12 Month Windows

My public disappointment and struggle with Motorola caught the attention of their corporate offices and ended in a resolution that was, while not what I would have wished for, softened the over all blow of what had occurred. To be honest, I'm not surprised that such an incredible failure occurred. First, let me say that I have done my stint in customer service supporting technology. I understand some of the pitfalls and policies that make it difficult to help the customer at times, but I also remember that the company I worked for at the time had a chain of command that you could send customers up when it was absolutely necessary. Myself to my manager, my manager to their boss, their boss to customer relations. It was customer relations that would then spend the time trying to restore the relationship with the customer or just provide a refund depending on the situation. One other important thing to mention here is that the customer service center I worked for was based right h...

I have typed in the past about my love of the Moto X and how it is the best smartphone available right now, still better than that Galaxy S6. I stand by that review of the phone - it is amazing and I have nothing bad to say about the phone. That said, Motorola has provided me with the worst customer service on the planet. The absolute worst. They are fucking terrible. I purchased a brand new Moto X through the Moto Maker. I customized it. I then paid the extra for the accidental damage coverage on the device because I have a small child and I'm a klutz. Sure enough, about three weeks after I'd purchased it, I dropped it on the pavement and the screen shattered. I called to do an Advanced Exchange (they put a hold on your credit card, send you a phone, and then you send back the old one and they don't bill your card). They said I would have the new phone within 5 days. I honestly believed I would have a tracking number within five days, but not the phone, so my exp...

Seven days ago I opened up the package with my shiny new Moto X 64gb Pure edition and shut down my iPhone 6+ for the last time (Well, I still have to pull photos off it and wipe it, but I wanted that to sound dramatic). I haven't really looked back in those seven days. There are things I find I miss now and then, but nothing I miss more than what I've gained by switching to Android. Notifications are better, notification center is cleaner, I have access to widgets on my various home screens, Google Now is a swipe away instead of finding the app icon and launching it, the card view multitasking is far superior to the completely asinine multitasking view in iOS, and the system is seemingly more responsive. Going back to multitasking for a moment, maybe I have bad fingers, but on my iPhone I could never quit stuck apps easily, I'd think I was swiping up, but all the open apps would suddenly scroll across the screen instead of the app I was trying to quit simply going awa...

Some random tech thoughts... A few times I have attempted to leave the Apple Ecosystem and I've gone back. This shouldn't say anything about the products I gave up to return to Apple - this says that I was a little out of my comfort zone and went back to what I was familiar with. I'd like to stop doing that. I really wanted to give up on Apple for 12 months when I started my blog, 12monthwindows. I still do. I'm becoming less and less enamored with the company as time goes on. I stopped being a outright fanboy a few years ago, and since then I've been slowly losing my respect for them. Now, I don't believe them to be any more evil than any other tech company - that's not why I'm starting to like them less. I think on the evil front, Samsung is probably winning that crown (if you want to call it winning), but even then, not so evil that I wouldn't purchase one of their televisions (I still don't like TouchWiz for their Android UI). Par...

As much as I am an Apple fan, I often find myself excited by the ideas presented by other technology firms. For example, my previous post boasts the Moto X as being the best smartphone currently on the market. I continue to stand behind this claim even as I use an iPhone 6+. The technology that is included in the Moto X reminds me in many ways of the sort of direction Apple would have taken a number of years ago. At the same time, I’ve been very excited about the direction Microsoft has been taking with its Windows platform. Many people hated Windows 8, but I never did. I think it was flawed, but I think OS X is flawed as well. I think what’s coming with Windows 10 is beyond innovative and amazing and I think that its price tag is something very new for Microsoft. With the money they won’t be making off their Operating System, what revenue stream will fill that void? Then you’ve got Hololens - their augmented reality glasses that make Google Glass look like a Gobot Compared to a Tr...

As my few readers know, I used a Moto X for while - twice. The first time was the 1st gen Moto X which ended up going back to Motorola because AT&T was dumb. I then waited until the next release round as I discovered that they would be releasing a new Moto X sometime in the fall. It was released around the same time as the iPhone 6 and 6+. I got the 2nd Gen Moto X and I loved it, yet I still returned it and replaced it with the massive iPhone 6+, which is certainly no slouch. If you were just to compare the internals of the two devices you would think that the iPhone 6 and 6+ has quite an advantage over the Moto X - but as Apple liked to advertise with the release of the original iMac, specs aren't everything. It's what you do with the specs you have. So, if I'm using an iPhone 6+ why would I be saying that the Moto X is the best smartphone on the market currently? Why would I have sent that beautiful piece of technology back to Motorola instead of simply continui...

One of the best hardware features on the MacBook (Air or Pro) is the trackpad. It's likely the best one on the market. It's accurate, it supports multi-touch, and has an excellent texture. It works like a dream on the Mac side of things, supporting gestures which allow quick navigation within the operating system. On the Windows side of things, it's much different. Obviously the hardware feel doesn't change, but the way the hardware interacts with the OS is drastically different. Gone is support for gestures and multi-point input (outside of a two-finger right click). None of the Windows 8.1 specific gestures function with the Apple built driver, so you're kind of stuck in this weird limbo experience. If you don't know what the trackpad is capable of in Windows 8.1, then you don't know what you're missing out on, but if you are aware of what is possible, then you will feel a little frustrated at the lack of ability to perform the quick actions to ...