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Imagine a store where you could only buy one thing at a time and as soon as you made a purchase, they threw you out. So if you wanted to buy something else, you’d have to go back in. And if you wanted to buy ten or fifteen items, you’d be basically screwed and have to spend a long time navigating your way back to where you last spotted the next item you want. Sounds terrible, right?
Well, inexplicably, that’s exactly what the App Store does. Every time you download an app, the store force closes itself. So when you’re looking to download a few games, it’ll take you quite a while. Why on earth has Apple let this joke of usability go on for so long?
On Saturday I went for a short 2 mile run and I brought my Blackberry Curve along to stream Pandora while I ran. Big mistake. As soon as I opened the app, it froze (or gave me that spinning hourglass that is so familiar to Curve users everywhere)…and it stayed frozen…for the entire length of my run. Mind you, a few times it would unfreeze and I would try to exit the Pandora app, which of course would cause it to to freeze again.
I finished my run determined to warn everyone I know away from the Blackberry, but then I remembered that my girlfriend is having trouble getting used to the Droid 2 after using a Curve for years. She brings up a good point to explain her frustration: the Blackberry is a near ideal communication device. Typing is easy; BBM is strangely addictive; the email app is dead simple; etc. My problem with it is that I want it to run 3rd party apps and it absolutely sucks for that purpose.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I am using my Blackberry for something it was not designed to do. However, if there was no option of downloading apps that only slow it down, I would have to concede that it was a pretty damn good communication device. RIM has let itself be dragged into offering an app store which has crippled the Curve and led users like me to think it’s a terrible phone, which it of course is not. RIM is competing in a game that it cannot win. If all phones compete based on apps and touchscreens, RIM is always going to lose.
However, if RIM focused on improving the communication and security abilities of its line of smartphones and let Apple and Google kill each other over App Stores, they would be competing in a game they could win. Would they lose some share to Google and Apple? Of course. But trust me, no one buys a Blackberry when they prefer a good apps to excellent communication abilities. On the other hand, would they have been forced to lower the price of Curve ($20 with a 2 year contract after rebate from Verizon) because it was obviously inferior to the $200 iPhone? Probably not.
While RIM kept the Curve app-free, thereby insuring its continued good reputation for communication, it could have released a line of phones that really had the processing and memory capabilities to handle apps. The Bold could be a contender for this. It seems to handle apps a bit better than the Curve and it maintains Blackberry’s reputation for great communication devices. Apps may be all the rage but that does not mean that every smartphone has to offer them. Companies need to compete in games that they can win. RIM should probably heed this advice before we all forget what makes Blackberries great in the first place.
I have had my Mac for two years. And I have been playing guitar and bass for fifteen. And while I’m not a programmer or a professional musician, I certainly think about music and technology a lot. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how my own playing and rudimentary songwriting has been influenced by technology. I’m not talking about electronic music here. I’m just talking about how different musical technologies have changed the types of music I write even though I’ve never done more than write guitar and bass parts for very straightforward rock songs. Here are three songs – in the order that I wrote them – that provide a visceral illustration of how my exploration of Apple‘s Garageband has evolved my songwriting. Keep in mind that these are more sketches of songs than real complete works.
1. This brief snippet is a simple chord progression with a few different parts all recorded with the same guitar. None of them have any loops nor any effects. Total simplicity.
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2. This song shows me learning how to add electronic sounds to approximate other instruments that I didn’t have laying around, such as drums and organs. However, all the guitar sounds I used had no effects on them.
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3. This song snippet is me going nuts. It’s very layered with weird sounds but every single sound (except for the drum loop) was created by an acoustic guitar and then sent through some sort of effect processor.
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I can only imagine the strange sounds and songs I’ll be writing in the coming months.
