Steve Jobs is dead... Long live Steve Jobs!

Today the world mourns the loss of one of the most remarkable personalities of our age: Steve Jobs. Steve passed away earlier today while suffering from Pancreatic Cancer. He was 56 years old.

Steve Jobs, a name synonymous with vision, innovation, leadership, and inspiration, was in my opinion, the most important person of our time & age. The Innovator of innovators, the Visionary of visionaries, the Entrepreneur of the Century, the DaVinci of our time, the Architect of the Future… and now, a Legend beyond life!

Ever since he laid foundation of Apple back on a Fool’s Dayin 1976, its been one revolution after the next. First mainstream computer with a GUI, first computer with a mouse interface, first animated feature film, the biggestbrand in MP3 players & Portable Media devices, the biggest Online Music store, the biggest & most important name in smartphones, the architect of the smartphone era, the undisputed king of Tablet-land… These are only a few of his accomplishments over the years, and one can clearly see that how profound and deep effect has he had on our lifestyle and how we perceive & consume technology & information.

And through all these numbers & figures, all the credits & iDidIt’s, one can begin to comprehend the unfathomable awesomeness of “the Steve”. Over the years, I have continuously been impressed, inspired, and overwhelmed by the sheer genius, vision, leadership, and ingenuity of this one man who has gone and made the company he himself founded, into the most valuable company in the world! There aren’t many who can make such a claim. Watching him onstage, one couldn’t help but be infected by that radiant energy & exuberance of his when he’s presenting a new product, or talking about something that “just works”. One can clearly see that he truly was in love with his products. And that’s what leadership is all about. He was involved in the development of the product right from the conceptualization phase, hand-crafted the strategy, personally oversaw the production, and then went on stage and gave it to the world! It was his vision & dream that has been driving the Apple engine, and has put the company on an unparalleled innovation run that is still changing the world as we read these words.

So to conclude this post, I just want to say that I have been overcome with such an overwhelming feeling of loss, grief and sadness, that words simply fail me. Despite barely owning an Apple product or two in my life, I still feel the loss and that emptiness in my life, that we would not see Steve Jobs up on stage ever again, telling us about what he’s been innovating this spring. I, personally, will miss him for years to come, and I feel blessed to have been born in the same time & age as Steve. And as he passes on to the next life to hang out with Einstein, Newton, Da Vinci, Paganini, and the Curies, his persona, his work, and his afterglow will always be a beacon of inspiration & direction for generations to come. Steve Jobs is dead… Long live Steve Jobs!

Steve Jobs passes away!

I write this with a heavy heart and a mournful soul, that Steve Jobs, father of all things Apple, and undoubtedly the most innovative & remarkable personality in the field of Business & Technology, has passed away earlier this morning. Steve was suffering from Pancreatic Cancer, and had only very recently resigned from Apple as Chairman & CEO.

During the 56 years of his incredible life, his work and his vision at Apple, Pixar, and NeXT has essentially shaped the way we look at things and perceive & use technology today. I would not be exaggerating when I say that he was personally responsible for revolutionizing the Computer Age by introducing such important concepts & products such as Graphical User Interface for computers (Apple Lisa in 1983), TrueType and Sans Serif fonts usage, Licensed Digital Music Revolution (iTunes Music Store), Portable Music Players (iPod family), the coolest Operating System around (Mac OS), bringing on the Smartphone Era (iPhone & iOS), and the Tablet Revolution (iPad), just to name a few.

In simple words, even if you have never owned a single Apple product, Steve's contributions towards consumer computer technology and innovation still made our lives infinitely better and that much more wonderful. Rest in peace, Steve! You will be dearly missed... :(

Introducing: iPhone 4S

The entire internet is abuzz with chatter about the latest & greatest new release from Cupertino – Apple iPhone 4S. This latest version takes iPhone 4, the already-formidable, and quite frankly the most capable phone of the last year or so, and gives it a good ol’ thrashing – all the while looking exactly the same like its predecessor. So let’s take a closer look at what’s so magical about this device:

First, what hasn’t changed in this version:

• Same exterior design
• Same weight & dimensions
• Same old glass back & front
• Same brilliant IPS screen with Retina Display

And now, the new stuff:

• GSM + CDMA Network Compatible – A true World Phone
• 1 GHz  Dual-Core Apple A5 processor – Up to 2x faster
• Improved Battery time – up to 8 hours 3G talk time, 9 hours of WiFi browsing, 10 hours of video viewing
• Improved Network Speeds – up to 14.4 Mbps on HSDPA (2x faster than iPhone 4)
• Dual Core Graphics unit – pumping out up to 7x faster graphics
• Brand new & improved 8MP camera (with 1080p video + Image Stabilization)
• Upto 64GB capacity

But that just sums up the hardware aspects of it. What truly makes it such an amazing product, is the software capabilities of this phone:

• iOS 5 – Brand new Safari with Tabs, iMessages, Camera shortcut on lock screen, Notification bar, etc.
• System-wide Twitter integration
• AirPlay Mirroring, meaning you can connect a monitor to the phone – both wired & wireless
• iCloud – 5GB of free cloud storage for your apps, contacts, email, documents, pictures, videos, books, etc. All synced wirelessly & automatically between all your Apple devices!
• iTunes in the Cloud – with iTunes Match (in US only for now)
• Location Sharing

Oh, and one more thing...

• Siri – System-wide Voice commands integration

Many folks all over the internet were expecting to see iPhone 5, a radical new device with bigger screen, gesture controls, multi-tasking, possibly 4G capabilities, built-in toaster, coffee maker, and God knows what else… but nope, you get iPhone 4S. 

But when you take a closer look at the changes in this version, its evident why they didn’t, and couldn’t, call it iPhone 5. It has more or less all the features iPhone 4 has (or will have after iOS 5 upgrade goes live on October 12), but pretty much all of them have been improved, refined, and enhanced in the 4S. It has a better camera, more space, faster processor & graphics chips, better network capabilities, and a cherry on top in the form of Siri. So yes, if you think your iPhone 4 has started to show its age, this is a perfectly worthy upgrade for you. It will be available in the US by October 14^th, and then will gradually release in other countries. As for Pakistan, rumor has it that the Factory Unlocked version might be available here by the end of November. We’ll keep you posted on how things unfold though.

Facebook 2011 - How this affects Brands

Facebook held their annual F8 conference last week where Mark Zuckerberg unveiled some of the new design & structural changes to the website to make social interaction more seamless & relevant. All the changes were not unveiled at F8, however, and some were rolled out earlier last week such as Ticker, Friends Lists, and a whole new updated News Feed. And with these updates, they have changed the game once again. These changes have a massive impact on the way people interact with their friends, acquaintances, and different Brands & Fan Pages on Facebook. So let’s take a closer look at what’s changed.

The News Feed has been totally revamped in a way that it puts the most relevant content up front & center, while the rest of the updates are pushed to the bottom of the feed where they are assorted chronologically. That puts an enormous pressure on Brands & Pages who use Facebook to interact with their consumers, to stay relevant to their target audience now. Previously, the way things worked was that once a user had Liked a Page, they were basically hooked. Your update would essentially appear in their News Feed one way or another. True, Top News feature existed, but it wasn’t that much effective or given that much importance in the design itself.

But now EdgeRank, Facebook’s algorithm that determines what’s really of interest to a user, has basically become the heart & soul of new Facebook. If the content is not relevant, it gets booted to the bottom of the pile, while a soggy joke from that lame website would take its place if it manages to generate more engagement from the user over time.

What this means for Brands, is that the total number of Likes on your Page has become all but a rather insignificant statistical figure. If a Page is sharing content that is not directly relevant to their target users, these fans will not interact with the Page, and their updates will be swept down into the noise bucket along with that middle school friend of yours you only talk to on his birthday. This new system puts much emphasis on Brands to produce, publish, and share more and more relevant content that reaches exactly its target audience and generates maximum interactions in order to stay in touch with their fans over time. Now the game is not only to be interesting enough to get a Like from a user, it puts extra emphasis on staying relevant in order to be in touch with the Fans. That engagement may come in the form of interesting status updates, high quality content such as Videos, Games, or other interactive apps, or just even a picture that can entice a user’s interest.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Social is the new face of Internet, and any and all businesses, services, or tools with hope for a future on internet absolutely must have a Social Strategy as part of their core design. This change in Facebook interface heralds the true transformation of Internet into a more feasible, interesting, and applicable Social environment that cuts out the noise, and brings users only what you need to see. The web is expanding at an exponential rate, and average user’s attention span is shrinking fast. Therefore, staying relevant & optimizing the interaction is the key to a successful Social Media strategy. Lazy Social Media Managers beware: Constant Vigilance be the only cure!