Category: Uncategorized

Just plain cool

February 28, 2011

While this is nothing totally new, I never get bored of this technology being used. Recently eBay released a new app that allows sellers to list a geo location of the item. This in turn allows users, or shoppers, to see which eBay items are for sale in their immediate surroundings. I mean how cool is that? Again, augmented reality apps are hardly new. This latest one however I think underscores how important it is to understand the things that mobile can do well and then capitalize on it. This new app gives an entirely new dimension to the

Netflix queue relegated to website only

January 24, 2011

Movie giant Netflix made a puzzling decision recently: let’s make it more annoying to manage DVD queue’s for out customers. Now I suppose this is subjective but they did make it such that you could not manage your queue from anywhere but their website. While I admit I represent a minority of the population that is hyper tech-dependent, here is a newsflash: any product or service available to me that has an option of using it on the iPhone or only a website, the one that provides the mobile access is likely to win my business. In a world

Cresting 10 billion apps

January 21, 2011

Anyone who has ever been to McDonalds know that ridiculous sign that they had up forever with the burger calculator on it. At some point it just got silly to keep counting. We seem to be circling that number now with apps. The difference is that McDonalds had decades to sell that many hamburgers; Apple has had only a few years. (the app store opened in July of 2008). For those of you like myself who could not have done this math in any reasonable amount of time, that shakes out to about 60 apps per device out there.

4G is here and poised to blow us all away

January 19, 2011

That is what Verizon’s chairman/CEO Ivan Seidenberg said recently at CES. He is clearly referring to the impact that the proliferation of 4G networks will have on media companies and their ability to deliver content to anyone, anywhere, at ridiculous speeds. As app makers, this makes us very happy too. The unfortunate side of this is that while this is undoubtedly true, history tells us that it is going to take a bit to roll out. This means that I might have to buy a few more versions of the iPhone prior to having the experience I am envisioning.

Steve Jobs taking medical leave

January 17, 2011

Announcements today of Jobs’ medical leave of absence are everywhere. Cook will once again take over for Steve while he is gone. There is no argument that Jobs has been at the helm through an incredible growth period of Apple. With a slew of new things on the horizon, deal with Verizon, iPad 2, iPhone 5, etc, it will be an interesting time to see if the momentum will keep up in his absence. It is unlikely that it won’t. With the tablet wars fully in progress and Android taking off more by the day, 2011 will almost certainly

Apps to control your world

January 13, 2011

As mentioned here before, apps are playing an increasing role in the world around us. Recently the Wall Street Journal had a wonderful article about this phenomenon. This is not only interesting to a company like ours in terms of sheer interest in gadgetizing our worlds, but it is significant in where the world is rapidly heading. Perhaps the most noteworthy line in the article is as follows: “It’s going to get to a point where the hardware is worthless without the app,”. Wow. In terms of what this means it should be an indication that to even hang

CES trends to watch

January 11, 2011

There is a plethora of CES related news out there but the top line stuff that is of extreme interest is pretty simple. One, tablets. Oh my goodness tablets. Literally everywhere. Everyone under the sun is making a tablet. It would seem the folks who previously panned this as a big iPod Touch were indeed off. Namely, PC World here. Second is internet TV’s. It sounds reasonable seeing as it is in the top spots for time-sucking in our lives. If I can look up anything, anytime on my phone, why not my TV. Third is apps. Again, we