To be more precise, analysts value the wave of growth of every new product and heavily discount the post-growth phase assuming commoditization. There is no value assigned to Apple for extending market reach to the mass market.

You should use whatever works for you. And I no longer have the patience or hubris to convince you what that should be. All I can offer is one data point: what I use, and how it works for me.

So far, Amazon has not been great to developers. (Or book publishers, for that matter.) By most accounts, dealing with Amazon is actually much worse for developers than dealing with Apple. By putting your app in the Amazon Appstore, you’re giving up a lot more control than Apple asks of us: you’re giving up the ability to set your own price and control your app’s description, among many other restrictions. By comparison, it makes Apple look almost… open.

The premise of the stock market today is therefore that being innovative in technology is meaningless. Innovations are valuable but there is no such thing as an innovation process. If there was such a thing then we could measure it and put a number of its value. Until then innovation is nothing more than a spin of the roulette wheel.

He was in some ways more humble and practical than writers who use his name as a puppet to make half-baked, poorly researched points, that help no one achieve anything.

Apple has revealed sales of over 187 million iOS devices through March, including 108 million iPhones, 60 million iPod Touches, and 19 million iPads, ahead of a financial results announcement tomorrow.

Overall iPhone sales have more than doubled since just after the iPhone 4′s release last April, when Apple had sold 50 million of the devices overall. Roughly 35 million iPod Touches had been sold at that time, indicating a relative slowdown in sales of the touch-screen device in the past year.

iPad sales seem to have accelerated significantly in recent months, however, after the device sold 3 million units in the first three month after is launch last April.

The new figures come as part of a federal complaint filed by Apple against Samsung Electronics last week [PDF] over alleged copying of the iPhone’s user interface.

A new ComScore report estimates that iOS has 37.9 million active users in the U.S., outpacing Android by 59 percent.

Worldwide, however, analysis firm Canalys sees sales of new Android smartphones outpacing those on iOS as recently as February.

La prossima settimana il Daily, il quotidiano per iPad della News Corp., diventerà a pagamento. Sarà il momento della verità, secondo Jon Miller, il chief digital officer della News Corp. Il Daily dovrebbe essere disponibile anche in Europa tra non troppo tempo. 

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[As part of his February NPD analysis, Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews examines the growing impact of smartphones on the mobile gaming market, and how low-priced mobile games have "have turned out to be a threat after all" to traditional handheld game companies.]

During his GDC keynote two weeks ago, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata spoke in strong terms about the current trends in mobile and social games and how they threaten the value proposition traditionally offered by platforms like the the Nintendo Wii and DS.

Specifically, these platforms host software that ranges in price from $20 – $50, far above the free or modest prices charged for applications on smartphones and on social media sites like Facebook.

While we typically don’t address these non-traditional markets in our NPD reviews, the time is fast approaching when those markets will be impossible to exclude from the conversation. Iwata’s warning to developers may suit Nintendo and its chosen strategy, but the industry appears to have other plans.

Indeed, when analysts like Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities suggested that devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch were a threat to Nintendo’s business, Iwata famously replied that Nintendo’s devices and Apple’s devices “appeal to different consumers.”

If Nintendo’s platforms and the iPhone appeal to different consumers, then why the impassioned appeal to keep the value of software high? Clearly, Apple’s mobile platforms and smartphones generally have turned out to be a threat after all.

And Nintendo may feel that threat most acutely now, as it launches its new handheld, the 3DS. While we believe the 3D effects and exclusive software will certainly help push the 3DS initially, we remain dubious about the system for both the $250 system price and standard $40 software price.

Yet the 3DS will have a means for competing with mobile devices. Nintendo is readying a storefront that will allow 3DS users to buy software over a network connection (like DSiWare on the Nintendo DSi now), and has announced that Netflix movie streaming will be available on the system. However, Nintendo is relatively new to the distribution of software through an online channel, especially compared to its most immediate rivals in the video game industry, Microsoft and (to a lesser extent) Sony. Each company has had its share of challenges expanding into these areas, and Nintendo will be no exception.

Clearly, pricing will be one of those challenges. When asked about Iwata’s keynote, Wedbush’s Pachter drew an analogy with “a record company executive speaking to a group of recording artists and saying that iTunes was a terrible model” and “that they all band together to make sure that consumers buy only album length CDs for $20 instead of individual songs for $1”.

If we accept the analogy, then Nintendo’s 3DS and its software will likely still sell well – there are, after all, albums that sell well even today – but the prospects for a Nintendo DS-like hit seem significantly dimmer.

The problem with pricing, we would argue, is not just on handhelds. The industry as a whole has maintained an average price for software of $39 – $41 for three years and during that period software unit sales have declined by 13 percent, leading to a decline in overall revenue. Most of those software units are for consoles, not handhelds.

Are console software sales also being undercut by another source? Possibly. When asked, Pachter offered that he doesn’t “see as great a threat to console games, since there is nothing analogous [to the App Store] available on the television” but that “ it’s coming some day.”

We respectfully disagree. We believe that at this very moment Microsoft and Sony and, yes, even Nintendo are undercutting their own packaged software business with their online storefronts: the Xbox Live Marketplace, the PlayStation Store, and the Wii Shop Channel. While some sales on those services are likely to be additive – money spent on top of what one would already have spent – we think it is likely that those purchases are actually substituting for retail purchases on an increasing scale.

According to NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier, 22 percent of accessory segment revenue at retail in February 2011 was from points cards, like those used to purchase content on the aforementioned online storefronts. That works out to $56.5 million available for buying games, movies, and DLC. (See figure below.)

In fact, while the accessory segment saw a nearly $47 million year-over-year increase in February, $19.3 million (or 41 percent) of that increase came just from the rising sales of points cards. (In the same comparison, software revenue fell by $32 million, albeit much it lost in the handheld and Wii segments.)

The NPD Group retail figures moreover do not take into account purchases charged directly to credit cards or debit cards registered with these console services.

While there are some games on these services with full retail pricing (for example, Mass Effect 2 is sold on the PlayStation Store at $60), the majority of the content on these stores is priced at $20 or less. In effect, the consoles already have their own App Stores, and those are quite likely affecting consumer expectations with each passing month.

For Matthews’ full, in-depth analysis of February’s NPD U.S. video game retail sales data, read the full feature, available now on Gamasutra.

Apple has revealed the most popular and highest-earning iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Apps for 2010 thus far, including top-sellers in the highly competitive Games category.

Apple’s lists divide apps into three categories — the most downloaded free apps; the top-selling paid apps and top-grossing apps (which includes both sale price and in-app purchases) — and also further divides those categories into categories such including games.

Chillingo’s Angry Birds was a top performer across devices, cracking the top ten in terms of both gross and paid downloads on both the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch, with a free Lite version reaching the top ten list for iPhone/iPod Touch downloads. The lite version of the company’s Cut the Rope puzzle game was also a top free iPhone/iPod Touch download.

Popcap also had cross-iOS-platform success, with paid versions of Plants vs. Zombies appearing on the top selling and grossing lists for both platforms. Bejeweled 2+ Blitz also appeared on the top ten sellers and grossers lists for the iPhone/iPod Touch

In word games, Newtoy’s Words with Friends showed up on all three iPhone/iPod Touch lists, while EA’s licensed Scrabble achieved top sales and gross on the iPad.

Game apps dominated overall app downloads on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nine of the top ten paid iPhone/iPod Touch apps across all categories were games, as were seven of the ten top-grossing apps on the devices and five of the top ten free apps.

On the iPad, however, games represented only two of the ten top-selling apps, one of the top-downloaded free apps and four of the ten top-grossing apps overall.

Unlike Apple’s regularly updated daily lists of to-selling and downloaded apps, which FingerGaming tracks regularly the 2010 lists are not ranked numerically. However, a look at the titles that reached the Top 10 gives some insight into the state of the iOS game market.

For instance, despite the iPad’s reputation for maintaining a higher average price point than the iPhone and iPod Touch, seven of the top ten selling games for the year are currently priced at $0.99. Five of the top-ten-grossing games on the device sell for $9.99, however, with only one $0.99 game cracking that list.

On the iPhone/iPod Touch, Playforge’s Zombie Farm managed to make the top-ten-grossing games list despite being offered as a free download.

The full lists of 2010 sales and downloads so far for 2010 (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

Most Downloaded Free iPhone/iPod Touch Games For 2010
Angry Birds Lite
FallDown!
Glow Hockey 2 FREE
Pac-Man Lite
Paper Toss
ROCK BAND FREE
Tap Tap Revenge 3
Unblock Me FREE
Words With Friends Free
Zombie Farm

Top-Selling Paid iPhone/iPod Touch Games For 2010
Angry Birds $0.99
Bejeweled 2+ Blitz $0.99
Cut the Rope $0.99
Doodle Jump $0.99
Fruit Ninja $0.99
Gamebox 1 $0.99
Plants vs. Zombies $2.99
Skee-Ball $0.99
Tetris $2.99
Words With Friends $2.99

Top-Grossing iPhone/iPod Touch Games For 2010
Angry Birds $0.99
Bejeweled 2+ Blitz $0.99
Call of Duty: Zombies $4.99
Doodle Jump $0.99
Monopoly $2.99
Plants vs. Zombies $2.99
Tetris $2.99
The Sims 3 $2.99
Words With Friends $2.99
Zombie Farm FREE

Most Downloaded Free iPad Games For 2010
Bubble Popper FREE
City Story
Farm Story Summer
Hit Tennis 2
Pimple Popper Lite
Pocket Frogs
Restaurant Story
Solitaire
Stair Dismount Universal
Texas Poker

Top-Selling Paid iPad Games For 2010
Angry Birds HD $4.99
Cake Doodle $0.99
Monkey Preschool Lunchbox $0.99
Pinball HD $0.99
Plants vs. Zombies HD $0.99
Predators $0.99
Real Racing HD $9.99
Scrabble for iPad $9.99
Shanghai Mahjong $0.99
Slice It! $0.99

Top-Grossing iPad Games For 2010
Angry Birds HD $4.99
Flight Control HD $4.99
Labyrinth 2 HD $7.99
MADDEN NFL 11 $2.99
Need for Speed Shift iPad $9.99
Pinball HD $0.99
Plants vas. Zombies HD $9.99
Real Racing HD $9.99
Scrabble for iPad $9.99
X-Plane for iPad $9.99

Apple has announced that it will be launching its iAd mobile advertising network in Europe shortly, as expected. First up are the UK and France, which will be getting iAd this December, with Germany following next January.

Apple has also announced which advertising partners it will launch in Europe with – the list includes L’Oréal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Citi, Evian, AB InBev, Absolute Radio and Turkish Airlines.

Rumor on the street is several of them have gotten a discount on what iAd clients in Apple’s home country pony up – several brands have committed over $1 million (the minimum spend for iAds) to have interactive ads placed inside iPhone and iPod touch applications in the United States. The European launch has reportedly also been delayed twice.

This isn’t the only planned international expansion of the mobile ad network – a partnership forged with The Dentsu Group will bring iAd to Japan in early 2011.

The Cupertino company touts the success of the iAd platform in the United States, where it says over half of the top 25 leading US national advertisers have signed up in just four months after its July debut. Apple projects to hold roughly 21 percent share of US mobile display advertising revenue for 2010, citing research firm IDC’s findings.

(On a sidenote, IDC analyst Karsten Weide also told the Financial Times: “Five to 10 years out, I think Android and possibly others will crush Apple.”)

iAd is baked into iOS 4 and lets users stay within their current app while engaging with an ad, giving developers of free applications another way to bring in revenues. Apple says user iAd engagement times average more than 60 seconds per visit.

Apple retains 40% of iAd revenue, in line with what CEO Steve Jobs called the “industry standard”, with the other 60% going to the app developers.

The company originally announced the iAd platform back in April, following its acquisition of mobile ad platform operator Quattro Wireless in January 2010. Obviously, it rivals Google’s ad network AdMob, among many others.

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As we have reported here before, the sales figures from the iPad continue to exceed the predictions of even the most optimistic Apple fan. And those fans will surely like the contention of CNBC, who using data from Bernstein Research, today crowned the iPad as the consumer electronic with the fastest adoption rate ever, stealing the title from the once-coveted DVD player.

The iPad sold 3 million units in the first 80 days after its release in April, and its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, says Bernstein Research, a rate far surpassing that of the first iPhone.

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At this rate, the iPad is poised to become the fourth largest consumer electronics category, passing up gaming hardware and the cellphone. Televisions, smart phones, and notebook PCs are currently the largest categories.

This success has come with the iPad available, until the last few days, from only one major retailer - BestBuy. Both Target and Amazon have begun selling the iPad this month, gearing up, no doubt, for the holiday season.

The DVD, according to CNBC, sold a mere 350,000 units in its first year. But even more striking than simply comparing sales figures is the fact that the DVD player - along with the smartphone and the laptop - is a category, whereas the iPad is, well, an iPad - a device unto itself.

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A BitTorrent app called IS Drive is now available for iPhone, despite Apple's history of rejecting this sort of app.

Even though Apple loosened some of its guidelines for the iOS Developer Program in early September, the policy still reads that your app cannot break the law or infringe on copyrights. And that's the reason why there have been no BitTorrent apps to date, according to an Apple spokesman who claimed last year when another BitTorrent app was rejected that "this category of application is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights."

It was a surprise, then, to see the approval of IS Drive, now available in the App Store.

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IS Drive allows users of Imageshack's torrent download service to check and manage their downloads. The app was previously available on Cydia under the name "Jack Torrents." The app does require a premium Imageshack membership.

In an interview with TorrentFreak, app developer Derek Kepner admitted, "I'm on dangerous ground here." Insisting that the app is not designed to break the law, Kepner says, "I always had the thought that if I didn't call the app a "torrent client", Apple would probably let it through the review process. After all, there is no real torrenting happening on the client side. It's not a torrent client. It's an ImageShack Drive client."

Whether it's a question of semantics or a question of luck that got the app past the Apple reviewers, IS Drive is - for the time being - available in the App Store for $4.99.

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Video support on Apple's mobile devices is far from universal and that's an issue that Applidium hopes to solve with its submission of VLC, the open-source video player, to the App Store.

According to the company's release, "if everything goes well, VLC for the iPad should be available next week".

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The free video player supports "nearly every video format" and when we asked Romain Goyet, co-founder of Applidium, if it supported Flash (the most obvious and controversial of missing video formats), he told us "This unfortunately I cannot answer right now (you guess why :-) )."

While he expects the player to be available in the App Store for download by September 14, it will initially only be available for the iPad, with a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the works. Goyet had a few other details to offer about the potential release:

As compared to the "desktop" version, the user interface will be quite a lot different, to fit the iPad.
Behind the scene, the engine is the one from the "ususal" version of VLC, so it should play pretty much anything you throw at it.
One small difference though : even though the iPad is a really neat device, it's nowhere as powerful as your desktop machine / laptop. So it might have a hard time decoding HD movies, but that's a hardware limitation.

According to a recent tweet, a pre-release version will be given out to a small number of users this weekend, before it hits the app store.

Of course, inclusion in the app store is not guaranteed. Mobile browser Skyfire was submitted to the App Store just over a week ago and there is still no word on its acceptance or rejection. The browser aims to bring Flash video, not applications, to Apple's mobile devices using transcoding. Although Goyet doesn't directly speak to whether or not Flash video would be supported, it could be a point of contention for accepting the app. And if the app isn't trying to vie for Flash support, there are a number of other media types that would be great to see on the iPad, outside of those currently supported.

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In tutto sto casino contro l’accordo Google-Verizon, ci si scorda che tutto ciò è un segno di debolezza da parte di Google. Non tanto tempo fa non si pensava che Google avrebbe lanciato addirittura una propria compagnia telefonica? Poi, il flop del Nexus One deve averli piegati a più miti consigli, e a comportarsi come una Apple qualunque, che con gli operatori fa accordi (anche se Apple non in violazione della net neutrality, va detto). Tra l’altro, cosa succederà il giorno in cui Facebook dovesse lanciare il prorio Facebook phone e vendere con gli operatori abbonamenti a 10 Euro al mese per l’accesso a Facebook e basta? E’ solo una mia impressione, o Google è, dei tre grandi (FAG, Facebook, Apple, Google), quello messo nettamente peggio per quanto riguarda Internet in mobilità?


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A hacker has created a website that will jailbreak iPods, iPads and iPhones running almost any version of iOS, freeing the devices from software restrictions placed on them by Apple.

Users who want to access unauthorized apps or use their phones in multiple countries, for example, can surf to http://jailbreakme.com/ to hack their devices.

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The hack comes about a week after the Library of Congress, which operates the Copyright Office, decided that jailbreaking is not illegal. Apple discourages jailbreaking, claiming it represents a threat to the security and stability of its devices.

Jailbreaking will void the warranty on a device, Apple says. However, the action is easy to undo by resetting a device to factory settings (and will be undone by downloading any new version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS).

"JailbreakMe" quickly jumped into the trending topics on Twitter after the announcement on tech news site Redmond Pie. This is possibly the first browser-based jailbreak. In the past, users would jailbreak their phones by downloading an app onto their computers and connecting to the device they wanted to jailbreak.

The jailbreak is credited to hacker comex and the website is credited to westbaer and chpwn. Hacker Clayton Braasch posted an FAQ here. An alternative link to the jailbreak is available at http://jailbreakme.modmyi.com/.

Users who downloaded the jailbreak are reporting that the jailbreak works on any device and software combination except an iPad running 3.2.1 (and possibly devices running the unreleased iOS 4.0.2). The jailbreak works by navigating to the site in Apple's default browser Safari and "sliding to jailbreak." The process can take as little as a minute to download, declare that it's added itself to the home screen, and tell you to "Have fun!"

Jailbreaking lets users download unapproved software such as the MyWi app, which turns your iPhone or iPad into a wireless hotspot, and WinterBoard, which allows users to customize the way backgrounds and icons appear. It can also allow users to hide native apps that Apple doesn't let you remove, such as Safari.

Jailbreaking also makes it possible to unlock the iPhone in order to use it with a carrier other than AT&T.

UPDATE: Some users are reporting that this jailbreak interferes with Facetime and Multimedia Messaging on the iPhone 4.

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Companies do all kinds of studies all the time for all sorts of reasons. Seeing as the iPad is currently one of the hottest devices on the market, it should be no surprise that companies want to know about how users are using it. Even if that company is Microsoft.

Yes, Apple’s rival has created a Facebook event calling for iPad owners to come to Microsoft’s Redmond campus between July 16 and July 21 for a study. Specifically, it’s Microsoft’s User Research group and they want people for chunks of two hours to apparently survey how they use the device. A follow-up note indicates that it’s student iPad users that Microsoft is specifically interested in here.

So what do they want to study about the iPad? Who knows. ZunePad? But as one commenter on the Facebook posting notes, “This gonna be a hard study, since most of the people who bought ipad are apple fanboys and apple regular customers their point of view is, um, damaged.”

Or maybe this is the secret to Microsoft’s second inception.

A “Microsoft gratuity item” is being offered in exchange for participating. Oh goody. Here’s to hoping it’s a Courier.

Here’s the description:

Microsoft User Research is looking for iPad owners for an upcoming study to get feedback. This study will be two hours long and will take place on the Microsoft Redmond campus with a number of dates and times between Friday, July 16th and Wednesday, July 21st.

In appreciation for your time, each participant will be offered a Microsoft gratuity item.

If you are interested, please respond to the questions below to uccoord@microsoft.com with the subject line “iPad”:

• Name/Age
• Phone Number
• Job Title/Company
• Are you employed full time?
-OR-
• Are you a student?
• Do you own an iPad?

CrunchBase InformationMicrosoftiPadInformation provided by CrunchBase

A recent survey of 2,733 mobile application developers has shed new light on the so-called Apple vs. Google battle that's taking place in the smartphone industry, pitting Apple's dominant iPhone/iPad operating system (iOS) against Google's mobile operating system, Android.

The survey, conducted by mobile app development company Appcelerator, asked a representative sample of its 51,000 customers to weigh the pros and cons of both the Apple and Google mobile platforms, among other things. According to the findings, developers view Apple's near-term outlook favorably, given its App Store, large market share and device line up. However, it's Android's adaptability as a platform that had developers pegging the OS as the best bet for long-term success.

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Near-Term Dominance Makes Apple Number One Pick... For Now

It should come as no surprise that developers overwhelming picked Apple's iOS (formerly iPhone OS) mobile platform for near-term success, given its market dominance. But when asked for more details, 69% of developers said that Android's potential for long-term success was greater due to its ability to extend to other devices, including tablets, e-Readers and set-top boxes.

Appcelerator positioned this battle as one between "near-term momentum" and "long-term dominance," but there's a flip side to the fight which wasn't fully considered: the battle of the cons between the two platforms, which was a survey question that was left, for the most part, unexamined.

When reporting on the downsides to the two dominant OSs, developers said that Apple's worst "con" was its closed and controlling nature. iPhone (and iPod/iPad) applications aren't immediately accepted into the iTunes Application Store - they're "curated." Or at least that's how Apple CEO Steve Jobs describes it, referring to the company's complex app approval processes and lengthy developer agreements that describe, in detail, what Apple mobile apps may and may not do. And Apple changes its terms with alarming regularly, often to shut out competitors like Adobe and Google, the former whose iPhone app creation tool has been banned, and the latter whose mobile advertising venture competes with Apple's newly launched iAd program.

On the flip side, when it comes to Android, developers who were asked about the OS's downside came up with one major concern: fragmentation. Not only are there multiple versions of the OS out there, there are a plethora of form factors as well. LG alone announced it'll have 20 Android phones by year-end, noted Scott Schwarzhoff, Appcelerator's VP of marketing, and even Google itself is porting Android to other platforms, most notably Google TV.

In the end, the battle may not be a case of which is better (near-term dominance or long-term success) but which is worse: a closed and controlled ecosystem or a fragmented one?

Other Findings: Tablet Interest Growing Rapidly

In addition, the survey found growing interest in the tablet form factor among developers in terms of application development. In particular, interest in the iPad increased by 26 points since the prior quarterly survey to 84%, ranking it number two behind the iPhone. Android tablets, meanwhile, came in fourth at 62%. Other platforms, including Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, Palm's webOS, Symbian, Meego and Kindle remained 30 points or more behind the platform leaders, iPhone, iPad, Android phones and Android tablets.

For more findings, including details on other platforms, iPhone 4 interest and insight into developer mindset in large organizations, you can read through the remainder of the survey here.

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Yesterday, Robert Scoble wrote a post about “Foursquare’s Yelp problem.” It’s an interesting read, with some good thoughts about how Foursquare can withstand feature-copying from a much larger rival. He asked for my thoughts, so I figured I’d jot some down here. Most importantly, his post got me thinking about the next phase of location, which I think we’re just about to enter.

First, Scoble’s thought that Foursquare might be in trouble because Yelp copied its check-in badge idea seems a bit premature to me. It was a much bigger deal when they added the whole check-in concept back in January, but the fact that Foursquare has started growing faster than ever since that point shows they have an advantage over Yelp in the realm. That advantage is that they have a social graph built for location, Yelp does not (yet).

As we all know, Yelp was built as a rating and review system for local restaurants. It has a social graph, but most people on it are connected to other people because they’re interested in their food/restaurant reviews. It has nothing to do with wanting to see which of their real friends are nearby (which is what Foursquare is all about). That’s why I think it would have been smarter for Yelp to partner with Foursquare (or Gowalla, or Loopt, etc) in the same way a service like Hot Potato has (using APIs). Yelp + Foursquare would have been a formidable power play in the location space. Instead, Yelp’s check-in offering is still pretty weak, while Foursquare’s is still pretty small.

Scoble also mentions that it might be wise for Foursquare to buy another service to bolster its offering. That’s not a bad idea, especially when they close that round of funding they’re working on. Scoble specifically menions Foodspotting — a service I like a lot — and that makes a lot of sense. But it may be wiser to think beyond that (or buy Foodspotting and extend their services). Foursquare needs a way to upload pictures and make comments on check-ins (and pictures). Basically, they need to copy the functionality Gowalla has right now. There’s always a fine line between keeping a service simple and cluttering it up with feature creep, but Gowalla’s mixture of check-ins, comments, and pictures is pretty damn perfect in my view right now.

Another idea Scoble brings up is a “check-out.” I love this. He talks about it from customer loyalty perspective, which is a good point, but I think it goes beyond that. One problem I have with Foursquare is that it’s too often populated with inaccurate (old) information. That is, I may go somewhere check-in when I get there, but 30 minutes later I’m gone. Someone who shows up 15 minutes after that (after seeing my check-in on Foursquare) will have missed me. This happens quite a bit. Sadly, the only way to “check-out” of a venue is to check-in to another one. That’s no good.

The problem with a check-out is that it’s total feature-creep. And I would bet that only a small percentage of those that check-in would ever explicitly check-out too — it’s simply asking users to do too much. That leads me to my main point. I think we’re on the verge of location services getting even more interesting thanks largely to one thing: iOS 4.

Apple’s new mobile operating system (formerly known as iPhone OS 4), which is launching in about a week, brings with it the ability for third-party applications to run in the background for the first time. One of the allowed functions is background location. Here’s how I see this working with Foursquare: you go to a venue, you load up Foursquare and check-in. The app then stays open in the background for a set period of time, notes when your location changes, and checks you out of the venue when you move far enough away.

Obviously, this would auto check-out would need to be opt-in, but it seems like the perfect initial use of the new iOS with background location. The next step is the auto check-in — but that’s a bit more complicated, and I think users may not be ready for it yet. Still, it would be a cool option to have. The app could track you location in the background and if you stop at some place for long enough, it could ask you if you’d like to check-in there.

By now, you Android fanboys have probably already left several comments along the lines of ”but Android has been able to run location in the background for 2 years.” That’s true, but let’s be honest: it’s the iPhone that’s going to help this type of activity take off (just as it was the iPhone that helped background location take off in the first place). Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc still see the vast majority of their activity on the iPhone. Android may be able to extend upon these new location ideas, but it will be the iPhone that puts them in the mind of most consumers.

And this is just the most basic functionality made possible by the new iOS. I bet we see a new range of location service pop-up this year thanks to the background location-functionality. And I still bet that a lot of those companies get snatched up by the bigger players looking to compete. And the location turf wars will heat up even more.

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The idea of putting iPhone apps on the Apple TV has been something some of us have been thinking about since at least 2008, when the original App Store launched. When rumors were swirling about Google TV, it became an even better idea as the living room was likely to be a new battleground for Apple/Google. And with the unveiling of Google TV last week, it became clear that this would be a next major fight — provided Apple started taking it seriously. Soon, they will be, if Engadget’s sources are correct.

The gadget blog says that a tip they’ve since confirmed with “a source very close to Apple” suggests that Apple has been working on the next version of the Apple TV. The goods according to them: it will be a very small box (smaller than the current one) with perhaps only outputs for power and TV-out cables. It will run on Apple’s new A4 chip (the one found in the iPad and soon the new iPhone). It will still do 1080p video, but may have as little as 16GB of flash memory. That’s because the thing will be based around streaming over the cloud (or from other computers in your home) rather than local storage. Most significantly, it will run the iPhone OS.

Basically, it’s an “iPhone without a screen,” is how Engadget hears it. Oh — and it will cost only $99, supposedly.

A product update may seem obvious from Apple, considering the steady pace at which they iterate devices. But the Apple TV hasn’t received a major hardware upgrade in its entire lifespan — almost exactly 3 years. The reason is that Apple still considered the device a “hobby.” The likely reason for that is because they haven’t figured out a way to make money from it yet.

But Google’s announcement of Google TV — a platform which will run on the mobile Android OS — changes everything. Apple needs to take the Apple TV seriously now, or it runs the risk of losing what should be an important battle with Google. While Engadget notes this product has been in development before Google’s announcement, you can probably bet that the announcement put it on the fast-track.

Still, it seems hopeful at best that we’ll hear about it at Apple’s WWDC event next week in San Francisco. The new iPhone is expected to be the centerpiece there. But, if this new device really does run iPhone OS, might Apple hint at it considering the event will be iPhone-centric? Remember, Apple first showed off the original Apple TV a full 6 months before it launched (when it was still tentatively called “iTV”).

Also consider that getting the iPhone OS on to the Apple TV will require some work as developers will yet again (just as with the iPad) have to work on scaling apps to correct resolutions. And that may be a big issue since people have all kinds of different TVs with all kinds of different resolutions.

It’s possible that Apple could pull an iPhone and release the device as a closed system first (maybe in the Fall), and then later open it up to third-party apps. It all depends on how threatened they feel by Google TV — which will also be out in the Fall. But, again, Google TV will run Android apps out of the box, so if Apple released an Apple TV that doesn’t, it will disappoint a lot of people.

Engadget notes that there’s no word on if apps will be included with the product or not. But it makes little sense to use the iPhone OS for this device and not includes apps (at least eventually). As I noted, the reason Apple hasn’t been taking the Apple TV seriously up until now is because they hadn’t figured out the best way to make money from it. That’s largely because Apple makes money off of hardware sales, and for devices like the iPod, those are driven by the availability of content at a good price. That’s the reason the Apple TV has failed to catch on: not enough content at a good price.

The reason there’s not enough content is likely because Hollywood is giving Apple much more push-back than the music industry did. For example, they won’t yet agree to Apple’s idea of subscription-based iTunes TV show packages. But apps could change all of that. Apps are content, and they would immediately vault the Apple TV into must-own status. Imagine playing all those thousands of cheap games on your TV. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony must be shitting themselves.

And if something like the Netflix app or the ABC app for the iPad worked on the Apple TV, the bitching about a lack of content would simmer down quickly.

Of course, there’s the issue of how you would control those apps — since you’re not about to walk up and touch your giant screen TV anytime soon. But there’s an easy solution for that: make iPhone, iPod touches, and iPads the controllers for the apps on the TV. They already have a Remote app you can use on your iPhone to control the Apple TV.

The $99 price is interesting to me because it suggests that Apple may not make a lot of money off of the device. It’s not clear if that price is just wrong, or if Apple would do something like that because it’s that concerned about Google owning the space. With no glass touch screen needed, it is possible that Apple could produce these things cheaply, but that cheaply?

Assuming these details are right, this Apple TV/Google TV battle should be a good one. Yes, it’s iPhone OS vs. Android in a new battlefield, but the devices would also have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Apple TV would have access to all of your existing iTunes content (and possibly over the cloud). Google TV, meanwhile, would work with your existing cable television, and would simply overlay the Android OS on top of it.

My only hope is that this battle will lead to a transformation of the existing cable television ecosystem in the U.S. For too long it has absolutely sucked.

CrunchBase InformationApple TVGoogle TVInformation provided by CrunchBase

Redmond, Washington's Microvision, producers of miniaturized technologies, announced it has made its first big sale of its PicoP laser projection display engine.

The unidentified customer "plans to embed the PicoP engine inside a high-end mobile media player for release in late 2010 and plans to announce its launch at that time." It is worth noting that the company has made technology designed to be used by the iPod and iPhone.

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In early March, the company announced that their SHOWWX projector, powered by the engine, was available for sale to customers in the United States at $549.99.

The pico projector uses laser light to produce high resolution, WVGA (848 X 480) images of up to 200 inches at a 5000:1 contrast ratio, which Microvision claims is five times higher than any of its competition. The projector can be attached to a computer or smart phone. It uses no focusing knobs or optics.

The company hopes to see a broad spectrum of personal and professional technology devices using the engine and projector.

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Juan Sanchez, UX Mag Senior Editor, shares his experience with building an iPad app.



Communicating thoughts and ideas can be one of the biggest challenges in an industry that relies so heavily on visual interpretation. If you’re working on an idea by yourself, with a colleague or a client, it’s one thing to see an idea in your mind and another to get it out for others to evaluate. As a UX designer, sketching is a daily necessity. It’s one of the most valuable tools you can wield.
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Today at the Mobile World Congress 2010, Adobe announced several initiatives designed to cement their company's relevance in a world where Apple, one of the top smartphone players, has banned Adobe software from inclusion on all mobile devices including the iPhone, iPod Touch and the soon-to-launch iPad. Without Adobe's Flash runtime, thousands of websites don't work, streaming videos won't play and a number of online casual games are broken. Apple, of course, is fine with this, having worked around the issue thanks to the 150,000+ iPhone applications that deliver the same functionality...although sometimes for a fee.

Adobe, meanwhile, is focusing on the other up-and-coming smartphone platform, Google's Android OS, with the launch of their "AIR for Android" offering. With this and the newly announced Flash Player 10.1, wannabe mobile developers don't need to learn specialized code, but can instead leverage their existing development skills to build Flash and AIR-based applications. They can then have those apps run anywhere: PCs, Macs, Linux and mobile...including, surprisingly, the iPhone.

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AIR for Android

The AIR for Android development platform allows designers and developers to use their existing skills in coding for AIR on the desktop to build standalone applications that run on the mobile Android operating system, found on devices like the Droid, the myTouch 3G, and the G1. With AIR, developers can include mobile-specific functionality in their devices including multi-touch, accelerometer input, GPS, screen orientation and gestures.

Already, Adobe has several developers on board. A company blog post today shows a selection of some of the first AIR-built Android apps, all games, including iTunes App Store classics like Alchemist, FickleBlox, Gridshock, Chroma Circuit, Red Hood, South Park Avatar Creator and Su (iTunes links).

Flash 10.1

In addition to the AIR for Android announcement, Adobe also debuted the Flash Platform 10.1 beta, now available to developers and content providers worldwide. With Flash, developers can not only build mobile applications for Android, but can build apps that run anywhere: desktops, laptops, netbooks and smartphones. All the major smartphone players (save one) will support Flash, including Android, RIM BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm's webOS and Windows Mobile. It will now also be available on LiMo devices, an independent and open smartphone platform with a Linux-based operating system at its core.

Flash isn't just about the apps, either. It's also used for website content display and HD videos, like those found on the popular U.S. TV portal, Hulu. Sling Media, makers of the Slingbox hardware, devices that let you watch live TV playing in one location on a remote receiver, also use Flash as part of their three-screen solution which delivers video to TVs, laptops, and mobile devices.

Flash for iPhone: the Workaround

Despite all the announcements, which lay solid ground for Adobe's continued relevance and importance in the ever-changing mobile world, the company has not forgotten about Apple. Although sour grapes could have easily had the company turn their back to the popular iPhone OS platform, Adobe did just the opposite: they made it easy for their developers to build for iPhone too. Using the Packager for iPhone software, announced previously at Adobe MAX 2009, developers can export Flash code as iPhone apps.

With these tools, developers can essentially write once and deploy anywhere - as AIR or Flash creations for the desktop or mobile web or as apps for any mobile device including Android or iPhone.

Will Apple Cave?

Apple's standoff against Flash has gained more public exposure with the recent announcement of the Apple iPad. Even consumers who don't pay careful attention to technology news will soon discover the iPad's shortcomings when iPad-launched websites don't include streaming video, content doesn't display as expected and video portals like Hulu are inaccessible.

While purists may feel the same as Apple CEO Steve Jobs when it comes to Flash's expulsion from the iPhone/iPad platform, (notably that it's "buggy" and will soon be replaced by HTML5, an upcoming standard that can provide streaming video, too), the reality is that the new HTML5-enabled web won't be built overnight. In the meantime, developers and consumers alike want solutions for the content they expect to access when mobile - that being the web, the whole web, the fully functioning web. It's here that Adobe intends to deliver. Their goal is to have every platform but Apple supporting native Flash and AIR, while still supporting iPhone through a workaround. Will Apple eventually concede to this power play where everyone supports Flash but them? It's impossible to tell, but Adobe certainly isn't afraid to lay the pressure on thick.

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As the Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona this week, one major mobile phone manufacturer is conspicuously absent: Apple. As the New York Times reported today, Apple is now the world's third-largest maker of smartphones (behind Nokia and RIM). But Apple is growing the fastest, thanks in large part to the thousands of mobile applications available on iPhone.

More and more mainstream people are opting to buy the iPhone now (if, that is, they can afford it), because they're hearing about all of the wonderful apps they can use on it. Given this trend, we're starting a series here on ReadWriteWeb to highlight what you can do with iPhone apps. We're starting with health and fitness apps.

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Note: this series isn't about listing 'the best' iPhone apps in a given category. That's because what app is best for you really depends on your requirements. For example, if you're a baseball fan then you wouldn't be particularly interested in a cricket app - even if we recommended it. So what we're doing in this series is showing examples of what kind of functionality is available on the iPhone. We suggest you then search the App Store for apps that suit your individual needs and wants.

Managing Your Health
A great example of the type of functionality health iPhone apps have these days, is an app that has held prime real estate on the home screen of my iPhone ever since I downloaded it. It's called Diamedic and it's where I manage my diabetes (I've had type 1 Diabetes since November 2007). I use Diamedic multiple times a day to record my blood sugar levels and insulin doses. I also use it to record my weight. It has a charting feature that I look at every now and then, so I can analyze my health. I can also send backups of my data to my email address.

All of this functionality far surpasses what I could do with paper notebooks, which is how I recorded my diabetes data when I first got the condition. And I carry around my iPhone everywhere, so it's always with me.

I recently went to my G.P. for an annual diabetes check-up. I spent a good 10 minutes walking him through Diamedic. He told me he's currently trying to decide on which smartphone to get, a Blackberry or an iPhone. He seemed surprised that I was able to manage my diabetes data on the iPhone - and he was certainly impressed by Diamedic. Indeed, I think I convinced him to buy an iPhone!

There are many other apps for other ailments, so do a search in the App Store (one of the default options on your iPhone home screen) to find them.

Tracking Your Fitness
There are also many great iPhone apps available to monitor your fitness. A representative one that we found is iFitness. Described as "a personal trainer for your iPhone," the app lists over 260 exercises. It has text and photographic instructions for all of those exercises, with video for 100 of them.

As with Diamedic, iFitness features exercise logging and graphing. In addition it has 12 routines for various goals; including weight loss, strength, golf program, and more. The app also allows you to create
your own custom workout.

This is just one of hundreds of fitness apps, so again we recommend you search for specific terms in the App Store (e.g. "fitness swimming" or "health asthma").

Let us know in the comments if you have a favorite health or fitness iPhone app!

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