When you buy an Android app from the Google app store, they give the app maker your full name, email address and the neighborhood where you live. This occurs without clear warning every single time you buy an app.
If you can’t trust Google’s app store, how can you trust them for anything?
Maybe Eric Schmidt can answer that for us.
Security firm Lookout has detailed a clever new bit of Android Malware lurking in the Google Play store. The good news: unless you’re downloading questionable Russian clone apps, you’re probably not affected. The bad news: that hasn’t kept it from being downloaded a few million times.
Nice going Google.
A good look at the smartphone market by Benedict Evans.
Two iconic products will be forming an alliance later this year: the iPhone from Apple and the Beetle from Volkswagen. From that point on, the smartphone will interface to vehicle functions of the Beetle and Beetle Cabriolet via a specially developed app (“Volkswagen Car Net The Beetle”) and a docking station.
Sounds great.
One song is already available for download. The album hits the store on June 11.
World-renowned animator and triple-Oscar-winner Richard Williams presents ‘The Animator’s Survival Kit’ for iPad.
Taking the globally bestselling Kit to a whole new dimension, this app provides the underlying principles that every animator needs. Aspiring or professional, digital, classical or stop motion, animators can now engage with Williams and his work like never before. Watch unreleased films or interact with over 100 animated examples — learn from the legend himself.
Dave Addey showed me this app while I was in Dublin for the Ull Conference and it was stunning.
The finished product looks really nice.
Federico Viticci:
It may be called “gaming the system” or “forecasting downloads” — in both cases, I don’t think that “showcasing” apps by finding loopholes in the Developer Guidelines and leveraging advertising techniques as tools to manipulate Apple’s ranking algorithm is good for the App Store. I believe this is true for AppGratis and any other native iOS app that is based on this premise. It’s in Apple’s right — and developer agreement — to ban apps that work in this way.
Good story from Federico — worth a read.
AskingPoint includes “Rating Booster,” the smart rating widget that uses your analytics to ask only your best users to rate your Apps. Proven to increase sales dramatically!
By Developers for Developers.
Patrick Rhone takes you through all the things you’ll need to do if you want to be a consultant. The advice is good for any business really.
What makes mobile typography special is the restrictive nature of mobile screens; they are small and used in brightly lit areas so that it is difficult to see anything. Therefore, when it comes to typography for mobile devices you have to be very careful about how you go about it. Most people would agree that there are three big components that help making mobile typography great: size, contrast and spacing.
This is classic. One headline blares “LG Display Gets Boost from Apple” while another trumpets “Slowdown in Apple orders weighs on LG Display’s first-quarter profit.”
Okay, which one is it?
Philip Elmer-Dewitt takes a look at who’s behind the Apple-bashing. There are certainly others, like the WSJ, but this is a good start.
TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone will be removed from their respective app stores and will stop functioning on May 7. Our Facebook integration will also stop on May 7.
To continue to offer a great product that addresses your unique needs, we’re going to focus our development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck. To that end, we are discontinuing support for our older apps: TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone. They will be removed from their respective app stores in early May and will stop functioning shortly thereafter [see update]. We’ll also discontinue support for our Facebook integration.
A very interesting article by José Luis Antúnez. Every answer leads to another question, but they are all pieces that need to be worked out.
Seth Godin:
The original CD ROMs, for example, often had a home screen that started with a bookshelf, and you clicked on the ‘book’ you wanted to ‘open’ (excessive use of quotations intentional). Here’s the thing: bookshelves are a great idea if you want to store actual books on an actual shelf. They’re a silly way to index digital information, though.
I agree that design can’t get in the way of how we use something, but Skeuomorphic design also adds a level of familiarity to the new digital products we’re using. I’m still a fan of using it.
I love this. Photographer Flora Borsi adds herself to historic photos holding a modern item like a smartphone or camera.
I love those commercials, but this line has to be the best.
His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body.
Sean Buckley, Engadget:
Gamers in Apple’s ecosystem can now make the most of the company’s full line of G series mouse and keyboard products, including the eight it released to herald the rebranding of its gaming lineup.
Great news for Mac gamers looking for specialized mice, keyboards, etc.
Philip Elmer Dewitt:
Although Apple investors are plenty nervous about next week’s March quarter earnings report, the stock’s drop to 16-month lows this week may have more to do with jitters about the next report — the one for the quarter that ends in June.
I expect we haven’t seen the bottom of Apple’s stock drop yet.
Robert McMillan, Wired:
Here’s what happens. Whenever you speak into Apple’s voice activated personal digital assistant, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.
Once the voice recording is six months old, Apple “disassociates” your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file. But it keeps these disassociated files for up to 18 more months for testing and product improvement purposes.
An interesting look at how Apple manages and improves Siri’s voice analysis.
I made an appearance on The Mac Observer’s Apple Context Machine podcast – its 200th episode. I, along with several other guests (each featured separately) prognosticated about the future of Apple along with hosts Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet.
The Onion:
Eighteen months after the death of his mentor, Apple CEO Tim Cook was seen Wednesday pounding the tombstone of company founder Steve Jobs and begging for guidance in his leadership of what was once the largest corporation in the history of the world. “What the hell do I do?!” a hysterical Cook reportedly shrieked, clawing alternately at the grave marker and his own face.
I laughed.
Kevin Fitchard, GigaOM:
TracFone, the country’s largest prepaid virtual operator, managed to outdo its impressive holiday performance in the usually tepid first quarter. It added 839,000 new subscribers to its total, more than the 753,000 it added in the fourth quarter and 127 percent more than its 369,000 net additions in last year’s Q1. TracFone even beat out mobile giant Verizon Wireless, which grew by 720,000 new subscribers last quarter.
Apple is doomed. The iPhone isn’t cool anymore.
(Related: We resurrected my old iPhone 4 with a Straight Talk SIM this past quarter. My wife uses it now, and she’s quite happy with the service – for $45 per month.)
Ben Bajarin:
Apple has and always will be a consumer company. They simply struggled until there was a true consumer market. Now they find success where others have not simply because they have always had a vision of creating products for ordinary folk. Apple simply had to wait more than two decades for their true market to emerge. Now, emerge it has and its billions strong.
That’s why I laugh every time I read analysis suggesting Apple has to articulate an enterprise strategy (like the jackass at the end of this blog post). People like that just don’t get it.
Christopher Tkaczyk, CNN Money:
Mayer defended her decision by first acknowledging that “people are more productive when they’re alone,” and then stressed “but they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together.” The shift in policy affects roughly 200 of Yahoo’s 12,000 employees.
People can collaborate and innovate without working in the same office, as well. It’s all a matter of effective personnel management and effective use of appropriate technology.
Reuters:
British media group Pearson’s Penguin unit has offered to scrap e-book deals with Apple that imposed price restrictions on Amazon and other retailers, EU antitrust regulators said on Friday.
Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica:
On the heels of the Boy Scouts introducing a merit badge for game design, the Girl Scouts are going one better by developing a badge program to bring girls into the world of video game development. The effort is a collaboration between Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles and Women in Games International.
Gamestar Mechanic, the tool the Girl Scouts are emphasizing, is cross-platform compatible with Mac and Windows, since it runs in a web browser, but it requires Flash, so it’s a no-go on iOS and other Flash-resistant platforms.
Regardless, I’m delighted to see the Girl Scouts add such a cool, STEM-friendly effort. Anything that gets girls interested and engaged in game development is worth supporting.
[Editor’s note: Jim, we should put Bonnie on the payroll. She’s finding cool links!]
Christopher Trout, Engadget:
Well it’s time you welcomed your posh posterior to the 21st century, because Kohler’s just released the second edition of its now $6,000 throne: the aptly named Numi Comfort Height.
Comes with USB and an SD card reader, too. My wife suggests that since there’s no built-in gaming system, we should declare Kohler’s attempt a fail.