Apple iOS 7 Translucent UI Needs Help

I installed iOS 7 on one of my iPads today. The first thing that struck me was the change in the way folders and the system tray looked. Honestly, I didn't spend a whole lot of time studying every aspect of iOS 7 so some of this might not have been surprising with a little digging, but this really caught me off guard. As you can see from the image below, the folders and the system tray look skin color. I really wanted to puke. I thought, how could this be!

After my initial shock wore off, I changed the wallpaper and sure enough, the colors showed through what I guess is a translucent UI. I searched the settings to see if there was something that let change the percentage of translucency or even the color, and nope, nothing.

I do like the new fast app switch, but it took me a few minutes to figure out how to close down an app. It's not the old-fashioned way of hold and press the X, you simply perform the Android maneuver of sliding it off the screen. Closed.

 

This isn't a post knocking iOS 7, or Apple. Just my initial observation. I wish for a day I can control some of the UI look on my personal device. But that's another post.

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5 Tech Stories Worth Reading

1. Sources: PopCap In Late Stage Acquisition Discussions With EA For $1 Billion+
PopCap Games is in late stage acquisition discussions for a sum of over $1 billion — we’ve now heard from two sources that the buyer is Electronic Arts.

2. Google Invests $102 Million More Into California’s Alta Wind Energy Center
According to an official company blog post today, Google is increasing its investment into California’s Alta Wind Energy Center (AWEC) by $102 million, bringing its total investment in the renewable energy facility to $157 million.

3. Tips for taking good handheld photos at night
The problem with taking photographs in low-light situations is that the camera has little alternative but to leave the shutter open longer to soak up more light. These tricks and tools will help you take better nighttime photos, without having to pack a tripod.

4. Music Discovery Platform exfm Goes Mobile With A Killer App For iOS
The artist formerly known as Extension Entertainment, now known simply as exfm, has officially gone mobile today, releasing its first mobile app for iOS. I’ve been enjoying exfm for a few months now through the startup’s Chrome extension, so I’m very excited to be able to finally bring that experience with me on-the-go.

5. A New Mobile Social Games King In The U.S.? Former Facebookers Take Storm8 To 210 Million Downloads
On the heels of PopCap’s billion dollar acquisition comes some interesting news from the social games front: Game developer Storm8 is today announcing a few impressive stats. Among other things, the company is claiming that it has become the “largest mobile social games developer in the U.S.”, boasting over 210 million downloads across iOS and Android. While those numbers are certainly impressive, with Angry Birds raking in over 200 million downloads, I think Rovio, Zynga, PopCap, Outfit7 and quite a few others might have a thing or two to say about that, each of which has fairly sizable user bases in the U.S. Then again, Rovio is in fact Helsinki-based and Outfit7 is international as well so Storm8′s claim to American soil likely stands — at least in relation to the Angry Birds and Talking Tom Cat makers, respectively.

BONUS

6. Google Launches New DOM Snitch Chrome Extension To Keep You Safe From Malicious JavaScript
Google has this week announced via its security blog a new tool its created called the DOM Snitch which is an experimental Chrome extension that enables developers to identify insecure practices commonly found in client-side code.

7. Amazon’s “state of the cloud” — it isn’t stacking up
When it comes to the cloud, just forget about the stack. Cloud computing is evolving beyond the data structure of interchangeable layers, said Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President at Amazon, during his “state of the cloud” address at GigaOm’s Structure conference.

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Pulse Ups The Ante On Mobile News Consumption

Pulse, an iPhone app that presents news and blog feeds in a grid fashion has upped the ante with their latest release.

So far I think Pulse is the best iPhone app on the market. And now you can access the app on any web enabled device using their new website, pulse.me. This is huge. Another feature that rocks this app is the ability to save an article for future reading. In the past I've had to email the link to myself so I could read it when I had time.

And Pulse now allows you to send article links to Instapaper and Evernote. Again, this is huge on many levels. The ability to send content to Evernote is great for me because I use It throughout my day.

Take some time to check out Pulse, you'll be glad you did.

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Two Features Social Photo Sharing Services Must Have

I'll be the first to admit I'm a social photo sharing application addict. I install apps all the time on my iPhone and try them out. Most of the apps I delete as fast as I install them. There are two must have features every social photo sharing service should have, or they will struggle to catch on; a web site for each user, and a mobile application.

You Must Offer A Web Site

Viewing one photo at a time is, a waste of time. I want to see a grid, or a gallery, or a time line of photos. I want to see a description, the ability to like, republish (via Twitter or Facebook), and comment. I want the ability to build a community around a photo or a collection of photos. Many of the most popular photo sharing services offer this type of web experience.

Not offering a web site, or one that is so restrictive and lacking in features, is a huge misstep.

You Must Offer A Mobile App On Multiple Platforms

Apple'siPhone is a very popular device, and is becoming one of the most popular ways to take photos. Just recently flickr announced the iPhone is number one camera used to to take the photos uploaded to it's service. That is huge. But it's not the only game in town.

Android based phones are becoming, if they haven't already, the most popular phone in the world. As this new platforms gains popularity, with phones having larger screens, dual core processors, and cameras that exceed 10 mega pixels, to ignore it would be another huge misstep.

No one else in my Family has an iPhone. Services that require an iPhone to view photos in a mobile app don't work for me. Many of my developer friends don't have an iPhone, they have an Android based phone. A large portion of the market is being left out. And it's a misstep if your services doesn't cater to all mobile platforms.

Developing For Android Sucks

David Karp, CEO of Tumblr recently said in a live interview at TechCrunch DISRUPT, Android "Absoutley sucks to develop for." Wow, what a statement.

Crazy amounts of investor money is being thrown at photo sharing services, and I'm hoping these services have something up their sleeve besides an API and an iPhone app. I know Android isn't the easiest platform to develop on, but there are alternate methods that would allow you to get started. I'll post more on those later. In the mean time, give us the full experience, and the ability to share with all our connections, not just the ones who own an iPhone.

 

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Amazon CloudPlayer Fail On iOS

No luck using Amazons new web based CloudPlayer on iOS. Wants me to use Internet Explorer. Really? Did Microsoft pay for that?

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Apple Announces iOS SDK 4.3 For Developers

Developers are getting iOS 4.3 a little early I guess, to make sure there apps run on the new OS. Fun times. http://bit.ly/g3Aimw

Get your apps ready for iOS 4.3 which features faster Safari mobile browsing performance with the Nitro JavaScript engine, iTunes Home Sharing, enhancements to AirPlay, and Personal Hotspot. Be sure to update your iPad apps so they take advantage of iPad 2 features including the powerful Apple A5 chip, built-in front and rear cameras, and gyroscope.

Cool feature of 4.3 - AirPlay: Stream video from your app to a widescreen TV using new Media Player APIs that support AirPlay video. You can also update your web content to support AirPlay.

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picplz for iPhone 1.5 released

via picplz:

We have just pushed a new update to the picplz iPhone app.

Changes:

• Speed improvements when browsing photos


• “Pull to refresh” support to update photo views


• Added contact search, it’s now easy to find people you already know on picplz


• New setting to disable GPS Data sharing


• High quality image setting now respects all image sizes


• Proper rotation support even when a user has Portrait Orientation Lock turned on.


• Bug fixes

Screenshots:

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Favorite iPhone Apps Of 2010

I'm installing and buying more apps for the iPhone than ever befor. A couple of reason for this, but mostly, I'm eating my own dog food as it were. Paying for great apps instead of always looking foe the free alternative.

As a software engineer, I want people to appreciate my work, and I hope they find it valuable. One way thy can show me that value is to pay me for it.

That said, I installed a few apps last year that totally rocked. I'll share my three favorite apps of 2010. They are SpringPad, Camera+, and Mormon Channel.

SpringPad is an application similar to Evernote, but I like the way SpringPad visually represents my data. The iPhone app is every bit as good as the Web version. You can create multiple notebooks, and within the notebooks, you can create todo's, links, text, and web clips.

The feature that really won me over though was the way it handles web clips. It actually works. I can never get Evernote web clips to work. All I get is the page text and usually no images, so when I look at it, the page is all screwed up.

Camera+ is an awesome application. There are so many options that it would take me days to explain them all. But here are a few of the ones that won me over.

• Dozens of styles that allow me to alter the photos.


• A timer, like a real camera


• Edit existing images


• Share multiple images to Facebook, Twitter and Email. This is huge, and the one feature that really won me over. Most of the other apps only let you send one at a time.

The Mormon Channel is a pretty narrow niche, but for me it brings together all the amazing resources the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints has to offer. Everything from scriptures, magazines, radio broadcasts, audio recordings, video records and more.

Another Mormon specific application that I am getting a lot of value from is LDS Scriptures App. This application is probably the most comprehensive LDS based application I've used. This application includes scriptures, manuals, magazines and other content. The only thing I wish it had more of would be audio and video content. But other than that, this is a rock solid app.

Other applications that I really enjoyed; Angry Birds, Facebook, TweetDeck, Pandora, Foursquare and DropBox.

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Google eBook Store - The Good And Bad

Today I received a notice that Google had opened their long awaited digital book store. I was excited to see what they had to offer, so I promptly loaded up the site. The interface Googlesque; clean and simple.

Android, iPad/iPhone/iTouch, the Web, the Nook and something from Sony. Having all the mobile devices is great. Sorry BlackBerry, 2 inch screens aren't really conducive to reading. But I'm sure at some point you'll get an app too.

I ran through all the new releases, categories, and searched for books. There's a pretty decent selection, and I'm sure most people will find what they want in the store.

My big problem is the books still cost almost retail price. I'm still amazed we are paying physical book prices. But that's a post for another day.

There is nothing over the top or game changing here. I'm surprised Google built a "Me Too" product. Or will this be a 3 year long beta product adding small additions as they go.

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A Twitter Client With A Brilliant UI Design

There is one reason I use the Twitter iPhone client over any other, it's a killer user interface design element. Here is the normal stream view

Now, simply slide your finger over any of the Tweets, and a menu of options are opened up. Now I can act on the tweet without having to open it up. Brilliant.

Try it out, very cool.

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The Windows Phone 7 Land Rush

Windows Phone 7 is about to hit the streets, and there is a lot of buzz being generated. My first impression of the phones are so-so. Nothing to write home about. The device is simple, and according to Steve Balmer's keynote address at PDC2010, Microsoft wanted to put the most important features front and center on the main screen.

Microsoft is late to the mobile party as it were. Apple owns a commanding lead in the smart phone arena, with Android and BlackBerry having large user bases. But Windows hasn't had a game competing device or OS until now. If Microsoft does this right, and doesn't strong arm developers as much as Apple does, the Windows Phone 7 app store could be the piece that makes this phone a winner.

Application Stores like iTunes, have given Apple the leverage it needs to remain strong and keep their lead. With over the top developer agreements, and total control over the hardware and software, they also control the experience. Microsoft owns the OS, but is allowing other manufactures to build the devices, which isn't necessarily and bad thing, but could be one reason it only achieves mediocre success. If I could wave a magic wand and command the Mobile division at Microsoft, that's what I would do. Users may kick and scream, but taking a queue from Apple, so what. The experience is second to none.

The application space for the Windows Phone 7 could be a land rush. And with the shear number of developers who write software for the Windows platform, and so have a good understanding of the language used to write applications for WP7, I would expect see the volume of apps built and sold in the WP7 store to dwarf that of Apples iTunes App Store. I could be wrong, but the numbers are in Microsoft's favor.

Microsoft is definitely muscling in on the mobile and cloud space. With the introduction of the Azure platform, and the WP7, Microsoft is finally starting to embrace anywhere computing as it's lead platform.

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The Best Part About iOS 4.2

Apparently the best part of Apples iOS 4.2 software for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch will be AirPrint. I can see this is a much welcomed feature for the iPad, but not so much for the iPhone/Touch. Other features such as access to the Game Center, multi tasking and a new ad service.

This new release will take me further and further away from the latest iPhone offering. My 3G is at it's limit. Time to upgrade to ... the Droid!

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A Hard Days Night

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iOS4 Makes My iPhone 3G Virtually Useless

Since upgrading to iOS4 on my iPhone 3G, I've had nothing but problems. And I'm not alone. Complaints from 3G owners have flooded blog posts, Twitter and Facebook streams, and even news outlets are reporting on the problems.

I'm usually one who stays on the edge of technology, but mobile devices are a little different. For me, the cost of upgrading my iPhone has been dependent on my contract with AT&T. Every time you extend your contract you lose options, or those options become more expensive.

But back to the phone issue. As it stands right now, very few of my applications are stable with iOS4. Especial those that use a lot of memory or network services. I don't fully blame the app developers because I think this is an incompatibility with the OS and the phone. I'm sure there are some apps that aren't quite compatible with iOS4, but the apps I'm having problems with are ones have recently been updated, and should be functioning correctly.

This lack of compatibility really drives me crazy. As Scott Lemon stated today, Apple is putting money above quality, similar to Toyota, who put money before quality, and now it has come back to bite both companies.

I like my iPhone, it has changed the way I consume information and communicate. I want to continue using my iPhone, but the complete system failures are very frustrating.

Reviewing options.

[Update] Before I even posted this, my iPhone has crashed, not recognized by iTunes, and I am now restoring from a backup. Incredible.

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Facebook Pushes Out New iPhone App

A long awaited update to the very popular Facebook iPhone application was pushed out to the App Store today. This new version has several new features which you may or may not like; Push Notifications, and contact syncing.

The contact syncing is a great new feature that pulls data from your Facebook friends, and adds or updates there information in your iPhone Contact app. I like that it includes the photo of the person, because I always forget to take a profile pic when we meet. This new feature also elminates the need for a second app I was using to do a sync.

The other major feature is push notification. The little popup messages that notifying you that of an update on Facebook. There are a couple of issues with push. It's a great way to stay informed, which means I don't have to check Facebook to see what is going on. But the way Push Notification works, it generally requires you to respond to the notification before you can do anything to the screen under it. This can be annoying if your playing a game, or typing a message. So you'll have to see if push works for you.

This application is so good you could bypass using the web at all. Get it on your iPhone through the App icon, or through iTunes.

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FourSquare Finally Makes Sense

If you're on Twitter or Facebook, you've probably seen posts like these "Thom A. @ Sonic (123 Main) at 9:30PM". This interesting app let's users "check-in" at some location, and share that with their online friends. No one should feel left out because they offer an iPhone, Android and BlackBerry version.

At first I didn't get it. Fact is, until this afternoon, I still didn't get it. But then this little message popped up when I checked in at Chick-Fil-A in Sandy, Utah.

After I saw this, it hit me, the untapped value of an application like FourSquare. What a strategic opportunity for businesses or events to push an announcement to the person checking in. Here I am checking in at Chick-Fil-A and I get a note to check out Fudruckers, about 50 feet away. I could possibly have been given a code to use for a discount on a meal.

I'm going to target a few places and see what I can come up with. My first attempt will be to add information on PodCampSLC 2010. If you check in at places around Neumont University, I'm going to suggest you check out the site.

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My Take On 2010 Technology Predictions Part 1

My good friend Kip Meacham asked his fellow propeller heads what they thought about Mark Anderson predictions he gave for 2010 in this video interview with BusinessWeek. Some the predictions I agree with, and others I don’t. I’m breaking this up into a 5 part series, giving my take on Marks 10 predictions for 2010. Here are my thoughts:

Platform Wars
There are more technology options for consumers today than ever before. I really think the three big ones to watch next year will Netbooks, Smart Mobile devices (phones like Android and iPhone), and eBook readers (like the Amazon Kindle).

• Netbooks are so cheap, you can almost look at them as disposable computers. With sizes around 10 inches, they almost fit in your pocket. Enough memory and storage to perform basic computing tasks, you can almost get away with using nothing but a Netbook. There are plenty of hacks out there to help you find all the online services you could need, for free, or very cheap.


• Smart Mobile Devices, the one device people are never more than a few feet away from these days, will really start to change the mobile computing landscape this next year. Retailers and web site that sell products, really need to step up to the plate and offer mobile versions of their site, with complete e-commerce. This technology is available now, it just needs to be implemented. Don’t miss this huge opportunity.


• eBook Readers like the Kindle have come on the market very strong. The Kindle isn’t the only player, in fact I don’t care for the physical device, but I am very excited about their iPhone and PC software versions. Other players in this market will need to catch up.

While smaller devices should increase their market share in the coming year, there is a lot of infrastructure that needs to catch up. One of those is e-commerce and micro payments which I’ll cover in another part of this series.

Another issue is always on Internet access. Today you can get 3G wireless Internet access on Smart Mobile devices, PC or phone, but at a hefty cost. More and more places are offering free or cheap Internet access, like the local coffee shop or library.

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KnockingLive Is A Killer iPhone App In 2009

[... I had written about two thirds of this post on my iPhone using the WordPress app, while I was sitting at the bar in a Chilis restaurant. I saved the post as a draft, but when I tried to reload the post to finish, all the content was gone. All of it. This is the second or third time the WordPress app for the iPhone has failed me. I won't make that mistake again. I'm finding something else. Is there something else? Evernote?]

The killer iPhone apps just keep getting better and better. Yesterday I introduced you to the Ustream Broadcaster iPhone application. Today it's KnockingLive. The KnockingLive's approach is a little different. It uses the same technology to capture video, the iPhones camera view, but adds the ability to share video with a specific user or users. That's right, you can stream private video to other iPhone users. And the other users even get a "knock knock" on their phone when you want to share something.

There is also an incredible sister app that allows you to share photos, or albums, and the receiving phone can choose to save the photos to their local phone. Wow. I'll about this one next.

One thing this company has done is create a website that shows you how to use the features in several scenarios via videos. Very cool.

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UStream Broadcaster Killer iPhone App In 2009

I've had the UStream Broadcaster iPhone application for one day and I am calling it the best application of 2009. Why? Because my iPhone 3G doesn't have a video camera, but UStream has managed to over come that by streaming what you see out of the camera before you take a snapshot. Basically streaming the looking glass.

Here are a few screen shots

If you notice the above image, you can send a link of the video to Twitter and Facebook, and also upload directly to YouTube.

Streaming isn't too bad. I watched a stream my brother was broadcasting, and the quality wasn't too bad.

I'm marking this app as one of the Killer Apps all iPhone owners should have. And best of all, it's free!

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WordPress Releases New iPhone App

This post is really a test using the new WordPress iPhone App, http://iphone.wordpress.org, version 2.1. I really want to test the picture upload feature.

You do have the ability to manage comments, but if you use a comment plugin system like Disqus, you can't moderate those comments.

I do like that you can create pages with this tool. I also like that I can manage multiple blogs.

I don't like that I can't insert a place holder god a photo, so I have no idea how the format will look. And how do create a linked word? Doesn't seem exist.

This is a great tool for creating quick, non-complicated posts.

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