The Crowdfunded iPhone Accessory :Blogger’s Dreams

Meet The Satarii Star

I’m really starting to love this whole crowdfunding thing. Even if you look beyond gargantuan success stories like the TikTok Nano watch, you’ve still got all sorts of all sorts of wonderful concepts like the PadPivot, the mBrace, and the C-Loopall taking huge steps toward production thanks to ultra-early-adopters who were willing to pledge their cash up front.

Last week, I had the chance to sit down and chat with a new company called Satarii, which is a pretty small operation (just a couple of engineers in a garage) banking on crowdfunding to help push their product — the Satarii Star, an iPhone/Camera base that rotates to follow you around the room and keep you always in frame — over the last few hurdles in the journey to production. Really, though — check this thing out.

The idea is simple enough: plop your iPhone (or any phone/camera that will fit, or that Satarii will make an adapter for) into the Star base, stick a little 1″x2″ marker somewhere on your person, and flip the switch to turn the system on — bam! You’re no longer stuck behind your camera, or stuck with the duty of finding someone to shoot the video for you. Using a combination of optical tracking and undisclosed technology (or, as Satarii puts it, the “secret sauce”), the Star base rotates up to 180° horizontally based on the position of the marker. Imagine FaceTime chats that follow you as you walk around the room, or being able to snag a clip of that new skateboard trick without having to subject a buddy to watching you fall a few dozen times.

Seems like an obvious concept, right? And yet, it doesn’t appear that anyone else is doing this — at least, not for smaller devices, not within the past decade or so, and not anywhere near the $200 price point that Satarii is aiming for.

Satarii says that their goal is to have the first batch of these things going out within about 6 months, with their first real retail endeavors beginning in about a year. Right now, the Star exists in two forms: a non-functional “Looks Like” prototype that represents how things will (hopefully) look in the end, and a totally-functional “Works Like” prototype which proves the concept with a slightly bulkier, slightly-less-sightly package built from off-the-shelf components. The Works Like prototype does indeed work as promised — in fact, I put it to use a few times in the video up above.As someone who has to frame and shoot their own videos just about every week, I’m definitely rooting for these guys. Pop on over to their page on IndieGoGo to find out more, or, if you feel so inclined, drop a few bucks into the project.

The White iPhone 4 Still A No-Show

With The White iPhone 4 Still A No-Show

A White Nexus S Appears

If you’re still waiting for the thus-far-mythical white iPhone 4 to actually ship, you’re probably feelin’ pretty burned by now. Perhaps you’re even feelin’ burned enough to jump ship over to Android? Perhaps you’ll fill that gap in your heart and that space in your pocket with a Nexus S, instead? If this latest leak is any indication, you won’t even have to forego your love for white phones; the Nexus S, it seems, might just be gettin’ a white variant of its own.
The shot above comes from German tech blog BestBoyz.de

. According to their tipster, this thing is a sure thing to ship in Germany — as for the rest of the world, we’ll have to cross our fingers and wish real hard. Alas, it looks like only the back of the phone rock’s the white hue; the front and bezel are the same black as the standard model.

Unlimited Data Plan For iPhone

Verizon Confirms They’ll Offer $30 Unlimited Data Plan For iPhone

Users [Update: But Not For Long!]

Back in June of 2010 (right before the launch of the iPhone 4, no less) AT&T dropped their $30 Unlimited Data plan. Current and would-be iPhone owners were rightly bummed — but given the whole one-carrier situation the iPhone was in back then, there wasn’t much anyone could do. Besides complain, of course. Which we did, of course.

Proving that a little competition is always a good thing, here’s what Verizon COO Lowell McAdams said to the Wall Street Journal

today:

“I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot,” he said. Not offering an unlimited plan would put up a barrier for customers who might otherwise switch from AT&T, he said

These customers McAdams is referring to, of course, are the presumably massive group who’ve managed to keep AT&T’s now extinct $30 data plan by simply not changing a thing. Folks who had the $30 plan before could keep it as long as they didn’t opt-in to their new (terrible ripoff) 200 MB/$15 plan, or try to tack on the tethering option.

The plan, according to details McAdams shared with the WSJ, will cost the same $30 AT&T’s did before they changed things up.

Update: Sad trombone

. That $30 Unlimited Plan? It won’t last for long. Shortly after he made this statement, Lowell McAdams went on to clarify that the unlimited plan will be a limited-time deal and that Verizon plans to make the jump to tiered data plans sometime after the iPhone launch.

Need To Dial 911

On Your Verizon Fascinate?

You’ll Have To Unlock It First

Just a quick PSA for all our readers rockin’ the Verizon Fascinate: the recent over-the-air update (DL09) introduced a bit of a nasty bug. You know that little “Emergency Call” button that shows up at the bottom of the screen on the pattern unlock screen, so you can dial 911 without unlocking the handset? Yeah, that button doesn’t work.

Samsung’s comment on the matter:

It has come to the attention of Samsung Mobile during the recent DL09 OTA (Over-the-Air) update for the Samsung Fascinate that some users utilizing the Pattern Lock are finding that the Emergency Call shortcut is not automatically launching the dialer. However, unlocking the device will allow the user to make calls as they normally would, including emergency calls. We apologize for the inconvenience and are continuing to evaluate the issue, including if the issue is linked to the update

Apple Releases iOS 4.3 Beta 2 To Developers

Just 7 days after the first Beta of iOS 4.3 hit the Developer Center, Apple’s ready with take 2. In other words: iOS 4.3 Beta 2 is now available to developers.

What hidden treasures lay within? If there’s anything noteworthy in there to find, it’ll probably take a while for folks to scrounge up — in the mean time, feel free to catch up on all the new goodies found in Beta 1

New In iOS 4.3:iPod

What’s New In iOS 4.3?

It’s that time again, folks: Apple has just dropped a new build of iOS into the Developer Center, and people are already hard at work tearing it apart in search for all the little hidden gems within. You know what makes hard work easier? Team work!

We’ll keep a running list of everything we’ve spotted that has made its way into iOS 4.3 — drop a comment and let us know if we’re missing something, won’t you?

The List So Far:

• Personal Hotspot (turns your iPhone into a WiFi router for up to 5 devices) functionality is baked right in, and seemingly not just for Verizon. This will most likely be a feature that carriers can decide whether or not to enable.
• AirPlay Video Support has been opened up third party applications.

• A new (and, uh, sorta not-pretty) Facetime icon for iPod Touches [Via 9to5Mac]
• Fullscreen iAds
• iOS 4.3 doesn’t currently appear to support the iPhone 3G or iPod Touch 2G (or earlier models), as no builds for those devices are being made available to developers. This may change by the time iOS 4.3 officially ships.

iPad Only:

• At launch, the sliding switch on the side of the iPad acted as an orientation lock. In 4.2, this was changed into a mute switch, with the orientation lock being pushed into the slide-out App Switching drawer. You can now choose to assign the sliding switch to either mute or orientation lock. [Via Giz]
• New Gestures! The iPad now supports 4 and 5 finger gestures. Swiping up will show the App Switching tray, swiping left/right will switch apps (Like cmd-tab! Whoo!) These gestures don’t seem to actually be working yet, unfortunately.

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iPhone User? 90% Chance You’re On The Latest OS

As a member of the media, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Nexus S running Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” a few weeks ago. It’s great, easily the best version of Android yet. I hope one day soon you all get to try it out. But the likelihood of that is pathetically small. In fact, don’t be surprised if Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” is out before most of you even get a chance to use Gingerbread — maybe even for phones as well as tablets.

With the iPhone, it’s a much different story. The likelihood that you are already running the latest version of the iOS software is much, much higher. In fact, it’s something around 90 percent, if some numbers shared by the CEO of Bump are to be believed.

David Lieb shared his numbers last week on a Quora thread entitled: What proportion of all iPhone owners use iOS4.* today?

“With Bump, our download and usage base is so large that it should be a good statistical sample. Here’s our data from all Bump users between January 7 and January 10, 2011. *Note that this includes all iOS devices, not just iPhone as the question asks,” Lieb writes.

He then gives the following stats:

Binned by major rev:
4.X: 89.73 %
3.X: 10.25 %
2.X: 0.02 %

In other words, just about 90 percent of Bump users are using the latest major update to iOS. He gives some more detailed numbers, indicating individual revision breakdowns, but the above ones are probably best to compare with Android revisions because .X updates in iOS tend to be pretty minor (bug fixes), while .X in Android are usually pretty major (new features).

Further, Ian Peters-Campbell, an engineer at Loopt, confirmed that they’re seeing the same basic breakdown, with perhaps even more iOS 4.X users.

(Oh, and those other 10 percent of iPhone users not on iOS 4? They could certainly upgrade if they wanted to — they’ve probably just cracked and/or jailbroken their phones.)

So, iOS 4 has 90 percent share amongst iOS device owners. What about Android 2.3? 0.4 percent, as of a couple weeks ago. Yes, that’s zero point four percent.

Okay, I realize it’s a little unfair to compare iOS 4 to Android 2.3 since the latter was just released and is only available on one phone (again, the Nexus S). Still, the fact that it’s still only available on one phone weeks after being made public says a lot.

But for the sake of this being slightly more fair, let’s compare iOS 4 to Android 2.2 — an OS which came out well before iOS 4. The adoption rate there? 51.8 percent. That’s still pretty pathetic.

Obviously, this isn’t the Android users’ faults. The problem is that the OEMs and carriers are holding these updates up for a wide variety of reasons, 99 percent of which are undoubtedly bullshit. Here’s a perfect example. Supposedly, the Android 2.2 update is all ready to go for Samsung Android phones on T-Mobile, but Samsung doesn’t want to push it out so that they can entice people to buy the newly announced Vibrant 4G+ instead.

Lovely.

Instead, many Samsung T-mobile Android users are struck with Android 2.1. An OS that while perhaps only a year old, is now two full revisions old in Android land. A dinosaur, in other words. And they’re hardly alone. Some 35.2 percent of all Android users are stuck on this same version of the OS.

Imagine if 35 percent of all iOS users were stuck on iOS 2 (which is so old that it wasn’t even called ‘iOS” at the time), while a few of us had iOS 4 and the majority of us had iOS 3? Yeah…

Even more humorous is the fact that over 12 percent of Android users are still stuck on Android 1.5 and 1.6. I mean, Android 1.5 is nearly two years old now. And again, more importantly, it’s four major revisions ago. iOS hasn’t even gone through four major revisions yet.

So it’s sort of like if a few iPhone users had iOS 4, the majority had iOS 3, a good number had iOS 2, some had iOS 1, and then nearly 5 percent were stuck using MotoROKRs.

Google, meanwhile, keeps promising that this sad trend is going to improve. They’re sure that the carriers are eventually going to see the light and get in line any day now. Those 99.6 percent of Android users who’ve seen Android 2.3 — but can’t use it — are waiting awfully patiently.

Meanwhile, the iPhone will launch on its second U.S. carrier in less than a month. And it will launch with either iOS 4.2.5 or iOS 4.3. The same OS that every single other iOS user will have access to.

HP More Reliable Than Apple --Rescuecom

Flickr’d Rescuecom, the computer repair service, says that, based on the number of “rescue” calls it has received, HP is the most reliable computer maker out there. HP scored better than traditionally reliable companies like Apple and Asus. Is the end of the road for mighty Apple?

Of course not, no. That would be silly.

In fact, this particular survey is a bit of an anomaly, as other Rescuecom data usually doesn’t have HP anywhere near the top of the reliability charts.

Asus, too, usually scored much higher than it did this time around, and that could possibly be attributed to Asus’ rise from obscure-but-reliable accessory maker to well-known-but-perhaps-not-as-good-as-they-used-to-be accessory maker.

You could also point to the fact that maybe Apple’s customers are a little more computer savvy, and then don’t have to call services like Rescuecom. Then again, Rescuecom’s methods do try to take into account market-share; it’s not as if the company is saying, “We received 10 calls for Apple computers, but only four for HP. Therefore HP is superior.”

Tags: apple, iPad

After less than a year on the market, the iPad has already been made obsolete by its own creator with today’s introduction of the iPad 2 — or has it? Just how big of a jump is it from the first round to the second? How does the new iPad feel in the hand? Is Photobooth going to be as much fun for stoned college kids on the iPad as it is on OS X?

We spent a bit of time with the iPad 2 today following Apple’s announcement — join as after the jump as we attempt to answer all these questions and more!

My Take:

• There’s something about holding a new Apple device that feels unreal — and that’s not whatever Fanboy-side I have rearing its head. Apple devices are ubiquitous; their silhouette and feel and weight tends to become engrained in the brain. When Apple goes and shaves a few millimeters off, holding the new device is just a bit of a system shock. That’s certainly the case here. Apple shaved 33% off of the thickness, and it really, really shows.
• The bezel around the screen has changed; the edges taper off into flushness, giving it a smooth lip that feels great to hold. This adds to the slim feel considerably. It really, really feels like a big iPod Touch now.
• While we were on a local network with a dozen people all using Facetime at once (and that’s probably not the best test environment), Facetime seemed to work quite well. We had a quick chat with some folks across the room, and it went off without a hitch. The Facetime UI is nearly identical to that of the iPhone
• Yes, Photobooth is just as much of a blast on the iPad as it is on OS X. It’s by no means the most essential app — but seeing it churn out 9 simultaneous live video feeds complete with some rather complex filters was pretty impressive. Most of the filters could be manipulated in one way or another via touch; the Swirl filter’s swirl could be moved, the Tunnel filter’s touch could be pinch-zoomed.
• It’s hard to gauge the speed improvements of the new A5 processor over the old A4 right now, mostly because the original iPad was pretty good about not lagging. The dual-core difference will undoubtedly be played upon heavily in apps released in the future, but there’s not going to be any blatantly apparent difference in the UI or most of the stock applications. With that said, it definitely feels faster.
• The new magnetic Smart Cover is perhaps the coolest part, if only because it’s so unique (not to mention, totally unexpected.) Thanks to the crazy quick-snap system (it feels like plugging in a MagSafe adapter), it seems just about impossible to pop on incorrectly. All-in-all, putting it on and taking it off takes milliseconds.

Do you need an iPad 2? You probably know the answer to this. If you have an iPad 1, I’d recommend in most cases to stick with it until iPad 3 rolls around. The cameras are great and all, but it’s not nearly as convenient to shoot a quick picture or video with a big ol’ honkin’ tablet as it is with a pocketable device. Thus, the main use is video chat — and outside of regular travels with family at home and others who’ve already jumped into the future by making video chat a part of their lives, it tends to become a cute novelty after a use or two. If you don’t have an iPad 2 (and can’t wait a few months to see if the super-quick-iPad-3-followup rumors pan out), or if the apps that come along and take advantage of the new A5 processor really get your gears churnin’, go ahead and dive in.

Apple COO Tim Cook Dismisses Android Tablets As “Bizarre”

Apple’s iPad is a hit. The company sold 7.3 million iPads in the December quarter of 2010, a 75 percent increase from the previous quarter. But judging from all the Android tablets announced at CES, it is about to face an onslaught of competition. So far, though, Apple COO Tim Cook has “no concerns” with the tablets that are out there today, and goes so far to call current Android tablets “bizarre.” On today’s Apple earnings call, Cook characterized the competition as falling into two buckets: Windows-based tablets, which are “big, heavy and expensive” and suffer from “weak battery life,” and current Android tablets, which are “scaled-up” smart phones.

Here is his response to the question, based on MG’s notes:

Q: What about iPad competitors?

TC: There’s not much out there as you know. There are two kinds of groups today (in the market) — the ones using a Windows-based operating system. They’re big, heavy and expensive. Weak battery life. Need keyboard or stylus. From our point of view, customers aren’t interested in that.

Then you have the Android tablets. The variety shipping today, the OS wasn’t designed for a tablet — but Google said this. So you wind up having the size of a tablet that’s less than reasonable. Or one that’s not even a real tablet experience. It’s a “scaled-up smartphone” – that’s a bizarre product in our view. Those are what is shipping today. If you do a side-by-side with an iPad, some enormous percentage are going to pick the iPad. We have no concern there.

In terms of next generation. There’s nothing shipping yet. So I don’t know. “Today they’re vapor.” However, we’re not sitting still. We have a huge first-mover advantage. And a huge user advantage from iTunes to the App Store. Huge number of apps and an ecosystem. We’re very confident entering into a fight with anyone.

He thinks Apple is just scratching the surface in terms of fulfilling demand for tablet computing. He notes that there is interest across the gamut from consumers to enterprises.

Apple’s Cook On iPad / Mac Relationship

During the earnings call following Apple’s blockbuster Q1 2011 results, a questions was asked about Apple’s Mac business as it relates to the iPad business. The iPad business, after all, is growing much faster (and just overtook the Apple portable computer business in terms of revenue). So is it affecting the Mac business by eating into it?

“Was there any cannibalization? Honestly, I don’t know for sure. But yes, I think there is some cannibalization,” Apple COO Tim Cook (who is the acting head of Apple while Steve Jobs is on medical leave) said in response. This echoes the thoughts Jobs had last quarter when asked the same basic question. “The iPad is clearly going to affect notebook computers,” Jobs said at the time.

But Cook also said that he thought there was a “halo effect” as well. That is, just as is thought to have happened with the iPod and the iPhone, certain Apple products are helping the company sell other products. So Cook believes that while the iPad may be eating into some of the would-be Mac sales, it’s also fueling other new Mac sales.

He also noted that it’s likely that the iPad is not only cannibalizing Mac sales, but also sales for the larger PC industry. Cook pointed out that Apple still has a relatively small share of the overall market. “So the other guys lose a lot more,” he noted.

He said that internally, Apple doesn’t worry about cannibalization or even think about it. “The iPad team works on making their product the best. Same with the Mac team. Both teams think they can continue to grow,” he said.

“If this is cannibalization, it feels pretty good,” he quipped.

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Personal Hot Spot : iPhones In iOS 4.3

Confirmed: Personal Hotspot Is Baked Into The Just Released Dev Build Of iOS 4.3

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 01:48 PM PST

Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few hours after the rumor broke that the “Personal Hotspot” feature Verizon was throwing around at their iPhone announcement yesterday was in fact a standard feature of iOS 4.3, Apple has just pushed an early copy of iOS 4.3 out to developers — and sure enough, it looks like Personal Hotspot is baked right in.

The first spotting came from Twitter user TheJamesFoley

, who managed to get iOS 4.3 installed on his device in damn-near no time. His device isn’t jailbroken, and is on a GSM carrier (Three UK).. and yet there it is, clear as day: the Personal Hotspot option, chillin’ out in the settings panel like it ain’t no thing.

We’ll still have to see which carriers choose to support the feature, though it’s unclear whether the carriers can choose to support tethering/personal hotspot independently or if the two features are attached at the hip.

Are you bummed that the Verizon iPhone 4

will rock that super cool, MiFi

-esque “Personal Hot Spot

” feature, while your still-rather-shiny AT&T iPhone won’t? Don’t be too sad; it looks like that may be a temporary advantage.

According to the Boy Genius Report‘s sources, this feature is going to become standard with the release of iOS 4.3. Before you get too excited: it sounds like it’ll be enabled on a carrier-by-carrier basis based on whether the carrier wants it, much like the standard tethering feature currently is.

While AT&T undoubtedly wants this feature, they’ll probably have to wait and see how their network is doing after the Verizon-bound departures eleviate some of their network strain. Remember how long it took for AT&T to get tethering?

This rumor makes all kinds of sense. Verizon never claimed exclusivity — just that they had it while AT&T.. doesn’t yet. Remember: the iPhone wasn’t an AT&T-only thing before Verizon jumped on board; there are dozens of other carriers outside of the US who offer it as well. They’re undoubtedly going to want this feature too — and at that point, you might as well make it an option for everyone.

If the current whispers pan out, look for iOS 4.3 to hit sometime in the next month or two.

iPhone 3GS To Be $50 From AT&T Starting

06 Jan 2011

*BAM* Just like that, AT&T destroyed the $50 smartphone market by dropping the iPhone 3GS down to the same level as Nokia communicators, teeny-bop Blackberrys and the bargain-bin Android devices. That whole market now has to compete with the big dog, the iPhone 3GS.

Well, they do starting tomorrow when the wireless carrier’s new pricing starts. Notice this pricing is just for AT&T as the carrier is dropping the price independently from Apple themselves. So yeah, shoppers looking for the $50 3GS need to head down to their local AT&T dealer rather than the Apple Stores. Of course these same buyers might want to hold off a bit to see what happens in the upcoming months with Verizon and the iPhone. There might be some more surprises planned. Apple likes surprises.

AT&T Announces iPhone 3GS for $49.00

DALLAS, Jan. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — AT&T* today announced a new price for the popular iPhone 3GS — $49.00 — available beginning tomorrow, Friday, January 7, for both new and upgrade-eligible existing AT&T customers. The offer will be available online at www.att.com/iphone

, across more than 2,200 AT&T retail locations nationwide and through AT&T business channels, as well as Apple channels.**

Available only on the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, iPhone 3GS delivers the following advantages unique to AT&T and its customers:

* Allows for true smartphone multi-tasking, such as talking and using applications at the same time, on AT&T’s mobile broadband network
* Provides access to our entire national Wi-Fi network with nearly 23,000 hotspots
* Provides the best global coverage with wireless voice and data access in more than 200 countries

“We want to deliver the best, most complete package for our customers — from price, to speed, to worldwide access and more,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Combined with our new, lower monthly data plans beginning at just $15 a month, this new price brings even more value to one of the most popular devices in our leading lineup of smartphones. We’re very excited for more people to experience iPhone on the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network.”

iPhone 3GS gives users access to the latest iPhone iOS 4 software plus the revolutionary App Store. Additional information is available at www.apple.com

.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

**Price for 3GS sold in Apple channels is determined by Apple.

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Hulu Plus Apparatus on Android 2.2+ Soon

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar made an appearance at the Samsung press event at CES today, where he announced that a Hulu Plus app will be coming to Android 2.2+ in the coming mo

He demoed the app on a Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.2.

Twitter: discover what's new in your world

Android 3.0 Preview

Android 3.0 Sneak Peak, Touts “Holographic” UI

Google Officially Posts Android 3.0 Sneak Peak, Touts “Holographic” UI

If you were on the Internet today, you undoubtedly saw that Google accidentally posted an overview video of Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” on YouTube earlier — then quickly pulled it. Before they did, we were able to record it and grab all the key screenshot of the Tron-like overview. Now Google has officially reposted the video, as well as a brief overview of Android 3.0 on their mobile blog.

Google was clearly waiting for the OS to be previewed at CES in Las Vegas. Now that it has, here’s what they have to say:

Honeycomb is the next version of the Android platform, designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. We’ve spent a lot of time refining the user experience in Honeycomb, and we’ve developed a brand new, truly virtual and holographic user interface. Many of Android’s existing features will really shine on Honeycomb: refined multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new 3D experience and redesigned widgets that are richer and more interactive. We’ve also made some powerful upgrades to the web browser, including tabbed browsing, form auto-fill, syncing with your Google Chrome bookmarks, and incognito mode for private browsing.

We first reported on Google working on this completely revamped UI for Android back in June. At the time, they were aiming for the 2.3 “Gingerbread” release, but that was pushed — to what you see here in 3.0.

At first glance, this UI looks impressive, and an improvement over what Android has looked like until now. And that is particularly important if Google is going compete with the iPad and attempt to own the tablet space in the same way that they have the smartphone space this year.

Personally, I think I’m most excited for the true Chrome-like tabbed browsing. Obviously, Google says to stay tuned for more, as Honeycomb isn’t expect to hit until later this year.

Way of life in a Moment

1. To be conscious of your breath (or not).

2. To eat according to your body's needs, rather than your mind's.

3. To listen to the sounds of nature surrounding you (or not).

4. To feel the energy body within your physical body (or not).

5. To be appreciative of your home, your health, the beauty surrounding you.

6. To feel God or not to feel God.

7. To choose your thoughts as you become aware of how they make you feel.

8. To tune in to your physical body and stretch or move to unblock energy (or not).

9. To close your eyes for a few seconds to breathe, feel, & listen. (except while driving!)

10. To open your heart to yourself right now (or not).

All this in a moment. And so much more. You see, your choices in this moment create your next moment, and the next.

Mobile Wallets : Already Coming True

Okay, that was fast. This weekend I put up my annual prediction post, Seven Technologies That Will Rock 2011. Already, one of them is already looking pretty solid: Prediction No. 4 on the rise of mobile wallets. Let’s revisit that prediction:

4. Mobile Wallets: If you could use your cell phone as a credit card, would you? Everyone from Apple and Google to Nokia want to make that a reality and tap into the mobile payments market. Both Apple and Google are exploring this opportunity. Google bought mobile payments startup Zetawire to gain experience and the latest Android phone, the Nexus S, comes with an NFC chip—the same kind that is embedded into credit cards and lets you pay by waving it over a wireless reader. The iPhone 5 also may come equipped with an NFC chip, and Apple was sniffing around mobile payments startup BOKU last year for a possible acquisition. It is going to take more than just NFC chips in every phone to make mobile payments a reality, but efforts by the major players this year should begin to move the needle.

Well, it looks like Google (and PayPal) are getting serious about NFC technologies. Today, Businessweek reports:

Google (GOOG) is considering building a payment and advertising service that would let users buy milk and bread by tapping or waving their mobile phones against a register at checkout, two people familiar with the plans say. The service may make its debut this year, say the two, who requested anonymity because the plans haven’t been announced. It is based on near-field communication technology, which can beam and receive information wirelessly from 4 inches away.

. . . A single NFC chip on a mobile phone would hold a consumer’s financial account information, gift cards, store loyalty cards, and coupon subscriptions, say the people familiar with Google’s plans. Users may also be able to make online purchases from their phones. By scanning a movie poster, for instance, a consumer might read reviews and use the Google service to purchase tickets.

The article also mentions PayPal’s interest in tapping into NFC-enabled payments on mobile phones. PayPal “may start a commercial NFC service in the second half of 2011.”

Google, PayPal, Apple and all the big technology companies want mobile wallets to become a reality. But a lot of things need to happen before it catches on. The chips first need to be embedded in lots of mobile phones (Google, Apple, and Nokia are working on that). But then on the flip side, merchants need to install NFC chip readers at their cash registers, which is an expensive proposition (a few hundred dollars worth of equipment per cash register). Adoption on the merchant front will be slower than the tech companies hope.

And then there is the issue of consumer adoption. Just because your Android phone pr new iPhone comes with an NFC chip doesn’t mean you are going to use it, much less link it to your PayPal, iTunes, or Google CheckOut account. How many features are on your phone right now that you never use? Exactly.

In order for mobile wallets to become a mainstream technology, Google and Apple and Verizon and AT&T will need to start marketing the feature aggressively, and sign up some big retailers to get people to try it out with some promotions. Mobile wallets tied to local offers could do the trick. Groupon and other daily deal services could start to offer coupons redeemable through an NFC swipe, finally tying the online deal with the offline purchase in an electronic transaction that can be measured and monitored.

Ten Best iPad Apps for Business

image by bm.iphone

The dawning of a new decade always sees the latest ‘must-have’ accessory for businesspeople the world over; the 1970’s saw Samsonite briefcases take Wall Street by storm, the 1980’s made a brick-sized cellular phones an absolute necessity for men in suits, the 1990’s saw businessmen kit out there home with a hi-tech PC for their kids to play ‘Doom’ on and at the turn of the millennium anybody who was anybody had to have one of those flick down phones that featured on The Matrix. Well, 2010 is no different and the big boys (and girls – it’s not the 70’s anymore!) must have their toys; the iPad is this generation’s ‘must-have’ accessory, yet are they really a decent addition to the businessperson’s lifestyle, or a clunky fad that doesn’t fit in your pocket and clatters in your briefcase? At iPhoneAppCafe we have toiled away comparing and compiling a list of the top 10 iPad applications that will help business users. Read on and make your own mind up!

1. 2DoA user-friendly task management and ‘to do’ list app that does exactly what it says on the tin. The user-interface is clean an intuitive and the latest version now supports synchronisation with Outlook, Mac, and Toodledo. The Biggest feature of this app is push notifications. Many to-do managers in the app store are missing this feature that is top of the shopping list for many shoppers of the App store. When making a new to-do, or editing an old one, there is the option of assigning alarms for when the item is due and/or before it’s due. These alarms come in the form of push notifications and/or email, giving you no excuse to forget your partner’s birthday! .

2. EvernoteIf you love taking notes in all different forms and shapes and need a bit help with organizing and searching your notes then this is the App for you. The beauty of Evernote lies in its simple presentation and organization of notes, images, websites, text, video, etc. It makes great use of the iPad’s location awareness, which means that you can actually organize your notes and synchronize it with the place where they were taken. One of the key features of Evernote is the capability to Auto-synchronize your notes to your Mac, PC, and Web. Another handy useful feature is its ability to make the text within snapshots searchable, which, coupled with the great use of the iPad’s inbuilt voice recording, location awareness, and camera makes Evernote a fantastic App for the absent-minded! .

3. DropboxHave you ever wanted to be able to access all of your important documents and photos from your iPad without the need of doing any synchronization? If the answer is a resounding ‘Yes!’ then definitely give this App a try. There are many sync and share apps out there, however, generally speaking Dropbox is a clear favourite by many of the users that we speak with. Apart from installing the Dropbox app on your iPhone, you need to also install the client app on your PC or MAC. Once that is done then all that you need to do is to drag and drop any document you wish into your Dropbox folder. It will then automatically synchronise your documents and make them available on your iPad. No matter what format your document is in, Dropbox will be able to handle it with impressive speed. The beauty of Dropbox is the fact that it lets you view any document format (Excel, Word, pdf, PowerPoint, you name it!), so it also works as a great document viewer on your iPad. .

4. LogMeIn IgnitionThis App allows you to access PCs in the same way as on the LogMeIn website – but via your iPhone or iPad. If you want an easy and reliable way to remote control all of your computers then this deserves consideration. LogMeIn comes with an expensive price tag (£17.99) and you might be concerned as to how easy it will be to use with the small iPad screen. Cassie did full review which you can find here on iPhoneAppCafe and in her experience after getting used to the zooming functions and the option of keeping the mouse in one place while moving the screen, it actually functions quite easily. .

5. AudioNoteAudioNote is essentially an App for beating the boredom of the boardroom; when you are having a meeting the App allows you to record the conversation whilst simultaneously taking notes. If you forget anything about the meeting, you simply click on the notes and it will play the audio of that time in the meeting, (so if you do tune out a little, you have a safety net!) AudioNote is superior to Keynote seeing as it allows more fonts and different options for its presentation view; in Keynote the presenter is unable to read the notes whilst they are actually doing the presentation, which is fairly useless unless you happen to have a photographic memory! For more information read the iPad interview with Paul Boag. .

6. iWork Good things come to those who wait. That’s what those fabulous Guinness ads tell me and I for one choose to believe everything that I hear on the television, particularly when alcohol is involved. Seriously though, Apple spent an age in developing iWork for the iPad, honing all of the elements in order to make it perfect…and is it? Well, pretty much. Using iWork, you can create new documents or open other types of existing document and utilize them straight away on your iPad. Even if you have to convert the iWork files that aren’t ‘native’, you can convert them relatively quickly. Type away to your hearts content on Pages, or if you are a numbers bod, you can use, well, Numbers to fill charts, spreadsheets and graphs with wonderful information. Keynote is also included for presentation purposes, although on balance, AudioNote just pips it at the post in terms of usability. .

7. ReederAh, the daily commute…a necessary evil that we all have to endure if we are to be top dog in our chosen business. But why not make it a little more enjoyable and have something to read along the way rather than the daily rag picked up from a grotty newsstand? Reeder will, essentially, sync any items in a Google Reader account that have been left unread or are starred, compiling a set of RSS feeds based on your Google account data. So instead of having to read the same old boring headlines as everybody else, you are presented with articles, images and websites that are of interest to you. If nothing else, this App will give you an interesting fact to talk about with the receptionist on the way in to the office…it’s the little things that make life worth living! .

8. InstapaperWe’ve all felt the pain of iPhone or iPad signal failure right in the middle of a great article, as our train goes through a tunnel or we step down the escalator into the tube, the next page going blank before our very eyes; well this is a pain that you can soon forget, seeing as you can now get the Instapaper App for your iPad. Instapaper allows you to save and bookmark any webpage or article on your laptop, PC or iPad that you like, which then allows you to read the entire article on your iPad in offline mode. Also, all the extra tat will have been stripped out, so that you have a clean, pure article with no ads or links to click on, with the iPad’s anti-glare screen creating the perfect backdrop for whichever articles you choose to read.

9. KindleYou can’t beat a good book. Becoming engrossed in a novel from start to finish is more captivating on an intellectual level than any film or TV drama and the great thing is, you can take a book anywhere! The only problem is, that if you want to take more than one book somewhere, you start running into size and weight issues, in that you are having to lug masses of big volumes around in a bag that is set to tear at any moment. Well, Kindle for iPad solves all of these problems. You can currently choose from over 750,000 books in the Kindle Store, the text of which appears on you riPad, ready for you to scroll down and bookmark at any point. You can get 1000’s of free classics or take advantage of the ‘try before you buy’ offer of a free first chapter; the dictionary and Wikipedia functions are also incredibly useful when it comes to looking up words and concepts that are unfamiliar to you. A fantastic App that may not have the slick feel as iBooks, but offers a far greater range of books. .

10. Dragon DictationIf you don’t have a personal assistant to do the typing for you, (and, let’s face it, who can afford a PA at the moment?!) then give this free App a try. Dragon dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application, which you can use for voice-to-text transcriptions that may be sent as SMS, Email, or pasted into any application using the clipboard. Another feature we particularly liked was being able to update twitter and Facebook status via voice instead of typing. The general feedback on this app is mixed, like much other voice recognition software the accuracy will very much depend on how you speak and pronounce the words. Jack did put this app to test and you can see for yourself the level of accuracy he achieved.