Alsop's Small Thoughts

Isn't Reporting A Customer Service?

I ask the question because I was astonished by how insufficent a New York Times article was today. (Full credit to my girlfriend for noticing the article and bringing it to my attention!) Given its premise -- finding a really good meal while traveling (link works even though Snap Preview doesn't show it) -- I wondered why the paper even bothered to print it. I travel pretty regularly, so I read the article to see if it had any new ideas for me to use. The sources? There are two: 1) The founder of Chowhound.com who, it might surprise you, uses Chowhound.com a lot when he travels. (He even mentions that the site works with the Palm Pilot and neither the reporter nor editor took the time to report that nothing requiring an Internet connection would work on the Palm Pilot, which hasn't been sold in more than five years and never had a live network connection.) 2) The founders of roadfood.com who, it might surprise you (as even the article mentions), use roadfood.com a lot while traveling. The last third of the article lists resources such as Zagat, Fodors, Google Local, and even the Yellow Pages that hotels provide in their rooms. The two main sources I use when I travel? Yelp and Opentable, which are not mentioned. The only question I had when I finished the article was: How long did the reporter take to report this story and were the editors more worried about filling space or providing a real service to readers? This is, after all, supposed to be the pre-eminent news organization in our country.

The Phone I Really Want From Apple

I really hope that Apple doesn't do what a lot of people are speculating about and calling the iPhone (even though Motorola owns the name and is using it), which is like an iPod with a cell phone embedded. I don't want to listen to music on my phone. I actually want a phone that acknowledges that we all use computers and the internet.

I use a Macintosh. I want Apple to design and introduce a phone that works so well with my Macintosh that I am compelled to buy it. I want the Apple Phone (and I hope Apple uses this to introduce a third product line that is different from both the Macintosh and the iPod) to show me my email like my Treo 700p does but without using Microsoft Exchange to do it. And I want it to know about all 6,572 cards I have in my Macintosh Address Book and let me connect with them naturally and easily. And I want it to know that I am in a meeting from my schedule and keep the phone from ringing when I am. I want the phone to be really, really smart because it knows that I use a Macintosh.

After Mac users get this phone (and crow incessantly about special they are as a result of this magical device), then Apple can introduce a version for Windows users (who will be discovering that Vista probably doesn't work as well as everybody thought it would, no matter how pretty the desktop is).