A Million Dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A Billion Dollars.

– The Social Network

I distinctly remember watching “The Social Network” – a movie about how Mark Zuckerberg made a ‘cool’ social networking site to compensate for his social anxiety and awkwardness as a way to ‘Fit-In’ in Harvard’s social scene. 

Now, about 14 years since its inception, it seems that Facebook has started mirroring its Try-Hard roots. As users spend more and more time away from the now boring website, Facebook is gasping for the segment responsible for its rise in the first place – Teens.

Facebook knows that it needs to do something to keep the Teens entertained – owning Instagram and WhatsApp just isn’t enough. According to a survey conducted by Piper Jaffray, only 5% of Teens considered Facebook to be their favourite social network – down from 65% in 2013. This is the reason why we have seen so many attempts from the Big Blue to capture this demographic – be it launching  standalone apps like Bolt, Flash, Poke or acquiring popular social network like tbh – alas all of them have failed.

Now, Facebook is launching ‘Lasso’ – a video music app just like TikTok in a desperate attempt to once again try to sway away the teens. TechCrunch states that “Users can record and share videos of themselves lip syncing or dancing to popular songs, according to information from current and former Facebook employees.”

These futile attempts are not only costing Facebook millions of dollars, but also showcasing how deep in trouble they really are – investors are scared, stock price is at a 52 week low, and the public is switching to competitors.

Facebook’s constant data mining doesn’t help its case either, as more and more users become aware of the company’s hideous tactics to sell their data to advertisers and manipulators, the social network continues to dwindle down in popularity. 

In conclusion, Facebook’s constant try-hard approach combined with its hideous tactics are leading upto a destructive downfall as Mark Zuckerberg continues to coast away listening to “Baby You’re A Rich Man”…..

What do you think about the article and the future of Facebook? Comment down below.

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Will The Flagship Killer Get Killed This Year?

“The Flagship Killer” – This is how any new phone from One Plus’s factory is described. There is often a good reason behind it too; their phones have the latest processors, best in class RAM, high-quality cameras, amazing build quality and the latest Android firmware  – all for a price that is half of any latest flagship out there. The purchase of the ‘Flagship Killer’, then, seems like a no-brainer? Right?

Well, unfortunately, it seems like that might not be the case for the One Plus 6. For the reasoning behind this, we will have to go back to the roots of the company. 

One Plus rose to fame when smartphones were a luxury — often sold at astronomically high prices, with little to no competition available for companies like Apple, Samsung, and HTC. The budget smartphones, which were sold at a price range accessible to the common man, were downright terrible. These so-called ‘budget smartphones’ lagged like crazy, had 2-year-old specs, and the consumers were absolutely frustrated. This is when One Plus entered with its first ‘Flagship Killer’ – the One Plus One. It shook the landscape of budget smartphones – almost creating a monopoly with its unmatched specs. 

Now, four years later, the smartphone landscape is drastically different. Granted, the big players are still the big players, but competition has increased at an exponential pace due to the entrance of small Chinese companies like Oppo, newly born companies like Essential and the increased ferocity of the big guns. To win in this landscape means to retain the loyalty of your fans, and to give customers what they want (Exception: If you’re building something drastically different, don’t ask customers what they want). 

The rumored One Plus 6 doesn’t get anything right. It includes the notch – for no apparent reason than to jump in on the peculiar trend – which is the stupidest thing I’ve seen Android smartphone manufacturers do in years. It will be expensive – almost as expensive as some of the flagship smartphones – making it lose more than half of its customer base. It will also be an iterative update with no differentiating factor from its counterparts.

The currently overhyped ‘ Flagship Killer’ may get killed this year. What do you think? Vote down below.

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However, lately, I’ve been exploring the App Store and have found out some amazing apps that have made me wear my watch again:- 

1) V for Wikipedia

V for Wikipedia is one of the best Wikipedia clients available for the Apple Watch – a great user interface, bookmarking, dictation etc. Ever want to search about a subject or maybe prove somebody wrong about a topic? Just click on the app and dictate whatever you want to search for – as easy as that. 

2) Workflow

Workflow is perhaps the most famous app on this list – and for a good reason. It is literally an app that will automate everything for you at the click of a button – from reading you top stories from the world to giving you directions to the nearest McDonalds. You can even create your own workflows – like reminding you to buy eggs when you finish your workout on the Apple Watch. Quite simply, a must download.

3) Numerics

In a world where statistics drive everything – Numerics is THE app to have on your wrist. Be it checking your count of youtube subscribers, or your app revenue, or the number of people that visited your blog – Numerics provides an easy way to keep track of all the data you want to see. It also gives important updates when your statistics have a huge shift in numbers. The best part is that you don’t even have to open the app – a widget with your stats will be available on the watch face.

4) Hindsight

Hindsight is a multipurpose time tracker that keeps records of when you did a certain activity. I say ‘multipurpose’ because it can be used for things as silly as keeping track of the last time you ate pizza to important things like when you took your last medicine or drank water. I find it extremely fun to monitor my graph of occurrences – seeing my frequency of playing games go astronomically high on weekends and then diminish on Monday. 

5) Drafts

The last app on our list is Drafts which, as the name suggests, quite simply lets you note drafts. It is surprisingly useful in situations when you quickly want to jot down something – be it the billion dollar idea that you just thought of, or an interesting detail about the place you’re visiting, or just your grocery list. 

That’s all for this list folks! Hope you find these apps useful in your day to day lives – stay productive!

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Tesla’s New Roadster Is A Big Threat To Other Supercars

In a surprising reveal yesterday, Elon Musk shocked us all by introducing Tesla’s new Roadster in an event that was supposed to be exclusive to their new Semi Truck. People were struck in awe as the features continued to roll, with some seeming entirely impossible. We were asked to forget the likes of Bugatti, Lamborghini, Pagani etc and claim Tesla as the undisputed king of Supercars. 

By achieving the feat of going 0-100 Kmph/0-60mph in JUST 1.9s, Tesla’s new Roadster is now the fastest production car on the planet, a full 1s lesser than any of the Bugattis or Lamborghinis. It can also cover a quarter mile in just 8s. Although the top speed wasn’t exactly mentioned, Elon Musk did claim that it was north of 250 mph or 402 kmh. The car also has the biggest battery pack ever seen in an electric car, with a whopping range of over 600 miles! To remind you, this is just the base model which starts at $200,000. There’s also a founder’s series model priced at $250,000 and a higher priced model with more speed will eventually be revealed later.

Although the design is up to the standard of Supercars, there is one element that stands out. The new Roadster is a 4 seater, as opposed to every other 2 seater supercar we are accustomed to seeing.  This is a step away from the norms of the industry, and its advantage remains to be seen. Be warned though, the two back seats are not at all spacious or luxurious, and a ‘giant person may be crammed’ is what the company states. How uncomfortable or comfortable it actually will be can only be decided after it comes on the road around mid-2020.

While all this turned out to be glamorous for Tesla, Other Supercars’ manufacturers are getting worried. The roadsters numbers alone posit a big problem for the fuel addicted automobile makers, with Tesla’s cars now seeming more powerful and robust while simultaneously saving people money spent on petrol or diesel. Although some manufacturers like Porche and BMW (With its mission E) have already started preparing for the electric future, Others are still way behind in the race. What remains to be seen is whether it is too late now to catch up with Tesla’s lead.

Drive away…..

What do you think about the new Tesla Roadster? Do you think it is overrated or disruptive? Comment your opinions below and don’t forget to participate in the poll.

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An Important Entrepreneurship Lesson From tbh

tbh, the teens’ favourite new social networking app, just got sold for a little less than $100 Million (Exact figure not disclosed) to Facebook just 9 weeks after its launch. This was a rush move by Facebook to scoop the viral app ,which is currently No.1 on the App Store, before it turns into a $1 Billion goliath or before Snapchat buys it.

However, Even though the app just took 2 weeks to develop, the parent company, Moonlight Labs, had to fail in producing over 15 apps and spend 7 years before thinking of tbh. Although the company initially raised capital from a few investors, including social app guru Josh Elman at Greylock, it was just 60 days from insolvancy.

It was during this period of finally hoping to achieve success while enduring the fear of failure that the company  came up with its viral app. The company was even able to survive this long due to its extremely efficient use of money and resources to keep the burn rate as down as possible.

Nikita Bier, co-founder of tbh, credits the success of the app to its focus on spreading positivity while maintaining anonymity while simultaneously countering cyber bullying. It was made after carefully examining the shortfalls of Sarahah and Yik-Yak which received worldwide criticism for being unable to solve the issue of cyber bullying. “Improving people’s self-esteem — that’s been the most rewarding aspect of this product,” Bier concludes. “Raising a ton of money, all that other stuff, it’s just an accessory to the goal. The goal is, can we make this generation happier?”

Whatever may have been the true ingridient for success, I sincerely believe it was just the result of sheer perserverance. Perhaps, None other than this quote from ‘The Founder’ captivates this situation accurately – 

” Nothing in the world can take place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

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Here Is Why I Am Finally Dumping Yahoo Mail

Yahoo! has a special place in my heart. The first ever website I visited on the internet was Yahoo News. My first ever email address was registered on Yahoo Mail. I checked cricket scores on Yahoo sports and so on. But as time passed, I have grown more and more skeptical of the company. 

Although my Yahoo Mail ID is still in heavy use across a multitude of sites, I am finally ditching it in favour of Gmail. I know I am 5 years too late, but letting go of Yahoo was not particularly easy. All of my social networks currently run on Yahoo along with every other possible site I have ever visited, transitioning to Gmail was hence a long and taxing process.

This was not at all a voluntary move, but rather a forced one. Over 3 billion Yahoo accounts were compromised according to the company in an official statement released this monday. The hackers walked away with passwords of every single user in existence on Yahoo in 2013. Although a company can make mistakes, and security breached do happen with a lot of companies but with Yahoo’s case, this is not the only one in recent times. Accounts have been compromised repeatedly in Yahoo’s jurisdiction and the company makes no new amends to its security. As a user, I have grown tired of changing my password again and again.

The next thing that I am tired of is the gross user experience of Yahoo Mail. Apart from the fact that the inbox is poorly designed, the navigating experience is slow and annoying fot the most part. Yahoo needs to understand that we do not want fancy looking themes that bloat and delay the runtime of your website. We just need a reliable reading experience to our e-mails.

Another factor of concern for me is the growing incompatibility of Yahoo Mail with latest devices and softwares. The Yahoo API is increasingly incompatible with the every new release of iOS or Android, with users being forced to login several times a month to retain their inbox on the default e-mail client. Unavailable attachements, Text incompatibility etc are also annoying for the users.

The culmination of all these factors has made me permanently ditch Yahoo Mail and instilled in me a sense of nostalgia as I remember the good ol’ days of Yahoo.

Please get your Mojo back Yahoo.

– A frustrated Yahoo lover.

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With just a few minutes to go for the big Apple event, the excitement levels are off the charts. The  event is taking place in Steve Jobs Theatre in Apple’s new spaceship campus and is expected to be fully packed. With rumours of 3 new iPhones, a new iPod Touch, a new Apple Watch, refined Airpods and something called “portable lightning” makes this the biggest Apple launch in quite a few years.

However, The spotlight still remains on the iPhone. The iPhone will go off track with its launch this year, and along with the usual incremental upgrade a new iPhone X will be launched marking the 10th Anniversary of the iconic phone. It is expected to do away with the bezels, introduce an interesting face unlock feature called ‘Face ID’ (which is also expected to integrate some AR capabilities related to Emojis), make the camera vertical and also come along with refined Airpods in the box.

It is also surprising to see that Apple just might launch a new iPod touch after letting it eat dust for some years. Although I find the cost of justifying an iPod in this smartphone dominated era hard to see, there might just be a niche group of high schoolers actually interested in the product. Some might just get it in a moment of nostalgia, because after all,  for many people iPod was their first Apple product.

Leading to the event, some interesting predictions have been made considering the hype. If analysts are to be believed, The new iPhones will do over $40 billion in sales this quarter, not only making it the best selling phone this year too but also giving Apple a whopping 1 trillion dollar valuation.  Apple stocks are already up by 35% up this year, valuing the company at $820 billion. This means that just a 22% increase in the stock would mean a trillion dollar valuation. I hope this explains the magnanimity of the event to you.

Steve Wozniak was also spotted at the event and praised the Apple campus for its simplicity and elegance, and even spoke about what Steve Jobs would have thought about the campus : 

This is Woz talking about what Steve Jobs would have thought of Apple’s new campus. #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/0RToYAsfkG

— scott budman (@scottbudman) September 12, 2017

The stakes are high and the expectations are have rocketed. What remains to be seen is if they can live upto the hype.

I really hope they smash this event!

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Whatsapp Is Finally Monetizing

When Facebook bought Whatsapp for a whopping sum of $19 Billion, Everybody considered it a smart move but very few were able to justify the lofty valuation. Facebook publically mentioned that it will not introduce ads to WhatsApp since it would be detrimental to the user experience but it went further to even remove the annual 1$ fee, which meant that Whatsapp wasn’t really earning anything. Now, with over 1.3 Billion Monthly users, Whatsapp is finally monetizing.

The messaging app is introducing a new chatting app with tons of new tools for businesses all over the world. It will likely charge a huge amount to enterprises but is considering giving it for free/minimal charges to small to mid sized businesses. “We do intend on charging businesses in the future,” WhatsApp’s Chief Operating Officer Matt Idema told the Wall Street Journal. “We don’t have the details of monetization figured out.” 

It is speculated that the app would be including a bot running on Artificial Intelligence, Inventory Manager, E-Commerce payment handling, 1-1 chat with customers and tons of other features. The app is also likely to include mass messaging features for businesses to promote their deals, coupons etc. This could potentially be a new way for the companies to spam you!

Even if Whatsapp manages to capture mid sized businesses, it would be very difficult to attract top companies. Competitors like Slack , Twilio etc.  dominate the enterprises and are prevalent in almost all Fortune 500 companies. 

Whatsapp also faces a challenge to brand the new app to exude professionalism,  since the company’s current app is widely used for informal chatting between friends, planning hangouts etc.

Overall, This is a very interesting venture and might become the golden goose for the company. Although, I am still very skeptical…

What do you think about this move? Comment down below.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 is about to launch on August 23rd at a special event in New York. With less than two weeks remaining for the  launch, We have surprisingly few leaks to fuel our curiosity.  Could this possibly be Samsung’s hidden hero?

Last year was particularly bad for Samsung – Its revenues were down, billions of dollars in market cap vanished, investors became worried, company gained worldwide defamation – All thanks to the explosive powerhouse and manufacturing disaster : The Galaxy Note 7. Although the Note 7 was a wonderful device , It went down the drain due to its battery problems.

But this year, Samsung is ready to regain its worldwide glory with the Galaxy Note 8. They surprisingly still have their Note fans in anticipation of the 8th version plus from some of the mockups that we have seen , and considering the worldwide success of the Galaxy S8 , it seems likely that the Note 8 will be a smash hit. The device looks stunning and is also expected to come with the world’s first ever fingerprint scanner embedded in its display. Also, as is usual with all the Galaxy Notes, It will be packed with the latest processor , 6/8Gb of RAM (yikes!) and the same wonderful camera of the Galaxy S8 combined with the Iris Scanner. Seems like a solid deal to me.

However, The daunting question of whether it will appeal to consumers beside the Note fans remains to be seen. Many people now have this stigma regarding the Note line up and may cast it in a negative light albeit it containing all the aforementioned features. In addition, It also has to compete with the usual ‘Apple Hype’ which is at an all time high (last time there was this much hype was when iPhone 5 was being launched) right now thanks to the upcoming 10 year anniversary edition iPhone which will be probably titled iPhone X.

Still, To some extent, I do suggest that the Galaxy Note 8 will be the hidden hero that brings back the Note lineup’s brand value back. Consumers will eventually adapt and forgive Samsung for its shortcomings with the Galaxy Note 7. 

 What do you think about the Galaxy Note 8? Do you think it will be able to turn the tables ? Answer the poll below and feel free to comment.

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They are partnering up with Unity and EPIC games to bring VR games and capabilities to every platform. They’re upgrading all the Macs for creating and experiencing VR. They’re selling developer kits ($600) with HTC Vive  and external GPU for encouraging developers to make Apple the No.1 VR Platform.

And yet they’re not stopping. They have also released the ARKit Framework for all the developers registered with their developer platform and made Apple the No.1 AR Platform thanks to the millions of devices already ready with it. 

As I was lucky enough to be present at the WWDC, I got to experience the Vive in real and it was just awesome. They showed us a Star Wars simulation which was buttery smooth on the new iMacs. They were also kind enough to show us the cool new AR stuff on the new iPads, Which was again a Star Wars game called “Holochess” in which the board was displayed using the camera of the iPad on the table and you could interact with that. All the objects in the AR simulation account for the shadows and lighting and it was extremely fascinating to see that.  

They’ve also partnered with many other companies which will be bringing their AR Apps this fall to all the iDevices (iPhone 6S and above & iPad Pro and above). Unreal Engine and Unity will be in sync with Apple’s latest frameworks and will be ready to make AR & VR Apps for Apple.

I think this aggressive move is partly due to Apple feeling left out in the desktop gaming scene so they’re now making sure that they get in ahead on the next gaming platforms, which are AR & VR.

I am really expecting a lot of cool new Apps to show up using the ARKit and a lot of developers seem interested in that framework here too. Heck, Even I might jump in on the AR games. 

What do you think about this move by Apple? Will their big bets pay out? Comment down below and Stay Tuned for more live WWDC coverage.

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