Nexus Support Complaints

To much fanfare Google has plunged into the consumer end of the phone market and started direct sales of their new 'Nexus' phone.

There have been complaints about the lack of customer support for the new phone users though. Some are saying that the idea of directly supporting living breathing people is something new for Google (at the time of writing of the article linked to above, there is no Nexus telephone support available !).


If they are pressured into offering phone support, here's what I imagine a typical support call might go like (names changed to protect the guilty):

G: Welcome to Giigle support how may I help you today ?

C: I'm having a problem with my new Nix-Us phone.

G: OK, first though, can you answer this question for me ?
How many basketballs can you fit in a school bus ?

C: What ? I'm not good at math, and anyway why are you asking me this ?

G: Well, I need to know if you're smart enough to be worth my time...
What were you, some kind of a Liberal Arts major ?
OK, well here's one without any scary numbers in it:
Why is a manhole cover round ?

C: I can't answer that, I just need some help with the new phone that I just bought from you !

G: Say, what University did you graduate from anyway ?

C: I didn't get a chance to go to college, I've been working 2 jobs since High School to support my seriously ill Mother, and...

G: That's a lame sounding excuse if I ever heard one..
OK, I've got 4 letters for you: R.T.F.M. (Read The 'Fine' Manual)
CLICK !

C: What ?



(disclaimer: I have a 'Google Android Powered' G-1 phone and love it. I also take advantage of a number of the free services that Google offers and my life has been better for it)


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UPDATE: May 14, 2010

Google has announced that it will discontinue direct sales of the Nexus One phone

"...but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone..."

(We'd rather quit than have to deal with people.... )

And now, the PDF revolution..

'Personal Dance Floor', a dance surface at home, that is...

I'll try to put this in context by describing its meaning in terms of another Personal Revolution: The Personal Computer Revolution.

Anyone that was interested in computer programming in the mid-70s and before had a problem to overcome: access to a computer. If one was associated with a University computer dept or worked at a business as a programmer you were set. All others were left to their own devices (or lack of their own device). In my case, I managed to get time on a small business mini-computer on (I think it was) Tuesday and Thursday nights after 9pm. So I would arrange my life to make the most of the few hours a week that I had access to the computer. Even then my options were limited. Being a business oriented computer the only high level language that was available was a limited business oriented interpreted language, not the best thing in the world. Happily, the machines were built on 8080 processors, so I could also write programs in the 8080 Assembler language. Needless to say, with only a handful of hours a week available, progress was slow. With the advent of the personal computer and with modern advances to date, that whole problem of access to computing power for personal use is now solved.

There's nothing like the give of a 'sprung' floor for dancing on. The floor feels alive and absorbs harsh impact giving some protection to the lower joints. Not many can afford to have a room built and dedicated for this purpose in their house or apt. So one alternative is to rent time in a dance studio for practice, or to clear out a part of the house and be careful of impact and resistance (this is what I've been doing so far). I've just gotten a 'portable' sprung wooden 6ft x 6ft dance floor and installed it in my study room. Very nice. The floor comes in panels that are machined to be easily fitted together via a set of spring clips. It's quickly assembled and if necessary can be quickly disassembled. Instant 'Personal Dance Floor'. The problem of access to a dance floor for individual practice is now solved.

I'm happy that my study room now houses both the 'Personal Computer' and 'Personal Dance Floor'.

Poor User Interface #01

Now here's a rough shot of the menu of choices I get when I press Windows XP's 'Programs' menu option. I always cringe when I get this because I have to read at least half the screen to find the program what I want to run.
Q: Why does it take so long to choose ?
A: Because the entries are NOT in alphabetical order !

The order seems to be haphazard and random forcing one to read the hopeless jumble. I thought I heard from somewhere that this was a smart menu that knew to put the most frequently chosen programs first.. who knows, maybe it's true, but it doesn't work for me !

I've always felt that one thing that a successful User Interface does is to rely on things that we internalized by the time of our 5th birthday... well, OK, our 6th or 7th birthday since that's when we (English speakers) learned about alphabetical order.
This Windows XP menu fails that test.

Give me alphabetical order Puh-leeze !

Business Mistake #01

I once worked for a small company that had some early success and became a bigger company. In the smaller company days, as is usual in these situations, the company was a strong team, focused and driven for success. Somewhere along the way to success, the Execs moved away to another building. Same with Customer Support. Engineering had it's own separate building and soon there was born an elite Engineering project that moved further away to their own separate building. Amongst the engineers, cutoff from strategic (and sometimes tactical) direction and cut off from the customers, loss of focus and lack of purpose sunk in.
The ultimate symbol of a disintegrated company appeared one day in the purportedly heartfelt 'goodbye' e-mail that was sent out to the entire company by an executive (whose name was not known to any of the regular engineering staff by the way). I attempted to read the e-mail attachment but could not. The attachment was written in some proprietary format and no one in the engineering department had the software required to read it with.
It was clear, the leaders of the company lived in a different world and communicated amongst themselves in a 'language' that only they could read.
Big mistake.