apps

Mar 4, 2013 ∞

Twitter kills TweetDeck, announces it on Posterous, which they're also killing

Twitter kills TweetDeck, announces it on Posterous, which they’re also killing

I 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.

Feb 28, 2013 ∞

Google's answer to AirPlay comes to YouTube for iOS, sends video to consoles and TVs

Google’s answer to AirPlay comes to YouTube for iOS, sends video to consoles and TVs

I’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 TV via the console. It’s a great experience.

If you need some YouTube content to try this out with, consider the massive Slenderman collection I linked to at my personal blog yesterday.

Feb 24, 2013 ∞

Twitter kills my favorite Twitter app for Android

In 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 widget that is also a fully-functional Twitter client), but they can’t accept any more Falcon Pro users.

Falcon Pro’s left- and right-drawer layout, with an elegant, clutter-free but feature-packed design, won me over instantly. It came out just as I had given up on Carbon for Twitter, a beautiful app nearly dismissed as vaporware as it faced numerous release setbacks.

Carbon finally came out, and it is very pretty, but Falcon Pro fits my personal Twitter use case best, so Carbon is a close second. You know what isn’t even in the top five? Twitter’s official Android client.

Over 3,000 people have signed a petition to raise Falcon Pro’s limit as of Saturday night, but that’s at Twitter’s absolute discretion, and it would set a bad precedent, so I’m not holding my breath.

But if you tried out Falcon Pro and didn’t like it, you can revoke the app’s access to your Twitter account, thereby freeing up a token for a new user. Redditor classic_schmosby explains in this comment.

Twitter: You can’t build and maintain a thriving ecosystem with token limits and patronizing blog posts about “building user value.” You will never offer a sufficient variety of apps to please all use cases. Your developer community fosters a massive user base that may not otherwise come to or stay with Twitter, pumping data into your system for you to monetize. Developers get and keep users for you by offering designs, features, and improvements that you cannot provide. Don’t stifle that, celebrate it.

Feb 11, 2013 ∞

Evernote CEO hints at future task management integration

Phil 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 app I can find, and settling on ~~Wunderlist~~¹Any.do for now, I’m very excited about an integrated Evernote task management solution.

I can’t decide. It’s Any.do for now, as of February 25, 2013. Wunderlist has great native apps on most platforms, both mobile and PC, but Any.do is the best mobile solution I’ve found, and that’s where I really need a task manager. ↩

Jan 16, 2013 ∞

Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternatives

The 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 Dropbox-only.

If you’re a plaintext geek, read Mr. Blanc’s post to get a good overview of options from someone who knows the subject very well.

Jan 13, 2013 ∞

More House of Representatives data available in XML

O’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 enterprising developers make something cool with the newly-available data streams, and future offerings as well. I propose an app that provides push notifications when keywords of your choice are mentioned on the House floor.

Jan 8, 2013 ∞

App to App Handshakes

Fred 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 to the Tumblr app but as a link share. I wanted an audio share.

This happens whenever I try to share something to Tumblr and it drives me crazy. Hopefully Mr. Wilson’s emails to SoundCloud and Tumblr will prompt resolution between their apps, and spur conversation about fixing this kind of thing overall.

Jan 7, 2013 ∞

Keycard: A neat little Mac app that secures your computer by detecting the proximity of your mobile device - The Next Web

Matt 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 different rooms in the house, my Mac remained awake and usable. However, if I went outside a range of around 10-15 meters, Keycard did its thing without an issue.

I’m not sure $6.99 is a viable price for 1.0 app whose developers are still perfecting activation range and that is suffering from “random screen locks when the device is still in range,” but it’s a neat concept. I’d find it especially useful in an Apple-focused office environment or a co-working space. Here’s a direct link to the iTunes store if you want to check it out.

Jan 7, 2013 ∞

Airrand mashes up tasks, Foursquare, and SMS

This 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.

Jan 4, 2013 ∞

At least one Ars Technica reader agrees: Rdio > Spotify

Ars 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 available in so many regions globally? The supremely intuitive app experience leaves Spotify in the dust, the social features add to the already first-rate discovery options, while the method of cataloguing your favourite music is far superior.

Yup, it still pains me that so many people got hooked on Spotify via Facebook and never learned of Rdio’s obvious superiority.

Dec 22, 2012 ∞

Rdio now sends you a notification when artists in your collection release new music

People who prefer Spotify to Rdio either don’t know Rdio exists (Rdio’s problem) or are totally crazy (their problem).

What makes Rdio the better service:

New release notifications for the music you love
UI and UX don’t suck
Web client is solid
Album-focused approach instead of playlist-focused approach
Remote control Rdio on one device from another

Oct 11, 2012 ∞

Tumblr Puts More Focus On Photos With Photoset, Its New Standalone iOS App

Drew Olanoff, at TechCrunch:

By not forcing you to log into your Tumblr account, the company could attract a brand new set of users who just want to pull photos together without the hassle of creating a page, tagging things or worrying about how to share them.

Maybe this will work, maybe not. But I like Tumblr’s people because of stuff like this.

Sep 29, 2012 ∞

Apple Is Heavily Promoting Alternative Map Apps In The App Store

Amazon heads off app fragmentation on Kindle Fire, Android

Kevin C. Tofel, writing at GigaOM:

This could mean vastly better tablet apps for the higher resolution Kindle Fires similar to the improved iPad apps that iOS developers made instead of scaled-up iPhone software.

I think he’s right: assuming developers embrace this change, it can only bode well for the quality of app experiences for consumers.

But that’s not the only angle here, is it?

I’m not a developer, so I have some questions. My questions imply their own answers, so correct me if I’m wrong:

How is encouraging the development and maintenance of multiple simultaneous versions of an app going to be helpful to developers?
Doesn’t each version come with its own bugs, complaints, and quirks?
Don’t developers want easier ways to incorporate device flexibility into a single binary?

Sep 6, 2012 ∞

HootSuite Buys Seesmic

Robins Wauters interviewed Seesmic founder Loïc Le Meur at The Next Web today on his company’s sale to rival HootSuite.

I have always thought Seesmic was the best multi-profile app for Twitter and Facebook on mobile, and I always preferred their web interface to Hootsuite’s. But Le Meur is a brilliant fellow, and, as long as his team is taken care of, via either jobs at Hootsuite or decent compensation, I can only be happy for Seesmic.

Twitter files appeal in major social media case

Jeff John Roberts provides an update on Twitter’s latest legal battle over at GigaOM. I think it’s fascinating that Twitter is living two lives:

They’re vigorously defending the rights of their users to maintain control over what happens to their tweets with regard to the government. They’re also perfecting a a cold hostility toward third-party developers.

These two strategies feel, for obvious reasons, very different from one another. But they are both directed at achieving the same two goals:

to maximize the user-base, particularly to keep Twitter attractive to dissidents, protesters, journalists, and others whose use cases may involve sensitive or vulnerable action or information
to maximize Twitter’s control over user-generated content (mostly individual tweets) and how it is consumed by users

It’s a great time to be a Twitter user who is happy with the service’s in-house apps and undaunted by their increasing bloat. It is a very bad time to be someone interested in providing Twitter users with a better experience that Twitter itself is willing or able to do.

Aug 28, 2012 ∞

NoWait protects restaurants from the wrath of restless customers

Rebecca Grant, writing at VentureBeat:

Restaurants can use this iPad app to keep track of available tables and alert customers with a text message when their table is ready.

This sounds like technology with the potential to go far beyond restaurant use cases.

Aug 18, 2012 ∞

Boom Makes Your Mac Speakers Go Up To 11

If you’ve ever wanted your Mac to be louder (as I often did before buying this app), Boom is worth the money. Here’s a direct link to the App Store.

Aug 18, 2012 ∞

Pulse Comes To The Web

Frederic Lardinois, writing at TechCrunch:

The web app, says Pulse, is “designed for discovery” and while it’s still a very visual experience, Pulse did away with the row layout it uses in its mobile apps. Instead, your list of sources is now on the left and stories appear in a beautiful dynamic grid layout. The design is responsive, so the layout will automatically adapt itself to the size of your browser windows.

I’ve only tried it out for a few minutes, but it’s beautiful and functional, and it’ll be much easier to manage sources on the web than it is on mobile.

I cut a parenthetical in Lardinois’ headline referring to Microsoft’s part in bringing Pulse to the web. The end result certainly does look great for touchscreen devices generally, and like it fits right into the Windows 8 design aesthetic specifically.

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