The fitRAIL is an interesting iPad accessory that is basically a contraption for making it easy to “secure” an iPad to a treadmill. This thing is not pretty, but looks sturdy and is only $50 which doesn’t seem too bad. I am keeping my eye on it.
(via Macworld)
(Click to view source article)Lifehacker has tons of good tips for giving, receiving, trading, selling and using gift cards.
(Click to view source article)Ben Brooks on a solution to saving the USPS:
This plan would mean I would be paying to not receive any mail — I’m so in.
I am not. I already find the mail system annoying. 95% of what I get is junk mail. I don’t want to pay to get no mail. First of all, I do get some useful mail and second of all getting junk isn’t that much of an inconvenience.
I want to know why they don’t charge these bulk/junk mailers more. If they double (or even tripled) the bulk rates these guys have to pay to send people endless advertisements and credit card applications. The USPS would win either way. Either their revenue increases or they have less mail to process as these companies shut down.
(Click to view source article)John Gruber on the new Twitter iPhone app:
Worried, because the flip side of the disintegrating quality of Twitter’s official client software is their growing ambivalence toward third-party clients. Everything’s going to be just fine so long as great apps like Tweetbot, Tweetlogix, Twitterrific, Echofon and so forth are able to serve as unhindered Twitter clients. The question is how long that will be.
Worried indeed. This change is starting to drive Twitter to where everyone knew they had to go at some point, generating revenue. The problem is that many longtime users are upset with the way they are slowly going about it.
The writing is on the wall for these third-party clients to be compromised over the next 18 months. Will that make Twitter more like MySpace and Facebook and cause the hardcore original users to move on to the next thing?
(Click to view source article)Really good tip from Chris Breen at Macworld about hiding purchased apps in the iOS app store. I don’t think I knew about this one.
(Click to view source article)If you are new to Pygmy Reviews, they are short quick reviews of several things of the same type. The name comes from the pygmy hippopotamus
One Line Description: A failed attempt to help users find iOS apps based on the apps they like.
I regretfully spent $0.99 on this iOS app that claims to help “discover” new applications. It has done no such thing for me. First and foremost, it can’t figure out what apps you already have, which is somewhat understandable, but inconvenient, so every app that a user wants to use as a jumping off point have to be manually entered. Second, the suggestions that seem to be made are more “similar” apps than “people who bought that also bought this”. That assertion is made based on the fact that when OmniFocus is entered, all of the apps that are suggested seem to be ToDo applications. This application does not seem worth money since it’s method of furthering discovery don’t seem very effective.
One Line Description: The “Messages” of portion of Facebook extracted out and made into a standalone app.
Supposedly based on Beluga the group messaging app that Facebook bought, Facebook Messenger is surprising useful. It’s very quick to load, which makes you useful as essentially, a group IM client. When a multi-person conversation is more rapid-fire with short responses, an app like this is better than filling up e-mail inboxes. The fact that it’s multi-platform, including PCs/Macs, make it all that more appealing. It’s also an effective IM/email replacement for people you don’t have on other services.
One Line Description: A very minimalistic-looking calendar application designed to be simple.
Agenda is a great app. Unfortunately I have two calendar apps on my phone already that I like better (that would be Calvetica and QuickCal). Agenda is very clean and easy to read, and it’s clear that no one would get confused by the layout or options. I think if I had more events on my calendar I would prefer this to the somewhat cluttered Calvetica interface. I would love to see them add the natural language input that QuickCal brings to the table. That might be enough for me to replace my Calvetica/QuickCal combination. Agenda is very good though. And worth $0.99 if you need a good calendar app.
One Line Description: A private social network only accessible via mobile devices.
A unique take on social networks from Sepia Labs, makers of FeedDemon, which they claim is the most popular Windows RSS client. Glassboard doesn’t come with a lot of explanation and would likely be useless to anyone who isn’t comfortable figuring out things themselves. It’s different in the sense that you create “Boards” which seem to be like private message boards almost. The only way to get other people to see these boards is to invite them. The app is very plain, and while I think it could serve a really small niche, there are so many other places that you can get a better experience and the same type of functionality, like Path.
One Line Description: Photograph post processing application used to add effects to images on an iPhone.
Amazingly huge selection of built-in filters/options, all of which are further tweak-able by the user. These photo processing apps serve a certain niche and for me, they just aren’t that useful. I don’t take a ton of photos on my iPhone right now and until I do, I don’t get excited about adding effects to make a photo look older/crappier. If that is your thing, however, this app adds just about as many different filters as you can imagine. I picked this app up during a couple of day span when it was free back in September, otherwise I would have passed, but again, more because of the subject matter than the application itself.
Ben Brooks on personal activity monitors:
What happens though when you are someone that just says: “I want to be more healthy.” That’s not something that can be quantified in steps taken per day, miles walked, stairs climbed, hours slept — yet this is exactly the type of goal the target market for these devices are seeking help with.
I agree to a certain extent. These devices are more about tracking and being consistent, they won’t tell you how to improve. For 99% of people, more exercise would better, so finding out that a person normally takes 3000, steps, and then increasing that to 5000 would certainly make a difference. But if this person drinks 5 extra Cokes as well, that cancels is out.
(Click to view source article)Vishnu Parasuraman of Grantland on the BCS:
The BCS must dump the human polls and replace them with a selection committee similar to the one used in college basketball. Let an objective group of people collectively determine a ranking of who should play in the championship game (or make a playoff if a shift is made to that system). Anyone with a vested interest would have to abstain from the discussion. At least that way there would be accountability, and a rogue or uninformed person couldn’t hijack the entire process and ruin a season. Let this still count for two-thirds.
Seconded. I love the idea of a selection committee. If the rumors of the automatic bids dying are true, this solution makes even more sense.
(Click to view source article)What if, 1% of the users of a particular free service of 36 million clients and growing, were to decide to drop $10.00 cash every month into an envelope and mail it to said service? What if that envelope had no return address? Perhaps there was an note inside that begged them to create a model to let us pay them to use the service.
Rhone was following up the same post discussed earlier today. I heard him discuss this on his podcast Enough as well. The only issue I have is that $10 for a Tumblr account is a lot. I understand that Rhone makes a lot of money off of his blog, but I doubt 1% of the people do. In fact, if Tumblr forced users to pay $10/month I doubt they would be able to keep 1% of their users.
While I agree with the concept, I would have conservatively suggested $2-$5 per month.
(Click to view source article)So stop getting caught off guard when your favorite project sells out! “They were getting so popular, why did they have to shut it down?” Because it’s hard to resist a big payday when you are rapidly heading into debt. And because it’s culturally acceptable to leave your user base high and dry if you get a good offer, citing self-inflicted financial hardship.
Easier said than done. As soon as someone starts charging for something, expectations will change. Users will expect better support, quicker revisions and more and more features. Maybe this is wrong, but it’s how the world works.
I am all for donating to these projects, but it’s buyer beware. Just because you pay doesn’t mean the project won’t disappear. There are plenty of pieces of software I have purchased only to have them abandoned shortly after.
(via Marco Arment)
(Click to view source article)