Apple vs oranges

By Gonzalo López Martí@LopezMartiMiami

• Apple launched the Apple Watch with big fanfare last week.
• In the meantime it is still wiping off the egg on its face after some media outlet recently reported about its dismal diversity track record.
• It just so happens that the kingdom of the late Steve Jobs rarely hired individuals who are not male and white for its managerial ranks.
• Apparently a few Asian males had managed to percolate into the upper middle echelons of its payroll but that’s about it.
• Tim Cook, CEO of the Cupertino giant, had to apologize publicly for his employer’s human resources inclinations.
• Ipso facto, the company put its HR & PR machinery in overdrive and announced a string of multicultural, gender unbiased recruitments.
• Namely Marcela Aguilar.
• Mrs. Aguilar, who’s Cost Rican, was global director of marketing communications at Gap and will join Apple as director of global marketing communications.
• Too little too late?
• Your call.
• It’s a free country after all.
• It’s your right to eat at Hooters and buy gizmos at Apple stores.
• So.
• If you don’t care, stop reading here,
• Or you can continue buying overpriced & overhyped Apple gadgets while whining at cocktail parties about closeted racism & sexism in ‘merica.
• However, if buying shiny objects from white male nerd supremacists irks you a bit, help is on the way.
• And it’s coming from Flor’da.
• Yes, there’s more to the southernmost state than oranges, theme parks, trailer parks, rigged elections, Medicare fraud and santería.
• A few months ago, US mobile carrier Sprint appointed Miami’s own Marcelo Claure as CEO.
• Mr. Claure, who’s Bolivian, is allegedly the richest Hispanic individual living in the US today.
• He used to keep a low profile –no mean feat for a 6 ft 6 in dude- until he partnered up with David Beckham to bring an MLS franchise to town.
• Mr. Claure called Miami Beach home for years and recently sold the company he founded, Doral-based Brightstar corporation, to the Japanese mobile behemoth SoftBank for a considerable amount of dough.
• Doral, by the way, is a suburb of Miami, sort of.
• Softbank, by the way, owns Sprint too.
• And that’s not it.
• Another Floridian tech success story is DDM Brands, also based in Doral, a multi-ethnic, multi-gender company developing the new mobile gadgets we will use in a not too distant future: nicely equipped, clever design, reliable and AFFORDABLE.
• Want an example?
• Behold DDM Brands’ new Yezz Billy 4.7 Windows phone.
• Packaging:
• a high end sturdy box with a matte finish and double coat paint to enhance the product picture. Some embossed blurbs in silver type here and there. Informative yet not too in-your-face. A clever, elegant cloth tab shows you how to intuitively open the box. Nice work. Industrial design at its finest. The kind of product packaging that stays around because it makes you feel guilty if you throw it away.
• In the box:
• great surprises. three easily interchangeable back plates to customize the phone in different colors: red white & blue, with a matte tint and a nice grip, great to the touch. Brilliant, whether you are American or French. Or Cuban or Puerto Rican, for that matter. Neat Yezz-branded white earbuds. It also comes with an adhesive film to protect the screen from scratches. Another nice little freebie. A Yezz promotional sticker, of course. A miniature user’s booklet with set-up instructions in various languages implies this a a world phone for the global market.
• Handset:
• The feel of the phone is certainly high end. Ultra thin, ultra lightweight, tightly assembled parts. To some extent it feels too thin and too light. Like a big credit card. The fact that it is made of plastic makes you think whether it is sturdy enough for the hazards of everyday life, however if it was metal it would feel heavy and bulky. I’d use a protective, shock-proof case if available. The feel of the buttons is just right. Not too floaty, not too stiff, with a pleasant click sound.
• Screen:
• It kind of looks slightly wider that the average phone you see these days. Good proportion for navigation both in portrait or landscape positions. The resolution is 720 x 1280. Image quality is not Retina grade but it is pretty pretty good. Type, shapes & colors are super defined, no jagged edges, zero motion blur.
• Interface, OS & apps:
• Hard to know what part of the phone’s interface is proprietary of the manufacturer (DDM) or whether we are entering Windows territory. My guess is the latter. The interface is crisp and intuitive. Mostly text based, as opposed to icon based. The typical Windows 8 tiles are friendly for dudes with sausage fingers like yours truly. Some buttons and tabs could be bigger though. I’m sure these settings can be adjusted but I haven’t tinkered long enough with the phone yet to figure that one out.
• Setting it up requires a little tech sophistication and patience: configuring the APN parameters to get the device hooked up to the mobile internet requires a little research online or a phone call to the carrier.
• The availability of apps at the Windows app store is limited but adequate. Instagram is still in beta mode but usable.
• Voice calls:
• My Billy is loaded (no pun intended) with Straight talk and Simple Mobile SIM cards. Both are registered trademarks of Tracfone which, if I’m not wrong, is a Sprint MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) here in ‘merica the beautiful. Meaning that Tracfone buys airtime in bulk from Sprint and resells it at cut rate prices to budget-conscious subscribers. However, the subscriber ultimately utilizes Sprint’s network and towers. Long story short: the sound is pretty good but I can’t tell whether it is due to the phone or to the carrier. Who cares, nobody uses their phone to talk anymore.
• Battery life:
• With two operational SIM cards (remember that this is a dual SIM card phone, in other words: a phone with two phone lines) the Billy 4.7 barely lasts 12 hours of moderate use. Keep the power cord on you if you are on the road. Or carry a spare loaded battery. I’d bet that loaded with just one SIM card (meaning only one phone line) the battery life is probably longer but I couldn’t tell. What’s the point of having a dual SIM card device and not exploiting its double personality and dual capabilities to the max?
• Camera:
• 8 megapixels back-facing camera and a lesser quality yet adequate front-facing one. Windows 8 handles pics and video with dexterity, flawless compression & easy manipulation of files for curating, editing and sharing. Took them a while but the Redmond nerds learned the game well from their nemesis nerds down in Cupertino. The self absorbed, narcissistic, permanent papparazziyng generation has an accomplished, staunch & loyal friend in Billy.
• Memory:
• 8 GB. Meh. But wait, it has a slot for an SD card, so the user can easily add &/or remove a few dozen GB to the equation when and if needed.
• In short:
• Ladies and gents, we have a serious contender in our hands. The device is right. Likewise the price: $249 retail, unlocked. Two-year warranty! You can’t find a comparable device in the market for less than 400 bucks. Order it online from Amazon. Find out more at SayYezz.com. Billy’s here to stay. Designed and manufactured by our very own Miami multicultural mobile mavericks at DDM Brands. Backed by none other than that filthy rich, devilishly smart mogul turned philanthropist aka Bill Gates.