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The Fiesta is Built Ford Sexy.

April 5, 2011 By View Comments

Backview. Photo taken by Tony Wong.

One morning, on my way to work, a bright orange Ford passed by that made me take a second look. I don’t remember Ford cars looking this good and I posted about it on Facebook. The next day, an email from the head of marketing at Ford Malaysia came asking if I would like to take it out for a spin and I eagerly said yes.

So after a weekend of the best Ford-play I ever had, I can tell you the Ford Fiesta is the sex. I can’t tell torque from cork but I can tell you the sound system rocks. There are two audio presets that can direct all the sound toward the driver and another that spreads it out evenly for all the passengers to enjoy.

The UI. Photo by Tony Wong.

First thing I did was paired my iPhone with the car so that I could play any song from my playlist via Bluetooth. I could also play any radio station in the world through an app called Tunein Radio. I also had Wolfgang’s Vault and Last fm going. Suddenly, the Fiesta wasn’t a car any more, it was a live rock concert in Madison Square Garden or a bar playing the smoothest jazz from Nawlins. It was incredible, I could stay in the car all day wishing the jam would last forever. Thunderstorm, bring it on.

Ford is also pushing all the right buttons by taking away a lot of the usual buttons, knobs and levers. There is no door lock thingy on each door. It’s centralized into one button on the command center (pimped out dashboard). One push and all doors are locked to outsiders but passengers can open their doors at any time. There is also no lever to open the gas tank which Ford didn’t tell me so I spent a good few minutes looking high and low for it at the gas station. The attendant helped me with it and we found that it opens from the outside and there is no cap to cover the tank, you just stick the nozzle in and pump away. Woot. No more forgetting, losing or struggling with the cap and breaking a few expensive french-manicured nails.

Talk button. Picture by Tony Wong.

I get a kick out of machines talking back at me. I only wish the voice was a guy’s, like Colin Firth’s. The Fiesta comes standard with a female voice in British accent. Kinda like the voice you hear from an answering machine, “For English, please press 1.” Voice recognition was ok. It had no trouble recognizing the numbers I say out loud but when it comes to names – slight problem, especially names in Malay, Chinese or Indian. It’s still great for answering calls, dialing numbers and talking hands-free. The voice control also lets you change radio stations, play a cd or play from an external device like an iPod, iPhone or Android. It is not Ford SYNC® but it’s close enough. No other car in this price range comes with a voice activated control.

“But what about the driving experience?” you ask. The car handles very well on the road. Pickup is gradual but fast and sometimes too fast with a little jerk forward. Have to learn how to press the accelerator. The steering is fantabulous. The few friends I have passed the keys to to test drive agrees. It was very responsive and stable at sharp corners. I could almost turn the wheel with a finger and yet it stays straight when I’m going straight.

So, do you have to trade-in a kidney to buy a Ford Fiesta? If you want to but it’s pretty a-ford-able. The only thing stopping you from taking one home today is the waiting list which can be up to 3 months depending on the color you choose. White and Aurora Blue are the best selling colors. Honestly, take the Chilli Orange. The Fiesta looks best in bright colors.

Built Ford Sexy. Picture by Tony Wong.

For more information on the Ford Fiesta, go to http://www.ford.net.my/.

Thank you Ford for a lovely experience in the Fiesta. Especially to E.S. Lee, Hazel, Steven Tan and Vivienne Huang from the Ford family. Thanks also to Tony Wong (who took photos), CW Loh, Ramesh V, Azizi J for the feedback and inspiration.

No more blind spots with this side view mirror.

Filed Under: Design, Feature, Reviews, Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Go Goggle it.

October 7, 2010 By View Comments

When Google launched Goggles this week, I had to read it twice. It looked like Google x 2.

You can find Google Goggles inside the Google Mobile App for the iPhone and the coolest thing about it is that you can now do searches by taking a picture with your iPhone. It also comes with voice search.

I’ll start with voice search. I’m not too happy with it so far. I did a search on KFC’s near me. The app had no problems hearing me but the result it brought back was KFC in Singapore, hundreds and hundreds of miles away. I was within walking distance, in fact, I was staring at a KFC and it wasn’t showing up in the search. Same thing happened when I searched for pizza. Next I searched for thechannelc and it started acting like it had trouble hearing. I got The Chelsea. One more time and I got Gretchen Rossi. Hmm. Ok, so it works very well for restaurant searches in a neighboring country now let’s try photo search.

I took a shot of a billboard and Google Goggles’ scan picked up the advertiser’s logo and instantly brought up the company’s webpage. Whoa. That was really impressive. Next I took a picture of my dog hoping Google will bring back some useful information about his breed, dog training tips or pet stores nearby but it could not recognize the image. It was my bad, I didn’t read the manual. Found out later, what works and what doesn’t from the app’s tutorial. It won’t work on animals.


I do think GG has a lot of potential. The picture search feature brings us closer to the augmented reality concept I read on Matthew Buckland’s blog where you can point your camera phone at someone’s face and see all his digital profiles like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin (including prison record) pop up on the screen. A bit like SoundHound, an app that listens to a tune and comes back with the name of the song, lyrics and a button to get it instantly from iTunes. I wonder why Google hadn’t come up with music search. Anyways, I think picture search from Google Goggles is awesome and I’m keeping an eye on it. I’m not too crazy about voice search but it’ll be interesting to see how it develops too.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: , , , , ,

I survived mass transit

August 1, 2010 By View Comments

Yesterday, I took a ride on the wild side – on a light rail transit. Here’s where you get your pockets picked, butt pinched and bag snatched – so I was warned. Thankfully, nothing like that happened even with me holding out my iphone as bait. People just turned away when I pointed the phone at them – was like vampires cowering away from a cross.

The traffic in Kuala Lumpur has gone from bad to worse or has it always been like this? I had to meet some friends in Mid Valley yesterday and I thought I’ll take the LRT instead. Last time I rode on the LRT was more than five years ago. Not knowing the train system very well, I downloaded KL Trains from the app store. I can tell you that $0.99 is a lot to pay for this app. More complicated subway maps for the iPhone are available for free. What would really add value is live notification of when a train is down and it could easily be accomplished with a feature to let users report it through the app. Other features I could think of are:

1. Letting your friends and family know where you are like Silent Bodyguard. $0.99

2. If you should fall asleep on the train, Wake Me Up Anywhere will turn on the alarm when you’re near your destination so that you don’t miss it. $1.99

3. Automatic check in to Foursquare at every train station, this may be spam to some but it’s actually a good way of telling whoever you’re meeting at a destination that you’re getting closer. No app for this yet but is it that hard to build? Once you check in to a train station, the app can pretty much remove every venue that’s not a train station and check you in to the station automatically, broadcasted to twitter or facebook or both.

And for the near future, I’d like to carry less cash and pay for my train tickets with PayPal or in some mobile currency.

Filed Under: Apps, Feature, Tech Tagged With: , , , , ,

iDiGi iPhone Plans – Can’t it be simpler?

April 5, 2010 By View Comments

When DiGi recently announced they would also be selling the iPhone, the community rejoiced and celebrated the end of Maxis’ monopoly and no more ridiculous wait for an iPhone. We waited patiently for DiGi to announce its plans. They assured everyone it would be a better deal.

When the plans came out last week, we couldn’t make sense of it. What the heck was going on? I have not seen a more complicated table of numbers. I decided to take a visit down to DiGi’s flagship store on Sunday with a journalist friend of mine. She’s pretty sharp and gets things pretty fast but after 10 minutes of listening to the customer service rep explain the plans, she got even more confused and needed to leave the store to breathe. We went and got something to eat to fuel up our drained brains before People vs iDiGi plan Round 2 but a headache had developed in both of us. I came home, took a nap and looked at the plans again to see if I could simplify it myself. And here’s what I’ve come up with.

Compare this with what DiGi has developed and you’ll wonder if DiGi’s trying to hide the fact that their plans aren’t that much better than Maxis.

By the way, do you really need to put an “i” in front of every word? You have iDiGi, iWant and iGet. iGet is not even a plan, why in the world do you want to trademark that?

The real deal on DiGi iPhone Price:

1. Upfront cost for a DiGi iPhone is much higher than Maxis because you have to pay for the phone plus 6 months’ subscription in advance.

2. The contract period is 24 months. I found this a bit absurd. Does DiGi not know The 4G will be announced in June and we’re guessing it’ll arrive on our shores by end of the year? Locking customers into a 24 month plan is not going to make a lot of folks happy when the 4G goes on sale by either telco. If you get the 4G from DiGi later this year, will you have to serve a total of 4 years locked in a horrible back to back contract?

Is DiGi out of touch with customer habits? People who buy smartphones rarely keep their phones for more than a year. Why are telcos or service providers forcing contracts on customers that are as long as a life sentence (24months is bloody long). Mobile technology changes too fast these days. Couldn’t they keep customers from leaving with a great product and great customer service anymore?

3. On the plus side (small plus) there is a 5GB data option – more than the 3GB limit from Maxis. Not great but not bad for the heavy data user. This is a very expensive plan and you don’t really need it if you already have a 3G mobile data plan with a dongle and you’re serving time on that subscription.

So is this a good deal? Check list (if you checked everything then this is a no-brainer, buy it today):
1. You’re very happy with DiGi.
2. You’re not going anywhere (another telco) for the next two years. It’s DiGi or nothing.
3. You hardly change phone less than 2 years old.
4. What’s a little more up front for a DiGi iPhone. You have spare change.
5. You can’t wait 1 month for an iPhone from Maxis.
6. You’ll never subscribe to Maxis, ever.

This may not be a great deal to switch from another telco, perhaps it’s a good deal for existing DiGi customers.  I’d be interested to find out from you if you’re a DiGi customer, does DiGi value your loyalty with an offer of a zero contract plan at least? You’ve been with DiGi for the past 5-10 years, surely they don’t think you’ll take an iPhone and run, right?

iDiGi Plans – can’t it be better also?

Filed Under: Business, Marketing, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to get Kindle books for your iPhone, iPod Touch or PC

March 1, 2010 By

Want to get Kindle books on your iPhone/iPod Touch or PC? Here’s a hack, ok, call it a tip. This is not illegal, you still have to pay for the book. It’s just a way around the restrictions Amazon has in place to stop non-residents of the US from buying Kindle books. Let’s get to it.

What you need:
1. A PC (not on Mac yet) or an Apple iPhone/iPod Touch.
2. A credit card
3. An Amazon account. If you don’t have one, register for one. Some Amazon shopping experience will help too. Now who hasn’t shopped at Amazon.com these days?
4. A US address

1. INSTALL THE KINDLE READER SOFTWARE/APP

Installing for the PC:
Download and install the Kindle for PC software.

Installing for the iPhone/iPod Touch:
This is a little trickier. You can only download the Kindle for iPhone app from the US app store. Don’t mess with the account you have right now. Set up another app store account with a different email, a US address and don’t enter your credit card info.

If your app store is in the Malaysian app store, you can easily change that by clicking on the Malaysian flag icon at the bottom right and change it to “United States”.

Now, download Kindle for iPhone app and sync. You shouldn’t lose your information. Once you see the app on your phone, you can log out of the US app store and login to your usual one.

2. Set up your Amazon account to go shopping.

First, use your credit card to buy a gift card that you will send to yourself. The books I buy usually cost around $10-15 so I bought a $50 gift card which should get me 3-4 Kindle books. Don’t log out yet, wait for email. Once the email with the gift card claim code arrives, click on “Start shopping”. This will credit the amount into your Amazon account.

Remain logged in. Go into your account and remove all credit card information. This is what’s making Amazon stop you from getting into the Kindle store. Also change the region or country of origin to the US. If you’re asked to enter a US address, you can use the one above.

Now you’re all set. Click on “Kindle Store” and go shopping.

3. When you’re ready to buy.

Click on “Buy now with 1-click” and tell Amazon where you want the book sent – to your iPhone/iPod Touch or to your PC.

It will come with instructions on how to retrieve the book from the app on your PC / iPhone / iPod Touch.

Enjoy!

BTW, you can leave your second App Store account alone, it may come in handy in the future. I use mine to download other apps that are not available to Malaysians just so I can drool at what I can’t have.

Filed Under: Apps, Eco, Tech Tagged With: , , , ,

Who is getting rich off the iPhone?

December 11, 2009 By View Comments

so-just-where-does-all-that-iphone-money-go

Now let’s look closer to home. Malaysians pay Maxis (the only telco offering the iPhone) US$714 for a 32GB iPhone 3Gs with a 1 year contract. Let’s assume Maxis pays Apple the same $550 per unit, Maxis still makes $164 just from selling you the phone and you pay the entire sum upfront, Maxis doesn’t have to subsidize a thing and they’ll make even more money from your voice and data plan. There is nothing to lose and all to gain for Maxis. Brilliant.

Did you say “This is so unfair. To think I’ve stayed with them all these years, through good reception and no reception and I get jack”? Well, if you’re the only player in the market, the rules are yours to dictate.

Want to pay nothing or close to it for a Maxis iPhone? Their corporate customers get the iPhone for free. So if you know anyone who’s a corporate customer, you can buy it off her for cheap or convince her to give it to you. Keep telling her it’s a bitch to type with a touch screen keypad – this is the bain of many new iphone owners in the first week of playing around with the device. With a hint of urgency in your voice, tell her to get rid of it (and give it to you) before technology becomes obsolete and she has to pay people to take it off her. Check ebay and she’ll see how many unsold first generation iphones there are. If she has no patience for touch screen, she won’t search ebay and will just take your word for it. Score! Congratulations and welcome to the iPhone owners club.

Filed Under: Business, Feature, Humor Tagged With: ,