Tag: ipad

iPad Review

It’s one week since I got my grubby little paws on the iPad. So whats the verdict? How does it feel? Is it worth it? As usual with Apple the packaging is excellent and without much fuss you’ve got the iPad out of the box and switched on. It comes pre-charged (around 85%) so you can switch on and use the iPad straight away.

It feels great in the hand but heavier than I expected, although considering it’s metal and glass with two large batteries in it thats no real surprise. The screen is clear and has a great viewing angle. Photo’s really pop on the screen – it’s a great device for viewing and sharing photo’s with. However it’s very reflective – I’ve not had a problem in finding a position for me to view the screen but it can be difficult when demoing to others. It’s also a fingerprint magnet. You really do need to carry around a small screen cloth for when it gets gunked up especially when everyone wants a shot of your iPad. I’ve not had another device that so many people want to touch and play with. Almost all walk away with an envious grin.

Anyway, back to the review. The first launch will allow you to play with the default app’s. Straight away you notice how fast this is – web pages load quickly but pinch to zoom on a web page, photo’s etc is instantly responsive. Everything on the iPad feels so much quicker compared to the 3GS. Using a touch screen of this size also makes certain tasks easier/quicker. Browsing, viewing photo’s, video scrubbing is a very intuitive action on the iPad. It doesn’t take to long though before you want to put your content on it – your videos, music and most importantly, your app’s. Enter the iPad’s achilles heel – iTunes.

Plugging the iPad into iTunes for the first time was painful. Not only is the first sync slow as it transfers over selected music, video’s etc but unless you uncheck app’s it will transfer over every iPad AND iPhone app in your library. For me that was a lot of app’s. It also meant a lot of app’s to remove as I don’t really want many of the iPhone app’s on the iPad. After around an hour of syncing I’d realised the error of my ways. Two options to remove the app’s. I could remove the app’s one at a time on the iPad but surely there was an easier way in iTunes – filter by iPad or iPhone for example? No. I had to check each app individually that I wanted to remove. iPad and iPhone app’s were grouped together in one list. Uggghhhh – nasty. After I’d re-synced I was up and running.

With the app’s installed the iPad was transformed. I think it’s a great device for consuming content – video’s look great and books, magazines and comics are very readable. After using the iPad it’s even more of a surprise that the iPad launch didn’t come with some magazine content software like iBooks for books and iTunes for music and video. I’ve mentioned that iTunes word again. Another -ve is the file management that Apple have introduced for the iPad. In the App’s section of your device within iTunes there is now a File Sharing option. Select the app in the left hand box and either upload content or save content from the iPad.

This is only available when the iPad is hooked up to your machine. It’s a clunky solution to file management and one that I hope is addressed soon. You can’t create folders of content, it’s not browsable from Finder and it screams out for something new. I can’t believe that the Apple iPad apps (Keynote, Numbers and Pages) don’t have some built in synchronisation to Mobile Me, never mind to something like DropBox. GoodReader allows you to connect wirelessly to a PC or Mac and content can then be uploaded with ease – why can’t Apple offer that as a default option for all app’s? In fact, where is wireless sync?

This is even more frustrating as my iMac won’t charge the iPad. It turns out that you need quite a lot of current to charge the iPad so there area lot of devices that won’t charge the iPad via USB. So when I’m connecting to sync data the iPad isn’t being charged! I only hope that Apple, maybe even on June 7th, will announce some serious improvements to their cloud services. MobileMe doesn’t justify the yearly fee and beta offering iWork.com just doesn’t cut it. MobileMe/iDisk isn’t even available for the iPad as an app which is a serious omission or a sign that something new is coming soon. If they offered a service like DropBox, coupled with 20GB instead of 2GB, serious integration with iPad and iPhones and wireless sync, possibly to a cloud based iTunes then I’d be delighted. Without it, Google is in a really strong position as Android has caught up with iPhone OS.

Thankfully the battery life is excellent. The tech spec’s quoted 10 hours and it really is that good. I’ve used the iPad extensively over the last week and only had to charge it once. That partly explains the weight but it also means the iPad is a great replacement for a laptop for those frequent travellers. One hardware feature not yet mentioned is wi-fi or 3G? I spent a long time debating which iPad version to buy as the 3G version is £100 more expensive. One option was to go the mi-fi route but I eventually plumped for 3G and I’m glad I did. The iPad without connectivity is an empty experience and although the 3G route is more pricey, it’s far more convenient and makes it a take anywhere device. We’ll have a post up soon comparing the various 3G and wi-fi options but I’d really advise getting the 3G version or at least budgeting for a mi-fi.

The iPad comes with only a USB connector. No headphones, no dock and no case. Apple really likes to sting you with add-ons! The first thing I needed was a case. I would be travelling with the iPad and wanted to protect the screen. I picked up an Incase Convertible Book Jacket at launch but that was quickly returned. The iPad slips out slightly in this case and reviews from America show that this only gets worse with time. I plumped for the standard Apple case which is a lot better than it initially felt. It’s a snug fit, gives access to all ports and protects the iPad without adding much bulk which was another annoyance with the Incase. Connectivity is covered by picking up the Camera Connection Kit. This connects to the dock connector and gives you a USB or SD slot. I use it to download images from the Canon 550D – I can view images on the iPad and even do a first pass sort on images I want to delete before heading back home. More surprising is that there are a number of other USB devices it supports – headphones and mic’s for example are supported depending on how much power they require.

As for the dock, it’s pretty disappointing. Well, thats probably not fair. If you are using the iPad without a sleeve the dock is good. Stable and sturdy, about it’s only downside is that it forces you to use the iPad in portrait mode only. However with a sleeve fitted the dock is unusable and the Apple sleeve isn’t easy to remove. So I’ll be returning my dock. In it’s place I’ve been using the
BookArc for iPad from Twelve South. This allows the iPad to be stored in portrait or landscape with the dock cable attached. Also, the insert that holds the iPad can be changed to one that allows for an iPad with an Apple case to be held in position. This is great for watching video tutorials on the iPad while working on the iMac or for looking up manuals keeping the iMac screen clear. Using the iPad for creating content is actually very good. In landscape mode, the keyboard is almost the same size as a normal keyboard and I’ve created this post mostly on the iPad along with a few other posts recently. Sound is also a lot louder than iPhone’s/iPod’s. You can feel a slight vibration from the bass and it means around the house there are is no need for headphones. One little niggle – the home button is the same size as the home button on the iPhone. I find it’s easy to lose where it is – top or bottom, which side etc as you move from portrait to landscape to suit the app your using.

So, the final verdict. Can the iPad replace a computer? If not, what’s missing? The iPad needs a computer to work – thats the only way to get software updates and backup the device fully. It also can’t print although that allegedly is coming soon. While it’s not a computer replacement it’s a great computer supplement. If you’ve currently got a desktop and laptop then I can see the iPad acting as a laptop replacement for the majority of users. It’s a great couch device, perfect for use in front of the TV. Quiet, cool, long battery life and with a screen large enough to do around 80-90% of my laptop tasks. Surf, e-mail, game, watch videos, read books and magazines, look up IMDB, buy your shopping, listen to audio – the list goes on.

It’s been a great purchase for me and the surprising result is that the new iPhone isn’t the stick on it once was. If I’ve got some spare time it’s the iPad, not the iPhone I reach for. If I’m at the airport it’s the iPad not the iPhone I reach for. It’s not without shortcomings, especially around file management, but for a device only a week old it’s got a surprisingly large software library that makes great use of the platform. This will only get better with the upcoming iPhone OS4.0 release later this year and hopefully an improved cloud solution from Apple. So have you bought an iPad? What did you like/dislike – leave a comment and let us know.

DigitalOutbox Episode 50

DigitalOutbox Episode 50
In this episode the team discuss the iPad.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:50 – Facebook Privacy Updates
– Facebook is to revise its privacy settings within weeks to make it simpler for people to keep their information private, according to Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive of the giant social network
– Admits they missed the mark in trying to provide a lot of granularity
– But Zuckerberg insisted that concerns that Facebook is selling personal data to advertisers were misplaced. “We do not give advertisers access to your personal information,” he said. “We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone.”
– May 26th – new features demo’d, goes live over the coming weeks
– Guide – http://lifehacker.com/5548375/a-guide-to-facebooks-new-simpler-privacy-controls
http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/
6:15 – Dell Streak
– Dell Streak to launch on the UK in June on O2
– 5in tablet device
– Android powered, 3G and wi-fi connectivity, 16GB of storage, GPS and two cameras; one on the front and one on the back.
– Unlike many other Android tablets, owners will be able to download applications from the Android Marketplace. Google has blocked some tablet makers from installing the marketplace app on many devices larger than a mobile phone.
– Hello Dell, hello competition
8:28 – Xbox In Trouble
– The two men primarily responsible for Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division are leaving the company.
– J Allard, a senior VP of design and development who worked on the Xbox and Zune, and Robbie Bach, the division’s president, will both be stepping aside as CEO Steve Ballmer takes more direct control of the department. Remaining execs in the division will report directly to Ballmer.
– Doesn’t sound good
– Surely hurts the Xbox platform
10:09 – iPlayer Beta Launches
– updated site is certainly much cleaner, with TV and radio separated. For new users, the site is divided into two categories: Featured and Most Popular.
– iPlayer will make recommendations, stored in local cookies or via BBC ID. If you use the latter option (BBC ID is currently used to make comments on the 606 message boards and has 1m+ users), you can access these recommendations from any of the 25 devices supported by iPlayer. So if you bookmark a programme at work, your iPlayer at home will remember to download it after broadcast.
– The BBC ID is key to a couple of other new features. Once you’re logged in, you can recommend content to your friends on Facebook and Twitter without leaving the site. The My Friends category that appears alongside Featured and Most Popular displays which programmes your friends are recommending
– integrated Windows Live Messenger function. This allows you to see what your friends are watching right now, jump in on their viewing experience and start a conversations, so you can OMG over The Apprentice in real time, together.
– TV Channels menu will soon include non-BBC offerings such as ITV Player and 4oD. Searching iPlayer for any programme, broadcast on any channel, will take you to the relevant site. Sky is noticeable by its omission; Huggers said that they would “welcome the participation of Sky” but that the BBC hadn’t heard back from the Murdoch-controlled broadcaster
– No dedicated iPhone or iPad app but anew mobile version will appear in a few weeks
– iPlayer will work on the iPad from Friday 28th – it does and it’s wonderful. Full screen, great quality – all from a web app
13:25 – Apple bigger than Microsoft
– (if measured by Market cap. – profits and revenues still less)
– But is it as evil?
15:58 – Cloud based Apple TV
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/28/new-apple-tv/
– The new architecture of the device will be based directly on the iPhone 4, meaning it will get the same internals, down to that A4 CPU and a limited amount of flash storage — 16GB to be exact — though it will be capable of full 1080p HD (!).
– The device is said to be quite small with a scarce amount of ports (only the power socket and video out), and has been described to some as “an iPhone without a screen.”
– the price-point for the device will be $99.
– Apple is moving away from the model of local storage, and will be focusing the new ATV on cloud-based storage (not unlike Amazon’s streaming scheme, though we’re talking instant-on 1080p, a la Microsoft)
– For those still interested in keeping their content close, there will be an option to utilize a Time Capsule as an external storage component, but the main course will be all about streaming
– Surely app store will feature too
21:41 – Bing on the iPhone
– Multiple sources at Google tell us that in informal discussions with Apple over the last few months Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features.
– Interesting – new sources are saying “It’s more complicated than this” and not to expect Google search to be removed from the iPhone next month. Also hearing that Google isn’t paying anything like $100 million/year to Apple for the search rights to the iPhone.
23:50 – Skype over 3G
– http://mashable.com/2010/05/29/skype-for-iphone-3g-calls
– Skype 2.0 launched yesterday and allows calls over 3G
– Finally
– The catch?
– After August 2010, Skype will start charging a “small monthly fee” for use of the 3G calling feature
25:41 – iPad UK Launch
– Hardware
– Software
– Frustrations – iTunes, workflow
– Verdict
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTSDPKktbUk ipad and velcro match made in heaven
1:10:44 – Google Sued
– Lauren Rosenberg walked onto a highway because Google told her to and got hit by a car.
– Rosenberg, who apparently takes things very literally, was reading the directions on her Blackberry and thus wasn’t privy to the warning that shows up when you access walking directions on a computer:
– Deer Valley Drive, also known as Utah State Route 224, was one such route, and following Google’s instructions to brave it on foot, Rosenberg was hit by a car and is now suing the company for $100,000

Picks
Shakeel
iPad

Ian
FT Mobile Edition
– FT on the go
– Looks fantastic on the iPad

Henry
Rework
– “Rework- Change the way you work forever”
– A book by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson- creators of 37signals (Basecamp – online project management software).
– Short pithy chapters. Interesting read.

This Is It

Friday May 28th. This was the day of the iPad launching internationally. Initially I wasn’t sure about picking up an iPad. Shakeel was even more doubtful. We’d seen the reviews but how useful would it be? Is it really that fast and usable? Then a couple of weeks ago at our talk at Glasgow MUG we finally saw an iPad in the flesh. That cemented it for me that the iPad was a buy I wanted to make. My MacBook Pro also broke which meant I had no portable device for the essential surfing and tweeting in front of the TV. So for the last few days we debated what size and whether it should be wifi only or 3G. Size was easily settled when I started downloading app’s on Wednesday evening – some were huge!

So it was a cold morning in Glasgow when we joined the queue at the Apple store. There looked to be around 50 odd people and this was around 06:30 which was more than I expected. It wasn’t long after that the Apple staff started walking around letting us know the first 50 would go into the store and they would be assigned a personal shopper who would help us to buy the iPad, accessories and sims. Say what you will about Apple but they definitely know how to launch a product.

With the help of a Starbucks or two the time passed quite quickly. With five minutes to go the Apple staff did a run around the block whooping and a cheering. Fair play – it did help to build a bit of excitement but rather them than me. Then at 08:00 the doors were opened and we trooped in. Thankfully we were in the first 50 so got some heat. I was surprised how quickly people were served and we were both out of the store by 08:30 with our 64GB 3G iPads. I should note that the buying experience was pretty unique. We were brought into the store and each customer got an individual personal shopper who introduced themselves, asked what we were looking for, ran around (literally) to pick up any accessories we may have wanted and them completed the purchase. No hard sell of insurances, add-ons etc. A big well done the the team at Glasgow Apple store as it looked to go incredibly smoothly.

Thinking back to the queue, one aspect that stood out was variety. If you’d ask me who’d be there on a crisp May morning I would have guessed male 20-30 year olds, not all wearing black turtlenecks, but not far off. The age range was massive and demonstrates why Apple is so successful. A computer and eco-system oft criticised as being closed and restrictive but to the majority of end users that doesn’t matter – the Apple platform is easy to use and the hardware is some of the best designed in the industry. Not only that, everyone knows someone that has an iPod. One chap that stood out was an elderly gent wearing a cap not disimilar to one that Shak frequently wears. We saw him pass by but it was only when we were inside the store that we realised he was queuing for an iPad. Maybe for a relative or grandchild?

No. It turns out the chap, William Boyd, was buying his first computer – an iPad. At the grand old age of 78 he wanted an iPad for internet, e-mails and things like that. Main reason for choosing the iPad – simplicity. Great story and one that sums up Apple’s popularity. There’s products aren’t for everyone but they appeal to a broader base than any other tech company.

Another aspect of the shopping experience – Apple store employees were more than happy to pass you on to an expert who would take you through the setup of your iPad, how to use it and how to get the best out of it. You don’t get that at PC World (although you could also buy the iPad on launch day from there if you wanted). I declined as I wouldn’t get to play with the iPad for another 12 hours or so due to a works outing. Thankfully we did take a holiday on Friday as our photo appeared in many papers on Friday and Saturday. Geek fame. By all accounts sales were pretty brisk in the UK which I didn’t really expect. Also surprised that 3G models seem to be most popular.

So after the queuing and waiting the big question – how good is the iPad? In the last 48 hours I’ve tried to do as much on it as possible, including crafting this blog post. It’s a remarkable device and those that say “it’s a big iPod touch” either haven’t used one or don’t get it. Speed, battery life and portability coupled with a great screen and a fantastic line up of app’s at launch make for a superb experience. There are many cons which we’ll cover in the next post but there are two thoughts that I have today which I didn’t expect. One is that the iPad and a desktop computer are a combination that works really well for me – no laptop required. Second – the next iPhone isn’t the guaranteed purchase that I’d originally budgeted for.

DigitalOutbox Episode 48

DigitalOutbox Episode 48
In this episode the team discuss Android and iPad pricing.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:47 – Be Careful What You Tweet
– Fines £385, costs of £600
– The Tweet he sent to his 600 “followers” in the early hours of 6 January said: “Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”
– The court heard he had now lost his job because of the prosecution.
– Be careful what you tweet
– Ridiculous
5:37 – Pirate Bay Offline
– several Hollywood film studios won an injunction against its bandwidth provider CB3ROB via a court in Hamburg
– It has no internet connection
– A Pirate Bay source told TorrentFreak that it is already working on a backup solution to bring the site online; the servers themselves haven’t been touched (or moved) rom their well-guarded – and highly secret – location; they simply need to be routed through another provider.
– Might not be that easy – running out of friends as movie and music industry pursue it
7:02 – Android OS pulls ahead of iPhone in smartphone market
– slips into second place behind RIM
– RIM 36%, Android 28%, iPhone 21%
– possibly to do with 2-for-1 sales at Verizon???? (Chris disagrees ;P )
– having a variety of handsets from different manufacturers obviously helps
– http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/10/android-os-pulls-ahead-of-apple-in-smartphone-market/
– Apple spokesperson responds by adding in ipod touches to the iphone sales figures and says “So what?” – http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100511/apple-on-npd-android-outselling-iphone-claim/?mod=ATD_rss
Chris – I think the impact of an upcoming new iPhone, plus people now buying iPad as well. Plus some VERY compelling Android devices that are now fairly ahead of the curve and maybe (just maybe) some backlash about Apple approach.
12:22 – Google stops selling Nexus One direct online
– U-Turn for search giant.
– Store “not lived up to expectations” people like to try before they buy with phones apparently.
– Customer service issues perhaps? Or simply a lack of marketing $ spent promoting Nexus one?
17:44 – Google WiFi collection blunder
– Google has admitted that for the past three years it has wrongly collected information people have sent over unencrypted wi-fi networks.
– came to light after German authorities asked to audit the data the company’s Street View cars gathered
– These snippets could include parts of an email, text or photograph or even the website someone may be viewing.
– As soon as we became aware of this problem, we grounded our Street View cars and segregated the data on our network, which we then disconnected to make it inaccessible
– Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and in this case we fell short. So we will be:
– Asking a third party to review the software at issue, how it worked and what data it gathered, as well as to confirm that we deleted the data appropriately; and
– Internally reviewing our procedures to ensure that our controls are sufficiently robust to address these kinds of problems in the future.
– In addition, given the concerns raised, we have decided that it’s best to stop our Street View cars collecting WiFi network data entirely.
– Henry’s just waiting for the lawsuits
22:27 – UK iPad Pricing
– Best for light/irregular 3G usage: Orange’s 5p/MB pay as you go tariff
– Best for regular 3G usage: Orange’s pay monthly £15 for 3GB
– Best for heavy 3G usage: Orange’s iPad Monthly £25 for 10GB
– Best for light/irregular 3G and wi-fi usage: O2’s £2 a day/500MB offer (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)
– Best for regular 3G and wi-fi usage: O2’s £10 a month for 1GB offer (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)
– Best for heavy 3G and wi-fi usage: O2’s £15 a month for 3GB (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)
– O2’s unlimited wi-fi offering makes its offer best for customers who expect to use their iPad on the go.
– http://electricpig.co.uk/2010/05/17/ipad-uk-apple-approved-routes-to-an-ipad-discount/
– In a complete failure of foresight, Henry’s prediction of a network subsidised ipad looks increasingly unlikely.
– Henry is clearly rubbish at this prediction lark… 🙂
– Co-Pilot for the iPad!!! Stick that bad boy to the car windscreen!
30:50 – Get your eBook in the iBook store
– Lulu is a certified aggregator – will allow you to publish your book to iBook store – wow
– Must be valid epub file and have an ISDN number – Lulu will assign for free and convert to epub
– Pricing – 80% of profit after Apples cut – On a $9.99 book, for example, you will receive $5.60 .
– Apple can decline content – only one so far out of hundreds
34:28 – BT extend broadband rollout and OnLive
– Originally its fibre services, offering speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps), were due to reach around 40% of the population by 2012.
– A £1bn investment will see the project roll out to a further 20% of the population by 2015.
– Secretly OnLive has been operating a test site in Europe from a BT (British Telecommunications plc) data center in Wales since 2009. And I’m happy to report, that over the European Internet infrastructure, OnLive is AWESOME. We’ve tested OnLive across all of Western Europe spanning from the UK to Italy and from Scandinavia down to Spain.
– Today we are announcing that BT, the largest broadband operator in the UK, has formed a partnership with and has made an investment in OnLive. We’ll be working together with BT to bring the OnLive Game Service to the UK, such that it operates reliably and with high quality over the UK’s Internet backbone to BT’s broadband customers. BT has an exclusive right to bundle the OnLive Game Service together with their broadband service offerings in the UK, although UK gamers will also be able to order the OnLive Game Service directly from OnLive to run over any UK ISP.
– Once we get the US service up and running, we’ll be sharing more details, including when we’ll be starting a UK public Beta (with UK postcodes, no less). One thing I can say is when we do launch in the UK, gamers will have the benefit of everything we’ve learned from the US launch, as well as the latest OnLive features. Also, unlike the US launch, where we are ramping up with PCs and Macs, then introducing the OnLive MicroConsole™ HDTV adapter later, the UK will launch on PC, Mac and HDTV from the get-go. BT say later this year in UK
– BT has also taken a 2.6 percent stake in the company.
41:01 – Used Games Tax
– EA introduce $10 online pass
– Comes included with game
– Sell game, new owner has to pay $10 to get online
– Sneaky.
44:59 – Red Dead Redemption
– reviews starting to trickle out – Game Informer: 9.75/10, Games TM: 9.00. IGN 9.8/10. Eurogamer 8/10 (!losers)
– http://ps3.nowgamer.com/reviews/ps3/9197/red-dead-redemption – 9.3/10
– metacritic – 96 (based on 16 reviews)
– looks awesome
– My pre-order is being processed 🙂
46:20 – Nintendo – Apple is the enemy of the future
– Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata says battle with Sony is over, Apple is the ‘enemy of the future’
– this is a month after semi-transformed-Hulk Reggie Fils-Aime stated iPhone OS wasn’t a viable platform for game development
– battle with Sony is a “victory already won”

Picks
Chris
Friv
– A plethora of flash games… Some bad. Some good. Some great.

Henry
Fish Text
– cheap international txts iphone app

Ian
Steam
– steam for mac….and pc.
– Front end on Mac is pretty poor
– 63 games at launch incl Civ 4, Braid, Portal
– Portal free until May 24th for both platforms too
– Downloading…slow….

DigitalOutbox Episode 47

DigitalOutbox Episode 47
In this episode the team discuss Facebook, iPad and HTML5.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
3:31 – Facebook Privacy Mess
– In an attempt to reduce concerns about user privacy, Facebook has inadvertently opened a security hole that let 3rd parties view your friend requests and your private messages sent through the chat system.
– In trying to do the right thing… they still get it wrong!
– And they believe ignorance is bliss for their users
– Ethan Beard, director of Facebook’s developer network – Facebook Blames Riot Over Privacy On Media, Says Users “Love” The Changes
– “the reason that people use Facebook is to share information with their friends and to connect with things that are important to them.”
– My biggest issue is that there is no way to extract your information from facebook and the speed of privacy changes has happened too fast for people to keep up to date.
– There has been a change of stance to a default of locked down, to an assumption of openness.
– If something is made public by a policy change, you do not have the any option to completely remove previous content. Event “De-activating” content does not remove it. Facebook have also made changes so that whereas content was time-limited in the past, they now have the option to keep all content for as long as they want, regardless of whether you want to de-activate or not.
– Evolution of privacy on Facebook – http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/
10:09 – Microsoft Cancels Courier
– At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The “Courier” project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.
– Gutted.
11:55 – HP Kills Slate
– Hewlett-Packard has killed off its much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.
– HP may also be abandoning Intel-based hardware for its slate lineup simply because it’s too power hungry. That would also rule out Windows 7 as an operating system.
– Wow
– Surely not – only site to report this and HP Slate was shown to investors after Palm acquisition
– iPad and Android the only real options?
– Chrome OS
– Other Linux mashups designed for different form factors.
– Can Linux react quick enough to offer a controlled tablet/touch focused interface?
15:16 – UK iPad Priced
– pre-order May 10
– release May 28
– £429/£499/£599 for WiFi
– £529/£599/£699 for 3G.
– Orange pricing
– http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/32979/orange-reveals-ipad-3g-rates
– Pay as you go, daily, weekly and monthly. With the PAYG option, each MB will cost 5p, up to a maximum of £40 in a month (so 800MB in total). This will appeal to users who will only use their iPad for emails or a bit of light surfing when out and about.
– Next up is the daily option at £2 for up to 200MB worth of data for you to use before midnight, this can be bought on an ad-hoc basis. The weekly option takes this limited data plan a bit further – £7.50 for 1GB’s worth of 3G data. It might be an idea to try out these plans before deciding whether you need to opt for the final option – the monthly plans.
– Orange has put two packages in place – Monthly 15 and Monthly 25, naturally costing £15 and £25 per month respectively. The major difference between them is either a 3GB limit or a 10GB limit, but both also grant access to 750MB Wi-Fi when away from home via BT’s Openzone
– Importantly, the iBook store will also be there for the May 28th launch
23:41 – Google Flurry
– Google Editions book
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10098111.stm
– Google book store
– Not tied to single device
– To date Google has scanned over 12 million books, both in-print and out-of-print, giving it a greater selection of material than either Apple or Amazon.
– Works on any web enabled device
– books will be purchased directly from Google and also from retailers who will keep the majority of the money earned.
– Out in the summer
– Google buys BumpTop
– http://gigaom.com/2010/05/02/google-buys-bumptop-3-d-multi-touch-tablet-interface-on-the-way/
– For Android tablet?
– I tried it and didn’t like it as an interface
– However…for a touch driven device…maybe
– Looks nice. Some nice interface ideas. But surely power hungry for a tablet/touch device? Reminds me of Microsoft Surface.
– Google brings back Gmail to the UK
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10096107.stm
– Bye bye Googlemail.co.uk, hello gmail.co.uk. Long dispute finally resolved with uk owner of gmail.co.uk. Originally wanted £27 million from Google but no details of how much Google finally coughed up.
– Google Search changed
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/spring-metamorphosis-googles-new-look.html
– Streamlined
– Flattened logo
– Left hand side navigation – mostly hidden
– Also applies to mobile site
– Chrome Update
– http://chrome.blogspot.com/2010/05/pedal-to-chrome-metal-our-fastest-beta.html
– Another speed jump
– Not only bookmakr sync, preference sync as well
– HTML5 features – geolocation, file drag and drop
– First beta to have Flash baked in and updated via auto-update mechanism
– To finish off, IE falls before 60% market share
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/internet_explorer_market_share_decline/
– 15 months to drop 10%
34:19 – Microsoft Stands with Apple on H264
– Microsoft said Thursday that Internet Explorer 9 will support the variety of Web video Apple built into Safari but not the one embraced by Firefox and Opera.
– “In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only,” Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog post.
– His reasons for the support: the format is widely used in the computing industry, from video cameras to Google’s YouTube, it benefits from hardware decoding support that improves performance, and there are questions about the rights to use H.264’s chief rival today, Ogg Theora.
– Google’s Chrome supports both H.264 and Ogg Theora.
– The lack of one format being used across all formats undermines the move from Flash, costs website hosts and devs more cash
– But H.264 patent encumbered and is licensed by the MPEG-LA, with Apple and Microsoft members with patents in the patent pool so it’s in their financial interest to promote H.264. Licences don’t transfer downstream which may be a real problem for consumers in future.
40:36 – Scribd scrapping Flash moving to HTML5
– Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: “We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page.”
– Documents will simply become very long Web pages. A new bookmark feature will help you keep your place in especially long documents. Scribd’s documents will be especially iPad friendly.
– Instead of downloading a book from Apple’s iBooks store or Amazon’s Kindle app, you can see if an electronic version is on Scribd and read it in your browser. Pinch and zoom to make the text bigger. No download necessary. The books and other documents are stored on the Web. They can be shared via Facebook and Twitter, or sent to a mobile phone.
– Documents and video moving away from plugin, especially Flash, dependancy
– Flash won’t die – just be less widely used, focussing more on interface, games, interactivity which it should do
– http://www.scribd.com/documents/30964170/Scribd-in-HTML5 – test page
43:10 – Dropbox API
– Android app
– Native iPad app
– Mobile API – Dropbox Anywhere – Desktop API later this year
– Dev’s could integrate DropBox into their app’s via API – very exciting for mobile dev’s
– Why didn’t Apple include this – every iPhone/iPad owner gets 2GB of web space?
46:06 – Skype 5 Way Video Calling
– Within next week
– Windows first, Mac later this year
– Free for first three to four months, they paid for
– Great for our podcast 🙂

Picks
Ian
Halo Reach
– Fantastic update
– Single player and co-op is good
– Multiplayer is quite awesome

Henry
Cupidtino
– Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products!
– Find the apple fanboy/girl of your dreams.

Chris
Movie Peg
– £5 a lot for a bit of plastic for sure… still.
– Like the idea.

DigitalOutbox Episode 45

DigitalOutbox Episode 45
In this episode the team discuss Twitter Chirps, iPhone revealed and the Droid Incredible.

Playback
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Shownotes
1:25 – DEBill
– Libdems will call for repeal of digital economy bill
– Hoorah
3:31 – Twitter Chirps
– Launching Promoted tweets
– We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America—with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.
– You will start to see Tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages. We strongly believe that Promoted Tweets should be useful to you
– Promoted Tweets will be clearly labeled as “promoted” when an advertiser is paying, but in every other respect they will first exist as regular Tweets and will be organically sent to the timelines of those who follow a brand. Promoted Tweets will also retain all the functionality of a regular Tweet including replying, Retweeting, and favoriting. Only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page.
– Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.
– A Promoted Tweet isn’t guaranteed to stay afloat for a long time — if the tweet isn’t tracking well in terms of replies, clicks, and a number of other metrics Twitter is calling “resonance”, it will be pulled, and the advertiser won’t pay for it.
– Twitter Chirp
– Google Rolls Out Twitter Timelines
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/14/google-rolls-out-twitter-timelines-in-realtime-search/
– Google is going a different route by adding a timeline view of realtime updates.
– The feature is rolling out over the next few days, and includes more than just Twitter updates
– The timeline lets you go back in time to see what people were saying about any particular topic. It searches updates on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, and MySpace.
– It is an attempt to recreate the conversation which occurred at a specific point in time about any topic.
– 3 Billion requests a day through API
– Growth – 1500% a year
– Twitter realise that twitter is too hard to use
– For devs, best twitter can do is grow userbase
– 55 million new tweets per day
– 600 million search queries
– Announcing today we’re launching Points of Interest. Actual places, not just lat/long. You’ll be able to click on Palace of Fine arts, see what everyone there is saying.
– User Stream API will give developers access to a feed of user actions on a more granular level than just tweets. The user stream includes mentions, friending and favoriting (the kind of stuff you’re used to seeing in Facebook’s news feed). The API will be available to developers to play with at Twitter’s Chirp Hack Day (which actually starts tonight).
– Annotations feature that will be launching “next quarter” that gives developers much more flexibility around the context of a tweet. The feature will allow developers to “add any arbitrary metadata to any tweet in the system.” So, just like a tweet can today be transmitted along with information about which other tweet it was in reply to, or what location it came from, or what application it was created on, now Twitter will allow developers to make up new stuff. Twitter is looking to see how developers use Annotations before it creates any sort of taxonomy for them, Sarver said.
– Twitter is launching a central developer resource site at dev.twitter.com later today. It includes such features as documentation that’s generated from code, rather than written by hand (this won applause from the Chirp audience), a way to securely build and reference API calls, an official WatchMouse monitor for the Twitter service and a way to search across all the repositories of Twitter developer information.
– Today the Library of Congress is announcing that it’s doing its part to digitally preserve each and every public tweet since the beginning of time … err Twitter. It fittingly broke the news on Twitter earlier today.
– after a six-month delay, “Tweets will be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation.”
– @anywhere also launched – http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere
– integrate twitter into your website with ease
14:46 – New Macbook Pros
– i5 and i7 dual cores – not quad core
– Emphasis on battery life rather than all out performance – 13 inch 10 hours, 15, 17 – 8-9 hours
– Screens – glossy 1440×900 screen, or a denser 1680×1050 panel with either glossy or matte coatings
– No need to reboot to swap between integrated and high end video
– 13 inch from £999, 15 from £1499, 17 from £1899
– From El Jobs…We chose killer graphics plus 10 hour battery life over a very small CPU speed increase. Users will see far more performance boost from the speedy graphics.
18:21 – iPad Dealyed in UK
– Now end of May due to greater than anticipated success in US – yeah right!
– Details and pre-orders announced on May 10th
– Makes this close to an iPhone launch
– O2 will also be announcing iPad deals in the coming weeks, also Vodafone and Orange
– really BBC, was it third biggest news in the UK?
21:18 – Opera Mini Approved
– Served through proxy with the sites compressed
– I thought experience was quite poor
– Safari as fast if not faster, GUI very poor too
– Zooming in was hit and miss, many times zooming in far too much
– Does sync bookmarks back to desktop
– So much for the regime
23:14 – iPhone 4G Leaked Lost or Stolen
– What’s new
• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic
What’s changed
• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or ceramic or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery
– Biggest gadget story of the year…maybe ever?
– Gruber – Apple consider the phone….stolen
– Gizmodo confirm they paid for the phone
– Gizmodo tell the world the name of the engineer that lost the phone…what about the guy that stole/found the phone and sold it for premium? Was that really needed? From now on he’s the guy that lost the iphone. Then they do another post asking Apple not to sack him. Classy.
– Is Gizmodo handling stolen goods?
– Apple wants it back – http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/357361/apple-asks-for-its-iphone-4-back
32:19 – Microsoft Kin
– Today, Microsoft is launching its own Microsoft-branded phones targeted at younger users, “Kin,” also known as Project Pink. 2 phones, Kin 1, Kin 2
– Microsoft has dubbed a group of younger users “sociologists.” They like to share pictures on Facebook, check on their friends via mobile, talk tech and blog. They’re talking about Generation Y. It’s a teenie phone
– The first phone (pictures coming) is almost completely square. Microsoft is demoing the device on stage now, showing off its social features. Your contacts are almost entirely photo-based — it looks like a collage when you look at your favorites or friends.
– The interface is touchscreen: You can do drag-and-drop of links and swipe to open windows such as search. It does have a physical keyboard
– Use Zune video and music service
– 5- and 8-megapixel cameras on the two models, and it shoots video in 720p
– Kin Studio – web component of phone to access all content via slick front end
– Sharp built hardware
– Out in US on Verizon in May
– Autumn in UK on Vodafone
36:24 – Droid Incredible
– Camera at 8MP looks to be very impressive
– Best touch interface found on an android phone
– Sound playback and earpiece excellent
– 8GB internal storage + micro SD slot, therefore 40GB available – many apps don’t see internal storage though, and the phone doesn’t come with a card
– Software – Android 2.1 + Sense interface – well integrated
– In fact reviews say this is best interface found on an Android device
– Browser comes with Flash Lite – lots of problem, If someone was hoping to convince us that Flash could work on a device like this, consider the job unfinished.
– Battery – good but not outstanding for a device like this – get through a day just
– Best Android phone today
– What about tomorrow?

Picks
Ian
Lonely Planet iPhone guides Free
– Free until Thursday 22nd from App Store
– 13 cities – great offer

YoruFukurou (NightOwl)
– Native twitter Client for Mac
– Free, fast, feature rich

Shakeel
Marvel Comics for iPhone
– Good app for downloading and reading comics
– Pretty readable given small screen size

Henry
Free App Calendar
– Get a free app every day
– Nice way to get new content…for FREE

Chris
Geocaching
– but shhh, don’t tell the muggles.
– Not so much an app as a way of life.
– Free “taster” app.
– £5.99 for full app.
– Available across major platforms.
– Essentially a global treasure hunt.

DigitalOutbox Episode 43

DigitalOutbox Episode 43
In this episode the team discuss iPad, iPad, iPad.

Playback
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Shownotes
0:37 – Digital Britain
– Drafted on Tuesday, Clause 18 will allow courts to grant injunctions against websites that aid copyright infringement. That sounds fine, I hear you say – well not when a website can be targeted based on “a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be [italics mine] used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”.
– Yes people, Clause 18 proposes does indeed propose that courts should be allowed to bring injunctions against websites that do not, but that may in the future be used for copyright infringement. So that’s innocent until proven, oh hang on…
– Bloody Mandelson
8:28 – OS Data now Free
– After months of public consultation, OS OpenData was launched on 1 April by Communities Secretary John Denham.
– OS OpenData exists alongside an earlier data sharing scheme called OS OpenSpace, which is also available for free but operates with limitations.
– Doesn’t include paper maps much to the disappointment of ramblers
– http://opendata.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/
13:44 – Flash bundled with Google Chrome
– Adobe has announced that its Flash Player will be included with future versions of Google Chrome right out the gate
– Furthermore, updates to Flash Player will be delivered directly via Google Chrome’s updating system, ultimately minimizing security risks that tend to surface when using outdated software and components
– In addition, Adobe says it is working with Mozilla and Google and the “broader community” to create a new API for browser plugins.
– This new API, which will build off Mozilla’s NPAPI, which has been designed from the start to be both operating system and browser neutral.
– In essence, the goal of the new API is to allow plugins to more tightly integrate with host browsers, which in turn should benefit users in terms of performance and security.
– Is this a setback for HTML5?
– Seems to fly in the face of latest Google developments – is it to slapdown Apple and the growing movement against Flash with Apple products?
– Also part of Chrome OS – We plan to bring these benefits to Chrome users across all platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Google Chrome OS
19:59 – Wolfram Alpha Backtracks
– Mobile site is back
– iPhone app from $50 to $1.99
– Issues a refund to everyone who has bought the app at the dearer price
22:20 – iPad
– Reviews
– http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20100331/apple-ipad-review/
– http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/technology/personaltech/01pogue.html
– http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1976935,00.html
– Steven Fry meets Steve Jobs
– I have met five British Prime Ministers, two American Presidents, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson and the Queen. My hour with Steve Jobs certainly made me more nervous than any of those encounters.
– In the design department, Jobs saw the work of a young Briton called Jonathan Ive and asked for a meeting. Ive, underused and ignored for a year, turned up with a resignation letter tucked into the back pocket of his jeans. He left with instructions to unleash his talent. The result was the iMac
– [On leaving Apple:] Is this then the curtain dropping on your third act?” I ask. “Will you perhaps leave Apple on this high, a fitting end to your career here?” “I don’t think of my life as a career,” he says. “I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That’s not a career — it’s a life!
– http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/2134139,ihnatko-ipad-apple-review-033110.article
– Overall – extremely positive with no flash support and camera being biggest complaints. Battery life – 10 hours +- 30 mins for amost all reviewers which is great
– http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/04/01/marvel-teams-with-comixology-for-ipad-app/
– Who needs flash – http://www.apple.com/ipad/ready-for-ipad/
– Flickr latest to offer html5 videos for ipad users
– Free netflix app for iPad this weekend
– Hulu iPad app in development
– Popular Science – http://berglondon.com/blog/2010/04/02/popularscienceplus/
– iPad worldwide – April 24th?
– iPad apps in iTunes
– Ian likes – Flight COntrol HD, Instapaper Pro, Articles, Things for iPad, Nat Geo World Atlas, Elements a visual exploration, Civ Revoluiton, Wall Street Journal, Geometry Wars Touch, Weather HD
– VNC and a few printing apps as well
– http://gizmodo.com/5507569/gizmodos-essential-ipad-apps – great round up
– gMail for iPad – http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/04/google-services-on-ipad-and-tablet.html
– iDisplay – http://www.shapeservices.com/en/products/details.php?product=idisplay&platform=iphone
– Use your ipad as an extended display! Fantastic

Picks
Ian
Screen Sharing Menulet
– Nice free tool to easily connect and screen share with all Macs on your network

Chris
Google Reader Play
– Google Reader Play a new way to browse interesting stuff on the web. It’s super easy to use – after you’ve read an item, just click the next arrow to move to the next one. Let us know which stuff you enjoy by clicking the “like” button, and we’ll use that info to show you more stuff that you’ll like.
– What kind of stuff do we include in Reader Play?
– The most popular items on the web
– Items that several of your friends have shared
– Other great stuff we think you’ll enjoy, based on your Reader Play history

Henry
Focus Booster
– For implementing the Pomodro technique time management – http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/faq.html

DigitalOutbox Episode 42

DigitalOutbox Episode 42
In this episode the team discuss iPad, politics, paywalls and the 3DS.

Playback
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Shownotes
1:50 – Google Shuts Down Chinese Search
– Chinese search shutdown, redirected to Google Hong Kong
– Users are being redirected for Google web, news and image search to the Hong Kong site, which sits outside of the Chinese firewall.
– Users are also being presented with simplified Chinese in addition to traditional Chinese and English results.
– Dashboard showing status – http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en
– China then blocks certain searches/results, so back to square one – Google is still censored as it was before, no?

– Gmail has that email attachment thingy! I.e. write “attached” in a document and don’t attach a file and it will warn you!
– It will also now warn you if it thinks you’ve been hacked. Bases this on if your account has been accessed in two different countries over a short time-period.
8:39 – Times and Sunday Times to charge from June online
– The Times and Sunday Times newspapers will start charging to access their websites in June,
– Users will pay £1 for a day’s access and £2 for a week’s subscription.
– Both titles will launch new websites in early May, separating their digital presence for the first time and replacing the existing, combined site, Times Online.
– The two new sites will be available for a free trial period to registered customers. And payment will give customers access to both sites.
– James Harding, editor of The Times, agreed that NI’s paywall strategy was a risk. “But it’s less of a risk than just throwing away our journalism and giving it away from free,” he told the BBC.
– Rebekah Brooks said the decision to charge came “at a defining moment for journalism… We are proud of our journalism and unashamed to say that we believe it has value”.
– Sun and News of the World next
– Privately they acknowledge they will lose 1000’s of regular readers and millions of casual readers but hope the cost is small enough to entice many
15:22 – Best Buy coming to UK
– Best Buy opens its first UK outlet, a superstore with with a 50,000 sqft shop floor, in Lakeside in May
– June for Southamption and Merry Hill, West Midlands, and later this year for Aintree, near Liverpool, and Croydon.
– 80 stores in UK over next 5 years
17:53 – iPad
– WSJ – $17.99 a month
– WSJ print is $29 a month
– But what about flash
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/29/brightcove_converts_time_nyt_flash_video_to_html5_for_ipad.html
– Brightcove’s partnerships with The New York Times and Time magazine will allow HTML5 to seamlessly replace Adobe Flash video content on the publications’ Web sites for compatibility with Apple’s iPad
– Brightcove Experience for HTML5, a framework for publishing and delivering interactive and advertising-supported Web video. The platform is available free to the more than 1,000 Brightcove customers in 42 countries.
– Monday’s announcement means it’s possible that video in the Adobe Flash format could be converted to HTML5 automatically for high-profile Web sites, perhaps as soon as the device’s April 3 U.S. launch. The company said its clients can now use the tool to build iPad-ready Web sites, and in the next year the platform will be expanded to support customization and branding of the player environment, advertising, analytics, social sharing and other capabilities.
– Magazines – same price as print version or cheaper – non add version of esquire for $2.99, $2 less than paper version
– http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/26/ipad-app-store-reveals-launch-apps-top-seller-lists-app-details/
– iPad App Store shows many titles with ‘HD’ added or ‘for iPad’
– Also shows increased price point for many app’s – will that be an issue? $50 for omnigraffle for example
– http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/29/first-look-kobo-for-ipad/ – nice book app for iPad
– http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/
– iTunes 9.1 this week?
– Just got 10.6.3 on Mac’s – support for iPads?
37:44 – BBC iPhone Apps Delayed
-BBC Trust asks for delay on BBC iPhone app after industry representation
– industry think it abuses BBC’s dominant position in news.
39:33 – Gifting iPhone Apps
– You can now gift app’s in iTunes
– Can only gift to people in same country but apart from that, same as gifting music
40:49 – A night at the Opera
– A lot of talk this week about whether Opera will get their browser approved into the App Store
– I would call the majority saying “No way”.
– Opera seem weirdly optimistic though.
– My call? Rejected – duplication of core functionality.
– We may well know by he time of the next cast!
43:47 – Nintendo 3DS
– New handheld system from Nintendo
– we know the system will use two screens, will have some sort of 3D, won’t require any sort of special glasses, and will be backwards compatible with current DS and DSi games.
– rumours are that the 3d will use camera’s to tracks your eyes position in relation to screen angle – very clever
– Maybe 720p screens, accelerometer for tile controls, possible 3g chip
– Released between now and March 2011
47:24 – Microsoft Game Room
– Now launched on Live for Xbox and PC
– Free download
– Design arcade rooms
– 30 games available now that cost – 260 points for game on one platform, 500 for game on pc and xbox
– Friends can visit your arcade
– Time warp facility to rewind back a game
– No better than mame really
48:48 – PS3 No More Linux
– April 1st update will remove ‘Install Other OS’ option form older PS3’s
– Newer slims can’t do this anyway, but will disappoint Linux fans surely…
– Security concerns is the reason, but it is optional…
– The consumer electronics giant said that the update will be optionally, but it cautioned that failure to upgrade will lock users out of the PlayStation Network. They will also be prevented from playing DRM-encumbered videos stored on a media server, and from viewing any Blu-ray Discs or PS3 games that require firmware 3.21.

Picks
Henry
Scrivener
– The best app for writing books or long form material
– Great research options
– Track content via outliner, index cards
– Mac only

Ian
Auto Smiley
– A computer vision application that runs in the background while you work.
– The software analyzes your face while you are working and if it detects a smile it sends the the ascii smiley face letters “: )” as keyboard presses to the front most application.
– Auto Smiley has many uses from just straight up convenience to enforcing honesty in your online communication 🙂

DigitalOutbox Episode 39

DigitalOutbox Episode 39
In this episode the team discuss BBC cuts, broadband…plus our best pick ever!

Playback
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Shownotes
1:31 – BBC Cuts
– Websites to half – online budget cut by a quarter
– Six Music and Asian network – six music is great!
– Cut on import spending
– Max spend on sport events of £300m
– Link out to newspapers, pull out of teen market, appease commercial rivals
8:00 – Google Bosses Convicted
– Italian court has convicted three Google executives in a trial over a video showing an autistic teenager being bullied
– The Google employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video to be posted online.
– Google removed the video within hours of being notified of its existence
– Convicted on privacy violations
– The UK’s former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said the case gave privacy laws a “bad name”.
– David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google and one of those convicted, said he was “outraged” by the decision.
– “I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent,” he said.
“If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability,” he added.
– Ramifications inevitable
– Scan content before allowing viewing? Impossible. (20hrs every minute uploaded? 1200 employees would be needed just to keep up and that wouldn’t cover the privacy issues raised in this case.)
11:57 – Google Streetview Fight
– Europe wants Google to refresh google streetview images every 6 months instead of every 12
– They also want Google to tell people they will be taking pictures ahead of them doing it
– Switzerland is suing Google, asking for images of walled gardens and private streets to be deleted
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/04/street_view_eu/
– Google says if EU gets it’s way “it would consider whether we want to drive through Europe again, because it would make the expense so draining”.
16:21 – Facebook News Feed Patent
– The world’s largest social network now own the patent for the news feed.
– Abstract: A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.
– How can this be patented for something that was launched in 2006
– Flickr – news stream 2004, activity stream Jan 2006
– Twitter – July 2006
22:34 – Google Granted Location Based Advertising Patent
– Google was awarded last Tuesday a patent for location-based advertising, the potential bread and butter of a number of emerging mobile applications.
– covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad
– Now, companies like Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla and BrightKite have to be wondering what this means for them, as do some of the established big-time players, like Facebook and Apple.
24:11 – Apple Goes After HTC
– Apple has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the cell phone manufacturer.
– The suit involves “20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware
– We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.
– Why HTC and not Android?
– But that was from press release – actual lawsuit is…
– certain mobile communication devices including cellular phones and smart phones, including at least phones incorporating the Android Operating System (collectively, “the Accused Products”).
– It’s Google and Android and patents mention multi-touch
– Not for money…
– But the fact that the lawsuit was filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) as well as in a U.S. District Court in Delaware suggests that Apple is really going for the jugular. “The ITC does not award damages,” says Peter Toren, a patent lawyer with New York City law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman. The only remedy the ITC can award is an order to stop the importation of the infringing product. HTC is based in Taiwan.
– Looks like Google may get involved. This may call Apple’s bluff. HTC getting the money of Google behind this lawsuit could lead to interesting results.
– Minority Report was out before the iPhone right? Seen as nearly all the gestures we use come from this concept (and no doubt other places before) they can go take a jump.
– This modern trend for patenting every single sneeze that happens during development is getting ridiculous – however the fact that US appear willing to grant the patents on those sneezes is even more farcical. It’s a waste of money and time and we end up paying for it by more expensive products and also for a delay in tech innovation.
30:13 – App Store Crackdown
– 5000 app’s and counting removed from AppStore
– Apple has changed policy on app’s, removing an app if its overtly sexual
– Seeing as there is an age rating feature on the iPhone, why do this now?
– 7 new rules
– http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/21/apples-7-commandments-of-app-sex/
– I have spoken with Apple, and the following are the new rules:
No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)
No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)
No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs
No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned
Nothing that can be sexually arousing!!
No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)
– From developer of Wobble
– Probably a good move as more adult content could be found in lots of categories
– Phil speaks!
– “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see”
– “When asked about the Sports Illustrated app, Mr. Schiller said Apple took the source and intent of an app into consideration. “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said.”
– Now wi-fi detectors are being removed
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/04/wifi_stumbling_iphone/
– Wi-Fi detection is something of a niche: there were never more than a handful of such applications in iTunes.
– But now even those have vanished as Apple decided they were using a “private framework”, and has pulled them off the shelves without explanation or apology.
– This is complete bullshit
– Why do Playboy and Sports illustrated get a pass but 500 other app’s don’t?
– Why do things like comics and other app’s get a 17 warning and Mobile Safari doesn’t?
– Fix it so that these app’s don’t appear if your parental settings prohibit it
– I don’t care about buying these app’s, it’s the hypocrisy and the app store built on moving sand
– Apple are getting themselves into tricker and tricker waters. Other main platforms all have better solutions.
– Android – free for all
– Win Mo 6.5 = controlled app store but anything goes if you want to install from other locations.
– Soon, they will control the sites you can visit on the internet. Then control the views you’re allowed to have. Exclude people from using the products who aren’t worthy. Where does this stop? They’re as bad as China.
38:50 – iPad News
– April 3rd in US
– Pre-order wi-fi and 3G from March 12th but pick up wi-fi only from 3rd
– Late April in UK
– With sterling crashing, £400+ is expected price now
– WSJ a lock in for iPad
– http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/04/penguins-ipad-formatted-books-shown-off-making-waves/
– Penguin books show options for iPad – future of books?
43:03 – We7
– Another music streaming option for UK
– £4.99 a month for advert free, higher quality streaming of music
– Millions of tracks
– £9.99 – iPhone app support (which is free), Android coming soon
– Similar to Spotify – offline playlists, 192kbps, no adverts
44:08 – Browser Choice
– From 1st March millions of Windows users in Europe will get to choose their default browser
– Choices are: Avant
Chrome
Firefox
Flock
Green Browser
Internet Explorer
K-meleon
Maxthon
Opera
Safari
Sleipnir
Slim
– Only guaranteed to see it if IE is default browser
– Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer browsers are randomly ordered on the first section of this screen.
– Lots of bitching still. Some complaining about sideways scroll to see lesser known browsers. Others complaining that 5 of the browsers use Trident (IE based renderer) 3 use Gecko 1 webkit and one opera based so not as much choice as it appears…
47:43 – Virgin to offer 100Mb in 2010
– Virgin Media to offer 100Mb/s by end of 2010
– No word on pricing
– Virgin currently offers three broadband packages: 10Mb/s, 20Mb/s and 50Mb/s, priced at £20, £30 and £38 per month on a broadband-only subscription.
– Also extending 200mb/s trial to Coventry
– Virgin Media’s chief executive, Neil Berkett, said: “There is nothing we can’t do with our fibre-optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100Mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience.”
– Ian – got my first BT Infinity Mail Shot – up to 40Mb, 2Mb up, 20GB limit, throttling in place, £50 activation, 18 month contract
50:17 – PS3 – The Fat Death
– We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.
– One day later…fixed
54:00 – iPhone Competitor from Sony
– Sony set to launch Sony Online Service to take on iTunes and provide games, music, films to PSP, Sony Ericsson phones and they’re also planning a PSP phone and a tablet.
– Hopefully better than the PSP Go, and is it too little too late anyway?

Picks
Henry
Attachment Scanner for Mail.app
– Don’t you just hate it when you send an email referring to an attachment, but forget the attachment?
– That never need happen again with this mail plugin for OS X. It scans your email for words like attach, attachment, attached etc and if there’s no attachment in those emails, it simply pops up a message box asking if you still want to send the message anyway.
– Simple, invisible, free.

Shakeel
Words with Friends
– £1.79 or Free
– turn based Scrabble type word game
– over 500,000 players
– 20 simultaneous games
– Push notifications tell you when it’s your turn
– invite friends through Facebook and Twitter
– very addictive
– some dirty sneaky cheaters cheesing me off though

Ian
Plants vs Zombies
– Superb game for iPhone
– Perfect pick up, play, stop 20 mins later…or 2 hours
– 300,000 copies sold in……………..9 days!
– More than $1 million in sales
– Current fav games

DigitalOutbox Episode 36

DigitalOutbox Episode 36
In this episode the team discuss the iPad and Tech quarters.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:35 – Apple Reports
– Steve J – “If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company.”
– Steve J – “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”
– 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter, a 100 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter — and up 17.6 percent from the previous quarter.
– Meanwhile, Apple sold 3.36 million Macs, which was a 33 percent increase over the year-ago period.
– iPod sales totaled 21 million, which was down 8 percent versus a year ago.
– Overall, the company posted revenue of $15.68 billion and a net profit of $3.38 billion.
– That means revenue was up about $4 billion versus a year ago, while profit was up over $1 billion. Gross margin was 40.9 percent, up from 37.9 percent a year ago.
– Apple also notes that it has gained another $5.8 billion in cash for the quarter, which should push its war chest very close to $40 billion.
2:14 – Microsoft in the Money
– Net income for the period rose to $6.66 billion, or 74 cents a share, from $4.17 billion, or 47 cents a share in the same period last year. Meanwhile, revenue rose 14 percent to $19.02 billion.
– Windows 7 helped – exceptional demand for it
– Analysts had been expecting earnings of 59 cents a share, and $17.9 billion in revenue. audio
2:52 – iPad Discussions
– It’s 0.5-inches thin, weighs just 1.5 pounds. Thinner and lighter than any netbook. 9.7-inch IPS LED display.”
– 1024-by-768
– ad is powered by our own custom silicon. Our own chip. It’s called the A4, and it screams.” 1GHz.
– 16, 32, or 64GB of flash storage. “It’s got the latest in wireless: 802.11n, WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.”
– All the usual suspects: accelerometer, compass, speaker, mic, dock connector. And it’s got battery
– We’ve been able to achieve 10 hours of battery life.
– Apps run out of the box
– Pixel double – run full screen
– New SDK out today including iPad tools. iPhone 3.2beta – under an nda
– Demos
– NYTimes app looked really nice
– Brushes – very smart
– iBooks
– Looks like a bookshelf – Delicious Library!!!!!!!!
– Delicious Library dev tweeted – first Apple steal all my employees, now they copy my app’s look
– Tap right or left to change the page — or drag the page manually
– Browse TOC, change the font or the font size, all the standard stuff.
– “And that is iBooks.” Big applause. “We use the ePub format, the most popular open book format in the world, and I’m very excited about this.
– We think the iPad is going to make a terrific e-book reader not just for popular books, but for textbooks as well.”
– Deals with HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette.
– Will this be available in UK?
– Can I read books on
– iWork
– Pages, Keynote, Numbers for iPad – $9.99 each
– Easily connect to projector with small cable
– The iPad syncs over USB with iTunes exactly like an iPhone or iPod touch.
– So when you sync, you sync everything. Photos, music, movies, TV shows, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, apps…”
– Every iPad has the latest and greatest WiFi. But we’re going to have models with 3G built in as well.”
– The first is up to 250MB per month — a fair bit of data, most people will get by on that — for just $14.99.”
– If you feel you need more, we have an unlimited plan for just $29.99.
– Real breakthrough prices. We’ve got a breakthrough deal with AT&T who is providing the service
– We think it’s a phenomenal offering. So what about internationally?
– We hope to have our international deals in the June-July timeframe.
– We think we can do a lot in June, we’ll start on that tomorrow. However all models are unlocked and use GSM micro-SIMS.
– So $499 / – 16gb, 599 / 729- 32gb, and 699 / 829 – 64gb.
– Cheaper than iPhone
– We will be shipping iPads in 60 days.”
– 90 days for 3G
– Dock!
– Keyboard dock
– Case
– So what is iPad?
– Netbook killer?
– Laptop killer?
– iPhone killer?
– http://flyosity.com/ipad/the-ipad-is-for-everyone-but-us.php
– http://joehewitt.com/post/ipad/
– iPad is an incredible opportunity for developers to re-imagine every single category of desktop and web software there is. Seriously, if you’re a developer and you’re not thinking about how your app could work better on the iPad and its descendants, you deserve to get left behind.
– True, iPad 1.0 has a lot of limitations which make it hard to be compared to a laptop today. We’re not there yet, people, but does it really take that much imagination to see how we will get there? Apple clearly wants to increase its investment in iPhone OS and reduce its investment in Mac OS X. At some point in the near future, Apple will adapt iPhone OS to even larger screens, add multi-tasking, and release something like a laptop or iMac with the OS. When it happens, it will make perfect sense, because by then there will be orders of magnitude more iPhone/iPad apps on the App Store than there ever were for Mac OS X and Windows.
– http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/359224392/i-need-to-talk-to-you-about-computers-ive-been
– http://speirs.org/blog/2010/1/29/future-shock.html
– http://lit-n-lat.blogspot.com/2010/02/ipad-and-mac-development.html
– Okay, I’ll admit it: when I saw that what everybody had expected all along had actually been realised – that the iPad was essentially a large iPod Touch – I was gutted; gutted because of the implications for Scrivener, which currently runs only on the Mac. Perhaps the biggest disappointment and frustration for me as a developer is that, in a way, I feel that Apple’s decision to use the iPhone OS for a tablet that is ostensibly intended as an entry into the netbook niche of the market (rather than saying straight up that it is something completely different to a netbook) is a bit of a two-fingers-up to us indie Mac developers; developers who have been quietly contributing great applications (at least, I like to think Scrivener is a great application…) to the Mac platform, and who have even persuaded users of other platforms to switch (I’ve lost count of the number of users who have e-mailed me to say that they bought a Mac just to use Scrivener – perhaps the biggest compliment of all).
– Adobe comment – “It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple’s DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.” – http://theflashblog.com/?p=1703
– Microsoft comment – “It is a humorous world in how Microsoft is much more open than Apple,” Brandon Watson, the director of product management in the developer platform at Microsoft, told me in an interview yesterday. With Microsoft’s platforms, developers can build whatever they want, and target a broad array of devices using the same skill set, he added. Watson claimed that many developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective-C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.
– Jobs town hall : On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.
– About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.
22:17 – Amazon Drops Macmillan Books
– Books published by Macmillan mysteriously poofed from Amazon on Thursday 28th….1/6th of its book catalogue
– Not just elctronic books for the Kindle – all Macmillan books from Amazon – paper as well
– The reason, according to the NYT, is that Amazon is punishing the publisher for arguing that the price of Kindle books should go up to $15.
– Then capitulate…….
– http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx2MEGQWTNGIMHV&displayType=tagsDetail
– Dear Customers:
– -Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases.
– We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it’s reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don’t believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative.
– Kindle is a business for Amazon, and it is also a mission. We never expected it to be easy!
– Thank you for being a customer.
25:56 – iPhone OS 3.2
– contains rudimentary support for video calling
– hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen
– supports file downloads and local storage in the browser
– a spell checker with multiple dictionaries and user-added entries
– much richer text support for apps
– the ability to selectively draw to external displays
– cation-aware ads in Maps and possibly other programs that use the Maps API
– file upload ability in Safari
– modifiable cut / copy / paste menu
– prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard.”
27:52 – Google Voice on the iPhone
– Via web and HTML 5, not the app store
– m.google.com/voice
– The new Google Voice mobile web app doesn’t offer a clear way to add contacts through the mobile interface,
– its call history function falls short and there are other things that are funky about it.
– It’s fast, but it’s still just not as fast and responsive as a native mobile app.
– Perhaps that will change with time. It does feel nice, though, and has a very attractive interface.
29:30 – Google Drop IE6 Support
– The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively.
– Google Docs and Google Sites first affected
– As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.
……..and still the issue rumbles on
– DoH tells NHS to drop IE6
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/01/doh_ie6/
– In a technology bulletin published by the department’s informatics directorate on 29 January 2010, it advised NHS trusts using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 on either Windows 2000 or Windows XP to move to version 7 of the browser.
– “We’ve advised NHS trusts to upgrade to IE7 as early as possible,” said a spokesperson
32:14 – Sky Launches 3D TV Channel
– Sky has announced that its UK-first dedicated 3D TV channel will begin rolling out in pubs from April to broadcast live Premier League games in 3D
– The 3D TV service will work with all existing Sky+ HD boxes and will “initially” be available at no extra cost to customers already signed up to the broadcaster’s top TV package and the Sky HD pack, the company told us today.
– You will need a 3D-ready TV, of course. Models from the likes of Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic will all be compatible, Sky said.
– As 3D TV models become more “widely available” in the consumer market, Sky+ HD customers will also get access to the channel. By then, Sky 3D will offer a wider range of content, including movies, sport, documentaries, entertainment, and the arts.
– New customer or upgrading to Sky+ – get a Sky HD box by default
– http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/news/a199912/sky-to-provide-hd-boxes-as-standard.html
– The receiver will cost £49 with a £30 installation fee for new customers, or £99 and £60 installation for existing subscribers.
– Box will be free if you subscribe to HD
– Also launching the long-rumoured 1TB box, available for £249, it’ll store around 240 hours of HD content.
– http://www.sky.com/shop/3d/home/
– Test broadcast over weekend – reviews mixed – http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/02/01/sky_3d_football/
– Tunnel shots and certain camera angles were great
– Close-ups of players, managers and assembled fans was what made 3D great. But the effect was totally lost while watching the pitch action in a widescreen at-a-distance shot. Players didn’t stand out from one another and I didn’t feel as though free kicks would hit me in the face.
– Kudos to LG: its 3D TV performed flawlessly throughout. Each (good) 3D shot was crisp, clear and immersive. It had an amazing viewing angle, allowing me a good spec from any point in the room.
37:23 – PS3 Hacked
– hacker George Hotz (already known in the iPhone community) has made a strong claim: that he has cracked the PS3
– What will it mean?
– 5% Hardware / 95% software. Still not cracked everything including memory but enough to trick the console into doing what he wants.
38:07 – OnLive Beta Reports
– Negative report last week
– News blackout at the moment so surprising to read this
– Onlive comment – reporter shouldn’t have had access, he was lucky to get it working at all
– other beta testers step forward but don’t want to be named…but jerky, graphics a bit poor. No surprise really

Picks
Ian
LaunchBar
– €24
– Replaced Quick SIlver for me
– Launcher
– Search and control iTunes
– Clip history
– Up to 40 items
– Remembers history after restart
– Clip Merge
– Search spotlight from launchbar
– Can take text and send on to other app’s
– Support custom searches, indexing and actions

Henry
ZooTool
– Visual bookmarking tool
– Free