A question obviously has to be raised: why did Wave fail so miserably?
Perhaps one of the main reasons is the lack of a decent marketing campaign. When Wave launched, the start page featured a keynote video by Google’s Lars Rasmussen. The video was extremely interesting, with only one problem: it was well over one hour long. This might have been perfect for a small minority of tech enthusiasts, but what about the people Wave was aimed at? What about businessmen, researchers, students?
Google Wave’s learning curve isn’t very steep, but it’s not negligible. Anyone just trying the product out without having read or watched the appropriate documentation would have dismissed it as a “glorified IM client”, which is far from accurate.

Google’s second mistake, to my eyes, was the invitation strategy. You may remember that Google initially opened Wave’s door to just 100,000 people, which could in turn invite their friends. This strategy is the ideal hype-amplifier, and it worked well with Gmail because people knew what to expect: Google did not re-invent email, they just made it a whole lot better.
On the other hand, Wave may have gotten the required hype, but many freshly invited users were very quickly put off by the fact that they had no one to collaborate with.
Bad timing could also be to blame: a few months of invitations would have been OK, but Google should have opened its doors to everyone quickly. After a year, was there anyone who wanted to try out Wave who had not gotten an invite?

Whatever the reason for Wave’s failure is, the fact remains: There are two types of people, the ones that love Wave, and the ones that don’t know what it is.

But all hope is not lost, according to Hölzle:

The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.

Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science. We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web.

I look forward to seeing what Google (and third party developers) will be able to achieve with the code. Meanwhile, we’ll have to include Wave to Google’s increasing list of flops: The Nexus One, Google Answers, Google Checkout, Google Viewer, the Knol, Orkut, Wave, and Buzz.

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Recently, our dear Steve and his friends hosted a press conference about the iPhone 4 antenna problem, rather exaggeratedly dubbed “antennagate.” For those who haven’t been followed the story closely, the newly released iPhone 4 has come with several new features, including video-calling, video-editing on-the-fly, multitasking, and a defective antenna that drops calls when held in a certain way.

While the problem is certainly real, it is hard to asess its extensiveness from the outside. Is the return rate really higher than previous iPhones? Has the issue been amplified by the media?

According to Steve Jobs, Apple’s customers are happier than ever, believe the iPhone 4 is the best iPhone ever and the antenna issue is felt only by an extremely small minority of customers. However, since “Apple loves all it’s users,” they’re going to provide everybody who wants with a fix.

Steve jobs believes that the iPhone problem is actually a bigger one, caused by Apple’s overwhelming success.

“Well, of course the Consumer Reports stuff was bad, and of course we would have liked to get on this sooner. We just got this data. We just learned what was going on. We’re an engineering company. We think like engineers. We love it, we think it’s the right way to solve real problems. I don’t think that’s going to change, and the way we love our customers isn’t going to change. Maybe it’s human nature — when you’re doing well, people want to tear you down. I see it happening with Google, people trying to tear them down. And I don’t understand it… What would you prefer? That we were a Korean company, that we were here in America leading the world with these products… Maybe it’s just that people want to get eyeballs on their sites. We’ve been around for 34 years… haven’t we earned the credibility and the trust of the press? I think we have that from our users. I didn’t see it exhibited by some of the press as this was blown so far out of proportion. I’m not saying we didn’t make a mistake — We didn’t know that it would have these issues, we didn’t know we were putting a bull’s eye on the phone… But this has been so overblown. But to see how we could do better is going to take some time.”

–Steve Jobs, as reported by Engadget

There are several things to retain from this quote. One is that Steve Jobs is again playing the “American protectionism” card, as the company has done (and is doing) against HTC.

“What would you prefer? That we were a Korean company, that we were here in America leading the world with these products…”

That’s pretty lowly of him. I’d very much prefer that he concentrated on the quality of Apple versus its competition than their nationality. Also, if the reports we are getting are correct, Steve Jobs might be lying to the press again.

“We didn’t know that it would have these issues, we didn’t know we were putting a bull’s eye on the phone…”

It’s hard to assess, because the reports about Jobs’s knowledge of the problem prior to the release date are fuzzy at best. We might never know, but that is irrelevant. What is more important is Steve Job’s words about the rain of critics they have received since the phone’s release:

“Maybe it’s human nature — when you’re doing well, people want to tear you down. I see it happening with Google, people trying to tear them down. And I don’t understand it…”

Not only does Mr Jobs not seem to have a personal feud against Google—which is very surprising—but he seems to think that the company’s critics are unjust. This he likens to Apple’s own case. Apple has been making near-perfect products for a while now, and they translate to a thundering commercial success (almost) every time. Now what everybody wants to do is pinpoint the little problems, that are magnified tenfold by the fact that they belong to Apple products.

What he says is true—how many times have we seen criticizm of an Apple product because it is not designed for one particular type of user, or because one corner is not as smooth as it should be?—but I would advise you to take it with a grain of salt. Apple and Google are two higly successful companies, and both rightly so. Just looking at their respective portfolios will give you an idea why. However, once in a while, these companies do stumble.

Google Buzz was a commercial failure—although I still maintain that it is an excellent product. I believe even Microsoft was—and still is—criticized too much on their products. Was XP really that bad when it came out? I don’t think it was much worst than the contemporary version of Mac OS X. The iPhone 4 is top-of-the-notch for a lot of things. However, it seems that antenna issue—albeit not a scandal as some might like us to think—is a serious issue for a lot of iPhone users. Apple’s relativism is not going to change that. Yes, all phones have some sort of antenna issue, but _none_ come near to what the new iPhone’s users experience now. Comparing its products with the competition will not change that. It might even make it worst:

“HTC Corp. said its phone model named by Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs as having antenna signal problems received 35-times less complaints than for the iPhone 4.” reports Business Week

Apple is still being attacked. It has indeed created a bull’s eye both for the press and for the competition with its new antenna design. Some will find the point moot, others as important as their own lives. There are other things that make up a phone of course, and in the end the antenna issue will only be one of many deciding factors for the consumer. Some, like me, might root for Android, but that’s another story. In the meanwhile, we (the press, bloggers, and the general public) should pay attention that we don’t over-criticize a company because of it’s success. Apple should pay attention not to rely too much on Mr Jobs’s reality distortion field.

Disclaimer: I don’t use nor own any Apple product, nor do I use any Microsoft software. I do use some Google services extensively.

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Google Chrome should belong into every browser collection, and it seems that an increasing number of people acknowledge this. The recent boost in Chrome’s market share is at least partially due to the fact that Google finally released their browser for the Mac platform, and as much as I love Safari’s speed, user interface and stability, I find myself clicking on the colorful dock icon more often than ever. The main advantage I find to Chrome is that it takes up less RAM, which is important when you’re running Photoshop CS5, iTunes and Aperture at the same time. Anyway, I had time to get used to it, and compiled a little list of tips and tricks you should try out with your new browser. I wrote these with the Mac user in mind, but most of them should work on all platforms.

1. Fix Google’s annoying localization

Google is known for awesome free software, but they’re apparently unable to fix their illogical localization options. For instance, their search settings on google.com allow us to choose what language we want the interface in. So far so good, but you’ll notice that the languages in the drop down menu are all in written the current interface language, instead of being in the form of “Deutsch / Italiano / Français etc…”.
Some of these mistakes are unfortunately ported to Chrome. For instance, the URL bar, which is also a search bar, will direct Google to display search results in the language of the country you are in. Quite annoying when you’re traveling or simply prefer the international .com version. The good news is that it’s an easy fix.

• Go to your preferences (⌘+,) and click on Manage next to the Default search section.
• In the bottom left of the new screen, click on “+“.
• Enter the following settings:
  1. Name: Google International
  2. Keyword: International
  3. URL: option click this link and select “copy link adress”, then ⌘+V into the URL input box.
• You should now have green check marks next to every input field. Click OK
• In the search engines window, select your newly created profile and click make default on the bottom left next to the +/- signs.
• Try it out: type a keyword in the URL bar and hit enter.

But that’s not it! Chances are your homepage is Google.com (Chrome’s speed dial is a joke compared to Safari’s), which will redirect you to your current country’s Google version. To fix this, go to the preferences panel, select Open this page in the Homepage section and put “http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en” in the input field. To try it out, just hit the home button on your toolbar and search for something on Google.

2. Use extensions

Sure, Google’s extensions won’t compete wit the Mozilla’s platform yet (which has, after all, benefited of numerous years of development), but you can still find some pretty nifty extensions out there. Here are my favorites:

• If you’re using Gmail (you should!), make sure to install the Google Mail Checker for instant notifications of incoming emails.
• Xmarks bookmaks sync is an awesome extension which will synchronise your bookmarks across Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. A must have for any browser nut!
• Originally a Firefox extension, AdBlock will block ads. Somehow, browsing without ads has a familiar feeling to it. Oh, that’s right, it’s like browsing on an iPhone! A must have, especially combined with the AdBlock action button.
• Search preview for Google: if you’re used to the thumbnail images that Glims for Safari will give you, install this extension too. Finally a way to see what page you’re about to visit!
• If you use warez sites to get your (il)legal content, you must have copied dead links into JDownloader more than once. Chrome Link Checker is your solution. Not only will it show you dead links by turning them red, but links in the <code> section of forums will be clickable, a valuable time saver. It supports over 80 file hosts (Rapidshare, depositfiles, hotfile, Megaupload, Netload.in, etc..).
• SpeedDial is an attempt at pimping Chrome’s default speed dial. Better than nothing, even if Safari still has the upper hand in terns of simplicity, usability and looks.

These are my favorites, but don’t hesitate to browse the many thousand extensions here. We’re seeing some real progress here, but as long as there isn’t something comparable to GreaseMonkey or Firebug, I won’t delete the other browsers from my systems.

3. Use themes

I like the default skin Chromes come in. I find it to blend well into OSX’s gorgeous desktop environment, but I know some of you must have your little flowers and cars in sight at all times. Get your Chrome themes here, or create them yourself with the help of this tutorial and this template.

4. Use shortcuts

Shortcuts take some time getting used to, especially if an other browser’s shortcuts are hard-coded into your reflexes, but fortunately, most of the common browser use similar systems. Using shortcuts will make you quicker and more efficient. Here are the major OSX shortcuts for Chrome:

Tab and window shortcuts

Address bar shortcuts

Webpage shortcuts

Text shortcuts

5. Other useful stuff

• To see what plug-ins are installed, type about:plugins into the address window.
• You can also type the following commands into the Google Chrome address window: about:histograms, about:memory, about:cache, about:dns.
• Type about:crash to see what a crashed tab looks like.
• Edit any web page – right-click a page and select Inspect element. Now edit the HTML source code and hit return to view the changes.
• To make Google Chrome your default browser, click the Tools button (in the right-hand corner of the browser window – a spanner icon). Select preferences, click the Basics tab and then click the Make Google Chrome my default browser button.
• To delete cookies, go to Tools > Options > Under the Hood. Scroll down to the Security section, and click Show cookies. Now you can click Remove all or remove individual cookies.
• To clear more data such as the Google Chrome browsing history and cache, click the Tools icon and select Clear browsing data.
• To clear the most visited web sites that appear on your Google Chrome start page, you must clear your browsing history using the method above.
• Clearing your Google Chrome browser history will also stop matches from previously browsed sites appearing as suggestions in your address bar.

All this should allow you to transform Chrome into a pretty powerful browser. Have I missed anything? Let me know in the comments section.

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