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(via -
timeshifted at filome created the group "mobile" | www.filome.com )
I read it on 07/15/09 at 04:44 PM
Posted on 07/15/09 at 04:32 PM
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Publisher - iSmashPhone - Turn your Phone into your MyPhone
First shared by - SteveRubel
syndication+ 8 | Search 1 | Shares 1
iPhone apps are probably the most popular thing to be used since the color TV. We've seen companies of all sizes put together some really cool concepts for iPhone apps. While most of these applications exist only as marketing techniques, some of them are quite useful. The question is, however, are they meeting the expectations of iPhone users? Regardless of the app's cost, we expect these applications to run fast and without a glitch, especially the ones made by established high-tech companies. iPhone apps should be designed for those who are 100% mobile; otherwise, we might as well hop on the computer for the same information.
Corporations are scrambling and fighting for the business in today's poor economy. From starting blogs on their websites to producing iPhone and iPod touch applications, they are doing whatever they can for marketing purposes. Some companies are successful in marketing or branding with the iPhones and some fail miserably, tarnishing what used to be a good reputation.
Brand apps that don't disappoint...
Google Mobile (Free)
 Google Mobile has just made it faster and easier for you to search Google. It has a great user interface and allows you to search by voice (and understands the different English language accents.) Google Mobile uses the lower case 'g' for their icon. It's different.
App Store Link Amazon (Free)
 The shopping cart on the icon is a great reminder of what you can do at Amazon. Spend money! No more need to wait until you get home to look for or buy what you want. Turn on your iPhone or iPod touch, go to the Amazon icon and begin to navigate your way through a pleasant experience with this app.
App Store Link 
Web MD Mobile (Free) WebMD Mobile gives you an easy to identify icon along with a good user interface. No matter where you are, when you need information on basic first aid, symptoms, and CPR instructions, WebMD provides this quickly. App Store Link 
B&N Bookstore, Barnes & Noble (Free) One of the best things about this iPhone app is that it's easy to identify by the icon. It's clean, plain and simple, showing the well-known named bookstore, Barnes & Noble. There is a beautiful layout which allows you to search for your favorite book or even read some reviews. You can even see future events at your local store. App Store Link
 
NY times (Free) NY Times is a must have app for those who want to know what's going on in the world. Pages load fast so you can read the latest and greatest on your favorite topics. It runs smoothly and has a great user interface. The NY Times also uses a one letter icon with the same font as their website logo.
App Store Link
 
ESPN ScoreCenter (Free)
 This is a great application for the sports fan. Input your favorite teams and you're never too far away from receiving the latest scores and news. ESPN has nice graphics and good user interface. I would lose the 79 on the icon and go straight with the red background and white lettering.
App Store Link
 
Bank of America Mobile Banking (Free) Initially, Bank of America Mobile Banking was off to a rocky start. Keeping the consumer in mind, Bank of America quickly resolved issues from the previous version. They now have a nice design and a good User Interface to make your mobile banking experience a pleasant one. The design of their logo for the icon doesn't display their traditional colors and may not be easily recognizable. App Store Link  
Whole Foods Market Recipes (Free)
 This is a great way for Whole Foods to compliment their grocery stores. Now as you shop, you can pick-up the items you need for particular recipes. Are you lactose intolerant or have a special diet? No problem! This app will display a list of delicious recipes that will accommodate your dietary needs. The icon is very fitting and easy to identify.
App Store Link
 
iFood Assistant by KRAFT ($0.99)  Other than a few annoying ads, this is a good app. Gain access to delicious recipes right at your fingertips. There are easy directions with pics of teh final product. No more fuss with recipe books. Unless the icon is a new logo, the folks in branding need to do a little work. Without a name, it's not the easiest to identify. App Store Link
 
AAA Discounts (Free) This application provides great information on discounts to AAA members. AAA has served their customers well for many years. Now they've brought it to the next level by providing a magnificent application for your iPhone or iPod Touch. With continuous service, you are able to locate hotels, stores, restaurants, and much more for the discounted prices. Accurate directions to the locations are also provided. App Store Link
 
Now for the real disappointments...
AT&T my Wireless Mobile (Free) AT&T, the corporation who has the exclusive rights to provide service to iPhones in the United States, takes an entire year before putting out an application. The user interface is poor and not user friendly. It's quite buggy and sluggish. So which is worse? AT&T Customer Service or their iPhone app? Tough choice there. App Store Link
 
Cisco Global Internet Speet Test (Free) Cisco Systems was listed as #6 on the 100 Best Companies to Work for according to Fortune Magazine. However, they failed with writing a good app for the iPhone. Just because an app is free does not mean it's good. Some may experience difficulties with the download and install. If you're able to get the application running, you will find that it's slow and buggy. It's surprising Cisco put their name on this disappointing app. App Store Link
Quicken Online Mobile, by Intuit Corp. (Free) I would have expected much more of an app from Intuit Corp. Quicken Online Mobile does not put you in sync with Quicken on your PC. Data is old and worthless like this disappointing application. App Store Link 
Yelp (Free) People use Yelp to see where businesses are located, along with reading and writing reviews. When you're completely mobile and rely on an application to help you locate a great restaurant or pub at the last minute, you would hope to be given current and accurate data. Yelp has outdated and useless information for Points of Interest in many areas. Yelp cries for help as they publish a disappointing iPhone app. App Store Link
 
FedEx Mobile for iPhone (Free)
 FedEx has a few things to change with their next update. When tracking a package, it should not require a person to input their life history. When you track a package online, all you need is a tracking number. This app should do the same. If you have a FedEx account already set-up, the app will not synchronize with computers from your home or office. The icon is great and easy to identify. Their overall shipping service is amazing, but this app is disappointing.
App Store Link
 
Nationwide Mobile (Free) This app features some handy information one might use to be well-organized after being in an accident, but the app crashes and some might have issues with the download. The icon features their same boring logo which you will find on the website.
 
Yahoo Mobile (Free) Yahoo was doing great with their mobile iPhone app until the most recent update. Customers are steaming with Yahoo Mobile as it now redirects you to Safari to open your yahoo email. Granted there is more to an app than email, but when a company such as Yahoo offers email accounts to customers, they should have an application that provides easy access. This is a useless app and quite disappointing. App Store Link
 
Audi A4 Driving Challenge (Free) The developers for Audi A4 Driving Challenge fixed the reported bug in this latest version. The accelerometer controls work great now, but it's still difficult to control the car. Optional car colors are not available. The way it is now, the car blends in with the asphalt. The only perspective is a birds-eye view. Users were expecting more from a car company. App Store Link
Flex Photo Lab, Ford Motor Company (Free) When I think of Ford Motor Company, the first things that come to mind would be the Model A, Model T, a 1955 Thunderbird, or even a classic Mustang. But FlexPhotoLab for your iPhone? Yes, it's free, but so are many other applications. That does not make this product good. It's missing many basic features a photo editor should have, such as zoom in or even crop. Ford should stick with cars. That's what they've been doing for over a century now. App Store Link
 
Hotels.com (Free) Even if you wanted to fill up space with icons on your iPhone, there are plenty of well-designed ones available. Hotels.com provides you with a completely useless link to their website via Safari for a lame attempt to satisfy your travel needs. App Store Link
 
In conclusion, when large companies put out a product for the iPhone, the customers will have high expectations. High numbers of downloads would occur because of name recognition alone, but the high ratings will not be there unless they raise the bar. Free or not, a good quality app is what people want to fill the valuable space on their iPhone with. It's clear that companies should invest more time into building an outstanding app, rather than just having their presence in the iTunes Store. If you're looking for a good way to market, iPhone apps are an excellent idea only if you make a quality app. Some companies have realized that, but many still have not. 
app   store free iphone mobile
Tags: app   free store iphone mobile
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(via -
blog maverick )
I read it on 06/24/09 at 03:26 PM
Posted on 06/19/09 at 03:36 PM
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1. Has anyone noticed that its impossible to trust a single word uttered about coaching changes, the draft, trades and even celebration parties these days ?
Bloggers, sports websites and even the print media have gotten so desperate they seem to have come to the conclusion that fabricated stories, passed off as rumors, are a better way to drive traffic and create awareness of a website or blog than actual reporting.
Unfortunately, ESPN and local newspapers, radio and TV media have become the patsies of bloggers. If some random blogger reports that he has heard that a trade of Joe for John is being discussed, then the traditional media, as they have told me many times is requested by their editor to run it down and see if its real. Its almost like a sad joke. How do you make an ESPN reporter jump ? Make up something and put it on your blog. Somewhere a bunch of sports bloggers are playing a drinking game. Chug if the other guys made up trade rumor makes the ESPN crawl.
How to stop it ? ESPN.com puts up a page of blacklisted blogs and websites who's posts they wont comment on or report on in any way. It will create a short term surge of traffic for those sites, but then they will go away as the proprietors of the sites realize that being discredited is not a good thing.
2. I did a quick and dirty interview with The Motley Fool. They asked me about Buy and Hold for Stocks. My answer was simple.
Buy and hold is long dead. It has always been a sucker's bet. Proponents point to charts of index performance over the long term; unfortunately, things like house repairs, kids, and college tuition don't follow the same chart.
Buy and hold is a great marketing slogan for funds that want to take your money. Nothing more or less.
Then they had John Bogle ,founder of Vanguard and creator of the Vanguard 500 comment on what I had to say. I'm glad to say that Mr Bogle made my point. In what should have been a simple answer for him, was not. Plus he managed to take a few shots at me. Hey, if you can't counter a point, slam the messenger ! Here is what he had to say. Notice all the qualifiers.
Cuban embargo is what we need after those silly statements.
Of course buy and hold is a sucker's bet where individual stocks are concerned (just ask the guys that bought and held Mark's own company!)
And while buy and hold for all of American business (a stock index fund) may produce long years of plenty interrupted by years of famine, putting equity capital to work in that way will be great so long as America is great.
And as a group, all investors, by definition, are buy and hold investors! Not complicated! And mathematically, those who themselves are buy and holders (without costs) will not might outperform those who trade back and forth with one another, who capture the same market return but let all those croupier costs destroy their returns.
Finally, if buy and hold refers not to stocks or the stock portfolio but to one's aggregate investment portfolio, reducing the stock commitment as age takes its toll, it is the most certain way to wealth that exists in our uncertain world.
He's right about the marketing slogan except when it is applied to the strategy described in the immediately preceding paragraph.
I stand by what I had to say. Buyer beware.
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Tags: buy hold say espn long
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(via -
Signal vs. Noise )
I read it on 06/24/09 at 03:32 PM
Posted on 06/15/09 at 03:09 PM
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So the Lakers win another NBA championship. I haven't always been a fan, but I've got to admit it was really fun to watch Kobe Bryant this season. He seemed to have an almost maniacal determination to win another championship. People compare him to Michael Jordan and, while they're both incredibly talented, you get the feeling that what really separates them from the pack is how badly they want to win.
Along those lines, a great documentary to check out is Spike Lee's Kobe Doin' Work (Netflix). Bryant gave the filmmaker unprecedented access to his life for one game. He's mic'd up, 30 cameras follow him, and coach Phil Jackson lets the crew into the locker room before the game, at halftime, and after the game too. Here's a preview:
It's fascinating to watch even though the game was a blowout. Also, there's a great storytelling lesson here too: Tell a story about less. See, the impulse is to go for a grand tale. In this case, it'd be to prove how great Kobe is by profiling his entire career or trailing him for an entire season. Along the way, you'd interview teammates, experts, etc. And you'd come up with a pretty generic piece.
By focusing on just a single game, Lee put a magnifying glass on how Kobe plays. Cameras trail his every move so during every timeout and every play, you get to see and hear how Kobe guides his teammates. It completely changes the way you view both the player and the game. There's no filler or outside input. It's just a laser focus on this one subject during this one day.
Sometimes it's easier to get a big message across if you narrow your scope. It's what we tried to do with our Behind the scenes at 37signals series which presented a look at one week of 37signals' Campfire usage. Not as exciting, perhaps, but the idea was similar: To tell the big story of how integral Campfire is to us, it was best to focus on a short period of time. Sometimes the perfect way to explain a universal truth is through an individual example.
Also, if you watch the documentary, Lee is incredibly loose with how he asks his questions. It means that Kobe is really relaxed and open with his answers too. If you're ever doing interviews, it's something to note: Go in with stiff questions and you'll probably get stiff answers. Go in loose and you're more likely to get your subject to open up and admit things to you they probably wouldn't otherwise.
Tags: kobe game lee win watch
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(via -
Lifehacker )
I read it on 09/08/08 at 03:06 PM
Posted on 09/08/08 at 06:43 PM
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(via -
Blog Maverick )
I read it on 03/29/08 at 05:56 PM
Posted on 03/29/08 at 04:26 PM
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Now that my ban on bloggers in the locker room has been lifted by the NBA , the "Joes" of the blogger world will have the same access as the "Pros". Those that get paid. I can't wait to see the results.
The people who have complained and dismissed the blogger ban the loudest are those that have the most to lose. They are the ones getting paid. If the unwashed blogging masses have some masters among them, who knows what could happen to the balance of power in the sports media world.
Of course, my preference had been to avoid having to make any qualitative decisions about which bloggers should be in or out of the locker room. Since that is no longer possible, I'm happy to share my feelings about the state of the sports blogosphere.
What sports blogging has become, in most cases, is the internet equivalent of Talk Soup or VH1's "Best ..... " series. On Talk Soup a host throws out witty comments about some TV show. On VH1, a series of guests throw out their comments about some video relevant to the show's topic. If it is witty enough, the show draws an audience.
On the net, the most popular sports bloggers do the exact same thing. They troll the net looking for other people's work and then throw out some witty comments or a simple rant to complement a link to that work.. Or they sit in front of the TV and throw out posts/comments about the game.
I'm not saying that there isn't a market for this. There is. Just as there is a market for Talk Soup on E!, and all the Vh1 shows. It even takes talent to be able to be witty and hold an audience, whether its on TV or online. But, the talent and the success from that talent doesn't require access to the locker room.
The people that complained the loudest about the ban, really didn't have a good reason to be in the locker room. And from what I can tell, non of their readers complained that their blogs suffered in any way shape or form when they didnt have access to the locker room.
Rather, they did the smart thing and used the ban to promote themselves. Which is fine by me. I hope it drove them a ton of traffic.
So I invite any blogger to post samples of their work here as a comment. if its good, and I am the only judge, then you will get an email invite to get credentialed to cover a game in Dallas (its up to you to get there). I don't care if you work for a major company, or are in 8th grade. All will be given equal access.
Just as I did with Ben Collns. I think I gave him his first shot to write for the Mavs website when he was 13. If you can write, you deserve the same opportunities to communicate about the Mavs as someone who works for ESPN, a major newspaper or network. In the blogging business, the Joes can be better than the Pros.
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Tags: locker room comments access work
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(via -
louisgray.com )
I read it on 01/17/08 at 09:28 AM
Posted on 01/14/08 at 06:29 AM
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 With the NFL playoffs in full swing today, and both games partially overlapping with our church schedule, I asked our TiVo HD to step in for us and capture both the Chargers/Colts contest, and that of the Cowboys/Giants. I avoided the radio, didn't look at any sports scores on television, avoided ESPN.com, and didn't look at My Yahoo! or Ballhype, who would each have given away the results.
But I did make a mistake. I checked my Google Reader feeds, and while I knew better than to check the RSS feeds from ESPN.com, excited bloggers who usually cover technology or media exulted in delight when their favorite teams won today.
(Meandering Passage blew it for me in both contests, so don't click either link if you haven't already seen the results...)
In minutes, as I hit the 'J' key, going through each of my items, the surprises were gone.
Now, while I haven't committed the final scores to memory, I am going through the TiVo recordings, knowing the eventual outcomes, and not enjoying the elements of surprise. I don't know just how each team won, or who the stars and goats were. That's left to be seen. But this time, RSS gave it away.
Tags: rss results won haven feeds
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(via -
Signal vs. Noise )
I read it on 10/29/07 at 12:02 PM
Posted on 10/29/07 at 03:18 PM
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- Pat Riley on "the disease of more"
- In his book Showtime,' Pat Riley unveiled the disease of more' and argued that success is often the first step toward disaster.' According to Riley, after the 1980 Lakers won, everyone shifted into a more selfish mode. They had sublimated their respective games to win as a group; now they wanted to reap the rewards as individuals, even if those rewards meant having to spend way too much time at Jack Nicholson's house. Everyone wanted more money, playing time and recognition. Eventually they lost perspective and stopped doing the little things that make teams win and keep winning, eventually imploding in the first round of the postseason. So much for defending the title.
- 15 unfortunately placed ads
- Context changes everything. (Kinda NSFW?)
- Why the iPhone Will Beat the Blackberry (and why power users can mislead)
- Get over it: power users are a minority, and while they point the way to the future, they tend to be disappointed when the rest of the market catches up with an inferior product that has a lower barrier to new users.
- Military wants tech partners to get real
- Advice to civilian innovators seeking military sales: Do it quick, and make it cheap because conditions change. [tx EC]
- Can Adobe really shift to web apps?
- It is very plausible that Adobe can have (less powerful) online versions of its most popular software aimed at the consumer market within 10 years, but I think it will be a long time before professional users are comfortable using completely online applications for critical graphic, video, animation, and programming work. Matching the speed and complexity of Adobe's offline applications online is more than 10 years away, in my opinion.
- Alan Cooper on design engineering
- Software builders struggle to integrate design into their process for two basic causes: 1) programmers have never learned to follow a design, and 2) their day-to-day responsibilities forbid them from doing so. I also believe that these reasons can be understood and vanquished.
- UnitedVisualArtists does lights/visuals at Chemical Brothers show
- We augmented the Chemicals' touring set with a constellation of powerful lights around the square, and created a set of generative, realtime graphics for the show finale.
Tags: users adobe riley online design
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(via -
Techdirt )
I read it on 09/06/07 at 08:20 AM
Posted on 09/06/07 at 08:45 AM
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Back in July, we couldn't figure out how the NFL could get away with telling news organizations that they could only put 45 seconds of video online that had either game clips or videos of players. This made no sense. The NFL does not have any right to determine how reporters report the news. If they conduct their own interviews with players or film their own footage, they should be able to broadcast as much of it as they feel appropriate. They also shouldn't (as demanded by the NFL) have to link back to the NFL's official website. While these may be what the NFL wants, it has no way of actually enforcing this -- as news reporters don't need the NFL's permission to broadcast an interview they filmed with a player. However, it still seems like broadcasters aren't up to challenging the NFL on this bogus rule. Reader Jon writes in to let us know that the NFL (how kind of it) has exempted NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN from these rules. However, the reasoning isn't that the NFL never had the right to demand such things of news organizations in the first place -- but that these TV networks have already paid fees to the NFL averaging more than $3 billion a year. Therefore, the NFL figures, they might as well post slightly more video online. Of course, this is still ridiculous. If any news organization wants to film their own interviews with players and broadcast them online, that's between the player being interviewed and the news organization. The NFL should have no say at all over what a news organization can or cannot post on their website. Any news organization going along with these restrictions should have its journalistic integrity questioned, since they're allowing the subjects of a story to dictate how they present the news.
Tags: nfl news organization players own
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(via -
Read/WriteWeb )
I read it on 08/27/07 at 02:58 PM
Posted on 08/27/07 at 06:55 PM
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 Ars Technica is reporting that the National Football League in the US (i.e., football with your hands, not your feet), will begin streaming its games online this year. Subscribers of the league's $269 DirecTV satellite package will be able to pay an additional $99 to get games streamed to their PC. Running Windows. And Internet Explorer.
If that sounds like a bum deal to you, that's because it really is. Compared to Major League Baseball, a pioneer in online sports streaming, the NFL package sounds just awful. As a New York Yankees fan living outside of their local market, I rely on baseball's MLB.TV service to keep tabs on my favorite team. With MLB.TV for under $100 per season I can watch any out of market game streamed live, or watch full archives of completed games for the entire season, including edited/condensed games which show only the outcome of every at bat.
On the otherhand, because of the NFL's exclusive $700+ million per year deal with DirecTV (which runs through 2010) I have to be a subscriber to the satellite service to get access to out of market games. The cost is more than 3 times that of MLB.TV, and the service requires that I have a Windows machine and run IE. Yuck.
Even without the price and compatibility issues, I'm not sure it is worth it for football. Unlike baseball, where there can be around 100 games in a week, there are only 15-16 any given week in the NFL, at least 5 of which will be shown on cable (usually 1 on CBS and 2 on FOX on Sunday, 1 on NBC on Sunday night, and 1 on ESPN on Monday) -- sometimes more are shown (i.e., there are two Monday night games scheduled week one). So would $368 be worth it for 9 or 10 games per week? That seems ridiculously over priced. Even fans outside of North America would be hard pressed to be able to justify that cost.
Compared to other major North American sports leagues the NFL has been the most protective of its online video (the NBA even has a YouTube channel, for example, while the NFL doesn't allow any outside site to show game clips of more than 45 seconds and requires that they are removed within 24 hours), and their exclusive deal with DirecTV has more or less crippled their ability to offer a compelling online video package.
Update: I just thought of another reason this service seems like a bad idea: if you're already paying for the TV package, why do you even need the online service? I guess, maybe, to watch it at work... but who really works on Sundays (when all out of market games would be played -- Monday and late-season Saturday or holiday games are nationally televised)? It just doesn't make sense. If anyone is considering paying for this service, please let us know in the comments why it appeals to you.
Tags: games service nfl online market
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New beta online video recommendation engine 
