Why I joined the Moto X club

Well, I finally traded my trusty Nexus 4 for a shiny new Moto X. I was vacillating between it and the Nexus 5 for a quite a while. I liked that the Nexus 5 was the purest form of Android and would receive updates directly from Google. I also liked its high resolution 1080p screen. Ultimately, I opted for the Moto X for one main reason: I believe that, despite it not being a "pure" Android experience, the Moto X represents the truest vision of Android's future.
This device feels just a little smarter than the average smartphone. It was designed to be aware of its user and what that person is doing at that moment. It knows when I'm driving and will read text messages aloud. It knows when I'm in meetings and will set itself to vibrate. It knows when I'm sleeping and mutes itself. It knows when it's in my pocket or upside down and keeps the screen off until I look at it. I can control it by using my voice without touching the screen at all. Its hardware was specially designed to listen for me to say "Ok Google Now" followed by a command. Its Active Display feature is the smartest notification system that I've seen on any device. Active Display is a great combination of battery conservation and information display.
There is also a lot to like from the hardware side. I really enjoy the 720p AMOLED display. While it may not be as crisp as some of the 1080p displays out there, I think the colors look better. Battery life is better than most smartphones that I have used. Most of all, I love the shape of this device and the way it feels in my hand. I have been reluctant to get a case for the phone because I'm worried it would ruin the spectacular feel of the Moto X. The only real disappointment is the camera. Fortunately, everything else more than makes up for this slight deficiency.
There is so much to love about the Moto X. This is the first Android phone that I've used since the beloved Nexus One that seems to have been designed with a real purpose. I can appreciate how much thought and planning went into its design. I'm amazed at how well the Moto X's hardware and its special software like Active Display, Moto Assist, and Touchless Control have been so well integrated into an otherwise "stock" Android experience without cheapening the device the way other OEM skins and "features" seem to do. I believe that the Moto X will serve as an inspiration to future phones to demonstrate how smart a smartphone can be.

Planning My Fallback Career

I had an opportunity to participate in the #RogersSI iOS 7 Learning Session Hangout. I thought that there was some great information, tips, and tricks for people who are new to iOS 7. I had a lot of fun and was in charge of the sound effects. Good to know that I have an option as sound effects guy in the event that my current career fall through ;-)
Google+ hangouts are pretty cool especially when you get the behind the scenes perspective.

Brace Yourself. Winter Is Coming...

Public Service Announcement

When it gets cold, Siri and Google Now are your friends.

If you live in a colder climate like I do, you've undoubtedly seen this: Somebody bundled up in a Super-warm jacket, heavy boots, wool hat, and one glove. The other glove is tucked under the arm or stuffed into a pocket so that this person can operate his smartphone. Happens all winter long. There are those special touchscreen-friendly capacitive gloves but they never work very well. So people go about freezing their fingers off all winter long.

Good news! If you have an iPhone or Moto X, you need not fear smartphone-related-frostbite. Both Siri and Google Now allow you to do almost anything on your phone with your voice. You can speak to your phone to open webpages, search for information, turn features on/off, post to social media, compose emails and messages. When it's cold, you don't have to remove your glove to invoke Siri from your iPhone. Just hold down the iPhone's home button with your warm glove-clad finger. Or, if you are fortunate enough to own a Moto X with it's always-listening feature, you can just say "Ok Google...". Technically you can do something similar with Samsung and S-Voice but I don't find S-Voice to be as robust as Google Now or Siri.

This winter, keep your hands warm and use your voice. Or move to Florida...

Life with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

I am fortunate enough to have received a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (LTE). There are plenty of reviews of this device online so I will spare you from reading another specification-based review and instead will focus on my overall impressions, likes, and dislikes.
First, the obligatory unboxing pics. Please pardon my photography skills.

Overall, this is a very good device. There is a lot to like about it. It has a nice solid (if somewhat plasticy) feel. It's size is very comfortable for holding, carrying around, and viewing. It's screen is also large enough to make good use of the S Pen. The S Pen is what really differentiates Samsung's Galaxy Note line and I really like it.
I have used a number of tablets and the one area where they all consistently fail is at creating diagrams. At work, I often have to create visualizations, flowcharts, network diagrams, report outlines, etc. In the past, I've used a generic stylus but the lack of integration and pressure sensitivity always led to a subpar experience. Not so with the S Pen. Being able to capture a my thoughts visually is such a productivity boost. Aside from being able to quickly scribble my ideas, another S Pen feature that I find myself using quite often is its ability to select parts of images and objects. This works similarly to the lasso tool in most image editing applications. Just hold down the button on the S Pen and draw around the area that you want to capture. So very convenient. For those parents reading this, a big plus is that the S Pen is great with kids. Need a quick pre-dinner distraction at the restaurant? Doodle away!
There are also a number of S Pen apps available but, to be honest, I was satisfied with the default ones that came with the Note. They do a great job and Samsung has made it very easy to invoke them directly from the home screen and with the S Pen.
I really love the S Pen's capabilities and kudos to Samsung for doing a great job of implementation and integration into the device. I was even pleasantly surprised by the handwriting recognition. Originally, I thought that the S Pen was merely included as a gimmick but, having used it, I realize that it is an exceedingly valuable differentiator.
The second thing that I really like about the Note is its LTE capability. Having LTE on a tablet really improves the overall experience. In my case, I'm using Canada's Rogers LTE network and it's has been a terrific experience. In the Greater Toronto Area I consistently get excellent signal quality and fast speeds. In my opinion, it is absolutely worth spending a little extra per month for this feature if you can. True, it's relatively easy to find a WiFi hotspot but those are often slow and not entirely secure. Alternatively, many of us can tether to our phones but that can quickly drain your phone's battery. The convenience of having fast, secure, always available connectivity is especially welcome on Android where almost every aspect of the device utilizes Google's web-based services.
I wouldn't say that I have any major complaints about this device. As I said, it is very good. There are a few less-than-amazing aspects to it. First, in a world with the 1080p Nexus 7, the Retina iPad Air Mini, and other high resolution display tablets, the 1280x800 display does seem a little dated. Also, the Note's battery life could be better. The S Pen, for all its brilliance, is a little too small to be really comfortable. Lastly, I am not a big fan of Samsung's visual interface. It seems silly and childish to me. Fortunately, on Android, that is something that is easy to remedy.
As a pure tablet, there are better alternatives. I would recommend the iPad Air, Mini, or 2013 Nexus 7. However, the S Pen makes this a wonderfully unique device. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 finds just the right size between the larger less portable stylus-enabled devices like Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 or Microsoft's Surface Pro and smaller devices with less screen real estate for the S Pen like Samsung's Note 3. I find that the Note 8.0 strikes a great balance between work and play, and big and small.

Larry Page Announces Google Spinoff Calico [Updated with link to Time Magazine Article]

On September 18th, Google's CEO +Larry Page announced a new company called Calico. This company will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases (You can read his announcement in this Google+ post below). I definitely have had my share of complaints about the company but this is exactly why, all-in-all, I love Google; the people there don't limit themselves to only do what they are expected to do and they aim BIG. A little tikkun olam to start off the new year from the technology giant.
We all are aware of how devastating age-related diseases can be. Not just for the afflicted but for the families as well. It's absolutely horrible to watch those you love wasting away or stare at you blankly because they don't remember who you are, etc. I'm absolutely elated to see the technology giant investing its technological and financial weight behind such a noble cause. Kol Hakovod!

UPDATE: Time Magazine has an article on the subject

Why I'm Really Excited About Co-processing in Smartphones

As I mentioned in my previous post, I really like the direction that Google and Motorola have taken with the Moto X. I think the new Touchless Control feature, which allows users to control certain things on their phones with just their voices, is very exciting. Since then, on September 10th, Apple announced the new iPhone 5S and, it too, includes a co-processing chip (for motion rather than voice). I'm thrilled with these development. Between the Moto X's always listening and the iPhones 5S's motion detection, we are starting to see smartphones emerge that look for cues rather than specific input. To be fair, at the moment, these capabilities are still more marketing gimmickry rather than killer feature. However, I believe that, with some contextual awareness, these features will become revolutionary in the way we work with our gadgets.
Let me explain.
At Google IO 2013 (video here - starts at the 2 hour mark), Google showed the beginnings of contextual search using terms like "Here" and "It". Being able to ask things like "How far is it from here?" makes interacting with my devices much more natural. I'm hoping to see that same kind of contextual awareness appear in the Touchless Control feature of the Moto X (and hopefully future Nexus phones). It would be great if Touchless Control could be integrated with Android intents so that we can say things to our phones like: "Bookmark this", "send this picture to my mom", "Keep this", "call her", "Navigate there", etc.
If the demonstration from Google IO is any indication, I think the capability for this kind of interaction is almost here. If so, I think it will usher in a much improved method of interacting with our phones and apps. That's why I'm really excited.

Happy 5774

Shana Tova to all my readers. It has been a very long time since I written anything in this blog. I've been thinking about getting back into blogging and figured that, this being a new year and all, it is a great time to renew the blog. I've read over my old posts and was somewhat surprised by the level of mean-spiritedness. I want to start over from a much more positive perspective. More mensch-like if you will. After all, I love technology. I love how it enables us to do so much more with our lives. I love how it moves humanity forward. Most of all, I love how it is so much fun to explore. So in the spirit of the new year and Teshuva I'd like to ask forgiveness for being deliberately offensive.

Speaking of new beginnings, Apple is on the verge of publicly releasing iOS 7 in the next week or so. From what I've seen, this is a great new upgrade from iOS 6 and earlier. It seems much simpler and cleaner. True, many parts seem to be inspired from other smartphones but the people in Cupertino sure put that inspiration to good use. Control Center is a huge time saver and the Today feature in the Notification Center is very handy. I love the flattened and clean look of the menus and buttons. Almost all of my complaints about iOS have been addressed in the latest release. The only areas that I feel still need some significant improvement are: better/more actionable notifications, the ability to set what functions are in Control Center, and that Apple would remove the arbitrary 50 MB download limit on cellular. After all, it's my data plan. I should be able to determine how I it gets consumed. All-in-all, I think iOS 7 is a much needed refresh of the somewhat stale iOS model. I can't wait to see how the next iPhone (being announced on the 10th) will leverage this new operating system.

In another new beginning of sorts, I am really pleased by the way that the Google/Motorola MotoX is rethinking the spec wars. Instead of going with the more is more play (more cores, more GHz, more screen, more pixels), the MotoX has taken a page out of Apple's playbook and designed the internal hardware around usability. I'm very impressed with the always ready nature of this phone. I really like the idea of having touchless access to Google Now. To me, it makes the device seem so much more accessible. I'm also a fan of the Active Display which only lights up a portion of the screen when not in use (and not in your pocket) to present important updates. I've been using dashclock with daydream mode on my Nexus 4 for similar functionality. I have features like these make it into the just-announced next version of Android (4.4 KitKat). I'm really hoping that this year brings about an end to the idea that specs are more important than usability and that, as a result, Android phones start focusing on ways to give the user the ultimate experience rather than the biggest and fastest device.

Thanks again for reading. Here's to a fantastic 5774