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Gigaom's Kevin C. Tofel gushes over the iPhone 6
It's not surprising for those of us who write about nothing but Apple products to get excited over a new iPhone, but what about an online journalist who is equally at home in iOS and Android worlds, often buying both an iPhone and an Android phone each year? That was the case with Kevin C. Tofel from Gigaom, who says in a new review that "I like the iPhone 6 so much that I may not buy a new Android." So what does Tofel love about the new iPhone? A lot. The first thing he raves about is the redesign, which of course made the iPhone 6 a lot more like an iPod touch with its thin design and rounded corners. And like those of us who never buy Android phones, Tofel loves the larger screen, saying "my eyes have been crying for that extra screen space for a while now." He's used a Moto X with a 4.7-inch screen for over a year now, but says that "the iPhone 6 display is noticeably better in terms of brightness, contrast, and viewing angles." Tofel goes on for a bit about other details, like the upgraded camera and what's under the hood of the new phone, but the big deal in my opinion is his comment that "Some of the aspects of Android that I preferred over iOS are no longer an issue, as Apple changed a few things." Tofel is happy about iOS 8's extensions, widgets, and third-party keyboards. If you're still on the fence about upgrading even after reading TUAW's coverage of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, head on over to read Tofel's review. He may just nudge you off the fence and into an Apple Store.
Gigaom checks out Apple NC data center's renewable-energy infrastructure
Images by Katie Fehrenbacher, Gigaom Apple's huge Maiden, NC, data center has recently become something else -- a net power provider of clean energy to Duke Energy. Gigaom's Katie Fehrenbacher took a look at Apple's new power-production facilities, which generate a total of 50 MW (megawatts) of electricity for a data center that uses about 40 MW of power. There's a 100-acre, 20 MW photovoltaic solar farm right next to Apple's data center, a second 20 MW solar farm about 15 miles away from the center, and a 10 MW fuel cell farm that's also adjacent to the data center. The solar farms use huge arrays of photovoltaic cells that tilt to follow the sun during the day. Grass was planted underneath the arrays, and Apple contracts with a local company to have sheep keep the grass neatly clipped (and presumably to fertilize it...). The fuel-cell farm is rather compact, and uses biogas to fuel the big cells. The fuel cells are manufactured and operated by Bloom Energy of Sunnyvale, Calif., and use a chemical reaction to convert the methane in biogas and oxygen in the air to create electricity, heat, water and CO2 as side products. All in all, Fehrenbacher's investigative report is a fascinating look at how Apple has chosen to dive into the world of clean energy production with enthusiasm.
The power of free-to-play app pricing
"Free-to-play." For mobile gamers, those simple three words (often abbreviated as FTP) have a host of different meanings. For optimists, it means people can play high-quality games with little or no financial investment of their own. For others, it's a game-crippling inconvenience that ends up getting in the way of a good time. This writer falls into the latter category of "just let me buy the game once and leave me alone," but as the success of FTP games like Candy Crush Saga has shown, I'm in the minority. In fact 82 of the top-grossing games on the iPhone are FTP. They're here to stay, so we should probably learn to live with them. What makes a successful free-to-play game? Geoffrey Goetz of Gigaom.com has written an incredible -- and long -- rundown of the free-to-play market that answers the question "Why is free-to-play pricing so effective?" The answer is simple to understand, but complex to fully explain. It works a lot like how your parents probably explained drugs to you -- the first hit is free, but from then on, you start paying. As a developer, how do you make that first "hit" enjoyable? It comes down to three major factors, according to Goetz: Flow, Intermediate Currency and Dynamic Pricing. Flow is a game's ability to get you involved in play, and keep you involved. This is done by giving you a clear task, such as gardening or clearing all the Jellies in a level of Candy Crush. Intermediate Currency is removing the obvious exchange of money from your transaction. That's why so many games have you buying gems or coins for in-game purchases instead of using your everyday money. Your brain doesn't see gems and coins as real money when you're spending them in real time. Finally, these games use Dynamic Pricing to give you the illusion of saving money when the game wants you to. You might balk at paying $5 for access to a fire-breathing dog in an iOS game, but holy crap! Did you know that same dog is only $2 if you buy him on Labor Day? Those are the kind of savings that will drive you from the picket lines! The rest of Goetz's article examines the other aspects of the free-to-play marketplace and is well worth your time to read. Gamer happiness with in-app purchases, how parents can control their children's app spending and an examination of the real expense of virtual goods are just some of the angles he covers that I've personally never considered. Head over to Gigaom for the complete article. Depending on where you're at in Candy Crush, you probably have anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours before you can play again anyway! Unless, of course, you want to throw down a few extra dollars...
Twitter accounts compromised by third-party attack: Here's what you can do
It's become a regular occurrence that a site's credentials become compromised. (At least it's a nice change from Big NSA brother, I suppose. Big NSA brother is ALWAYS watching you.) Now it is Twitter's turn, apparently courtesy of a third-party app. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that the site itself was not directly attacked. GigaOM writes that a hacker published access credentials for thousands of Twitter accounts. Compromised details include Twitter user IDs and OAuth tokens. GigaOM recommends revoking and re-granting access to any third-party apps connected to your account. To do this, point your browser to https://twitter.com/settings/applications. There, you'll find a list of all applications -- web and iOS -- attached to your account. For most apps, you'll simply click the Revoke access button. You will need to sign in from those apps to use them again. For iOS apps, you'll find details about revoking access at this link. Thanks Laurent P.
Retailers' growing relationship with Passbook
Apple's Passbook has had a rocky road. When it was first introduced in iOS 6, it seemed like an excellent idea. You could store all of your loyalty cards, tickets, and other mobile payment items all in one place. But in practice, Passbook hasn't been all that helpful. Not many retailers' loyalty programs are included in the app, and getting information in there is harder than it has to be most of the time. But Apple isn't giving up, and neither are retailers. GigaOm has a few good examples of how certain retailers are using the app. Gift cards are now a big deal within the app, and CashStar (which sells digital gift cards for big brands) says one third of its cards are opened on a smartphone, usually an iPhone. The app is also easier to use, as more companies build an actual workflow into it. And customers are not only learning how Passbook can help them, but they're growing accustomed to the idea of digital gift cards and currency. Passbook is still around in the upcoming iOS 7, though it's only gotten a new icon and a barcode scanner (which itself might help with ease of use). The dream of keeping all of those loyalty cards, gift cards, and ticket stubs on your phone instead of in that drawer at home is still alive, and hopefully someday Apple will make it happen with Passbook.
Paper for iPad developer receives $15 million in funding
What do you do when your one and only iPad app is a runaway success? If you're FiftyThree, the development firm behind the beautiful journal / art app Paper (free, many in-app purchases available), you get funding for expansion into new areas. FiftyThree announced today that it received US$15 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreesen Horowitz, with such stellar investors as Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Bright Capital, Highline Ventures and SV Angel joining the party. Paper has been profitable from day one; it's usually in the Top 10 Paid Apps on the App Store, and over 80 million users have downloaded the app. What's FiftyThree planning on doing with $15 million? Co-founder and CEO Georg Petschnigg says that he wants to add to his team of employees in Seattle and NYC, and create a suite of software, hardware and services. GigaOM's Erica Ogg talked with Petschnigg and although he wouldn't elaborate, the idea of a Paper-branded stylus is a natural outgrowth. Petschnigg's big picture for the firm appears to be collaboration: "We've been focused on iPad there, but the next part we're working on is services that will start to answer the question of how people work together and collaborate." All secretive talk aside, we're looking forward to seeing what's next from the team at FiftyThree.
Designers react to iOS 7
Yesterday's announcement of iOS 7 brought a number of responses -- many negative, some positive -- about the new look and feel of the mobile operating system. Om Malik of GigaOM decided to gauge reaction to the changes that are coming this fall by asking his Twitter friends. The negative side of the responses seemed to come mostly from designers: @jbrewer -- "You gotta wonder if they took their phones outside and looked at all that thin-lined icon + transparency stuff in the sunlight" @samin -- "An interesting observation: designers who have actually done any mobile OS design work really seem to dislike iOS 7." @mg -- "Am I alone in thinking the iOS 7 home screen icons look ugly, poorly balanced, and of an unattractive color palate (sic)?" Tom Coates of Product Club and formerly of both BBC and Yahoo's Brickhouse was the most vocal: At least in part because it looks so much like wireframes with placeholders for things. Bit like a webpage with Times New Roman....It's cramped in places, childish and garish in others, icons blend in with the background. And some of the design fetishes it has are as egregious if not worse than ios6 - frosted glass, fake depth, sliders with shadows. There are many good things about it too. Don't get me wrong. App switcher is nice, etc. Interaction wise it looks and feels solid. There were those designers who like the new look, and here is a sampling of their responses: @yocline -- "The good news: the new UX is a big improvement and the UI skin can be iterated and polished over time" @mike_FTW -- "I love it" and later: It's a breath of fresh air. Where was Apple going with the current crap? This opens up all manner of possibilities. I'm excited because it's new. And fresh. The Forstall crap went to its logical conclusion. Any design system that can no longer be extended is death. The new stuff is a fresh start. Eventually it'll die too. But right now I'm excited about how it can grow and be extended. It's not perfect. But, as a designer, that excites me. As a consumer? I dunno. There's more in the GigaOM post, and I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more responses from developers as they get the beta OS loaded on their devices.
GigaOM: Intel Media TV service won't launch at CES, but it is coming soon
We've seen several reports over the last week about Intel's set-top box efforts, and an impending CES launch. According to GigaOM, some of those rumors simply aren't true. The site has confirmed with several sources at Intel that a set-top box (and a whole lot more) is in the works, but a CES announcement has not been planned. Instead, Media, the mysterious Intel division, which is run like a startup with staffers hired from other Silicon Valley companies rather than shifted from different departments, could be unveiled in March, or perhaps even at the AllThingsD Dive Into Media conference in February. A detailed GigaOM report outlines the company's plans, which do include a STB manufactured by Intel that would compete with Apple TV, but also solutions for other platforms, including computers, tablets and smartphones. According to GigaOM sources, the company has spent more than $100 million on Intel Media, so it's clearly taking the effort seriously. Still, until Intel Media has been exposed to the market, it's too soon to judge its success. Hit up our source link for the full scoop. Update: Now the Wall Street Journal has chimed in, with its own reports from usual unnamed sources indicating that a launch could be pushed as far as Q4. The reason for the wide launch window? Trouble negotiating content agreements for those unbundled packages (at much higher rates than the channels currently receive) it reportedly wants to offer, although the rumors say Intel has reached at least one content deal -- we're guessing it wasn't with ESPN. Whether this will ever appear or simply remain vapor like so many other rumored Intel software products remains to be seen, but just like the often hinted at Apple television, the licensing issues will probably be much harder to work out than any software or hardware.
Loren Brichter and the future of iOS apps
GigaOM had a wonderful post about Loren Brichter yesterday. In case you're scratching your head and saying "Who is Loren Brichter?", you may have seen some of his work without even knowing it. Brichter is a 28 year-old developer and designer -- and the only employee of Atebits -- who worked for Apple during the development of the iPhone, and the brains behind the wildly popular Letterpress two-player word game. Any time you use the "rubber-banding" gesture, "pulling down" the top of an iOS app page to refresh it, you're using a bit of Brichter's genius. In the post, Brichter mentions that Letterpress is an "insane" experiment with the future of displaying graphics on a mobile device. Brichter built his own version of the UI framework, and now has millions of people testing his code via the word game. Unlike many young developers who complain about today's iOS and OS X development environments and how hard it is to get noticed in the App Stores, Brichter thinks new devs have it rather easy, saying "someone nowadays has all of these tools available, like Cocos2D, GitHub, StackOverflow; they can get on the App Store and get exposed to millions of people." Brichter's happy about Jony Ive being named as Apple's senior VP of Industrial Design, saying that "he's true to the materials, to the medium he's working in. One of my complaints about design of iOS is it's doing things that aren't true to the hardware." As such, Brichter designed Letterpress to "do things that the graphics hardware was really good at." Brichter says he'll continue to work on Letterpress and "use it as a testbed for more stuff." When it comes to future projects, though, he says he'd "like to focus more on infrastructure" before working on one of his "thousand half-baked product ideas."
Road trip! Visiting Apple's North Carolina data center
Looking for an exciting geek adventure this summer? You may want to follow in the footsteps of GigaOM's Katie Fehrenbacher, who recently took a one-day road trip to visit the sites of some of the world's largest data centers. These facilities, all of which are located in a small area of North Carolina, include Apple's new Maiden data center as well as facilities belonging to Google and Facebook. Fehrenbacher started her trip in Maiden, NC, which she refers to as a "sleepy, and economically depressed, outpost." The town of 3,000 won't see a large number of permanent jobs from the work, since data centers are usually quite lean in terms of staff. Fehrenbacher did manage to wrangle up a lunch of "black-eyed peas, fried okra, and baked beans" at one of the few open businesses in town, Scottie's Bar-B-Que (sounds like Katie's a vegetarian). The Maiden data center is getting a 20-megawatt solar farm and 4.8 megawatts worth of biogas-fueled fuel cells to provide clean electricity at the facility; according to Fehrenbacher, the only sign of the solar farm at this time is a grid of hundreds of poles upon which the photovoltaic arrays will sit, and signs for Holder Construction (which is building the farm) and the Project Dolphin Solar Farm (the data center was known as Project Dolphin). You won't get to see much on your driving vacation of the North Carolina data centers. All of the locations are hidden behind massive fences and are well-guarded. But at least you can stop in at Scottie's and get some barbecue... If you're too busy to hop in the car, at least take a look at a 2012 satellite image of the plant on Google Maps.
The energy required to charge an iPad
All of our electronic gizmos, whether as large as a 27" iMac or as tiny as an iPod nano, need electricity to thrive. Om Malik, the brains behind GigaOm, wondered just how much energy it took to keep an iPad going. Fortunately for Malik, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has published the results of new research that details how much an iPad costs in terms of electricity. EPRI conducted its study at its power utilization lab in Knoxville, Tennessee. The research showed that an "iPad consumes less than 12 kWh of electricity over the course of a year, based on a full charge every other day. By comparison, a plasma 42" television consumes 358 kWh of electricity a year." Based on an average cost of electricity, the annual cost of keeping that iPad alive is about US$1.36 per year -- the actual cost would vary depending on what your local electric utility charges per kWh. EPRI did the same study for an iPhone 3G and found that it consumed 2.2 kWh of electricity every year, or about $0.25 annually. Of course, there's more than one iPad on the planet, so EPRI calculated the energy impact of all of the iPads sold and came up with a number of 590 gigawatt hours (GWh). According to EPRI, "In a scenario where the number of iPads tripled over the next two years, the energy required would be nearly equivalent to two 250-megawatt (MW) power plants operating at a 50 percent utilization rate. A quadrupling of sales in two years would require energy generated by three 250-MW power plants." Lest you think your iPad is an energy hog, consider a comparison to a laptop. EPRI found that laptops (no model specified) feast on about 72.3 kWh of electricity per year at an average cost of $8.31. That's six times the energy impact of your iPad.
Study: many new US iPads activated in coastal states
Here's an unsurprising piece of news -- people in states with higher median income levels tend to purchase iPads more than those who are in less affluent states. This nugget of important information comes from online ad network Chitika, which is tracking where third-generation iPads are being activated in the United States. Chitika mixed its data showing new iPad activations (currently at about 10.1 percent of all iPad traffic) with U.S. Census Bureau data. They found that the top areas with new iPads are California, Hawaii (probably due to Doc Rock's influence), Nevada, Washington D.C., and Washington state. Chitika noted that those areas are considered states of high median income levels, and that they are categorized as "coastal" states. Ergo, the richer coastal states are gobbling up the new iPads at a higher rate than inland states. Another research firm, Stevall Skoeld & Co., found a similar trend in China, where more than half of all iOS devices were found in the heavily industrialized (and more affluent) coastal regions of the country.
How one helicopter pilot uses the iPad
In a short, but interesting article at GigaOM, writer Erica Ogg interviews her search-and-rescue helicopter pilot husband about technology in the cockpit. She talks to him about the iPad 2 and how the tablet has transformed his job. Not surprisingly, the iPad is used in everything from pre-flight preparation to a replacement for up to 40 pounds of flight manuals. You can read the full interview at GigaOM's website.
Family, tech and the joy of Apple's iPad
Apple aficionados often struggle to describe just what makes them love the company's products. In the case of GigaOM founder Om Malik, a recent experience in which he handed over his iPad 2 to his mother in India was the basis for a wonderful heartfelt story about what makes Apple products so special. Malik describes watching his mother talking to her grandson via FaceTime (see photo at the top of this post), and I'll let his words explain how he feels about Apple: "It didn't matter how it was happening - just that she could talk to her grandson who was oceans apart from her. If there ever was a moment that captured the emotion in a piece technology, that was it. The look on her face made me realize how lucky I am to write about an industry that makes such things possible. I also thought to myself, maybe somewhere Steve Jobs is smiling too. Apple, clearly, is not for everyone. But for me that moment of joy experienced by my mother is enough of a reason why there will be no other computer company. Apple's competitors will do their own thing. Some, like Samsung, will do spectacularly well. But for me, Apple finds ways to delight people, pushing technology into the background." Malik goes on to quote a post he wrote at Steve Jobs's passing last October, saying that "Jobs put life and soul into inanimate objects," noting that "The smile on my mother's face captures what I wrote the best." It's a heartwarming story, and I'm glad Malik chose to share that personal family moment with the world.
Finding small changes in Mountain Lion developer preview
You've probably heard about the biggest features of the new OS X, Mountain Lion, by now: Apple's implementing some popular iOS features like Notifications, Game Center, and Reminders on the desktop OS. But unless you've actually played with the OS for a little while (which would mean you're a developer with access to the beta), you might not know about all of the other little updates, smaller features that make a big difference overall, but haven't been talked about much just yet. Fortunately, GigaOm has found quite a few of these little features, and written them up for the rest of us to drool over. Turns out the resemblance to iOS won't stop at the list of apps installed on the device: Finder file transfers now show off an iOS-style progress bar, and toolbars are simpler and more tactile, borrowing a lot of the button looks from Apple's official iOS applications. There are just some new cool features as well, like Safari tabs simply splitting the distance on their bar instead of squeezed into one corner, and some new updates in System Preferences, including options for screen savers. It all sounds great, and a list like this shows that Apple isn't just interested in copying iOS' best features on OS X; it's still thinking about how to make the desktop system better on its own as well. Mountain Lion's due out sometime this summer, and as far as we're concerned, sooner the better.
How Siri could change the 911 emergency system
Right now, the 911 emergency call system is designed to accept one thing -- phone calls. However, the US is on the verge of moving to Next Generation 911, which is a dramatic upgrade to the system that allows communications to be made via voice, video, and text. GigaOM's John Wilson postulates in a recent post that Apple's Siri could revolutionize emergency calls and home health care. In his post, Wilson describes an all too common scenario -- an elderly woman having a cardiac event who is able to dial 911, but can't speak more than a few words. As a result, she can't let the responders know what's wrong or tell them anything about existing medical conditions or medications. With Siri, he believes that a key phrase could set off a video call to emergency personnel who could use their own eyes and ears to get a better picture of what's going on. As part of Next Generation 911, GPS location information is sent with the call, so responders are able to discern the exact location of a caller even when they can't tell the emergency center where they are. Wilson has the key phrase launching an app, sending either focused information or a patient's entire medical history to the responders. Finally, a Siri-based emergency calling system could even notify next of kin as to what is happening and what hospital the caller is being taken to. Wilson then focuses on home health care, noting that Siri's natural language capabilities could make life better for millions of elderly or homebound. As he notes, there are many specialty devices for this market right now, but they're all expensive and relatively difficult to use. Wilson sees Siri being used to set and vocalize reminders of when to take medications, initiate video checkups with care providers or family members, and "begin a smooth chain reaction of events that would otherwise require far more time and energy to do - two things our elderly, chronically ill population have the least of." This won't happen overnight, of course, but as Wilson notes, "Clearly it won't just be Siri alone in this revolution of health care. Many more services will be created, and many more similar innovations are on the horizon. But every revolution needs its leader, and Siri is undoubtedly it."
iPhone resellers eagerly await iPhone 5
When you consider that there are four different versions of iPhones out there (original, 3G, 3GS, and 4), and all of them have sold a ton of units, it's clear that there are a whole lot of used iPhones around. That's probably why, as GigaOm reports, iPhone resellers are very excited for another new version of the iPhone. Reseller site Gazelle says that just minutes after the announcement of the latest iPhone 4, over 10,000 old iPhones flowed in. If an iPhone 5 is announced soon, Gazelle plans to see another big bump in items for sale. While resales go up a lot when a new iPhone update is announced, the time in between isn't nearly as successful. Over 32,000 iPhones were traded on Gazelle last year, but this year there have only been 18,000 trades. A new iPhone would boost that number, especially since we already know consumers are hungering to buy it, no matter what the new features. Meanwhile, resellers will have to wait. We've heard plenty of rumors, but there's no official announcement yet of a new iPhone 5 -- or even a new iPad, which would certainly inspire plenty of resales on that device as well.
How to create a unique iOS home screen icon for your website
GIGAOM has put together a nifty article detailing the process for creating a unique iOS home screen icon for your website. When iOS users visit your website and create a home screen icon shortcut to easily access your site again, you want that icon to stand out and be easily identifiable amongst all the other icons, particularly if your site is a web app. Normally, when you create a home screen icon for a website, iOS will create a thumbnail image of that webpage, but by following a few simple steps (using a program like Preview), and entering a few lines of code, your websites can easily be identified by a well branded icon on any iOS home screen. Click here for all the details.
Report indicates iOS users stick with platform due to 'lock-in effect'
Citing a report from research2guidance, GigaOM notes that Apple's market share of app downloads reversed the backward slide that began in 2009 and recently increased by 2 percent. This is a far cry from the doom n' gloom predictions many pundits have been espousing for Apple's platform, and it shows that Google's Android Marketplace still has a long way to go before unseating Apple's App Store. The report speculates that a "lock-in effect" is partially responsible for users sticking with Apple's platform. iOS users, whether they're iPhone, iPod touch or iPad owners, tend to download a large number of apps, with a fairly high percentage of those apps being paid versions. The higher number of paid apps a user downloads, the more likely it is that user will stick with the same platform. This makes perfect sense; if you're like me and you've got a couple hundred bucks worth of apps on your various devices, that's a lot of inertia to overcome if you decide you want to switch platforms. When you flip it around and look at things from the Android perspective, things don't look as rosy. GigaOM recently cited research from Distimo that showed paid downloads represent a truly minuscule proportion of total app downloads from the Android Market. 79.3 percent of paid apps on the Android platform have been downloaded less than 100 times, and only 4.6 percent of paid apps were downloaded more than 1000 times. A 2010 Distimo report (again cited from GigaOM) noted that Android users download a disproportionately large number of free apps compared to the iOS platform, and that trend doesn't appear to be reversing. The end result is that for all we hear from various tech pundits about Android's ascending smartphone market share being the only metric that matters, other numbers are showing that not only are users more likely to stick with iOS due to app 'lock-in,' Apple's App Store also remains a more attractive market for app developers who actually want to make money with paid apps. CNNMoney's analysis of the same Distimo report paints a very stark picture: of 72,000 paid apps on the Android platform, only two have sold more than 500,000 (but less than one million) copies over the history of the platform. Contrast that with six paid applications generating 500,000 or more downloads just in the US version of the iPhone's App Store in March and April alone. How many paid apps have you downloaded for your iOS device, and do you consider that an impediment to switching platforms? Let us know in the comments.
Rumor: Apple might have bought iCloud.com
GigaOm is reporting that Sweden-based cloud storage company Xcerion has just sold its iCloud.com domain name for US$4.5 million and that the likely buyer is none other than Apple. Xcerion had previously sold a cloud-based storage service called iCloud, but it's been rebranded as CloudMe after the sale of the iCloud.com domain. While GigaOm doesn't get into specifics, the site says its source is familiar with the company and that the buyer of the domain name is Apple. Currently, the WhoIs information still lists Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.com, but that could be a deliberate move until Apple reveals its new cloud-based services. Even though GigaOm doesn't name its source, it does fit in with other reports that Apple is gearing up to launch a digital locker soon. Apple does have a penchant of throwing an "i" in front of everything. If GigaOm's sources are correct, get ready to say goodbye to iDisk and hello to Apple's iCloud.
