Sachin Agarwal: July 2007

Last week was my 5 year anniversary as a full time employee at Apple. When I accepted this job, I never thought I would still be here five years later, but it's been an incredible ride. In fact, I can't think of anyone who has been working for a single group for 5 years except for other people in my group.

When I joined Apple, I was seriously deciding between Apple and Amazon. It seems crazy that I would work for anyone else, but this was still Apple's down time and no one knew if the company would be successful again. The iPod had come out about 6 months earlier, but wasn't a success until two years later.

The last five years have been awesome and there's not much else I could have asked for from a job. Final Cut Pro is like a well oiled machine now, putting out release after release that blows away the competition each time. The annual trips to Vegas are always a blast. This year I'm even going to the IBC conference in Amsterdam.

I worked with an incredible team in Cupertino for 3 years, learned a ton about video and about shipping products. And then I was given the chance to move to New York City and work remotely. It was a dream come true! Though I had to leave lots of friends back in San Francisco (and many of my closest friends are folks from Final Cut Pro), moving to nyc was an opportunity I didn't think I would get again. And it's been one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Apple is doing better today than it ever has in its history and it's awesome to be even a smart part of that. I believed in Apple since my first Mac 15 years ago, and it's not until now that the platform is getting the respect it deserves. The Mac, iPods, and now the iPhone are changing consumer electronics.

Thanks, Final Cut Pro. But where is my Steve Jobs autographed five year award?

I got a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card a couple months ago because you can transfer those points to any airline program and get a 25% bonus.

At dinner last Sunday, Roy's dad mentioned that you can book hotel rooms using a combination of SPG points and cash that make it much cheaper than paying full price. Since I'm going to Baltimore this weekend for the Virgin Festival, I went to the SPG website to check this out.

Hotel in downtown Baltimore for Saturday night: $250
or
2800 points and $45

2800 points have a cash value of around $28 (1% cash back on a typical credit card). So by using points and cash, the hotel ends up costing $73 instead of $250!

So now I'm going to hold on to those SPG points for this exact purpose. Thanks, Mr. Simkhay!

This city is all about the food. Restaurant week is the one event I can email out about where almost everyone replies. The highlights this time around were Nougatine and The Modern.

Between all the restaurant week meals, I also had dinner with Roy's family last Sunday. We went to Spigolo in the Upper East Side. It's easily the best, most authentic Italian food I've had outside of Italy. The pasta was simply incredible. The meat was actually better than what we had in Italy.

It's hard to get a reservation there, but I highly recommend trying.

Spigolo

Got a group of 8 people into this steak house on Friday night. Awesome restaurant. Looks like an underground dungeon with hundreds of samurai swords hanging from the ceiling. Waitress was very friendly. Cocktails were fantastic. The restaurant is normally very expensive and doesn't have good reviews for the food, so I wasn't expecting much.

The tuna tartar appetizer was great. The steak was good (not great). And dessert was fine. Overall I would come back to this restaurant for the drinks and atmosphere, but not for the food. And definitely not paying regular price.

Price paid for food: $35
Regular price: $90!
Would pay: $50

My only disappointing restaurant week meal. Food and service were bad. I don't recommend Artisanal at all.

Price paid for food: $35
Regular price: $50
Would pay: $20

There are tall, glass buildings going up all around me.

Wow. Really incredible meal. I didn't feel like having dessert (this always happens the second week of restaurant week) so I opted to get 3 courses from the regular menu. I had Upside Down Tuna Tarte, Roasted Long Island Duck Breast, and Spice Crusted Colorado Lamb Loin. Each item was interesting and delicious.

The only complaint at the table was the portions were too small. And it wasn't due to restaurant week: I ordered 3 items from the regular menu and it still wasn't enough food. Fix that, and I'd be back very often.

Price paid for food: $50
Regular price: $50
Would pay: $50

Another great lunch at Gramercy. You can't go wrong here. Risotto, pork, and a great bread pudding. They even gave us each a $24 gift certificate!

Price paid for food: $24
Regular price: $50
Would pay: $24

Along the same lines as Eleven Madison Park: JoJo was a great dinner, but it couldn't compare to its sister restaurant Nougatine, where I just had an incredible meal two days earlier. While Nougatine surprised me with every dish, JoJo took fewer risks. The food was great, but not something I would write home about. However, the cheesecake I had for dessert was one of the best.

Price paid for food: $35
Regular price: $45
Would pay: $40

I was excited to have lunch here because last restaurant week Roy and I had an amazing lunch at Tabla, right next door and with the same owner. While Eleven Madison was a great lunch, it wasn't as outstanding at Tabla. Everything from the service to the food was top notch, but nothing wowed me, except the company.

Price paid for food: $24
Regular price: $50
Would pay: $30

Gary, Meena, Missy and I went to Nougatine at Jean Georges. This is the casual dining side of the famous Jean Geroges flagship restaurant. Reservations were very difficult to get (most of the good ones are for restaurant week) but it was so worth it. One of my top five meals ever.

Restaurant week is always a $35 prix fixe menu. Sometimes the restaurants skimp and give you little food, or some of the cheaper items. Not Nougatine. We browsed the menu and made our selections, only to be surprised that we didn't have to choose; it's a tasting menu and you get it all! We also ordered a bottle of wine and a couple additional appetizers. Here's what we had:

I can't remember the wine we had. It was the cheapest on the menu and fantastic. A chilled red wine (though it wasn't called a Rosé), perfect for this hot summer day.

Shrimp Ceviche
Watermelon "soup"
A couple excellent pre starters

Melon Soup
I can't remember what this was exactly but it was great. Very light, cold soup with lots of fresh melon. Other interesting flavors including some red pepper flakes to gives it an occasional kick.

Foie Gras Brulee
Wow this was amazing. Probably the best I've ever had

Bluefin Tuna Tartare
A common, simple dish but done very well. They put guacamole with the tuna. I loved that!

Slow Baked Salmon
The fish was evenly cooked all the way through. The sauce was perfect

Veal
A few slices of veal with lots of herbs and some slices of red pepper. Absolutely perfect. So many subtle flavors coming together. Our whole table was trying to pick out all the flavors we tasted, kind of like wine tasting.

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream
Some peach thing with a fancy name, with peanuts, fresh berries, and sesame ice cream
Really, really incredible desserts. And not too much, just enough to satisfy your sweet tooth.

At the end of the meal we were full, but not stuffed. I didn't at all feel like I had had too much to eat. I honestly couldn't have asked for anything more. The food and service were perfect. This restaurant definitely deserves 3 stars from Michelin (and 5 stars from iSachin).

I am moving Jean Georges (the formal dining room) to the top of my "to do" list.

Price paid for food: $45
Regular price: $70
Would pay: $70

Here's a picture of me in the bathroom:

Yesterday Joe, Gary and I had lunch at Morimoto. We aren't expecting a lot because the restaurant isn't very highly rated for its food. But it's a beautiful restaurant and a celebrity hotspot (though not for restaurant week lunches).

We were a bit disappointed to find out we weren't getting a 3 course meal which is typical of restaurant week. Instead we got miso soup (typical), salad (good), and an assorted sushi plate.

The sushi really was top notch. Every piece was soft as butter and melted in your mouth. There was the right amount of rice and the pieces were pretty large. Overall it was more food than I could finish. We heard the non sushi items were not that great so we avoided those. I'd say the sushi is a small step down from Jewel Bako, but still some of the best I've had. And you really can't complain for $24.

Price paid for food: $24
Regular price: $50
Would pay: $24 for lunch, though up to $40 if it was dinner

I hacked together a little code that lets me blog directly from my
iPhone, with pictures!

Stay tuned for more late night, drunk blogging. This could be a bad
idea.

I've been using the iPhone for over a week now and I'll say it's pretty much the greatest gadget I've ever owned. Software wise, it's nearly perfect. I've never seen a first gen product executed so well (I mean, except for Final Cut Pro, of course :).) Here are my favorite features:

1. Voicemail
Apple has been advertising "Visual Voicemail" but I didn't realize how great it would be until I used it. Personally I don't care about random access voicemail; I don't get enough voicemail for that to be useful. What I do love is hearing my messages instantly when I hit play. No more computer voice, "You have 2 messages....First meesages from 6, 5, 0, 7, 9, 9...sent at 7...59....pm...." ARGH!!! Just play the damn message!

Not only can you play your messages on your phone easily through visual voicemail, but you use the iPhone screen and interface to setup your voicemail pin and personal greeting. You *never* have you call your voicemail and deal with voice prompts.

2. The Keyboard
There was a lot of concern that the keyboard would suck. I was worried about that as well. But any iPhone owner can tell you it's great. When I demo it to people, they are blwon away at how I can wail on the keys with two thumbs and make no mistakes.

They keyboard's autocorrection is very smart. The dictionary learns what you type. And it's prefilled with Apple words (iPhone), profanity (this is fucking cool), and all the names from your address book (hi, Nikhil).

3. Safari
Yes, it's a real browser on a phone (no flash though). But there's more to it than that. When you double click on a section of a website, Safari doesn't just zoom in some fixed amount (say, 150%). It actually knows the layout of the webpage (the width of the tables, say) and it zooms in to exactly the section you double clicked on. So if you are reading a column of text, it will zoom so that text fits perfectly.

Double tap on a photo and the photo will fill the screen horizontally. Rotate your iPhone and Safari knows which photo it was zoomed in on, and it adjusts the zoom amount so that photo continues to fill the width of the screen. Awesome!

You can view movie trailers by going to apple.com/trailers/iphone. Each QT movie gets a small play button on it. When you hit play, the movie takes over the whole screen. Nice. When you zoom in and out of the webpage, the play button doesn't get bigger or smaller (that would be dumb). Instead the button changes size as appropriate. I think this is showing the resolution independence needed for iPhone's 160ppi screen (this is a feature of Leopard)

4. Ring/Silent switch on the side of the phone
So simple and so so great. You don't have to look at your phone or even pull it out of your pocket to switch it to silent. You get feedback so you know you went from ring to silent. I once had a phone that made a confirmation sound when you put it into silent. How stupid is that?

5. General multi-touch features
Pinching to zoom is cool. Flicking through lists is unbelievable. The way it slows down over time and the rubberbanding at the end of the lists is great. Now I feel like the scrolling on my mac should do the same.

6. AT&T registration
It took me less than 10 minutes to sign up via iTunes, port of my number, and sync all my info

7. Apple Bluetooth headset
You just place it on the dock next to your iPhone to charge it AND PAIR IT to the phone.

8. Hardware design
All the way down at number 8? Well, it's cool, but the software is what makes the product so much better than the competition. In any case, the hardware is gorgeous, thin, feels great in your hand. The metal bezel, Apple logo, all incredible.

But is it tough? Glass screen is pretty much scratch proof. Check out this video at pc world. iPhone screen tests


The iPhone release last Friday was a lot of fun. There were thousands of people in line across the country ready to put down $600 on something THEY HAD NEVER SEEN NOR TOUCHED. That shows what the Apple brand has become. Just before 6pm there was a countdown that could be heard throughout the shopping mall I was in. People were lined up at all the railings on the higher floors looking down. It was a very exciting day for Apple.

Two years ago when I was about to leave for my Pacific Northwest Roadtrip, I borrowed Aki's Treo because he offered to let me take it on my trip. I played around with it for a while, looked at some maps, looked up a hotel, and after an hour I was so frustrated with it that I decided not to take it on my trip. On a trip where I had no advanced plans, no hotel reservations, nothing but AAA maps, I decided to start driving and leave this internet device behind. That's how bad it was. I have never been impressed with the Treo. It feels like a 10 year old operating system; it's something people buy because there is nothing better.

Now the iPhone is out and thousands of people were lined up across the country to get it first. There's a lot of hype behind this product. But the initial reviews (and my own use) show that the phone lives up to the hype. Sure there are some flaws. But what device (especially a version 1) is without flaw? Take a step back. You can complain about the iPhone not having 3G or GPS. But how about complaining that the Palm OS can't run two applications at the same time? Or can't render a web page decently? Or isn't a real music or video player? Or that people buy 3rd party email and sms apps because the built in ones suck? Hmmm, what's more important?

Are existing cell phones really that bad? Yes, they are. My three previous Sony Ericsson phones have broken on me within 2 years (my last phone shut off randomly several times per day). My dad lent me an old Nokia he had, but it was so hard to use even for basic calls and SMS that I preferred my Sony that was shutting off! Al had a Palm which he hated; he traded for a blackberry which he also hated. Jason hates his Blackberry. Sean bought an HTC 8525 because it has slingplayer on it (way cool) but he returned it because he hated it.

Why is it no one can make a good phone? Phone companies can't write software. What about Microsoft? Well, they definitely stuck a sophisticated operating system into a phone. But it's even harder to use than a normal phone, full of menus and options. A friend of mine has a phone which runs Windows Mobile, and he is one of my last friends who still uses a Windows PC, yet he doesn't sync his phone to his computer! I've been doing that over bluetooth for years. Worries about losing my contacts when losing a phone or upgrading have been a thing of the past. A Microsoft made OS on both your phone and your computer, yet syncing them isn't simple? It should be automatic so you just do it; you don't have to think about if or how.

Apple didn't want to just put out a better phone. Apple wanted to change how the whole mobile industry works, just like the iPod changed the music industry. Apple could have just made another GSM phone and followed the old rules, but they wanted to improve the whole experience from start to end.

You buy your phone with no subsidy, no rebates, no papers to sign in the store. You go home and activate it in iTunes (very cool). If you go to att.com you are flooded with 15 different data plans. Apple simplified this with special plans that are even cheaper than the plans for other devices. And visual voicemail is a killer feature that only Apple has.

When the iPhone was first announced, I thought this quote from Jonathon Ive was great:

When our tools don't work, we tend to blame ourselves, for being too stupid or not reading the manual or having too-fat fingers. "I think there's almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment," says Ive. "We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we're trying to use." In other words, when our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.

I am confident my dad will be able to use every single feature of the iPhone within a day of owning it, and I think that's the ultimate test for the product. It's not just for tech geeks.

This is just the beginning. But even in the version 1 iPhone, Apple has something running OS X, with 3D graphics, 11mm thin, and the greatest touch screen ever made. I think it might be the single biggest leap in technology for any single product release. When I demo it, people gasp. Is it real? And I bet there are lots of great iPhones, iPods and Macs coming along using all this technology.

More impressions from actually using the phone coming soon.