Tech developer ADR Studios has revealed a new concept design, that is sure to make the many Instagram users in the world gather their pitchforks and torches (or just start a cause on Kickstarter) and plead for someone to make this a mass produced reality.
Meet the Instagram camera.
That is a digital handheld camera that can print an instant photo from the model, complete with all of the features the Instagram app allows. What strikes me right away about this project is:
A. That’s a beautiful camera. Not just “hipster cool” but genuinely well designed.
B. This is an incredible marriage of times gone by charm (the polaroid this whole thing is based off of) and new technology (Instagram, obviously), that wouldn’t look out of place in a 50′s sci-fi where a vague idea of what future technology might hold, was paired with a current product to create something that’s just kind of out there.
C. Far from a novelty, this thing could actually make a practical investment considering its’ list of features.
• 16 GB mass storage.
• Wifi and Bluetooth.
• 4:3 touchscreen.
• 2 main lens, first for main capture, second for 3D filters, webcam applications and QR Code capturing.
• Optical zoom.
• LED Flash.
• Internal printer to make your Instagram photos real.
• Paper cartridge with Instagram Paper Sheets.
• Dedicated 4 colors ink tanks.
• InstaOs 1.0, which put together Facebook and Instagram App feature.
Now again, this is still a concept and as of now, no one has plans to make this thing on a retail level. Still though, with the mass popularity of the Instagram app, and the many social networking friendly features this thing has, someone with the ability to make this would be a fool not to considering it’s almost literally a license to print money.
In many cases, our use of apps is fleeting. With kids, one mom described the concept of “app burnout” as her kids got bored and went back to their toys.
That said, there are many sticky apps where people use them religiously.
This is a totally new industry, so it will evolve quite a bit as more people use apps.
The biggest technology and gadget show, CES, just kicked off in Las Vegas, and as usual much of the talk surrounds Apple:
Apple is the only company that consistently gets big buzz out of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas — without even attending.
This year will be no different.
Connected TVs — TVs that connect to and can access content from the Internet — will be a big part of CES this year. And just about everyone in tech expects Apple at some point to launch such a television — an iTV — that easily consumes and shares with other Apple devices content served from the company’s media-storing iCloud.
Microsoft made news earlier by saying this was the last year they would attend CES/ Why attend if Apple gets all the buzz anyways? Maybe Microsoft should focus on new products instead of protecting its Windows/Office cash cow? Or maybe not . . .
Poker is fun, and tons of people love to play. Like most games, it was a huge leap forward when we could play them on our computers. Then game better networks and amazing online experiences with these games.
Smart phones have taken all of this to a new level. Now you can play games of every kind everywhere. You can play by yourself or with other people. Add in social networking, and gaming even becomes a new way of communicating with friends – let’s chat while we play a game!
Of course this is going to drive tons of holiday sales, and phones, iPads and other devices fly off the shelves. People of all ages love this stuff, and kids are obsessed with it. Tons of companies are cashing in on mobile gaming as tons of mobile betting apps are downloaded for all sorts of devices.
Stuff like iCoud makes mobile gaming even better. Now you can track your games and scores from multiple Apple devices, from your iPhone to your iPad to your laptop. It’s just amazing.
The growth here is exponential, so expect some huge numbers from the holiday season and the week after Christmas when people downloads apps on the new gadgets they found under the Christmas tree!
A couple months back, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a number of enemies by implementing restrictions around App Store subscription pricing that included a 30 percent finder’s fee for Apple. Apparently some of that change is being rolled back, though Apple won’t be making it easy for subscribers to get content outside the App Store.
The new rules don’t go into effect until the end of the month, at which point we’ll be able to see just how well the app development world is handling the restrictions. Several publishers have pledged to comply with the new rules, but others have pledged to abandon the App Store altogether. I’ll be particularly curious to see what happens to the developers who continue on like nothing has changed. Will we see mass bans from the App Store?
To me, this change seems like a PR move. Apple knows that there are quite a few customers who are also App Store developers, and those guys were not happy when the changes rolled out. Hell, I wasn’t happy and I have no stake in the situation whatsoever.
The Apple iPad may already come pre-loaded with a pretty handy, no-frills weather app, but for those that want their weather forecasts delivered with a bit of style, Tiny Mammal’s Weather Doodle is just the app for you. Although it’s been available for the iPhone since late 2010, the app has finally made its way onto the iPad, and it’s currently on sale for only $0.99 (normally $1.99) through May 23rd.
Weather enthusiasts won’t find too much to get excited about — using individual weather stations within cities across the world, you can access basic info like current conditions, the 5-day forecast, and wind speeds and humidity — but it’s in the presentation where the app really shines. Instead of just seeing a static image of the weather conditions, Weather Doodle depicts it using animated art, whether it’s the moon glowing, snow falling, or lightning striking from storm clouds. There are three different art themes to choose from (with more on the way), but only one of them comes installed with the app. The other two can be purchased for an additional $0.99 each, which is perhaps its biggest shortcoming. Fortunately, the one theme that is included (titled Paperscape, which looks like a grade-school art project using construction paper) is undoubtedly the best of the bunch.
Still, for as appealing as the simple yet beautiful presentation may be (it certainly makes checking the weather more interesting than usual), the lack of any really cool features prevents Weather Doodle from being a must-have app. It’s a great deal at its current sale price, but at its usual $1.99 price point, there’s just not enough there to make it worthwhile.
If you’re a baseball junkie, this app will blow your mind. Bill James is the king of baseball stats, and now you can get an app for your iPad or iPhone called Baseball IQ that gives you an unbelievable about of information. Check out the video above and you’ll get a feel for all the possibilities with this app, but it just scratches the surface.
One of the best uses will be for fantasy baseball. Right now, you have access to tons of stats if you play fantasy baseball, so it’s hard to gain a real advantage over the other teams. But with this baseball app from Bill James, you get a level of information on stuff like match-ups that goes way beyond what you can find on the web.
I’m seriously kicking around the idea of dumping my iPhone in favor of an Android device. I’ve been playing with the HTC Inspire for the past few days and really loving it. The notification bar alone could be reason enough to say goodbye to Apple for a while, at least anything running iOS. One of the things I loved about my iPhone was the ability to get any music, anywhere. The MOG app was amazing for streaming and allowed for downloads when I would be without a connection. The Android version does the same thing, just much more shittily.
This is one of the problems with Android in general – different apps will behave differently on different devices. That differentiation (wink wink) is good in some ways – there are a lot of options for users – but it can also be a bit painful. Right now my app has a constant “Artist Radio” overlay along the bottom of the screen, no matter which screen I’m on. It blocks the Download button. It blocks the Play Album button. It infuriates the hell out of me. The app also randomly starts playing any time I receive a notification on my phone. Yes, any notification will start whatever music MOG has loaded provided I’ve used MOG earlier in the day. I have to restart the damn phone to turn it off.
No doubt you know that Angry Birds is a bit of a sensation. The mobile game has been downloaded more than 30 million times across different platforms, some 12 million of which were paid downloads from iOS devices. The game is also on Android, but the game is free there, supported by ad revenue. Rovio Mobile, the game’s developer, says it expects to see monthly ad revenue of a million bucks by the end of the year.
Check the video from Google’s new admob mobile success stories:
I’ve heard of mobile developers doing well – just look at Tapulous – but Rovio and Angry Birds might be the first instance we’ve seen of a developer monetizing its product so well. Rovio is turning huge profit from the game, but also turning around and merchandising the product into plush toys and soon, a kids television series.
As cell phones continue to become more and more like what we used to know as a PC, we’ll start to see more of the problems crop up that the PC faced. Chief among, it’s becoming clear, is fragmentation. With the advent of operating systems like Android and Windows Phone 7, handset manufacturers are increasingly under pressure to put out better handsets.
With the iPhone, everyone has the same hardware, and because Apple earns profits from both the hardware and the software and controls the production of both, there’s no real rush to make a new handset. The hardware manufactures for Android and WP7, on the other hand, are in a sort of arms race. Every month it seems there’s a newer, faster Droid on the market. Something with a better camera. Something that runs Flash. Something with more RAM. Something better. That race is leading to a serious fragmentation, at least with Android, and it’s affecting the user experience.
Angry Birds has become one of the most popular games across several mobile platforms, but the developer has struggled to keep its product functional on all Android devices. The developer, Rovio Mobile, said that it will be creating a second version of the game for lower-end Android handsets, citing “severe performance issues.” While this isn’t a huge issue now, imagine two years down the road when there will be ever more hundreds of thousands of apps and a marketplace cluttered with new and old handsets. It will be a mess.
Of course Apple isn’t totally exempt from this issue. Its own handsets have changed significantly year after year, giving way to some high-performance applications that simply won’t run on the original iPhone or even the iPhone 3G. As time wears on, though, I would expect Apple will see significantly less fragmentation than the operating systems with secondary hardware manufacturers. There have been rumors though, that Apple is creating an iPhone “Lite” as well as the current iPhone 4 and a CDMA version of the phone for Verizon. Sounds an awful lot like fragmentation to me.
