August 19, 2008 (Computerworld) Apple Inc. trounced rival computer makers selling Windows-equipped PCs by historic margins in an annual customer satisfaction survey, the poll’s chief researcher said today.
“We haven’t seen anything like this before, where a company scores 10 points over its nearest rival,” said Claes Fornell, the head of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), conducted quarterly by the University of Michigan.
Apple’s customer satisfaction score of 85, an ACSI record in the personal computer category, was 10 points higher than the closest competitor, Dell Inc.; 12 points higher than Hewlett-Packard Co.; and 13 higher than Gateway, which was acquired by Acer last year.
there was a fire last night in an Apple building (VG6) – i’m there almost every day, but it’s not my building. the story is being picked up all over the media, and now it’s on the front page of Google News. some articles have misleading information: it’s not a secret hardware R&D building, and there weren’t 100 employees that needed to be evacuated (it happened at 10pm).
our car was broken into, and they took our gps…so we’re in the market for a new one. the Garmin Nuvi’s seem to be among the best models, but as a consumer you’re just bombarded with 30 different models and no apparent differentiation between them. how would i know which models to compare from this list?
[fwiw, i decided on the nuvi 360.]
contrast this with Apple: if I want a Mac, it’s fairly obvious what’s different about each model:
so i’ve been on the search for the perfect voice recording app. til now, i’ve been whipping out my iphone and jotting quick little emails to myself for one-off reminders. also, whenever i’m in the gym i tend to think of something every few minutes and end up with a list of things. for that, i use the built-in notepad app, and then i email the list to myself afterwards. but obviously, typing isn’t always a convenient thing to do, like when you’re on the run or driving (i’m guilty of that, though)…
so here’s what you get when you search for “voice recorder” apps in the iTunes Store. luckily, they’re mostly dirt cheap:
after a bit of research, i settled on Note2Self. why? the workflow makes total sense. here’s exactly what happens:
you start the app
to start recording, you either press the Record button or just hold the phone up to your ear and the sensor will vibrate the phone to let you know to start speaking
to stop, either press the Stop button or pull the phone away from your ear and the sensor will vibrate to let you know it’s stopped recording.
a dialog pops up to either Save, Email, or Save & Email the voice note. you can assign a default email address to always mail it to yourself.
in the preferences, you can have it always email to yourself without a prompt, which leads to this super-efficient flow:
start the app
put phone to ear, speak your note, pull phone away from ear
bam, done. it automatically saves, emails, or saves & emails to your default address.
as added plus, the audio attachment will play right in the iPhone Mail app (or on your Mac’s Mail.app).
the only thing i’d like to see added is to have the “woosh” sound play to indicate when the email has been sent. other than that, it’s pretty much perfect.
[note: the first time i installed the app, the sensor wasn't always detecting when i was holding the phone to my ear. after restarting my iphone, it starting working consistently.]
Turn your mac into an amazing home theater pc with 2 pieces of free software:
1. Plex: This is the Mac-version of XBMC (Xbox Media Center). It plays practically every format of audio & video, in a beautiful, skinnable interface. And it’s extendable by installing additional scripts.
2. Aeon: I just learned about this incredible skin for Plex (and XBMC in general)…amazingly, it’s FREE.
Check out the video. I installed it last night, and it works great:
