Tag Archives: mobile apps

What’s the number one camera being used right now as represented by the number of photos shared on Flickr? The Apple iPhone4.

No where on this list of the top 5 cameras do you see any mention of Android devices. Why is that? Apple has clearly made strives to improve the camera on their phones, but is it because of the multitude of applications that are motivating people to share their photos on Flickr or other photo sharing sites? Some might say that Android cameras just plain “suck”, but others will clearly disagree. It’s not as if there aren’t any applications to help take better photos. So maybe it’s because with all this talk about how the iPhone camera is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it’s about time that the Android camera gets a little bit of love. And that’s exactly what VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell is doing in her new book Android Photography.

In this 160 page book available for pre-sale now, Ms. O’Dell sets out to promote how cool the platform is. In an interview with me, she says that since she’s been a big Android advocate for a long time, she finds the platform very exciting and “in practice, the phones end up being a huge outlet of creativity for me, personally.” And since she carries around an Android phone all the time, she found it useful when traveling and finding beauty in the world all around her. But the age-old question is, why not the iPhone? Well, she thinks that it’s “over”. In fact, she feels that they’re just inaccessible with few carrier options, no real hardware options and the price can be unappealing to some.

So what’s exciting about this book? Android Photography is an instructional book with a run-down of some hardware and some applications. In addition, Ms. O’Dell as included some information about photo composition, editing, and even how to upload and share your creative work online. And before you think it’s just 160 pages of tough reading, think again. She’s put together some inspiring photo galleries with some jaw-dropping photos from a wide range of photographers around the world. Bottom line? According to Ms. O’Dell, we’re going to be shocked at the kind of results we’ll get out of an Android.

As a photographer, I’m always one to favor my Canon 7D SLR, but often when I’m out about town, I’m carrying my Android phone. And I’ll admit that I’m often thinking that my friends are taking way better photos using their iPhone. I mean, just look at Lisa Bettany’s Camera+ photo app for the iPhone which has been a rousing success or the prominence that Instagram has had in mobile photography — it’s just increasing exponentially. But now, after hearing about Android Photography, I’m thinking that there’s hope for improving my photos, and what I find incredibly helpful is that the examples that are in this book come complete with details on how they were taken so you can learn and try and recreate them.

Android Photography is set to be released in February and can be purchased off of Amazon in paperback format (sorry, no Kindle version). Who knows whether this will help reinvigorate the Android camera revolution, but with studies showing that Android applications being more popular than iPhone and the proliferation of these devices across all carriers like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, Android Photography might be the book for people to read in order to understand how to really take a photo.

In typical Twitter behavior, announcements regarding future plans for the company were broad and without much detail, regarding the upcoming feature roll outs. Nevertheless, news today of Twitter’s roadmap clues us in to the areas in which the company seeks growth. And it’s all about location, location, location.

While we already knew of Twitter’s plans for enhancing its services based on location and integration options revolving around geo-specific data, today’s announcement does offer a little bit more insight as to what that means for users and developers. We’ll soon see locations, user streams and annotations as integral parts of Twitter’s services, widening the ways in which Twitter data can be utilized.

Twitter will be curating its own database of locations, including hotels and restaurants, in order to offer an array of location–based information to developers. This is part of the @Anywhere project from Twitter, which will add location options to regular Twitter feeds.

For developers, this means Twitter and location-based data can be more readily used for individuals’ purposes, such as automatic tweet imports based on a blogger’s location, among other things. The number of ways in which location-based data can be combined with Twitter-specific actions is countless, and the new options will surely entice developers to extend greater offerings to end users.

That’s a compromise in one way, considering the fact that Twitter’s development of its own location-based services begins to impose on the progress made by third-party developers in the past few years. Several developers have created geo-specific ways in which to integrate tweets, including auto-updates based on one’s location. As mobile use of geodata-sharing increases, it’s in the best interest of Twitter to control more of this space as it pertains to its microblogging service.

Making the new database further accessible to developers, however, retains their interest while also expanding on the ways in which the data can be used for existing third party Twitter apps. One good thing that could come of the improvements is the ability for end users to have more options and control over the way in which geo-location data is being associated and used with their existing and future activity.

Combined with the additional Twitter initiativesfor vastly and expeditiously growing its ownership in the mobile app space, and the recent roll out of Promoted Tweets for generating advertising revenue, and the business picture for Twitter becomes even more clear. We expected to see a number of changes being made to Twitter’s service on an excutive level, and we’ve not been disappointed this year.

Could mobile be the mechanism by which Blockbuster finally makes its comeback? A new app has been announced by Blockbuster, which would take the movie rental service in an entirely new mobile direction. The app will run on Android and Windows mobile phones, with an emphasis on OnDemand programing and download options.

It’s the downloading capabilities that will set Blockbuster apart from the rest, as most other movie rental services don’t allow content downloading for on-demand movie rentals. Netflix, for instance, only offers streaming for its mobile apps. Other contenders such as DirecTV enable users to remotely interact with their satellite service, but the movie streaming is even less of an option for mobile devices.

On the other side of things, Blockbuster is still competing with the likes of Redbox, another physical kiosk that offers easy and cheap movie rentals on the fly. Though Redbox doesn’t have a digital presence (especially on the mobile front), it has become a threat to Blockbuster over the long term.

It is because of these other options that Blockbuster has needed to turn to technology in order to regain a foothold in the movie rental business. Always trying to one-up its competitors, Blockbuster’s Android and Windows mobile app will, for the most part, be a viable alternative to iTunes movie download rentals. Content will be DRM-protected, giving Android and Windows mobile users their own version of iTunes.

Being that kind of iTunes alternatives has its own downfall, however. The Blockbuster OnDemand app can’t run on Apple products, as it voilates Apple’s terms for saving movies on its devices. So while the Blockbuster OnDemand app will be available on Android devices (many of which are being manufactured by Motorolla) and the upcoming HTC Mini which is running Windows Mobile, Blockbuster can’t launch its app on the iPhone or the media-centric iPad, currently undergoing pre-sale orders.

According to ReadWriteWeb, Blockbuster may be working on an alternative app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. In that case, a streaming and downloadable option may be the way in which Blockbuster actually gets a leg up on the majority of its competitors. The presence of such apps further validates mobile platforms outside of Apple’s, and enables consumers to have a few more choices when it comes to the diverse media capabilities of non-iPhones.

It’s been a long time coming, but the era of location-based mobile apps may finally have arrived. At least for advertisers. Location-based mobile apps and services have really taken flight over the past year, due in part to the expansion of the smart phone market and its permeation through our consumer market. Though well-integrated smart phone apps have done well in Asia for years, its the global reach of the location-based app industry that is helping to drive profits expectations in coming years.

TechCrunch reports that a Juniper study suggests location-based mobile apps and services could rake in over $12 billion by 2014. That’s something really exciting for advertisers, marketers, mobile app developers, publishers and platform providers, as it means those consumers out there will be more readily monetized in the next few years. It suggests the changing face of advertising as well, seeing as the push towards convenience and direct consumer interactions is the wave of the future.

It’s something many mobile app publishers and advertisers have been hoping for for some time now, with Juniper’s study showing more promise than ever for the growing industry. And at this point, things seem unstoppable. Mobile apps continue to gain market share, and they lend an additional stream of revenue for all parties involved. Apple is a leader in the standards being created around the mobile app industry, as it forces other related industries such as music, television and film to change their distribution methods.

Yet that’s the beauty of location-based products. They enable the distribution shift to occur, generally for the better. At least, that’s what consumers will be most concerend about. As we’re seeing, particularly in 2010,is an ongoing trend towards incorporating GPS location-awareness into a plethora of devices.

Toys, cameras and navigation devices are just some of the objects that are being used as portals for location-based services, increasing the usability and connectivity of the devices themselves. This will only add to the market’s ability to monetize the consumer use of location-based services, as the option becomes more standard in the next few years.

Ultimately, the usefulness around location-based apps and services wil boil down to its consumer usage. As with social networking, the concern around consumer safety and privacy will become of increasing importance, though this will balance out to a certain degree when it’s all said and done. Finding new ways of using GPS and providing location-based apps and services to the masses will be a primary goal for many industries in the near term.

So, everyone is making their own mobile devices these days. At least, that’s how it seems. Connecting a hand held device to the web and enabling it with Wi-Fi seems to be enough reason to make one’s own mobile device and sell it for an exorbitant price. Yet the ability to use these mobile devices to run various platforms could entice developers, build out a growing marketplace, and become the new way of doing business. Companies such as Amazon are looking to move in on Apple’s turf in order to get a piece of this pie.

Apple’s iPhone still dominates on the mobile app scene. It’s cell phone has won the hearts of millions around the world, with the iTunes App Store attracting countless developers, publishers and buyers to its mobile marketplace. The growth f an entire industry is looking to mobile as its future, and Apple is starting to see more and more competition from others seeking a comparable platform approach to the mobile app forum.