12 Month Windows

Over the past several months I've been making the switch away from Apple and taking up with the likes of Windows and Android instead of MacOS and iOS. Don't get me wrong, the strides Apple has made in the hardware industry are outstanding and there is certainly a use case for Apple hardware in professional settings of all kinds. I'm not here to trash Apple, but to instead point out that often when we look upon something as "The Enemy" we are doing a disservice to ourselves. For decades I was a staunch Apple supporter, always looking for the next best product from Apple, constantly upgrading my hardware when Apple would release something new, trying to keep up with the best they had to offer because I felt it was THE BEST. In many cases, objectively, Apple simply is the best. But after all that time and money spent in Apple-land I could never find that spark that spoke to me the way my PowerBook 145B did way back in 1993. I've owned PowerBooks, G3 Towers, iBook...

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...