Oink is a mobile app that will allow someone to rate things, but:
Whereas sites like Yelp let people rate entire establishments, Oink lets you rate things within an establishment–like a particular dish or feature (balcony seating). The information can then be used by other people when they’re trying to decide where to go: Want to go to the place near you with the best chocolate chip cookies, for example? Search Oink for rankings for chocolate chip cookies.
It looks like there is a trojan that can now disable the automatic updating process for Apple’s anti-malware application. Hopefully a security update will available soon to fix the issue.
Some comments:
Overall, the new OS has a powerful feature set that will appeal to less than 10% of individuals wanting to purchase their first smart phone.
From Microsoft, a new technology that allows people to use any surface (including one’s hands) for touch input.
I really like the design of this phone. It looks polished and really puts focus on the interface, rather than the phone design itself. Note how the buttons don’t seem intrusive; the speaker/mic bar is large to give a focus on media consumption.
Tarun and Chris discuss the “incredible” iPhone 4S sales; the App Store market; Google’s recent integration of real-time search into Plus; a new social network Chime.in; Dropbox as a feature; iPhone 5 rumors; RIM’s apology; Hulu’s stand against the Man. Thanks to all our listeners. You could help us keep the show running by sponsoring! Visit our website for more information.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:10 — 62.3MB)
Apple’s Q4 earning fell short of expectations for the first time in a while. Net profits are still up $2.32 Billion from this time last year. Another interesting note is that the iPod is down 27 percent from last year.
This seems like a bit of a stretch, but many of the major tech news outlets have reported the iPhone 5 is on schedule for a summer launch. It is wise to this rumor with a grain of salt. It seems a little un-Apple like release two phones that close together.
In this story from Forbes, there are some stunning figures on how much revenue the business makes, as well as the interaction between Steve and Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox:
Jobs smiled warmly as he told them he was going after their market. “He said we were a feature, not a product,” says Houston.
A few months after that meeting, Apple unveiled iCloud, but history has yet to be written.
(via MacRumors)
Yet another social media tool called “chime.in” was announced, which takes the major social media networks and sorts the information in content streams.
[Bill] Gross said that the service… is meant to help users focus on following topics rather than people, as a way of filtering through the noise coming from social networks.
Dan Frommer provides a graph that illustrates how absolutely insane 4 million iPhone sales in one weekend is. The key reason for the spike, according to Frommer:
I assume that the iPhone 4S design is helping here. My guess is that Apple could more easily ramp up iPhone 4S production, now that it has already perfected the case manufacturing. This might not have even been possible with an all-new iPhone 5.
Many Blackberry users are still fuming over the outages they saw last week and they seem to see on an almost annual basis now. RIM is trying to buy its customers love back by offering free premium app. They are also offering tech support for the customers. We’ll see how this goes, but I have a feeling for many this may be too little, too late.
Dan Frommer does a quick survey of the top grossing apps. 14/25 of these apps are free. What’s more intriguing is that all 14 are games. Would in-app purchasing be as effective in apps that are not games?
Peter Kafka with the details. From the press release:
Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.
Although Kafka says that the parent companies did not have interest in selling, this quote suggests there were talks that grew to a serious level.
The hashtag omission from the early stages of Google+ was curious, but here is the reason — real time search is now ready for hashtag support. It took some time, but this is the first step to bringing people closer to a more personal experience of G+, let alone the web.
Dean Takahashi reports on Zynga’s latest announcements. Zynga is going to attempt to support both Flash and HTML5 in tandem, but recognizes the large opportunity space inherent in having Facebook on the iPad officially. It will be interesting to see how fast HTML5 actually “improves” to match the company’s expectations — enough to completely jump ship on Flash altogether.
We begin with a celebration of Steve Jobs and try to remind ourselves and listeners of what “he may have wanted.” Then, we discuss various topics including: Google+’s managements curious absence from their own social network; Netflix reneging on Qwikster; iPhone 4S pre-order insanity; iPads and tablets dominating digital traffic; Facebook upping media integration; And releasing their iPad application; Nuance acquiring Swype; the usage of 3D to augment a gaming experience. This podcast could be sponsored by you! Head over to our website for more information. Thanks!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:21 — 76.4MB)
Chris Kohler from Wired previews Super Mario 3D Land. Nintendo has a great idea to make the 3D functionality a game-changer. What better than to implement it in their flagship game?:
For example: everybody loves 1up mushrooms, those green fungal givers of extra life. When you see one sitting tantalizingly across the room, you make a beeline for it. But when I took 3D Land (to be released November 13) for a test drive, I encountered lots of fake 1ups painted on wooden boards, like theatrical backdrops. If the system was set to 2D display, you couldn’t tell. In 3D, you can better see the depth, or lack thereof, of the ersatz toadstools.
So, the 3D slider isn’t just for looks — it is actually an integral part to experiencing the game.
It took a while, but Facebook has just announced the iPad app should be going live today. The app was expected to be released at last Tuesday’s Apple event, but that did not happen.
The service isn’t sticky.
comScore, who reports numerous statistics on digital media and consumption metrics, has released the latest on smartphones and tablets. iPads top the charts, especially in overall tablet traffic:
In August 2011, iPads delivered 97.2 percent of all tablet traffic in the U.S. iPads have also begun to account for a higher share of Internet traffic than iPhones (46.8 percent vs. 42.6 percent of all iOS device traffic).
Tablets, in general, are also driving several other internet technologies, including e-commerce, social networking, and news consumption.
Mark Smith, via USA TODAY, notes the recent shift in your news feed is a result of the clustering of alike sharing content based on what your friends are consuming. If two friends listen to a song on Spotify that you also listened to, a larger news feed item appears.
Facebook is hoping this sort of information furthers its role as a recommendation engine. By grouping all this data together, Facebook users can get a sorted look at the media consumption habits of their closest friends.
So, if you don’t listen to a song but three others do, Facebook effectively recommends a song because it takes the sharing data and clumps it together. The result:
That could be a powerful proposition for both users and Facebook, which would hope to deliver relevant advertising alongside that information.
Facebook also has privacy controls for these services, but you can pretty much guarantee that they will be set to “lenient” when this becomes a bigger part of the social network:
For each of the Web services that integrate with the Facebook Ticker, the user must explicitly approve that their viewing or listening habits be broadcast. Users can also limit that information to certain groups of friends.
Apple PR:
Apple today announced pre-orders of its iPhone 4S have topped one million in a single day, surpassing the previous single day pre-order record of 600,000 held by iPhone 4.
Not only does PC performance double every 18 months, but the electrical efficiency of computers has also doubled in the same amount of time. From Dr. Jonathan Koomey, Stanford:
That means that for a fixed amount of computational power, the need for battery capacity will fall by half every 1.6 years. [This trend] bodes well for the continued explosive growth in mobile computing, sensors and controls.
(Thanks, Matt)
This type of flip flopping is never a good sign. If Netflix doesn’t get its act together, things are likely to start getting even uglier for the company.