If you have been to a few job interviews there are some specific questions that you might have come across more than once. Personally for me one of the most asked questions were "Where do your see yourself in 5 years?" and "Why do you want to work with our company?".
While many cover what the ideal answer should be for such questions, there is actually a logic behind asking such questions at an interview. The logic or the hidden reasons are really not to see if you know the answer to a question but to get a candidate reveal more about themselves.
Sample Questionnaire has this nice infographic on 19 common questions asked at job interviews and what the hidden logic behind these questions are:
If you are attending job interviews then it might be a good idea to go over the logic behind these questions to answer more appropriately at your next interview.
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"The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting," said Steve Jobs. "The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament."
When Apple's founder and visionary made this statement, the company was going through a turbulent time during the late 1990′s. Today, their situation isn't as bad, in spite of lagging behind the Android revolution and going through some serious trouble.
But technology experts are not happy with the purely incremental improvements we witnessed in the recent launch of iPhone 5c and iPhone 5S.
Apple's stocks tanked 5.4% just a day after the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5S were announced. Pre-orders were closed, unlike earlier releases. This was enough to get the naysayers into action. Some might have wondered if Apple's record breaking days were behind it.
And it sold 9 million iPhones!
Apple plays the marketing game cleverly well. The company announced a 'record-breaking' first weekend sale of 9 million units, without providing individual figures for each of the handsets' sales. Additionally, the launch was worldwide. Apple's stocks then jumped 6%.
The critics, the naysayers and the experts are left scratching their heads again.
Apple's secret sauce
Why then, do people continue to line up to get their hands on the 'iconic' smartphones?
An Apple fan camping outside a store in London. Image credit: Dailymail.co.uk
The first reason is hard to miss: Steve Jobs' charisma has remained alive. Apple fans think they own the Rolls Royce of smartphones.
That is not surprising, because Apple is backed by a glittering history of innovations: the 1998 iMac, 2001 iPod, 2007 iPhone and 2010 iPad.
The second reason is Apple's strategy of locking in users to stay in their ecosystem. For instance, users accustomed to Facetime might sorely miss that app on Android phones.
Detractors think Apple is all about skin deep beauty and clever marketing spin. But supporters of Apple's tight control of its ecosystem are impressed by the company's cohesiveness, even if it means lagging behind equivalent Android phones by almost a year at times.
Will the craze last?
Steve Jobs' magic…continuing to live on!
My short answer is "Yes".Commentators predicted Apple's doom when the newly launched iPhone 4 in 2010 evoked the infamous "Just don't hold it that way" remark from Steve Jobs. Next, the iPhone 4S was criticized for being lackluster.
The iPhone 5 that emerged last year began life in the market as a sequel to a sequel. Soon after, big trouble was to hit Apple with the maps fiasco — even the die-hard fans have been upset. Motorists have been trapped in a snake-infested desert, or prompted to cross an airport runway!
In the foreseeable future, Apple believers will continue to hire people to camp outside stores, or scramble for TV interviews to tell the world how it feels to be the first new buyer in the country. But will Apple showcase a new innovative product? The next wave of innovation, by the way, seems to be wearable technology.
Will Apple stand firm in a highly competitive market? Samsung today is aggressively working on new designs like flexible smartphones for the new generation of mobile technology — will Apple follow suit?
If Apple stops innovating, they'll have to rely on members of their closed ecosystem to pay for newer gadgets. Inevitably, a steady decline could set in. Maybe Apple should heed a warning from some of their old competitors like BlackBerry and Nokia who declined by pursuing only incremental updates to their products while Apple was innovating its way towards becoming a giant.
BlackBerry has simply been having its worst year in its history. It has been totally sidelined as a major mobile phone manufacturer and its latest Z10 and Q10 handsets have more or less flopped. Last week, it decided to get a part of that BlackBerry experience onto Android and iOS platforms. This was done by announcing the BBM app for iPhone and Android. The announcement was done in an official blog post on 18th September. The BBM app for Android was to be made available on 21nd September and the iPhone app was to be released on 22nd September.
So far so good but the comedy of errors was about to start. Before the official Android app for BBM was posted online, an unofficial one got uploaded. The unofficial app was downloaded and over 1.1 million users went live inside 8 hours. That led to issues for BlackBerry which they apparently tried to fix but in the end had to roll back the global launch of the app.
The offending unofficially released BlackBerry app for Android was pulled and users who had downloaded it saw that the service was blocked. The few iPhone users who had downloaded the app could use it but app was pulled from the App Store too.
So when is BBM for Android and iPhone available?
BlackBerry is a update post had mentioned that they were planning a staggered roll-out on Android and re-releasing the app on Apple App store. This update was made on the 21st September itself. A couple of day went by and BBM app was still nowhere to be seen. That is when BlackBerry's BBM chief Andrew Bocking updated in another blog post, that not only were they pulling the app but users should not expect the app to show up for another week. Strangely a new release date is still not announced!
The doomed BlackBerry!
BlackBerry could not compete with the likes of Apple and Google in the mobile phone space. The new BBM app for Android and iPhone would have made them competitors to WhatsApp and WeChat and other similar messaging apps. But wait, even here BlackBerry will hardly compete as most users will simply not give its app a second chance (whenever it gets actually released).
If you are still interested in downloading BlackBerry app on your iPhone or Android visit the link below and enter your email address to get updated on when the app goes live!
Flipkart has finally revamped it's Android mobile app. It was just a mobile version of the Flipkart website put as an app earlier. But this upgraded version has been built from scratch and offers a beautiful user interface. The app comes packed with almost every Flipkart feature.
The user interface is now much improved. The slider menu on the left side makes navigation easy. Easily search products in various departments, search for products using text/voice and even scan barcodes. You can also sort/filter the products based on popularity, price (low to high and high to low), and discounts.
You can also check the products' images zoomed in, check out the user reviews and ratings.
You can also buy things right within the app. Payment is by Cash on Delivery, Debit/Credits cards, Net Banking and EMIs – just like the payment options on the Flipkart website. Once purchased, you can track the status of your orders right within the app. This is a big improvement.
There is something interesting that Flipkart brought in this updated Android app. You can check the details of the recently viewed products even when the network is not available.
Also, Flipkart gives you an option to share your purchases with your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social networking site friends.
Here's a fun and practical Android app for all you college goers who want to keep track of your class attendance – that is, letting you safely bunk classes. It's called Bunk-o-Meter.
Getting started is simple, you just have to enter your Semester's subjects and the bunk limit for each of those. Next time you bunk a class, you can hit the + button and it'll record it.
You can set the app to throw a notification every day, reminding you if you've bunked any classes.
The app is nicely done, with neat transitions from screen-to-screen. It also throws some funny comment once in a while, as you can see in the screenshot above. Adding to this, there's a quick tutorial in the beggining.
In short, Bunk-o-Meter does one thing and does it right.
So if you're a student and using an Android, go grab it for free.
While it is just over 24 hours since Apple released its iOS 7, a security flaw in its lockscreen has already been uncovered. A device can be locked by requiring a passcode to be entered every time to proceed further from the lock screen. The hack was found by a Spanish security enthusiast, Jose Rodriguez. It was reported first by Forbes.
How does the hack work?
The lockscreen with a passcode can be bypassed by pulling up the control center (which strangely by default can be accessed even when the device screen is locked) and using the alarm app.
Then keep the top power button for the device pressed down which shows up an option to shut off the device. Press cancel and press the home button twice. The second tap has to be slightly longer than the first one.
This allows users access to all the apps which were running in the background before the device was in idle mode, which basically means someone could potentially access your photos or your email app.
Check out a video by Rodriguez.
The iOS 7 bug has been recreated on iPhone 4S apparently. Our very own Vivek Jain could recreate this vulnerability on his own iPhone 5. I too managed to recreate this bug on my own iPad Mini.
What does Apple say?
According to Forbes, Apple accepted the bug existed and was quoted as saying:
Apple takes security very seriously and we're aware of this issue. We'll deliver a fix in a future software update..
So basically make sure be careful with your devices until a fix is introduced by Apple. In the meanwhile, it is not a bad idea to look stop the 'Control Center' from showing up while the screen is locked. Look up Settings >> Control Center on your phone or tablet and you will be able to stop the Control Center from showing up with a lockscreen.
Do you own a iPhone or iPad and have you been able to recreate this bug? Do drop in your comments.
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Apple rolled out its new OS version for mobile platforms, iOS 7 last night. The update will make iOS 7, one of the most popular mobile OS in the world in a single night. iOS 7 is also what will be pre-installed on all iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s devices that are sold.This is where Apple with it's well organised and linear ecosystem delivers brilliantly. I do not have an iPhone but do have an iPad Mini, which I updated with iOS 7 over the night. I was not entirely convinced about the new design from the images and videos I had seen before but I must say, Apple did a decent job with it.
So who will really love iOS 7?
The software update is radical. The design change is radical yet it seems familiar. Ideally when such a radical redesign takes place, people can dislike it for too many changes. I do not think anyone familiar who is already a iPhone or iPad user will dislike iOS 7.
Would I throw my Android away?
No. iOS 7 might be a radical design change but it hardly changes anything else. I does not open up the OS for 3rd party apps like Android does and that simply means a Android fan will not be convinced by iOS 7.
What has changed with iOS 7?
Some dynamic wallpapers are pleasing to the eye.
There are many UI changes, most of them pleasing to the eye. The design itself is flatter and Apple finally gets rid of the overly done three dimensional icons and layout. The wallpapers are in two versions "Still" and "Dynamic". Some of the dynamic wallpapers (another word for parallax) are quite terrible but darker or very light colours work well.
Some dynamic wallpapers are an eye sore
I noticed that the battery on my iPad Mini was draining marginally faster while using a dynamic wallpaper but I have not been on iOS 7 long enough to be absolutely sure.
There are changes with SIRI. This is where I am very disappointed with Apple. SIRI might be finally out of Beta but it is miles behind something like Google Now. The updated SIRI on iOS 7 works better than it was on iOS 6. It also allows you to change the gender for the voice for SIRI. But these upgrades are really unnecessary.
SIRI is redesigned but still works more like a glorified toy
SIRI is advertised as a great search tool but it hardly works all that well. I cannot use SIRI to send an email from my Gmail app (though I can fire up the app with SIRI) and it is hardly useful for local searches in India. SIRI ends up being a glorified toy and simply is not compelling enough. The big improvement to SIRI in iOS7 is that it could understand my accent a lot better.
Almost all of apps by Apple on iOS 7 get a revamp and for the better. iBooks is an exception.
The apps from Apple all get a nice upgrade. I liked the Calendar app's design and it seems simply very easy to use than it was before. It still will be useless for many if they use Google Calendars but it integrates with Facebook events pretty well.
The photos and camera apps are also very good upgrades. The camera is easy to manage and photo editing options now include filters. I am not sure how useful they will be on a iPad Mini but phone users will like the new filters. All the apps get a new design and some improved features except iBooks. But Apple does not need to mess around with iBooks UI as it works absolutely to near perfection as it is.
Talking about apps, iOS 7 improves the way we can move from one app to another or remove some of the apps running in the background. Simply press the home button twice and slide through sideways from app to app. Slide an app upwards and it is closed. Sliding through from one app to another is something I really find useful on my Nexus phone. So this basically makes the whole UI a lot more fluid.
Sliding through one app to another
Earlier it was not easy to quickly put your iPhone or iPad in "Airplane" mode or reduce the screen brightness unless you went to settings. Now users can slide upwards from the edge of the screen to open quick settings like putting device on "Airplane" mode or adjusting brightness and volume in a single motion.
Some basic settings can be used by swipe the screen upwards from the edge of the screen
Final conclusions!
If you are a iPhone or iPad users for a long time, you are going to love this upgrade. Basically the changes on iOS 7 fix a lot of things that needed fixing. People who are on the the Apple ecosystem will love it. People who are not necessarily on the Apple ecosystem entirely might find this upgrade, old wine in a new bottle.
Have you upgraded to the new iOS 7 version? Do drop in your opinions in your comments.
If you are attending job interviews then it might be a good idea to go over the logic behind these questions to answer more appropriately at your next interview.
