Teens in Tech's Launch Marred by Technical Issues

Teens in Tech, the new startup purportedly creating a community for teens interested in creating new media, not-launch launched into private alpha yesterday. After a TechCrunch review yesterday, the group has been widely panned.

Critics point to the lack of innovation on the part of the company. It uses a standard Wordpress MU installation and has already shown a surprising lack of foresight. A review on TechCrunch generates huge site traffic and server load, but Teens in Tech (I’ll spell out the name to avoid the acronym - not the best marketing choice) was using DreamHost, a service clearly not designed for reliability. The people at Teens in Tech bit the bullet and switched to a more reliable host, but only after leaving the front page down for most of the all-important launch day.

But still, I don’t think the technicalities are critical. Being crashed by TechCrunch is almost a rite of passage for startups, but Teens in Tech should have at least attempted to plan. My concern lies with the theory behind the company. Even if the launch has been smooth and Teens in Tech used the best custom backend in the world, the service would still fail because it is pursuing a flawed (if existent) business plan. While the teen market is huge on the Internet, the number of teens who are willing to create new media is very small. From a business perspective, targeting such an infinitessimal market segment isn’t at all profitable. Opening up to everyone would defeat the purpose of beging a teen company and place the group the group in direct competition with more established foes, like Mevio.

In fact, one of only a few things Teens in Tech has going for them is the design. Sean Blake did an excellent job at creating a professional design to complement the content. But as professional as the site looks, I’m not sure how professional it actually is.

The company is not incorporated and much of the company’s future plans remain “in discussion.” Oddly, Teens in Tech is generating an inordinate amount of hype for a service launching into private alpha. I question the wisdom of launching so early, given the technical issues, lack of innovation, and lack of clear direction. While Teens in Tech has the profit potential of a lemonade stand on a deserted road, a few conversations with the Teens in Tech team lead me to believe that the company isn’t going after profit. They seem undecided at the moment, but some sort of charity-type, donation-based organization might be in the works.

For the most part, the criticism of Teens in Tech is well-deserved. They launched too early, with no real innovation, haunted by technical difficulties. It was just not thought through. It is, as of now, all hype and no product. But I won’t tolerate the people who say Teens in Tech is only popular in the media because of who Daniel, the founder, knows and because of his location (Daniel is based in Silicon Valley). Perhaps this has some merit in that Daniel has more access to those who matter, but the people who matter wouldn’t care about Daniel if he was just an ordinary person. Daniel obviously has something going for him that’s impressing the likes of Robert Scoble and others.

My primary concern is that Teens in Tech will harm the teen community as a whole on the Internet. As teens, we have a certain disadvantage because we are not viewed as equals. But we can’t expect to be treated specially because we’re young, either. If teens want to be as successful as adults, then they need to be as good as adults. Age is no excuse for a less-than-fantastic product.

I have nothing against Daniel or the Teens in Tech team, but I want them to use their efforts for something else. I want them to do something really great, but I’m not quite sure what. Daniel would do it well, I’m sure, but more importantly, if he and his team pulled it off, it would be a major advancement for teens. So my advice to Daniel is to close up shop on Teens in Tech and move on to something more worthy of his efforts. Teens in Tech is just not going to gain the audience it needs to be a successful business.

I’ve had my iPhone 3G for about thirty-six hours and I’m very pleased. The first iPhone was amazing, but the iPhone 3G’s additional/upgraded hardware perfectly compliments iPhone software 2.0 for what is, overall, a much improved user experience.

Activation

Apple and AT&T were able to reach an agreement for the cost of iPhone 3G to be heavily subsidized, with the catch being that phone activation must take place in-store. AT&T hopes that this will cut down on users unlocking their phones to use them on any network.

So I found myself in line outside the AT&T store on Madison Avenue yesterday morning at 6:45 AM. (Had this phone not required in-store activation, I still would have been in line). Buying my new phone in an Apple store would have been more enjoyable, but the lines at AT&T stores were generally shorter. The doors opened at 8 AM EDT, and about about 15 people went in and 20 minutes later, everyone had come out. They were slowly letting people in, replacing the people coming out, but it was 9 AM before I even got into the store. Processing 20 people an hour is not good.

At this point, I ran into the rampant unprofessionalism in AT&T stores. I knew I might run into some unprofessional employees based on my experience calling AT&T stores for details on their launch procedures. They were often unknowledgeable and brusque, some even outright rude. On Thursday, I had called the very store at which I was waiting in line and asked what a reasonable time to show up would be, based on their experience with the first iPhone. They said: “No, that’s not the kind of thing we can talk about. We can’t just tell you an estimate. I don’t know why you’d think we can give that information, but everyone needs to stand in line and we can’t help one customer over an other.”

Because of that experience, I was partially prepared for this type of behavior, but I didn’t expect the store to sink to the organizational standard of a Florida voting center. The troubles began in store: First, I asked one employee if they had any iPhone 3G cases (they only had original iPhone cases on display). She wasn’t sure, so she asked another employee. Instead of giving her a straight answer, that employee started messing around, saying they didn’t, then they did, going back and forth. I’m sure he thought he was humorous. This left me waiting while my employee was fighting with Mr. Idiot and the guy whose phone Mr. Idiot was trying to activate was also left waiting. He had complete disregard for the fact that there were hundreds of people in line and he was holding them up.

Second, (this is my personal favorite “unprofessional moment”) was when AT&T employee “Felix” ran across the store telling, “iTunes is down! Apple is down! No activations! That’s why it’s stupid to launch in 22 countries at once.” Felix seemed to be overly cheerful that a few hundred people were waiting for an activation that would not come hours.

Aside from the actively unprofessional employees, a disturbing number of AT&T employees were simply milling about, talking and texting. Believe me, there was no shortage of things to do (crowd control was becoming a necessity as people started to get annoyed). The only people doing anything were the people actually activating phones and a nice employee named “Revka” who was running phones and calming people down.

An AT&T employee did as much as she could to transfer my phone number from iPhone to iPhone without contacting the Apple activation server. I was then told to go home and complete the activation process myself by plugging in to iTunes 7.7. For several hours, I had two iPhones - old and new - neither of which was capable of sending or receiving calls.

When I returned home hours later, I was able to successfully activate my phone. As it turns out, Apple’s activation servers failed, probably because there were so many requests. What strikes me as odd is that Apple did not plan for a huge load. They knew iPhone 3G would be popular, so why didn’t they increase capacity? Or did they, but just not by enough? Perhaps there is an alternate explanation of which I do not yet know. I’ve never heard of any other company that gets screwed because people like their products too much.

I do not harbor any long-term bad feelings towards the fols at Apple, but I could strangle a few AT&T employees with their little iPhone tethering cords. AT&T’s issue is a lack of professionalism and a terrible retail experience. Apple is more forgivable because we don’t notice their victories (keeping apple.com online all the time, keeping iTunes running, etc.) because their victories are expected. When they fail, we openly and contantly criticize them. They had a few dicey hours, but it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, the activating was running more smoothly than the day before, and people were going home satisfied.

iPhone Software 2.0

Just hours after the release of iPhone 3G, it’s pretty clear that the real coup was not the hardware, but the software. Most of Apple’s pre-loaded applications saw some change in iPhone software 2.0 (the ability to move and delete multiple message in Mail or the new scientific calculator mode in Calculator, just to name a couple). With 2.0 comes greatly increased security and, most importantly, the ability to add third-party applications from the App Store.

I’m still looking for the ability to cut-and-paste and send multimedia messages. I hope this is forthcoming in a future update! Most other features can be added by third-party applications (voice dialing, turn-by-turn directions, etc.) which makes allowing third-party applications a time-saving decision for Apple!

The changes Apple has made in iPhone software 2.0 (and the parallel release for iPod Touch) have been for the better. In the course of my testing, I’ve noticed two minor bugs.

1. The first has to do with the Contacts application. Apple moved it to the homescreen for easier access (it used to be buried in the phone application) and added contact search, both of which are welcome improvements. Unfortunately, the 2.0 version of Contacts is slow and stuttery. It is usable, but tapping a name may take a second more to register in Contacts 2.0.
2. In 2.0, Apple universalized an easy way of going to the top of a scrollable area. Previously, a user could get to the top of a page in Safari by simply tapping the top bar containing time, signal strength, battery life, etc. It’s extremely useful and in 2.0, it’s now available in every app. In Stocks, for example, if I’m looking at Xerox (XRX), which is towards the bottom of my list, I can just tap the top bar to see Apple (AAPL), without having to scroll up. This feature does not suffer from the same slow-to-respond issue that Contacts does, but the scrolling is not smooth, as it should be.

Hardware

With all of this discussion on software, it’s important to mention the new hardware!

GPS

iPhone 3G uses A-GPS, which basically means that the phone acquires your location generally through cell towers and other indicators, which allows the GPS receiver to connect more quickly. Essentially, the GPS receiver only has to figure out where it is within a certain radius, rather than the entire world. It works surprisingly quickly. I’ve been able to acquire a GPS lock in seconds and the maps application will track your progress with a nice blue dot. It works in cars and I’m looking forward to turn-by-turn navigation software (this may be delayed by a clause in the SDK agreement). It sucks battery life very quickly, but I imagine it will be extraordinarily useful when I’m in the middle of nowhere and I want to figure out where the nearest Starbucks is!

3G

3G is so much faster than EDGE, the older data network. While that is not in dispute, 3G’s coverage is considerably less than EDGE’s. I was very worried when I looked at my iPhone and I saw that I barely had any signal strength at all. I thought my phone was broken or something. In fact, it was displaying it’s 3G signal only. When 3G died completely, I found that I had full EDGE coverage. This does not show in the signal indicator, however, because the indicator shows only one or the other, not a hybrid. So don’t panic if it looks like you have no reception. 3G is also a battery hog, but it was only a few seconds slower than WiFi in my tests.

Audio Quality

Apple has vastly improved audio quality. The external speaker is louder and clearer, but the plastic back helps with signal reception on calls as well. 3G allows more voice data to be transferred, so a call in an area with full 3G coverage is a breath of fresh air. It’s probably the best call quality I’ve ever heard on any phone.

Flush Headphone Jack

The old iPhone had an oddly angled headphone jack that prevented many headphones from being used without special adapters, such as the Bose QuiteComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones. The new iPhone has a flush headphone jack and my Bose headphones are working excellently!

But I’m Still Missing…

I do have some complaints. I’d like my phone to be 802.11n capable and I’d like more battery life. Spending some time on 3G and GPS can drain battery remarkably quickly.

Third-Party Applications

The iPhone SDK, released in March, allowed developers to write native applications for iPhone and users are finally able to use the resultant products. About 500 applications are available now, with tons more to come, and about 25% are free. The App store is available through iTunes, as well as on iPhones and iPod Touches, and installation is all automatic. It’s as easy as buying a song. The applications for the App store are a mixed bag, but it’s obvious that Apple is the best at writing software for their products and when you let in third-parties, some of them are not so good. I’ve been using a few applications for a while and I’ve briefly reviewed them below.

Remote

As I said above, Apple is the best at designing software for their own products. Remote conntects to iTunes over a local wireless network, then allows you to control your movies, music, and more. It’ll also control Apple TV. It has an interface that’s almost exactly like the interface for the iPod function on iPhone and iPod Touch, except it won’t play media locally, it just controls external devices. It works smoothly and it’s free!

Twitterific

I’m a big fan of Twitter and while I don’t use the desktop version of Twitterific, I do have the ad-supported version on my iPhone. You can view and send tweets and direct messages, but I’m a bit concerned about how it asks to use your current location once, then it keeps on updating you location in your profile. I don’t want creepy Internet people at my house! The application is also slow and jerky. It’s only usable over a strong EDGE connection, 3G, or WiFi. A weak EDGE connection will time-out. I’m looking for increased usability and the ability to look at all the tweets for a particular person. Twitterific does, however, get a big plus for graphic design and for having two versions available: a free, ad-supported version and an ad-free version for $9.99.

AIM

I was looking for a lot more from AIM. It’s usable over EDGE, 3G, and WiFi, but the design is simple in a bad way. AOL with their massive resources put together an application at which many independent developers are laughing. It does have the advantage of being free, but I hope that in future updates, they make some small changes that will vastly improve AIM. I’d like a mute function for one, the ability to chat with multiple people, and the ability to send pictures. If AIM could tap into Contacts and get buddy names so that I could see “Joe Smith” instead of having to look at “iluvfootball123″ all the time, that would be even better. That may be something Apple has to fix, however, because buddy names currently do not sync into iPhone’s contacts.

The Bottom Line

The iPhone 3G is not a must-have product unless you’re an Apple fanboy, but iPhone software 2.0 is. The third-party applications will be interesting to watch and this will begin a new era of applications that will benefit iPhone users significantly. The activation process will calm down soon and while it is not a must-have, the hardware enhancements, both big and small, make iPhone 3G worth it.

A Review of MobileMe will be Released in the Coming Days

The launch of the first iPhone was amazing. I wasn’t standing in line, but the pictures tell the story. When I received my iPhone at Christmas, it was an experience that probably rivaled that of the early adopters. The whole experience of unwrapping it and the high blood pressure moments waiting for activation to complete were thrilling.

AT&T has killed the romance of activating an iPhone for the launch of iPhone 3G. You can’t take it home - everything has to be done in store. Instead of a more relaxing activation for which you can prepare at your own pace, buyers are directed to be “iReady,” a term that sounds like it was created by an intern in AT&T marketing. Some details about what will happen for FamilyTalk users are not doing wonders for my stress level.

Despite the Draconian iPhone launch procedures to which Apple has acquiesced (perhaps to protect AT&T’s investment in subsidizing the phone), I feel that I’d be missing something if I wasn’t at the Apple store. Apple retail employees can really put on a show - clapping for you and otherwise expressing their appreciation. But logistical complications force me to a local AT&T store at 6 AM to wait for the 8 AM release.

I’ll miss the Apple store, but it wasn’t going to be the same anyway.

Being an Apple fan is a blessing and a curse. I am blessed because I can appreciate the wonderful products that Apple releases each year, but I’m cursed because when they do make an announcement, Apple becomes my primary focus. I couldn’t not do a post about Apple, so here it is.

The highlight of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is the keynote, traditionally given by Steve Jobs (a.k.a. El Jobso, the Steve, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, etc.) and Jobs took his time this year to speak about the iPhone. The first hour was admittedly dull, but in the second hour, things began to get much more interesting. I’ve summed up the highlights of the highlight in chronological order.

iPhone SDK

Apple enthusiasts heard about the iPhone SDK at an event on Apple’s campus in March. The SDK, or software developer’s kit, allows a developer to create an application. iPhone users have been able to use online applications for a while and some of them are quite well done. Facebook and Bank of America both did an excellent job with their online iPhone apps, but these only work if you’re connected to the Internet.

Advantages of having an application reside on the phone itself include the ability to tap into some of the information stored on your phone (i.e. Contacts) or some of the equipment on your phone (i.e. Camera). For example, if I want to chat with friends using AIM, I could use an online application, but an application that resides on my phone would give me the ability to assign a screen name to a contact. I could also assign a buddy a new contact photo by using the built-in camera. The SDK allows developers to do this without jailbreaking the phone.

The Applications

The bulk of the first hour of the keynote was taken up by developers sharing their iPhone applications. In an endless parade that should have been a lot shorter, developer after developer told the packed Moscone Center about how easy it was to develop for iPhone, even though they’d never written a line of Objective-C or how they’d written a seemingly complicated program in three days. I didn’t gain anything out of this part of the keynote, except I now know that in the time I was listening to these developers drone on, I could have written an award winning iPhone application.

There are, as you might imagine, a few games coming out for the iPhone, but I’m not particularly interested in those. For a few months, I’ve been very interested in the more practical uses of iPhones, even for education. Apple satisfied my hunger for information on non-frivolous application development with one developer who is working on an application for doctors. (Apparently the medical community is looking for an easy-to-use portable solution for viewing X-rays and such). I won’t talk too much about this now; I’ll save it for a future post.

Enterprise Features

Apple is targeting a relatively small audience with their new enterprise features, but in an apparent attempt to grab some marketshare from RIM (makers of Blackberry), Apple has built in features that are need in a corporate environment like the ability to remotely remove sensitive information from a phone, the ability to activate many phones at once, and improved security.

I don’t yet work in a corporate environment, so these features don’t mean a whole lot to me, but once again I see the opportunity for some educational uses. Indeed, several institutions of higher learning have participated in Apple’s private beta of the latest version of the iPhone software.

Mobile Me

I’ve never used Apple’s .Mac service before because it always seemed like a waste of money. Apple seemed to think so too. Mobile Me replaces .Mac and adds a whole ton of new features. There are som great online applications for photo sharing and other frivolous features, but I’m interested in the more serious features, namel push e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch is familiar with the dawning realization every week or two that they should probably sync their device with their computer so they can get the latest calendar items and contacts on both phones. Mobile Me will allow this to happen instantly over the cell network or over the wireless network. No we just need Apple to make wireless syncing happen with iTunes songs!

A few people have remarked on what they view to be high pricing ($99). Considering the service in completely advertisement free and has great features, I’m willing to fork over the $99. But I’m actually only going to pay $69, by virtue of an Amazon discount. A little explanation: Current .Mac users will be automatically upgraded to Mobile Me for no charge (.Mac will be defunct as of 11 July). Amazon currently has a deal to get .Mac for only $69, so I’m going to buy .Mac and then get upgraded automatically. Fun!

iPhone 3G

There was a point during the keynote when I got really scared. We were an hour into the keynote and Steve had barely been on stage. I started thinking about all the iPhone rumors. What if they were just that: rumors? What if Apple wasn’t ready to release a second iteration of the iPhone? The Steve came to the rescue.

You can check out the full specifications here, but the iPhone 3G will be released on 11 July, at a heavily subsidized price of $199 for the 8 GB version or $299 for the 16 GB version. There’s a great ad for the iPhone 3G here. From what I can tell, it’s much improved over the first version with a nice, new plastic back that will improve reception, the abilitiy to use the much faster 3G data network, GPS, and it will ship with the next version of the iPhone software.

The Wrapup

Buy these products. All of them. I am. All of them. You can see the full address here, or a quick summary by Mahalo Daily here.