Sheehan Alam

Technology. Entrepreneurship. Finance.
Sheehan Alam
Sheehan Alam

I'm an entrepreneur and lead application developer at StockTwits. I build simple and sophisticated mobile software for the iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry.

I co-founded and sold TweetyStock, a social investing app for the iPhone.

Here I discuss technology, entrepreneurship and finance. Ping me if you want to do biz.

Portfolio:
StockTwits for iPhone
NASDAQ QFolio for iPhone
NASDAQ QFolio HD for iPad
StockDroid for Android
Cancer Trials for iPhone

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2011 (24)
2010 (34)
 

iPhone 4S Quick Review

I've only been able to use my iPhone 4S for a day, but I've been running iOS5 for a few months now. So here is the quick and dirty.

PROS
- It's fast. You'll notice the difference from the 4, and you'll definitely notice the difference from Android

- Siri is not only fun to use, but very useful. Voice commands are nothing new (I had an HTC Wizard back in 2004 running Windows Mobile and it could do voice) but Siri actually gets things done. Tell it to write emails, texts, make appointments, solve derivatives you name it. Definitely a step up from your basic dictation. You talk to Siri like you're having a conversation with a human being so its natural. 

- The camera is fast, and very high quality. Check out this pic. 1080P video is insane too.
Photo
 
- White is the new black.

CONS 
- While Siri is good, it still isn't 100% accurate. 
- No new case design. To all the haters.

Is it worth it to upgrade? If you don't see yourself using Siri too much and are already impressed by the iPhone 4 camera, hang tight, you still get iOS5 which feels brand new. If you have anything else, do it. 
Posted from Chandler, AZ
 

How to make mobile payments easier

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(sweet phone bro.)

People have been talking about mobile payments for at least a decade (as noted by the 90's phone in this post that has premo features like a monochrome screen and redial). Analysts like to quote a person is more likely to notice his phone is missing than his wallet, therefore, money would be better placed in the phone than in the wallet.

Fast forward to today and we are at a point where mobile payments can be made possible. 

  1. We have highly interactive smartphones
  2. We have well designed apps/marketplaces
  3. We are pioneering near-field-communication technologies to make contact-less payments
So why aren't we paying with our mobile phones? Because it's still too difficult to make a payment with all of these great technologies. There is a lack of adoption on the merchant side and its too much of a paradigm shift for consumers to pull out a phone to make a payment.

However, App Stores are taking baby steps and transitioning us into a mobile friendly world. Apple and Amazon already have our credit card numbers when we sign up for their services. This makes purchasing books or music a 1-click buy. One click and no more. This is where innovative mobile payment technologies need to get inspiration.

Consumers pay with their credit cards because it's easy. Swiping your card for a pair of $1,000  Gucci's (FYI I don't own anything Gucci) is too simple and too quick. So quick that you don't even feel the sticker shock until 30 days later when you get your statement.

Mobile payment technologies need to be quick, 1-click.
Posted
 

Speed vs. Responsiveness

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Speed is everything on the internet. We love fast food, fast cars, and fast loading webpages (admit it, I know you do).

I'm about to squash the myth here that speed isn't everything. At least not on mobile.

How many of you shopping for a phone see meaningless information like "1.5 Ghz SnapDragon dualcore processor" or "1GB L2 Cache?" Sounds fancy (it really is, but thats not the point). The bigger the number obviously the better, and the faster your phone will be right? Wrong.

Speed isn't everything on mobile. It is responsiveness.

Responsiveness is that great feeling you get when you're swiping through photos and it just snaps. 

Responsiveness is how quick Google Maps reloads while you're doing a pinch to zoom.

Responsiveness is how fast you scroll when you flick your finger up on the screen. Like butter.

Responsiveness is the little sensory indicators you get like scrollbars bouncing back a bit once you've reached the end of a list.

You don't get that with SnapDragon's and caches. 

You get that because someone took the time to think about the little things that make using apps on your mobile just a little faster and a little more fun.
Posted
 

iCloud, Apps and the Interactive Web

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Apple announced iCloud last week. They aren't changing the internet here, the technology is the same stuff Google has been doing for a few years now. What is changing is how we interact with the cloud.

Let's look at the Google Scenario:
  1. Open up your browser of choice
  2. Go to http://docs.google.com
  3. Login
  4. Make some docs, and save it in a folder so you can access it later.
Pretty awesome. You can now log in from any web browser in the world and access your document. Hooray cloud.

Now lets look at the Apple Scenario:
  1. Launch Pages
  2. Make some docs and save it so you can access it later.
Even more awesome. iCloud will automatically take that document you saved and push it to your iPhone, iPad and your Mac. You don't need to go find it in a folder. It will just be there the next time you open it up.

Lets think about this. iCloud gets rid of the entire concept of folders. It also allows the user to have a rich experience, because the quality of "apps" are much more robust and easier to use than a "web-app." Some may argue, but all of these new innovations with HTML5 + JavaScript + <insert new buzz word> are simply technologies that try to re-create a desktop experience inside of the browser.

iCloud isn't so much about moving your data into the cloud, than it is keeping your experience consistent across all of your devices. iCloud is about keeping your digital lifestyle in sync.

Posted
 

The Unsubscribe User Experience

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Unsubscribing is not fun. It sucks for the user because they are unhappy with a product/service and it sucks for a business because they have an unhappy customer. Talk about catch 22. The customer is always right so here is how you can make the process effortless:

  1. Unsubscribing should take only 1-click. Don't make them log into their account settings just so they can click an Unsubscribe button. That adds insult to injury.
  2. Don't follow up with an e-mail asking why they unsubscribed. The inbox is sacred and if a user is already banning your business from it by unsubscribing they sure as hell don't want to give you feedback. 
  3. Instead, measure your users behavior while they are on your site. Figure out what features they use most/least and plot a trend. Strip out features that aren't being used, or customize a users experience to only show them what they use.
  4. Once a customer is lost, they are gone for good, unless you can influence social intent. If a customer's social network is using your product/service they are more likely to come back based on a referral. Take advantage of identifying where a user's network is and foster it.

Posted
 

3 Usability Tips for iPhone Login Screens

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  1. Don't enable auto-complete for password fields. Having your 27 character password that contains at least two numbers, 3.5 capital letters and a llama, auto-corrected gets annoying very fast.
  2. Use Facebook Connect or Twitter OAuth. Nobody likes typing in that crazy long password. Chances are your users are already connected to Facebook and Twitter.
  3. Don't prompt for login until necessary. Why would someone give up their e-mail address and password just to try out your app? Face it, it's probably not that great. Let them poke around and if they hit a premium feature they like, your user will sign-up in a heart beat.

Posted
 

Thoughts on the Mobile Web

Mobile-web

Businesses want apps on every platform, iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile 7.

This means they need to 3 types of developers:

  1. An Objective-C developer for iPhone
  2. A Java developer for Android
  3. A .NET developer for Windows
or me, a rockstar ninja who can do all three.

Facebook recently announced the rollout of http://m.facebook.com to run on any device. This is amazing and gets the Facebook product into the hands of many with only 1 "web app".

What's the problem? The ever so hyped user experience.

The mobile web is still in its early days and very pre-mature. Sure we have javascript frameworks like jQuery Mobile and Sencha to make webpages "touch screen friendly" but lets face the facts, the experience sucks. It doesn't compare to the quality of a home grown native app. Take for example drag & drop, or scrolling. If there is even a hint of flicker, or choppiness, its game over. The browser hasn't advanced enough to deliver a rich user experience. Operating systems on the other hand, have. 

As the browser evolves, we'll see what it can bring to the table, but this isn't a new debate. Client side Java, Adobe Flash/AIR and Microsoft Silverlight have been developed well before the advent of mobile computing to make the browser experience better. They might not be great, but they were created to solve a problem.

Two words. User experience.

Posted
 

iPad 2 - A Week in Review

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PROS:
  • It's REALLY fast. Just try scrolling, smooth like butter.
  • So sleek and thin. You'll notice the difference.
  • It's white and looks like a Kindle, a product I really admire.
  • The smart cover is a really nice finish. 1000x better than the original iPad case.
CONS:
  • If you already own an iPad, this might be a pricey upgrade.
  • Camera's are low quality.
  • Who really video chats?
While the iPad 2 is a sexy piece of hardware, at the end of the day it's the apps that make it fun. Take for example Photo Booth. That has been around on the Mac for years now, and is the single reason why most women purchase an Apple computer (I joke). Using it on the iPad 2 is just pure fun. When I show it to my friends and family, they immediately smile and laugh. That is the moment you forget about technology and rekindle relationships. 

That, is the iPad 2. 

Posted
 

Current Android Tablets: A Poor Execution Strategy

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Honeycomb is great. I've had the chance to play with it on my simulator and briefly used the Xoom in person from my buddy @ishboo3002.

It has solid multi-tasking and the tried & true Android notification system. The UI is fantastic and almost Apple-esque in nature. Win for Google.

But lets forget about tech and talk strategy. 

Manufacturers like Motorola, Samsung and a slew of others are mass producing tablets that are running the Android operating system. The problem here is that Android on the tablet is pre-mature.

There are only 16 tablet ready apps in the market as of today. This is not a good launch strategy. This is a catch-up strategy to put something out so that it can compete with the iPad.

While I have no doubt there will be more Android tablet apps as developers begin to port their apps over to the larger screen-size, a better software + hardware integration approach would have been a better business strategy. That is, wait for the platform to grow and launch a product with killer apps.

Remember, it's all about the experience and all about the apps. A tablet that can't deliver on that basic premise is dead-weight.
Posted
 

Why I Don't Buy the iPhone Nano Hype

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The interweb loves to debate Apple's future product line-up. Recently the WSJ reported that Apple is working on an affordable, iPhone Nano that won't have any memory. 

Everything from music, to movies, to your contacts will all be synced to the cloud via MobileMe. This is interesting, however a memory-less phone will be slow. Speed is everything on mobile. Throw in AT&T's horrible service, and you have a disaster worse than the Palm Pre. Apple thinks about these things, there is no way they'd let this slide.

Some note that Apple wants to undercut the competition on price. A subsidized iPhone 4 is $199. The 3GS is $99. This is a commodity play. A free iPhone Nano will sell like hotcakes, but Apple will lose its very generous profit margin. Remember, Apple is a HARDWARE company. They make money on phone and computer hardware, not software. This is the key differentiator between Apple and Google when it comes to iOS and Android.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems highly unlikely the iPhone Nano will see a launch this year.

Posted
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo.
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