So it is over – the big September iPad show from Apple … let’s see what we got:

• Frontcamera, iPhone display and slimmer case for iPod touch
• Touch screen for iPad nano
• a retro iPad shuffle (WTF?)
• new Apple TV with no real HD and 75% smaller (but that’s basically it)
• iTunes 10 with – PING .. ya, exactly …PING

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

So the hardware updates are consequent but not at all unexpected … no they are actually boring (no one in facebook actually took notice) – the only “wow” Apple got today was for their new software piece iTunes in version 10, coming with a custom made social service only made for the software (and an app for iPod & iPhone). Seriously – a social network, only available in iTunes? My assumption is that this will not work, because I really do not know anyone who LIKES iTunes and uses it only if necessary.

Steve’s goal is that we would use it to explore music … why not starting with a better “search” in your crappy software Steve?

Wow, I am a really deep Apple-Fan-Boy-Crisis … from Apple lover, to a really annoyed iPhone user to a bored geek.

Apple, you really need to impress me in January 2011 (iPad v2?) or I look for better gadgets somewhere else.

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I am not sure what it is yet … it looks like an avatar creator in the beginning and starts to make fun when you beat Franz Beckenbauer the first time

@Ibo Evsan and his team at United Prototype launched tonight the social game called “Fliplife” in beta status and offeres a very easy sign-in via Facebook and engages with the basic need of a social web game:

• collect stuff
• get incentives
• work for it (spend time)
• play
• party

For now (after 1 hour) it reminds me of the first version of the SIMS, but now it is connected and it is about me (and I just got the status “blogger” ) Fliplife seems to try to bring together the best of Second Life, SIMS and maybe Farmville and target the casual player, who is spending some time between coffee, facebook and emails …

I believe it could work especially with the target group of social media and networks nerds that appreciate some fun time in between. Will it be successful? I think that heavily depends if UP constantly evolve the game and engage with the users to ensure long term empathy and snow ball effects. What should be next? (that’s just a wild guess and I really have not talked with Ibo or anyone about it )

• mobile game (maybe location aware)
• real-life fliplife happenings (parties)
• fliplife friends = facebook friends
• clubs (sports, interests etc.)
• …

If you have some minutes give it a try at www.fliplife.de (I guess you need to be able to read german at first hand ) or follow www.facebook.com/fliplife or twitter.com/fliplife or go to the UP Blog.

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My recent twitter account @sh0ly was initially started 19th March 2009, but I am using twitter already since 2008 and was still searching for the best twitter-reading solution which supports all devices I am using to read/consume twitter feeds.

I am organizing my twitter feeds in various lists (twitter.com/sh0ly/lists) and looking for a solution that shows me quick and easy relevant information. As devices I am using iMac, MBP, iPad and NexusOne and the solution should synchronize as much as possible.

To certain extend I tried

• Tweetdeck (good interface for lists // bad customization for relevant views // instable iPhone app // really bad iPad app)
• Seesmic/Twihrl (good approach to handle columns // instable Android app // lost focus on developing Air-App)
• Socialize (really good native MacOS social reader // very instable // no mobile client)
• Twitdroid (really good functionality for mobile client // no MacOS client // no good handling of lists)
• Twitter/Tweetie (best twitter client for iPhone // still no list handling in MacOS client // good Android client, but very basic

but the only application that fits best to my needs is finally Echofon (earlier called TwitterFon)

The crucial features for me are:

• availability for the “reading” devices (MacOS, iPad)
• full synchronistic approach for all clients (last read tweet, unread status)
• really slim and easy interface for MacOS and iPad
• full functionality for Twitter (re-tweet, favourites, profiles, follow etc.)
• integration of bit.ly and flickr
• first client offering real-time service of the twitter API (no pull, only push)

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I have written quite frequently how I tried to save battery with my smartphones, nevertheless if it was the iPhone, Nexus One or any other mini computer. After finally converting to Android and the Nexus One I also tried again to optimize the battery drain by testing various settings and the running time of the battery based on the new Android OS 2.2 (Froyo).

As best practice I can already recommend to install the power save bar (provided by HTC or via several applications) to toggle wifi, bluetooth, GPS, auto-sync (push), auto-screen-brightness and additional widgets to toggle wifi-tethering and mobile data. Here is the outcome for the average battery-staying-alife-time for general usage with some phone calls:

a) 3G + all toggles set to “on” = 4.5 hours
b) a) without tethering = 8 hours
c) 2G + all toggles Set to”on” = 6.5 hours
d) c) without tethering = 12 hours
d) 2G + GPS + Push + brightness + mobile data = 18 hours
e) 2G + GPS + brighness + mobile data = 24 hours
f) 2G without any toggle = 96 hours

So, if you really use it only as phone, the Nexus One running 2.2 (Froyo) can last full 4 days. Obviously the pure connection with mobile data and the running apps that are trying to connect the battery drains massively. Any more data connection is pushing the battery to its limits.

My advice:
Use your toggles wisly and often. Are you infront of a computer in the office or at home – why having the smartphone running data? Do you have a pad with you – why running mobile data? If you are really “mobile” and have no other device in convinient distance you should start connecting piece by piece as needed. I am pretty sure this strategy works for almost everybody !

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This is part 2 of the awesome augmented projection during the mlove conference in Germany:

All participants where interacting with different colored screens of their smartphones, which they were able to choose via a website – awesome interactive digital approach! Watch the video …

mlove interactive projection from PROJEKTIL on Vimeo.

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Pulse stroke back. After loosing ground to the newcomer Flipboard, which received an enormous buzz for organizing social streams in a smooth and brilliant way to read on iPad, Pulse added the most valuable functions of Flipboard

in order to stay on top of all iPad readers.

Additionally Pulse was launching new iPhone and Android apps with minimized functionality to expand the brand on mobile devices.

But the biggest new asset is the seamless integration with the popular blogging and sharing service posterous. Via the customized URL yourname.postmeme.com all Pulse users get an own posterous blog where they can autopost to the various social networks and services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Youtube etc. The “hearted” articles that are shared via the postmeme blog are also shown within the iPad application as own stream.

Excellent work by Pulse – now I am back and will wait until Flipboard allows native RSS inclusion

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“mlove” – what a strange and odd name I thought when I first heard about it. “It” was supposed to be a kind of conference – at least that was what I got listening to people who were involved into mlove. A kind of TED for Mobile…

This actually already shows the first mistery and magic of the confestival mlove and also explains a piece of the success story of the brand mlove:

1. make people interested by not telling the full story
2. design & communicate that the event is different
3. approach & engage “network hub” people
4. target your audience and ensure to motivate people that are willing to share
5. make people feel important

Harald Neidhardt (@hneidhardt), Peter Giblin (@petegiblin), Jonathan MacDonald (@jmacdonald) and the whole international team managed to create a full 3day community event in the middle of nowhere (50 km from Halle/Saale, Germany) that was extra-ordinary & incredible inspiring for everyone participating based on that very simple rules. Of course there were many more factors, like the excellent speeches, great organisation and the ancient castle which influenced the outcome and atmosphere – but the most impressive observation was the different approach for this event.

What you usually get when you are participating at a mobile or digital industry event is that there are some interesting speeches, most of them product or company pitches and 95% of the people at the event are consuming without participating. At mlove the share was the opposite, actually I have the feeling that everybody was sharing all the time. This behavior and motivation created the most inspiring talks and discussions I was part of as long as I can think. So what are my takeaways then? This is very hard to describe and even more hard to capture in a pure text. Lucky me, there were already a great amount of excellent writers/participants sharing their thoughts and as super-added value, mlove invited Heather from Imagethink, who was also creatively live-capturing this years SXSW conference’ keynotes in Austin, Texas. Please see the links below for more details about the speeches, sessions and personal interpretations of some people:

• Imagethink Heather’s flickr set of all speeches http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagethink/sets/72157624272483795/
• contagious magazine report http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/06/mlove_1.php
• Jonathan MacDonald Future Cube video http://www.jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=4703
• Ralf Rottmann (TheNextWeb) http://www.24100.net/2010/06/mlove2010
• Heike Scholz (Mobilezeitgeist) http://www.mobile-zeitgeist.com/2010/07/05/mlove-confestival-how-will-mobile-change-your-future (in german)

Reading and watching the above mentioned links you will easily identify that the participants were not only mobile industry people, but also people that have great stories to share and open up the minds of everybody. The spectrum covered from Microsofts office future vision to design & science history, mobile needs in Bangladesh and the two lovely musicians Rocky&Balls who are well-known Youtube-Artists in UK. But the most happened “in between” when all the highly engaged people started chatting and tried to change the world by only talking about it. These were the moments where everybody was taking away the most for themselves from all the various perspectives.

My conclusion? Try to be there the next time. My assumption is that this “spreading the word” will lead to at least one another approach for mlove and the demand for tickets will be higher then the seats. The level of inspiration, mind-opening and new way of thinking is valuable and necessary for everybody who wants to make the world a better place.

Finally to give you a glue what was happening there I would like to invite you the following video showing the giant 3D digitalised projection art showed in the second night on the huge walls of the castle. Projektil, the specialized company from Switzerland, showed this awesome augmented reality and gave another hint what might happen with our senses in the future. Enjoy.

mlove show from PROJEKTIL on Vimeo.

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I am really an Apple fan boy (I can imagine some nodding gestures – but this time Apple really annoyed me big time. What happened? Like written in one of my recent posts I am an early user of the new iOS4 on my iPhone 3G (without S). Historically my experience with software updates or upgrades were always at least neutral, but never negative – most of the times they fixed things or added features that I sometimes was waiting for.

But this time they did something that really contradicts with the “improvement experience” I had with their software and products. My complete iPhone product experience got worse. I literally mean my iPhone lost quality! Why is that? Well first to the observations:

• reaction of all applications, including core applications like calendar and email got slower! Really, even without the multitask functionality (which is included in the iOS fpr 3GS and 4G) Apple managed to make the applications react up very much slower then with the old firmware.
• telephony become a pain! When running any kind of other application or even on standby I have to try at least 3times before the call gets received
• others reported that there are “dismiss” push messages infront of telephony which hinders them to take the call
• the only added functionalities compared to the older firmware are the grouping of apps and the common inbox for all email accounts

But why is that? What might be the strategy for Apple to upgrade an OS and make the experience worse?

I think it is obvious that iOS is by purpose not meant to be for the iPhone 3G (and not for the 2G, but there is anyhow no version), it is only made for the 3GS and mainly for the 4G to leverage from its computing power. That is fine and makes sense to promote the advantages of the new device, but it is a bad manner to slower the 2 years old device to make the customer desire to have the new device!

I did earlier consider buying a new iPhone, but Apple destroyed that desire with two facts:

• there is only a better camera compared in functionality as added value from earlier iPhones – that is really not good enough! In terms of innovation Apple starts loosing market share big time – other OEMs are passing them here!
• punishing me to downgrade to old software and respectively making my old device look even more “slow” is not something I appreciate. I would have rather accepted to not get an upgrade if the Apple software department is not able to improve consistently

So what do I do? I make my iPhone 3G an iPod – because for listening to music it is still a good device. For the rest I am using my NexusOne which just received an awesome speed and functionality boost with Android 2.2 (Froyo) – obviously it is possible even by incremental upgrade of the OS to make devices faster and better in every sense. Also in terms of innovation Android seems to get No1, e.g. I much appreciate the new input system “Swype” which makes me write textes up to three times faster.

So, please Apple and all other OEMs – do never forget that we are in a mobile situation and we have only little time. If you make devices slower it is the absolut wrong direction!

Update: German IT-News golem.de are offering the manual to downgrade to iOS 3.x – it seems to be a very common issue …
http://www.golem.de/1007/76614.html

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Social geeks (I guess you could count me in) were waiting for this: Flipboard (http://www.flipboard.com/) is an iPad app that aggregates Facebook, Twitter and other feeds into a very appealing magazine-like style. In the first version the personalization is primarily based on Re-Tweets and sharing activities of the user, but the user easily admires already the great optimization in user interface and usability that eases the way of reading social news.

The biggest asset is the automated fetching of content behind links in your social networks which shows the user directly the content of the URL and saves a lot of time browsing the stream.

See the explanatory 20 minutes video interview with @scobelizer and the CEO of flipboard to understand the thinking and strategy behind:

For now there is only content considered that is free to get, but I can already see brands and paid content vendors joining this experience to reach the end customer through that application.

I became definitely a big fan of flipboard within minutes and I will skip the other readers on my iPad for now. Looking forward to even more personalized streams in the next version

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