Author: michael_msft

GM Microsoft for Startups APAC

Apple in 2018: The Six Colors report card – Six Colors

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I have an XR. It is the best iPhone ever. Great size and the battery life is amaze balls. I go all day, hard usage, and have battery to spare by the time I get home. That has never been the case for me for any iPhone.

For the screen is similar to my TV complaints – I don’t like LED TV’s. I still have too old, but awesome, Panasonic Plasma TV’s that I hope never die. Always wished I had bought the biggest version of them while they were still around. The colours are just better to my eyes.

Same way I feel when I look at my XR compared to my wife’s X – I like the LCD more.

But service and support is waning. Even with an Apple store in Singapore the service is no better.

https://seedvc.blog/2018/08/17/the-apple-i-knew-500ish-words/

We had a new iPhone X break within 2 weeks of purchase. My rule would if any apple hardware breaks within a month you should get a brand new device. Kind of like a lemon law of sorts. Apple, at the official store, refused and we had to get a new screen.

This week the same phone broke and I didn’t get it fixed at apple since it is out of warranty and it is cheaper to fix elsewhere.

The tech who fixed it showed me that apple did a ba repair job and a cable was pinched that broke but you can’t fix these things. Only new screens.

They suck.

Apple in 2018: The Six Colors report card – Six Colors:

There was effusive praise for the iPhone XR, which brought most of the features of the iPhone X to a lower price. John Siracusa said, “The iPhone XR gives us a glimpse of what a few well-chosen trade-offs can deliver.” John Gruber said, “After spending a few weeks using an XR full-time, I honestly question whether its LCD isn’t better than the XS’s OLED for my needs.”

How To Be Successful – Sam Altman (#9 Willful)

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Wrote this before :: https://seedvc.blog/2019/01/28/how-to-be-successful-sam-altman-focus-6/

I also like #9. It is a personal one to me since sometimes I let the forces around me dictate at times or at least influence my attitude.

I am specifically trying to improve this about myself this year.

How To Be Successful – Sam Altman:

9. Be willful

A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.

People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential.

Ask for what you want. You usually won’t get it, and often the rejection will be painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well.

Almost always, the people who say “I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I’m going to figure them out”, and mean it, go on to succeed. They are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way.

Airbnb is my benchmark for this. There are so many stories they tell that I wouldn’t recommend trying to reproduce (keeping maxed-out credit cards in those nine-slot three-ring binder pages kids use for baseball cards, eating dollar store cereal for every meal, battle after battle with powerful entrenched interest, and on and on) but they managed to survive long enough for luck to go their way.

To be willful, you have to be optimistic—hopefully this is a personality trait that can be improved with practice. I have never met a very successful pessimistic person.

Apple says it’s banning Facebook’s research app that collects users’ personal information – Recode

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I see this as a good start to body checking FB but I hope Apple goes further than this.

Mere mortals can do only one thing to escape FB, which is don’t use the service.

However large platforms like Apple and Google could work harder to keep fFB from abusing users on said platforms.

So much for Google being a good actor in any of this :: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/googles-also-peddling-a-data-collector-through-apples-back-door/

I hope Apple takes this a step further.

In the meantime – apart from making bank, it must suck to work at FB these days.

Apple says it’s banning Facebook’s research app that collects users’ personal information – Recode

Munchery: What Happens When a Startup Goes Bust | Fortune

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Interesting read.

On one hand I guess the vendors could argue that supposedly the VC’s have money and therefore they should make them whole.

But we all know the people responsible for this are the founders and the people running the company.

The VC’s don’t control them and apart from firing people or trying to influence the people running the place to do the right thing – in most cases the VC’s cannot force the outcome.

Messy stuff. Sounds like the Munchery crew are bunch of asshats.

Munchery: What Happens When a Startup Goes Bust | Fortune

Dyson’s Singapore sling – Nikkei Asian Review

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Great look at the Dyson stuff.

BTW – you can pick up the author’s book here. 😉

I still think this is a smart move for Dyson and Singapore is right to try and work with the evolving landscape of trade.

There may be cheaper cities but there is no better city in SEA for a move like this.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Dyson’s Singapore sling – Nikkei Asian Review:

Dyson’s decision to move specifically to Southeast Asia is also significant. As China’s overall economic growth slows, many global companies will begin to look afresh at Asia’s other emerging giants for future growth — a point made in The Future is Asian, a new book from author Parag Khanna. For all of the inducements it may or may not have offered Dyson, Singapore undeniably provides a useful base from which to launch future forays into markets like Indonesia and India.