It’s been over a year from the launch of the first iPad by Apple and we now have iPad 2 in the market. iPad is by all measures one of Apple’s most successful products. Its uptake has been unprecedented and matched only by few other products in history. This becomes even more fascinating when you consider that this product category – i.e. consumer tables – almost did not exist and Apple single handedly created a product that was a major hit from version 1. Microsoft tired to encourage manufacturers to build tablet like devices based on Windows but none made it to a noteworthy place in history.

I think for Nokia, It was all written on the wall for 3 years. Finally they admit that there is something seriously wrong and the need to fix it, and fix it very quickly.

Let’s not forget, Nokia is a great company with countless innovations in the mobile industry. They are global, and they can build any type of phone they want. They just have to decide what type of phone maker they want to be.

Their upcoming smartphone strategy to stick to Windows phone 7 will also likely be a blow. Look at the uptake rate of winph7 phones. It's disappointing for the amount money that Microsoft poured into promoting it. And HTC and Samsung built really good devices on this platform. It’s just missing something, something very important and that’s the ecosystem around it: content, apps, app developers, etc.

This is a critical point for Nokia: Nokia should decide what they want to be in the smartphone play: a company like Apple, providing the platform, the device and all the ecosystem around it or a company like HTC (or Motorola for that matter), building the device and letting others worry about the ecosystem.

There is no third alternative.

A good test plan is an essential part of any successful testing project. Depending on the type of the test activity, being system test, acceptance test or regression test, a good test plan always begin with good test cases.

Then, what is a good test case?

In our view a good test case should be simple to understand, even for complicated tests, but it must also be complete and not missing any critical information. A good test case makes the testing less dependent on the test engineer and his/her talent. Sufficient and clear guidelines on how to set up the test environment, the device pre-test state and configuration, the test data and how to observe, capture and evaluate the test results are key factors.

With all the buzz and the news of the 2nd half of 2010 it seems so. NFC coming to Android, Visa is recruiting head of GSMA mobile payment to head its own mobile payment division, AT&T, VZW and T-Mobile US coming together to form a consortium for co-branding mobile payment services in the US, Isis. Certainly there was no shortage of news in 2010 promoting mobile payment. But reality might tell a different story. Mobile payment as a service has been the talk of the industry for many years and it has not been a widely used service yet, and for good reasons.

When it comes to money, consumers tend to be conservative and stick to tried and true methods. In fact a sizable portion of the US population still prefers to use cash for day to day transactions and avoid using electronic forms of payment. Even though we might be willing to use our mobile devices for playing our music, checking our Facebook pages or watching a Youtube video, handing our money is a whole different story. Bottom line is, online and offline security of mobile payment is fundamental and I don't believe the general public is still comfortable to toss cash and plastic and move to mobile.

As you probably heard before, the big lofty answer is always User Experience, usability, user satisfaction, etc.

But what do all these mouthful buzzwords mean?

Seems that scientists and engineers have been very busy and have scrambled on this for years and tried to capture the essence of use elements (or dimensions) that when they are present in a product, we just feel we like them. We like the design, look, feel, experience of using the product. It’s a product that when we see, touch or use we say, wow that was incredible. If you look at the iPhone, and for that matter most Apple products, from the moment you get the box, you open it, you touch the product, you turn it on, start using it, it just feels damn good!