first defended its work. “We are continuously improving it," a spokesperson argued, "and as Maps is a cloud-based solution, the more people use it, the better it will get."

But the problem was not necessarily that Apple Maps was a terrible product. It just wasn’t as good as Google Maps. "What Apple has learned is that maps are really hard," Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt told AllThingsDigital in an on-stage interview shortly after Apple Maps went live. "We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in satellite work, airplane work, drive-by work, to get the maps accurate."

From a business perspective, cutting Google out of the iOS home screen makes sense. While the companies once happily played in different industries (with Schmidt even serving on Apple’s board at one point), the rise of Android makes them competitors with diverging interests. From a product perspective, however, Apple's maps app replaced an important feature with an inferior one, and that was not a good move.

Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged his mistake in a public apology letter. It's not the first time Apple has apologized. Steve Jobs made a similar concession regarding problems with syncing system MobileMe (Apple has also apologized for antennagate and other mishaps). But it was the first time the apology read like a sincere admission of a mistake rather than a response to a customer service complaint. Cook went as far as to recommend using competitor map products while Apple gets its own up to par. Not only did his apology calm the uproar, but it demonstrated a kinder, humbler Apple.

Read this story at Fast Company.

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Are Instagram Users Fleeing?

Are Instagram Users Fleeing?:
The New York Post, knowing sensationalism like no other, wrote an article Friday about Instagram that must have sent jitters through the folks in Facebook's offices in Palo Alto, Calif.

Citing data from App Data, a firm that tracks the popularity of Facebook, iPhone and Android apps, the Post wrote that the photo-sharing app shed 4 million active daily users during the week it announced its controversial new Terms of Service.

"The app, which Facebook acquired for $1 billion earlier this year, may have shed nearly a quarter of its daily active users in the wake of the debacle," according to the Post.

Twenty-five percent is a steep and scary decline. But should we believe it? Observers at many prominent tech blogs, including TechCrunch, Gizmodo and The Verge, are pushing back against claim that the dip in Data App's data is due to an exodus of users afraid that their photos will now be sold off.

Obviously, Instagram is denying the decline, too. "We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram," a spokesperson told The Verge.



Indeed, as nice of a tool as App Data is, its analysis is incomplete because it includes only Instagram members that have connected their accounts to Facebook. While App Data is reporting that it the number of Instagram users it observes dropped from 16.4 million to 12.4 million, these figures represent only a fraction of Instagram's total users, which numbered over 100 million in September 2012.

Furthermore, the decline isn't really aligned with the date Instagram's new rules were unveiled, Dec. 17. "Though the terms of service change spurred a lot of negative media attention and complaints from users, the decline in Facebook-connected daily active users began closer to Christmas, not immediately after the proposed policy changes," App Data itself told The Wall Street Journal.

A 24.7-percent drop between Dec. 17 and Dec. 27!


Therein lies the strongest piece of evidence that the decline doesn't have much to do with the new rules. Many other Internet services had fewer people log in during the days leading up to Christmas. App Data notes dropoffs in usership at Pandora, Pinterest and Yelp during Christmas week, as well. The same appears to have happened at Twitter, too, and The Next Web runs down similar holiday dropoffs at other companies. The celebration of the birth of Jesus (and associated end-of-year get-togethers) seems to be one of the only things capable of pulling people away from their computers and smartphones.

Here are those four other Christmastime drops in daily visitors. The percentage decrease in daily active users is from Dec. 17 to Dec. 27, the time period the Post analyzed for Instagram. Suddenly, it doesn't look like Instagram has been left out in the cold by users on Christmas.

Twitter, a 21.6-percent decrease

Pandora, a 36.9-percent decrease

Yelp, a 34.2-percent decrease

Pinterest, a 21.6-percent decrease

First Snow in My Life

Having been in Hamilton for three months, I keep feeling homesick. I don't know whether it is because of the stronger and stronger festival atmosphere. Last night, waiting for bus in the snow, I felt really upset. I was not that prepared for being alone in such a cold weather.

I have never thought of seeing snow such far away from home. The distance is nearly half Earth. It was really cold outside. The wind blew the snow everywhere. Soon some cars were covered with a layer of snow. The trees looked exactly from what I saw in TV. Without bright lights, it felt a little lonely looking outside the bus, though we were in traffic jam. Compared to the snow on trees, the snow on the roadside was dirty. That reminded me of a description of locus in China, "It grows from mud but never gets dirty." It's more a dream than reality. The reality is here. Purity may get dirty, and will be washed away.

The first semester will end in two weeks. I learned a lot though writing is still torturing me. My poor vocabulary holds back the whole study progress. Once I wondered whether I should apply for master degrees. After a long talk with my cousin, I decided to try. It kept me busy.

I didn't pay much attention in study last month, because reading novels cost me lots of time. But reality is still ahead. It never waits for me, I know.

Time will tell.

Night at Niagara Falls

This was another great trip to Niagara Falls. We had a lot of time to walk around the area and enjoyed the Christmas lights.

Niagara Falls, in my opinion, is not a grand sightseeing spot there. But here we feel local citizen’s respect to nature. A Chinese girl on the bus felt the same. We sat together and became friends.

The bus brought us to an outlet mall first. It is small, but I found a pair of boots. Shopping never bothers girls. For international students, this is considerate arrangement. Most of us don’t own cars. In such a large city with only a few malls, we don’t really have time and money to go far away to an outlet mall ourselves.

The weather was good for shooting. Though I took a lot of photos last time I came here, I couldn’t help shooting. We found more features of it. After that, we went to an attraction street for two hours and then came back for Christmas lights.

To be honest, the lights are normal to me. I even felt a little naïve. We even laughed for a while thinking that we came here particularly for these lights. They looked very low end. But suddenly we realized that these are all tax payers’ money. We lost in thought for a while. In China, we are used to government’s lavish expenditure. We enjoyed the great scenery produced by our government but never asked whether those were worth our money.

I can't say which style of government is better. Sometimes we did blame our government of using a lot of money to show off. But in reality we enjoyed the fantastic views as well.

In China, we don’t really have an entertainment street like this one. The facilities are separated. They seem to have different owner. We only pay for what we get. I love the buildings there. Though it’s really short, we enjoyed wondering around there.

Now I wonder how it looks like in winter. I heard that it snows. Will the whole fall be frozen? I guess not. Let's expect for a third trip there in winter.

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Homesick in Hamilton

Being busy and lazy last two weeks, I feel homesick for the first time.

No, I don't miss my friends, families or others. I miss Chinese food.

We did have some fun activities during last two weeks. On the field trip to Toronto, we went to one of the largest PR agencies the Hill & Knowlton. It's an encouraging experience because I realized that they accept staffs with various personalities.

 We also went to a TV program taping site. It's the George Stroumboulopoulos program. The host George was a famous musician before. He's kind and willing to answer our questions though he looked really tired after the shooting.

Here are some pictures:

There’s another piece of goof news. I got the intern position in the MDB Inc. Being an international student, I felt great and released.

But I still feel homesick. I called my friends and families nearly every day. Though feeling sad, I never told them about my sadness. It’s not because I’m a strong girl. It’s only because there was nothing bad here. I insisted on blaming the food here. Not only is it expensive to eat outside, it’s also not that delicious. Now I can fully understand why my foreign clients always said they were getting weight in China.

It’s not about the food; it’s about the style of cuisine. In China, we have at least eight major cuisine styles. But I didn't find many here. It takes time to explore delicious food. But I don’t really have the time. Moreover, western taste is different from ours.

By the way, I found it really easy to upload photos with G+. Cool!

A Trip to Woodland Culture Center

I will never regret of this trip.  

This was a wonderful tour to native culture. It was a discovery trip of similarity of the world.

Last Friday, I joined the tour to Woodland Culture Center. It was organized by our school, Mohawk College. Because of cold weather, there were only less than 30 travelers. I'm very glad that I went.  There I knew about some cruel history of the residential school, the stories and spirit of native Indian (I think they are Native American). It's nice to know that most Canadians are immigrant. And Asian even has more similarity in culture with them.

The two person in the middle are calling for the union of 6 local nations

This is a man with local costume! I never thought that a man could wear such flowery costume before.

My favorite male head dress.

Art work of a native American.

We had wonderful lunch after the trip in the small museum.

The rolling cake filled with cream and eggs are delicious. It's the first tasty meal I had outside in Canada.

After the meal, a guest speaker told us the history of the union of 6 nations. Their natural energy theory is really similar with Chinese Ying Yang theory. Moreover, we both use herbal medicine to cure disease. Being a Chinese, I think Chinese herbal therapy system and Ying Yang theory are more mature and developed. 

Oh! Did I mention we went there by a luxury bus? It's the first time I took a bus with limo-style furnishing.

First Month In Hamilton, ON, CANADA

Tomorrow I'm going to explore the native culture near Hamilton. I hope it would be fun. Originally I want to have a blog introducing interesting places in Hamilton. But I have to begin with something outside Hamilton now.

By the way, I come from China.

There are not many Chinese living in Hamilton. I realized it after I went to the Chinese church here. On the first Sunday I came here, my cousin brought me to the Pacific Mall in Toronto. It's a China town. I don't really like it because the goods there are too normal to me. One of my classmate said it's good and cheap. But I know that those products are much cheaper in China. Though it’s said to be one of the largest malls here, I felt it really small.

I did go to the McMaster University in Hamilton later. It’s nice and old. I love the plants climbing on the building. They are green and vivid.

I went to Niagara Falls last weekend. The water is dramatic clear in such a large area. It was regret that it was cold and cloudy that day. So I didn't take a boat trip to view it in a close distance.

The photos look like half tone photo because of cloudy weather. I wish I could go there again in Summer time for shooting better photos.

The above is a famous attraction of falls in China for you to compare:

I shot them in in autumn, too.Autumn is dry there, so there was not much water.

Which one do you like better? I like them both, because they have different styles.