The other day I noticed a nice touch by Chrome. As I was reviewing a Google Hangout chat, I got a message containing a link to some article. As I clicked the link, Hangout asked me what browser I'd like to use to read the link - Safari or Chrome. I chose Chrome, and Chrome was launched and navigated to the link. As I was reading the article, I noticed that the regular "Back" button/link showed Hangouts - and then realized I also saaw this in Pushbullet/Chrom - realizing this

The other day (as in, February 8th, 2015) we had a visit by Don Lindsay at Wix. Don (who's rich history at Blackberry, Microsoft and Apple you can find in numerous places on the internet and hinted at his LinkedIn profile) was/is in Israel as part of keynoting at the UX Salon conference, and we took the opportunity to meet him. During a discussion, the issue of Quality was brought up, and we named some people who's "stamp of approval" for quality we trust - as if they are th

(Continued from yesterday) Drumroll... Enter Lollipop... Wow! Smooth, fun, high finish quality. Great new features (and those copied from iOS - are many times done better than iOS). Nothing (and I mean nothing...) bad to say. Highlights include: - Great notification center - Great lock screen notification center - Smooth finishing touches (animations, bounces etc.) - Application Lock ("Child Mode") - enabling "locking" the phone to a single app, thus enabling a children to pl

(Continued from yesterday) I prefer the iPhone, and prefer the iOS, but Nexus 5 and Android 4.4.x (KitKat) are an OK combo. I know people make "religious" wars about the iPhone-vs-Android, closed-vs-open, bla-vs-bla banter. Hardware-wise, I think we've nailed the basics. Everything after the iPhone 5/Nexus 5 line is either "speciality", for specific markets, or luxury - we don't really need it. OS-wise, I think Apple did a better job about the finishing touches of the OS (eve

(Continued from yesterday) Something that I felt was very well designed, so much so I felt that (device-wise) I could "live" w/o my iPhone and replace it for an Android phone. And when the Nexus 5 was out, I decided to add to my iPhone a "brother" - and got myself a Nexus 5 - and it's a great device. But the software left much to be desired... So I've been carrying both me for the past 10 months or so (Nexus 5 and iPhone 5, recently replaced with iPhone 6), and using both on-

(Continued from yesterday) So, last week I decided I'll root my Nexus 5 and install the pre-release version of Android 5, AKA Lollipop. (I carry two phones - an iPhone and a Nexus 5, so I wasn't concerned about the possible dire consequences about what it something doesn't work.) I've been an iPhone fan from the first iPhone, and played around with (other peoples) Android phones since the first Nexus, but I wasn't impressed. Not until a year ago. A year ago, around the time I

TL;DR; I still prefer the iPhone hardware/software combo. BUT - if I had to switch to a Nexus 5 running Lollipop, I would hardly complain. (And the price point is amazing...) Bottom Line: IMO, Lollipop is currently the best Smartphone OS for the average smartphone user... For a professional review, checkout The Verge's review [Note: it blurs the line between Nexus 6 and Lollipop, but still - it's good] (http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/28/7082875/12-best-new-features-android-l

(Continued from yesterday) 1. It started with Swype's issue - but I would expect Apple to block this... That is, Swype moved the location of the "Switch Keyboard" key (globe). While I blame Swype for doing this, it's that Apple "allowed" such a gap in it's APIs, and Apple reviewers that allowed that let this glaring mishap to slip through QA. Minus One (-1) for Apple (and Swype). 2. Then, I decided the Swype/SwiftKey swipe keyboard extensions were good enough for me. I'll use

So, Apple came out with iOS 8. And one of the biggest most exciting features for iOS 8 (and long-awaited by the Android-envious amongst us) of Keyboard Extensions. This meant that we too could finally select different keyboard than that ones built-in by Apple (congratulations to Apple for finally making it's a keyboard a predictive-keyboard... but... we wanted the) - finally, Swipe keyboards (whether by Swipe or Swift...). So, excitedly, I installed Swift, and even "coughed u

(Continued from yesterday) We've seen the English and Hebrew keyboards. (FWIW, the same "pattern" repeats itself for all other languages too...) To switch between characters and digits, you click (well, touch) the key in the bottom-left corner of the keyboard. So far, so good. And to switch between keyboards you click the Globe-key, on the bottom row/left side, right next to the digits/characters toggle. So far, so good. Now add the Emoji keyboard, a very popular keyboard...

Bad Apple UX? Can that be? Well, I've seen people write long blogs about the Apple iOS virtual keyboard, and it's (lack of) reasonable visual feedback to help distinguish between the Shift-Down and Shift-Up key states. And they are right... This is something Apple failed (and is still failing) to get right. A good summary of the issue can be found at this blog post. But I feel there's a more glaring mistake... See the images below... This is what you experience when you add k