Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Frightful Kindle
Until quite recently, I’d seen a Kindle only once. It was at a friend’s house, only for a moment, and my general impression was that it was clunky and only borderline readable.
Friday, March 27, 2009
New Gatekeepers Twitter, Apple, YouTube Need Transparency in Editorial Picks
There was a time when all you needed was a good record review in Rolling Stone or a stellar book review in the New York Times to get a boost in sales and popularity. But as those old gatekeepers lose their cachet in the digital age, a new set of gatekeepers has sprung up and they don’t have bylines. These are the editors who pick featured artists and apps at the Apple iTunes store, who choose videos to spotlight on YouTube, and who highlight Suggested Users on Twitter.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
iPhone App Prices Tanking
Apple is famous for keeping its gadget pricing steady. But the iPhone app store is a much different market: App developers have cut prices significantly in the last few months. And the market for $10 premium apps seems to have evaporated.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Record Exec Says Music’s Future Is in the Clouds
Terry McBride thinks the smartphone is going to upend the current version of the record industry as profoundly as the iPod changed the last one. In a speech to college musicians, Mr. McBride said smartphone apps “will radically change the business.”
Friday, October 31, 2008
The New AOL.com Gets All Social and Stuff
Social networks are front and center in the latest redesign of AOL’s AOL.com homepage, which the company announced Thursday and says it will start to gradually roll out to users over the next few weeks (unless they choose to opt in earlier).
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Office Goes to the Web
Microsoft made a stunning announcement during today’s Professional Developers Conference: a lightweight Web-based version of Office. Earlier in the day, Microsoft debuted Windows 7. Windows 7’s core feature focus is making content more easily accessible across devices, PCs or services.
Monday, August 4, 2008
iPhoneDevCamp 2 Apps Recap: Hail a Taxi, Count Push-Ups, Report Disasters and More!
iPhoneDevCamp 2 took place in San Francisco this past weekend; one of the great things about the conference this year and last was the number of applications written by people who met there for the first time or who had no prior iPhone development experience.
Sometimes, the cleverest ideas and applications arise from these chance encounters, despite having only two days to come up with these applications.
Here are brief descriptions and a few screenshots of some of the nearly 40 applications developed or demoed during iPhoneDevCamp 2.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
iPhoneDevCamp 2
This weekend in San Francisco, the second annual iPhoneDevCamp 2 is underway. Whereas the first confab focused primarily on Web applications, this one has a definite native application flavor, thanks in large part to the fact that the iPhone software development kit (SDK) is out of beta and now available for developers.
When the iPhone was released in June, many developers were disappointed by the absence of an SDK for writing third-party applications on day one.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Silly Is Serious Business
If you read this blog, you might think that Kara Swisher isn’t a big fan of fun. Or at least of silly, fun apps like SuperPoke! and what we call “social entertainment.” Call me silly, but I’d take entertainment over utility any time, and you know what? I bet you would too.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Huddle Chat Is Dead, Long Live Campfire
That certainly didn’t take long. Just a day after going live, Huddle Chat is no more. Huddle Chat was a Web-based multi-user chat room utilizing the new Google App Engine. It bore a striking resemblance to Campfire, a similar application from 37signals. The main difference was that Campfire used a freemium model (free for up to 4 users, fee for more users), while Huddle Chat was completely free.
Now, technically, there’s nothing wrong with developing an application that looks and feels a lot like a competing application. After all, is it surprising that two Web-based multi-user chat rooms are going to look a lot alike.
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