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Tag: Apps

Carbyn – An HTML5 OS

Posted by Andrew at 2:19 PM on September 20, 2011

There’s been a great deal of speculation in the blogosphere regarding a new entrant into the apps-that-run-anywhere competition. Called Carbyn, it seems to be an HTML5-based OS and app store. If you are struggling to see how this is a good thing, most modern browsers support HTML5, so you can setup and use Carbyn from almost any computer or tablet that has an Internet connection. No worrying about Windows, OS X, Linux…you just get on and do what you want to do.

The London, Ontario-based company is holding its cards fairly close to its chest and is using social media to spread the word. TechCrunch managed to get a sneak peak and point out that while comparisons with Google’s Chrome app store are inevitable, it’s different in that Carbyn is an OS. Chrome apps run within the browser, Carbyn HTML5 apps run within the Carbyn desktop which runs within the browser.  Facebook is also expected to get in the HTML5 app action with its Project Spartan, so it’s an interesting space to watch.

Carbyn is using social media and word-of-mouth to good advantage. While you can sign up for an invite to join Carbyn on their website, you’ll get your invite faster, if you get your friends to also sign up for an invite. So if you are interested, please use this Carbyn link to boost my standing. I’m shameless and I’ve fallen for their cheap trick…

And yes, Carbyn appears to have Angry Birds….

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Posted in application, Operating Systems, Web App, Web Browsers

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Are You Ready For Some Fantasy Football? Yahoo and Android Are

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 1:59 PM on September 12, 2011

If you play fantasy football, and many people do, then there is a fairly good chance that you use Yahoo to manage your league.  Yahoo Sports has been a great resource for news for a number of years, and their fantasy league software has been the best for quite some time, topping even NFL.com.

A lot of people may not know, though, that Yahoo also has an incredibly good mobile app for fantasy football.  It’s available for free in the Android Market.  Just use your Yahoo log-in to set it up and you are off and running.  Logging in will only have to be done once at set-up.  After that the app opens to your homescreen automatically.

Once you are up and running, you can check your current score under “matchup”, which also shows individual players and how they are performing.

You can check all of the scores from around your league.

Click on a player to get more in-depth information.

You can even check the current standings in your league.

There’s a lot you can do with this app.  It’s a must for any armchair coach to check their team’s progress and manage, or micro-manage, their roster.  You can get Yahoo Fantasy football ’11 free from the Android Market.  Good luck this season!

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Posted in Android, mobile

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HP TouchPad Answers Critics

Posted by Andrew at 12:00 PM on August 14, 2011

The HP TouchPad came on to the market with two main criticisms, first the lack of apps, and second, pricing was on a par with the iPad 2. Even with these two points, most reviews gave the TouchPad the number 2 tablet slot for WebOS’s ease-of-use.

A month on from the TouchPad’s launch, much of the original criticism can be deflected. HP has reduced the price of the TouchPad by $100 in the US and by similar amounts in most other territories, making the 16GB version $400 and the 32 GB $500. Early purchasers have been taken care of with a $50 credit to buy apps from the App Catalog.

As for the apps, a bundle of new apps get added to the App Catalog every day and there’s usually one or two key apps each week that round out the TouchPad’s portfolio. This week saw UPnP AV Player and a Google Reader client, TouchFeeds, released amongst others and while there are other similar apps in the App Catalog, these are the first that don’t deserve a beta version moniker. There are plenty of really good apps in the Catalog and there are more coming through as developers get to grips with the platform. Twitter app – check; Facebook app – check; Flickr app – check; ToodleDo app – check; digital music store app – check; ebay app – check; WordPress app – check. It’s definitely getting there.

There’s also some evidence that it’s beginning to pay off for developers who have invested in the platform. PreCentral reports that OneCrayon, developer of TapNote, has seen sales jump significantly since the TouchPad went on sale. Regrettably the graph that accompanies the article doesn’t have any units on the y-axis but it certainly looks impressive.

HP’s done something a little different as well. Each month it produces a digital magazine called Pivot, which showcases apps in a glossy setting. It’s even customised for the particular country, so the UK version is a little different from the US one. Overall, it’s a nice touch.

It’s looking up for the TouchPad and at $100 less that the iPad 2 with apps coming every day, it’s a bargain.

 

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Posted in application, HP, Palm

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Amazon Appstore and Developers

Posted by Andrew at 12:33 AM on August 4, 2011

At times, Apple has taken plenty of criticism over the way it does business with iOS app developers, particularly when it comes to altering terms and conditions after the fact. However, it would appear that Apple is not alone in this behaviour and Amazon seems to be getting in on the act with its Appstore for Android and the Free App of the Day.

According to Amazon’s T&Cs, “Amazon pays developers 70% of the sale price of the app or 20% of the list price, whichever is greater” (from the FAQ) but it now appears that if Amazon features a premium app as the Free App of the Day, the developer gets nothing.

Shifty Jelly were recently offered the opportunity for one of their apps to become the Free App of the Day. On a good day it appears that they would sell around 20 copies of their software but on other days it could be as low as 2. As the Free App of the Day, they “sold” over 100,000 copies and if Amazon adhered to the T&Cs, Shifty Jelly would receive over $50,000. They received nothing.

To be clear, Shifty Jelly did know that they would receive nothing before they became App of the Day, but there seems to be a big difference between what Amazon is saying publicly in the T&Cs and what’s happening behind the scenes in emails.

You can read the whole story on Shifty Jelly’s blog.

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Posted in amazon, Android, application

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Deloitte Identifies the Killer App

Posted by Andrew at 2:05 AM on July 12, 2011

If you are thinking of developing a mobile app, particularly one associated with a brand name, then you’ll want to read Deloitte’s latest research into killer apps. In less than a dozen pages, it has some great data, mini-case studies and plenty to think about.

Here are a few of the nuggets:

  • 45% of smartphone owners download an app at least once per week.
  • but less than 1% of the apps associated with a “brand” have been downloaded a million times (which seems to be the metric for success in the app world).

If you want your app to succeed, there are two broad areas that do well – “time killers” and “utilities”. Games are good examples of time killers but Audi and Volkswagen’s driving games are some of the few that have done well. In the utility space, Kraft’s iFood Assistant has also been a hit.

Looking at apps that do well and are successful, these typically employ five functions to engage the user – portability, the accelerometer, sophisticated touch screen use, location-based services (GPS) and the camera. Using these are no guarantees of success but they certainly help.

Of course, it helps if you know your user. Deloitte has broken down iPhone ownership by employment type revealing three big groups:

  • 25.2% – Professional and higher technical work
  • 22.6% – Manager and senior administrator
  • 19.3% – Clerical

In the end, Deloitte reckons that there are four ingredients for branded app success.

  1. Offer useful functionality
  2. Know how to manipulate app store ratings
  3. Target the platforms used by the brand customers
  4. Use additional smartphone functionality

The full report can be downloaded from Killer Apps – The Promises and Pitfalls of a Smarter World.

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Posted in advertising, Android, application, iOS, iPhone, smartphone

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If Chrome OS is to Succeed Attention to Detail is Neeeded!

Posted by geeknews at 1:32 AM on June 8, 2011

Ironically this blog post is written on Firefox on my Computer versus my Chrome browser on my Chromebook because I could not capture or insert images in the wordpress editor.

I know I have my Chromebook about a week early. It is pretty obvious because the boys at Google are not ready for us yet. When I went over to Picasa the site thought I was a Linux machine and asked me to download some Linux RPM file.

Also when you visit the Chrome Web Store and try and install some apps they kinda get confused. I installed a screen capture app made by Google. It will capture the image but it kinda like gets lost when trying to figure out where to save it.

These are the big things Google is going to have to solve and like yesterday. If I install an App from the Chrome Web Store it better work on the Chrome OS aka Chromebook if it doesn’t it just is gonna piss people off.

So here is my advice to Google, flag the apps that will work well with the Chromebooks and hide the rest. I surely do not want to have to figure it out myself..

If these little things can be fixed, then the developers can also see what is missing and start designing apps for the Chromebook and the Chrome OS

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Posted in Chrome, Chrome OS

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G Data MobileSecurity for Android

Posted by Andrew at 3:31 AM on June 4, 2011

Continuing the battle with the bad guys, G Data has released its MobileSecurity product for Android smartphones and tablets. MobileSecurity is designed to protect the data on phone from viruses, malware and spyware. Apps have to gain authorisation from the user before the app can make calls, send text messages or transfer data. Other features include app blacklisting and app checking during installation. Of course, there are regular updates to the software to keep the protection up-to-date.

Eddy Willems, Security Evangelist at G Data commented: “Malware writers are entrepreneurs: always looking for the best return on investment. According to analysts, Gartner and IDC, Android seems to be the market leader in mobile operating systems, so it is logical that cyber criminals will target the platform. Android malware can be easily spread through apps, which is another reason the platform is targeted. Not only did the beginning of 2011 see the emergence of this trend, but it also saw Android take the lead as the most targeted mobile operating systems in terms of malware. So it is the perfect time to introduce a solution for the protection of Android devices, as we expect a large increase in this area.”

Marketing puff aside, as we’ve seen in the past few weeks with the Mac malware and the Gmail spearphishing, there are criminals out there working out how to attack every major platform. And f they can’t beat the platform directly, they’ll go after the user, which is often the weakest link.

G Data’s MobileSecurity is available for £9.99 from a range of Android app stores or is free with G Data’s 2012 range of security products.

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Posted in Android, application, Security, smartphone, Virus

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The Swiss Army Knife of Android Apps

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 3:52 PM on May 31, 2011

Android has a LOT of great apps, many of them free.  There are also apps that replace multiple other apps – kind of the swiss army knife of apps.  Now there is one that is actually called Swiss Army Knife, and it replaces 6 stand-alone apps and does it pretty well.

These aren’t apps you may use every day, but when you need them they are quite handy to have around.  It’s also a free download so that makes it even better.  It can serve as a replacement for apps you already have or add some apps you didn’t even know you needed.

Once you have downloaded and installed the app it is pretty straight-forward.  Browse your apps and open “Swiss Army Knife”.  It will take you straight to a screen that displays the six apps that you now have available.

1. Flashlight – There are countless flashlight apps available for Android.  This particular flashlight app works just fine, but I have to say that it’s not my favorite.  Unlike Tiny Flashlight which uses the LED flash of the phone this one puts up a blank, bright white screen, which isn’t quite as bright.

2. Ruler – The Ruler app allows you to take a quick measurement of an object…providing that it’s smaller than your screen size.  That’s a big limitation, but it can be handy in a lot of instances.

3. Timer – The Timer is exactly what is claims to be.  It has simple Start, Stop, and Clear buttons and count time in hours, minutes, and seconds.  It’s handy for all sorts of uses from cooking to timing a workout.

4. Stopwatch – The Stopwatch app is similar to the Timer, but takes up less screen real estate and has one less button – Start becomes Stop when the stopwatch is running, plus there is a Reset button.

5. Compass – The compass app uses your phones built-in compass and accelerometer to move as you rotate the phone.  It is useful if you are into and activity such as hiking, r just have a reason know which direction is which to head or look.

6. Bubble Level – This is perhaps the most useful of the six apps.  A level is one of those tools that every homeowner needs on a regular basis for such simple things as hanging pictures, blinds, shelves, and a hundred other things.  It consists of three separate levels – a vertical, horizontal, and circular ones.

All  six of the included apps can be accessed from the home screen with the click of an icon.  The app is free from the Android Market and is lightweight, quick, and easy to use.  Plus, it replaces a bumch of other apps that you would otherwise download and install separately.

 

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Posted in Android

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The Web Perception Trap

Posted by tomwiles at 12:35 AM on May 8, 2011

We seem to be moving into the age of the apps. Are apps just a passing fad, or is something more substantial afoot?

We have come to think of the Internet itself as being synonymous with the World Wide Web. However, that’s a wrong perception that may have many of us caught in a perception trap making it difficult for us to “get” what is happening.

The Internet itself is a platform on which to run applications, a fact we would do well to remember. In the early days before the Web, there were data moving applications such as Gopher, IRCP, Telnet, etc. along with many others. HTTP just happened to be one of the major protocols that in combination with other protocols gave foundation to the websites we are all now familiar with. The Web itself is not the end of the story, but just a data delivery application.

Though we don’t think of it this way, many websites themselves are really applications.

The apps that seem to be taking over our smartphones and have given rise to tablet computing are more than what they appear to be. Though today the best of these apps seem to be giving concentrated bits and pieces of the full-blown functionality of websites, I believe a larger fundamental trend is going on than we currently realize.

The apps themselves are in the process of evolving into new Internet applications and will ultimately give rise to new services that go beyond computers and browsers. One day in the future, apps may well eclipse the Web as the data delivery applications of choice. Applications follow the form of the devices on which they are executed.

Apps are just now beginning to invade televisions. We are still in the earliest stages, and things are still clunky. Moving beyond the clunky stage, imagine what form these new web-based TV apps might look like in the future. Forget about browsers, and forget about existing web services that run inside them. For example, think in terms of a networked app running just on a connected TV – what could be done with that? Would it be possible to create an app that just delivered a live IPTV network stream (or a bunch of them)? Of course it would, and it would be an advantage over having to scroll through clunky, often near-useless lists and near-worthless descriptions because that’s the way websites running on computers seem to work best.

It could be argued that connected gaming consoles are data delivery apps, delivering specialized services to the end user that go well beyond browser-based or browser-conceived functionality. The Microsoft Kinnect attached to a connected X-Box with end-users using their bodies to interact with the games and ultimately other Kinnect users is moving data back and forth that has nothing to do with the Web.

Ultimately we must begin to think about the Internet as a global data retrieval/delivery system that is independent of computers and browsers. Computers and browsers are just one application of potentially thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions that have yet to be thought of. Therefore, apps must conform to the devices, machines, or appliances they are running on. App designers would do well to forget about computers and browsers and begin thinking outside the computer/browser Web perception trap.

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Posted in application, internet, smartphone, tablet

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Sony Pictures Releases ‘My Daily Clip’ For Apple Devices

Posted by Don at 8:27 AM on March 11, 2011

Sony Pictures’ ‘My Daily Clip’ app is now available for iPod, iPhone and iPad from the App Store. Everyday, 365 days a year, the app will show us a different clip from one of Sony Pictures’ films. We’ll have the option to watch the clip and if it’s a movie we’ve never seen or would like to own, it gives us a link to the movies iTunes page where we can purchase the entire movie. There’s also trivia for each clip and a calendar so we can go back watch clips from previous days.

I’ve spent a little time playing around with the app and so far it’s pretty cool. Right when the app boots up you’re introduced to a memorable scene from one of Sony’s past films. When we click to play the clip a quick trivia question pops up. For instance, today’s clip was from the classic military drama ‘A Few Good Men’ — “You can’t handle the truth!” — and the question was in regards to leading ladies Jack Nicolson has worked with. More specifically, it wanted to know which of the given choices was a leading lady that Jack Nicolson killed on screen — kinda gruesome but, fun nonetheless. When the trivia question comes up you have a short amount of time to answer. The faster you answer the more points you get, that is of course if you answer right, which I did not. I’m not entirely sure what the points will grant us other than bragging rights but, everyone likes to test their movie knowledge once in awhile, right?

The clip loaded up surprisingly fast and looked great. ‘A Few Good Men’ is a movie I’ve seen countless times but, the app did a great job pulling me in, leaving me wanting more. Needless to say, I hit the calendar and found a bunch of movies from previous days. Just like the clip of the day, each of the previous clips throws another trivia question at you regarding a character, crew member or actor from the film. It’s a great way to kill some time and I will surely be going back. The calendar shows you what clips will be shown in the coming days and I’m looking forward to the quick trivia questions regarding movies I’m more familiar with — I want those points!

Another cool feature My Daily Clip provides is the sharing option. If you load up the app and happen to find a clip that you and a bunch of your friends love, you can share the clip via Facebook or e-mail to spread the movie joy. My Daily Clip is available now from the App Store and won‘t cost you a penny, unless it inspires you to make a movie purchase via iTunes which is clearly Sony’s goal here. Either way, it’s worth the free download so check it out.

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Posted in Apple, application, Film, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, mobile, Sony

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