Wednesday 26 September 2007

The VW empire

I'm a little bit puzzled by VW these days. Lots of large car companies own other car companies or operate alternative brands (GM, Ford, Toyota, Mercedes, Fiat and many others own several brands) however VW seems to take a unique approach to automotive family living.

Whilst some groups have similar (and therefore competing cars) in their ranks, few replicate VWs tendency towards inbreeding. The 'A5' platform is a rather good case in point. The Golf, Octavia, A3, Touran, Caddy, Altea, Toledo, Jetta, Leon, Eos, TT and Tiguan are all based on this platform and, you'll note that many of them are competing against each other in the same market segment. It's also slightly ironic that in many measurable respects the cheaper of the models is the best (see Octavia vs Golf).

Why on earth would a company compete with itself, especially on this scale? It really does seem to defy sense, and the state of VW at present may well indicate that it's not the bests idea. I can only think of one other manufacturer who had so many similar vehicles on sale at the same time, and we all know how it ended for Leyland...

Whilst I'm on the topic, why on earth did VW produce the Bugatti Veryon? Ugly, expensive and - ultimately - a bit pointless, it seems to be an incredibly poor business decision as well as an incredibly idiotic thing to buy, even if you are ultra-rich. Maybe I need to have a few hundred million in the bank to understand such things.

Monday 24 September 2007

To iPhone or not to iPhone, that is the question

I find myself completely torn over the iPhone. On the one hand I do not like the fact that consumers are forced into a contract with O2 when they have paid full price for the device and I find the fact that O2 pay a share of the revenue from the contracts tied to the iPhone even less appetising. On the other hand, the device really is a joy to use and it would be useful having something that I can dock at work (whilst putting my current handset on charge is no real hardship it's not automatic for me in the same way that docking my iPod is). The question is therefore whether or not I should ignore my misgivings that surround Apple's business practises and buy the handset that I want anyway...

It's a great shame that none of the handset manufacturers out there make a phone that offers all that the iPhone does in terms of usability. There are some pretty large omissions on the iPhone's spec, but it would offer me the level of fuctionality that I require so that isn't as much of an issue for me as it may be for other people. Also, it would make me incredibly happy to move away from Symbian S60 (which is particularly poor on the N73, which I am currently using).

The fact that I'm finding this decision so difficult probably indicates that I will take the plunge and buy an iPhone when it's released on November the 9th. Watch this space.

Friday 21 September 2007

The New Ford Focus

Ford's design direction has been rather interesting of late. The tail lights that appear on their S-Max, Galaxy and new Mondeo are strikingly similar to those of the (achingly beautiful) new Maserati GT. The face of the new Mondeo is imposing and beautiful without being brash or tacky. In fact, to my eyes it is now a significantly better looking car than many of it's prestige competitors. The rump of the car is a little too large and the alloy wheels that they have favoured for their demonstrators (stolen from the Focus ST and a little too similar to those worn by various Vauxhalls) are much too fussy (and small) to do the car any favours but these are tiny details that cannot ruin such a fundamentally good design. Ford have made a bit of a faux pas, however, in the new Focus.

I'm sure that almost everyone remembers the impact that the original Focus made when it was launched. This was probably heightened by the contrast between it and the very old and rather lack-lustre Escort it replaced (bear in mind that the final MKVI Escort was a direct evolution of the much maligned MKV, first realeased in 1990). Unfortunately the car that wowed the world was replaced in 2004 by the rather bland MKII Focus. In some respects the latter vehicle was an improvement, but in others it was a very definite step in the wrong direction. To my mind the biggest problem with the latest Focus is it's incredibly bland styling. Ford clearly believe that this was a mistake since they have already revealed a significantly face-lifted model only three years into the product's life-cycle.

According to Ford's marketing people every external panel apart from the roof of the revised Focus has been replaced. This has resulted in a slightly different tail-gate, smoother and more dynamic looking sides that have lost their rubbing strips and gained a purposeful crease running from the front wing to the rear and a wholly new front end that quite deliberately and successfully apes the new Mondeo. Unfortunately, however, the basic shape of the car has remained the same. Even worse, the revisions to the rear are minimal and completely out of tune with the new front end (much the same as with the Vectra when it was last face-lifted). The resulting car may well be pretty when viewed from the front, but from every other angle it looks wrong.

The interior of the car stays true to the same story. The centre console and the instrument panel have been revised but the rest remains the same. This means that to anyone who is familiar with the current Focus the revisions look like an afterthought rather than a thorough reworking of a car that desperately needs it. Worst of all Ford have put a starter button beside the handbrake in what must be one of the most counter-intuitive positions possible. Whilst keyless entry and a keyless ignition do have undoubted benefits it's pitiful that Ford have felt the need to shove it into the revised car without thinking it through properly.

I hope that the next generation of the Focus is better than this half-hearted restyle. It needs to be if Ford is to turn things around and it would be a great shame to see them be anything less than the best as they were for a short time of late.

The world according to Stephen Fry

I have just had a read through the first post of Stephen Fry's new personal blog. If I have understood correctly he typed the whole thing (almost 6, 500 words) on a smartphone. That takes some seriously impressive thumbs, a great big dollop of patience and a lot of passion for the subject (which - with a touch of irony - was smartphones).

What was particularly interesting about this particular blog post (for me, anyway) was just how keen he was to point out that he's not completely biased against any product not made by Apple. "The lady doth protest too much" springs to mind, though he does manage to accurately identify some of the flaws of the iPhone. He also comments, however, that "only a cross and silly person would pretend to be unimpressed [by the iPhone]". I find this a tiny bit annoying since I truly am not particularly impressed by the iPhone. It is pretty, it is very pleasing to use and it does have many virtues, but it is also lacks a lot of features that are necessary on a modern smartphone and it would struggle to replace my (rather awful) N73. It is impressive in certain respects, but so are most phones these days (including most of Nokia's N Series).