iPhone

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My Favorite iOS Apps

Posted Fri, 12/31/2010 - 11:29 by awakenedvoice

I have seen a lot of blogs posting their favorite iPhone or iOS apps which seems to make sense since there will be a lot of new owners of iPhones and iPads after the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays. So in the spirit of sharing I decided to post links to a few of the apps that I really like and use regularly.

iPhone Only

Camera+ - $0.99 - This is a nice alternative to the native camera app. It has a timer, a grid (for taking level photos), and various scene and cropping tools. Also allows for sharing multiple photos on Facebook, Flickr, email and more. A recent update, including geolocation support, has made this app much better. It's important to know that this app does not apply to video.

AccuWeather Weather - Free - Much more visually appealing and informative than the native weather app. A recent update includes annoying video ads but they can be skipped. 

Skype - Free - Skype just added video calling yesterday and that makes it much more useful than before. This app allows you to cut down on your minute usage on the phone and now will even let you do video chat with someone sitting at a computer or on another iPhone 4 with Skype.

Google Voice - Free - If you sign up for a free phone number with Google Voice this app extends the features to your iPhone. You can't totally bypass the core phone features and use Google Voice for everything but you can do many things, including listen to your messages and send texts from your Google Voice number.

Red Laser - Free - This app allows you to use the iPhone camera to scan barcodes on products and compare prices with local and online stores. You won't find all products in their database but this app has saved me from purchasing things that I could find much cheaper elsewhere.

iPad Only

Magic Piano - $0.99 - Play piano using an on screen keyboard or by tapping flashing lights. They have a song book that includes some very classic piano pieces. Kids and adults will love it.

ABC Player - Free - Stream ABC television shows (with commercials) to your iPad. 

Amazon Windowshop - Free - Amazon.com re-invented their website for the iPad.

Weatherbug Elite for iPad - Free - A very nice ad supported weather application.

GoodReader for iPad - $2.99 - This app makes the iPad infinitely more usable. You can save many different document types (including PDFs and Microsoft Office files) for reading later. You can also access your Google Docs files for viewing. My favorite features are the annotations and searching withing PDFs.

Reeder for iPad - $4.99 - If you use Google Reader then this is an app for you. Syncs with your Google Reader account and offers many content sharing options as well.

The Wall Street Journal - Free - Although the app is free a yearly subscription fee is required to get full access. If you don't mind paying I think this is a very nice rendering of the paper.

iPhone and iPad 

Kindle - Free - Amazon has the best e-book store and the best e-book app. This is better than Apple's iBooks because you also can read your books on your computer and now even lend books to other people.

Twitter - Free - If you use Twitter then this is the best app to get because it's free, works across iOS devices and is very nicely designed.

Netfllix - Free - This is a must have app if you are a Netflix subscriber. Even if you don't use it to watch movies on the iPad it's the best way to manage your queue while sitting in front of the TV.

Flixster - Free - A nice companion app to Netflix, since it allows you to search for and add movies to your queue. Also a good app for non-Netflix users who want to search for movies, rate them and share the ratings. Connects nicely with Facebook.

Jump Desktop - $14.99 - Perhaps the most expensive app you will ever purchase. It really opens up possibilities for your iPad though. Jump allows you to connect and manipulate your Windows PC over the internet.

Air Video - $2.99 - This solves one of the most frustrating limitations of iOS. If you have many movies encoded but not in an iOS friendly format (such as .wmv or .mkv) this app, along with the companion desktop app, allows you to stream video to your device with conversion happening on the fly. This has worked very well for me and even supports subtitles.

Welcome To The Fourth Screen

Posted Wed, 04/14/2010 - 21:26 by awakenedvoice

The arguments about whether the iPad is a worthwhile device miss the larger point that accompanies the launch of the device. By introducing their version of the tablet computer to the world Apple has once again pushed us into another era. They've done so by introducing a viable fourth screen into our lives. Apple has been here before since they introduced the iPhone which effectively became the third screen in our lives after the television and the computer. You could argue that earlier video iPods constituted the introduction of the third screen but they weren't the must have, connected device that the iPhone / iPod Touch combo have become. 

The iPhone finally introduced a portable device with acceptable quality video and good quality web browsing into our lives. Before the iPhone mobile video was low quality, with an ugly blockiness to it. The video on the iPhone was better than anything we'd ever seen on a mobile phone. Add on the iPod features plus heaps of apps introduced later on and our expectations of mobile phones have changed forever. More importantly the third screen stuck. We've since seen Blackberry, Palm, HTC and Google come out with their own touch screen, highly connected, video capable devices. The people have spoken and they want the third screen in their lives.

Independent content creators, especially those creating video (at one time they were called podcasters) really answered the call to create content for the third screen. And why not? They had a direct pipeline to the third screen via 60 million plus iTunes users. These vidcasters new that if they figured out the correct video format for the iPhone that they would be able to reach a brand new audience. No one had to scream at them to do it, the vidcasters realized it and made it happen. As a result independent video production has grown very nicely in the iPhone era because of vidcasters and the support of YouTube on the iPhone and other third screen devices. So there we all were in content nirvana on the third screen. But let's be honest. Even though the video on new mobile devices looks great compared to what it used to look like, it's still far from an optimal experience. Enter the iPad, which could very well be the fourth screen in our lives.

I think that the fourth screen is the one to watch for several reasons. First I think that there's a lot of room for growth there. Sure, an iPad and other tablet devices will set you back $550 and up with tax. That's expensive. The price, driven by competition and economies of scale, will come down considerably over the next few years. Tablet devices also have more flexibility that the devices they are competing with and I think they are competing with the first screen which is the television. Mind you, I don't think they're competing with the first television in the house as much as the second and third. Tablets with probably even compete with the casual computer in the house. Smaller TVs have gotten better and cheaper but they haven't gotten connected and they still can't be easily carried from room to room. And even though the tablets have smaller screens they will have a lot more versatility and thus will offer more bang for the buck than the second TV or the casual computer.

Video quality and connectivity are other reasons why the fourth screen is the one to watch. Better WiFi connections and 802.11n support on the iPad mean that streaming video can look very nice on a tablet. And while ten inches or so sounds small to most people it feels big when you're holding it six inches from your face. In short it's a much better experience than watching video on an iPhone. Expect to see some nifty tablet stands introduced in short order to stave off ergonomic issues. Because even though the iPad is light it feels heavy after holding it for a few minutes. I know because I got my paws on one at the local Apple store last weekend. My weak wrists aside the video on the ABC streaming app was very watchable. You may be thinking that there's no difference between the iPad and watching video on a laptop. There is a difference. Laptops have undersides that get hot, which makes the situation uncomfortable. Laptops have a much shorter battery life. Laptops have a bottom half that do nothing but get in the way when you're trying to watch something. 

Here's the best part. The content, tons if it, is already out there to be had. This is really the point of this post. While big media companies fight over whether or not to port Hulu to the iPad, independent producers of online video (vidcasters, podcasters, etc.) can make the switch at little or not cost. They are already used to producing video in multiple formats for the iPhone and the web. Keep in mind that there will be more competition for eyeballs with heavyweights like ABC and Netflix showing up in the iPad app store early in the game. The key for vidcasters is to jump in early with videos encoded at the right resolution to look good on the iPad. It's best for them to be in the iTunes podcast directory but even a regular website with YouTube embeds can work as well. In fact podcasters of all varieties would be smart to consider how their content will play on the iPad. The best way to make sure that people get satisfaction is to offer a prominently placed direct link to the audio or video file.

In conclusion here is my guidance. The fourth screen is going to be big. I believe that it is going to be bigger than the third screen. As such, vidcasters should not ignore the fourth screen. There's much more competition on the television for eyeballs. The iPad (slate, tablet, whatever) is going to be more casual but very personal. I believe that is the ground where indies can dominate big media in the future. Have fun and good luck!

Media Hosts Need To Evolve

Posted Tue, 07/07/2009 - 05:06 by awakenedvoice

The capabilities of the iPhone 3Gs aka the iPhone Video should serve as a serious wake-up call to media (including podcast) hosting companies. We finally have a device that can capture good quality audio and video content, allow the user to edit the content, then upload that content to the web at decent speeds using either wifi or the 3G cell network. We've been waiting for this for years. As a result I've never been more hopeful about the prospects of truly mobile media publishing where I can create my content on the street then have it up on my website minutes later.

As it stands now you can get the rich media content you capture on the iPhone 3Gs to the web. Videos can be automatically uploaded to YouTube. Audio captured on the device can be uploaded to services such as AudioBoo. Services like these offer the benefit of easy integration with the iPhone plus format conversion, flash players and RSS feeds. Serious content producers will want to go one step further than just uploading their media to a 3rd party service. They'll want to upload the media, get the value added features I just mentioned and have the end result published on their own website, with their own RSS feed url that also connects to an iTunes podcast directory listing. The same serious media producers will also probably want to have the original media file downloadable from the web which is something that iTunes and AudioBoo don't offer.

The traditional role of the media host in recent years has been to provide a storage space accessible via FTP, permanent download link and some analytics. Libsyn was one of the first companies that changed the normal way of doing business in the space by offering media hosting connected to website publishing and iTunes compatible RSS feeds. Podcasting was born! Unfortunately the Libsyn web publishing interface did not progress much and most people I know still use them just for file storage and statistics. Services like WordPress.com have tackled the media publishing problem by starting with a rich web publishing tool while adding audio and video hosting as an add on.

Both WordPress.com and LibSyn have their shortcomings as tools for publishing rich media. LibSyn has the iTunes support and good statistics. WordPress.com has the nice web presence covered and flash video encoding. Both fall very short when it comes to mobile media publishing via the iPhone.

There's a large gap in the media hosting space that doesn't address the needs of mobile power users. An FTP interface should be a standard basic feature but there should be other options as well. Integration with the iPhone should be mandatory. Cross publishing, at the very least, a title, description and the file download link to the blog of my choice should be another. Conversion of video to the web friendly flash format should be offered as well. There's a need for integrated flash audio players too. And of course I should have analytics that provide all the details on how my media is being consumed. There are plenty of services that offer one or more of the pieces of the puzzle but none offers all of them.

Here's my explicit vision so there's no confusion. I shoot a video (or record audio) on the iPhone. I do whatever I need to do editing wise then add a title, description, then upload all of it to my next generation media hosting service. The service then publishes the title, description, direct download link and flash player to the blog of my choice. The blog handles the RSS feed. So now I've published content in a completely mobile fashion and the media is published on my branded website without my audience having to get involved with a 3rd party website.

I think that kind of a workflow adds real value to publishers who want to really go mobile. I don't know for sure but I think that there are a lot of them. I'm one of them. So I'll be waiting and watching to see who steps up to serve the needs of mobile content producers who want real time, white label media publishing capabilities.

Nice Job WordPress

Posted Tue, 07/22/2008 - 22:45 by awakenedvoice

The folks behind the WordPress iPhone app deserve to be commended. They have created a simple and elegant tool that allows for posting to WordPress.com or standalone blogs. I used the app to write this post.

The ability to include links without HTML would be a welcome addition. You can include photos from your library though.

You can see a demo of this brand new app at iphone.wordpress.org.

iPhone App Store Presents A Rewarding Opportunity

Posted Wed, 06/11/2008 - 19:51 by awakenedvoice

Apple has just tossed a huge bone to high traffic social media sites. But will they pick it up?

Sites like Twitter, FriendFeed and yes even the mighty Facebook are grappling with the issue of exactly how they can earn enough revenue to continue to support their services without the need for future rounds of funding. They should look no further than the iPhone App Store for their first big opportunity.

Take a lesson from Apple folks. If you make something really good then people will pay for it. The iPhone App Store offers social web services the opportunity to make applications that work really well on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Any web service that desires greater traffic and greater revenue should consider creating their own "for pay" application.

Take the MLB iPhone App as an example if you will. This thing looks great. It even includes the ability to stream in-game video updates. This application will have features that the user won't be able to get anywhere else. And I know that MLB will have no problem with charging a fee for this application.

Social web services should consider adopting a mindset similar to that of Major League Baseball by charging for enhanced services. A sweet iPhone app could (and should) easily be the first enhanced offering that all social web services introduce to their user base.

I know that some people are thinking, "No dude! Make it free and support it with advertising!" Forget that model when it comes to the iPhone. Do you really want to put advertisements on a screen that small? I say, "No." Ads will ruin the experience and make people less enamored of your application.

The bone is out there on the ground. From July 11th on we'll see how many social web services pick it up and run.

Associated Press News For The iPhone

Posted Tue, 05/06/2008 - 11:10 by awakenedvoice

The Associated Press has launched a new mobile news website optimized for the iPhone. I've been trying it out this morning and I'm finding the experience to be a good one.

The site integrates photo galleries and videos optimized for viewing in the iPhone. Users can set local news options and send stories via email or text message.

I think one way that traditional news organizations can stay relevant and regain market share is to support hot new portable devices like the iPhone. This launch by AP shows that they've put a lot of time and effort into making their iPhone mobile news site a top notch destination.

Apple - Web apps - AP Mobile News Network

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This Blog Is Now Optimized For iPhone

Posted Sun, 03/02/2008 - 00:22 by awakenedvoice

I've wanted a version of this blog that looked better on the iPhone or iPod Touch for some time now. I thought about using a third party service but then I would be relying on another domain just for iPhone users. I don't want people to have to work any harder. So luckily I was able to find the iWphone WordPress Plugin.

iWphone is a WordPress plugin that detects the iPhone/iPod Touch user agent and reformats the site accordingly. I know that the Safari browser on the iPhone is a nice one that allows you to view most web pages well. But I also feel that this optimized version looks so much better. Surf here on one of these devices and and let me know what you think.