Friday, December 16, 2016
NBC stupidly shutting down Breaking News app, service The decision, as it often does in the media business, came down to revenue. "Unfortunately, despite its consumer appeal, Breaking News has not been able to generate enough revenue to sustain itself," Ascheim said in the letter supplied by NBC …Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Most of this article is an extensive discussion of my hunt for the best ad blocker on iOS. It isn’t exhaustive and, given the pace at which the App Store moves, probably won’t remain current for long. That’s why I want to open things with my own thoughts on ad blocking, because I …
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Microsoft has acquired Wunderlist Amir Mizroch of The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft bought Wunderlist’s parent company 6Wunderkinder for between $100 and $200 million. Microsoft is on a roll, having recently acquired Sunrise calendar and purchased email app Acompli and rebranded …Monday, May 5, 2014
When Facebook acquired fitness tracking app Moves, the two said user data would not be commingled. But Moves’ new privacy policy reverses course. First, when fitness tracking app Moves was acquired by Facebook in April, it said: For those of you that use the Moves app – the Moves experience will …Thursday, March 20, 2014
I want to tell you about one great podcast every week. This shouldn’t be a problem for at least a and a half or so because I am currently subscribed to about 80 podcasts. The first Podcast of the Week is CMD + Space. An interview show by Myke Hurley, CMD + Space typically features a wide-ranging …Wednesday, March 12, 2014
The image above is the first screen you see when you open Popcorn Time. The app, available on Mac, Windows and Linux, streams movies from the peer-to-peer file sharing protocol BitTorrent. The technology is similar to what old school music swapping service Napster used from about 1999 to 2001, …Thursday, December 19, 2013
Teehan+Lax on redesigning PrismaticIt’s a great post by great designers about the work and value that goes into and comes out of great design. It also happens to explain very clearly the concept behind my own website here at Constant & Endless. Geoff Teehan of Teehan+Lax writes: In the end, a …Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Winamp is deadVery sad news. I’ve used Winamp for its entire life, all 15 years.Thursday, September 19, 2013
Reuters nixes Next: Failed redesigns and the challenge of expanding a digital audienceThat’s a shame. This image alone illustrates the design strides made by the Next team (the cancelled redesign is on the right). The Reuters iOS app is better than that of Associated Press, for what it’s worth.Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Facebook Testing VIP App With Some CelebsIn case you thought I was becoming a Facebook fanboy, let me just say that this celeb crap is something Zuck will be adding to his list of regrets within the year. Granted, that’s probably a very short list, but this VIP thing is a distraction an a gimmick …Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Fast Company’s Austin Carr profiles Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley This profile of Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley by Austin Carr at Fast Company does a great job of humanizing the app and its maker. That’s probably because the man behind the location-sharing and, more recently, …Friday, May 24, 2013
Evernote’s desktop apps get integrated reminders and a task list, no love for mobile yetEvernote’s reminders are great news, and something I’ve been waiting for since at least February, but here’s all that matters to me: We have big plans to expand the functionality, and to bring it to more …Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Path is still spamming your contactsIf you’re a Path user, consider, er, reconsidering. This is apparently the best they can do in response. CNET’s Jennifer Van Grove was told that the #1 request from users is to find friends on Path, hence the aggressive “new-user flow.” Why does “find my friends …Sunday, April 21, 2013
Not a Bad QuarterMarco Arment, he of Instapaper, and of excellent commentary: If you sell a 99-cent app to just 1% of the people who bought new iOS devices in the 2012 holiday quarter alone, you’ll clear about $519,750. Not a bad quarter. Not bad indeed.Thursday, April 11, 2013
This post is exactly what it says on the tin: I’ll share two recipes from if this then that (IFTTT), the service that connects otherwise unconnected pieces of the internet together in epic productivity bliss. Did I oversell that? IFTTT is truly amazing. One of its most useful functionalities is the …Thursday, March 21, 2013
Dropbox isn’t a feature, it’s an infrastructureCollin Fletcher of The Tech Block makes the solid case that the acquisition of iOS email app Mailbox by Dropbox signals the latter company’s push to build a “windowed ecosystem” on top of its core file syncing service. It’s worth reading the …Thursday, March 21, 2013
Evernote will be just fine, despite Google’s recent announcement of a new note-taking app called Google Keep, currently available for the web and Android. Keep allows for text, audio, and images to be added to a single notebook and synced between the web and Android devices. You can even add stuff …Sunday, March 17, 2013
Nope, Flickr’s hashtags aren’t news eitherWSJ was wrong to pretend potential Facebook hashtags are news, and everyone reporting about a similar move by Flickr is just as wrong. What makes this even less news is that Flickr has so far only started calling their longtime tags feature …Friday, March 15, 2013
Transitioning from Google Reader to feedlyFrom the Feedly blog: We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are …Thursday, March 14, 2013
Whitson Gordon finally figured out EvernoteI’m not being snarky: he writes at Lifehacker about how he never “got” Evernote, until recently. It’s a great article and I can say I’ve made at least some use of every technique Gordon discusses. The most important? Use Evernote all the time, for …Monday, March 4, 2013
Twitter kills TweetDeck, announces it on Posterous, which they’re also killingI admit, squeezing the entire post into the title is lazy, but at least it’s informative. I’ll link to Twitter’s death notice for Posterous and call it a post.Thursday, February 28, 2013
Google’s answer to AirPlay comes to YouTube for iOS, sends video to consoles and TVsI’ve been doing this from my Galaxy Nexus for a while now. I paired my phone to my Xbox 360 so I can pull videos up on my phone’s YouTube app (which is much easier to use than the Xbox app) and then send to my …Sunday, February 24, 2013
Twitter kills my favorite Twitter app for AndroidIn August, Twitter turned its back on the sort of independent developers who built their community for them. Now, my favorite Twitter app for Android, Falcon Pro, has hit Twitter’s artificial user limit. They have other apps, (like an incredible …Monday, February 11, 2013
Evernote CEO hints at future task management integrationPhil Libin, CEO of Evernote, talking to Lifehacker: What’s your favorite to-do list manager? You know, I don’t actually have one. I use Evernote, which isn’t particularly great for to-dos yet. Yet. Despite having tried every task management …Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternativesThe Simplenote/nvALT sync issues recently scared me away from Simplenote sync. I use Byword on the Mac and iPad, and Epistle on Android to sync notes with my Dropbox account. PlainText is also very good for this. I haven’t had any problems since going …Sunday, January 13, 2013
More House of Representatives data available in XMLO’Reilly's Alex Howard reports that both House floor summaries and bulk downloads of all House legislation are now available in XML. It doesn't mean everything Congress does is available yet, but it’s a great progression. I really hope some …Tuesday, January 8, 2013
App to App HandshakesFred Wilson: This morning I was at the gym listening to the Django Unchained Soundtrack on my phone in the SoundCloud android app. I decided I wanted to make Trinity my song of the day on Tumblr. I hit the share icon, up came a list of apps, I selected Tumblr, and I was taken …Monday, January 7, 2013
Keycard: A neat little Mac app that secures your computer by detecting the proximity of your mobile device - The Next WebMatt Brian writing at The Next Web: In our tests, I had mixed results. Initially, my iPhone continued to remain in range, meaning that if I was to walk around the office or …Monday, January 7, 2013
Airrand mashes up tasks, Foursquare, and SMSThis is a brilliant and elegant use of Foursquare. It’s just a web app, at least for now, so it doesn’t really fit my use case. But it looks impressive and I’m going to give it a try.Friday, January 4, 2013
At least one Ars Technica reader agrees: Rdio > SpotifyArs Technica reader jamieskella, contributing to Chris Foresman’s reader recommendation round-up for all those newly-gifted iPads out there: How and why is Spotify still being recommended when Rdio (free) boasts 18 million songs and is …