Again, if you have any specific error questions, leave them in the comments. We have another error post set to go tomorrow, and will be taking specific issues on Thursday and Friday.
In the past we’ve gone over a number of issues relating to BlackBerry error codes. In a few instances we’ve gone over specific advice for specific errors. There are a few general principles, though, that can help you plow through a problem and get your Berry back up and running. Previously, we went over deleting the vendor.xml file before reinstalling an OS via AppLoader. Further problems will arise, though, if your computer won’t connect to your BlackBerry. That requires a bit more complex fix. Here’s a quick run-through of the steps you’ll need to take in order to recover your OS.
First, you’ll have to perform an old fashioned battery pull. Do not, however, reinsert the battery. Leave it out until the very end. Once you’ve removed the battery it’s time to connect your Berry to your computer via USB. At the same time, run Desktop Manager.
Once you’ve opened Desktop Manager, go to Options and select Connection Options. From that menu select USB PIN under connection type.
After you’ve chosen that connection type, run Application Loader and select the OS you want to install. That should be the one you downloaded from your carrier’s website (and from which you removed the vendor.xml file).
Here’s an important step. Once you click through to the Finish screen, select Advanced instead. Make sure both boxes are checked, and then start clicking through. When you’re prompted to automatically back up the device, choose to do not automatically back up the device. Click finish, and the reinstallation process will begin.
During this process, reinsert the battery. That should get the Berry to reinitialize. From here you should be back up and running. If not, try try again. If it continues not to work, well, we’ll go over a possible solution tomorrow.
This post originated at BBGeeks.com - home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.
What to do if your BlackBerry won’t connect to your computer
This post originated at BBGeeks.com - home to all things Blackberry! Also a great source of info about AT&T BlackBerry.
What to do if your BlackBerry won’t connect to your computer
Say goodbye to the bit.lys that pervade your Twitter stream--along with all the other custom URL shortners from your favorite publications--Twitter is rolling out its own way to shorten those unruly post on the Twitter blog announces the change.
As early as this summer, any links shared via Twitter will be shortened and wrapped into Twitter's new t.co URL shortener, which will seem to have some smart capabilities when viewed on Twitter:
A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title. Ultimately, we want to display links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened link and lets you know where a link will take you.There are a couple elements of this update that push t.co into more than a bit.ly competitor that makes me subconsciously want a taco. First, Twitter will be keeping track of all these t.co links, and will use the data they've snagged to make algorithmic recommendations to users--basically, the data will be made available through API for targeted advertising.
The other element is not entirely clear right now, in what's becoming a refrain for new Twitter announcements. Twitter will be counting t.co-wrapped links differently in terms of character count. Because this URL-wrapping will be done automatically, you can actually submit updates of length longer than 140 characters--Twitter will shorten the links and then count characters afterwards. That's how many third-party apps work, but now it's built into Twitter.
This is yet another attempt for Twitter to make first-party what was formerly third-party, just like Promoted Tweets and the new mobile apps for BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone. Twitter is taking control of the ways people use their service. So what does this mean for other URL shorteners, most notably bit.ly? Will bit.ly still work? Will Twitter allow it? That remains to be seen.
Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in San Francisco (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).
At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference today Steve Jobs specifically highlighted iOS4's support for the enterprise. "I wanted to hit for a moment on the enterprise integration - our customers are thrilled," Jobs said. He announced support for multiple Exchange accounts and support for Exchange Server 2010, as well as improved data protection, device management, and VPN support.
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Four in 10 iPhones are sold to enterprise users and many businesses are planning to support the iPad, so it makes sense for Apple to improve in this area as well. The new features will make the iPhone competitive with Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.
The improved data protection is a welcome enhancement in light of the data security flaw we covered recently. At present, there is no word on whether that specific issue has been patched.
Image via Apple's iPhone enterprise support site.
Discuss
Slacker Offers iPhone Music Caching Just in Time for AT&T’s Caps http://bit.ly/bjSlIb
Slacker today announced support for music file caching and offline playback on iPhone OS devices. With the added functionality, Slacker Radio Plus subscribers can download “up to thousands” of audio tracks from customized stations and later listen to the stored music without a wireless connection. Although new to iPhone devices, Slacker began to supported music caching on BlackBerry and Android smartphones earlier this year.
The timing of Slacker’s news couldn’t be better for iPhone users in the U.S. Just yesterday, AT&T abolished unlimited smartphone plans for new contracts and replaced them with plans capped at 200 MB and 2 GB, although additional throughput can be purchased for an additional fee. With the new caching feature, Slacker subscribers that use iPhones or iPads no longer have to stream music over a capped mobile broadband connection. Instead, they can load up their device with music from Slacker while on a wireless home network or at a Wi-Fi hotspot.
The approval of Slacker 2.0 with the caching feature also signals a continuing change in the iTunes App Store allowing potentially competitive services and software. I first noticed this when Apple approved the Rhapsody music subscription service — many believed Apple wouldn’t approve a music service that could take the spotlight away from the iTunes store – recently estimated to have earned $520 million in the last quarter. Apple’s approval of the Opera Mini web browser is another example, although most iPhone owners don’t seem to be using it.
Either due to worries of potential regulatory action or due to public sentiment on openness, Apple is easing up on competitive apps. Of course, in the case of Slacker, it doesn’t hurt that subscriptions are available as in-app purchases, on which Apple makes 30 percent.
Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d):
Forget, Syncing, Let’s Put Music in the Cloud!
Pandora may be the Web’s best-known personalized radio service, but it’s not the best one. That honor belongs to Slacker, which just upped its game by adding caching to its iPhone app. The new feature lets you download thousands of songs to your iPhone, listen to Slacker’s customized stations when you don’t have an Internet connection, or a reliable one, or you just want to conserve battery life. And as the Slacker folks are pointing out, it may prove especially appealing for folks who sign up for AT&T’s new, not-unlimited-anymore data plans–they can cache music over Wi-Fi, then listen without eating up any wireless data.
(When you tell Slacker to cache, it advises you to do so over 3G only if you’ve got an unlimited data plan–that alert will take on new meaning once there are iPhone users who don’t have unlimited data.)
Missing, at least for now, is the automated night-time caching feature that’s available on Slacker’s Android and BlackBerry versions. Maybe Slacker will add it once iPhone OS 4 is out and it can make the downloading happen in the background.
Dave Zatz liked this feature when he tried it a couple of weeks ago, and I do, too. It’s a point in favor of Slacker’s $4.99 a month Plus service; you can try it out for two weeks for free. After the jump, some screenshots.
SocialMash:> Facebook and Google Maps Dominate Smartphone App Usage [STUDY] http://ow.ly/17AiWX
Nielsen has released a new mobile application report and its findings showcase not only the increase in smartphone usage, but also what applications are most popular. For its report, Nielsen surveyed more than 4,200 people who had downloaded a mobile application in the last 30 days.
The survey really highlights just how much smartphone ownership trails traditional feature phone ownership, at least in the U.S. Nielsen’s study shows that 21% of American wireless subscribers have smartphones.
Still, even non-smartphone users have heavily embraced mobile apps. Nielsen’s survey indicates that the average number of apps that a feature phone user has on his or her device is 10, while the average number of apps a smartphone user has is 22.
Broken down even further, the average number of installed apps based on smartphone OS looks like this:
While the specific applications vary from platform to platform, the most popular apps across smartphones were pretty consistent in this report: Maps, weather, Facebook and music all had strong showings.
Check out this chart which breaks down the five most popular apps by smartphone OS:
It’s interesting to see just how much Facebook dominates the mobile app space; it’s one of the top five apps on each of the platforms highlighted. Still, Nielsen notes that broken down by demographic, MySpace is still very popular among teens and that LinkedIn is strong in the 25-44 demographic.
Do any of these findings surprise you or does this align with your own mobile app usage? Let us know.
Tags: facebook, Google Maps, mobile apps, Nielsen, smartphones, trending
SocialMash:> Facebook and Google Maps Dominate Smartphone App Usage [STUDY] http://ow.ly/17AiWW
- Jim WilkersonSent from my iPhone, but I’d rather be using my blackberry frankly.
I did a talk at the Usenix Tech conference last year, Where does the Power Go in High Scale Data Centers. After the talk I got into a more detailed discussion with many folks from Netflix and Canada’s Research in Motion, the maker of the Blackberry. The discussion ended up in a long lunch over a large table with folks from both teams. The common theme of the discussion was predictably, given the companies and folks involved, innovation in high scale service and how to deal with incredible growth rates. Both RIM and Netflix are very successful companies and, until you have seen and attempted to manage internet growth rates, you really just don’t know. I'm impressed with what they are doing. Growth brings super interesting problems and I both learned considerably from and really enjoyed spending time with both teams.
I recently came across an interesting talk by Santosh Rau, the Netflix Cloud Infrastructure Engineering Manager. The fact that Netflix actually has a Cloud Infrastructure engineering manager is what caught my attention. Netflix conitinues to innovate quick and is moving fast with cloud computing.
My notes from Rau’s talk:
· Details on Netflix
o More than 10m subscribers
o Over 100,000 DVD titles
o 50 distribution centers
o Over 12,000 instant watch titles
· Why is Netflix going to the cloud
o Elastic infrastructure
o Pay for what you use
o Simple to deploy and maintain
o Leverage datacenter geo-diversity
o Leverage application services (queuing, persistence, security, etc.
· Why did Netflix chose Amazon Web Services
o Massive scale
o More mature services
o Thriving, active developer community of over 400,000 developers with excellent support
· Netflix goals for move to the cloud:
o Improved availability
o Operational simplicity
o Architect to exploit the characteristic of the cloud
· Services in cloud:
o Streaming control service: stream movie content to customers
§ Architecture: Three Netflix services running in EC2 (replication, queueing, and streaming) with inter-service communication via SQS and persistent state in SimpleDB.
§ Good cloud workload in that usage can vary greatly and there is value in having regional data centers and a better customer experience is possible by streaming content from locations near users
o Encoding Service: Encodes movies in format required by diverse set of supported devices.
§ Good cloud workload in that its very computational intense and as new formats are introduced, massive encoding work needs to be done and there is value in doing it quickly (more servers for less time).
o AWS Services used by Netflix
§ SimpleDB
o Developer Challenges:
§ Reliability and capacity
§ Persistence strategy
· Oracle on EC2 over EBS vs MySQL vs SimpleDB
· SimpleDB: Highly available replicating across zones
· Eventually consistent (now supports full consistency (I love eventual consistency but…)
§ Data encryption and key management
§ Data replication and consistency
Predictably, the talk ended with “Netflix is hiring” but, in this case, it is actually worth mentioning. They are doing very interesting work and moving lightening fast. RIM is hiring as well: http://www.rim.com/careers/index.shtml.
The slides for the talk are at: slideshare.
--jrh
b: http://blog.mvdirona.com / http://perspectives.mvdirona.com
For now, now plans for Skype on Palm/WebOS & Windows Mobile. Will focus on iPhone, Android, Symbian http://wp.me/p4P8c-w67 from @gigaom
If you are one of the few thousand people who own a Nokia N900, then sometime later this week Skype is going to offer you a ability to make two-way video calls on that device. You would be able to call any Skype user (whether on desktop or laptop) and have a two-way video communication, Russ Shaw, Skype’s vice president of Skype Mobile told GigaOM. Eventually you will be able to call other mobile clients and also to Skype-on-TV.
Shaw said that it was part of their ongoing close relationship with Nokia. Nokia N900 has dual cameras — one in the front and one in the back. The calls would work on both 3G and WiFi networks, though I bet the performance is going to be far superior on WiFi. Some of the smaller VoIP players such as Fring have already launched video calling enabled apps.
Ironically, on Friday afternoon when I spoke to Shaw, he was unclear when company would launch its Skype-over-3G app for the iPhone, arguing that the company didn’t want to release any product that disappointed customers. And 24-hours later the app was available from the Apple’s iTunes App store. (For now these calls are free but eventually Skype is going to be charging folks for calls over 3G, which tells me they are using a solution very similar to the one they cobbled together for Skype-over-Verizon. For an alternate explanation, check out Andy Abramson’s post who thinks the magic is Skype’s SILK codec and working intimately with Apple hardware.)
Shaw said that the company was focused on seamless switching between 3G and WiFi. Anyway that app seems to have met its goals, prompting even their harsh critics to give it a thumbs up. Skype data shows that the company has seen 12 million downloads from the owners of iPhone and iPod Touch.
Shaw also confirmed that the official Android Skype app will be available before the end of the year. Skype was focusing on iPhone, Symbian and Android OS devices, Shaw said. In other words, Windows Phone and WebOS don’t figure in the company’s plans for now. “We are not doing anything directly on Palm but if a carrier wanted to do that, we can work with them,” he said. It was part of company’s strategy to take a cue from carriers on operating systems with a smaller footprint compared to the big three.
What about RIM? Shaw said that a lot of people want an over-the-top application. Verizon subscribers can get Skype on their Blackberry devices, thanks to a special relationship between the two companies. In other words, for now, all Blackberry owners who want Skype are out of luck.
Sent from my iPhone, but I’d rather be using my blackberry frankly.
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According to AdMob, the iPhone operating system makes up 50% of the worldwide smartphone market, with the next-highest OS being Android at 24%. Sales projections for the Apple iPad run anywhere from one to four million units in the first year. Like it or not, the iPhone OS, and Safari in particular, have become a force to be reckoned with for Web developers. If you haven’t already, it’s time to dive in and familiarize yourself with the tools required to optimize websites and Web applications for this OS.
Thankfully, Safari on iPhone OS is a really great browser. Just like Safari 4 for the desktop, it has great CSS3 and HTML5 support. It also has some slick interface elements right out of the box, which sometimes vary between the iPhone and iPad. Lastly, because the iPhone OS has been around for quite some time now, a lot of resources are available.
I know that most discussion about the iPhone OS platform centers on native applications. But you can still create powerful, native-looking applications using HTML, JavaScript and CSS. This article focuses on three phases of building and optimizing your website: design, coding and testing.
Before we get into the three phases, let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of building a Web app rather than a native app.
Advantages of building a Web app instead of a native app:
Disadvantages of building a Web app instead of a native app:
[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]
Designing a Web app for this platform is much like designing a native app, so you’ll have access to some really great tools. Whether your wireframing tool of choice is pencil and paper or desktop software, you’re covered.
Not many people know that Apple has a “Web apps” section on its website, which is dedicated to showcasing optimized websites.
Featured Web app on the Apple website
There are also some galleries elsewhere that showcase the finest in mobile Web design:
Paper prototyping has long been my tool of choice for wireframing new ideas or websites. What I really like about the tools below is that they provide perspective on the size and dimensional constraints that you’re dealing with. To successfully optimize a Web app for the iPhone OS, you have to cut things out. I suggest keeping the design minimal by wireframing with a sharpie and one of the tools listed below.
Notepod is great for sketching out rough ideas for the iPhone and iPad.
Once you know exactly how things will lay out in your design, we can move to the desktop and get specific. I really like wireframing with OmniGraffle, but sometimes diving straight into Photoshop makes sense. Either way, these tools are a huge help in making it happen.
iPad GUI preview from Teehan + Lax.
Hungry for more? This article has a good rundown of additional design tools.
When you start coding for Safari on the iPhone OS, understanding how the browser works is important. Also, there are subtle differences in the iPhone and iPad’s browsers, such as how form-select boxes work. Most importantly, Safari has great CSS3 and HTML5 support, so you can use modern code without having to worry about cross-browser compatibility.
Apple actually does a really good job of documenting Safari for the iPhone OS. The only shortcomings in my opinion are a lack of help with browser detection and window orientation. Read each of the articles below for everything you need to know about coding for this browser.
iPhone Human Interface Guidelines for Web Applications
This is a good overall summary of how Safari for the iPhone OS works. It’s certainly worth scanning through, because it has some good advice, although no specific coding examples.
iPad Human Interface Guidelines
This document does a good job of distinguishing iPhone elements and iPad elements. This is also worth scanning through, because it has some great advice on designing for the iPad.
Safari Web Content Guide
This document gets specific about the viewport, webclip icons, unique meta tags and event handling, among many other topics. Code examples are provided. I recommend reading it cover to cover before getting started.
Preparing Your Web Content for the iPad
This document provides tips on testing your website on the iPad, but its discussion on browser detection isn’t as detailed as I would like.
Browser Detection
David Walsh provides good examples of proper browser detection for the iPad and for the iPhone on his blog. Options for PHP and Javascript are included.
Detecting iPhone Window Orientation
This iPhone development tutorial from Nettuts provides a good example of how to vary style sheets according to the iPhone’s orientation.
Detecting iPad Window Orientation
Detecting iPad’s window orientation is much easier. Here’s what the code looks like (no JavaScript required):
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (orientation:portrait)" href="portrait.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (orientation:landscape)" href="landscape.css">
While the iPhone has a few mobile development frameworks, jQTouch is far and away the best. jQTouch gives you all of the tools to make your mobile Web app look and feel like a native one. Visit the website, and go to the demo website from your iPhone to get a feel for it.
My only complaint when building my first website with jQTouch was a lack of documentation and tutorials. I had to figure it out by playing with the demo website’s code. Here are some jQTouch articles that proved helpful in coding my first website:
A crucial and somewhat tricky part of building a website or Web app for the iPhone OS is testing. It’s a little more complicated than testing in a web browser, but familiarizing yourself with a couple of tools should make the process simple.
Liveview is a really clever testing tool for when your app is in the design or initial coding phase. It allows you to broadcast an image from your desktop onto your phone so that you can see what it looks like. This is useful for getting text size and the visual specifics just right, because sometimes visualizing from Photoshop is hard.
In my opinion, no good iPhone or iPad emulators are available. The ones that are available are a waste of time. Much better is to download the latest version of the SDK and use Apple’s official iPhone OS simulator, which of course supports the iPad as well.
Setting up the SDK and a local testing environment takes a few minutes but is well worth the effort, rather than depending on unofficial and often inaccurate emulators. I’ve written a step-by-step tutorial about setting up a local testing environment that’s worth a read. One great thing about local testing is that it’s faster and does not require an Internet connection. I highly recommend going this route until you are ready to launch.
PhoneGap is a game-changer for Web developers. If you would rather create your app in HTML, CSS and JavaScript but want it to run natively and have it be available in the App Store, then PhoneGap is the solution. It’s an open-source development tool that not only compiles your code for native use on the iPhone OS but also works for Android, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices.
PhoneGap also steers clear of the recently controversial 3.3.1 clause of Apple’s terms of service. In other words, apps compiled with PhoneGap will still be approved. Check out the list of apps that are built with PhoneGap to learn more.
If you are, then some good hosted services will make it easier to optimize your website for multiple platforms without having to start from scratch. There are various levels of flexibility available, but all the services use a WYSIWYG-like editor to help you create mobile websites on the fly. Depending on your Web app and client, one of the following may be a good fit:
Mobify is a great alternative if you don’t care to build from scratch.
It’s a great day to be a Web developer, because non-desktop platforms like the iPhone OS open up greater possibilities for us to express our creativity and entrepreneurial savvy, while allowing us to adhere to modern Web standards. All of the tools you need to create great a Web experience on the platform that’s currently dominating the mobile space are out there. It’s up to you to make the most of them!
(al)
© Nick Francis for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: ipad, iphone, mobile
Web Development For The iPhone And iPad: Getting Started - Smashing Magazine
- Rob DianaSmashing Mag with a great overview of web dev for mobile and some great links too.
- Rob DianaSmashing Mag with a great overview of web dev for mobile and some great links too.
- Rob DianaSharing: Web Development For The iPhone And iPad: Getting Started - Smashing Magazine http://bit.ly/buftxr
- Rob DianaWeb Development For The iPhone And iPad: Getting Started
- Chuck ReynoldsWeb Development For The iPhone And iPad: Getting Started - Smashing Magazine
- Mike Hochanadel
Holiday Inn testing smart phones as hotel keys. Skip front desk check-in, go right to your room http://bit.ly/al0zWr > Sign me up
- Hutch Carpenter
Computer and software security company McAfee has acquired Trust Digital, a company that provides security software to mobile phones. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Trust Digital provides enterprise smartphone security and management software for government organizations and various companies. IT organizations use Trust Digital to secure and manage smartphones, including a variety of mobile operating systems including iPhone OS, Android, Web OS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. McAfee will use Trust Digital's technology to help business secure and deploy applications on smartphone devices, such as the Android and iPhone.
Smartphone security is hot right now, with a number of companies raising considerable amounts of money to scale security operations as businesses look beyond the BlackBerry.
Yahoo has had a busy day. Not only did they announce a new cross-branding deal with Nokia, and strike a partnership with Match.com, and have their CEO spar onstage with Mike, but they apparently made an acquisition too. It’s a location-based service. No, not that one. It’s called Koprol. Basically, it’s the Asian Foursquare.
Koprol, based in Jakarta, Indonesia focuses on the “intersection of location, community expertise and mobile experiences.” With it, people share photos and reviews of locations using their mobile phones. And yes, it allows you to “check-in” to a location.
This acquisition is interesting to say the least since Yahoo had been in discussions to buy Foursquare, the American Koprol. That purchase (which we urged Foursquare not to agree to) would have likely cost Yahoo north of $100 million. The terms of this deal were not disclosed, but you can be sure Yahoo got Koprol for far less than that.
On the surface, this purchase seems to make sense with Yahoo’s apparent direction. With the Nokia deal in place, they seem to be going after emerging markets, such as Indonesia. That said, Koprol has apparently been extending beyond feature phones, as it today introduced a BlackBerry application. resource.
[via Hunter Walk]
To Top Off A Busy Day, Yahoo Acquires Foursquare — Well, The Asian Foursquare
- (jeff)isageek
Boston-based start-up MocoSpace, is helping consumers connect with each other using Android phones through the recent launch of their chatting app. The android app will help garner a greater user base for MocoSpace and create additional opportunities for monetization. The mobile social network provider launched in 2006 and has already signed up over 11 million users.
MocoSpace’s previous target audience were non-techies, ages 18-34, without smartphones who want to get into the experience of MocoSpace without much headache. Noticing that the number of users from Android devices had spiked by 40% over the last half-a-year, making it the number one growing device for accessing MocoSpace over iPhone and Blackberry, the android app was launched. The app is set to maintain the existing brand experience of MocoSpace by offering simple functionality.
MocoSpace CEO Justin Siegel said, “We’ve really listened to what our users want in developing this application. We know that our users love to communicate, so we’re committed to giving them the best mobile chat experience to help people stay connected and have fun on their phones.”
With the app users can:
MocoSpace holds great potential for advertising, especially as spending on mobile ad increases drastically. With consumer profiles and interests, advertisers will be able to hyper-target MocoSpace consumers, helping MocoSpace’s monetization strategy proliferate in addition to its virtual currency implementations. As one of the largest social networks on mobile platforms, we expect MocoSpace to grow to greater success.
:-)
- Kol Tregaskes:-)
- Kol Tregaskeswhen I heard them ask a blackberry question on cash cab I thought they were talking about the fruit.Yes I am that far behind.
- VAL D. Zone is not goingcan I borrow that .. I have a few buddies who work for RIM ..
- johnpiercynevertheless I cant say to a girl your apples.
- Mahmood Padura JellinekNow Apple is in all the disputes, and Blackberries are in all of the suits.
- Jimminy, CoG of FF
It’s amazing what taking one of the best iPhone apps, making it free, and giving it a better name will do. Actually, it’s not. Twitter for iPhone has rocketed to the number 1 app (free app, but undoubtedly overall as well) in the App Store following its release yesterday. And Apple has wasted no time heaping praise on the app in its own way, by making it the coveted iPhone App of the Week in the App Store.
Twitter for iPhone, of course, is the new name for Tweetie, the app made by the company Atebits (really, Loren Brichter) until they were acquired by Twitter in April. While Tweetie itself was already extremely popular (that tends to happen when you make the best-of-class app), its popularity is bound to hit a whole different level now. First of all, the app used to cost $2.99, but Twitter decided to make it free. Perhaps more importantly though, the new branding — simply “Twitter” in the App Store — makes it much more visible to the masses looking for the best Twitter app through search.
And that’s exactly why Twitter made the purchase — they needed a way to further their brand on mobile clients, so users weren’t confused, and got the best experience. On BlackBerry and Android phones, they built their own apps from scratch. But they likely realized it would be hard to top Tweetie, so they just bought it. Smart move.
The app itself remains the best Twitter client for the iPhone. There are a few small changes here and there, such as more emphasis on the new-style Retweets, which some people still seem to hate despite seemingly huge adoption. Search is better, the app seems faster overall, and again, the price is now 100% better. The biggest complaint people seem to have is about the new icon. But I, for one, kind of like it. It makes a lot more sense from a branding perspective than the old chat bubble.
Perhaps Apple giving Twitter the App of the Week was to make up for their odd half-roll out of the app a few days ago. The app was showing up in users’ app update area, but you couldn’t click on it for over a day. Or maybe they just love the app. Either way, it’s going to get a ton of downloads. It already is.
As a somewhat related side note, Apple is also featuring Square as the iPad App of the Week. Square is the mobile payment company started by Twitter creator and chairman Jack Dorsey. Apple is also featuring Square on the iPhone side of the store, as well. Now we just need a version of Twitter for the iPad so Apple can feature that too — and to make me happy.
You can find Twitter for iPhone here. And Square for iPhone/iPad here.
U.S. owners of Symbian-based handsets click 2.7 times more mobile ads than those with iPhones, according to April data due to be released by mobile ad company Smaato on Monday. And this is in a country where, relatively speaking, Symbian phones have very little presence. Perhaps Apple is planning its iAd platform on the wrong operating system.
Smaato summarizes the observation by saying:
The performance of different operating systems in April shows Feature Phone handsets continue its consistent rise in CTR’s (134 up 9 from March), closing the gap on Symbian (157 rising just a point from the previous month). The remaining operating systems saw drops in the index, as CTR’s decreased across the globe. The Index consists of the average CTR of all devices and this number is set to 100.
Despite Feature Phone’s gains, Symbian’s remains the leading OS in terms of click through rates worldwide, with more than double the click through rate of iPhone. Putting this into perspective, we have to consider the sheer number of Symbian devices compared to Apple devices, but it should also serve as further proof to advertisers that the iPhone is far from the be-all and end-all in mobile advertising.
The same clickthrough trend applies to the rest of the world, too, although not as dramatically. Globally, feature phone clickthrough rates are a close second to Symbian handsets followed by Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android, Palm and BlackBerry. But while it’s easy to assume that there are more clicks on Symbian phones simply because there are more of them, that line of thought doesn’t apply when talking about the clickthrough rate, which is a user-driven activity. And in fact, it’s marginally more difficult to click an ad on a Symbian phone than it is on an iPhone — very few Symbian handsets are touchscreen devices.
Smaato’s report is based on data from 40 mobile ad networks that served more than 6 billion ad requests in the month of April, making for a sizable pool of information. So why the heavily skewed clickthrough rates for Symbian, especially in the U.S.? My thought is that Symbian is a more mature operating system in terms of age, and both advertisers and developers have used that time to optimize mobile advertising on the platform. Apple’s iPhone OS is a relative youngster compared to Symbian, having only initially launched on a product in June of 2007. I have little doubt that Apple will figure out how to get the best return on investment from its iAd platform launch later this year, but as of today, Symbian can claim a little victory in the mobile ad space.
Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
How iAd and the iPad Will Change Mobile Marketing
Social stream aggregator TweetDeck realizes full well that there’s a lot of opportunity for growth in the mobile area, and that apps for iPhone, iPad and (soon) Android is not going to cut it if it wants to be a dominant player there.
Hence, the startup has “embarked on a secret mission” to develop a full-fledged mobile Web client to cater to people with browser-equipped BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian and other devices.
The cross-platform mobile Web client for TweetDeck will benefit from cheaper and faster Internet access in the years to come, CEO Iain Dodsworth writes, and more powerful and standards-compliant browsers and HTML5 will make for an even greater opportunity.
Dodsworth also mentions that battery life is an issue on all mobile devices, and particularly on older platforms. With TweetDeck Mobile Web, which is what the product will likely be called, an app running in the background draining your phone’s juice stops being a problem, unless of course it isn’t one for you.
The startup makes it clear that it will not developing new features for its existing and future dedicated mobile clients, commenting that “the Android app is coming very soon and the iPhone and iPad apps will continue to be improved moving forward”.
TweetDeck says that by focusing its efforts on a single Web client, it can provide the attention and resources to “really make the experience shine”. The startup plans to create style sheets and Javascript dedicated to each platform, and promises it will work well on slimmed down devices. A TweetDeck for everyone, if you will.
A timing for launch wasn’t provided, but TweetDeck says they’ve been developing the product for months, and that testing is about to begin (you can sign up here).
The company has started by optimizing TweetDeck Mobile Web for BlackBerry devices, and says that it will be looking at what the community says to see which platforms it should be polishing next.
One of the competitors it will be facing a lot of heat from is … Twitter, which also boasts a fairly powerful mobile Web client. It’s unclear if that other rival, Seesmic, has similar plans.
