Game

I recommend you watch the WWDC 2010 keynote before reading.

If you watch the video above, you’ll note that I was generally impressed with the announcements made by Apple. I’ll attempt to go into more detail on this post as to some of the other features and what I think about them.

History repeating itself?

Before I talk about the iPhone 4, I want to comment on a statement that Steve Jobs made regarding the pre-iPhone world. He said that before the iPhone and App store, things were completely different. If you think about it, he is absolutely right. I can barely remember what it was like to run apps on my phone, perform firmware upgrades, check email, and surf the web on my smartphones. iPhone was definitely a game changer in 2007-2008.

So will the iPhone 4 be a game changer as well? It’s really hard to predict these things, especially with how often Apple reinvents features that sucked on other phones in a way that we love them somehow. Distortion field? Magic? I don’t know, but it’s a force to be reckoned with. Take for example, the engineering of the iPhone 4 case. What other smartphone maker will take you into the manufacturing process and explain to you why they made the choices they did? I can’t think of many. Apple has put together an integrated antenna design that I have not seen before. Has it been done before? I don’t know, because other companies don’t bother to share these important information. Some may dismiss Apple’s focus on their stainless steel + space age glass design as “useless” or a “distraction from what’s not there” but I disagree with both of those points.

The Screen

My Mechanical Engineering background kicked in a bit when I saw the manufacturing process in action. It sounds pretty unique. Has anyone else done this? I don’t know because companies don’t openly share this information. Apple uses a special lamination technique to bond the screen to the glass, so no more dirt particles as stated by John Gruber:

It’s mentioned briefly in Apple’s promotional video about the design of the iPhone 4, but they’re using a new production process that effectively fuses the LCD and touchscreen — there is no longer any air between the two. One result of this is that the iPhone 4 should be impervious to this dust-under-the-glass issue.

Combined with Apple’s pixel-packing “Retina” technology, we have the makings of an absolutely amazing reading experience. Did you notice how many times Steve Jobs referred to the screen being akin to reading high quality print? Apple sees the trend that everyone else is talking about: the death of print. This is a preemptive strike to capture that rising market through the iPad and iPhone 4.

Two Microphones

For the first time on the iPhone, Apple has introduced a second microphone for “noise cancellation”. Before FaceTime was announced, this didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but now it does. I imagine this will be utilized during video calls and video recording. Currently on iPhone 3GS, the audio quality is not that great on recorded video. I imagine this will not be the case on iPhone 4. We will have to wait and see if this second microphone will help at all.

The A4 Chip and Battery

Apple was proud to announce they are using their own A4 processor in iPhone 4. Not only does this chip offer great performance, but it does so without the cost of heavy power consumption. I think it’s amazing that Apple is able to produce a 40% increase in talk time while providing more power, functionality, and a slimmer design. Again, a lot of critics will overlook this as “ho-hum” because it’s not some futuristic amazing bell or whistle, but I will disagree and will say this is an enormous feat and Apple should be commended.

The Gyroscope

This one surprised me as it did others. The gyroscope has opened up new doors for developers to create spatial awareness type games. Steve Jobs gave a great demonstration of this using a clone of the popular puzzle game, Jenga. As he turned around physically, the iPhone’s display updated its point of view. This is absolutely brilliant!! Think about some of the applications that could utilize the new CoreMotion APIs to create amazing experiences. Kudos to Apple for this one.

The Camera and HD Video

Steve Jobs did an outstanding job explaining protons to a bunch of journalists, and I believe they understood him completely. He went into detail about how megapixels aren’t everything (by the way, thank you Steve for re-iterating this important point). iPhone 4 uses a backside illuminated sensor to produce sharper photos. The 3GS brought a huge increase in quality in photos over the 3G and I wonder if iPhone 4 will do the same. Apple’s example pictures are there, but I’m a bit skeptical until I take my own photos with the thing.

I was extremely happy to hear that Apple has enabled HD video capture from iPhone 4. It will be 720p at 30 frames per second which is perfect for most of us. I doubt it will be professional grade HD video, but I think it will be on par with popular pocket HD cameras like the Creative Vado 3 (which I own), Kodak Zi6 and the Flip HD series. As I stated in the video, I think this opens a new market to Apple which was previously untapped. Pocket HD cameras are fabulous, but we don’t carry them everywhere. We carry our phones everywhere. This is a possible game changer in terms of iPhone reach.

While HD video is not new to smartphones, the ability to edit them on your phone is not common. iMovie for iPhone completely blew me away. This is a fabulous idea and will definitely encourage iPhone 4 owners to shoot more video and to edit it (with transitions, titles, effects, and music) right on the phone! While most of us travel with a laptop where we can edit video, we don’t always have them with us. We carry our phones everywhere. Yet another possible game changer.

Apple is creeping into other markets with iPhone 4.

The Name Change

iPhone OS is now known as iOS. First off, I hate the name, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It actually does make sense to come up with a single name for the OS that powers three separate mobile devices: iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad. Apple was smart this time and licensed the name from Cisco. I welcome the change, but I hate the name.

iOS Tidbits

Apple reiterated a lot of points they covered in the iOS 4 launch event including multitasking, folders, and iAds. All of these are great additions to a polished platform that is getting better and better. I was happy to see iOS will be a free upgrade for all supported devices now.

And Now, Competition

Steve Jobs was on the defensive in this keynote more-so than ever before. He addressed many of the concerns raised by Google’s Android camp including: App approval process, market share, and App store health. For the first time (that I’ve heard of), Apple has publicly acknowledged their main reasons for rejecting apps in the App store: 1. Use of private APIs 2. They crash 3. They don’t do the functionality they describe. When we hear of all of the horror stories of why apps are rejected from developers, it’s usually one sided. We never hear Apple’s side of it and now I’m really skeptical about all of the developers who cried foul. Were your apps actually stable? Did you use private APIs but aren’t telling us? Did your app do other things you didn’t describe? Before this knowledge, we could only assume Apple was being evil and randomly rejecting applications. It’s something to think about.

Apple also did something that I was pleased to see. They didn’t make useless jokes and cracks about their competition. Google, on the other hand, felt it was needed to constantly bash Apple’s products, process, and philosophy. It’s this attitude that has me leaning towards the Apple side of this competition. I acknowledge Android’s incredible momentum and their feature set differentiates itself from iOS in many ways. I hate to see unprofessional, childish acts when your features could speak for themselves.

With this competition, Apple and Google have two very different approaches:

Google – Appeal to technical features, capabilities, and freedom

Apple – Appeal to emotional ties through technology

Which do you believe is more powerful? I’m going to say it’s Apple for me, but that’s not the case for everyone. Android has snatched up all the people who are frustrated with Apple’s “limitations”. They’re also capturing folks who want an alternative to the iPhone. Let’s face it, Android is the only real alternative to the iPhone in the marketplace in terms of point by point features. Nokia and RIM may dominate the worldwide marketshare, but neither of these two companies has a direct answer for the almighty “app store”.

If you watch the FaceTime video, you’ll see very clearly why Apple does what it does. You see families connecting and sharing intimate moments through technology. This can be done easily with iPhone 4 because there is zero setup, zero configuration, zero worry. You can’t say the same about Android. Android appeals to those who want to tinker, who want to configure, who want to customize, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a difference in their approaches. We know video calling on smartphones has been around for a long time on Symbian, but you don’t hear about ordinary, non technical people using it. Why? Because it’s hard to set up, requires technical know-how, and the experience sucks overall. Apple comes in, and makes the experience as simple as a phone call. See what I mean? Android will likely have 50 applications that crop up that do the same thing as FaceTime and we’ve already seen the Qik app on the platform. Will it be as seamless as Apple’s? No. That’s the difference.

Some people don’t want it be seamless. They’d rather have total control of the experience than have it be easy as possible through Apple’s implementation. Apple wants to move the technology in the background and let you make a video call. Some call it “draconian”, I call it “a great experience”.

Apple controls the experience for a reason, and that reason is so you can experience emotion through your technology and not experience technology for emotion.

Conclusion

Overall, iPhone 4’s unveiling went great. Even with technical difficulties, Steve Jobs was able to show why he is king of keynotes. He took control of the situation and actually made it pleasant.

Apple continues to innovate despite the critics. Look at all the engineering that went into iPhone 4 before passing “ho-hum” judgement. Realize that Android is great where it is, and iOS is great where they are, and these two packages offer different perspectives on smartphones. The choice of platform is personal and depends on your preferences and desires.

Related posts:

• iPhone SDK Roadmap Today
• Apple Listened
• Apple iPhone 3G Review

We're still playing the wait-and-see game when it comes to Skype on webOS and Windows Phone 7, but it looks as if to-be iPhone 4 owners won't have to wait long before Skype-based video chatting becomes a reality... if Skype has its way, that is. According to someone on the inside quoted over at Pocket-Lint, Skype "would welcome the opportunity to work with Apple," specifically in reference to integrating FaceTime capabilities into the firm's own app. The mystery man also affirmed that Skype would "welcome the opportunity to work with Apple to bring mobile video calling not only to our many millions of Skype users on iPhone around the world, but also to the countless more making video calls on desktops, TVs and other connected devices." 'Course, there's no specific time frame given, and only Jobs knows if the two companies have said a word to one another about making this happen. One thing's for sure, though -- enabling FaceTime usage within Skype would suddenly made the iPhone 4's video calling abilities a whole lot more appealing. And by "appealing," we mean "useful."

Skype eager to work with Apple FaceTime, pretty much anyone else originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Twitter Effect: Mashable vs TechCrunch vs BoingBoing —

In May 2009, @Mashable, @TechCrunch and @BoingBoing were about equal as three of the biggest blogs on the planet. Each had about 1.85-1.90 million unique visitors in that month.

Fast-forward just a year later, and everything has changed. BoingBoing has dropped almost a million visitors, TechCrunch has gone nowhere, and Mashable has gained a million.

Why? Twitter.

@Mashable has over two million followers. Twitter started to really take off early in 2009, and Mashable totally capitalised. Twitter has easily become their primary focus point – they write a ton of Twitter content, and share heavily on the network. (As a comparison, Mashable has ‘just’ 207 thousand fans on Facebook – a tenth of the network size.)

@TechCrunch has a little under 1.4 million followers, but they don’t push anywhere near as hard as Mashable does on Twitter. That said, it’s enough to keep them in the game. (54,210 Facebook fans.)

@BoingBoing has just 43,219 followers. And doesn’t push hard at all. Indeed, BoingBoing isn’t even on Facebook. Which suggests to me that they either don’t really get the value of social media, or don’t think that they need it. For example – they don’t even use a retweet button on their blog.

After all, let’s face it – BoingBoing and Mashable aren’t all that different. Both are heavy recyclers of external content (although Mashable does write a lot more original material – TechCrunch is almost all original material and opinion). The main difference is Mashable is very much more attuned to the modern social media audience, both in content and presentation. Indeed, they made dramatic, intentional adjustments to capitalise on that audience shift.

BoingBoing did nothing. And until they realise that, and want to change, their numbers are probably only going to get worse. They’re still thinking old-school – Digg, Reddit, Delicious and Stumbleupon. And while you can still get some traffic spikes from those sources, it’s very much on the wane, and doesn’t begin to compare to the Terminator-like, never-ending, cannot-be-stopped onslaught of Twitter.

(Disclaimer: Yes, I know this is Compete, and yes, I now that this mostly represents US traffic. But unless you can prove to me that the relationship between these numbers is dramatically different around the world – and can show me where you get those numbers – it’s largely a moot point.)

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.

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When I first saw this image in all its pixelated glory I thought it was a screenshot of an 8-bit combat jet game. Then I realized that there's nothing that can't do with Lego blocks. [Flickr via Brothers Brick] More »



Lego - Collecting - Toys - Recreation - User Groups

Klout is turning Twitter into a game. As you tweet and connect with other Twitter users, you earn badges for notable achievements. For example, when you’re mentioned by 100 unique users, or have a message retweeted by 25 people, your Klout profile gets a pretty new graphic. The data behind this can be used to determine influential Twitter users.

Klout uses Twitter’s API to analyze user data. In addition to the achievements, Klout also classifies users into one of sixteen influencer types, such as curator or socializer. You can get a feel for how the site works in the screencast embedded below.

Despite the game-like achievements, the service isn’t just for fun. Over 250 companies are using Klout to find influential users, according to TechCrunch. Most aren’t using Klout via its website, but instead its own Klout API, which provides influence scores and classifications. For example, CoTweet shows the influence rating to its users, who may be performing customer support. A complaint might be more likely to be elevated if the customer has a higher Klout rank.

At first blush, Klout may seem like the PageRank for Twitter service we wrote about. While both mine data for meaning, Klout looks for influence, while Trst.me aims to emulate the algorithm Google may use to rank users.

Sponsored by

A tweet from Foursquare yesterday revealed that the company is doing “10+ checkins per second.” We did the math and at 10 checkins per second, Foursquare is processing about 36,000 checkins per hour — putting the daily checkin total somewhere around 864,000.

In fact, once Foursquare hits 11.58 checkins per second — a milestone foreseeable in the very near future — it will be processing over 1 million checkins per day.

Foursquare is all the rage right now and has been growing at an astronomical rate of late. Earlier this month we learned that the location-sharing mobile game is adding around 15,000 users per day. The company has also seen the checkin rate shoot up from one per second in January to more than ten checkins per second today.

We can attribute the company’s strategic allegiance with media companies like Bravo and retail corporations like Starbucks as primary contributing factors to Foursquare’s growth. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Foursquare has become a media darling — garnering mainstream attention for popularizing the location-sharing trend — in much the same way that Twitter did last year.

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For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

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Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter

Tags: checkins, foursquare

Augmented Reality Space Invaders: Expensive. Impossible. Awesome. [Video] — Augmented Reality may not be super practical yet. But it sure is cool, and a lot of fun. And a new Android game looks to make it even more fun. Space InvadAR is a new Android game by Zenitum. It's the world's first "vision-based" AR game, according to the team. And it looks awesome -- watch the video below.

Tetris Clones Pulled From Android Market — sbrubblesman writes "The Tetris Company, LLC has notified Google to remove all Tetris clones from Android Market. I am one of the developers of FallingBlocks, a game with the same gameplay concepts as Tetris. I have received an email warning that my game was suspended from Android Market due to a violation of the Developer Content Policy. When I received the email, I already imagined that it had something to do with it being a Tetris clone, but besides having the same gameplay as Tetris, which I believe cannot be copyrighted, the game uses its own name, graphics and sounds. There's no reference to 'Tetris' in our game. I have emailed Google asking what is the reason for the application removal. Google promptly answered that The Tetris Company, LLC notified them under the DMCA (PDF) to remove various Tetris clones from Android Market. My app was removed together with 35 other Tetris clones. I checked online at various sources, and all of them say that there's no copyright on gameplay. There could be some sort of patent. But even if they had one, it would last 20 years, so it would have been over in 2005. It's a shame that The Tetris Company, LLC uses its power to stop developers from creating good and free games for Android users. Without resources for a legal fight, our application and many others will cease to exist, even knowing that they are legit. Users will be forced to buy the paid, official version, which is worse than many of the ones available for free on the market. Users from other countries, such as Brazil in my case, won't even be able to play the official Tetris, since Google Checkout doesn't exist in Brazil; you can't buy paid applications from Android Market in these countries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WeReward Will Pay for Your Foursquare Check-ins —

WeReward (say that 5x fast) launched today at TechCrunch Disrupt and wants to pay you cash to check-in at local businesses and venues. WeRewards comes from IZEA, the company behind Sponsored Tweets and PayPerPost. Not a shocker that they are moving to monetize the location game as well. I know, you’re looking back and thinking about all the money you missed out on by checking into Foursquare for free.

One smart move by WeReward is that they are not reinventing the wheel when it comes to being a location-based mobile network. Instead, they are simply piggy-backing off of Foursquare’s successful model. When you check-in to WeReward, you can automatically check-in to Foursquare as well.

WeReward works just like any other location-based app. You search for somewhere you would like to check-in and can optionally add a comment along with your check-in. The only difference is that you are also claiming points that ultimately translate into cash.

With all the spoofing and shenanigans that have gone on with Foursquare check-ins in the past, WeRewards has put in some safeguards to avoid being ripped off. Verification doesn’t even depend on your phone’s GPS abilities. In order to collect your points, you have to attach an actual photo from the venue. This can be a photo of you at the place or a photo of your receipt. The details are decided on by the advertiser or business. Once the advertiser has verified your check-in, you can receive your payout via PayPal.

In addition to deciding how you prove you’re actually at a location, the advertiser/business also decides how much you get paid. Each point equates to 1 cent, which offers businesses a lot of room for experimenting. Domino’s is currently offering 25 points (25 cents) for each check-in.

Could this be the future of location-based services? Possibly. While visiting business and earning badges is fun, who doesn’t want their social life to become self-sufficient? What if you could pay for a night out by sharing photos of how much fun you had? Of course, 1 cent payouts are nowhere near enough to take us there, but it’s a start.

Looking at the landscape of paid posts and tweets, It doesn’t seem far-fetched that high-profile people could earn a nice chunk of change this way. Some venues already pay celebs just to show up, why not web celebrities as well?