No iPad 3 this year and new iPhone in October

If the rumors are right then we will not get a new iPad this year but a new iPhone in October which can be preordered in late September.

Of the news is disappointing and the other is very good.

The iPad 3



I think it is really good news not to bring an iPad 3 this year. Rumors were out that the iPad 3 will be available in September, but honestly two iPads in one year would be too much. The price is much higher than a smart phone and buying two iPads in one year is not cheap. And as we know, always when a new version comes out, Apple is reducing the previous version in price. I would not find it cool to see after 6 months that my iPad is now 20% cheaper. One thing I always liked at Apple was the long product life time and price stability. A new iPad would have not been good. If Apple keeps a 12 months cycle then it is much more likely that the new product will be much better than the previous with more new features. The next iPad should be at least 2 mm thinner, should have retina display and maybe cable less charging. Apple does good not to offer a new iPad this year which has maybe just a faster processor. The time is not right yet. Maybe in a few years where not many new features can easily build in, or when it is not anymore possible to make the iPad lighter or thinner and we are all moved from notebook to iPads, then Apple can start to offer every 3 months an iPad with faster processor and bigger hard drive. And to be clear, that Apple can keep up such high demand is only possible if they can get a lot of media hype when a new version comes out. Reducing the cycle to 6 or less months will not guaranty media hypes. Compare it with DELL or all other computer manufactures, they bring every three month a new version of their products on the market, but really no press cares. We might find info in special review websites, but there is no prime time press coverage. When was it the last time that CBS reported a new DELL computer in the evening news? You can't answer? Me neither, but I know since 2007 every new iPhone or iPad was in the big news.
If the rumors are right, then I am happy to save money. However if an iPad 3 is coming out this year, then it has better a faster processor, better cameras and retina display or I would be disappointed by Apple.

I believe in two years you can order the iPad online with not only the ability to choose provider and memory but as well to choose the processor and color of the iPad (not only white and black). I can see that we can choose between four processors and up to 256GB with eight frame colors. This would be awesome. The smallest iPad for $499 and up to $1299 for the really fast quad core processor and 256 GB memory.

The iPhone 5




Rumors are out that the iPhone 5 release date will be later than previously expected, due to software that otherwise won’t be ready.

The news comes from AllThingsD, and is at odds with earlier reports that indicated that the device would actually be available earlier, during September. Next generation iPhone rumors are pouring in these days, as we’re getting closer to the launch of the device. That conflicts with a report from tech blog Gizmodo, which has passed along a supposed email from an AT&T employee claiming that employee vacation requests for late September have been denied. “Historically the only time they’ve done this was for an iPhone release,” reads that email. “So we’re looking at the last two weeks of September.” “I don’t know why AT&T’s calling for all hands on deck those weeks, but it’s not for an iPhone launch,” one source said.

I tend to believe AllthingsD. But at the end is disappointing. Not only that we had to wait 18 months for a new iPhone but as well that the new iPhone will not have 4G.

Either way, Apple seems to be ready for a new iPhone. At least it looks like they are working on the redesign of the iPhone page. And accidentally showed a lot of text layered on each other.




The only selectable layer reads: “Only iPhone gives you one-tap access to the world’s largest collection of mobile apps.” Underneath the text layer, other fragments can be seen, such as “retina,” ostensibly from the usual slide that rotates on the iPhone page. Found by the iphone5newsblog.com

The question is, what will be different with the iPhone 5 than iPhone 4?. First of all it will hopefully have the A5 or A6 processor and a slightly bigger screen (4inch). The screen might not be wider but longer. The home button might be now integrated into the screen instead of being a button. Steve Jobs never liked buttons. Maybe it has (what I doubt) conducting charging like other phone built in. It might have an NFC chip and Stereo speakers. It is expected that the new iPhone can handle GSM and CDMA, to allow Apple to build only one iPhone. Most likely (as you can see on the image above) it might be thinner and not flat anymore. However I hope it does not change it's form factor, I am tired of buying all the time new accessories. Maybe (to be fancy) the iPhone has no buttons at all anymore and everything as the front, sides and back are touch screens. But this is very unlikely.
it seems that iPhone will not have yet 4G. Apple is testing LTE right now (rumors are saying) but if so, then there is no way it will have 4G in October. Apple would be done with testing in August when the first iPhone went onto the assembly line.
Not having 4G is the biggest disappointment for me. Because all other enhancement are ok but not really the hammer for selling. The only other reason besides 4G for me to switch to a new iPhone would be the processor. My iPhone 4 has already issues with simple games like Angry Birds. Many times the game slows down, of course one reason is the poor coding execution.
I have friends at ATT and Verizon and none of them does know what features the new iPhone will have and if screen or case will be different. And these guys are usually informed enough to know 2 months earlier what features their new phones in stock will have.

Regardless of features or form factor, the release day of the iPhone 5 will be exactly the same day iOS 5 comes out, there is no way that Apple would release one or the other first. Because iOS is perfectly build around the iPhone 5, this is for sure.

Regardless what the next iPhone 5 will be it is already a bit in China.
At least one online coupon website and more than 100 online shop owners on Taobao.com, China's biggest online auction website, have provided pre-order links online for the next generation of the iPhone (source china.org.cn)

Many Taobao sellers said they would start shipping the iPhone 5 between September 5 and September 7, which is around the time most industry insiders expect the smartphone to debut.
Most iPhone 5 for pre-order are being sold on Taobao from 4,000 yuan (US$625) to 7,000 yuan each.
Apple Inc, whose iPhone 4 and iPad tablets have wowed consumers around the world, declined to comment on the issue or the iPhone 5 release date.
Meituan, a Beijing-based Groupon-like website, announced that it will hold a lucky draw with the top prize being an iPhone 5. Users registering on the website or following the website on Sina Weibo will have the opportunity to win the iPhone 5, according to Meituan.

In July, Apple reported its China revenue grew six times in its fiscal third quarter ended on June 30 due to booming sales of iPhones and iPads.


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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Angry Birds Rio - a drug

I can't believe I did fall for Angry Birds Rio. Angry Birds is almost two years on the market and I never want to play it. I did want to use my time for something which is more useful, like writing a blog.
Bit I started a few months ago and now I played (since the latest level is out) at least an hour or two every night.

Angry Birds is kind addictive. Such a simple game with no instructions needed. But it has multiple phases.

First I started to blog about it, which was a big mistake.

Angry Birds has in my opinion 5 phases.

1. Finish it
When you start you want to finish it. As soon you mastered a level you want to master the next level.

2. Get all stars
Finishing the levels is not so hard, but you might sometimes only get one star for a level. You then want to get 3 stars for each level. I played some levels 200 times. You try one way then another way to see which one is more effective. The goal is to use as less birds as possible for a level. The hardest level for me was the last level on stage two. To get the big white bird you need to think outside the box. I was almost ready to google for help.

3. Collect the special items
Each of the 3 stages have 15 hidden items (either pineapple, banana or water melon). Sometimes you have to zoom out the screen to see a hidden banana which could be behind you. You don't need to master in this phase the levels you just want to collect the items.




4. Extra points
Angry birds gives you extra points when you reach certain things, like a special high score or hitting a bird with another bird or watch all credits.

5. Points
This is the hardest of all phases. At this phase you want to optimize your points, you go through one level to another and try your best just to use one bird to finish the level or to destroy as much as you can, I call it "angry cleaner".

I am tight now in phase 3. But I look as well to master at the same time some of phase 4. And of course I look all the time at the high score. I am right now At 8 million points which puts me 72,382 position, which is in the top 3% of players, but not high enough :(






I can't wait till I mastered phase 3 and 4. Then I will be in top 200 and stop playing. It is so addictive that you sometimes play a level 200 times and restart the level as soon the first bird leaves the sling, because you know it was not a good shot.

I decently wrote less posts for my blog which is bad, I don't want to lose the momentum and I did spend too less time with my wife.


The The Landover Baptist Church Forum Mobile believes Angry Birds is even evil:

A SEX Training Game!
Angry Birds is played by slowly moving your finger over the surface of your phone. As the game progresses you need to move your finger over the surface faster and faster. When the game progresses even more you also have to touch a certain spot over and over to get your reward. Those who have, reluctantly, studied the ways of sluts, whores and harlots will recognize female masturbation here! That's right! The best way to play Angry Birds is also the best way to make a women climax! So Angry Birds is training both men and women in how to get a women to orgasm! And as we all know only SATAN Gives Women Orgasms! God clearly disapproves of masturbation! Matthew 5:28 "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

This is not why God gave us fingers!
Image


Angry Birds has over 200 million downloads and makes people to do stupid things.
firstregime.com:
Two Scottish pet shop employees were sacked yesterday after a report in the Oban Times revealed that they had been using dead birds as projectiles while playing a physical version of hit smartphone game Angry Birds. The fired employees allegedly took parakeets and mice from an industrial freezer to use as props in a lunchtime game, which Pet Island manager Sharon Renton described as "radge" - a common Scots dialect word meaning 'egregious'.


I went to YouTube after I finished my 3 stars phase. And basically people uploaded tons of Videos showing tips how to get three stars.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Angry+birds+rio+stars&aq=f

I am just happy that it is soon over for me and I will not play new upcoming levels. I need a life.

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Angry Birds Rio - not about the levels

Angry birds one of the most played smart phones apps. With over 100 million download world wide.
There are now multiple Angry Birds version like Classic, Seasons, Magic and Rio.

I have been never into Angry Birds till Rio came out and the Superball commercial with a hint. I downloaded Rio and mastered all levels for smugglers' dent and Jungle Escape within a weekend.



Rio seems too easy. This week came the third level out ( I had to wait a few months) - Beach Volleyball.

It took me less than 4 hours and without cheating. BTW give as much volleyballs to the dog :)




Many times i read this, but did never take advantage and i guess, because I don't want to pay for.

Sometimes, when you're playing "Angry Birds" you simply have to cheat.
Well, perhaps "cheat" is a strong word here. Let's just say that sometimes you need to bring in a little extra help from above.
Or at least, 40 percent of "Angry Birds" players do. That's how many of the game's players have opted to use the Mighty Eagle.
That is, 40 percent of players have forked over 99 cents for an in-app purchase that allows them to breeze past a level if it becomes too hard. That stat was revealed by Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle for Rovia (the company that makes "Angry Birds"), during a presentation at the Game Developer's Conference taking place in San Francisco this week.

Even if I mastered all levels it is not over yet. First of all I did not collect all pineapples, bananas and water melons. Plus I am missing 21 out of 270 stars, means I did not master the levels perfect.

And there is the ranking list. Out of 2.2 million players I am only on position 77,728.
This is within the top 4% but not within in the top 50 players. I will never reach Ahmad, but seraphyn is only 2 million points away. I am wondering how Ahmad can have over twice as much points like the other players? Is he cheating? Did he hack into it? Is he one of the game developers? A robot? There are many people asking about Ahmad, just bing for Angry birds Ahmad.






I never thought I would play for hours angry birds. A lot of people are telling me they don't like Rio and prefer the classic game. They say the monkeys are annoying. I can't say, I never played the classic game.

Rio is now as well available for Apple computers like the iMac and for play stations like PSP and Wii, but honestly the real fun on Angry Birds is that it takes advantage of touchscreen. I played it on the iMac with mouse and magic pad, but the fun is only half as much. The only good thing is the 27 inch screen and zooming out to see whole scene makes more fun than on the iPhone. Can't imagine how to use the Wii on 54 inch screen. I feel the Wii control is not good enough. The real kick comes to understand in which way you have to use the catapult how many degrees up or down etc. I usually look first at the scene and then decide how to shoot. The game uses physics of gravity. And if you have a good imagination you can easily find the best targets to get most of the monkeys etc destroyed. It takes sometimes up to 20 seconds till (after one catapult) all blocks and stones stop moving. You need patience before catapulting another bird.

The maker of Angry Birds took a simple idea to another level. The beauty is that you can restart each level any time. I caught myself to retry a level before even a bird hit a target because I saw it does not hit where I want to.

Angry Bird is sure not a game for me to spend days or months on it, but as relaxing for an hour after work is great, especially it is for me not to master a level, this is kind of easy, it is now to master each level as perfect as possible to get more points.

Different than all other games (I played before) is not only that you can play any level as often as you want, it as well keeps always track on your level high-score which adds up to total high-score. This is great, you only need to approve in one level to have a new top score for the whole game. This feature helps to bring people back.

Many other games I played before make me to start from the beginning when I was out I lifes (angry birds has no limit at all). You stop and next day you start the game wherever you want, you only needed to have the previous level finished to start the next level. This is all.

Angry Birds will eventually die in a few months. Pretty sure it is not anymore hot in 12 months, especially that this game has no ability to play against others, but the idea behind the game to have it simple and the ability to play it as often as you want at any level plus be able to get a better high score just by playing one level better than before, will be a milestone for future games.



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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Social network: the interaction is involuntary

We are writing now the second year of social Internet, and I am still not clear why everything is called social, but things which are social are not called social.

Please don't understand wrong. Facebook got big, Zynga is number one Game platform for online games. Angry Birds has unbelievable success. Almost every celebrity is on twitter and having not a linkedin account is fatal if you want to get to the next professional level. And don't forget Groupon the best deals ever. They are all listed when we talk about social networking or social gaming. Together they are valued $170billion, so much money can't be wrong.

I had to surf the Internet to find a definition, to see if I get it now. Wikipedias definition of social:
The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms (humans in particular, though biologists also apply the term to populations of other animals). It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary.

This is a start but I did want to know what social networking definition is:
Again Wikipedia was helpful:
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Although online community services are sometimes considered as a social network service. In a broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.

In a birds view Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are social networks. But diving deeper, I got the feeling they are not social or not more social than forums which exist much longer. And what is about the dating websites like match.com or eharmony, they should be social too.

Facebook:
FB might has started as a social network, to get students together on a platform to meet and discuss when they can't meet in person. Not much is left since then. FB has over 500 million users and is now more a platform than a network, there are many restrictions and tons of 3rd party applications, everybody gets pressed into the same. FB went to a platform driven by commerce. More and more brands are using this platform to gain brand loyalty. The interactions are many times one sided. We post and hope others will read and interact. FB is surely closer to social than twitter.

Twitter:
In the highest mean of social, twitter is a social network. But it has for me the less social aspect of all. We tweet to gain followers, sometimes retweet or forward tweets. There is no real big social interaction, or otherwise how could it come that a Charlie Sheen can gain 3 million followers with not many tweets (less than hundred) and most of them useless and meaningless.

Linkedin:
It is all about with who we are connected. But to be connected does not define to be social. I know my neighbor, but I don't socialize with him. Same with linkedin. How many contacts do we have and how many of them do we interact on a regular basis.

All three social networks are for me platforms which are pretending to be social, but 90% of interaction is given by the platform algorithm. When a system decides the social part, then it is not social anymore. The definition says "The term Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms (humans in particular, though biologists also apply the term to populations of other animals)."

The platforms are software, they are not human. Imagine how less "social" these platforms would be if the user would actually need to look for somebody and Interact with this person. Sure we do this on these platforms but much less than the companies try to tell us. I get connect requests in linkedin. If I like the person profile or I think this person might be in the future helpful then i accept the invitation. This might be then the first and last interaction. However the platform let me believe we are social because I see their user profile updates. Pretty sure most of my contacts do not care, if I know what they are doing.
Look at twitter, we start following people with just one click but are we really reading their tweets all the time. If you follow 100 people, how much of their tweet do you read? But the platform let us believe we care and the people we follow do care. I don't think Mr. Sheen does even know I follow him. And I even don't know when I read the last time his tweets. He might even not tweet anymore. What is social on this?

Facebook let us see all our friends updates and wall entries, but if we are really as social as FB let us believe with all the updates posted on our page, why do we then get only feedback from few friends to some posts.

Social is intersection between at least 2 human beings and not one posting and a computer interacting by posting these infos to other pages.

A Facebook user has in average 130 friends, how can we socialize with so many?



Zynga:
7 out of the top 10 games on Facebook are from Zynga like Farmville. 3 of the top 5 applications on Facebook are Zynga games.






Did you ever play Mafia Wars or Farmville? I did, not much and good, but I get all the time game requests on FB. I accept or not, but where is the social aspect? Only because we send to somebody a request and if this person does accept it, we get more points? Do we really interact to each other? Asking questions, help each others? Maybe some people but not the majority.



Angry Birds:
I play Angry Birds I love the game, but this game has less social than any Zynga game. I can see how well I did in the rankings and the most social interaction with Angry Birds is the coffee break talk how to master level 4-14.

Groupon:
I guess most of my readers did at least get one coupon on Groupon, otherwise the company could not gave been able to generate $1 Billion in revenue and be the fastest growing Internet company ever. But I don't get the social part. Groupon is offering 50% or more discount on products and services (mostly services because it is easier to grant high discount) if enough people are willing to get a coupon. The idea is great and the concept works, but only because multiple people need to want to have a coupon does make it social?
Groupon is a platform for coupons and e-commerce. Not more or less. The most social interaction I had, was asking a friend of mine to sign up that the minimum number of requests are met, that I can get my coupon for a spa day (btw he did not, but I did still get the coupon).

Maybe I am to negative, but this is how I see it.

On the other hand we have millions of forums where people are discussing and asking questions and others are answering, full of interaction is going on and mostly around the same topic during the discussion. Why did nobody call this in the time back social network?
I guess because of the last part of the definition.
"....whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary". This let me believe that social Internet networking or gaming is based on the last part of the social definition.
"Social network: the interaction is involuntary."

I wondering who invented the social network, how we understand today the social network.

In 1995, Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant founded a company called WELL, which could be considered as the first social networking site. Or a few years later Eric Leebow, he claims he had in 1999 a college website similar to Facebook called Freezecrowd.


Finally I found something which could help me to understand why the above companies are named social networks.
The term 'social network' was first coined in 1954 by J. A. Barnes (in: Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, "Human Relations"). The maximum size of social networks tends to be around 150 people (Dunbar's number) and the average size around 124 (Hill and Dunbar, 2002).

A social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

Finally I get it, if you have more than 150 friends, followers or connections, then you fall outside of a social network regardless how social FB, twitter etc is.
Period. I am not a member of a social network, because I have more friends or connections than 150. But wait I have less followers. Twitter is my social network.

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Angry Birds in Space

I friend of mine (Michael Fogleman) released just few days ago his first game in the apple iPhone store. I had the luck to test the game during development and i have to say the final product got much better than the test version which was already pretty good.
The game is called star rocket and costs $0.99. There is no advertisement which easy justifies the Dollar to pay.




The idea of the game is pretty simple. You are navigating your rocket through space by trying to collect the stars.

The developer did a very nice job in advancing the levels. It gets pretty interesting around level 28.



Like angry birds, the levels are advancing the further the game goes. There are astroids, planets, teleports and shields etc.

Each of them have other little functions. The rocket is not allowed to hit an astroids or planet and the bigger they are the stronger is the gravitation. A teleport jumps you to another place in space. And the shield keeps your rocket save against astroids but not planets.











Even if the game is so simple to understand it comes with a good tutorial.

The idea is to finish the levels as fast as possible to advance to the next level. You have basically unlimited lives, you can try as often you want a level even if you managed a level you can play it again.
The faster you manage a level the more stars you get (up to 3). I believe the app has right now 85 levels. But I am not able to pass 39.

Once you start the game to play you don't want to finish. It is like a drug. I basically replaced my angry birds with star rocket.

The only few things i am missing is an iPad version and the ability to see an overall high score. However you will see for each level current time and your best time.

The game has a lot of helpful details. For each level you see a preview and during playing you see how many stars are left and a green arrow indicates where the nearest star is.
They thought about everything. The user can even switch the controls around if the user is left handed like me.
i am just wondering what ghost on means.
The designer did a really nice job, especially the planets have a lot of details. Sound effects are nice too.

Overall I will give this game 5 stars and i am pretty sure we will see a lot of cool new features coming up and maybe an iPad an Apple app version.


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Missed hidden code for Angry Brids in Rio Commerical?

For all who missed the hidden code. See below a screenshot of second 0:27, when the monkey jumped down.

But you have to find out by yourself what you can do with this info :)

Mac OsX App store is here

I updated my Mac OS today to get the new app store. The OS update did require a reboot and a positive side effect was that my exchange account is working again. This means email, contacts, calendar and Microsoft IM work again with my office exchange. The last update before which should have improve the exchange did break it.

I went ahead and opened the app store. It looks almost the same like on the iPad.
See left side of the image below.



The app store has already 1000 of application and the most of them are apps we know from the mobile app store like Angry Birds. Angry birds got at the first day already 560 ratings, and if in average 10% do rate an app and the numbers are real then they had over 5000 downloads and a gross revenue of $25,000 minus 30%.





I went through and tried to count by ratings how many apps have been downloaded and put the numbers together. If I am not mistaken than Apple had at the first day over 80.000 downloads which an average price of $15. This is a revenue of $1.2 million for the first day and an estimated one year revenue of over $400 million in the first year, which would leave Apple at least $120 Million.
The mobile app store had last year a revenue of $2 Billion or around $600 Million for Apple.

The most applications like "the cat in the hat" are between $19.99 and $29.99. However I believe the apps which are as well available on the iPad have already the same price as for the iPad or will be soon the same price and not anymore higher. We can assume that most Apple Computer owner will have as well an iPad. Why should somebody buy a software on the Mac if the software like "the cat in the hat" just a fraction of the price available for the iPad.

A small icon in your dock appears with download status, when downloading an app. The app will automatically put in your dock when downloaded, no extra install needed. You can anytime delete the app from the dock.




I did not see yet free apps with iAds, but pretty sure it will come.
Some apps ( like Angry Birds) are in full screen mode, especially if they have been before available for the iPad, as Steve showed at the September keynote. If you have two screens the app will only run on main screen. The more expensive apps which are not available for the iPad are working like normal apps where you change screen size and the tools are their own windows.

We will see a lot of iPad apps coming to the Mac, because it is pretty simple for a developer to port an existing iPad app to the mac store.

Interesting to see that Apple developed apps are cheaper than as packed apps. Aperture costs only $79.99 instead of $199. Pages, keynote and numbers together only $59,97 instead of $79 if you would buy iWork from the shelf.

Apple is bidding on the long tail. They are offering blockbusters like pages, numbers and keynote to a low price with the hope the consumers will buy more of the apps which Apple has no costs but makes money of them (30% of retail).

The store offers a lot of free apps like twitter etc. This will attract many users. You can image that this new app store will bring more users to Apple for their PCs.

Apple sold so many iPhones, iPods touch and iPads, that consumers who already know how easy it is to install and buy software, will switch with their PC to Apple. It is just a logical step. I think the iMacs and MacBooks market will grow very fast in consumer niche to over 20%.
A very smart move. There has been always 3 big arguments why people did not buy Macs.
1. Price
This changed a little back, since Apple is not so much more expensive anymore. The MacBookAir starts under $1000, which is not much more than a Dell notebook with similar quality.
2. No apps available
Almost every major software is now available for Apple. And with the app store are soon more high quality inexpensive apps than for windows in one place.
3. Don't want to switch to new System
With worldwide over 100 Million iOS devices shipped, there are now many consumers who are firm with Apple and the new app store is basically the same as on the iPhone. Nothing new to learn.

To this three points are coming 3 other important aspects.

1.Apple has almost no virus and because the apps are sold under the complete control through Apple the risks of viruses will be even reduced as long the consumer only downloads apps from this store.
2. Kids will ask for Macs in the future with the argument that there are more educational software than for Windows computers. For parents it is almost a no brainer because the parental controls are much more sophisticated than for Windows.
3. Buy once and install as often as wanted on your computer. A big annoying part with Windows is, that anytime when we buy a new Windows computer, we have either to find the original software CD, remember the serial number or have to buy the software again.
Apple figured out that serial numbers are old school. For me it is the best invention ever that apps don't need anymore serial numbers, you just need to remember your apple ID. One ID for all programs.

Overall the app store is a great idea and a perfect marketing tool.

E-commerce made perfect. Apple has a big store where everybody can buy software, Apple does not need to create any product pages (because the developers are putting the info in) but at the same time controlling that only Apple approved products are getting bought.

Interesting is that there are no adobe products in the app store available. A good friend of mine believes because of Adobes price politic. Adobe is in Europe much more expensive than in the US and Apple philosophy is that the software price is everywhere in the world almost the same. Plus Adobe does not like that Apple (which is not a big Adobe promoter) would get 30% of their revenue.

We see if he is right, but his explanation does make sense for me.

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Angry birds makes me angry

Everybody is playing Angry Birds. 1 million downloads on one day (October 15th) and over 30 million downloads combined on iPhone and android.
The game is simple, almost stupid but very addictive.
I see people playing in smoke breaks, on trains, in break rooms. I even heard one guy playing it in the restroom. Angry birds lite is free, full version is $1.99 and the iPad version even $4.99. They have even Halloween and Christmas version of it. You can even by cheat apps for angry birds. Angry birds is an example how successful a simple game can be.make it easy, make it fun and it will rock.



I had it as well but I deleted it as soon i did read the WSJ article.

In a report published by the Wall Street Journal on 12/17/2010, reporters found that Angry Birds for the iPhone and Android phones may be sending your private data such as contacts, your phone's unique ID number and even your phone number to third party marketing and advertising firms.

The report encompassed 101 of the most popular apps and games on both platforms and, more specifically, found that Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds, knows your phone's unique ID number, contacts and location thanks to you playing the game. Worse off, WSJ suspects that the company is sending that information to third parties. In a reaction statement made by the developer, Rovio denied all allegations that it is sending this information to anyone other than Crystal, the social network that supports its games, and uses Flurry, an analytical software.

"Crystal does not store any personal information, as insinuated by the WSJ article, nor does it utilize any data without the user's explicit knowledge," a Rovio spokesperson told gaming news site Develop. "Flurry collects analytical data to display numerical data such as numbers of users per different countries based on Phone ID and general location. This information is only displayed as aggregate statistics - Flurry never stores or displays any data pertaining to an individual."


And don't think these are the only games and apps that could be making some coin off your private information. The chart and infographic go on to mention that Doodle Jump, Ninjump, Paper Toss, Foursquare and even Tweet Deck are having their way with a least a sliver of your personal data. While the report does point a few fingers, its true purpose is to raise awareness to the fact that our personal data may not be safe even on our smartphones.


Angry birds is not the only app which collects your data, WSJ reports that most of the popular apps are trying to make some extra money by collecting your data.

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