A friend asked an interesting question at year end: "What was your best purchase in 2021?". As I was thinking about this in my car, I realized had the answer with me right there. Availability bias not withstanding, these are my top three purchases:
VW ID.4 - A major industry change is happening. Are you ready for it?
Apple MacBook Pro 14 inch M1 Pro - Apple finally listened to their core customers before it is too late.
Sony ZV-1 Digital Camera - The user generated video content market is exploding, validated by Sony
The Electric Vehicles are coming
VW made the right move to create an EV that is more like regular ICE (internal combustion engine) car, but better value, fun looking and driving. This strategy attracted a lot of first time EV buyers. Having driven my ID.4 for almost a year, it is obvious to me that electric vehicles are the future. Quiet. Instant torque without needing a big engine. No worry about idling and that gas smell. The ICE car industry is at a pivoting point. What is going to happen to all those gas stations? How will condo building dwellers charge their cars in the parking lot? There are a lot of business opportunities in the EV world.
If you are interested in the ID.4, check out my YouTube channel and subscribe. I need the subscriber count.
Apple Finally Listens to Their Developer Fans
While apple sells a lot more iPhones and iWatches then MacBook Pros, the people who build the apps uses MacBook Pros. For years now, they have been telling Apple: We need ports. We need better keyboard. We need speed. No one uses the Touch Bar. I feel like Apple waited until the hard core users almost gave up on Apple to release this amazing new machine, with the new M1 Pro and M1 Max CPU. Again we now have a solid, fast, quiet, usable laptop for development work, either for OSX, iOS, or just general software development. Building docker images are twice as fast. I can leave the charger behind if I take the MBP out to work for the day. And I like the more "boxy with feet" look. Easier to carry to start.
Who wants to be a YouTube Influencer?
When I think of user generated content business model, I think of TripAdvisor back in the 2000. There are enough business cases written on them. Who knows from hotel reviews, to Medium articles, we ended with user generated video content being the most consumed media online (according to my kids). It is edutainment and infotainment at their bests. You can learn to play the piano, fix a toilet, program a ML vision recognition app, all from YouTube.
Sony recognized this and released the ZV-1 camera with features directly support video content creation, including product reviews and Vlogging. It also makes a pretty good webcam for zoom without any additional software. This is what I use for online meetings. This is what I use to film most of my product reviews. This is what I use to take photos out and about.
These three items surprisingly gave a glimpse into my 2021. With Vaccination, we started to leave the house more, driving around in the ID.4. Having time at home I worked on a lot more programming side projects, like geareg.com. I did a lot of bag reviews, written and as videos. I started the second YouTube channel for the ID.4 as a second experiment into Monetization of content.
I hope your 2021 is equality interesting. I am ready for 2022.