You probably know Mafia Wars as one of two things – the game you’re hopelessly addicted to or the game that constantly spams your Facebook news feed with annoying updates. In either case, you know Mafia Wars is a big deal, big enough to draw attention from Snoop Dogg, no less.
Just a month ago, Mafia Wars launched it’s newest iteration – Mafia Wars: Las Vegas – and the game has already hit the 10-million-visitor mark. To commemorate the event, Snoop Dogg will be in Las Vegas to blow up a four-ton armored truck. That isn’t blow up like your cell phone, that’s blow up like a bomb. Bullz-Eye’s own Will Harris will be on site for the event.
I constantly struggle to find new music. Yes, there are a million resources out there – blogs, fan sites, news and reviews, venues, torrents, etc. etc. – but there’s so much music in the world that a lot of it ends up sounding the same, and I don’t want something that always sounds the same.
I decided I was going to try a streaming service for the sheer amount of music available. Pandora isn’t on-demand so that was out. I gave Rdio a shot because it was free and had just launched but their selection was woefully slim (they were missing big names like The Arcade Fire among some lesser stuff I was hoping for). From there I turned to MOG and I’ve been fairly impressed. Their selection is good, the iPhone app is passable, as is their web-based player, but I don’t think I’ve discovered all that much.
MOG does have a feature on the web player that allows you to broaden your horizons by including similar artists to the one at the top of your playlist, but it’s just not diverse. It’s the same thing with Pandora. What I want is some sort of discovery mode, where the player throws a wide selection of stuff at you, based not just on the music you’re listening to, but what other people interested in that selection listen to. I would love if it there was even some sort of blacklist feature so that you wouldn’t get the same old mix.
As a for instance, I’m listening to The Hold Steady right now. The similar artist list is about what you’d expect – Modest Mouse, A.C. Newman, Spoon, White Rabbits – all bands that someone listening to The Hold Steady would probably say, “Hey, you’d like these guys, too.” I don’t need that kind of guarantee, though. I want to hear a mix of stuff I might not like and might like and might be surprised I like, and I haven’t found a music service that provides that.
I probably won’t renew my MOG subscription beyond a month because I’m not getting a whole lot more from it than I can get from a Pandora. The on-demand is nice, but the web-player is a little clunky, and I have plenty of music to get through on my own.
When I travel I tend to drive. I prefer the sense of space and there’s something cathartic about putting in 11 hours or so behind the wheel of a car. Over the past three weeks, though, I’ve traveled by both car (as a passenger) and plane, and in both cases my travel was significantly delayed so I had a lot of time on my hands. Thank god for smartphones.
For the road trip, my girlfriend and I made our way up to NYC to visit some friends. It was a great little vacation, but we got caught in traffic outside every major city between North Carolina and the Holland Tunnel. I laid in the back of the car while our friend drove, playing Words With Friends with a couple people, reading forums, updating the blogs I write for, cruising Facebook, and watching ridiculous YouTube videos. It made the stop-and-go that is DC rush hour not only bearable, but almost enjoyable.
After being home for just under a week I left again, up to Ohio to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday. I hopped a plane from Wilmington to Charlotte, wherein I was trapped next to a nervous flier. I don’t think anyone is truly comfortable with the bangs and clicks associated with flying, but nervous fliers stress me out. They’re always shaking, breathing heavily, whimpering any time the plane takes a quick dip. It is as awkward a situation as you can create – two strangers mashed up against each other, one of which will be in desperate need of some consoling. I’m sorry, but I don’t fly to console people. I queued up some Tap Tap Revenge, put on my noise-canceling headphones, and tried to ignore the fact that my seat was shaking from this person twitching.
We landed in Charlotte despite some thunderstorms, but my flight to Ohio was delayed by a solid two hours (I already had an hour layover). I started digging through the App Store for something to do and found Angry Birds (all of the addictive stories are true). I started downloading an episode of This American Life for the next flight, and flipped over to some Angry Birds. In between levels I could flip back and forth between Words With Friends and text messages from family members wondering when they should be at the airport.
None of this is new or thrilling, but when it’s you stuck staring at terminal screens, trapped in tiny coach seats, or staring at the ceiling in the back of a friend’s car, you start to appreciate just how great all of our tech can be.
The world has become zombie obsessed, and for good reason. When the shit hits the fan – and it will, haters – you better be prepared to shotgun your way through bloody masses of undead ghouls. That’s where Max Brook’s Zombie Survival Guide comes in, as does this app, courtesy of Random House.
The iPhone app allows you to snap pictures of your friends and then turn them into the zombies they’re sure to become after they’ve been bitten. It’s a great novelty app, especially as far as book tie-ins go. The app also includes support to add the image to Facebook once your friends have been modified.
Google unveiled a new Android product today that is bound to make all of the wannabe app developers in the world happy (that’s not meant to be disparaging – I’m a wannabe myself). It’s called App Inventor, and it’s basically a GUI for designing Android applications.
For the best idea of what this thing is, check out the video below. While “hellopurr” may not be the most creative use, I’m sure the creatives of the world can come up with some pretty cool stuff. This thing alone makes me wish I had an Android phone. I love the iPhone, and the iPhone 4 has been really good to me unlike many others, but the way this opens up the Android platform is really cool. Sure, a lot of the applications that get made will be really, really crappy. But there will be good ones, and who’s to say the good ones can’t get picked up by more prominent developers and given full support?
On the whole, I think this is a great play by Google and will certainly give them even more cred with the nerd world. Nicely done.
The fabled Hulu Plus is real, it seems, delivering “HD” programming to your mobile devices and internet-connected TVs for just $10 a month. You’ll have access to full current seasons of shows like 30 Rock and Glee and a library of older episodes from shows like Arrested Development.
I say “HD” because you should take a look at that screenshot above. Yes, that’s a screenshot. Notice anything? That it looks like shit, perhaps? That’s a shot from my iPhone 4 on a Wi-Fi connection and it looks like total crap. Sorry, Hulu, but you’re going to have to do better. Even worse than the quality, you still have to watch ads despite your subscription fee. You guys do know how to make me feel like a dollar sign.
What I really want for streaming video is something more akin to the Netflix Watch Instantly system. It’s painless, easy, and for serial programming it’s better than anything (even NinjaVideo). I’ve been watching Party Down recently – updated weekly with the new episode – and I’ve fallen in love with the Netflix system. If anyone has the future of online video in hand, it’s these guys. It’s not as expensive as Hulu Plus and you get access to a library of movies as well.
If you want to see Hulu Plus for yourself, download the free app and check out some preview episodes or opt-in to the preview invite system over at Hulu.
On Sunday Skype launched the latest iteration of its iPhone app, which now allows users to make VoIP calls over a 3G connection. As of last night, the application had been downloaded nearly 5 million times, a number that has surely been passed by this point.
There is some bad news with the good, though. Skype has said they may start charging users for Skype-to-Skype calls made over 3G as early as next year. Skype has always been free for in-client calling. There are still no specifics on pricing, though Russ Shaw, Skype’s mobile GM, said he wanted to stay competitive. “We’re not going to want to price ourselves out of the market,” he said. “I can’t ignore the fact that consumers (currently) use us for free.”
You know, Mr. Shaw, even $.03 a minute is more than free. You probably won’t find many people who will be happy about the change.
Though Amazon may be loathe to admit the iPad’s success, that hasn’t stopped it from aggressively developing and releasing applications for Apple’s successor to the Kindle. Along with the Kindle app for the iPad Amazon has released an IMDB app that takes advantage of the iPad’s big ol’ screen.
In this case the app only differs from the iPhone in that it’s been optimized for a larger screen. It still offers the same information, which according to IMDB is access to the info on 1.5 million movie and TV titles and 3.2 million celebrities, actors, actresses, directors and crew members.
One of the best features for the iPad will be watching trailers in HD. That screen is just so damn pretty.
I almost laughed out loud when I saw the diminutive text that accompanied Amazon’s new Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers. It reads “Including the iPad,” in a tiny, scrunched up font. Funny content wars aside, the new app looks pretty great, and it gives us a look at the full color future of digital books from Amazon.
The new app include fancy features like page turn animations and adjustable backgrounds while holding onto the Amazon Whispersync technology to keep your reading experience up to date across multiple devices. While this may be the future of reading with Amazon, it makes me wonder where the future of the company’s hardware lies. I still can’t imagine a world in which Amazon wanted to get into the hardware business for just a couple years, but maybe it did. It’s still the largest online retailer, and content distribution is really a nice business. Just ask Apple.
If the future of the Kindle brand lies in apps across all platforms, though, Amazon would do well not to piss off so many publishers. All the work Amazon has done to this point will be null if readers can’t get the books they want in the Kindle store.
For all the features that have been billed to us as the ‘iPhone killer” in the past, nothing stands out quite like Netflix for Windows Phone 7. Granted, the media service will probably be coming to other platforms as well, but it’s being pioneered on Windows Phone 7, replete with subscriptions and 3G video streaming. What more could you want?
Unless Steve Jobs has something truly compelling up his sleeve this June, Netflix capability will make more than a few media geeks reconsider an iPhone purchase. There have been rumors of this and other similar applications coming to the iPhone for years now, but we haven’t seen much progress. There’s Slingbox, but that’s not quite the same situation. On demand streaming is where the world is pointing, from potential iTunes deals to the success of sites like NinjaVideo.net.
Gizmodo has a preview of the service working. It’s just a prototype, but usually the word prototype means it’s only going to get better.
Palm is preparing to launch the WebOS Plug-in Development Kit next week, a developer tool that should have dropped with the Pre. It’s still a great tool, though, one that will supposedly allow developers to port applications from the iPhone OS to WebOS in a matter of days without any performance hangups. You see why this should have been released earlier?
Since the advent of WebOS, Palm’s greatest weakness has been its App Catalog. There just isn’t enough there, mostly because the company didn’t get its developer kit out for months after the Pre launched. That left a lot of people waiting for something good before switching over. In the meantime we’ve seen a new iPhone, two juggernaut Android phones, and a slew of other releases that are much more attractive. The PDK will give the App Catalog a much needed boost, but realistically, it’s probably too late.
I still can’t shake the feeling that Palm should have waited 12 months on the Pre release. It’s not like they’re making significant money off the phone and it’s mostly because of a really poor software experience. I don’t mean WebOS is a bad OS – it’s actually quite the opposite – but without any kind of app support the phone looks archaic next to its competitors.
In yet another App Store obliteration, Wi-Fi detection apps have been pulled from the App Store without exception. The word from Apple is that these apps, the type that actively scan for wireless networks, use “private frameworks” to locate hotspots, which is a violation of Apple’s terms of use.
“We received a very unfortunate email today from Apple stating that WiFi Where has been removed from sale on the App Store for using private frameworks to access wireless information,” said one developer. Apple declined to say more about the removal.
I think it’s odd that Apple would start to rigorously enforce rules without explanation when so many applications continue to slip through the cracks. The most obvious example is the “titillating content” Apple barred not so long ago, though exceptions were made for both Playboy and Sports Illustrated. As The Register points out, it could be Apple is attempting to streamline everything for the iPad launch, that perhaps the tools to make these apps work won’t be available on the tablet. Even then, why all the secrecy? Why not just say, “we don’t want people exploiting certain parts of our devices for personal use.”
You don’t have to be an iPhone developer to make a bunch of money from mobile applications. Take Edward Kim’s Car Locator. The free version of the app has been downloaded 70,000 times, while nearly 7,000 have picked up the paid version. Total revenue? How bout $13,000 a month.
Sure, it’s not the millions you’ve heard about in the App Store, but Kim has just one among a couple hundred “top” applications that are likely grossing at least as much as his if not more. The app had always done well, but it really took off when it was added to the featured list on the Android Marketplace. “it was netting an average of about $80 – $100/day,” Kim wrote on his blog, “until it became a featured app on the Marketplace. Since then, sales have been phenomenal, netting an average of $435/day, with a one day record of $772 on Valentine’s Day.”
Almost $800 for something that probably didn’t take all that long to code? Why do I write again?
If you want to show your Jersey Shore pride, you’re going to have a little trouble turning your iPhone into a Duck Phone. Nick Bonatsakis at Atlantia Software developed an app that would do it but he got rejected. The reason? Something Apple calls “minimal user functionality.”
Now I could be wrong, but I seem to remember the App Store as a place crowded with fart apps and other useless crap. So Duck Phone only makes your phone quack like a duck. Would people download it? Of course they would. Try telling that to the App Review Team. Here’s their note:
“Dear Atlantia Software LLC,
We’ve reviewed your application DuckPhone and we have determined that this application contains minimal user functionality and will not be appropriate for the App Store.
If you would like to share it with friends and family, we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing or if you believe that you can add additional user functionality to DuckPhone we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.
Sincerely,
iPhone App Review Team”
Ouch. Fart app developers beware. You just might get pulled.
Shortly after Apple pulled most of the sexual content from the App Store, developers noticed a new category under the app submission software. It seemed like the perfect solution to the offensive content problem. Just give those apps the explicit label and all will be fine, right? Right, but not yet.
One developer, upon noticing the category’s sudden and mysterious disappearance, called Apple to get the scoop. He says he was told, “it’s not going to happen anytime soon.” It’s a shame, really, because it would solve so many issues with the App Store. Giving explicit apps their own home means the people that don’t want to see them don’t have to, and the rest of the world can enjoy mobile smut. It also relieves Apple of the burden of censorship, no longer requiring a definition of what is appropriate or how much money you’re required to have to publish the inappropriate stuff anyway.
Even if this thing goes live, do you really think Apple is going to let anything more than a side-boob show up in any application other than Safari? No way. If we know anything about Jobs it’s that he likes Apple to have the corner on the porn market.
This weekend Apple made a sweeping change to its application guidelines, banning any material that could be deemed titillating. Well, not exactly any material, but certainly that of smaller developers. In another sweeping decision that’s rife with ambiguity, Apple has denied and pulled applications from small-name developers whose content was deemed too sexy for the App Store. How do you define too sexy? Pretty much anything that involves showing some skin.
As I mentioned, though, there are exceptions. Sports Illustrated still has its Swimsuit app available and Playboy will reportedly be allowed to keep its content live. This is a surefire way to piss off a lot of people. Some four days after the ban, Phil Schiller finally talked to the New York Times about the bans. “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” he said.
Wait, isn’t that why you guys implemented parental controls? And what of the objectionable material warnings? And what about the fact that anyone wanting to see boobs can still use Safari to get to every porn site on the web? As with previous app decisions, this one reeks of whimsy. Oh, did I ask why Sports Illustrated models and Playmates are somehow less offensive to those women and parents than the girls in the “Beautiful Boobs” app? I bet it’s because they aren’t just the fantasized digital mockups of women with bodies all airbrushed and touched up. These are real women, appearing in real magazines, sticking it to the misogynistic majority by using their vast intelligence to make money with the bodies that have been so objectified in the past. That must be it.
Since the announcement of the iPad, the geek world has been up in arms about Flash. When people aren’t bitching about why the tablet doesn’t have Flash support, they’re giving Apple the once over for including Flash in its marketing materials. There is at least one person outside Apple that doesn’t think Flash is right for the iPad and get this – he’s a Flash developer.
Morgan Adams is a full-time Flash developer who says he’d love to create content for the iPad, but it doesn’t make sense. His main argument focuses on one of the most widely used features in Flash: mouseover. So much of Flash content is controlled and manipulated based on the difference between a click and a mouseover that it just wouldn’t translate to a tablet. The other options for tablet users – gestures, complex clicking, multiple versions of the same site – are either a step backwards or require a lot more programming. Everyone cites video as a major issue for Flash, but video content is easily handled on the iPhone and will only get easier with HTML5.
If you’ve ever tried to download a podcast or a lot of applications, you know how frustrating that 10MB 3G cap can be on the iPhone. For those who don’t know, any time you try to download something larger than 10MB over a 3G connection, you get a message asking you to connect to a Wi-Fi network before you continue with the download. Along with the changes Apple made to iPhone policies this week, it also doubled the download cap, from 10MB to 20MB.
The change was most likely to accommodate the difference in file size between iPhone and iPad applications. It is nice, though, to be able to pick up some shorter podcasts and whatnot on the go, even if my This American Life downloads tend to be a bit bigger.
The change is effective immediately – I was able to pick up a 15MB app no problem this morning.
Amazon is starting to see the writing on the wall, it seems. There isn’t a compelling reason for people to buy a Kindle anymore. Other ereaders offer the same price on books with more features and the latest wave of tablet PCs make the hardware look obsolete. So what does Bezos do? He releases a Kindle app for yet another piece of hardware: the Blackberry.
Amazon recently opened the floodgates with Kindle support for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Windows machines. Today we get Blackberry support and the company says it’s headed for Macs and iPads next. If that doesn’t sound like admitted defeat, I don’t know what does. It’s funny too, considering the publisher problems Amazon has had since the iPad announcement.
“Since the launch of our popular Kindle for iPhone app last year, customers have been asking us to bring a similar experience to the BlackBerry, and we are thrilled to make it available today,” said Amazon’s Kindle VP, Ian Freed. There is at least one difference between the two; the Blackberry version doesn’t support creating annotations from within the app.
Google made another acquisition this week, this time in the form of Aardvark. Aardvark is an answer service that relies primarily on crowd sourcing to get the job done. It can be a fun way to kill some time, especially if you’ve got it on your iPhone, but people tend to ask fairly vague questions that can be difficult to answer.
Aardvark is joining the Google Labs line of products but will continue to function as normal. That’s a bit of a shift for Google. Acquisitions usually have a hold put on new memberships or even go through a period of service outage before being re-released under the Google name. Really the only change is that Aardvark will be getting some Googlers in addition to its current staff.
The best news in it all is that changes to the Aardvark service will come a lot faster now that it’s in Google’s hands.
