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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2012年12月30日星期日
China to release data on city pollution
China to release data on city pollution: Air pollution in big cities will be monitored and hourly information made public, in a sign the government is responding to air quality concerns
2012年12月28日星期五
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
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.
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.
2012年12月2日星期日
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.
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.
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