UtestMe

“Aqua Globs HD” has a reported 50% piracy rate in OpenFeint logins

TUAW says: “Still, the app in question is $1.99 — that’s hardly breaking the bank. It’s disappointing to see that even with all of the authentication and verification built in to a platform like the App Store, piracy is still a significant issue.”

“http://www.tuaw.com/2010/08/24/ipad-app-dev-sees-50-piracy-rate/”

It’s stupid though to think AppStore is responsible for pirated apps. It’s about Cydia, not AppStore.

P.S.: On the other hand, imagine these 50 percents of pirated OpenFeint logins belong only to the dumb guys who never thought their crack credentials would be seen in OpenFeint board! I bet there are at least some other 25 percents who installed the app from Installous and thought it would be a dumb thing to login on OpenFeint.

Prin cupoane valorice (“gift cards”) emise in US.

Detalii aici.

Un exemplu de site care vinde in toata lumea vouchere iTunes americane este PC Game SUpply. Plata se face prin cardul de debit Visa sau Mastercard sau prin contul PayPal. Selectarea tarii (Romania) nu afecteaza tipul de bon valoric iTunes, adica ceea ce cumperi este gift card de US, nu de tara emitenta a cardului bancar. 

Orange Romania a inceput sa faca aplicatii pentru AppStore cu “Orange Film”.

Aplicatia e un “nice to have”, iar pentru fanii inraiti ai serviciului e un “must have”. In mod normal, clientii Orange care merg la film prin Orange Film stiu la ce film vor sa mearga, apoi cauta in programul cinematografului daca filmul ruleaza si miercurea, pentru reducerea de “2 bilete la pret de 1”. Aplicatia poate fideliza acesti clienti.

Baza de date se incarca destul de greu la prima lansare, char si peste o conexiune buna 3G. Peste EDGE incarcarea ei dureaza extrem de mult. Parte a explicatiei este faptul ca toate filmele disponibile prin Orange Film vin cu screenshot, program de difuzare, ranking si rezumat (via cinemagia.ro), trailer si review-uri (rubrica e goala inca). Trailer-ele sunt disponibile in proportie de 70% pentru filmele care deja ruleaza, dar nu si pentru filmele care nu au intrat inca in cinema (ceea ce e rau).

In plus, in aceesi baza de date apar si cinematografele, cu adresa fizica si localizarea pe harta precum si cu apelare din aplicatie a cinematografului pentru rezervari si informatii. 

Functia de “Search” se uita atat dupa filme cat si dupa stiri din cinema. De rau e ca stirile sunt exclusiv text: nu sunt interconectate cu alte ramuri ale aplicatiei si nici cu sursele de unde provin. 

“Orange Film” nu e 100% “iPhone 4 ready” - fast app switching functioneaza pe jumatate: spalsh screen la incarcarea aplicatiei din background, insa retine pozitia in aplicatiei inainte de inchiderea ei.

Orange ar vrea sa simta pulsul aplicatiilor intr-un fel “timid”, asa ca organizeaza un “concurs de aplicatii sau idei de aplicatii” - detalii aici.

Orange Film: 

The other day Stephen Hawking was saying the only way for humanity to avoid total destruction is to learn how to expand outside Earth.

It’s funny how the entire online press took this as a morbid pessimism; it’s like a kid who’s parents warn him not to break the window or he gets punished. What would you say: is this warning pessimistic for our kid, or not? 

Well, the parents’ warning is pessimistic only if the kid had already broken the window, even before the warning came. Otherwise, the warning cannot bare the quality of “pessimistic” or “optimistic”. The warning is just a condition. 

I cannot accept how stupid that many bloggers and writers can get today!

I’ve read the news in some 6-7 blogs / sites / online newspapers. None of them (with some exception from Big Think) even dared to analyse Hawking’s warning, none of them dared to dream a bit in readers instead, none of them questioned anything but Hawking sanity saying such a morbid thing: Humanity destruction is imminent. Just a soap opera reaction. 

The slippery detail is the professor has at least one chance of being right…

40 years ago, the same title would have started a “Conquer the Moon” campaign, where the press would have been the main defender of the idea and Kenedy the second one. 

Now the press is the greatest enemy, diminishing the importance and the relevance of the “warning”: “Nuhh, this guy went cuckoo and became pessimistic”.

I’m afraid it’s not the “selfish and aggressive instincts” that will carry us to destruction, but pure mind entropy. 

I’m back from a weekend visit at the countryside with my folks and friends. The only reliable Internet source there was mobile connection; the bad news is my operator offers only crappy EDGE in that region.

I’ve just discovered some minutes ago, coming back home (full 1 Gbps fiber over wifi + full HSPA coverage) the value of a mobile / portable device is so much dependent on its connectivity.

3 quarters of all my apps require Internet connection. None of my highly important apps worked properly at the countryside, under 20-21 Kbps conditions: Reeder was loading 1000 new articles in about 10 mins, Pandora was unable to create a reasonable buffer, AccuWeather was displaying 24 hours delayed updates, Twitter was not syncing properly, all my cloud storages (ReaddleDocs, iDisk, Dropbox, SugarSync etc) were absolutely useless, PixelPipe was unable to upload in decent time any of the hundreds of pictures I’ve been taken, Skype was dropping some 5-10%, Analytics Pro was loading data in 5-6 mins, emails were coming in bits an pieces, showing huge delays.

Even playing was a pain: Archetype was unable to connect to multiplayer server leaving me with the training mode only.

The good part is I only went there for leisure. But if it were necessary for me to see a 50 MB power point, to edit a doc and upload it back or to edit some exchange appointment, well, that would have been impossible and frustrating.

I’m not going to say here anything against operator’s coverage and sales strategies.

The strong idea is a mobile or a portable device is structurally highly dependent on Internet speed. I know it sounds like a truism, but it’s not: my 500 pounds never locked iPhone 4 was down to some 20-30 bucks for 3 days just because of constant poor Internet connection.

I see this the other way around: it’s not (only) a carrier problem, but most important - your mobile device worth is relative to your Internet premisses.

Two iPhone 4 owners, residing in two opposite location from connectivity point of view - do not have the same device at all. Their devices may look the same, cost the same, share the same features and issues, but the Internet accessibility and speed separate them into “good device” and “bad device”, into “much too expensive” and “worths-all-the-money device”.

The Internet enabled phone will let you do your urgent remote office job, while the offline one will become a frustrating toy.

I would say that a pace of Internet speed decrease of 1 Kbps worths 1 dollar in phone price. A 600$ phone is valued so under very good Internet conditions, while it’s price may get as low as 30$ under poor connectivity.

Now think about what my iPad has become this weekend!

Under poor Internet premisses, three quarters of the apps requiring sync, update, publishing or sharing were becoming sluggish; the overall iOS speed could be subjectively perceived as down to 30%, these 30 percents relying exclusively on smart GUI structure, fast app switching and very good input responsiveness. Nothing more.

A good mobile device is just like a plug into Internet: the bigger its mouth, the better the user experience, the higher its ranking.

Therefore, if you wanna dodge the frustration buying “an expensive toy”, don’t even think about it unless you’re covered with at least 500 Kbps mobile Internet AND at least 10 Mbps wifi most of the time. Otherwise it simply won’t worth it.

I came to the conclusion I hate the apps that don’t know any way of sharing the information.

Quick example: Wikipanion

Whatever you may find using this app, you’ll never be able to tell somebody the exact location of the paragraph, nor will you have a way of tweeting, posting, or any kind of sharing you might want.

It’s like a thing with eyes but no hands.

I find hard to understand how a company that makes FaceTime, Retina display and iPhone 4’s design can bare providing such an anachronism as Mobile Me - in terms of functionality, interoperability, interface, structure - you name it. In 2010.

Actually, “me.com” is nothing more than a simple (remote) backup and storage tool that lacks ergonomics and costs premium.

I must admit I don’t know Mobile Me dev history, but I bet no one cares about its past evolution. What it is, what it does and how slick it works are the questions a 25 year male would ask. Never “Is it better than yesterday? I’m just asking ‘cause I never looked at it before, anyway”…

Strike 1

I love the “it just works” idea; it’s not new but it’s more meaningful in the hands of a highly self-esteemed company.

Still, the limitations of “it just works” are obvious: sometimes we need much more from a service or a device than to just work. We sometimes need it to work extremely well and precise, not because we’re picky, but because these attributes should be the real nature of that specific service or device.

What I’m saying is you will never admit an association between Johnny Walker’s “keep walking” and a 100 meters speed race. Johnny Walker will never be able to sponsor a speed race!

Another example of a situation where the customer expects much, much more from something than to just work is mechanical watches: it’s simply not enough for them to just work! They need to work as accurate and precise your money can buy.

And Mobile Me costs a lot more than other similar services and does less than your money can buy. Syncing is a mess, the GUI is lazy as hell, the Mobile Me apps - iDisk and Gallery - suck big time. No need for details.

Strike 2 I’ve seen this before and it was a sign of rotten business core.

Nokia

They’ve built Symbian touch; we all know how awfully it performed, without the need of comparison to Apple or Android. It was dreadful.

One big fail was kinetic scrolling. They absolutely fail to cope with this requirement. I don’t really know what was Nokia’s explanation of this limitation.

All of a sudden, there came “Gravity”: a Symbian twitter client (the best one), showing off powerful and scalable kinetic scrolling. @Janole proved with his application Symbian was able to support the feature.

Almost instantaneously every blogger, user, customer, Nokia lover or hater started shouting: “Here’s your kinetic scrolling, Nokia! Buy this guy, hire him, steal from him, just use his APIs and build them into your OS!”

Nothing happened. For a long time (maybe even today) Gravity remained the sole Symbian application supporting kinetic scrolling (the browser was an exception, but that’s a Nokia’s bad as long as they were not able to port the function).

I don’t know why Nokia behaved like this, but the answer came quick after this old story: Nokia was losing its mojo.

Now back to Mobile Me.

@Apple: do you see Dropbox? Do you see Readdle Docs? Do you see Netflix? That’s what Mobile Me should have been. That’d be the moment I’d be glad to pay 99 bucks a year.

Now I’m paying this money but I’m very unhappy with this product. I sincerely think it sucks.