Tweetie 2

Tweetie has been my favourite Twitter app since it launched many months ago. Quick, good to look at and with a ton of features I had no hesitation in buying it at the time. Roll forward to now and Tweetie 2 has been launched, not without some controversy. The developer, Loren Brichter, is charging £1.79 for the new version. In my view this is more than reasonable as it is a complete re-write of the application and comes with so many new features. However there is a noisy community out there that thinks this is robbery and once you’ve paid for an app you should get updates forever for free. Crazy. If that model continued, developers would have no incentive to continue development of app’s and ultimately the platform would become a waste ground of app’s released that are buggy and never improve. If only Apple provided a way of allowing dev’s to charge for upgrades. Anyway, Tweetie 2 – what’s new?

Tweetie 2

A new look and feel and a faster interface again. Mention’s and DM’s are now highlighted by a blue globe underneath the icon on the main screen. This is much improved on Tweetie where mentions and DM’s could be lost as you had to go and check to see if there was a DM rather than being notified. From this screen it’s easy to delve into a twitter users details – how many followers, their recent tweets, theirs favourites and so on. You can also follow/unfollow from the app and tweetie allows you to link a twitter user to a contact on your iPhone. A really neat navigation feature is if you swipe left to right on the application title bar you jump back to the timeline – very handy for when you’ve drilled down into a users followers or tweets.

SearchA feature I haven’t seen in any of the other twitter app’s is what the developer calls Persistence. No matter what screen you leave from when Tweetie is closed, when you fire it back up it will continue from that screen. Really nice and makes it feel like your switching out of Tweetie and then back unlike most of the other iPhone app’s which feel like you are closing down and restarting again. It also does this very quickly – hopefully more app developers will add similar functionality. Tweetie 2 also add’s full support for landscape mode which is great for typing tweets but not so great for reading – I far prefer the landscape mode.

Local SearchSearching is also strong within Tweetie. You can search the timeline, search for any term, view trending topics, save searches and also get a pretty fast local view that draws tweets on a map. Tweetie will sync your saved searches with twitter.com which is handy. What would be really nice is synchronisation with Tweetie on the Mac – the last tweet read on the iPhone is where tweetie on the Mac would refresh from, same accounts on each app. Probably a step too far as not every iPhone owner is a Mac user but it would be nice.

Compose

Final new additions worth mentioning can be found in the compose screen. You can now query for twitter usernames (at last – I can never remember some people’s twitter names) and also for hashtags so you can add the most relevant one to your tweet. You can also attach photo’s and video’s and geotag your tweet. Tweetie 2 comes with support for the new geotag features that Twitter are to roll out plus support for the new retweet functionality that is to come soon.

Other app’s have some if not all of the features in Tweetie 2 but none of them pull it together in a package that looks so good and works so well. the interface is well thought out and shows some real innovation. Oop’s, almost forgot another nice swipe feature – drag to refresh. Get to the top of the timeline, pull down and release to refresh. Fantastic and surely a feature that will be copied by many other app’s in the future. If you buy one twitter app for the iPhone it really has to be Tweetie 2.

DigitalOutbox Episode 11

DigitalOutbox Episode 11
In this episode the team discuss Sony PS3 Slim and Apple.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
– Android
– Developers finding switch from iPhone development to Android .. lacking .. severly – http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity
– the Android state-of-the-art is today further behind the iPhone state-of-the-art than it was when the G1 debuted last October
– must do better
– iPhone needs decent competition to benefit everybody
– Layar – Augmented Reality Browser
– http://mashable.com/2009/08/18/layar/
– On android, iPhone coming soon
– Data layed on top of real world
– Shopping, finding places, games, house prices, restaurant reviews, find friends, geo-tagged images, tours
– Imagine translation layer – foreign country and the phone translates

– Twitter
– Geolocation API
– http://blog.twitter.com/2009/08/location-location-location.html
– Tweets near you
– tweets about a location – trending places?
– Users can connect locally – on the web site etc
– Retweet rework
– http://blog.twitter.com/2009/08/project-retweet-phase-one.html
– did this need to be re-worked?
– Business accounts
– With analytics and other metrics to help businesses

– Windows Mobile OS – 2 “current” versions next year?
– It’s looking likely that MS will run with 2 mobile operating systems concurrently
– WM 6.5 as an incremental upgrade over the current 6.0 edition
– WM 7 as a radical overhaul to for high end, touch based devices which MS will work in collaboration with manufacturers.
– MS have said they know they have been slow to respond (Version 7 has been in development or a long time) but they are solving this.
– With hardware development ramping up across the board and with Android / Windows Mobile development being focussed on – can Apple keep up? Do they want/need to?
– Could the same thing happen to phones as happened with MP3 players? I.e. iPod wasn’t the best player available but best infrastructure locked people in… This isn’t an issue whilst the iPhone remains the best phone on many levels but that’s not going to last forever(?!).

– Video adverts in print media!
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8211209.stm
– Slim-line screens, roughly size of mobile screens, sat in traditional paper magazines.
– Chip can hold up to 40 mins of video!
– Pepsi and CBS first to advertise in US based Entertainment Weekly magazine.
– Wowsers! Feels like something out of Minority Report.

– Apple
– FCC Inquiry
– AT&T – not involved in Google Voice rejection
– http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/21/atandt-tells-the-fcc-it-had-no-role-in-removing-google-voice-fro/
– Apple – http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/
– Not rejected, still looking at Google Voice app’s
– Says it has not rejected the Google Voice application and “continues to study it.”
– Apple’s concerned Google Voice alters “the iPhone’s distinctive user experience” and “disables Apple’s Visual Voicemail.”
– “The iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways.” [Doesn’t Mac OS X do this when it syncs Address Book to Google? What’s the issue? — ed.] GV Mobile, GVDialer, and VoiceCentral all have the same issues.
– Says its “covering new ground and doing things that had never been done before,” and that “many of the issues we face are difficult and new.”
– Apple did not consult with AT&T about whether to approve Google Voice, and Apple alone makes the final decision on whether or not to approve iPhone apps, although part of the AT&T / Apple contract forbids Apple from approving VoIP apps that run on the cell network.
– “Most of the review process is consumed with quality issues and software bugs.”
– SlingPlayer Mobile was “initially rejected because redirecting a TV signal to an iPhone using AT&T’s cellular network is prohibited by AT&T’s customer Terms of Service.” [That’s pretty much the opposite of what AT&T promised us. — ed.]
– There are more than 40 full-time trained iPhone app reviewers, and at least two different reviewers go over each app. There’s also an App Store Executive Review Board that meets weekly to determine procedures and sets policy for the review process, and also reviews apps that are escalated to the board because they “raise new or complex issues.” [Hello, Phil Schiller!]
– Apple gets 8,500 new apps and updates a week, and it claims only 20 percent are not approved as originally submitted.
– Googles Response
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/21/googles-response-to-the-fcc/
– Redacted content
– What will happen? I think Google Voice will soon become an accepted app
– Apple are lying – they told the other Google Voice developers that their was rejected – not what they’ve said here
– App Store is changing – Qik now can upload over 3G, Obama art app which was rejected is now accepted with an expedited route through approval, developer of C64 emulator contacted by senior Apple rep and told him big news is coming soon

– iPhone 3GS best selling phone in Japan!!!! Reason? it’s free!!!

– iPhone to become most popular camera on Flickr
– http://mashable.com/2009/08/17/iphone-flickr/
– Despite poor image quality
– Watch it boom if iPod touch and nano come with camera
– iPhone, the number 1 camera on Flickr – surprise? I think so …

– TomTom GPS car kit will work with iPod Touch and other 3rd party S/W apps (CoPilot?) http://gizmodo.com/5339070/confirmed-tomtoms-gps-car-kit-will-work-with-ipod-touch-third-party-apps

– Event scheduled for Sep 9th?
– http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090817/apple-event-scheduled-for-wednesday-sept-9-music-only-no-tablet/?mod=ATD_rss
– iPod’s, iTunes, no tablet
– Beatles – how many times have we heard this now?
– What is the massive data centre Apple is building going to be used for?

– Twitterific 2.1 update
– video recording and uploading
– updated contact sheet for better viewing
– numerous bug fixes and tweaks

– Gadgets n’ Games
– Sony Gamescom news
– PS3 slim unveiled – http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=221475
– launched first week of September worldwide
– €299 worldwide, $299 in US, £249 in UK
– Talk of shortages from retailers but denied by Sony
– 30% lighter, 32% smaller, 34% less power consumption
– current PS3 to get price cut
– looks like a matte finish (less of a dust magnet)
– hi-res pics here http://www.joystiq.com/photos/playstation-3-slim/2216305/full/
– $24 for a stand! Slim can’t stand vertically without another peripheral
– Faster gaming (improved chip speed?), supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream output to your receiver
– HDD is removable – http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/21/video-another-look-at-ps3-slim-and-its-removable-hdd/

– PS3 video store to launch in in Eur in Nov
– rent or buy SD/HD videos
– PS3 firmware 3.0 out on 1st Sept
– animated themes – hurrah
– “What’s New?” section
– BBC iPlayer
– ‘other’ interface tweaks
– PS3 Home 1.3 this september
– http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/08/19/playstation-home-v1-3-coming-this-september/
– Universal Game launching form within Home
– From Home to Start menu of game without signing out of home
– In store item previews
– Additional portable Objects
– Everyone will get a free camera – snap from 1st or 3rd person view, photo’s saved to photos in XMB
– More to come like…a bubble machine
– More gestures and poses for your avatar
– PS3 drops price immediately – £249
– LBP to get water levels – maybe time for me to dig it out again
– New Heavy Rain trailer reveals new character and ‘love’ theme
– New Uncharted 2 video looking as amazing as before – cannot wait for this
– Stunning GOW III in-game images from Gamescom http://www.joystiq.com/photos/god-of-war-3-gamescom/2217198/full
– more motion control goodies to be revealed at TGS in September
– PSP GO buyers in first 10 days of release to receive GT for free (register your PSP GO before Oct 10)
– PSP mini games available on PSN from Oct
– limited to 100MB each
– low dev costs
– iPhone inspired ??
– Fieldrunners, Hero of Sparta, Tetris and MiniGore and others successful on the iPhone will appear as mini games
– 50 titles by year end

– Dante’s Inferno trailer looking promising ..
– Pre-order Guitar Hero 5 from Amazon, get GHWT (game only) for FREE!!!! (game is £70 with guitar)
– PixelJunk Shooter looking awesome

– XBox360 Arcade to get £30 price hike? http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=221412
– Fable 3 in 2010
– Fable 2 goes episodic this year
– Logitech G27 steering wheel – looks awesome but £329.99. http://www.trustedreviews.com/peripherals/news/2009/08/18/Logitech-G27-Steering-Wheel-Debuts/p1

– Batman Arkham Asylum – played demo, rather bloody enjoyable, great atmosphere, detective mode is very cool, can be a button basher though

– Do UK Retailers Limit Game Market?
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8210622.stm
– US market also depressed – http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24837
– Exchange rate and pricing structure makes it difficult to break into UK
– Second hand market hurting game companies, restricting innovation
– Madden 10 – Online franchise needs code from within the pack when bought – second hand have to pay $10/800 MS Points to join
– Madden also has VIP lobbies, game type and server access – $4.99 or 400 points – I can understand the server access but not an increased difficulty.
– Digital Distribution the answer? Kill of Game etc?

– Your average hard-core gamer is no longer a teenager, but a 35 year old, over-weight, sad bastard http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/gamers-are-sad

– Sony stalling mass production of OLED displays due to recent losses they’ve sustained

– James Cameron’s Avatar – looks fantastic
– District 9 – a most welcome, low budget, low hyped spectacle. compared to the usual Hollywood, high-budget bores dished out by the ton

Picks
– Shakeel – PS3 Media Server
– no nonsense, free, easy to use media server for PS3
– best feature – streams MKV’s, allowing use of subs and DTS, all on the fly
– no encoding required

http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/
– Ian – BrowserLabs
– http://browserlab.adobe.com/
– Compare a web site in a variety of browsers without launching them OR booting into a different OS
– Firefox 2.0 – XP, Firefox 2.0 – OS X, Firefox 3.0 – XP, Firefox 3.0 – OS X, IE6 – XP, IE7 – XP, Safari OS X
– Not extensive but easier to hit this than use parallels or multiple machines
– Compare side by side or onion skin – overlap two browsers
– Chris – Sumo Paint & Pixlr
– http://www.sumopaint.com/
– http://pixlr.com/
– Wowsers! Online alternatives to Photoshop?
– Serious pieces of Flex coding. These kind of applications make you realise that we could one day spend life in the cloud.

DigitalOutbox Episode 9

DigitalOutbox Episode 9
In this episode the team discuss the latest tech news.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
– Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, Google DDoS
– Down for a couple of hours plus service impacted rest of the day
– Num 3 story on BBC news….perspective?
– Rumour now is that this was a DDoS against one person – http://mashable.com/2009/08/07/twitter-facebook-2/
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8190786.stm
– Russia to blame? – pro-Georgian blogger, known as Cyxymu, said he had been targeted for “telling the truth about the Russian-Georgian war” in his writings.
– Ev interview on Newsnight – awful journalism and editing – he looked bemused

– End of free news
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8186701.stm
– Will charge customers for news content across all it’s websites
– Would you pay to look at The Sun online?
– $3.4bn loss
– Agree that if they are successful other sites will follow
– Make content “better and differentiate it from other people”
– Google News Archive
– http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/extra-extra-updates-from-our-growing.html
– http://news.google.com/archivesearch
– Quadrupled the amount of newspapers
– Now have articles dating back to mid 1700’s
– All searchable – great resource

– Skype under threat of closure from licence issue
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/01/ebay-case-threatens-skype-shutdown
– Turns out eBay only gets issued a licence for the technology underlying the Skype service.
– The Skype founders company, Joltid, who issues the licence looks now as though it’s going to pull the plug on the licence over copyright infringement arguments.
– Skype was bought by eBay for $3.1billion – something which could now be worthless without the licence.
– It’s unclear what this will mean for users – whether eBay will develop it’s own tecnologies to continue to support the platform, whether we’ll all need to find a new service or whether Joltid will buy back Skype for a reduced rate.

– Friends Reunited sold for £25 million
– Bought by ITV for £125 million in 2005
– Bought by BrightSolid (owned by DC Thomson)
– Really bought for Genes Reunited as Brightsolid run Find My Past
– Is it relevant anymore – Facebook, Twitter taken over (London is top twitter using city in the world)

– Delicious.com upgrade
– New homepage – focus on recently bookmarked and tweeted messages
– No longer waits for a volume of bookmarks to show on homepage which takes time
– More focus on realtime
– Adding timelines and tag filtering to search
– Can tweet as you add links, sending to friends etc

– Flickr Search
– Much improved search
– Points to groups, photographers, tag clusters and places as well as photo’s
– Size control on photo’s
– Can search for creative common images as well
– Easily see notes, views, fav’s against each image
– Real opportunity to make flickr the place for quality image searching on the web but…
– Can’t sort by views, comments etc
– Can’t query by any of the camera metadata that flickr currently hold

– Both these show how yahoo can still compete but, is delicious still relevant? Is it too little too late?

– Windows 7 ‘E’ Cancelled – sanity prevails
– http://windows7news.com/2009/08/02/windows-7-‘e’-canceled/
– The European – ‘E’ – versions of MS Windows 7, due to be shipped without an internet browser, have been cancelled.
– It now looks as though the only sensible solution to the whole saga has been chosen as the way forward. The user will now be offered a selection of popular browsers to install from a menu.
– The solution still needs to be agreed officially but looks likely to be spread out across the windows suite of operating systems.
– Those who’ve ordered the ‘E’ versions already will most likely receive simply the full version of the operating system.
– This should also open the way for upgrade versions of the software to be sold – rather than forcing users down a full clean install of their computer.

– Palm complain again to USB Implementers Forum
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/05/palm_uses_apples_usb_vendor_id/
– Palm Pre changed vendor ID to Apple to foil latest iTunes update
– Says Apple are being anti competitive
– Should develop their own media player – can’t see how it’s anti competitive
– Get out

– Gary McKinnon
– Lost legal appeal against extradition
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/31/mckinnon_judicial_review_reaction/
– Will try and appeal to Supreme Court and Obama
– Arrested in 2002 hacked into 97 computers
– Hacked from UK, comp’s were in USA
– Now diagnosed with mild form of autism
– Terrorist charges in USA, faces 70 years in jail, fears for his mental health and welfare

– O2 data fail
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/05/o2_data_down_yet_again/
– Third time in three weeks
– Half a million text tweets since launching last week
– No explanation for the outages

– O2 loses iPhone exclusivity
– http://www.9to5mac.com/october_9_o2
– October 9th – other networks to sell 3G

– T-Mobile selling iPhones in the UK
– http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/03/t_mobile_i_phone/
– No publicity
– Limited to a small amount per week for people spending >£75 a month

– Apple
– Apple try to gag teenager with exploding iPod
– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/5963015/Apple-tries-to-silence-man-and-his-daughter-over-exploding-iPod.html
– http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article6736587.ece
– Offered to refund money but denied liability
– Would only payout if owner signed a letter
– “agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential”, and that any breach of confidentiality “may result in Apple seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties”.
– Eric Schmidt resigns from Apple board
– Android and Chrome OS are conflicts of interest
– Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.
– FCC inquiry a factor as he is on the board of two out of the three companies at the centre of the inquiry?

– New hardware reference found in iPhone OS beta
– http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/05/mystery-product-reference-found-in-iphone-os-beta/
– iProd1,1 alongside standardMuxPTPEthernet
– Tablet with high speed wireless internet?
– iMac refresh/new features?
– http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/07/apples_next_imacs_rumored_with_compelling_new_features.html
– Blu-ray?
– Price drop?
– September?

– Prolific app developer banned from app store
– http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2009/08/05/banned-app-store-developer-auctioning-off-business/
– Had 900 app’s, mostly crap
– Planned to grow company and have around 10,000 app’s in app store by year end
– A good app store story
– Apple censors a dictionary
– http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords
– Removes objecitonable words
– Still forces a 17+ rating
– Words like ass and screw omitted
– Didn’t apply this to dictionary.com’s app
– http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store
– Response from Phil Schiller
– Apple insisted on 17+, not the removal of words – that was the developer’s decision
– Developer since agreed
– Apple listening….communicating???
– Sex Offender app removed
– Dev may raise suit against Apple
– Rumour that e-book readers may be removed due to concern over copyright ownership

– Tom Tom for iPhone Priced?
– £113.85
– Includes suction mount for car and software
– Good value?
– CoPilot Live United kingdom – £25.99, lot’s of positive reviews, top 25 (no 11) in UK app store

– Gaming
– 80GB PS3 discontinued in Japan, rumours: either 160GB finally releases in JPN or … PS3 Slim http://gizmodo.com/5329524/80gb-ps3-discontinued-in-japan-one-step-closer-to-the-ps3-slim

– Gadgets ‘n Stuff
– Nikon launches S1000pj, first compact camera with built-in VGA projector, 12.1MP, 5x zoom, 2.7” LCD, $430 http://www.europe-nikon.com/product/en_GB/products/broad/1850/overview.html
– Pioneer SC-LX72 £1699, SC-LX82 £1799-£2000 – both with intimidating features: Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio decoding, DLNA audio streaming and internet radio access, and Class D amplification, 1080p up-scaling, 24p support, Five HDMI inputs and two outputs. http://www.trustedreviews.com/home-cinema/news/2009/08/04/Pioneer-Announces-SC-LX72–SC-LX82-AV-Receivers/p1

Picks
– Shakeel – HTML 5 Canvas examples, work with FireFox 3.5 and Safari 4, unable to try in IE but hear it don’t work or some bits do work but veeeeeeery slowwwwwwwwly
– http://www.phpguru.org/static/html5-canvas-examples
– From Ian (I know it’s your pick but try and mention this, slow I guess due to twitter DDoS) – http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/ – 0 lines of flash
– Ian – App Store Expense monitor
– http://wetfish.de/
– Free – lets you know how much you’ve spent in the app store – £165.07
– Let’s you edit prices as some prices have changed so you can get the true price of what you’ve paid – I’m nearer £185

DigitalOutbox Episode 8

DigitalOutbox Episode 8
In this episode the team discuss Microsoft loves Yahoo, Twitter and some Apple hate. Honest.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
– Microsoft & Yahoo deal
– http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com
– http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090729/yahoo-ceo-carol-bartzs-letter-about-the-yasoft-deal/?mod=ATD_rss
– All about competing with Google
– Leaves Yahoo looking pretty weak – if they don’t do search what do they do? Mail, Flickr. Link/lander page?
– 10 year agreement – long time in internet timeline
– Google AdWords vs. Microsoft AdCenter and Google AdSense vs. Microsoft PubCenter – thats it
– They don’t mention Google by name – “the market leader” or “the competitor’
– There’s no upfront payment.
– The deal requires regulatory approval and isn’t expected to close until 2010.
– The company’s don’t expect to see the full benefits of the deal until 24 months
after regulatory approval.
– While the companies claim Yahoo! “will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers”, most of the value is and will be derived via the self-service channel – which Microsoft will
now control.
– The deal could put Yahoo!’s affiliate/syndicated search business at risk.
– The deal’s 10 year length may put Yahoo at Microsoft’s mercy given that there’s only one other supplier — Google.
– Combined they have 40% ad market share in the US, 8% market share in the UK.
– We have a plan where some Yahoo engineers over time may move over to Microsoft.
– Yes, there are certainly many Yahoo search employees who will be asked to take jobs at MSFT. There will also be search employees [who get redeployed]. Unfortunately there will be some redundancies in Yahoo. This is a transition over the next 2 and half years. Nothing will change until we get regulatory approval, but yes, there will be redundancies, but in the future.

– European Windows 7, XP and Vista owners get to choose browser
– http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/29/microsoft-giving-europeans-with-windows-xp-and-vista-choice-of-b/
– Choose from 10 browsers – IE8 installed but on first launch users get to choose a different browser
– Update to XP and Vista users means they will get same option
– MS bending over backwards…looks a good solution though

– Broadband UK
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8171074.stm
– http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4014-ofcom-finally-publishes-final-broadband-report.html
– People still not getting advertised speeds
– Virgin Media (10Mb) fastest compared to the others (8Mb)
– Doesn’t take account of throttling etc
– Sky – customer base increasing
– O2 & BE – customer base increasing

– Palm Pre
– Web OS 1.1 – iTunes syncing works again
– System: … “Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (8.2.1).”

– Twitter
– Twitter 101 guide for business
– 1000’s of spammers deleted from twitter
– New homepage coming soon
– Launched Wednesday
– Search focussed
– See popular topics by minute, day, week
– Changed ‘updates’ to ‘tweets’
– More aggressive Twitter?
– Be careful what you tweet – person is being sued for their tweet – http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/woman-sued-tweet/
– O2 launched their text tweet service early – Monday.

– Apple
– Tablet
– September launch or early next year
– 10 inch touchscreen/tablet
– Same OS as iPhone
– This has been rumoured for years
– Cocktail – interactive booklets, sleeve notes alongside music
– Prize – still rumoured at $800-$900

– Time Capsule now 2TB
– http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MB996/Time-Capsule-2TB?mco=NzE0MTY
– 2TB for £349 – same price as 1TB was
– 1TB now £229
– 500GB discontinued

– Suicide factory worker at Foxconn
– 4G iPhone lost
– Family claim worker was beaten and bullied
– Family got $52,600 + $4385 every year while a parent is alive compensation and girlfriend got a free Mac laptop

– iPhone Hack Alert
– http://mashable.com/2009/07/30/iphone-hack/
– A text with a single square character – turn off phone
– Apple told about this at start of July
– No fix yet
– Couple of weeks before hackers build tool to exploit this?
– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8177755.stm
– O2 announce Friday that a fix will be available on Saturday to address issue
– Hear nothing from Apple
– 3.0.1 released on Friday
– 250 Meg download
– Allegedly addresses the text security issue
– The also release a statement – We appreciate the information provided to us about SMS vulnerabilities which affect several mobile phone platforms. This morning, less than 24 hours after a demonstration of this exploit, we’ve issued a free software update that eliminates the vulnerability from the iPhone. Contrary to what’s been reported, no one has been able to take control of the iPhone to gain access to personal information using this exploit.

– iPhone 3GS security
– Encrypted but ‘easy’ to hack
– Can copy all disk contents within 2 mins
– Demo’d to Wired magazine

– Google Latitude
– Not an app but a web app
– No location in the background – real shame
– Google said Apple requested Latitude as a web app, not an actual applicaiton
– Surely Brightkite is a better option?

– Spotify for iPhone
– http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/07/27/spotify-for-iphone/
– Waiting for Apple approval – will it get it?
– Playlists sync’d, updated pushed automatically
– Offline playlists – download music to iPhone for playback later
– Premium subscribers only (£9.99 a month or £119.88 – no saving but you get 30 invites – wow, not)

– Official Google Voice App blocked
– Other Google Voice app’s removed from App Store
– Is AT&T behind the move but still stinks?
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/27/apple-is-growing-rotten-to-the-core-and-its-likely-atts-fault/
– http://www.riverturn.com/blog/?p=455
– Blog post from developer of Google Voice app that was pulled
– Horrible conversation with Apple rep
– Want Google Voice? There is no app for that. Except on Android and Blackberry. Blackberry on AT&T.
– Will this encourage jailbreaks? Switchers to Palm/Android?
– One of the unofficial Google Voice app’s now on Cydia – jailbreak time if you use Google voice?
– http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/31/i-quit-the-iphone/
– Now the FCC are to investigate the Google Voice issue:
– Earlier today, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sent out letters to Apple, AT&T and Google, readable here [FCC’s letter to Apple, to AT&T & to Google] asking each company about its involvement in the Google Voice app rejections. The agency is asking Apple to explain why the Google app was rejected and the third-party apps removed, if any VoIP apps have been approved, and whether there are general rules and regulations covering application approvals (something many developers would also love to know).
– Will ask Google if other Google Voice app’s were allowed, whether Apple explained why the rejection took place and what is Androids approval process
– Will ask Apple why Google Voice was removed as well as third party app’s, if any VOIP app’s have been approved (Google Voice isn’t VOIP) and also what general rules covering approvals are in place
– Will ask AT&T whether they were consulted on this, if any VOIP app’s run on their network and for a list of rejected app’s while explaining how some are approved for 3G enabled services like Sling

– iPhone dev’s backlash?
– http://www.polarbearfarm.com/blog/?p=124
– http://carpeaqua.com/2009/07/28/where-do-i-sign-up/
– http://stevenf.tumblr.com/post/152606616/im-furious-with-apple-and-at-t-right-now-with
– Rejections are final straw
– Turning into a $0.99 store – consumer expects app’s to cost this now
– Why would you spend months developing an app for it to be rejected?
– Poor developer relations
– Is it sour grapes from the established Mac development community?
– Hardly. If your app connects to 3rd party server or the web it needs a NC-17 rating. Instapaper now comes with a warning. Where’s the warning in Safari, iTunes or Mail?
– http://dashes.com/anil/2009/07/apple-secrecy-does-not-scale.html
– Where’s the Apple bloggers?
– Microsoft, Adobe all have their dev’s blogging and being open to a certain extent, open once they’ve publicly announced something at least
– Jailbreaking could disable towers
– http://theappleblog.com/2009/07/29/apple-claims-jailbreaking-could-disable-transmission-towers/
– Desperate
– Surely bull?

– Secret of Monkey Island hits the iPhone
– 350mb
– Swap between new and old graphics with one swipe
– Space Invaders Infinity Gene

– Wipeout

Picks
– LittleSnapper 1.5 and Ember
– LittleSnapper
– http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/
– $24 ($15 off)
– Capture desktop (full, area, window, timed), webpage
– Create collections, add tags
– Annotate pictures
– Store in library
– Export to flickr, pdf and Ember
– Ember
– http://emberapp.com/
– Inspiration rather than Flickr type images
– Focus on design, screenshots, websites etc
– Explore via collections or tags
– Free and paid options
– Limited amount of uploads and collections
– 1Password

DigitalOutbox Episode 6

DigitalOutbox Episode 6
In this episode the team discuss Google Chrome OS, O2 and Twitter sitting in a tree, Prowl and push notifications and a special look at Plex, a media centre for the Mac.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
– Google Chrome OS
– Very little announced – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
– FAQ – http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-chrome-os-faq.html
– If it is really cloud based computing, where is the onine infrastructure to cope with photo libraries, music, graphics, itunes library etc
– Rumours of Microsoft announcement on Monday forcing Googles hand – Office in the cloud? It is – Office 2010 with Excel, Word, Powerpoint in the cloud. App’s are free, more feature rich than Google. http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/
– Targetting netbooks first, lightweight computing, targeting people who spend most time on the web. Only beginning
– Open source and free
– Will current Windows app’s run on it? Or is it a brand new platform to be developed against
– The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform.
– No details
– Lots of competition from MS, Apple, Linux + things like Jolicloud – http://www.jolicloud.com/
– Hardware partners – Acer, Adobe, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments
– Downloadable version by year end, first netbooks late 2010

– Google out of beta
– http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-apps-is-out-of-beta-yes-really.html
– Finally
– Enterprise push? – http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/07/paving-road-to-apps-adoption-in-large.html – guess so.

– O2 Free replies and DM’s to your mobile
– From 1st August
– Some fair usage applied – try to keep under 600 a month
– Tests to twitter will be as part of your normal bundle

– Games
– 1 vs 100 – July 10th on Xbox Live – http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/live/1vs100
– Battlefield 1943 – woes…

– Apple
– Touchscreen Netbook Rumour
– http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/13/rumor-watch-apple-touchscreen-netbook-on-tap-for-october/
– October, $800, 10 inch screen
– Camera’s on iPods?
– Natural progression
– Video assumed – game changer for devices like Flip?
– Apple in talks with T-Mobile and Orange -explains the O2 – Palm Pre decision
– Appstore is 1!
– Prowl
– http://theappleblog.com/2009/07/06/prowl-get-any-growl-notifications-via-push-on-your-iphone/
– http://prowl.weks.net/
– Growl notifications form your Mac pushed to your iphone.
– Limitless applications of this – file transfer complete, chat requests, e-mails, system activity, backups complete etc etc etc
– Register on prowl site, client on the Mac
– Useful but potentially spammy
– Can set to send only when mac is idle
– TwitVid
– Free
– Add video to twitter – posts link to your uploaded video
– BoxCar
– £1.19
– Push notifications for mentions and DM
– System for push notifications doesn’t scale – nothing to differentiate between notifications

– PLEX
– Mac media player
– based on XBMC
– Setup – clumsy, awkward
– http://www.screencastsonline.com/index_files/SCO0201-plex.php
– Careful with file naming
– movies
– tv

Picks
– mkv2vob – http://www.mkv2vob.com/ current version 2.4.6
– mkv2vob will remux MKV files with H.264 video and AC3 audio to a VOB file which is playable on the Sony PS3
– http://wechoosethemoon.org/ – 40 years since apollo 11