Instagram Rocks, Almost

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Instagram snagged over 100,000 users in its first week in the iTunes App Store, so there are plenty of you out there who’d be happy to leave the “almost” off of the headline above. When I first installed it a few weeks ago, my first thought was “I already share photos on Flickr. What do I need this for?” My mate Lachlan Hardy and I had a long chat about it and agreed throughout, but I’ve got to say my attitude’s changed after a recent 42 day trip through 14 cities in Europe.

If you’ve never heard of Instagram (you can skip this paragraph if you have) it’s an iPhone app that allows you to make a photo, crop it to a square format – which makes sense considering the screen you view the photos on – apply one of eleven filters to it – to give it the look of a 70′s Polaroid for example – and post it to the ‘net with a location and a comment. You can find and follow other Instagram users, and what they post, you see, and your followers see your posts. You can also choose to simultaneously post your photos to Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr and send your location to Foursquare to check in.

At first I snapped a little and looked through my feed occasionally, but on my recent trip I really started to get into Instagram. Taking me back to my Polaroidiary days, I started shooting whatever I was experiencing wherever I was and sharing it with friends. In the spirit of “the best camera is the one that’s with you” (can anyone give me the original source of that quote?) through Instagram I learned to appreciate my iPhone’s camera and really enjoy making photos with it, and found it especially suited, due to it’s inconspicuousness, to making candid shots of the people around me. Instagram is shoot from the hip and share, and contrary to my first opinion, I found it a great way to easily share snapshots, with the option of posting the best of them to Flickr as desired. Instagram’s interface makes it quick and easy to do what it’s there for and I’ve really had fun with it.

There’s just one grain of sand in the Instagram ointment.

The small irritant is that Instagram pays at best lip service to the web as we usually see it, i.e. in a browser (but hopefully not IE). If you choose to post a photo to Twitter, it creates a short link, like this: http://instagr.am/p/e7NZ/. The page shown completely omits the location and comment of the photo, and there’s nothing else – no way to see any other photos, the photographer’s profile or followers – nothing but the photo. And, if you neglect to post your photos to Twitter, there’s no way at all to get a link to your photo after the fact – it can only be viewed in the Instagram app itself. My web sharing & grazing take place on at least 3 platforms depending on context, and I like to have a link for every bit of data I’m putting out there, to use when and as I see fit. This post is a perfect example: I can only share photos here that I either posted to Flickr or Twitter. I can’t link to all photos from a certain day or place, for example, nor can I send you to my Instagram page to see all of my photos.

Going on the principle of focussing on the essence, I can understand Instagram’s decision – it’s a mobile app, and the shooting, sharing & viewing are intended to happen on a mobile device, and that all works fine. I can understand it, but I’m a little irritated all the same. To be fair, it could also be a “core first” decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they beefed up the web view in the future. Any Instagrammies out there got any inside goss on this?

Side note: when I was made aware of the Instagram Terms of Service, which gave Instagram and other users the right to use your photos as they see fit, I was ready to drop the app completely. To their credit Instagram reacted quickly and corrected what was apparently a bit of a copy & paste error. Kudos to the Instagram team. You can see the updated ToS here.

Update: the Instagram guys let me know that you can grab the link to a photo by tapping the … button on the right under any photo you’re looking at.

TEDx Sydney Sketchnotes

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I’m a bit behind on this, but I’ve got to admit I was pretty disappointed with how iPad sketchnoting worked out at TEDx, so I guess I’ve had a little aversion to the whole topic.

What went wrong? Well, a few things. Firstly, most sessions at TEDx were completely dark except for the stage, and I was a bit too self-conscious to sit there with my iPad glowing in the dark & irritating everyone within metres. Secondly, although the iPad charcoal stylus is a nice idea and does work as it should, I quickly realised that I couldn’t write worth a damn with it, and sketchnotes are as much about the notes as they are the sketches. And lastly, I don’t have enough practice with Sketchbook Pro to make anything worth seeing at the speed that sketchnotes demand.

Nigel Marsh

Good thing I took my trusty pen & Moleskine with me.

I can’t say I made any sketchnotes I’m super excited about (mood influences these things heavily, and I was pretty bummed about the iPad thing not working out) but I can say I enjoyed TEDx and look forward to attending again next year. After watching so many absolutely brain-bursting TED talks, I’d set my expectations pretty high, and a local TEDx could never have fulfilled them completely, but it was an interesting & enjoyable day. If I had one wish for next year it would be that speakers should speak more about big ideas they want to share, and less about products they want us to buy and use.

You can see all of my TEDx Sydney sketchnnotes here. I’ll be practicing with the iPad charcoal stylus & Sketchbook Pro, and with any luck I’ll post some sexy scribbles here soon.

The iPad Charcoal Stylus

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Yesterday I went from enthusiasm to disappointment in a few minutes when I hacked together an iPad stylus to use for scribbling sketchnotes. The damned thing just reacted too slow to be useful.

Not long after publishing that post, I went back through the DIY video, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Towards the beginning (around 0:45), he says “it’s a good idea to make sure the foam you’re using is indeed conductive.” So I snipped off a chunk of foam, and tried drawing with it.

And it worked just as good as my finger.

Holding that little strip of foam, I realised I’d made myself an iPad Charcoal Stylus. I’d automatically gripped it as I’d learned to hold a piece of charcoal way back in art school (ahhhh, those were the days), as seen below.

So if you want the simplest iPad stylus the world’s ever seen, you’ll need:

  • Some conductive foam (found at an electronics store if you’re not a nerd and don’t have any lying around)

Then follow these complicated instructions:

  1. Cut a strip of conductive foam that’s as long as you want and as wide as the thickness of your foam (a square in cross-section).
  2. Snip the corners off of one end so it’s more or less rounded.
  3. Download Sketchbook Pro, sync your iPad and start drawing!

The foam’s quite rigid stuff, so it doesn’t flop around and is easy to hold. The charcoal grip is best suited to pretty rough drawing, but I’ll be experimenting with longer styluses better suited to a typical pen grip. My first results with the iPad Charcoal Stylus are still pretty rough, but I’m now confident that has more to do with learning & getting the most out of the software, and not a half-functional stylus.

Getting better...

So thanks to the wonders of conductive foam I’ll be snipping myself a few more charcoals and sketchnoting TEDx Sydney tomorrow on the iPad! I just hope the conference coffee’s worth drinking.

iPad Sketchnotes Setup

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Having not sketched a single note since Web Directions in October (and let’s not even go into how long it’s been since I wrote anything here… ahem), and after being interviewed on sketchnoting recently (super sekrit, more on that later), my fingers have started itching. I’m lucky enough to have an invite for TEDxSydney in two days, and if you add that to the new iPad sitting on my desk what do you get? iPad TEDx sketchnotes of course!

Sketchnoting is usually pretty simple: open sketchbook, click pen, get started. An iPad’s a computer, and they’re always more complicated than the anologue world, so this will need a little more preparation. Firstly, the software: there are a few drawing apps out there for the iPad, but the hands-down, knock-down-drag-out winner is Sketchbook Pro from Autodesk. At AU $9.99 it may seem pretty expensive for people used to piddly little iPhone apps that cost $1.99 and do next to nothing, but this is another beast entirely. It does layers à la Photoshop, creates smooth & soft lines and has a simple, smart interface. And the results are often stunning. So no contest there. You can also get the iPhone version, but the small screen always felt cramped to me – the lovely large iPad screen is perfect for it.

The only downside is the iPad wants a finger as input, but only monkeys draw with their fingers (ewwwwww!). Like any other more advanced primate, I want to draw with a pen. I ordered a Pogo Sketch, a pen designed to simulate a finger, but they’re back-ordered two weeks in Australia. Sigh. What to do? The inimitable Stepehan Cox saved the day and gave me a tip. Instead of me prattling on about it, watch it yourself:

So off I enthusiastically went to buy a cheap ballpoint, some copper wire and a chunk of conductive foam (did you even know there was such a thing?)

After following the instructions, I now have two very DIY looking iPad styluses.

I wound the copper wire a bit tighter than in the video, and taped it all down with some grippy black gaffer tape, and voila! They’re done!

Am I excited? Well, no actually, I’m not.

It’s possibly a side-effect of them being DIY, the thickness of the copper wire, how well wrapped in wire the bits of foam are or somethigng else I’m unaware of, but these things react sloooow, and sometimes not at all. I know it’s not an app problem, as Sketchbook Pro reacts with hardly any lag at all when I use my finger, but the lag these styluses introduce makes it almost impossible to draw anything, as you can see…

TEDx iPad Stylus Test

TEDx is tomorrow (not today as it says in my sketchnote, silly me), so it looks like I’ll be drawing with my finger after all. With any luck the Pogo Sketch will be much more responsive when it arrives in two weeks.

Maybe the ol’ trusty Moleskine & gel pen are the way to draw after all? I will take them along, just in case.

The Weakest Link or One Bad Apple Redux…

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The other day I let off some steam about the extremely poor experience of trying to book an appointment at the Genius Bar. After 8 attempts, each time clicking through the same 6 screens (because there’s no other way), and an ever-increasing level of frustration, I got an appointment for Sunday morning. I got up early Sunday and headed downtown, fully expecting the worst.

geniusbar

Photo by bernardoh

When I told the girl at the front door that I had an appointment, she checked her iPhone, found my name, and with a smile she sent me up to the second floor. There, another color coded girl (the “ushers” wear orange, the geniuses wear blue) checked her iPhone, asked me to take a seat and said it’d be just a minute. A simple but beautifully designed screen behind the geniuses showed me my own name, reassuring me that I was next in line. The smooth friendliness made it rather difficult for me to maintain my irate customer stance, but I set my jaw, determined to give the so-called genius a piece of my mind if he hesitated for even a second to replace my iPhone.

Luckily for Tom, my genius, he didn’t hesitate at all. In fact, upon seeing the missing button on the top of my phone, he said, “let’s get that replaced then, shall we?” I blinked, nodded, and two signatures and 3 minutes later I had a brand spanking new iPhone in my pocket. Tom gave me exactly what I’d been hoping for (but assuming wouldn’t happen) and was extremely friendly through out our brief transaction.

The Weakest Link

Our experience with the brands we love (and hate) is a chain of mini-experiences:

  • Advertising links to…
  • In store or web site purchase links to…
  • The box links to…
  • Unboxing links to…
  • First time use links to…
  • Learning & regular use links to…
  • Customer service links to…
  • Repair or replacement links to…
  • Next purchase links to…

Any brand that can construct a solid chain from beginning to end, has a good chance of linking the end to the beginning and creating a permanent loop of consumption, something that Apple’s become pretty good at.

Expectations

Apple’s advertising, packaging, product design and so many other links in the chain have always been such good experiences for me, so I was shocked at the problems I encountered trying to book a genius bar appointment. If DELL or Microsoft gave me those kinds of problems, it would confirm my opinion of them and would therefore, in a way, be more bearable. But when Apple drops the ball I’m shocked. They’ve trained me to expect perfect experiences as my right as an Apple customer. Tom the genius restored my faith, but the hassle of booking an appointment to see him is now part of the chain in my memory.

Other than that, the repair or replacement link is the absolute worst part of the chain to disappoint a customer. If I have your broken product in hand, my expectation in that moment is that you suck. There’s no other point in the chain where it’s more important to prove the opposite.

A Simple Fix

Keeping all of this in mind, it’s not really a big challenge to improve the appointment booking process without changing anything but the copy. If Apple were to take this “piss of” screen:

AppleFail05

And simply change the text:

AppleFix

…and give me the ability to jump straight to the page and check back – without clicking through six time-wasting screens over and over again – I’d be a very happy customer, and Apple’s otherwise perfect chain would be a perfect circle.