An exhibit paying tribute to Steve Jobs recently opened in the atrium of the U.S. Patent Office Museum in Alexandria, Virginia.
The exhibit is open to the public, free of charge, and will run through January 15.
It includes a row of 30 giant iPhone panels, designed by non-profit group Invent Now, which display information about more than 300 patents credited to Jobs as co-inventor.
“This exhibit commemorates the far-reaching impact of Steve Jobs’ entrepreneurship and innovation on our daily lives,” said the Under Secretary of Commerce for IP, David Kappos. “His patents and trademarks provide a striking example of the importance intellectual property plays in the global marketplace.”
Ron Johnson, the new CEO of J.C. Penny and the former SVP of retail for Apple, talks about what he learned building the Apple Stores, the leading U.S. retailer with sales of $5,626 per square foot, nearly double the sales of Tiffany & Co, its closest competitor.
People come to the Apple Store for the experience, the most important part of which is the staff. The philosophy is NOT focused on selling, but on building relationships and making the customer’s life better, a model that worked for Apple.
“The staff is exceptionally well trained, and they’re not on commission, so it makes no difference to them if they sell you an expensive new computer or help you make your old one run better so you’re happy with it,” explains Johnson. “Their job is to figure out what you need and help you get it, even if it’s a product Apple doesn’t carry. Compare that with other retailers where the emphasis is on cross-selling and upselling and, basically, encouraging customers to buy more, even if they don’t want or need it.”
The Apple model is not easy, and has required persistence. The Genius Bar, for example, was not popular in the beginning, but Apple stuck with it as the best way to help customers. “Three years after the Genius Bar launched, it was so popular we had to set up a reservation system,” writes Johnson.
Roger Craig, who defeated Ken Jennings’ single-game winnings record on “Jeopardy,” says he used an app created specifically to help him train for the competition.
“A computer scientist with a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, Craig built an app that used an archive of past ‘Jeopardy’ questions to help identify show trends and the strengths and weaknesses of his own knowledge base,” reports Digital Trends.
For example, Craig’s app dtermined: “…questions with the highest value typically come from certain academic fields (like science or architecture), while low-value questions usually come from topics like food or more mainstream subject matter. With the app, he was able to identify specific academic and mainstream topics he needed to study more (like fashion).”
Digital Trends has posted video coverage of Craig’s recent presentation at the Quantified Self Show & Tell conference, in which he provides details about the app.
The “Jeopardy” champion has plans to create an iPhone version of his app for the public.
Are touchscreens the ultimate expression for us to manipulate computing devices? (See the Microsoft video included in the post.)
In “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interactive Design,” former Apple human-interface inventor Bret Victor opts not to address human needs or technology, but what he sees as the “neglected third factor, human capabilities. What people can do. Because if a tool isn’t designed to be used by a person, it can’t be a very good tool, right?”
Victor sees our hands as the central component of our interactive future. If one looks at the range of expression and control for our hands, one realizes how much more is possible.
Victor describes touchscreens, for example, as “pictures under glass” which ignore the fact that our “hands feel things” and “manipulate things.” “Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade,” he writes.
“Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness,” he adds. “It’s a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it’s the star player in every Vision Of The Future.”
Victor doesn’t have a solution or a prediction for our interactive future, but suggests we start thinking differently in order to achieve it. “Pictures Under Glass is old news. Let’s start using our hands.”
Filmic Pro is a $2.99 app from Cinegenix that transforms the iPhone’s video camera capabilities by providing prosumer features.
“The camera lets you set and lock your focus, exposure and white balance,” reports Appletell. “On the backend, a set of menus allows you to set the resolution, from 480×360 up to 1920×1080, though only the iPhone 4S supports that resolution.”
Filmic Pro can add color bars and a slate (including countdown) to the video, and bitrate can be modified. Additionally, the app enables exporting directly to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, or Tumblr.
“You can also set the Frames Per Second from 30 all the way down to 1,” according to the post. “There’s a simple audio meter, a thirds guide, a framing guide (2.34:1, a standard TV 4:3, and a cinematic 16:9). If you want to make your iPhone video look like it was shot on a 35mm movie camera, there’s a matte box function, too.”
Appletell suggests that Filmic Pro’s strengths involve greater control over shooting, setting frame and compression rates and the ability to export footage to Dropbox or FTP. The app does not allow users to edit, set titles, or add special effects.
Apple has named Disney chief exec Robert Iger to its board, while Arthur Levinson will take over the chairman post previously held by Steve Jobs.
Bob Iger was a friend and business partner of Jobs. The two worked together when Disney acquired Pixar Animation Studios in 2006.
Levinson, chairman of biotech company Genentech, has been co-director of the Apple board for six years.
“They’re trying to shore up the Disney relationship or strengthen that relationship because it’s an important part of where Apple is going,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Cos, referring to the possibility of a future Apple television and its need for licensing deals. “The content piece is the critical key to the living room,” Munster added.
“He is going to make an extraordinary addition to our already very strong board,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said of Iger, commenting that Iger’s role at Disney in harnessing new technology makes him “a great fit for Apple.”
It has been suggested that Amazon should consider releasing a smartphone version of the Kindle Fire.
The belief is that a Kindle Fire phone would stand the best chance to compete directly with Apple’s iPhone, based on the tablet’s affordability, recognizable brand name and unlimited publicity through its connection to the Amazon retail store.
“Most important, Amazon has already done a lot of the heavy lifting required to build a phone,” writes Harry McCracken in a related Time article. “It could simply repurpose much of the effort it’s poured into the Kindle Fire tablet, and then add phone-specific features.”
“But this is all just hypothesis at this point,” comments TG Daily. “Amazon will be plenty busy with the Kindle Fire for some time to come.”
Yet it remains an interesting idea. “I wondered why no company has taken up the challenge of building…well, the iPhone of Android phones,” writes McCracken. “Something that’s elegant, approachable, uncluttered, and respectful of the consumer’s intelligence. Any bundled services would need to be beautifully integrated rather than just shoveled onto the phone indiscriminately, as the apps on Android handsets often are.”
Apple released an iOS update on Thursday designed to fix the problem that iPhone 4S users running iOS 5 have been experiencing with regards to battery life.
However, many iPhone owners have reported the update (iOS 5.0.1) has had no effect in fixing the issue.
“A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks,” Apple said in a statement.
Based on the language of the statement, especially noting the generic phrase “a few bugs,” Digital Trends suggests the company may not know the cause of the problem.
“The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices,” said Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller, adding: “We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”
Mobile analytics firm Flurry has released new estimates based on iOS and Android app-enabled devices.
According to the report, 25 billion apps will be downloaded in 2011, marking 300 percent growth from last year’s six billion.
Five billion Apple and Android apps are expected to be downloaded in December alone, based on the surge typically associated with mobile shopping and people on break looking for entertainment.
Revenue from the U.S. market will reach $2.5 billion, compared with 2010’s $1 billion.
The increase in app catalogs has helped the increase. iOS offers about 500,000 apps and Android is around 350,000.
ReadWriteWeb also points out that only 43 percent of U.S. consumers currently have smartphones, but the number is expected to reach 50 percent by Q3 2012, which will also fuel app downloads.
According to a new report from analytics service provider Ooyala: “On average, tablet viewers watched videos nearly 30 percent longer than when watching on their desktop.”
Additionally, tablet users are twice as likely to watch their videos to the end. “Videos 10 minutes or longer accounted for 56 percent of the time played on tablets and 84 percent played on connected TV devices and game consoles,” indicates the report.
ReadWriteWeb adds, “non-traditional TV watching devices such as cord-cutting boxes like Boxee and video game consoles tripled the amount of videos they played during the last quarter, although they still have a minute market share.”
And according to results featured on Ooyala’s blog, Apple continues to dominate in this space: “iPads crushed Android tablets in terms of total audience size. iPads accounted for 97 percent of all tablet video plays.”
Ooyala’s “VideoMind Video Index” report is available for download from the company’s blog.
Adobe will no longer continue to develop its Flash Player for mobile devices. Instead, it will focus its resources on HTML5, according to the company’s blog.
“HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively,” writes Danny Winokur, VP and GM, Adobe Interactive Development. “This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.”
Future efforts for Flash on mobile devices will focus on creating native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores.
“Did Apple ensure mobile Flash’s demise by preventing it from competing properly? Or did Adobe’s insistence on keeping the format proprietary, complicated by Flash’s alleged performance issues, tie Cupertino’s hands?” asks TIME. “Whatever the case, with Adobe’s mobile development switching to HTML5, all eyes are on the desktop version of Flash, and whether after nearly a decade-and-a-half of use, Adobe will eventually opt to retire it, too.”
According to Canaccord Genuity analysis of Apple’s third quarter, the company “captured more than half of the handset industry’s overall operating profits — 52 percent…And it managed it with only a 4.2 percent global handset unit market share,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
“With the iPhone, Apple is doing to the smartphone business what it has done to the PC business with the Mac: Generating a disproportionate share of profits relative to revenue,” suggests the article.
With other manufacturers faltering and iPhone 4S sales soaring, Apple may hit 60 percent of the industry’s operating profits soon.
According to AllThingsD: “…with the iPhone 4S the top-selling smartphone at AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, and its international rollout in full swing, it seems pretty clear Apple has a very good chance of hitting that big number — and soon.”
Nintendo Wii is the most popular video game console with young Americans (ages 8-to-24), according to a new Harris Interactive survey.
Nearly 6,000 young consumers participated in the study conducted in August 2011.
The poll also lists Apple as the top brand among the 13-to-24 demographic for computers, mobile phones and tablets.
“It’s interesting that the Nintendo Wii rated so highly given that it’s been the lowest selling console for the last year,” reports IndustryGamers. “This shows that Nintendo still has plenty of brand equity among consumers, and with the right products and marketing there is no reason they can’t be the #1 selling console again. The dangers are also clear in this study, as Apple leads in mobile phones and tablets, where games are one of the top categories that seem to be having an effect on handheld console sales.”
AirCassette is a $1.99 iPhone app that mimics the look of an audio cassette tape while playing (including the handwritten script of a label sticker).
“The reels actually spin and you can create and share mix tapes with your friends via e-mail or Facebook, just as we used to do back in 1986,” reports The New York Times.
The AirPlay-compatible app is from Finnish programmer Majasalmi, known for its “Russian Roulette” iPhone game, and features its own iTunes music interface.
The app includes multiple cassette designs that resemble popular blank tapes of the audio cassette era.
“Watching a cassette tape spin on the iPhone’s high-resolution display is oddly calming and, thanks to digital compression, the audio is far superior in AirCassette than it ever was on my Sony Walkman,” comments John Biggs in Gadgetwise.
Apple’s new retail store app for iOS is expected to launch today, and will include two major features: 1) Online ordering with retail store pick-up, and 2) Self check-out at retail locations.
The new services have already started at a number of Apple locations in California and New York City.
A customer will be able to order an in-stock product online and pick it up approximately 12 minutes later — skipping lines and registers, then simply picking up and signing for the product.
If customers order an item that is not in-stock, they’ll be a given a pick-up date right after the online purchase is completed. All products sent to an Apple store will include free shipping.
With self check-out, customers are encouraged to launch the Apple Store app on an iOS device to purchase in-store items. “You scan the product with the camera on your device in the app, click purchase, and it will charge whatever credit card is associated to your Apple ID,” reports BGR.
The company expects the new program will generate a 30 percent increase in sales.
