TweetDeck iPhone Update Fail Makes the Day "Manic".

Earlier this morning, Iain Dodsworth, creator of TweetDeck, posted that the day could potentially be "manic". While he cautioned the day's updates would not be list-related, as many updates from his competitors have been over the last week, it was hinted it would not be desktop related either. That left the iPhone, as TweetDeck doesn't yet have a Web option. But the iPhone release was found buggy, was later pulled, and now the service, and its devoted followers, are once again in a holding pattern with Apple - which makes them the undesired middleman. And yes, that means the day is officially "manic".

While I doubt few would want Apple's role as moderator to completely disappear, there should be some way to quickly post point releases or bug fixes for products that have previously been approved.


The Morning Started Off Well...

But Too Many Crash Reports Prompted a Pull...

And After Resubmission, All Wait for Apple.

For whatever reason, TweetDeck's quality assurance process did not catch that the new version of the application would crash as frequently as was reported, but once it was in the wild, it proved too much to accept. The next step was to pull the update from the store, resulting in false positives from would-be downloaders, myself included, who were told it was available, but that the item had been removed.

Now, after the team thinks they scrambled the troops and got a working version ready and submitted a few hours later, they have to wait for Cupertino to agree. The new version reportedly added Facebook support, which had previously been limited to the desktop application, as well as video uploading, integrated with 12seconds.tv, a new Landscape compose mode, trending topics support, a "Nearby" option that showed when Twitter friends were close, thanks to the iPhone's built-in GPS, and the option to open new links in Safari.

But we'll still have to wait, at least until Apple agrees their bug-free version is good enough. Until then, all we have is a video of the promised new updates (See below).



So what's the solution? Is this Apple's fault for forcing a wait, or TweetDeck's for bad code?

Apple's Dashboard Widgets Comatose As iTunes App Store Skyrockets

Prior to the debut of Apple's iPhone, software developers wanting to make miniature applications to reach Macintosh users had a direct route to customer's desktops through the development of Mac OS X Dashboard widgets. Billed as major functionality debuting in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) in early 2005, Dashboard, much like Konfabulator before it, featured widgets including weather forecasts, stock updates, calculators or simple utilities, like a dictionary or thesaurus. Over time, developers managed to make a number of creative uses for these apps, from delivery updates to flights' status, or even lightweight arcade games.

But four years later, Dashboard is dormant, while not yet completely dead. A quick calculation of the total number of widgets listed on Apple's Web site is just over 4,500, of which 820 are international. In remarkable contrast, Apple's iTunes Store loudly proclaims its haul to be more than 75,000, of which a massive 1,394 were posted just last Friday.

Want to know how many new Dashboard Widgets were posted last Friday?

Zero.

Interestingly, Apple's Dashboard Widgets site highlights the last 50 "Just Added" to the Web site, and for whatever reason, between September 9th and September 21st, no Dashboard Widgets were posted. Maybe the one guy whose job it is to get them approved was on a two-week vacation?

And in the week, starting with Monday, only 39 total Widgets made it into into the directory, including fascinating titles such as the "Iowa Hawkeyes Football Schedule" widget or the "Countdown to Thanksgiving" widget.

With iPhone app developers having a fast-growing audience of millions ready to spend real money on applications for their mobile phone, the idea of creating a miniature application for the desktop, for free, probably doesn't have much pull. It's no secret that the iTunes App Store's runaway success has played a big role in making any discussion about Dashboard completely unnecessary.


The louisgray.com Widget as posted in 2007
Just a few years ago, many thought widgets were going to be the next hot thing in desktop apps. Konfabulator was purchased by Yahoo! and turned into Yahoo! Widgets, which claims nearly 6,000 desktop widgets. And way back in 2006, I even made a dashboard widget for louisgray.com, which I later updated in 2007 and still works. But the talk of widgets faded, as people primarily chose to use the Web browser and their iPhones as the conduits for Web data, preferring not to have a gazillion little widgets floating about their screens.

Considering the dramatic drop-off in buzz around Dashboard widgets, and a corresponding meteoric rise in iPhone deployments and penetration, it's no surprise to me that you see this gulf, which now measures almost 20x in favor of iTunes applications. It's enough to wonder if Apple will ever bring up the Dashboard again, except maybe to provide a place where iTunes applications purchased for the iPhone today can sometime live. They won't kill it outright, but it sure looks like a dinosaur, after only four years.

My6sense's Digital Intuition Can Now Be Found on iTunes (Free)

A month ago, I introduced you to a new iPhone application designed to find the best of your information intake, while hiding the less-important news. My6sense's approach at utilizing what it knows about you in an effort to tackle information overload spurred a discussion around digital intuition, and now sees the company talking about where they can take their technology - including services like Twitter. But while they were working on this, there was some bad news - the product wasn't even available for download on the iTunes Store! This was due to a small issue on their part, which they took responsibility for, but it still took a month to get the revised app back through the queue and into waiting customers' hands. Yesterday, the app showed up in the iTunes store (for free).

As the founder Barak Hamachov promised last month, the application is not posted in the same area as RSS feed readers or social networking sites, but instead in "Productivity" - as he and the company believe if you can find out all the pertinent information to your industry or hobby while spending less time searching and browsing, you will be more productive.


Browsing New or Best Entries In My6sense
The core elements of My6sense have not changed since my initial review. I have used the application for the better part of six weeks now, and can rely on it to cut through the hundreds of feeds I read each day, finding the few dozen top articles that I won't want to miss. Along with some UI enhancements, the product makes it even easier to share out to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed or by e-mail.

While the product's algorithm is not 100% in the open, the application learns from your own behavior, including what sources you are most likely to read, what topics you are most interested in, what topics you tend to skip over, how likely you are to "stream" or "share" a post, and how much time you spend reading a specific story. And as you read more stories, the precision of My6sense improves.


Sharing an Item I Like In My6sense is Simple
While I haven't turned away from sites like Google Reader or Lazyfeed for being my initial source for data, My6sense does a great job of accurately knowing what I like. If I am visiting the product after I've seen Google Reader, often those items I had just shared are atop My6sense. If I am seeing it first, it's a good reminder of what to share when I hit Reader.


I'm Moving Up the My6sense Intuition Chain
If you don't already have My6sense, I advise you go grab it. It could make you a lot more productive.

Spotify: The Best On Demand Music Library I've Ever Experienced

You might have read some of the recent coverage around Spotify's potential inclusion (or lack thereof) into the iTunes store. You might also have seen the company's term sheets floated about the Web, as the music streaming startup gears up from its limited release to one that could take the globe by storm. But if you live in the US, there is a fairly good chance you haven't actually gotten to try the application, unless you cheated and used a proxy, because to date, it has been limited to European audiences. Well, despite my years-long allegiance to iTunes, and recent signup to Sirius XM satellite radio, I got my hands on a press beta for the US version of Spotify, and it is amazing.


Spotify's Promise: Legal, Free and Instant. All 100% Valid.
Using Spotify is like having hundreds of thousands of crystal-clear music tracks on demand. After downloading the application tonight, I've closed my iTunes and have been powering through Spotify, finding hundreds of tracks from all my favorite bands, including Depeche Mode, Underworld, and Daft Punk, but I was also able to dial back a few decades, uncovering Jesus Jones, INXS, and The B-52s. You name the song, I found it, including rare remixes. And cheating by looking at songs I really liked on Sirius Radio, I even found more obscure artists, including Deadmau5, Kaskade, Kaz James and Kristinia Debarge.


724 Tracks from Armin Van Buuren In Spotify


Drilling in on The B-52s In Spotify
The promise of instant access to seemingly any song on the planet is apparently here. It's jaw dropping.

Like iTunes, Spotify displays the track that is being played, its length, the album name, and artist, and clicking on any of those items displays information about the track, or the artist, including biographical history. Like iTunes, you can hit shuffle and repeat. And like iTunes, the search capability is very good. But unlike iTunes, you don't have to download the music and you don't have to pay for the music - making it more like the subscription services, including Rhapsody and Napster, that have been slaughtered by Apple's iTunes colossus.


Information Society on Display In Spotify


Jesus Jones In Spotify. (Remember them?)
Spotify's service is not "free" per se. The "free" version displays advertising between songs, and to get an ad-free experience, you would need to pay (at least in the UK) a British pound for a 24-hour day pass, or 10 British pounds for a month. I haven't seen what the US rates will be, but the version I'm using (no doubt the 'press' version) hasn't encountered an ad yet - just pure, clear, music.

If I'm Apple, and I see the Spotify application heading for me like a freight train, I would try to say the application competes with existing features of iTunes. You don't want to let a huge potential competitor in the front door. But if you look at Spotify like they did Sirius XM Radio, which was approved, it's essentially the same story, only instead of dedicated radio stations, you've got individual songs and artists by the bucketload.

I wish, similarly, that I had a "bucketload" of invites to hand out to get you into a theoretical Spotify beta, but I don't. All I have is my copy - and it's fantastic. When it lands here in the US, it's got the potential to be an amazing hit. I just hope people aren't so cheap as to not pay if presented the opportunity. I'm always willing to pay for quality, and that's exactly what we've got here.

Appsfire Wants to Make Sharing Your iPhone Apps Social

With tens of thousands of different iPhone applications out there, it's doubtful that many iPhones have the same array of programs. Each time I see a friend page through their loaded iPhone apps, I discover new ones I had never heard of, and they too find surprises from what I have loaded. Appsfire, a new service from Ouriel Ohayon, creator of Topify, lets you share your favorite iPhone apps on the Web, making the iTunes App Store more social.

The service, currently available for Mac OS X clients, with a Windows version planned to debut soon, scans your iTunes library for installed applications, presents them on the Web in a faux iPhone interface, and encourages you to share your library with friends by way of social networks, including Twitter and Facebook.

The purpose? Helping solve the discovery of relevant applications - a process Ouriel says is "ignoring".

The service is in closed alpha now, but we have 50 invites available, first come, first serve to Mac OS X users. http://bit.ly/appsfireLG

You can see some example Appsfire libraries here:

• Ouriel Ohayon's Appsfire: http://bit.ly/ourieltopapps
• Louis Gray's Appsfire: bit.ly/lgiphoneapps

Each icon from the virtual iPhone is clickable to the iTunes application store. Lest you think this is a solely charitable effort, you can safely assume that Ouriel will be gaining a piece of any potential purchases, through affiliate links. If this takes off, it could be a great way to not only share new apps with friends, but a good way to send Ouriel a little bit of cash.

Also part of Appsfire? A new link shortener for iPhone developers and bloggers, who all know the usual links to the iTunes Store are a complete pain. You can find that here.


An intro to the service can also be found on YouTube.

AT&T Has Us Approach Intersection of Doing "Right", Common Sense

For the most part, I believe people are good and try to honor the law. Most people, regardless of religion or upbringing, believe it is wrong to lie, to steal or to cheat. But sometimes, there comes a perceived imbalance that drives a mob of people to collectively break the law and flaunt the rules, until the teeming anarchy threatens to break down the system, save it for a clear thinking authority figure who steps in and offers an acceptable alternative. We saw this with the boom of Napster and again with the rise of peer to peer networks for video trading. We saw it two years ago when users gloriously jailbroke their iPhones to install much-desired apps, and we are possibly seeing it again now that it looks like many existing iPhone 3G owners, shackled to AT&T for their service, are going to be unable to perform tasks possible from other carriers.

Going back to the root of the first two examples, with Peer to Peer networks and Napster, why were people sharing files and downloading like mad? For many people, it wasn't a matter of wanting to steal from the record companies, or to defraud artists. From the many stories I read and the people I talked to in that era, the most active Napster users were also among the ones with the largest legitimate music collections, the ones who made visiting a record store or concert a regular occurrence. But there came an imbalance between the ease of acquisition and the price of acquisition of the media, as prices for individual CDs rose from the $9.99 range to $13, $15, $18 and beyond.

Napster, Kazaa and other peer to peer networks, offered an alternative that delivered music of all types quickly, depending on download speeds, and for extremely low cost (free). And instead of downloading full albums, users could find individual tracks and get those alone.

It took a realistic alternative, like iTunes, that offered low per-track pricing and easy, trusted, downloads to push people to move away from illegal options, and for the most part, they have. Similarly, options like Netflix, Amazon Unbox and iTunes again provided users with trusted inexpensive video downloads that were less costly than the rapidly-rising theater experience, with its $10+ tickets (not to mention inability to pause the film).

In each case, consumers, with common sense, grew tired of the restrictions placed on them from an uncaring monopolistic industry. And while the traditional entertainment and media moguls are still reeling from having to adjust to the new rules placed on them by consumers, other old world giants think they can play the game and be a gatekeeper. AT&T's woes were painfully shown by Apple yesterday, who quietly called out the carrier for being behind in practically every important way - not enabling tethering for the iPhone, being incapable of supporting MMS, and giving all of us early adopters a dramatic case of sticker shock when we considered upgrading.

The world of common sense again says that if customers want to pay for cutting edge technology and are willing to pay for your services, they will. But they don't like being forced into a less than ideal situation that makes them feel like they are paying top dollar and getting lowest rung support.

I haven't slammed AT&T much and haven't championed them either. Phone services, like electricity and water, are a utility - something that should just work in the background. The fact that we are even talking about them now means something has failed. It's a relatively quiet group of folks, so far, who feel wronged by the phone monolith's position, but if the failures continue, they will start to break the rules, because common sense says they should, and eventually, the wrong will be right.

Pet Shop Boys Trump Depeche Mode in New Music Nostalgia Week

After two months of anticipation, thanks in part to an iTunes Pass to the band's 'Sounds of the Universe' album, Depeche Mode opened up the vault, issuing the remaining tracks this week, helping fill my iTunes library. But surprisingly, only a few days later, it's not this album from this 1980s megaband that's getting all the playing time on my iPhone. Instead, it's the much quieter release from The Pet Shop Boys called 'Yes' which has me hitting Shuffle and then Repeat.

Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys occupy a special place in my permanent nostalgia file, reckoning back to high school and the years just before and after, joining Information Society, New Order and others. That they continue to put out great music is something of a miracle, but being a loyal listener, I buy every new song and album they release.

Given the hype and wait for 'Sounds of the Universe', I expected something amazing. And yes, while it's good, there was no hype for the Pet Shop Boys' 'Yes', and I simply can't stop playing it over and over. It was my airplane companion as I flew from Las Vegas to San Jose this evening, and the background when we arrived home and entertained the twins, who hadn't seen me in five days.

While Depeche Mode made headlines for their iTunes creativity, gaining me access to remixes and videos weeks in advance, the biggest surprise has been a special bonus track on the 'Yes' album, which contains audio commentary from the Pet Shop Boys, explaining how they arrived at lyrics, music, and how songs stayed off the cutting room floor. It's highly entertaining, just like the producer commentary on many of today's DVDs. And the album is classic Pet Shop Boys. From "Love Etc." to "Vulnerable" and "Pandemonium", many of the tracks exceed even the best from Depeche Mode's 'Sounds of the Universe'.

Depeche Mode may have far and away the most artist plays in my Last.fm library in all-time rankings, but at least for this week, in what should have been their return to glory, they're going to take a back seat. You can find both albums on iTunes, of course.

Look Out, Ken Jennings, I Can Play Jeopardy On My iPhone

The trivia game show Jeopardy isn't just a household name, it's an institution, having been on the air 25 years. The arguably antiquated answer and question show that pre-dates how most people answer trivia these days (with the Web and Google) has managed to stay interesting and relevant for decades, captivating the nation's attention when good old boy Ken Jennings reeled off a ridiculous amount of wins just a few years ago and getting himself named king trivia geek for life. Now, at least for a few minutes each day, at least, I can feel like Ken Jennings, as I dominate opponents on my iPhone.


The Jeopardy Game, Complete With My Signature
The new Jeopardy game for the iPhone, just released to the iTunes Store, lets you select two modes of gameplay - solo, where you answer every single question, and the more familiar multi-player mode, where you face off against two opponents who have wandered into the studio. You can select the strength of difficulty (from easy, medium and hard), and all the facets of game play you know from the show are there on your phone - from Daily Doubles to Double Jeopardy and Final Jeopardy.


One Right Question...

Another Correct Guess...

Betting It All on a Daily Double...
As with any good iPhone game, there are plenty of statistics as well. The Jeopardy game displays to you how well you did for each round of an individual game, and it adds up your total results, including how many questions you got right, how many Daily Doubles you nailed, and how often you got the Final Jeopardy question correct.


Rolling Up the Stats...
Of course, playing Jeopardy on the iPhone is much easier than real life. Instead of needing to form the answer and key it in on your iPhone, it's multiple choice, and you select one of three options, as the lights count down your remaining time. Choosing one correct choice of three means I'll get a lot more right than if I was at Studio City in Los Angeles, but winning still feels good.


One Jeopardy Question. Do You Know the Answer?
You can grab Jeopardy off the iTunes store for $4.99.

Weblogs Inc's iPhone Ads Show Focused Content Delivery

By Daniel J. Pritchett of Sharing at Work (FriendFeed /Twitter)

The AOL-owned blog network Weblogs, Inc. is running ads on their properties that are tailored to viewers with iPhones.  Poke around on WoW Insider's iPhone portal at i.wowinsider.com and you'll likely be greeted with an ad pointed straight into the App Store.  Look at Engadget's i.engadget.com and you might see an ad for Land Rovers or other luxury goods.

This is the first time I've seen an ad that specifically identifies me as an iPhone-browsing consumer and supplies ads relevant to that context.  There are plenty of demographic iPhones (or in my case, an iPod touch) on a site about gadgets using an iPhone.  WoW Insider's preponderance of streaming video links make the Babelgum video app a good bet for direct-to-iPhone advertising.  

The integrated nature of the App store means that any iPhone user who clicks through on the ad pictured at left is likely to be able to buy the ad with one click more thanks to Apple's foresight in saving credit card information to iTunes accounts.  This is a dead-simple impulse purchase lined up and ready for consumers to pull the trigger.  

What else can we do with targeted mobile advertising?
We've previously seen the release of iPhone-specific ads in the form of entertaining apps like this Dockers app depicting a man who dances when the iPhone is shaken.  A recently released ad trading network facilitates the creation of a "webring"-style collection of affiliated apps that advertise for one another.  One thing I've noticed about these neat Weblogs, Inc. ads is that they aren't automatically pushed to iPhone users.  When I surf to WoW Insider on my iPhone I'm not immediately redirected to the mobile site.  I didn't even realize the iPhone site existed for quite a long time.

Maybe Weblogs is simply testing this particular advertising channel without wanting to roll it out to all mobile users yet?  It seems prudent to connect these targeted mobile ads with every possible mobile user that comes through their virtual doors.  Simple blog plugins like MobilePress already demonstrate the ease with which mobile-optimized sites can be used without requiring users to find a separate URL.  Why not auto-detect all mobile viewers and give them links to the App Store or whatever other e-commerce engine is most applicable to their handset?  I'm going to keep an eye on these integrated iPhone / App Store ads - it should be very interesting to see if they can live up to the standards for targeted advertising Louis hoped for in his recent post "I Wish Ad Companies Would Truly Leverage Social Profiles".

Read more by Daniel J. Pritchett at Sharing at Work .

I Don't Care If You Call Me a Fanboy. Steve Jobs Should Be Immortal.

As today's news that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be taking medical leave from the company through the summer rockets around the Web, many are speculating this will be the last we may ever see of Cupertino's hero. Following the initial news around Macworld Expo that Jobs was going to forego the keynote and had a hormonal imbalance, whispers grew to loud murmurs, saying that Apple needed a backup plan for CEO - and fast - but now that murmuring has become a roaring crescendo. And while I put myself at significant risk at being labeled a fanboy who kneels at the multi-colored altar, I have to express how losing Jobs for more than a few months will be a significant blow, not just to Apple and its customers, but to Silicon Valley and the world at large.

No doubt in part due to my recent birth, I practically grew up using Apple computers. And even while Windows grew in market share, I saw their interface as a shoddy misappropriation of Apple's intellectual property. As Apple swirled near the drain in the late 1990s, while some mocked the company and called it beleaguered, I huddled among the seeming few fanatics we had left and declared that we would never give up. It was us against the world.

Jobs' return to Apple was curious at first. It was supposed to have been temporary. He vowed he would never be the CEO at Apple Computer, and speculation as to a full-time holder of the role was widespread. But, luckily for us all, he pulled a Dick Cheney (think 2000 VP candidates) and appointed himself. And the rest, as they say is history. He made Apple not just an also-ran in the computer business, but a major force for innovation. He brought color to a drab world. He worked with very conservative businesses and found ways to launch the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, and eventually, the iPhone.

With Jobs at the helm, Apple took the very boring world of MP3 players and cell phones and made them exciting again - and you only have to take a look at the Microsoft Zune, Sony's failed Walkman MP3 player line, and phones from Nokia to see what the industry has tried to do in Apple's wake.

As I wrote during the last round of speculation, I Will Teach My Children About Steve Jobs, I don't intend to tell them about Steve Jobs as you would a cultural icon of yesteryear, but instead because he helped to spur innovation and imagination. The idea of an Apple without Steve Jobs, or a computer industry without Steve Jobs is alarming. Yes, younger entrepreneurs like those running Google and Facebook have lapped Apple in some areas and are forging interesting new products, but there is only one Steve Jobs.

Apple has always taken significant pride in how it uses its vast mountain of cash and its R&D budget. The very best use of said funds would be to first, solve Jobs' medical issue, whatever it is, and later, move on to see if he can be made immortal. This isn't a shifty Bill Gates or a sweaty, rotund, Steve Ballmer we are talking about here. This is the one and only Steve Jobs, who has cared about creativity, education, and users above everything else. The idea of a computer industry without Apple and without Steve Jobs should mortify us all.

June cannot come soon enough. I hope that is truly as long as we will be waiting.

Early Adoption Can Stem to Music As Well

This photo, unearthed from the archives in 1978, shows me rocking out to the tunes, bottle in hand, just like many other more aged musicians. But while some of these musicians used the bottle as a gateway to more recreational drugs, I never quite made that step. Instead, I continue to focus... on the music.

Anybody who follows my Last.fm activity, either through the site, or through my FriendFeed stream, knows I have an "early adopter" approach to music as well. I can hardly stand most contemporary pop, dabble only a tad in R&B, but have been a huge fan of electronic/trance music and techno practically since my first encountering of these unique sounds. Graduating from Depeche Mode, the Cure and REM in junior high school, I added on Information Society and the Smiths in high school before going head-long into beats from Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, the Crystal Method, and all matter of electronic DJs, including Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, DJ Tiesto, and many others.

Yesterday, my partner in crime, Mike Fruchter, alerted me to an unexpected source for more down-tempo tunes, which I've had playing ever since, and plan to start again when I'm done. Adam Singer, of The Future Buzz, happens to be an excellent musician in his own right. I knew he was already a great blogger, but to do both at the same time? Outstanding.

If you share my musical interests, or just want to listen in, go check out www.adamsinger.org for a preview, where you can download his full albums in Zip form, which expand to MP3 and a perfect addition to your iTunes library. I particularly recommend "Lifeforce", "Drifting" and his remix of Depeche Mode's "I Feel You".

Rock on.

DRM = Doesn't Really Matter

If one of the biggest items to be delivered at tomorrow's MacWorld Expo is the elimination of DRM from songs on the iTunes store, as is rumored, then we are on the brink of the biggest snoozefests in technology event history. Forget that Mr. Steve Jobs potentially is suffering hot flashes, and is instead being replaced by Cupertino's wild-haired Pillsbury Doughboy, Phil Schiller. This Macworld has got to be the lowest-anticipated in terms of new product debuts that I can ever remember. And when it comes down to it, despite all the online horror and tongue-lashings, I'd venture a bet that the supposed evils of DRM that Apple has wrought on its users haven't really effected but a small percentage. I don't love DRM, but I live with DRM, and it doesn't really matter.

When Apple introduced iTunes and marketed it with the "Rip. Mix. Burn." campaign several years ago, music labels were furious, thinking the Mac-maker was embracing piracy, a second back to back blow to the maligned monopolists following Napster's runaway success. When Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, and later the iTunes Store in 2003, it had to bend over backwards to gain the cooperation of the labels, restricting who could play what songs when on what computers or iPods, and how many times they could burn playlists to CDs, all in the name of preserving profits.

Over time, some of the DRM rules were relaxed, and the advent of iTunes Plus meant you could some songs from iTunes without rights management, for an additional fee of 30 cents a song. The additional 30 cents, in theory, meant you could do whatever you wanted with the file, just like you can with any hard copy you own, be it cassettes, CDs, etc.

Although I've been an iPod user practically since the first day they were announced, and followed the Apple upgrade path through to my current 16 GB iPhone, and I now own almost 6,000 songs on iTunes, a significant percentage of which were purchased from the iTunes Store, I almost never encounter any issues with DRM. I've upgraded my laptop a few times, moving my data from one computer to the next and authorizing the new machine. I've synchronized new iPods and the iPhone and always been able to play them. My music plays on my Apple TV, and can be streamed from my wife's computer on our same network.

That my music is slathered over with Apple's proprietary DRM is not a big deal, period. I would practically have to go out of my way to find a way that having "suffered" through DRM for the better part of eight years with Apple has negatively affected my music experience. I do know that I certainly am better off than those who chose subscriptions with music companies that have disappeared and gone out of business. I'm better off with my digital music here than in stacks of CDs around the house. In fact, I gave all my CDs away to a co-worker when the babies were born as part of cleaning house!

For eight years, I've wondered if the fact I didn't care about DRM was because I am a hopeless Apple fanboy. Maybe I've fallen under the spell of believing Apple should make the rules for how I use what is ostensibly my music and media. But seriously, the drama of DRM and its limits has been so overhyped I don't even know where to start. If you want to buy your music somewhere else, go for it. There are alternatives. But there's a reason iTunes, iPod and iPhone have been such a success. It's because of what they let you do, not what they don't let you do. It's the best combo on the market, and I don't care one bit about the DRM wars which just might be coming to an end as we know it tomorrow. I never have.

i.TV Hooks Up With TiVo for iPhone DVR Scheduling

i.TV, the online TV and movie schedule application for the iPhone, which we covered during its launch and subsequent addition to the iTunes store, has added the ability for users to not just see what's on, but to add those items to their TiVo, anywhere they are. Combined with the company's recent addition of synching with Netflix, and another announcement today that you can buy movie tickets, i.TV has become an on the go digital hub connecting you with your entertainment, wherever it may be.

If you're unfamiliar, i.TV is essentially a live guide to your TV schedule, browsable on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Let the application know where you live, and your cable set up, and you can see the current schedule, or choose a future time and see what's coming. You can rate items, or even add a review of a show, directly from the phone, or see other reviews.


i.TV Hooks Up Your iPhone with Netflix and TiVo
Now, the service has added support for Netflix and TiVo in your settings. Link to your TiVo account, and you can add items to the TiVo DVRs you have registered with TiVo.com.


i.TV Links to Your TiVo Account and Registered DVRs
Upon registering, every single show you browse has a little TiVo icon. Click the icon, and you get the option to "Record" the show, and can even add padding before or after the show, if you want to be sure to catch the ending or account for any timing shenanigans with the network.


Adding a Show to TiVo Via i.TV, With Confirmation
Once you've registered a recording, an e-mail can be sent to your account and let you know it has been confirmed, just like remote scheduling of your TiVo through TiVo's online site. The addition of TiVo services, given my recent TiVo HD XL purchase, and continued fanboyism of the Alviso company, puts i.TV back in the lead over What's On TV?, who we also covered at the end of November.

The full press release from i.TV can be found here: i.TV Adds DVR Remote Record, Streaming Video and Movie Ticket Purchasing. You can find the i.TV application for free on the iTunes store here.

My 2008 Tech Predictions Look Bad As Year Nears a Close

It's a year-end tradition for many media, blogs and individuals, to predict what will happen over the next year. Some prefer to make their guesses fairly straight-forward in an effort to be right (Example: Apple will release new notebooks with a faster processor at MacWorld) and others will make their guesses seemingly outlandish, so that if they're right, they're seen as virtual psychics. Others, somewhere in between. At the conclusion of 2007, I made ten predictions that I thought would be fun, and as we're coming on the one year anniversary of that post, it's a good thing you didn't bet your home mortgage on my list. (What? You say there are other issues with your mortgage? Oh.)

See: 10 Predictions for 2008 In the World of Tech

In the spirit of reducing my ego, here are how those ten predictions in the world of tech stand:

1) Google Will Trump Both TechMeme and FeedHeads

Wrong. I expected that Google would start to tabulate its shared items and most popular feeds via Google Reader, and that using this data, Google could provide a democratic version of Techmeme, or at least pull Feedheads outside of Facebook. Instead of Google doing this however, it was ReadBurner, followed by RSSMeme and others, including Feedheads, who started a site at www.feedheads.com. Later in the year, Google Blog Search did introduce the option to show hot topics in tech, but it's largely been a stale effort. At this point, Techmeme is still more important than Google in this regard, and Google Reader has declined to show most popular feeds or shared items.

(Disclosure: I am an advisor to ReadBurner and took the position in August.)

2) Facebook Will Buy Digg in an All-Stock Transaction

Wrong. I thought Facebook would use its expensive stock and buy up some smaller companies. Digg continually sounded like it was shopping itself, but it never sold, and the company's CEO often denied talks were occuring with anyone. Also, given the stock market crash, Facebook is no doubt valued much lower these days, making a stock transaction less likely.

3) eBay Will Sell StumbleUpon to Yahoo! or News Corporation

Wrong. So Far. In September, TechCrunch and others reported that eBay planned to sell StumbleUpon, but no sale has taken place yet. At this point, also, with Yahoo! crumbling, they are less likely to take on the service.

4) Twitter Will Add Video, Photography Support

Wrong. Twitter focused on growing and not crashing this year. Still just text.

5) Apple Boot Camp Will Morph to Be Like Parallels, VMWare Fusion

Wrong. I hardly hear anything about Boot Camp these days, likely because VMWare Fusion and Parallels have become entrenched, and nobody cared about Apple's "restart" alternative. My comment that Apple would "slowly take over the market" in this space also looks quite dumb, as did the expectation that Windows applications could boot alongside Mac apps. The question is, why not?

6) At Least One Major Browser Will Embed Ad-Blocking

Wrong. And it's too bad! Sure would change things a bit if somebody could figure out how to check a box and have graphical ads or text ads disappear.

7) Assetbar and FriendFeed Will Gain Early Adopter Audiences

Wrong and Right. AssetBar, in its attempt to replace Google Reader, failed fast. FriendFeed, however, did much better than I could have guessed at the time I wrote the post. Obviously, I played a small role in evangelizing FriendFeed through it coming out of beta in early 2008, but it got bigger than even I expected. My comment saying that "neither would be acquired by the end of 2008" did manage to be true.

8) Video Blogging Will Remain Unpopular, Unprofitable

Right. While there are some bloggers who prefer video and are using it, from Robert Scoble at FastCompany TV to Loic LeMeur at Seesmic, it hasn't become as second-nature as standard blogging or mciroblogging. And so far as I know, nobody is making money on this in a consistent way.

9) iTunes Video Rentals Will Decimate Netflix, Blockbuster, Hurt Box Office

Mostly Wrong. Netflix didn't blink against iTunes' charge. They instead branched out with their "watch instantly" feature and partnered up with TiVo and others. Blockbuster is still a disaster, and I certainly am not going to the box office thanks to so many alternatives. But iTunes video rentals cannot be said to have hit Netflix and others all that much.

10) Fast Company Will be a Fast Stay for Robert Scoble

Wrong, So Far. Robert joined FastCompany at the beginning of the year, and is putting up some interesting content. That said, FastCompany has seen changes in focus and leadership, and I am curious to see how his show evolves in 2009. Scoble continues to be a mainstay on the social Web and at industry events of course, so even if 2009 sees him somewhere else, it won't be far from the limelight.

So wasn't that fun? Now you see you can largely ignore my predictions, or maybe, I should try harder to be right. Maybe, if I'm good, I can put a 2009 prediction list up by the end of the year...

AOL Radio Lulls Kids to Sleep... With Metallica?

It's really getting to the point where I believe my iPhone can do anything. You've already heard me say I sleep next to it, and that it should practically run unopposed in the smartphone market. But what you don't understand is that it is rapidly finding new roles and new ways to get intertwined with my life. The newest role is helping to put the twins to sleep, thanks to the AOL Radio application, and that app's Lullabies radio station - which shockingly extends beyond the Brahms Lullaby, offering music even I found fun to hear, from new mixes of U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" to a cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters."

It's true I already have gigabytes and gigabytes of my own music on my iPhone. But, truth be told, my music is usually for getting energetic, with beats from Underworld and Paul Van Dyk or DJ Tiesto, instead of calming music aimed to lull people to rest. That's where AOL Radio steps in.


AOL Radio Features a Lullabies Channel
The application features many genres, from Blues and Country to Dance/Electronic and Metal. But if you choose the Kids genre, there are six channels, including one called "Lullabies", featuring "Soothing sounds for your baby and you." Trust me, I was quite skeptical of this channel, expecting to mock it - but the channel manages to deliver songs that are not only calming to both Matthew and Sarah, but also good enough to keep us entertained.


From Mozart... to Metallica Covers!
Tonight, following one Beach Boys cover and Adagio from Mozart, I heard the familiar strains of "Nothing Else Matters" stream from the iPhone, reminding me of unsuccessful junior high school crushes and long-ago settled debates over who was the best hard rock band... Metallica or Whitesnake. And guess what? The cover song was good enough I would have played it again, if given the option. (Listen to it here.)

AOL Radio does a lot more than play lullabies. It's actually also a good application for playing local music and other songs from just about any type of music you like. And it's free on iTunes. Find it here.

Don't Forget to Say Uno On Your iPhone!

UNO was among the first card games I ever learned to play. I remember being of kindergarten age, playing against my father, and starting out with only three cards per hand, rather than the usual seven, as my own hand was too small to manage a standard game. As I grew older, I was able to master the full deck, and determine strategy between all the Draw Twos and Draw Fours, Skips and Reverses. And now, I can play UNO on my iPhone, as the classic card game has been added to the application store, surprisingly with all the wrinkles the game has to offer.


Don't Forget to Tap UNO.
If you're willing to spring for the $7.99 it takes to get the application, you'll find the offering to be impressively developed, with flashy game play and all the nuances of the actual contest - from forcing you to "say UNO" when you're down to one card, to giving players the option to challenge Draw Four cards, if you believe they still have cards in their hand of the color being played.


Uh-Oh... A Draw Four!
Over the last 25 years or so, I've "progressed" from holding three cards in my hand to seven and now just one hand needs to prop up one iPhone, where I can push game play with my finger using Apple's touchscreen-enabled mobile device.


Rules are Rules, On the iPhone Or Anywhere
The standard UNO play can be done from anywhere between 2 and 4 players, and cards are scored just as they were from the original bright red package. Number cards are worth their face value, Draw Two, Reverse and Skip are worth 20 points a piece, and the Wild cards are a plump 50 points if you get stuck holding them in your hand by the time your opponent finishes play.

The game also offers features the original offering didn't - from playing songs on your iTunes library, to online multiplayer gaming, and alternate rules. If you're not above paying eight bucks for a card game, UNO is a great addition to your iPhone app library. You can find it on the App Store here.

Netflix Edges Closer to Making the Perfect Web Video Site

It seems when it comes to the world of Web video, there is as much discussion of the limits saying what you can't do as there are the discussion of the features themselves. If you get your movies via iTunes, you hear about how it can play on one device at a time, for a limited time. If you opt for Amazon Unbox, there is a different set of restrictions. Meanwhile, Netflix is still mostly known for its DVD distribution, and until lately, it has been restricted to Windows computers - locking out Mac and Linux users. As MG Siegler of VentureBeat noted yesterday, Mac users can finally get their hands on instant streaming via the Web, as we move ever closer to that "anytime, anywhere, any movie" panacea that we're all seeking.

My personal preference, especially since the introduction of movie rentals, has been to use iTunes. Downloading films via iTunes makes them available to my laptop, my iPhone, and, using the Apple TV, to my living room. But iTunes doesn't have every film. In fact, none of these services do. Often, if there's a movie I really want to see, but don't want to pay full price for, I have to check iTunes, Amazon and Netflix to see who is serving it up. But if the answer is that only Netflix offers it for rental, I'm quite hesitant to put the movie in my queue, and wait the better part of a week to get the physical copy in the mail. We've reached the point where near instant is the only acceptable speed.

With the advent of Netlfix offering instant streaming of films via the Web, I gain yet another instant entertainment source - and I don't have to pay per film, like I do with iTunes or Amazon Unbox, as the instant streaming is part of our family's monthly fee.


Netflix Offers Many Videos for Instant Viewing, but Not All
Per VentureBeat's article, I headed to http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin and, after agreeing to be part of the beta program, I updated the Microsoft Silverlight software on my computer. One restart of Safari later, and I could add any of the available instant movies or TV shows to my Instant Queue. The offerings were slim, to be sure, but I would expect Netflix to work hard to migrate the rest of their library to offer the same capability.


I Could Add a Video to My Instant Queue
In a silly mood, I was able to add "Nuns on the Run" to my instant queue, and a minute later, I was seeing Eric Idle debate his role as a thief amid increasing violence in his line of work. Netflix measured my bandwidth capabilities, and set the video quality so that my connection wouldn't be overwhelmed and stuck buffering. Only once did I find the Web connection slowed to a speed that the movie stopped, but a simple refresh of the browser caught the movie up to where I left off, and we kept going.


The Nuns Were On the Run In Minutes


Internet Connectivity Issues Will Always Be There
I appreciate iTunes' per-movie pricing and instant downloads to the Apple TV. If I can find the film there first, and plan on being home to watch it, that will be default for our home videos. But if I want to watch a film solo, on the laptop, and Netflix offers it, this option will be a great backup.

Yet, as with the other services, questions still are there. Can I take the video with me? No. Can I play them on my iPhone? No. So for each situation, I probably will find myself bouncing from service to service, without one reigning supreme.

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.

Social Media Workflow on the iPhone

By Phil Glockner of Scribkin (FriendFeed/Twitter)

I wanted to write a slightly different type of iPhone app review today. Instead of focusing specifically on one or two apps, I wanted to bring you with me as I walk through the tools I rely on daily as I check out the social media ‘scene.' Also, I'd like to prefix by stating that the iPhone has been an amazingly capable and flexible platform for web-based activities such as this. Not only does it work better for me than any mobile smartphone I've used in the past, but has completely replaced my trusty Nokia 770 internet tablet.

E-mail

When I pick up my iPhone in the morning, the first thing I check is new e-mail. Not very exotic, but this is something that needs to be done well on any smartphone. I'll disclose here that I've never used a Blackberry for any length of time, so I won't argue that it's the best mobile e-mail platform. However, the iPhone has a very strong, capable e-mail client. In fact, it has really come a long way from the 1.0 release on the original iPhone. Good attachment handling including PDF and Office documents, support for multiple POP/IMAP accounts, and good integration with other iPhone apps and even many 3rd party apps. Plus, Apple has their own tightly-integrated service called MobileMe.

One small issue I have with the e-mail client is the steps involved with switching between e-mail accounts. In essence, if you are looking at a particular e-mail, you have to hit the ‘back' button 3 times to get out to the account list. Why isn't there a shortcut to straight to the account list, or better, switch directly to a different account? Every other mobile e-mail client I have used has this simple feature.

FriendFeed

Personally, I check FriendFeed all the time to get a feel for the topics of the day, and to see if any ongoing discussions are happening that I can contribute to. FriendFeed has an excellent iPhone web client that is more than adequate for this job. I usually keep a browser session open specifically for FriendFeed so I can check it at different points in the day.

Twitter

There are so many resources for accessing Twitter on the iPhone that I can't cover them all here. Twitter itself has a nice, clean mobile site if you point your mobile browser to m.twitter.com. However, I use an iPhone-optimized free service called Hahlo, it is really leagues better than any other web site in the same class, and even better than most Twitter iPhone apps! It supports everything you can do on the main Twitter site, plus integrates Twitter Search (formerly Summize).

If for some reason you don't love Hahlo, here are just a few of the other apps and sites you can check out: Twitteriffic, Twinkle, Twittelator, TwitterFon, Twittervision, Twitfire, and LaTwit. Also, Summizer is a mobile version of Twitter Search and Fring is just all-around amazing.

Google Reader and RSS

I am a huge fan of the Google Reader feed reader utility. It has social features as well as an intuitive keyboard-accelerated, web-based interface. In fact, I would argue that most of my real absorption of the social media space comes from the feed subscriptions I follow in Google Reader. Their team has also provided an excellent iPhone-optimized web site. As long as I have some network connectivity via wireless or cellular, this is my preferred way to catch up on my feed reading.

However, there are times when I know that I'll be out of all network access and I may still want to read some articles. Up until recently, there wasn't a good way to do this. However, a great iPhone app called Byline that was created specifically to sync with Google Reader and allow perusal of articles at leisure. Any annotations that are made, like ‘share with note' or ‘starred,' are synched back up when reconnected to the internet. Plus, Byline just got a big 2.0 interface makeover and is a pleasure to use. I recommend it if you prefer to use an app over a web site.

If you aren't a fan on Google Reader, there are a lot of other RSS readers for the iPhone (this is by far not a complete list, and App Store links all): NetNewsWire, SyncRSS, Web Feeds, Free RSS Reader, The Black RSS Reader, Daisy Feed, and NewsStand.

LinkedIn and Facebook

I tend to check both of these sites regularly to see if there are updates from my friends or colleagues. Both of Facebook and LinkedIn have superb iPhone apps developed by the respective companies running those sites. However, both companies also have really nice iPhone-enabled web sites! So you have a choice if you want to go for the ‘heavy' app interface (LinkedIn, Facebook) or the lighter web interface (LinkedIn, Facebook).

Other Sites

I am signed up for a lot of ‘microblogging' and other social sites, but I don't check them nearly as often as FriendFeed and Twitter. Luckily, they all have some sort of footprint on the iPhone, either via app, optimized web site, or mobile site. See the list below:

• BrightKite: Just go to the primary BrightKite site to get an iPhone optimized version, or get the brand-new free app
• Flickr: Flickr has a fantastic mobile site. There are quite a few Flickr iPhone apps too, for example Mobile Fotos which I review here
• Pownce: Both an iPhone app and an iPhone-optimized site
• Last.FM: An awesome app and bare-bones mobile site
• Pandora: A bar-none high quality music streaming application for the iPhone
• Yelp: A great app and functional mobile site
• Tumblr: All tumblelogs have mobile support by appending ‘/mobile' to the end of the URL. I also recommend iview for photo tumblelogs.

Video?

Although there are many applications and web sites (like seesmic) that will let you watch video on the iPhone, there is no direct support for video recording.. yet. There is hope though. Recently, Qik has been working on their iPhone client intensely and it should be in the iTunes App Store any time now! According to Kevin Rose and Chris Pirillo, it's looking like a winner.

Wrap-Up

So as you can see, there is a huge amount of support for the iPhone when it comes to social media. And I haven't even touched (no pun intended) on the plethora of iPhone-specific social networking applications out there that are GPS-enabled. There are so many, in fact, that they have their own iTunes App Store category.

If you are looking for a way to take your online presence on the road, this device is a one-stop shop. Due to the lack of video recording capability and not-quite-business-class e-mail support, you may end up going for a different phone. But no other phone gives you the breadth and diversity of activities that are available with the iPhone.

As a final note, I just wanted to include a link to a fantastic free WordPress plugin that gives you an instant, gorgeous iPhone optimized theme for your site. It's called WPtouch and it I recommend it highly.

Read more by Phil Glockner at Scribkin.com.

iTranslate: Language Translation App for the iPhone

Between Yahoo! Babel Fish and Google Language Tools, Web surfers have grown accustomed to having easily accessible solutions for text translation between many languages, for individual words, phrases, or even entire Web pages. But on the iPhone, Google's own application doesn't include Language Tools, opening the door for iTranslate, a simple application aimed to bringing the same capabilities to Apple's increasingly popular microcomputer masquerading as a cell phone.

The application, free on the iTunes Store, is the first one released by Outer Space Apps, an independent iPhone developer team based in Austria, which includes Alexander Marktl, the founder and original developer of ReadBurner. Additional applications are planned by Outer Space Apps, including two currently in stealth mode for social networks both in the United States and Europe.


The iTranslate Interface In Action.
iTranslate, leveraging the Google Translation API, offers two-way translation between sixteen different languages, including Bulgarian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norweigian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

To translate a word or phrase, select the language you want to translate from on the left, and the language you want to translate to on the right. iTranslate will display the current setting, for example saying "English to Spanish", "Spanish to Italian", etc. Then tap the entry field at the top of the app, use iPhone's on-screen keyboard to put in the term, and hit Search. The application also saves your most recent query, as you can see in my example of translating "Where can I buy bread?" into Spanish and Italian.


iTranslate Results In Two Different Languages
The results then show the before and after on top of each other in the same screen, helping you to not only find the answer, but possibly learn the phrase yourself. While the application is free, it does leverage AdMob, as many iPhone applications are these days, to help monetize it and deliver some revenue.

To get started with iTranslate yourself, you can download it from the iTunes Store here.