Could A Real Apple Fan Completely "Go Google"?

As a Mac fan in the 1990s, it was a lot easier to understand who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Apple was very good. Intel was bad. Adobe was usually good. Microsoft was bad. Very bad. Evil. But over time as we have morphed into the latter part of this decade, Intel switched teams and became good. Meanwhile, Adobe looked less like a close friend and more like a despised ex, as Microsoft went from hated bully and thief to playing the role of crazy uncle who nobody really likes but puts up with because he's not going to disappear. The hardest to label? Google, a younger cousin who everybody really likes, but just might be too smooth to be trusted, even as it gets too popular. Now the stage is set for an awkward family reunion - as Google and Apple are so overlapped, tech fans have the option to choose between the two for practically their entire digital life, and the loyalty once sent Cupertino's way, exclusively, is getting some serious competition.

Over the last few years, if one can look beyond the striking hardware and arguable operating system differentiation between Mac OS X and Windows PCs, Apple has unquestionably led the way in terms of seamless integration between applications and devices. The company's iLife package ensures that media is treated in a similar way across multiple applications, and its user interface guidelines protect the users from odd menu behaviors that change between each program. Meanwhile, the company's iTunes/iPod/iPhone juggernaut has made managing media easier than ever before, especially when one considers the addition of the fast-growing App Store and the good, even if not given much respect, Apple TV, which brings the core of the store to the core of the home.

But while we Mac fans may have been resting comfortably as the Mac vs. PC commercials made us giggle with egotistical self-pride, and the company's balance sheet has grown ever stronger with quarter after very profitable quarter, Google has been changing its spots - morphing from search engine and advertising powerhouse to a Web services monolith that can go head to head with almost every single Apple product out there. As the company integrates its many different products, they too may offer the integration we have always come to expect from Apple, but in an open, Web-focused way. And with every single new announcement, Apple fans have to start thinking if their future is one that is Google as much as it ever was Mac - and if "Going Google" would be that bad anyway.

If Mac OS X is the platform on which all Apple software starts, so too will be Google's Chrome OS. We know it's coming, and some sharp engineers are slaving away in Mountain View to capture the flexibility of the Web and make the cloud the equivalent of your hard disk.

Apple's Safari browser, the built-in Web browser for Mac and for iPhones, is equally matched by the Chrome browser on all major operating systems and on Android as well.

The iPhone and its 80,000 to 100,000 applications in the iTunes Store are being challenged by Android's new fleet of phones, led by the Droid from Motorola, and its rumored 10,000+ apps.

Apple's Mail? Easily matched by GMail. iCal? See Google Calendar. iChat? Google Chat. iMovie and iDVD? Well, it's not the same thing, but you would be hard-pressed to say YouTube doesn't win that battle. iWeb? Really? See Blogger.

On the professional side, Apple's iWork sports Keynote, Pages and Numbers. One has to wonder why they even released these apps, as they're not exactly keeping Microsoft at bay, and I don't know anybody who uses the last two. I use Pages once a year to do our Holiday letters home, and that's it! You better believe that Google's online office suite of Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations is the real deal. Beyond that, do you expect Apple's iDisk to trump GDrive? Will Mac OS X Server beat out the Google File System (GFS) or can you expect XServes to replace Google's commodity rack servers in their datacenters around the globe? Not likely.

This isn't a rant stating that Apple is doomed. Far from it. After all, Google doesn't "yet" make excellent laptops. But I've tried the Motorola Droid with Android 2.0 and it's good enough that if iPhone were not an option, it would be an easy second choice. I find that I am using my Apple OS and my Apple Web browser to go Google, not just for the search engine, but all the downstream Google services. (10 of which I highlighted last month)

Google spokesperson and king of anti-spam Matt Cutts said his October goal was to avoid Microsoft software, a task made easier than ever now with Google providing an alternative just about everywhere. But I wonder if it's possible to do something very different - use ONLY Google software for a month. That would mean using the company's Web browser exclusively, and their office suite exclusively, and their mobile phone OS exclusively. That would mean using GMail and Google Talk and Google Wave and Google Calendar and Google Reader instead of Outlook or Mac Mail. I bet we're very close to this happening.

On Wednesday, Google also announced some of their first forays into Music search. This is an area where Apple still has the clear advantage - with iTunes. But Google offers Pandora on the Android platform, so iTunes isn't needed. Maybe I could push them to buy Spotify, and set up a killer alternative to iTunes with the Google logo? That would be something indeed.

I am a Mac guy. Maybe I'm less of a Mac guy than I once was, but I still trust Cupertino. That said, Google is growing on me in a big way, and they are the real alternative - something Microsoft never really was. Maybe soon I'll also be going Google in a way I never expected.

Prowl Pushes Growl Notifications to Your iPhone for Instant Alerts

For desktop applications, Growl serves to alert you when important events occur, unintrusively notifying you with a quick message on your screen. Now, with Apple's iPhone 3.0 software supporting application's ability to push updates to you in real-time, a new application called Prowl has bridged the two, bringing Growl updates, which you set on your desktop, to your iPhone, wherever you are.

There is an extensive list of applications that support Growl on the Growl team Web site, ranging from Web Browsers and E-mail to Games, Twitter Clients and Yahoo! Widgets. And if they can push Growl notifications to your Mac or PC, they can push the same notifications to your iPhone, using Prowl.


Setting Up Prowl to Alert Me On the iPhone
To get started, you need to download the Prowl application from the iTunes App Store for $2.99, and set up an account. Then after you add the Prowl plug-in to your computer, you can set up each individual Growl-enabled application to use Prowl, as you prefer. For example, you can set up Tweetie to send a note to your iPhone if you get mentioned on Twitter, or you can set up Reader Notifier to send you an update if you have new unread RSS items.


Many Applications on My Mac Support Growl

I Can Configure Prowl from My Desktop

Setting Up One Application to Alert Me Using Prowl

Notifications from Prowl on the iPhone can be as transparent or as invasive as you prefer, including sounds, alerts or badges, grabbing your attention as news comes to the foreground. Meanwhile, Prowl keeps a record of each notification in the application's history, showing you how often it was activated.


One Prowl Alert, and a History of Updates
Drew Olanoff, who highlighted Prowl on Tuesday, alerting me to the product says "the possibilities are endless". Whether or not that's true remains to be seen, but I found it very cool to get an instant update on my Google Reader share items even when I was in the car or otherwise separated from my laptop today. For all the buzz around what applications were going to leverage Push on the iPhone, Prowl just made an amazing shortcut for all the developers who already had made their applications Growl-compatible.

Dinosaur Adobe Manually Reviews Download Purchases

After years of working on outdated desktop software, I was all set to bite the bullet tonight, and upgrade to the latest Creative Suite family from Adobe. Not interested in cluttering our already-cluttered home with boxes of software and CDs, I was pleased to see I could order a download version of the suite, and potentially have it tonight, installed and running while the twins slept. But for some bizarre reason, probably having to due with an overwrought insecure obsession with piracy, Adobe says it will review the order manually, in the next business day, and then, assuming I pass, I'll get permission to download what I bought.

Crazy. Dumb. Antiquated.


Seriously, Adobe? You're Reviewing a Download?
It's one thing to order a physical item from Amazon.com, the Apple Store, or Zappos, and expect it to ship in a few business days. But downloads? Instant or not at all. This is part of why iTunes has been so successful. Click to purchase, and you are downloading immediately. Same goes for Netflix's "Watch Instantly", and practically every other legitimate software download service.

What if I absolutely needed Adobe's software tonight? What if I were in a creative agency on deadline working the weekend? Could I tell a client that no, I would be unable to open their project in the latest version of InDesign or PhotoShop because Adobe was going to review my order the next day? It's almost enough to make me check out BitTorrent.

There's a reason Web services are replacing the old dinosaur software companies. They are more agile and more forward thinking. Maybe I'll get approved and get the software I paid for by tomorrow. But this is completely ridiculous. The world is moving to a real-time Web, and this is anything but.

Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

In recent weeks, there have been a number of incidents where high profile online services have gotten into something of a battle with their users. Be it the on again off again user interface debate between Facebook and its user base, or Twitter's deciding just what is the right way or the wrong way to use their service, both products have ended up telling their own customers that they know best, and you should just suck it up. During these debates, some have said the best way to drive a product forward was to never compromise and listen to your users, while others celebrated the users getting a voice at the table.

But we're missing a major issue that I want to address. I'm fine with companies making changes to their interface, or adding features, or even deciding to prioritize some issues over others. That's business. But don't tell me how to use your products. Don't tell me what is the right way or the wrong way to use a product, when you've given us tools.

Take for example the hubris from Biz Stone at Twitter in his note to individual customers who were relying on their providing autofollow capabilities. Most specifically, he said:

"We’re going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous."

Oh really? What a bunch of junk this is. What's next? Google Reader telling us that there should be a limit to the number of RSS feeds we subscribe to, or that Yahoo!, Hotmail and GMail will limit the number of new e-mails we can receive in a day? After all, couldn't they write that "nobody can actually read e-mails from thousands of people which makes this activity disingenuous"?

Here's the reality - people are going to use products the way they want to, especially if you build a product that is flexible. And they will often use them in ways you never expected, or had even considered when you were first designing. And as you continue to build your service out, the solution is not to tell users there is "one right way", but instead to consider how you can make your product even better to an increasing number of people.

What I have seen from companies like Twitter and Facebook is a belief that you should only be connected to people you know in real life, and that you should only have a small number of people to be connected with. Yes, Facebook's dismissing the 5,000 limit, and yes, they're opening up to companies and fan pages, but they still require you to enter your true first and last name, and demand a synchronous follow.

Twitter's limits are even worse. What's so bizarre about this most recent volley about users being "disingenuous" by using auto-follow is how it impacts their most popular users. Where's the outrage that Barack Obama clearly uses auto-following software? Do you think Twitter is going to tell Obama that he can't actually follow 586,000 users? Do you think they are going to tell Robert Scoble that it is "disingenuous" to follow 85,000 people?

I also use a third party auto-following service from SocialToo (where I'm also an advisor). I use it because Twitter, thanks to other limitations in their product, will let me send direct messages only to those who follow me, and I want to let them contact me directly.

What Twitter and Facebook are doing by trying to tell their users that they know the right way to use their products is putting themselves above the users, and acting in an authoritative, but naive, manner. I think Biz' comment that it was "disingenuous" to follow thousands of accounts is covering the fact that Twitter's infrastructure wasn't meant to support such activity.

At risk of echoing Thomas Hawk's comment that I'm "Mr. FriendFeed", it's worth noting again that FriendFeed doesn't tell me how to or how not to use their products, and they aren't setting limits. They put out a service, and let the users have at it. That's impressive, and a major reason of why I'm bullish on what they do. For the rest of you developers who keep setting limits and claiming it's not your fault, but your users, you're wrong.

Seesmic Launches First Dedicated Client for Facebook Updates

One of the introductions displayed during Facebook's Dave Morin's panel at the South by Southwest conference today was that of a new desktop client for Facebook status updates, delivered by Seesmic's Loic LeMeur. The new app, available for both PC and Macintosh, running on the Adobe AIR platform, lets users view updates from friends and post new status updates to the popular social network, much like the myriad of applications built for Twitter, from TweetDeck and Posty to LeMeur's own, Twhirl.

During the debut of the application, Loic was keen to try and help redefine Seesmic. He said simply, "Seesmic is more than video now, it is about sharing with friends."


Connecting to Facebook With the Seesmic Desktop Tool
I currently update my Facebook status with my updates I send to Twitter, so for those people who use Twitter and synchronize the two, there may be little need for the new tool, but there are many others who have made Facebook their home for social networking with friends and family. With some now 50,000 applications running on the Facebook platform, as Morin mentioned today, the new Seesmic application both has the option to be seen by very many users, but also the chance it could be overlooked, unless Facebook also chooses to push its visibility.


Updates from My Friends and Updating Myself
There is some curiosity as to why Twhirl was not made the conduit for these updates. The product, primarily focused on Twitter, also enables updates to FriendFeed and, of course, Seesmic. It could be that Facebook wanted a native app dedicated to their site, or it could be that Loic wanted to gain the market visibility by building a new category of desktop utilities. (Of course, you could see CenterNetworks' video to learn more)

You can find the new Seesmic Facebook updater at http://www.seesmic.com/facebook. From there, you'll be taken to the Facebook site, upon getting connected, and you can download the AIR application. Loic officially announced it on his blog here.

Apple iPhoto to Integrate Facebook Connect

During Dave Morin's presentation on a search for a more social Web at the SXSW conference today, the senior platforms manager for Facebook mentioned the company would be integrating Facebook Connect with Apple's iPhoto consumer program, in what could be a big step for Cupertino away from their forced vertical integration with Mobile Me, and more toward an adoption of the broader social networking community.

As Facebook grows in visibility, it's no surprise that companies big and small are looking to tap into the service's reported 175 million accounts. As Morin said during his presentation, "The desktop is getting more important in terms of integration with the Web." And the move for iPhoto users to upload their photos to Facebook, add tags and other social data further blurs the line between what is a desktop app or a Web app.

Apple has long considered it one of the leaders of the Web - despite having zero presence in search, portals or social networking in general. The company's long in the tooth iTools to .Mac to MobileMe transition has never really gained traction with the masses, even though the company's iPhone/iTunes and iLife families have been tremendously successful. That they are moving to work with Facebook and support the integration of the service indicates they're trying to dismiss the "not invented here" mentality.

Morin did not indicate which version of iPhoto would include the Facebook Connect option, or a timeframe, but given the presentations by multiple iPhone app developers having integrated the same technology and APIs, it likely won't be too long.

FriendFeed Launches Desktop Notifier AIR Application

In time for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive event, the popular information sharing and aggregation service, FriendFeed, has introduced a desktop application based on Adobe's AIR platform, letting you see updates on any of your friend lists directly on your desktop - essentially bringing the service's real-time feature out of the Web and ever closer to your core.

The notifier is fairly lightweight upon introduction, letting you select to receive updates from any list you choose, choose how long they will display, and where on your desktop they will show. And that's it! So it's not exactly trying to take away your attention from more robust AIR applications, like TweetDeck for Twitter.


If you don't mind the constant notification updates from FriendFeed, you can choose any of the lists you have preset, and individual notifications will pop up. Click on the notification, and you can be taken to the item, or click comment to start commenting on it.



A Pair of Notifications from the New FriendFeed App
The utility is likely best positioned for highly-targeted lists, say of close friends, family, or work. Otherwise, you've got yet another way to drink from a firehose. You can find the notifier here: http://friendfeed.com/settings/notifier. The company's official post is here: Get FriendFeed notifications on your desktop.

What's Growing Faster? Software Bloat or PC Capabilities?

There is an old adage in the storage business. No matter how large you make the hard disk, users will find a way to fill it. The same seems true in the bandwidth and networking business - build a bigger pipe, and customers will find applications that use it up. The same concept extends to me as a consumer, for my traditional software experience. While my laptop is tremendously more capable than its predecessors of 2, 5 or 10 years ago, it sure doesn't seem like the software loads any more quickly, and I still find myself closing applications or forcing them to quit when the whole thing grinds to a halt.

Back in late 1998 after I got a first-generation iMac, complete with a then-acceptable 32 megabytes of RAM and a 4 gigabyte hard disk, I marveled at the gargantuan install needed for the latest version of Microsoft Office. I remember specifically telling a friend to just wait... as the next one would take more than a gigabyte of space. Sure enough, that's practically accepted, and now, it's not too uncommon to see downloads, and even software updates, that are in the hundreds of megabytes.

But the issue is less about capacity and more about the perception of speed. Yes, my laptop can do more than its forefathers. It can do new things with the Web and with video that were never before possible. But booting Microsoft Office, Adobe PhotoShop, FireFox and other products still manages to slow down my system to a crawl. It's gotten to the point that I've even eliminated possible reasons for the slowdown. I hardly ever boot into VMware Fusion any more, to run Microsoft Outlook. I stopped using an external monitor at work, and try to recharge my iPhone only when I don't need full use of my MacBook Pro. And that doesn't even extend to other RAM and processor hungry apps, like one of my personal favorites, TweetDeck.

For whatever reason, it seems that software developers have, for the most part, chosen to add features, and not optimize for speed. I don't think it took more time to boot Microsoft Word 5.1 on my old Performa than it takes to boot Microsoft Word 2008 on my MacBook Pro, even if the Megahertz speed on the processor has increased from 33 MHz to 2.2 GHz, and the RAM from 24 Megabytes to 2 Gigabytes. And lest you think I'm picking on Microsoft, Apple's iPhoto has also been a slow to load memory hog in its own right.

If somebody told me ten years ago that I could increase my processor speed by 1,000 percent, and my RAM by about the same amount, I would have expected to be able to hit "Select All" on my Applications folder and then "Open" to run them all at once. But there's no way. At this point, even with my current machine, I probably can run Mail, iTunes, a Web browser and one more application without slowness. Add one or two more apps to the mix, and we're in spinning wheel city.

In one my recent tirades against how often my machine was slowing down, I heard the all too common reply: "Time for a new one?" but the answer should be no. It's time the pace of the treadmill whereby hardware needs to speed up to handle the new software should slow. Get it to work, and get it to work fast. Please.

TweetDeck to Add Translations, Tweets by E-mail, StockTwits

TweetDeck has rapidly climbed the charts of popular Twitter clients since its debut last July, and with new capital backing, developer Iain Dodsworth continues to add more features to make the product practically indispensable. In the latest update, to debut tomorrow, Dodsworth adds new features that will help you communicate with a global audience, in multiple languages, monitor stock data, and even send your tweets by e-mail. And just think, this is one of Iain's minor point releases, not a major update - which is also in the works.

TweetDeck, as you recall, is a popular AIR application, easily recognizable by its tight multi-column format, which lets you follow all your Twitter data, be it updates from friends, replies, direct messages, search terms and groups. In fact, the success of TweetDeck has spawned different software products to emulate its interface, including FriendDeck, a tool for following FriendFeed, and most recently, Alert Thingy.

Tomorrow's iteration includes the ability to translate tweets you have both received or written into any of nearly 3 dozen languages. If you want to tweet outside of your native language, simply write your tweet in TweetDeck, click the dual-bubbled conversation bubble on the right, and select a language. A few example translations of my "I am not a Twitter addict, but I can see how that would happen." are below.

French: Je ne suis pas un accro à Twitter, mais je peux voir comment cela allait se passer.
German: Ich bin kein Twitter Süchtigen, aber ich kann sehen, wie das passieren würde.
Italian: Io non sono un tossicodipendente Twitter, ma posso vedere in che modo che accada.
Polish: Nie jestem uzależniony Twitter, ale widzę, że jak by się stało.
Vietnamese: Tôi không phải là một Twitter addict, nhưng tôi có thể nhìn thấy như thế nào mà có thể xảy ra.

Also, as not everyone is yet a Twitter addict, you might find yourself wanting to share items from Twitter to friends by e-mail. Now, using TweetDeck, you can mouse over any individual tweet, click "Other Actions", and select e-mail, which will pop open your default e-mail program, and set up an e-mail that says "Tweet forwarded by @yourusername", and includes the Twitter user, the tweet itself, and a little note: "Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com). You can see Iain demonstrate the e-mail from TweetDeck function below on video:


Click to see a demo from Iain Dodsworth
(Opens in a New Window)
You can also translate or untranslate individual tweets from this "Other Actions" menu.

Another interesting function to debut tomorrow is the ability to turn your TweetDeck into a full-fledged StockTwits terminal, showing your Friends, Portfolio, Recommended, Commentary and Everyone columns. If you are a StockTwits user, and have added stocks to your portfolio, you can see what the entire StockTwits community is saying, be it on AAPL, YHOO, GOOG or MSFT. See the screenshot below for what mine looks like (sans friends) following just Apple, Google and Sirius Radio.


The updated point release will hit TweetDeck.com tomorrow. If you're someone who skips point releases and wants a full update, you'll need to keep waiting, but I've been told it's not all that far away. Expect Iain to tackle major issues such as memory, multiple accounts and more then.

Suffering from BeOS Nostalgia? The Haiku Project Can Help.

In 1996, Apple was in freefall and the Macintosh was in trouble. As many Mac fans clung to their Performas and PowerBooks in vain, we prayed for a savior to swoop in and save the Cupertino company from what at the time seemed like certain doom. And before Steve Jobs and Next came in to provide Apple with its next generation operating system, there was a different white knight we expected to keep up the fight against Microsoft and Windows. The white knight was the Be operating system, and its founder, Jean-Louis Gasée. As history now shows, Apple's not choosing Be pretty much killed the OS and the company - as it faded into operating system history, alongside Amiga and others whose time has come and gone. But for its time, it had some intriguing features, which live on in the Haiku Project, which you can try out today.


Inspired by the BeOS, Haiku looks almost exactly like the older operating system, featuring the trademark yellow tabs atop floating windows, featuring a Linux-like terminal, and true multi-threading to take advantage of multiple processors.


And the Haiku project is more than a series of intriguing screenshots. You can actually run the project today, by downloading a virtual image from their Web site, popping into VMware, with or without a full set of applications, from Mail to Firefox to a PDF viewer and a Paint application.


I downloaded the VMware image with the latest nightly build, and sure enough... 1996 all over again. But it wasn't an OS running on a Zip Drive on a 603 or 604 processor. It was a virtual machine running on my MacBook Pro. Quick. Fast. Elegant. Not very useful, of course, but an interesting science project. It works.

So if you want to toy around with an elegant OS and you want to kick the tires or just scratch that nostalgia itch, check out Haiku. See also: OS News: BeOS Lives: Haiku Impresses.

Why In the World Can't I Customize Apple's Time Machine?

In March of 2007, when writing for The Apple Blog, now part of the GigaOM network, I openly speculated that Apple would debut a wireless network storage device, combining their expertise in Airport wireless devices with an external hard drive and give users a simple way to back up all their files. Sure enough, Cupertino rolled out the combination of Time Machine software and the Time Capsule backup device to do just that. And while I'm one of those Apple customers backing up my data through the air, you have to color me unimpressed with the flexibility of Time Machine - as its options are so limited, it's practically assumed I'm too stupid to make any decisions on my own. This leads to the application slowing down my computer when I don't want it to and regular bandwidth congestion for me and others sharing the network (notably, my wife).


As with many of Apple's products, Time Machine assumes it is made for consumers who benefit from a limited number of options. The product, in an attempt to backup all your data regularly, comes preset to make:

• Hourly backups for the last 24 hours
• Daily backups for the past month
• Weekly backups until the backup disk is full

And... that's it.

When I am at the office, away from my Time Capsule, I'm not backing up. But when I get home, every hour, for about 10 to 15 minutes, my laptop starts to slow as Apple's Time Machine whirs into action, backing up my MacBook Pro's 200 Gigabyte hard drive to the 500 Gigabyte time capsule. While I've told Time Machine to not back up some folders, to reduce the time and storage space, I can't set up Time Machine to back up with any other granularity. I can't tell it to back up every two hours, three hours or four hours. I can't tell it to only back up after 10 p.m., or in a window from 6 p.m. to midnight, if I wanted to. I can't tell it to exclude certain types of files (like MP3 or PowerPoint, if I wanted to). It's either on, or it's off. And it's on the way that Apple set it up. Not the way I did.


So If I have my Time Machine stuck in the "On" position, I'm doomed to have my computer slow down once an hour and stuff the network full of flowing bits once an hour. I've even switched over to my neighbor's open wireless once or twice just to make sure the backup failed and I could get my bandwidth back. While we've gotten further along than my August post where I couldn't even get Time Capsule to work right, I'm still quite annoyed that Time Machine seems to be designed so simply that I simply can't be happy with it. It's time to get more options.

Wakoopa Is Going to Give Away My Web App Obsessions

I often get comments from people asking just how much time I spend on social networks, writing blog posts, and reading RSS feeds. Most of the time, that answer is hard to get, as I spend a few minutes throughout the day making sure I miss as little as possible, and try to limit the time it takes to write most posts to about 20 minutes or so. But there are software solutions out there to help track all my application and Web service activity, which, in theory, could give away exactly how much time I am wasting allotting to each task. Among the easiest, and growing increasingly popular, is Wakoopa.


Wakoopa, upon registering, provides a small tracker that, once installed on your computer, monitors both your foreground applications, and those in the background. It also tracks most major services, including Twitter, FriendFeed, Google Reader and Facebook, to find out how much time you're spending online.

Beyond tracking your own activity, making you guilty for each minute you might spend at the office on a social network instead of buried in Microsoft Office apps, you can review software you use, see other reviews from fellow Wakoopers, and monitor activity from around the service - including seeing the most popular applications from across the network, and seeing live activity, which streams vertically, much like Twitter's feed.

Wakoopa formally launched in early 2007, and has started to gain traction in recent months. In October, they were added as a supported service in FriendFeed, and according to Compete.com, they grew 12 percent month over month, seeing yearly growth of nearly 300%. (Usual caveat: Compete.com stats are questionable)

Given I already stream much of the social activity I do around the Web, and try and be as transparent as possible, I see little downside to keeping the Wakoopa Tracker on, showing you how often I use Adobe Photoshop or Apple Mail, when I boot up iTunes, or if I'm updating Facebook. Do I expect to meet new friends and peers through Wakoopa just because we share an affinity for word processing programs? Probably not. But if Wakoopa over time starts to tell me that I'm doing way too much socializing, and not enough business, that just might impact my future behavior.

If you get into the service, you can even highlight your own software and Web activity on your blog with embedded widgets, or see what other folks are using around the Web. The image at the top left of this post showing my top ten software apps is updated live based on my own activity, so you can see the service in action. You can find me tracking my activity at http://wakoopa.com/louisgray.

Poll Tracker '08 By Slate Brings Election Updates To Your iPhone

With the United States' presidential election looming next Tuesday, daily polls at the state and national levels are growing in importance, as Barack Obama looks to maintain and increase his lead over John McCain, and McCain and his team hope to repeat the Republicans' success in the last two elections, by securing votes in the swing states and holding their base. While the dual party competitiveness and strategy is not new, the fact I can track the day to day moves on my iPhone is. When not in front of the computer, checking out Electoral-Vote.com or FiveThirtyEight.com, I can see the most recent polls by using an app called Poll Tracker, which runs at only 99 cents.



The Electoral Vote Count, If All Polls Are Accurate, Is Displayed
Poll Tracker '08 By Slate has five major tabs within its application, including "Battleground" for hotly contested states, as well as the national poll, "Recents", showing the most recently updated state results, "A-Z", showing all states alphabetically, and one for each of the candidates, "Obama" and "McCain", represented by their respective party mascots, donkey and elephant. Those two tabs show the states with the candidates' greatest lead differential, from highest to lowest. For Obama, that's Washington D.C., where he leads 82% to 13%, and for McCain, it's Idaho, where he leads 62.1% to 29.5%, according to the last poll.



You Can Display Trends By State Or Nationally
While the latest snapshot of poll numbers is the most accurate measure for how next week's election may turn out, it's the individual state graphs I find most interesting. By tapping on any state, be it Florida, Ohio, Virginia, or Missouri, you can see how the state's residents have been surveyed over time, and get a good idea as to which candidate is trending in the state. Enough blue graphs on the upswing, and you can guess Obama is doing well. But if it's red you see headed up and to the right, it's the Straight Talk Express on the move.

Poll Tracker '08 admittedly has a sort shelf life. It might get a whole lot less interesting in about 10 days, and it won't give you the minute by minute updates we'll all be biting our nails over next Tuesday, but at $.99, it will deliver good value until the last vote is counted.

You can find Poll Tracker '08 By Slate on Apple's iTunes Store.

5 iPhone Apps Your Family Will Enjoy

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

As a father of four, gadgets I buy must be something my entire family can enjoy.

When I got an iPhone, I also got my wife an iPhone, and we're seriously considering iPod Touches for the kids this Christmas (Promise not to tell them, okay?).

The iPhone is not only a tool Mom or Dad can enjoy and use to become more productive, but it can serve as an excellent learning and entertainment tool for your children. There are many apps that are great for both young and old, which are essential for a Dad like me. These five applications in the iTunes App store are some of my favorites, which the entire family can enjoy. And only Koi Pond ($.99) isn't free.

iDoodle2 lite

My sons, 6 and 4, love this one. It's simply a basic drawing program, which lets you select colors, pen size, shape, and background color, and create different pictures by drawing on the screen. You select the background color, then you have the option to select if you want to draw freeform with a pen, draw lines, circles, squares, or blobs, and you can doodle all you want. There is also a pay version that offers ability to enter text on your graphic, and have an image as your background that you can draw on. It's great for the kids when you don't have a pen or paper nearby to keep them busy. It's my 4 year old's favorite app.

Pros: Simple idea, hard for kids to get into trouble. The pay version only adds to that experience.

Cons: Not easy enough to use, at least for kids. For kids that can't read, it's hard for them to know to click on "New Doodle" to erase their image and start over.

Crazy Pumpkin

I saw this one enter the App store, and predicted immediately (check my Google Shared items) that this would be top 5, and sure enough, it got up to number 2 before going down again. The idea is simple. It's a Jack O' Lantern. You can change the face of the Jack O' Lantern by sliding the eyes, nose, or mouth over to make different faces. You can also make spooky sounds by shaking the phone or iPod Touch. It's nice and easy, great for younger kids, and catchy enough even adults can have fun with it.

Pros: Extremely simple, great for younger kids and even toddlers (my 6 month old loves my iPhone!).

Cons: I'd love the option of more faces, and maybe a few more sounds, or additional functionality. However, the idea is meant to be very simple.

Koi Pond

This is a classic. I know few iPhone owners that haven't tried this one. Koi pond is simply a pond with Koi fish and lilly pads in it, which you can slide your finger around and make rippling sounds and motions in the water. It's perhaps one of the most relaxing applications on the iPhone - nothing is more relaxing than the sound of rippling water and birds chirping in the background. Better yet, you can shake the phone, and fish food is sprinkled in the pond and the Fish come and eat the food. Be careful though, if you disturb the water, the fish avoid coming near the area you disturbed.

The part I love most about this is that due to the simplicity, it works great for keeping kids busy, especially infants and toddlers who can't read and have limited hand-eye coordination. My 6 month old loves touching the screen and hearing the resulting sounds rewarding him for his actions. He loves looking at it and seeing the cool colors and hearing the sounds that come from the app. I would say this is my 6 month old's favorite App.

Pros: It's so relaxing! It's my new "stress ball". Nice and simple.

Cons: I can't think of any cons to tell you the truth, unless you don't like Fish.

Memory Match by Jirbo

I had a lot of fun with this one. It's a play on the classic, "Memory" game, giving you 30 cards, all turned over, that you must sequentially turn over and see if you can remember where the matched images are. It's a one player game, but something you or your kids can play over and over and challenge each other on the score it gives you. You can also upload your scores to Jirbo.com, and share your score with others using the app.

Pros: Easy to use, fun to play. Who can turn down a game of Memory? Great for kids, young and old, and helps refine their memory skills.

Cons: No 2-player mode, even on the same device. It's single player only. It would be nice to play with someone else like the real card game, or even over WiFi with someone on another device nearby.

FourFree

This is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It's based on the classic, "Connect 4" game, where you and another player can play to see who can be the first to get 4 of your color in a row horizontally, vertical, or diagonal. You can choose to play by yourself against the computer and track your score, or play against another player on the same device.

As a family we usually take a travel version of the real Connect 4 board game with us on road trips to keep the kids busy. Now we can simply bring our iPhones, and our kids can have multiple options given to them, with no lost pieces, and no mess!

Pros: A classic favorite! Gives easy, normal, and hard levels for all ages. Fun for the child and adult.

Cons: I'd love to be able to play with other nearby phones instead of having to pass the phone back and forth. It may be a little too hard for age 4 and under.

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Know any other family-friendly iPhone apps that the kids can enjoy? We're always looking for more. Leave your suggestions in the comments.

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Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

Stay On Top of the College Gridiron Using Only Your iPhone

Last month, I highlighted an iPhone application that let you see near real-time scores of NFL games in progress, see current game situations, statistics, news, or even exchange "smack talk" with other fans. (See: Is Your iPhone Ready for Some Football?) But football isn't just played on Sunday. Today, like every other Saturday in the fall months here in the States, dozens of college teams faced off around the country, some fighting for a position in the BCS series, others jockeying for a position in the Associated Press' Top 25, and even more, fighting just for pride. And Plusmo, the same company that provided Pro Football Live has made an app for fans of those teams, similarly called College Football Live. It's just as good and just as free.

College Football Live, like its big brother, lets you view the scores of games in progress, select favorite teams, see recent news and talk smack with other fans.


Not Watching the Game? You Can Get Caught Up Quickly.
But given the differences between the pro game and the college game, College Football Live also tracks the Top 25 polls, and standings by conference.


The Week's Polls and Conference Standings are a Tap Away
Within each game, you can dive down into seeing most recent statistics, quarterly play by play, and previous scoring drives. And as with Pro Football Live, you can give a thumbs up or down to each team and see just how many other fans have the same preferences you do.

This Saturday evening, my California Golden Bears are leading the Arizona Wildcats 24-14 at the half, in game they are expected to win. But with the American League playoffs on TV, as well as many other Top 25 college games, the Bears haven't found their way to my TV set. Luckily, I have College Football Live on my iPhone to fill the gap.

i.TV Application Added to Apple's iTunes Store

Three weeks ago, we showed you images from an early access build of i.TV, a new application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that lets you get the latest TV and movie schedules from your area, rate shows, and leave reviews. The application, which is free, was added to the Apple iTunes application store late last night, and is available to the public immediately.

At launch, i.TV bills itself as the "ultimate" movies and TV guide for Apple's portable devices, offering more than 144,000 TV and movie listings, data from 5,000 local theaters, and nearly 6,000 TV previews or movie trailers. It currently works in the United States and Canada, so those outside North America will need to wait.


i.TV Pulled Down My Channel Data in Seconds to the iPhone
As has been said by many, no application is complete without some social element these days, and i.TV, as you recall, is no different. You can engage with other viewers of shows you like by sharing reviews, and you can recommend shows to friends by e-mail. In fact, some of the elements of this app shadow the recommendations I gave TiVo in June. (See: TiVo Is a Zero On the Social Web. It's Time They Fast Forward.)


You Can Get Show Data and Theater Info on i.TV
I downloaded the new application from the iTunes Store tonight, and the speed is remarkably faster than the first alpha I tried last month. It automatically recognized my location, and based on that zip code, I was pulling down channel listings in seconds. Given its price (free), there's really no reason not to have this app if you already have an iPhone or an iPod Touch. You can find it here: Apple iTunes Store: i.TV.

Still No OS, But Google Takes Over My Desktop Anyway

The Google Mac team seemingly doesn't get to play with all the fun toys its Windows counterparts do. While the Windows team got to use Desktop long before we Mac users did, and thus far, holds a monopoly on the Chrome Web browser, it looks as if their hands weren't completely idle - as on Monday, they announced the release of a tool called Top Draw, which creates complex imagery and has the option to replace users' desktops. While an automatic background refresher isn't exactly innovative, as Apple has had this capability built into its system preferences for years, the new tool offers up compelling images that had me checking out my new desktop time and again.

Top Draw comes with integrated scripts with many preloaded image types, from Grid to Plasma to WavyGlow, for example.

The small viewer simply lets you select what Script type will run and how often it will refresh. For me, I have it running on randomly chosen scripts, every two minutes.

While not all the resulting images are postcard-perfect, a great deal of them surpass the bundled desktop patterns and pictures provided by Cupertino. A few examples are below:







It's one of those small products that piques the interest throughout the day. Also piquing the interest is wondering just what the Google Mac team is working on that would require this kind of engine, and if we'll soon get to see some serious Mac software and not just flashy toys that hearken back to decades-old screensavers.

Is Your iPhone Ready for Some Football?

For much of the United States, and increasingly, other countries, Sundays in the fall and winter months are dominated by one thing - football. And just because you happen to be of a geeky mentality doesn't mean you can't nurture your jock side through using your iPhone to get updated in near real-time to all the happenings in the NFL. One of my favorite free apps on the iTunes application store is "Pro Football Live", which provides score updates, play by play, current game situations, photos, news, and even the ability to talk back to other users through a feature called "Smack Talk".

Apple's most recent iPhone ads have highlighted the application store, and specifically, some of the games that have been developed for the nascent platform. But there's more to entertainment than video games and high scores.


You Can See Updated Scores from Around the League

With Pro Football Live, I don't need to go to ESPN.com or Yahoo! Sports to get all the scoring updates, and even if I'm away from the TV or radio, I can get the feeling of watching a game, by seeing the current game situation, including who has the ball, yard markers, downs and yardage.


You Can Talk Smack And Check Current Standings

And while I'm not getting streaming video, by using the Pro Football Live app, unlike TV, I have access to all the games at once, not just those being broadcast in my area. So if you're a fantasy football junkie, like me, you can toggle between today's Raiders/Chargers contest, and that of the Texans/Jaguars or Jets/Cardinals. You can, with a couple clicks of the phone, be on top of your game, and you can jump into "Smack Talk" to share your thoughts with other fans.


You Can View Recent Photos and News from the NFL

Pro Football Live also features "News" and "Photos" feeds from the leading sources, letting you get updated on which starters are expected to play or which players set personal records.

iPhone applications like Pro Football Live and MLB.com's At Bat have helped me be closer to all games when away from home, taking pro sports mobile. It's all part of how products like the iPhone can better reach across the digital divide and get into America's living rooms, or at least, entertain those who would rather be in their living rooms, instead of slogging along behind their significant other who won't let them watch the game.

iPhone Application Review: Mobile Fotos

By Phil Glockner of Scribkin (FriendFeed/Twitter)

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Author's Note: Louis and I share an interest in the iPhone / iPod Touch platform, and all the new applications being developed for it for release on the iTunes Store. Realizing this, I offered to write a series of 'mini-reviews' on applications I really like, and if applicable, their impact on the social media space. I'm going to start with Mobile Fotos, an application developed by Karl van Randow, a freelance New Zealand developer who has (according to his blog) been actively working on a 'web debugging proxy' called Charles.

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Mobile Fotos

Mobile Fotos, like several others in the iTunes store, specializes in connecting the iPhone and iPod Touch to Flickr, a popular photo-sharing web site. While I tried several others but I found Mobile Fotos to be the most feature-complete and easiest to use. The application costs $2.99, and there is no 'free version' available. However, I believe it is well worth this small price, considering its functionality.

Features

• Mobile Fotos Uses the Flickr API and supports authentication with the Flickr server.
• Flickr sets, groups, favorites, tags, contacts, photo search and explore by most recent and 'interestingness' are supported. Collections (groups of groups) and historical display are not supported.
• Uploading from the iPhone 'camera roll' archive and from a live picture are supported.
• Photos taken from within Mobile Fotos are also stored in the camera roll.
• Adding a title and description as well as adding a new photo to an existing set (or creating a new set) are supported at time of photo upload.
• Geotagging of photos after upload is supported, and controllable for each upload.
• With the 2.1 firmware update, uploading from the camera roll at full resolution (1200x1600) is supported.
• Easy-to-use interface follows a rigorous 'drill-down' methodology that, once learned, makes navigating through all the different browsing options very easy.
• Portrait and landscape modes.
• Searching for nearby photos using GPS is supported.

I should also mention some drawbacks I have encountered.

First, when browsing through photos at full size, the interface does not support 'sliding' a finger to navigate. You must click on a right or left arrow to move forward or back. Second, there is no batch upload feature. Photos can only be uploaded one at a time.

Usage

In practice, the one photo upload is not as much of a limitation as you might think. First, when you are out and about, you generally only need to take a photo, set a description and get it started. By the time you are ready to set up another shot, it is ready.

As for using the application as a mobile gateway to Flickr, the developer has gone to great pains to preserve the sort of free-form exploration that makes Flickr such fun to waste time in. You can search for a tag, for example, then bring up details on the photo, click on the photo's owner and then browse through their photostream, favorites or even their contact's photos. Each level you delve down is pushed on to a stack so that you can back up whenever you like.

Performance on both WiFi and 3G is very snappy. Uploading only takes a few seconds and pulling up photostreams and images is almost instant. If you use the app on the slower GSM network, be prepared to wait a while, especially for full-sized photo uploads.

Upshot

Mobile Fotos has become a valued tool for me when I only have my cell phone on-hand to take a picture and I want to get it on Flickr right away. Sure, there may be a few free apps will do this without geotagging. But, considering all the other features that are in this app, it is worth the three bucks.

Update: The latest version of Mobile Photos (version 1.3) adds support for 'swiping' through a photostream, as well as support for uploading from the full iPhone photo library. There also seems to be double the number of options that can be performed when viewing an image fullsize, and new even on a thumbnail, including assign to contact, open in Safari, email a link, and even Twitter support!

Read more by Phil Glockner at Scribkin.com.

The iPhone App Store Should Let You Try Before You Buy

With only a few exceptions, it's been universally accepted that Apple's move to sell iPhone applications on its iTunes store is an unqualified success. In fact, it's widely believed that Microsoft will soon follow suit, offering a centralized place to acquire and download applications for Windows Mobile. But in speaking with other iPhone users, I've heard concerns voiced that there is no way to use an application on a trial basis. We know Apple has the capability to use DRM to limit the amount of time a customer can rent a movie, so why not use the same technology to let users try apps for days or weeks?

Software developers outside the world of the iPhone have a number of ways to try and gain compensation for their work. Some give it away via freeware. Others use what's called donationware, which essentially means the product is free, but they provide a way for you to donate money, should you want to. Even more popular is shareware, which has a listed price, but lets you download it for free, and pay later, often limited to a number of users, or through repeat annoyances that make you want to upgrade. And, of course, you have software that's only available at full price, or in retail packages.

But so far, Apple's iPhone App Store only offers two options - free, and paid. And if you've paid for a premium application, and it turns out you don't like it, tough luck.

Practically the only way an application developer can offer users a way to "try before they buy" is to offer a free "lite" version on the iTunes App Store in addition to a premium version. Customers who want the additional features of the paid application would try the lite version and then buy a second, parallel, application, and need to delete the old.

This inflexibility is unnecessary given Apple's experience with setting DRM to give users a limit to how many times they can burn playlists to CDs and how long they have to watch movies rented from iTunes. Given that a text description and small pictures displayed on the iTunes store isn't always a great representation of the user's experience with the software app, it makes sense for the company to work with developers to offer time or use-based limits to software, which would first be free and later prompt to be paid for. The ability to try applications before buying them wold reduce consumers' concerns and still offer developers a way to make a return on their investment. DRM doesn't always have to be bad - it can help both users and content creators.