General

What would rock the apple app store and google store?

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in General
Someone I know wants to learn to code and asked if they should learn Obj c or JS. I said Obj c 100%. I bet it will continue to be the top skill for at least the next two years.  However, the app market is overflowing with a volume of crap…something will have to change I think. It feels saturated and there is a cacophony of un-tuned instruments trying to get us to listen.

What will do it? What would kill the app market or disrupt it completely and then restart the volume increase from few to many? An app search engine? I see quixey out there. That won’t kill the market though. Quixey sends people to the respective stores.

A new device with a new platform and market will probably cause some disruption. However, having multiple markets is a bit of a chore for customers if they all have value, and these stores have solid habits depending on them. This could happen, but it would be a short period disruption most likely as someone else could become a new habit also. 

Apps aren’t going away. Something that would completely shake things up might be a technology that is platform agnostic and run on any device…where IOS and android apps can run, be built on and distributed on multiple devices. If that happened, combined with awesome touch screen devices, then the two reigning app stores would shake at their foundations. All the existing habits of app users could remain but they could choose any device to run any app on. Who might be capable of doing this?


Please use Waze!

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in General

I just used Waze for the first time. It had been installed for a week or so. A friend said please use it because it’s better for me if you use it. There was  a 101 south drive ahead of me, so I opened it.

I could see the following:

  • other waze users driving around
  • where traffic was backed up
  • where accidents or other issues were
  • where police were

Then I used the routing and got the following:

  • arrival estimate that was very close
  • distance
  • issues all along the route (it was 101 in the morning)

distance
Here’s a quick view on the right of what I saw in the app. Another thing that was interesting was when I was talking to my dad (with earpiece and hands-free) and the Waze voice came on and alerted me that there was an accident ahead. Sure enough, the traffic started to slow.

Overall, this app gave me visibility of a previous unknown and helped me understand when I would really get in to work. I’m interested to try the routing more. I would recommend that others use it as it will be on when I drive for sure. It is highly performant…much better than google maps with traffic overlays. It’s huge leaps above that!

New markets and dangerous entrants

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in General

I would love to be making smart home products and services right now, but at the same time I’m glad I’m not invested there. A lot of small players are making moves in this space, and now a very big company with a serious sales channel and a monster distribution system with lots of customers has just stepped in. Remind you of TiVo? See Comcast.

Google voice call from God.

Posted by abraham.williams@gmail.com on in General
I didn’t get a chance to talk to God, but Google voice says God called. I blocked out his number to respect his privacy. Still, here’s proof.

The number isn’t working though. I guess God can call me, but I can’t call him. Definitely will put the ringer on for next time!