5 reasons I like Spotify

iPad is here! Finally…

Yesterday the iPad officially arrived in Holland, finally. With the iPhone 1 introduction a few years ago I bought one (overpriced) at eBay, got into some issues with the seller and had to pay a lot of additional tax at the Dutch border. So I decided to wait for the European release this time.

While waiting in line with over 50 others I thought about how things have changed. 15 years ago I was the only Mac-user at my school and Apple made some pretty boring products. Now in 2010 almost everyone I know owns at least one Apple product. Great!

Below are some pictures of the launch and some screenshots of the iPad in action while reading a SAP Press book and using the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for iPad.

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I want iSlate [updated]

As you may have read Apple is expected to make a major product announcement by the end of this month. Will the iTablet/iSlate/iGuide finally come? Many rumor/news sites think so and I sure hope it is true. Gizmodo made a nice overview on the Apple tablet rumors so you don’t have to read all those rumor sites yourself. For me this feels like the months before the iPhone release in 2007 all over again.

The #1 reason for me to buy such a device – besides the fact that I obviously like new Apple stuff – would be that I am ditching paper in 2010. At the end of 2009 I purchased and read lots of paper books which made me think. Why am I still driving to my local bookstore to get my books, and why am I still waiting days/weeks for my Amazon/Bol.com orders to be delivered when I know that most books are available in digital format. Every week I receive several paper magazines and until last week I even got a daily newspaper on my doormat! Also, at work my desk is always filled with prints of documents because I don’t like to read long texts from a computer screen and I want to write some small notes on them.

So I started looking for a digital paper/e-reader like device that would allow me to really go digital. Fast conclusion was that they all kinda suck. Yes even the Amazon Kindle DX. I don’t want to use an USB cable to sync it to my Mac. I want a real browser. I want a multitouch screen. I want a color screen. I want to edit docs. I want to use spreadsheets. I want to watch videos. I want to install small Apps.

So actually I just want a big iPhone with a screen that is easy on the eyes. When can I get it, Apple?

Update: 24 hours after writing this blog I got the Plastic Logic News Alert in my mailbox. I think over a year ago I read something on the web about a cool e-ink/e-paper prototype, which was of a much higher quality than the available e-readers. It must have grabbed my attention because I signed up for the newsletter, which learns me that they finally unveiled the specs, prizing and release date for their QUE product. After a quick look at the website I think this comes pretty close to what I am looking for. Its business oriented, supports MS Excel, has a multitouch screen, enables commenting, is Mac compatible and it sure looks great. Major remarks are the high price ($649 – $799) and the no-color screen. QUE will be available in April 2010. The video below gives an impression of the device.

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Thoughts on Xcelsius 2008 SP3

Santa Claus arrived early this year, with SAP BusinessObjects delivering the third servicepack for Xcelsius 2008. Great! The Xcelsius community seems to be extremely excited about this release according to all the positive tweets and blogs. You can download Xcelsius 2008 here and find all the information on what’s fixed and what’s new here.

But hey, wait a minute. Those Sparklines, Bullet-charts, Scorecards, the Chart Slider, Advanced Labeling which all comes with SP3, I have seen all of this before somewhere. Actually, I already had a lot of this functionality in my Xcelsius SP2 installation, due to some excellent third-party Xcelsius add-ons. See some examples below. On the left side the ‘new’ Xcelsius components, on the right side the ‘old’ third-party add-ons.

So what is the message that SAP gives us – and more important: the small group of Xcelsius add-on developers – with this release? Looking at this free ‘service pack’ I don’t see why anyone would consider investing a lot of time, effort and money in developing Xcelsius add-ons, knowing that SAP maybe will integrate your ideas or solutions in their own product, and give it away for free. I remember the case where Apple introduced its ‘innovative’ Dashboard, while third-party app Konfabulator already did the same thing years before. Maybe I’m just whining about nothing and is this just what big companies do all the time, but with the very limited number of active developers for Xcelsius add-ons, I think this approach maybe not the best way to go.

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The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

Being an Apple fan/evangelist for almost all my life I experienced numerous introductions of cool new Apple products. Since the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997 he delivered most of these product launches in his famous keynote speech (Stevenote) at MacWorld or WWDC. Anyone who has ever watched one of these events will admit that Jobs’ presentation skills are outstanding. Somehow he is able to deliver a performance that will fascinate you from the first until the last minute.

Now move over to the world of SAP and probably 80% (or more) of the presentations we attend. I watched the Vienna SAP TechEd keynote a few weeks ago through the live video stream. The speed of the presentations was very low and the slides were boring and stuffed with text. After a while people in the audience started to write tweets like:

Keynote #sapteched09 about speed of change? In stead of ppt with figures I like to see real SAP stuff, come on.

OK, we get the business case. Can we move on how attendees can use SAP technology 2 implement the business solution?

Ouch. Not good.

Luckily for us (and the guys at SAP) Carmine Gallo, a BusinessWeek columnist, wrote a great book on how to give a presentation like Steve Jobs. The book is overloaded with concrete examples from keynotes from the past. For example how to keep your slides simple and visual and why you should never, ever, use bullet points in your slides (it is actually the least effective way to deliver information). If Jobs starts talking about the Apple 2009 results, the slide simply says “2009″.

Gallo also shows that Jobs uses tons of short Twitter-like headlines that are easy to remember. At the introduction of the iPod, Jobs could have said something like:

Today we are introducing a new, ultraportable MP3 player with 6.5-ounce design and a 5 GB hard drive, complete with Apple’s legendary ease of use.

Instead he said:

iPod. 1000 songs in your pocket.

Feel the difference?

I found this video of Gallo in which he outlines the key topics of the book while showing some examples from actual Steve Jobs keynotes. You can find more info at Gallo’s BusinessWeek blog, at The Cult of Mac or at Amazon.