Top Bananas

Multitasking and a Virtual Trackpad in iOS 9

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What it is: iOS 9 is the next version of the operating system for the iPhone and iPad, but it specifically includes two new features designed to make using the iPad easier.

If you want to take advantage of the latest iOS 9 features coming this fall, you’ll need the latest iPad Air 2 or the rumored larger screen iPad Pro. Only these two iPad models will be able to use iOS 9’s multitasking feature that will let you view multiple apps on the screen at the same time in side by side panels or in overlapping images where one app fills the screen and another one appears in a tiny window that you can move around. This can be particularly handy for viewing video while working on something else.

In the old days of MS-DOS, you had to shut one program down to use another one. With iOS, you simply hide one app in the background while you use another one. However with iOS 9, you’ll be able to get true multitasking so you can run two or more apps side by side and copy and paste data between them. This will feel like the leap from MS-DOS to Windows.

While multitasking is important, a second feature might be more useful, especially for people who type and edit text. Right now typing text isn’t much of a problem, but editing text is. To edit text, you have to point your finger on the screen and keep tapping until you get it just right. Some apps have arrow keys you can tap to move the cursor more precisely, but iOS 9 now offers a virtual trackpad.

As you type, the virtual keyboard appears at the bottom of the screen. However, if you press two fingertips on the virtual keyboard, it turns into a virtual trackpad, allowing you to position the cursor where you want it. Lift your two fingers off the virtual trackpad and it turns into a virtual keyboard again for typing.

This simple use of the virtual keyboard shows its versatility in being anything you need it to be. Now you’ll be able to control the cursor with trackpad-like efficiency, making editing text far faster, easier, and simpler.

These two features alone might not drive people to replace their current iPads, but they’ll likely make it harder for people to decide between a laptop and an iPad. An iPad will be lighter and easier to use while a laptop will be slightly heavier and able to run programs unavailable on the iPad like Xcode.

The distinctions between the iPad and MacBook will likely continue to merge as the MacBook gets lighter and thinner and the iPad gets more capable. Either way, Apple will likely continue selling more products whether people want a laptop or an iPad.

Remember way back when critics kept saying the iPad was only for consuming content instead of creating it? That myth can now be put to rest with the multitasking and virtual trackpad features of iOS 9. The world is moving towards mobile computing as either ultralight laptops or more powerful tablets. With those two choices, your best option is simply personal preference.

To learn more about iOS 9’s last features, click here.

Fry’s Electronics vs. Apple Stores

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What it is: The Apple Store is a redesigned retail store meant to change the way people shop for Apple products.

In a handful of states, there’s a chain of electronics stores called Fry’s Electronics. If you’ve never been in one before, think of a huge warehouse filled with electronic parts, fully assembled computers, appliances, computer books, software, and CDs/DVDs. The basic idea of Fry’s Electronics is to offer low prices and entice customers to show up, hopefully to buy something else as well.

When you walk into a Fry’s Electronics, you can easily be overwhelmed by the aisles of products and the people working the different departments. The real test is to buy a product and return it for a refund. That’s when you run into what Forbes said was an internal memo dubbed the double H’s that stands for hurdles and hoops. The goal is to put the customer though so many hurdles and hoops that they’ll give up trying to get a refund.

Fry’s Electronics works by offering low prices to entice customers in, and moving products in volume to make money. Customer service is practically non-existent and downright hostile when you try to get a refund.

Now compare this to the Apple Store where you’re warmly greeted by someone when you walk through the doors, the product lines are openly available so you can play around with them different items, and you can take your time playing as long as you want. Need to return something? Just bring it back with your receipt and someone often fulfills your request right away, sometimes even with an apology.

At the Apple Store, you feel valued as a customer. At Fry’s Electronics, you feel taken advantage of in exchange for getting products at a low price. Guess which store has a brighter future?

Fry’s Electronics competes on price alone. At one time, their stores were packed, especially on the weekends. Now with online shopping offering lower prices and free shipping, there’s little reason to visit Fry’s Electronics any more, which means fewer customers. In the past, crowds of people would rush into Fry’s Electronics searching for bargains. Nowadays the crowds are gone and the stores feel much emptier.

In comparison, Apple Stores are always crowded, but with customer service that strives to please the customer. Even if you don’t buy anything, the goal is still to make you happy because if they make you happy today, there’s a chance you’ll buy something tomorrow. On the other hand, Fry’s Electronics uses low prices alone to bring people in and then the workers hope you’ll leave them lone as much as possible and never ask for a refund afterwards. Fry’s Electronics sees customers as disposable and expandable. Apple sees customers as long-term relationships to be nurtured. Which type of store do you think makes more money and has happier, loyal customers?

Apple didn’t just redesign the retail store concept. They focused solely on the customer. Fry’s Electronics focuses solely on cutting costs and maximizing profit. Any time someone puts profits over people, you know there will be a problem, and Fry’s Electronics represents that problem.

You have a choice where you spend your money. You can support stores that try to cheat you and actively discourage you when getting a refund when you’re not happy, or you can support a store that tries to make you happy.

Ultimately do you value money (Fry’s Electronics) or happiness (Apple)? The products and store you prefer goes a long way towards identifying the type of person you are as well.

About the Apple Store.

“The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs”

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What it is: “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” is a book that explains how to give better presentations using the same techniques that Steve Jobs used.

On June 8, 2015, Apple broadcast their World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) keynote. Normally such keynotes last 1.5 to 2 hours, but this one went close to 2.5 hours. With so many presenters, you could clearly see the differences between a presentation that was engaging and one that was clearly boring and nearly useless. The difference lay solely on the presentation techniques each person used.

It’s never about the content. It’s always about the story behind the content. What Steve Jobs did was focus on the problem first, then when he got people to agree that there was a horrible problem with existing technology, he would magically reveal Apple’s solution and show how it would make those horrible problems suddenly disappear. That’s why people used to applaud and get awed by Steve Jobs’ presentations. He turned each presentation into a show for entertainment first using story telling techniques, and information second.

When you watch Apple’s WWDC 2015 video, you can see which presenters use those techniques and which ones do not. Some presenters simply recite a boring list of facts like the woman explaining how many banks Apple Pay is now accepted in Europe. That’s simply boring. At the end of the video you can see the Beats Music executives babbling on stage. Although they could clearly point to the problems of content being scattered all over, they didn’t present it clearly in an engaging manner. Rather they simply stated it blandly with no sense of showmanship whatsoever.

To present like Steve Jobs, you have to first focus on the benefits the technology offers. Then you work backwards to find the problem and the cause of that problem.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he focused on the confusing user interfaces of existing mobile phones with keyboards that slid out or keyboards that took up space on the bottom of the phone, reducing the screen size of the phone. By highlighting the problems of current mobile phones and getting people to agree emotionally that current mobile phones were a problem, Steve jobs set the stage for revealing the iPhone.

As soon as he revealed the iPhone, he immediately launched into a demo of how its features made the iPhone far easier to use than existing mobile phones. Once people emotionally understood the problem and saw how the iPhone overcame those problems, they suddenly realized how new and exciting the iPhone was.

That type of structure was missing in many presenters’ talks during the WWDC 2015 keynote. People don’t care about facts. People care about how those facts translate into solving problems, and nobody cares about problems until you first point them out and get the audience emotionally engaged to understand them.

Before Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone, most people didn’t think current mobile phones were a problem. Only after Steve Jobs pointed out the confusing user interfaces of current mobile phones did people finally realize that there was a problem. Then he hit them with the solution of the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

To avoid putting your audience to sleep, learn the presentation secrets of Steve Jobs, which is no secret after all. First, identify what problem your product solves. Most companies give up at this stage and just parade a laundry list of technical specifications, hoping the longer the list, the more likely it will convince people to buy the product. Instead, what such a laundry list of technical specifications usually does is confuse people and put them to sleep.

Second, once you’ve identified the problem, make sure you build up that problem to get an audience emotionally engaged in embracing that problem.

Third, identify the solution your product or service offers that fixes the problem and demonstrate how it solves the problem you’ve gotten the audience to embrace.

This three-step process makes people realize there’s a problem, hammers home the problem so they get emotionally engaged, and once they’re emotionally engaged, any solution that’s easier will seem more exciting.

The key is showing people how technology solves a problem, not just telling them. You show first and let people reach their own conclusions.

Steve Jobs’ presentation secrets are less of a secret and more just common sense story telling. Every presentation tells a story. You can get the audience emotionally involved or you can bombard them with facts that put them to sleep. Steve Jobs’ presentation secrets involve practice, rehearsal, and refining to present his point with laser-like focus. Watch old clips of Steve Jobs presenting and you’ll see that most people present information while forgetting about the audience’s interests.

In general, you have about ten seconds to grab the audience’s attention. If you can’t do that, then it’s better not to present at all than to bore your audience and have them completely ignore you.

The Coming iPad Pro

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What it is: The rumored iPad Pro is supposedly a bigger screen iPad with a 12-inch screen.

As sales of the iPad sink, it’s apparent that people don’t need to replace their iPads as often as they replace their smartphones. An iPad lasts far longer than two years and can probably go at least four or five years before needing to be replaced. So to give people a reason to upgrade their iPads, Apple announced two interesting features of the upcoming iOS 9, which will be available this fall (at the same time as the new iPhone and presumable the rumored iPad Pro).

First, iOS 9 now allows multitasking. On a small iPad mini, this doesn’t make any sense, but on a larger screen iPad (either the current iPad size or the rumored iPad Pro), multitasking with split screens will be handy for viewing more content at the same time. That feature right there will make the iPad Pro more attractive for businesses.

Second, iOS 9 will also allow the virtual keyboard to be turned into a trackpad when you press two fingers on the surface. This lets you smoothly position the cursor. Lift your fingers up and the virtual keyboard reappears again, ready for typing.

Both features of iOS 9 will likely be especially handy for the bigger iPad (as opposed to the iPad mini) and be attractive for business users as opposed to people who just want to play games. That means if Apple introduces an iPad Pro, they’ll likely sell more units and boost total iPad sales all over again.

Of course, the iPad Pro will likely run into the same situation as today’s iPad, namely that it will last at least four to five years before needing to be replaced. By then, Apple should have newer features that will make replacing an iPad more attractive.

The real market for the iPad isn’t just consumers who can be perfectly content with an original iPad that still browsers the Internet and plays games just fine. The real iPad market is now the business user who may be able to ditch their laptop completely and just rely on an iPad exclusively. Businesses users will likely upgrade more often so this should keep total iPad sales steady.

With iOS 9 coming out this fall, it’s easy to guess when the rumored iPad Pro will likely appear (the fall). Today’s iPads are great for work and play. Tomorrow’s iPad Pro will be geared more for work. With multitasking and a virtual touch pad, the future of the iPad is starting to look rosy all over again.

About the latest iOS 9 features for the iPad.

 

Encryption

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What it is: Encryption is the science of scrambling data so only authorized people can access the information.

Back in the 90’s, the United States tried to get the world to adopt the Clipper chip, which was an encryption standard that allowed the American government back door access to anything the Clipper chip encrypted. Of course, the whole purpose of encryption is to keep people from viewing your information, so allowing the American government access to your encrypted data made as much sense as locking your car but leaving the windows wide open.

Not surprisingly, few corporations and even fewer nations wanted to rely on the Clipper chip if they knew the American government could read their encrypted information easily. Now the National Security Agency (NSA) is trying to push the idea that encryption is bad because it protects terrorists, so therefore we need to ban encryption.

Then again, terrorists also plan their attacks using mobile phones, so we should ban those too. Terrorists also plan their attacks using paper and pencil, so we should ban that too. As you can see, the problem isn’t the technology itself but the misuse of it to hurt others.

Basically encryption is the science of taking data (known as plaintext) and using algorithms to scramble that data so no one can read it (known as cipher text). How the algorithm scrambles data depends entirely on a password.

The key to encryption is the combination of the algorithm and the password. If you have a weak algorithm for scrambling data, it doesn’t matter how strong the password is since someone can still crack a weak algorithm. If you have a strong algorithm but a weak password, someone can simple guess your password. What you need is both a strong encryption algorithm and a strong password.

There are several encryption algorithms available, but the latest one is called the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) that the American government helped create. To insure that there were no back door access hidden in the AES encryption standard, the government held a contest where cryptographers from all over the world could submit their encryption algorithms and anyone could examine the algorithm. Such transparency helped insure that there were no hidden back doors in any of the algorithms.

The goal of an encryption algorithm is to scramble data so it appears as random gibberish. Since algorithms can be easily studied, the real protection comes from the password used to tell the algorithm how to scramble data in a specific way. That’s why web sites often force people to create passwords that consist of upper and lower case letters along with other characters besides letters. The more random the password, the harder it will be to guess. That means the only way to crack encrypted data is to try to break the algorithm, but if the algorithm is strong, that effectively keeps the encrypted data safe from prying eyes.

Realistically, encryption can always be broken. The key to encryption is that to break it, someone may need to spend thousands or millions of years, which effectively makes the encryption unbreakable. All encryption can be broken. The key is how long it will take to break it.

Apple, Microsoft, and other companies offer encryption to protect your hard disk data from prying eyes. Although the NSA wants companies to weaken their encryption, strong encryption can theoretically keep your data safe even from government agencies like the NSA. That’s why the NSA doesn’t like encryption because it hides data from their prying eyes.

When protecting your own data, make sure you’re using strong encryption. That usually means relying on a known encryption standard like AES, and choosing a difficult password. The combination of a difficult password and a strong encryption algorithm effectively makes you data safe from prying eyes. You just have to make sure nobody knows what your password might be. (If you forget your password, that means you won’t have access to your own data either.)

You want strong encryption to protect your own privacy. Now you must also practice good security habits by using unique, difficult passwords because the passwords are the real weak link to encryption. People often write passwords down or make them easy to remember, which also makes them easy to guess. Your password is really the key to keeping your encrypted data safe.

If you’re worried about the security of your data, encrypt your entire hard disk using FileVault, Apple’s encryption program that comes free with every Macintosh. FileVault takes time to set up and can slow down your computer because it needs to encrypt and decrypt data so you can use your computer, but if security is important to you, use FileVault.

Encryption programs like FileVault can just make your data safer and protect your privacy. It will never be perfect, but it’s far better to have some measure of security than none at all.

About FileVault.

“The Apple Experience”

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What it is: “The Apple Experience” is a book that explains why Apple’s customer service consistently ranks near the top of customer satisfaction and how Apple manages to keep their customer support at such a high consistent level.

There’s nothing more frustrating than paying for something and being ignored, frustrated, or outright cheated. What most companies do wrong is that they focus on profits and anything that doesn’t directly bring in profits, they cut, which includes customer service. At one time, Gateway Computers reportedly cut back on their technical support by limiting the amount of time each technician could spend on the phone with each person. That way one technician could theoretically help more customers.

What Gateway Computers didn’t realize was that by forcing technicians to cut customers off too quickly, it created a frustrating experience. When customers are upset with a company, the last thing they want to do is buy something else and give more money to that same company. So cutting back expenses for customer service initially saves money, but in the long run it destroys future profits every time, which is something corporate executives neglect so many times you’d think they’d eventually learn. (They don’t.)

What Apple does is focus on changing people’s lives, not just through selling products, but through interacting with customers to make them feel valued. While other companies save money outsourcing their technical support to overseas call centers that attempt to turn computer novices into their own technicians over the phone, Apple doesn’t put the burden on the customer. Instead, Apple offers the Genius Bar where you can walk in, get help, speak to someone face to face, and get your problem solved as quickly as possible without trying to follow convoluted technical instructions over the phone.

Would you tune up your own car by listening to instructions from a car mechanic over the phone? How about doing your own dentistry by listening to a dentist tell you what to do over the phone? If that sounds ridiculous, now consider the stupidity of making computer novices try to troubleshoot their own computers by following instructions over the phone from someone who can’t even see what the problem is. Not surprisingly, dealing with technical support through outsourced call centers dramatically decreases customer satisfaction with the company as a whole.

Apple realizes that so they focus on making each customer happy, knowing that happy customers may not buy an Apple product right away, but will likely buy one in the future and will likely tell others of their great experience with Apple. That translates into free advertising from happy, satisfied customers, which reduces the need to spend more money on advertising.

Great customer service simply increases the chance that current customers become lifelong customers. Yet companies are willing to spend billions on advertising to bring in customers, but won’t spend money on customer service because they think it doesn’t bring in customers. The truth is that it’s easier to sell to a current customer than it is to bring in a new customer. That’s why companies really should allocate more money on customer service and less money on advertising, since better customer service is proven to be more profitable in the long run.

What makes Apple’s customer service better is choosing the right people. Most companies hire employees based on what they know. Apple hires employees based on how friendly they are. It’s easy to teach someone how a Macintosh works or how to use an iPad. It’s far more difficult to teach someone how to be friendly to others and be willing to help them walk out of the Apple Store with a smile on their face.

It’s not what you know that matters. It’s how well you get along with people because dealing with people is what customer service is all about.

Apple gets it. Other companies don’t. That’s why Apple has such a loyal following and other companies don’t. Customer service may seem unimportant, but it’s actually critical to long-term success. Make people happy and they’ll likely turn around and make you happy. Make people angry and they’ll likely turn around and make you angry by not only leaving, but bad mouthing you to their friends. That type of negative publicity hurts any company, yet few companies ever think that improving customer service would return far more profits in the long run than spending money on more advertising. Attracting new customers all the time is pointless if poor customer service keeps driving them away.

If you want to learn how Apple creates a cult-like following, or if you want to turn your company into a place that inspires employees and customers alike, then you want to read “The Apple Experience” to learn the secrets that Apple uses that other companies don’t, even though it’s not really a secret.

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