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  • The Mighty Eagle Soars

    Last week Angry Birds for iOS got a huge update — I mean huge. They introduced “The Mighty Eagle” — a new bird in the game that can be purchased, in-app, for $0.99 and can only used once an hour. What makes this new bird such a big update has nothing to do with what…

    Last week Angry Birds for iOS got a huge update — I mean huge. They introduced “The Mighty Eagle” — a new bird in the game that can be purchased, in-app, for $0.99 and can only used once an hour. What makes this new bird such a big update has nothing to do with what it means for the game play — the big deal is the once an hour aspect.

    Initially I thought that the Eagle would only be available for every hour you played the game — meaning I would rarely get to use it. I used the Eagle to pass a level I had been stuck on for a while (on my iPhone, for whatever reason I passed the level on the iPad). Then I put away the phone and headed out for Christmas festivities — an hour later I got a push notification to tell me the ‘Mighty Eagle’ was once again ready to fly.

    What the hell?

    Sure enough the Mighty Eagle is available once every hour, no matter if you are playing the game or now. I immediately thought: “this is a game changer.”

    Game Changer

    Some of you still may not get why this is a game changing move by Angry Birds, so let me explain.

    How often do you play iOS games? If you are anything like me then you usually only play these games when you are bored and waiting for something else to happen. You play these games to waste small infrequent spots of time. Occasionally you grab your device with the decision that what you want to do right now is to play some games — mostly though iOS games are just time killers. ((Again this is true for me and most iOS users that I know — I am not saying that it is true for everyone.))

    When you get busy you forget about playing iOS games and just keep working.

    What happens though when an hour after you were ‘killing time’ your phone buzzes to remind you about your Angry Birds process? Of course that would be annoying, so Angry Birds has disguised this action as a notification that the Mighty Eagle is back to soar. ((And cleverly they charge you $0.99 for that reminder.))

    How cool is that? A genius move I’d say.

    I typically don’t play iOS games much— because I forget about them and because I am not really that ‘engaged’ in the game play. Here’s the thing though, over the course of Christmas day Angry Birds kept telling me the Eagle was ready and I kept flipping open the app to play for a bit — even though I rarely used the Eagle. Essentially Angry Birds reminded me of its fun and I kept getting pulled back in.

    Amazing.

    Now, I have since turned off notifications from Angry Birds, but I have to say this is a pretty clever feature on their part. Pretty clever indeed.

    Hidden Agenda

    I don’t know if this was the developers intention, but this update is truly impressive. Most iOS users only use a handful of the apps they download — especially with games. These apps are so cheap that most users will download apps, use them for a week and then forget about them for quite a while. With the Mighty Eagle update Angry Birds is taking a huge leap in making sure that iOS users will not forget how angry these damn birds are.

    This seems like a pretty good way to subtly remind your users that your app exists.

    [Updated: 12/27/10 at 6:08 AM] I am told you can use the Mighty Eagle continuously if achieve the ‘Total Destruction Feather’.

  • Quote of the Day: Seth Godin

    “You can spend your entire day consuming media and never encounter a thought you don’t agree with, don’t like or don’t want to see.” — Seth Godin Please don’t do that — my favorite reader emails are ones that challenge what I think. People who think differently than me don’t scare me — they intrigue…

    “You can spend your entire day consuming media and never encounter a thought you don’t agree with, don’t like or don’t want to see.”

    Please don’t do that — my favorite reader emails are ones that challenge what I think. People who think differently than me don’t scare me — they intrigue me.

  • “The Special Relationship”

    Andy Ihnatko on Apple: I recently read something about Walt Disney that seemed very familiar. A man who worked with him said (I’m paraphrasing) Walt wanted to make sure that if you came to Disney World, you would have a fantastic time. And he succeeded. But he also wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t…

    Andy Ihnatko on Apple:

    I recently read something about Walt Disney that seemed very familiar. A man who worked with him said (I’m paraphrasing) Walt wanted to make sure that if you came to Disney World, you would have a fantastic time. And he succeeded. But he also wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t even have the option of having a bad time.

    He goes on to say that Apple is the same way — I tend to agree.

  • 20% Off Keyboard Maestro

    Want to go get yourself a copy of the excellent Keyboard Maestro, but you don’t have the $36.00 needed to purchase it? Well if you have $28.80 then you are in luck — use the link to get the 20% off. Sweet.

    Want to go get yourself a copy of the excellent Keyboard Maestro, but you don’t have the $36.00 needed to purchase it? Well if you have $28.80 then you are in luck — use the link to get the 20% off. Sweet.

  • Banks and WikiLeaks

    A New York Times Editorial: What would happen if a clutch of big banks decided that a particularly irksome blogger or other organization was “too risky”? What if they decided — one by one — to shut down financial access to a newspaper that was about to reveal irksome truths about their operations? This decision…

    A New York Times Editorial:

    What would happen if a clutch of big banks decided that a particularly irksome blogger or other organization was “too risky”? What if they decided — one by one — to shut down financial access to a newspaper that was about to reveal irksome truths about their operations? This decision should not be left solely up to business-as-usual among the banks.

    That is the way capitalism works (I write this knowing full well my inbox is going to be full), should a business decide not to want to transact with someone/something that is their right. This type of argument means that banks would need to approve a loan to anyone who asks. Banking for large companies is about so much more than having a convenient place to store their cash — banking is about also having a line of credit to pay the bills when cash flow becomes inconsistent. Forcing Bank of America to do business with someone who has their stolen property is no different from forcing a home owner to bail out the guy who just robbed their house.

    This is a stupid argument by the NYT.

    Capitalism was brought about to stop this. All this type of behavior (from banks) does is opens the door for a new bank to come about and swoop up that unwanted business. Don’t give me this crap that a business should be forced to transact with any being that is not deemed illegal by the government. By those standards banks must continue to work with drug dealers until such a point that they are proven guilty — or have we forgotten that our legal system is based on the notion that we are “innocent until proven guilty”?

    I just don’t see how anybody can blame an independent body for deciding not to do business with an entity — especially when:

    – That entity wants to harm them.
    – People are free to decide whether to keep doing business with the bank.

    If you really are pissed about this then it would be unacceptable for you to continue to bank with these institutions — to do otherwise would brand you a hypocrite.

  • MacBook Air Is Om’s Gadget Of The Year

    Om Malik picks the MacBook Air 13″ model as his gadget of the year for 2010. I can’t say that it is a bad choice, but I would be hard pressed to pick it over the iPad. I think long term that laptops will become more MacBook Air like — at the same time though…

    Om Malik picks the MacBook Air 13″ model as his gadget of the year for 2010. I can’t say that it is a bad choice, but I would be hard pressed to pick it over the iPad. I think long term that laptops will become more MacBook Air like — at the same time though I think the computers people use the most will become more iPad like.

    (Now there is some claim chowder for ya.)

  • Coding Robots

    My thanks to Coding Robots for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote their iPhone app NoteTask. NoteTask is a great little app that uses the excellent Simplenote syncing service to create task lists using plain text. A great simple system. Be sure to check out the other great apps by Coding Robots —…

    My thanks to Coding Robots for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote their iPhone app NoteTask. NoteTask is a great little app that uses the excellent Simplenote syncing service to create task lists using plain text. A great simple system.

    Be sure to check out the other great apps by Coding Robots — I particularly like MarkdownNote which allows you to write in Markdown and copy out the HTML code for that text on the iPad.

  • An iPhone Lover’s Take On Windows Phone

    MG Siegler on Windows Phone 7: That said, the web browser on Windows Phone is an abomination. It’s hard to describe how bad it is. It’s sort of like IE6, but worse. Nearly every page I’ve visited over the past several weeks has been broken in the browser in some way. It’s usually just small…

    MG Siegler on Windows Phone 7:

    That said, the web browser on Windows Phone is an abomination. It’s hard to describe how bad it is. It’s sort of like IE6, but worse. Nearly every page I’ve visited over the past several weeks has been broken in the browser in some way. It’s usually just small style issues, but still — Microsoft should be ashamed of this. The browser is arguably the most important feature of any smartphone. And on Windows Phone, quite frankly, it sucks.

    Overall he thinks the phone is a pretty decent offering — in the short amount of time I have had to spend with some of them I have rather liked them. He does note the keyboard is pretty good and that seems to be the same impression I got after typing on one.

    [Updated: 12/24/10 at 10:18 AM] I think when the holidays are over I am going to try and get a Windows Phone 7 to try out…hopefully I can.

  • Support versus Workarounds

    You can either support a Mac or you can offer a workaround for Mac users. These are incredibly different concepts that seem to be utterly lost on my bank: Umpqua Bank (the self described “World’s Greatest Bank”). I have been inquiring with Umpqua about getting a remote checking deposit system in place for my Property…

    You can either support a Mac or you can offer a workaround for Mac users. These are incredibly different concepts that seem to be utterly lost on my bank: Umpqua Bank (the self described “World’s Greatest Bank”). I have been inquiring with Umpqua about getting a remote checking deposit system in place for my Property Management company.

    I asked them to provide me with two bits of information:

    1. How much will it cost me?
    2. Is the system Mac compatible?

    The representative that I was speaking with said she would send that information over — that she too was a Mac user (personally) and was very interested in the answer to the second question. Neat.

    I then received an email today, that said ((I am paraphrasing here because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, mostly me.)) “We support Macs as long as they have Internet Explorer, the system doesn’t work with Safari.”

    What I read is: “we don’t support Macs.”

    The last shipping version of Internet Explorer for Macs (yes they used to make it) was version 5.2.3 and Microsoft announced in 2003 they would not be making any more versions. Most websites require at least version 5.5 to be compatible with modern security standards.

    What she really should have told me is that the system doesn’t support Safari and only runs on Internet Explorer — this statement would have at least been accurate. Instead she clearly stated that the software is Mac compatible. Semantics really.

    So I responded: That this was indeed not Mac support since Microsoft had not made a version of IE for Macs since 2003.

    If left at that I would have been fine — truth be told I would prefer to change banks anyways. This representative could not leave well enough alone and decided to challenge me on my technical understand of Macs and on semantics.

    She responded something to like this: “I have a Mac and use Boot Camp with Windows, allowing access to IE. So you can use IE on a Mac if you want.”

    You are kidding me right?

    So I responded: “I am not trying to pick a fight, but being able to run Windows on a Mac so that something works — in no way means that Macs are supported.”

    Frankly I won’t see what she responds to that as I have flagged her as a SPAM sender — I don’t have time for this crap.

    The problem here is not isolated to Umpqua — most large companies lack full Mac support and instead offer workarounds for Mac users. A workaround is not the same as supporting something. Support means it works without hassle — though admittedly with that definition you could argue that a great many companies don’t support Windows.

  • Coffee Shop Integrity on the Internet

    James Shelley on social networking updates: But if we vomit every single detail of our lives on each other — that is: what we ate for breakfast; the latest app we installed on our iPhone; our highest score on a mobile game; or detailed every item of our personal schedule since the last time we…

    James Shelley on social networking updates:

    But if we vomit every single detail of our lives on each other — that is: what we ate for breakfast; the latest app we installed on our iPhone; our highest score on a mobile game; or detailed every item of our personal schedule since the last time we chatted — we would surely not get around to discussing the deeper nuances of what life has been teaching us. We’d be so hard pressed to squeeze in a play-by-play commentary of our daily doings we might risk being too distracted by minutiae to discuss what we have actually learned and interpreted from our activities.

    He proposes a great rule of thumb, be sure to read the post.

  • Product Selection

    Ron Ashkenas: If consumers indeed are looking for a simpler and more focused array of choices, then perhaps the first challenge for companies in 2011 is to resolve to do the same as many of their customers — go on a diet. Ashkenas presents an interesting argument: consumers like a more curated selection of goods.…

    Ron Ashkenas:

    If consumers indeed are looking for a simpler and more focused array of choices, then perhaps the first challenge for companies in 2011 is to resolve to do the same as many of their customers — go on a diet.

    Ashkenas presents an interesting argument: consumers like a more curated selection of goods. He uses Trader Joe’s as an example, citing that often they carry “80% fewer items than most large grocery stores”. A rather compelling argument for stores to start carrying less. One important point that he glosses over though: they few items you carry need to be really great. Trader Joe’s is so great because most everything they carry tastes great and is very high quality food. More than just being ‘organic’ Trader Joe’s makes damn sure it is the food their customers want.

    A store like Best Buy can’t just decide to halve the amount of computers they sell — they need to get rid of the right computers.

  • How NOT to Treat Customers

    Aaron Smith reporting on massive profits Airlines raked in from baggage fees, lists out how the carriers became profitable again: Carriers responded by cutting the number of flights they offered, slashing those with the fewest passengers. They packed the airplanes full so they wouldn’t lose money on empty seats. And they added fees for services…

    Aaron Smith reporting on massive profits Airlines raked in from baggage fees, lists out how the carriers became profitable again:

    Carriers responded by cutting the number of flights they offered, slashing those with the fewest passengers. They packed the airplanes full so they wouldn’t lose money on empty seats. And they added fees for services that once came for free, like checked baggage and in-flight food, to boost income.

    All of the above is an example of what not to do — all these things make traveling in a plane suck.

  • Quote of the Day: Kevin Smith

    “Ignore the flock of Wah-Wahs, focus on what you love to do, and earn off it. And remember: once you get paid to do it, doesn’t matter whether someone thinks you’re good at it or not; opinions pay imaginary rents, kids. You get paid to do it, you’re a pro.” —Kevin Smith Read this entire…

    “Ignore the flock of Wah-Wahs, focus on what you love to do, and earn off it. And remember: once you get paid to do it, doesn’t matter whether someone thinks you’re good at it or not; opinions pay imaginary rents, kids. You get paid to do it, you’re a pro.”

    Read this entire post over the weekend — it is chocked full of killer advice.

  • Giving the Gift of iOS

    Last night something rather interesting happened, my Wife’s Grandmother was gifted on iPhone 4 for her birthday (12/21). She promptly called us to share her delight and to ask my Wife a few questions about usability. The very first thing the two of them wanted to do was to FaceTime chat with each other (they…

    Last night something rather interesting happened, my Wife’s Grandmother was gifted on iPhone 4 for her birthday (12/21). She promptly called us to share her delight and to ask my Wife a few questions about usability. The very first thing the two of them wanted to do was to FaceTime chat with each other (they live in Portland, OR; we are in Seattle, WA).

    This of course meant that my wife would have to get her Grandma to connect the iPhone to the WiFi network — by only talking her through it. What ensued was mildly amusing and frustrating for both my Wife and her Grandmother.

    The problem they were having was two fold:

    1. The Grandmother was not used to typing on the iPhone keyboard.
    2. My Wife was glossing over key steps — assuming too much knowledge of the user.

    Neither problem was either persons fault and eventually I had to help out a bit. Out of this though I want to give a few tips to readers — no doubt some of you will face these types of problems this Christmas.

    1

    First and foremost you need to understand that you are talking to a user that has no base understanding of iOS — telling them to press the home button is of no meaning to them. Be very clear and deliberate in the instructions you give. Do not tell them to press the ‘back button at the top’ — instead tell them to press the button with a point to the left at the top of the screen, the one that says “XYZ”.

    This type of deliberate clarity will help users to understand what you are talking about with minimal frustration. Once they press it I like to let them know that this is the standard spot to press for “going back”. People pick this up faster than you would think.

    2

    Passwords are a bear to enter for new users. You can’t see what you are typing in most password fields and nothing is more tiring that constantly being told you typed the wrong password. There are a couple of easy ways to solve this:

    1. Send the user a text message with the password and teach them to copy and paste it. This works great for stuff that people likely will never have to enter in again (like WiFi passwords). Or if the password is particularly complex.
    2. Have them create a note in the notes app with the passwords and then they can copy and paste — be sure they delete this and that they don’t store passwords there.

    Just because you never have problems typing in passwords on your iOS device doesn’t mean that others won’t have problems. They will. Being told they entered the wrong password multiple times in a row will turn a user off very quickly. ((Devs you really need to think about whether masking the password is necessary — most of the time you are only masking it from the person that already knows the password.))

    3

    The blue arrows (you know the ones on the WiFi screen) cause a lot of problems. When you are teaching someone how to add their WiFi network they may mistakenly click the blue arrow instead of just the network name. Be sure to explain which spot to tap when you are walking people through things.

    I often tell people to tap the network name, not the blue arrow. It can get confusing so make sure you know exactly what they are looking at.

    4

    Never just take the device and set it up for some one. It will cause three problems:

    1. They will not understand how to do this themselves.
    2. They will think things are more complex than they are.
    3. You will become the person they call every time they want to do something.

    I hate taking a device from someone, but I it can also be agonizing to walk them through it — especially when something that would take you 15 seconds takes them 5 minutes. Just remember that you were there once and everyone needs to start somewhere. Patience is paramount.

    5

    Explain the home button. Explain that it is not a back button and that it will always take you to the home screen. Call it the home button. It is the simplest button on the phone, but that does not mean that a new user will know what it does.

    6

    Open the app store, get them logged in, and have them download a free app. Have them download something you think they will enjoy. The goal is to showcase the app store and show how easy it is to get more apps. Take the fear out of this process.

    7

    Show off something that will blow their minds. For my Wife’s Grandma it was FaceTime. For others the voice commands on the iPhone may do it. There are a ton of options — I like to show off the live weather radar you can get in apps, oh and find my device from Apple. If you know what the person is into then you should have no problem with this.

    Fear

    The biggest problem facing new users is the fear that they may ‘break’ the device. I like to start by telling people that there is nothing they can break unless they drop the device on concrete. Anything that they do can be undone with relative ease. Once people know that they don’t have to fear screwing up — well they tend to have fun.

    This fear stems form Windows — the knowledge that if you plug that printer in to your USB port BEFORE you install drivers you will be in a world of hurt. Welcome these users to the Apple experience.

  • Quick Notes on the Squarespace iPad App

    Squarespace has been one of those companies that has intrigued me from day one. In fact I have a Squarespace site for hosting my Photography portfolio — I chose Squarespace because I wanted something cheap, easy and reliable. That is exactly what the service has been since I have been using it and I rather…

    Squarespace has been one of those companies that has intrigued me from day one. In fact I have a Squarespace site for hosting my Photography portfolio — I chose Squarespace because I wanted something cheap, easy and reliable. That is exactly what the service has been since I have been using it and I rather like it. Not in the way that I want to move everything I have to Squarespace, but in the sense that I have nothing bad to say about it and until recently, nothing great to say about it.

    Then they had to go and release an iPad blogging app that is bar none the best iPad blogging app out there.

    Damn. Now I kinda love Squarespace.

    The App

    I want to make two things clear: this is not a ‘formal’ review and this app is not just good because it is better than the meager offerings currently available on the iPad.

    There are still some very real glitches in the app — glitches that I would have hoped never made it through the beta period, but they did. Switching between comments and posts sometimes makes the UI cut off the top of a post in the preview. Scrolling is a little janky at times — which is very odd when you are used to the smoothness of iOS. The rest are minor UI problems that seem to stick when they shouldn’t.

    What makes the Squarespace iPad app so good is that it is leaps and bounds better than the web interface Squarespace gives you. It is infinitely less confusing to use.

    Using Squarespace in your web browser makes you feel like you are building single web pages — not like you are using a sophisticated CMS. Using the iPad app makes you feel like your Squarespace account is an actual blogging account — that is no small feat.

    Everything that can be done in the app is done beautifully — the entire app reminds me of Reeder. The stylings are very similar. There really isn’t much else to say since the app is free I encourage you to give it a try for yourself.

  • The Problem With Home

    Aza Raskin proposes a new home button for iOS: Camera shutter buttons have a two-stop action. Half-press them to lock focus and aperture settings, fully press them to take the picture. There’s a delightful tactile indent at the half-way mark so that your fingers know what’s going on. Let’s borrow this two-stop action for the…

    Aza Raskin proposes a new home button for iOS:

    Camera shutter buttons have a two-stop action. Half-press them to lock focus and aperture settings, fully press them to take the picture. There’s a delightful tactile indent at the half-way mark so that your fingers know what’s going on. Let’s borrow this two-stop action for the home button. Press half-way to go to the app’s main screen, all the way to go to the phone’s main screen. If you need to fully escape mash the button. If you just want to head back to the main-screen of the app, tap lightly.

    Interesting idea — I wonder how to make such a button that would not be constantly pressed in your pocket.

  • Hidden theft tracking software for your Mac

    Normally cost you your hard earned cash — free until January. Go get it.

    Normally cost you your hard earned cash — free until January. Go get it.

  • Quote of the Day: Marco Arment

    “Attention to detail, like most facets of truly good design, can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.” — Marco Arment

    “Attention to detail, like most facets of truly good design, can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture.”

  • RIP Things

    I have thought a little more on the blog post by Cultured Code from yesterday and the more I think about it the more I despise it. Ignore the fact that they wrote a slightly patronizing post detailing what OTA sync is (which is funny given the demand for OTA sync you would think that…

    I have thought a little more on the blog post by Cultured Code from yesterday and the more I think about it the more I despise it. Ignore the fact that they wrote a slightly patronizing post detailing what OTA sync is (which is funny given the demand for OTA sync you would think that Cultured Code was the one that didn’t know what it was). Ignore that OTA sync is still a few months away. Ignore everything but: the wallpaper and speed.

    The Wallpaper

    They have got to be kidding me with this wallpaper crap right?

    Cultured Code basically offers a wallpaper as an apology — a wallpaper that looks like yet another patronizing act. Don’t be fooled by this; I have made you a better wallpaper.

    ota-tmb.png

    You can get it here.

    Speed

    Do you know how long people have been wanting OTA sync for things, since July 10th 2008 (2008).

    Here is what Cultured Code said about syncing upon releasing the iPhone app:

    Second, syncing with the desktop version of Things is not yet possible in 1.0. Based on your feedback we decided that seamless over the air sync with the desktop version is a must.

    Yeah…

    By comparison OmniFocus for iPhone in a preview stage still had OTA sync back on June 15th, 2008.

    Change

    Here’s the thing: I have written about Things versus OmniFocus a few times (here and about OTA here) — each time I basically said that both programs are great and if you don’t need OTA sync it is a real toss up. I am a huge OmniFocus fan, huge, but I have a respect for Things and think it is a great app too.

    I have always said you really can’t go wrong with either app — always thinking that OTA sync was just around the corner for Things.

    Until today: I think you are throwing away good money if you buy Things at this point. The development has stalled and seems hell bent on only releasing bug fixes. OTA sync should have been done over a year ago — I just can’t recommend this app anymore.

    That kind of makes me sad, but spend your Holiday money on a copy of OmniFocus. As I have said before you really can get away with the iPad version only to start out with.

  • Is Google In A Dream World?

    MG Siegler lays the smack down on Google: Still, it’s great to dream big. And Google has the ability to do that thanks to a huge amount of revenue coming in as a result of the original times when they had big dreams. But the world was different then. Well, actually, it was just a…

    MG Siegler lays the smack down on Google:

    Still, it’s great to dream big. And Google has the ability to do that thanks to a huge amount of revenue coming in as a result of the original times when they had big dreams. But the world was different then. Well, actually, it was just a different world. Search engines were just starting to pop up. Google came along and did it right. Search monetization was basically nothing. Google came along and did it right.

    With Google TV, Android, Google Music, Chrome OS, and a range of other products, Google is trying to change established industries. And they seem to think they can just because they’re Google. But as we’re seeing again and again, they’re having a lot of issues.

    Agreed.