The War of Attention

Getting software to work for you, the way you want it to.

That's really the goal of anyone who uses software or computers. And to be quite honest, when it comes down to it it's a question of what works for you. I still seem to be at this crossroads with my software solutions, not because of not having enough good choices, but having far too many.

Microsoft, Apple, and now Google all have great applications that beg for your use and attention. Microsoft, bringing functionality to the table, comes feature packed and allows you to do what you will, as long as it's all Microsoft. Same for Apple but the emphasis is not only features but user experience, at the cost of flexibility. And finally Google, where it has no real presence anywhere finds presence everywhere with it's incredibly amazing Email and Calendar services along with anything on the web one would need.

Microsoft's options are the least familiar to me, only because they don't matter much anymore to me. I hated Outlook for Email and Calendar and I have no idea what web services they offer to allow over the air syncing with calendars and contacts.

Apple, having inherited a niche following with high expectations and a panache for excellence in marrying user experience to computing do almost everything you'd want it's services to do. And swear up and down everything it can't are trivialities until they incorporate it into design. For me, I want my Email, Contacts, Calendars, and Documents to sync. When I make a change to one, I want a change to all on any device, connected or not. Apple's solution is an outstanding one called MobileMe. It does the sync of the first three, leaving my documents to the iDisk function where it acts like an open FTP server. (And not to forget web galleries for pictures)

Where it comes short is where Google steps in. Nothing tops Google Docs. Sure both iWork and even Office have amazing templates to do what you need and much more beautifully, but Google Docs, being online, is backed up - to the second - every 3 seconds. And not only to your computer but on their server. Same goes for email, photos, calendar. The downside is you have to be online (with Google Gears picking up the slack in offline mode). Also Google's RSS reader runs circles around Mail.app or Safari and works anywhere I log in. I also really hate Mail applications probably. I've always used webmail, and with Gmail being the best, there isn't really a contest there.

I can't decide. I guess that's the price I pay for wanting my cake and eat it too.