This is something that could turn out big. A new iphone app called Dreamwalk provides users with a geocaching game that raises the ante a little by getting local businesses involved. Users can use the software to seek out "treasures," just like any similar game. Except, in this case, participating companies get to hide their own prizes for players to pursue, allowing them to get new prospects through the door in the process.
When you launch the app, it shows you a map that details where prizes are hidden. There are three ways to collect bounty - Instant Prizes, Collector's Stamps and Treasure Hunts - all of which require going out into the real world. For Instant Prizes, you simply have to go to the marked location on the map to get the reward added to your onscreen prize bag. Tap that and get instructions on how to redeem. Do note that these are usually simple stuff, like free fries at a local restaurant or cheap tickets to a show.
Collector's Stamps, on the other hand, require you to travel to different locations, gaining letter stamps at each one that spell out the words to the final destination. Treasure Hunts work similarly, except you gain clues instead of stamps. Since they're harder, the prizes for these two are usually bigger (e.g. videocams and gaming consoles).
Because they've only just launched, there are only a few thousand hidden treasures across the US, most of them concentrated in large metro areas (think New York, LA and Washington DC). However, developers at Dreamwalk Pty Ltd are negotiating for new businesses to come in and, potentially, make the loot more lucrative for avid treasure hunters across the country. Participating merchants, by the way, can easily upload new prizes via Dreamwalk's website, which will then turn up on gamers' maps.
Dreamwalk's beauty is that it is a win-win for all parties involved. Businesses get very hip marketing and users get a chance to win loads of free stuff around their area. An excellent concept that's totally worth the free App Store download.
[Dreamwalk Mobile]
Does your kid have an iPhone? My nine-year old nephew has one - a hand-me-down from his mom when she got her shiny new 3GS. While kids will most likely use it to play games, you have to keep in mind that they can also use it to surf the web.
As on the PC, you'd like to keep them off from objectionable areas of the internet. Problem is, Safari offers zero parental controls on that end. As such, they're pretty much free to wander about cyberspace unrestricted.
The Mobicip Safe Browser fills this gap, giving you options to block out unsavory websites from being accessed on your kids' iPhones. Yep, it's an alternative browser that's actually approved by the App Store, because it does offer something that the native Safari client doesn't - a child-safe surfing environment.
Before you can force your kid to use it instead of Safari, you'll have to disable the latter manually: Settings -> General -> Restrictions. It would have been better if this could be handled right from the app itself, although being a one-time change, it's no biggie.
Its main strength is that it functions and looks nearly like Safari, making the transition from using one to the other seamless, with no required learning curve. The lack of a facility to import bookmarks is bit of a letdown, though.
Mobicip itself costs $4.99, which gets you the child-safe browser plus a free account for their filtering service. Any URL accessed from the app gets filtered through the company's servers, which decides whether to either allow or block it. Free accounts get three levels of filtering: elementary, middle and high school.
If you want more detailed control of your child's surfing habits, you can also sign up for a Premium account for $9.99 per year. This gets you plenty of latitude, including the ability to blacklist and whitelist specific pages and categories, download activity reports and manage multiple devices from a single dashboard.
[Mobicip for iPhone]
In what has seemingly become the norm for App Store approval, Spotify recently aired their frustration at Apple's unpredictable process, noting the extended time their iPhone app has been through the pipeline. Shortly after airing the complaint, an App Store rep has now confirmed that the mobile streaming application has been approved and will be rolled out across iTunes stores in countries where the service is available.
Much of the issue with Spotify (along with similar services like Rhapsody, who also has an app undergoing approval) has been centered along the level of threat it represents to iTunes, Apple's own music download service. For $10 a month, Spotify users can enjoy unlimited music streaming, with some amount of leeway for offline caching, allowing users to listen to songs even without a live internet connection.
Currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Britain, France and Spain, the service is expected to roll out in the US before the end of the year, providing a litmus test to see what kind of effect it will have on the online music market. The Spotify app will allow iPhone owners to listen to their playlists on their mobile handset, along with performing regular functions, such as searching songs, editing playlists and more.
With an inventory of over six million tunes, all of which can be accessed over the web anytime users want to, it definitely sounds like a more attractive deal compared to paying for every song that you download. With Rhapsody (and, undoubtedly, a few more) also coming to the iPhone, expect this space to be particularly competitive, with potential repercussions to some of Apple's business.
[via Wired]
Sure, the iPhone 3GS is a powerful phone, with the hardware and software capable of rivaling the current set of handheld gaming consoles in the market. Despite that fact, it isn't likely that the platform will see apps drastically improve. At least, that's if the recent analysis of App Store pricing from App Cubby proves itself right.
According to the developer, the new unofficial price ceiling for Apple's download storefront is $5, down from the $10 that it was a few months before. That is a very drastic drop and one that puts software developers at a crossroads - do you keep your price at a premium level, risking slower sales, or try to run after volume?
The problem, however, is much bigger. Right at this moment, the average price in the App Store has gone down to $1.39 for games and $2.58 for all apps. At those prices (even at the $5 ceiling), there are virtually no developers willing to invest more than a few months working on a high-quality software, much less a high-end graphics game that won't run on older-generation iPhones (effectively eliminating a large amount of users).
It's a dilemma with no easy solution in sight. The main issue, according to App Cubby, is that pricing expectations among consumers are unrealistic. Spoiled by 99-cent apps, their attitudes do no favors for those who wish to gain attractive profits from their work. In a market where only $5 apps will ever have a fighting chance of hitting the Top 100, very few companies will be willing to invest serious money to produce serious software.
App Cubby proposes some strategies to help turn the situation around, although it will likely take some time before we begin seeing if anything can be made from it. It's an unfortunate situation, but one that will likely be resolved as the business model of mobile apps matures - which, obviously, isn't anytime soon.
Photo Credit: MarkJ
In a bit of a surprise stance, Google has gone ahead and declared "app stores" a dead end. This comes right at the heels of the 1-year anniversary of Apple's App Store, with every other mobile company (from manufacturers to carriers, including Google's own Android Market) angling to set up their own.
Not that Google's particular stance is any surprise. Throughout its operating cycle, the company has made a point of solidifying its intentions of a web-based ecosystem for both PCs and mobile platforms. As such, while download storefronts for apps have proven a profitable venture (Apple claims that the App Store has already seen over 1.5 billion downloads in just one year), it's a very temporary infrastructure and will be rendered obsolete once the web takes over.
“We believe the web has won and over the next several years, the browser, for economic reasons almost, will become the platform that matters and certainly that’s where Google is investing,” says Google's engineering VP Vic Gundotra, during the Mobilebeat Conference in San Francisco. He cites that as the main reason for the company's decision to invest their efforts on web-based solutions, such as ChromeOS and numerous online apps.
Of course, not everybody shares that belief. While the web is winning, it certainly doesn't look like it's going to be game over anytime soon. If you've even tried backing up your hard drive over the "cloud," you'll know it's hardly an ideal process, taking days, weeks and, likely, months for those in countries with less-than-ideal internet infrastructures.
“It’s not about web applications or desktop applications, but integrating the internet in the cloud into these applications that are on both my phone and the PC,” says Michael Gartenberg, a technology strategist for Interpret. For most end-consumers, this is really all that matters, after all, because it's the state of the technology now.
Cloud computing will probably be the wave of the future. Unfortunately, that future seems to be at least five or ten years away. Unless, of course, Google knows something we don't.
Photo Credit: Android Community
