iPod Touch

I personally hate shopping and I loathe shopping during the holiday season.  I’d rather be buried up to my head next to an ant hill and have honey dumped on me than stand in line outside of a Wal-Mart to bust through the doors to save $20 bucks on a TV.  Like most things in my life I find procrastination helps a bit.  By waiting until about a week before Christmas, or sooner (my personal best was December 23^rd), I find that most of the bargain hunters and uber-shoppers are done.

This year I am prepared though.  Not only am I going to implement my standard shopping procrastination strategy but I am going to harness the awesome power of my iPhone to help me navigate this potential mine field.  While part of me doesn’t want to share with you my iPhone shopping secrets at the end of the day I’m a good person, and I need something to write about.  So here you go; the best holiday shopping iPhone apps:

1. Discounts Galore: Everyone and their brother is offering Black Friday, Cyber Monday and discounts throughout the shopping season.  In order to find the best check out apps like TGI Black Friday and Fat Wallet.  They will pipe the latest coupons and deals right to your phone.
2. Nearest: While this isn’t exactly shopping orientated it will help you locate needed essentials while shopping.  Helpful if you’re in a strange town visiting relatives and need to find the nearest coffee shop, bookstore or pharmacy because you’re little nephew decided to show off his tee ball skills on your groin (true story).
3. Park n Find: This app is killer if you’re shopping in a huge mega mall and easily get turned around while inside.  My sister is notorious for this as large shopping complexes make her lose all sense of direction.  With this app you use GPS to mark your parking spot and then can follow the map back.
4. $ Checkout: I can see why some people might need this app but simple arithmetic has never boggled my mind before so I don’t see the point.  It allows you to calculate your total bill with taxes and discounts included.  No matter how I feel though this one is pretty popular.
5. Shop Savvy: This is one is all kinds of sweet if you have some time to invest during your shopping.  In my opinion shopping should be quick and dirty, like sex.  But if you’re absolutely obsessed with finding the best deal then use this app to take a picture of an item’s bar code and it will search online retailers for the best deal.  It might end up saving you some cash on big ticket items, or at least give you something to do while your girl friend is punishing you with an hour long trip to the candle store.  Did you know they make candles that smell like the beach?  I do now!
6. Mall Maps: For the most part I am anti-paying for apps but this one is well worth the $2.99.  The Mall Maps app feeds you over 1,000 detailed floor plans of shopping centers all around the country.  I used this during a recent trip to a California Bay Area mega mall near my sister’s house.  I was able to see where the stores I was looking for were located before I even got there.  I parked accordingly and was in and out before I knew it.  I was like a shopping Ninja, a shopping Ninja with an Orange Julius in his happy hands!

Photo Credits: Mac Users Guide

Originally posted 2009-12-14 03:47:16.

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iPod Nano 3rd Generation

I remember when CDs first came out.  Until that time I had only known cassette tapes and the idea of a laser reading information off a disk blew me away.  My parents got a CD player boom box that sat on our living room cabinet.  About six months later I got my first CD, “Use Your Illusion I” by Guns and Roses.  Oh yes my friends, it was all kinds of awesome.  I would sit there in the living room with headphones on while my little sisters watched Barney videos and rock out to GnR for hours!  The sound quality was insanely clear and I knew that the world was changing.

Maybe I watch a little bit too much science fiction but I love to hop in a time machine.  Not only would I tell past me to save his allowance and put it all in Yahoo!, Google and Apple stock but I would let him know about the future.  I would take his Guns and Roses CD and break it into about eight pieces.  I would then explain that every song in his CD collection, every song he has ever heard or could think about hearing would fit on a device about the size of that shard of plastic!  Not only would it hold an insane amount of music but the quality would be killer.

It might further impress past me that this device was not just for the rich and powerful of the world.  They will give these things out for opening a new bank account in the future and everyone who works out with have them on.

Apple always manages to impress me like that.  I was amazed by the original iPod, the video iPod and now the iPod Nano with video.  I strolled by the Apple store when these bad boys came out and had to go inside and play with one.  The small device cranks out crystal clear video as well as audio.  The new iPod Nano also comes in a variety of cool colors.  No more are you limited to black or white when it comes to your iPod; you can get a wide range of colors to fit your unique sense of style.  To continue with this theme both come with free laser engraving from Apple.

The new iPod Nano comes in either 8GB or 16 GB versions.  The 8GB version can store about 2,00 songs or 8 hours of video and it’s bigger brother can hold about 4,000 songs or 16 hours of video.  The smaller will set you back $149 while the larger will run you $179.

Apple is the king at mixing functionality and style together flawlessly.  The new iPod Nano is a perfect example of what they doing right and why they are the king of the tech hill.

Photo Credits: Andrew*

Originally posted 2010-01-14 03:25:06.

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Screenshot: Apple Apps Store

Lucky for Apple I’ve sat down and dedicated some time to solving these problems for them.  Feel free to send royalties and/or job offers any time you’re ready for my genius Apple!

1. Higher Quality, Less Quantity:  Apple hits us over the head all the time with the fact that they have 100,000 plus apps in the app store.  Yeah, it’s an awesome stat and solicits “ohhs” and “ahhs” from everyone but at the end of the day the app store is filled with a lot of crap.  There are many killer apps out there but there also tons of useless and pointless ones too.  Maybe if they cut down on the apps available and raised their standards of quality a little more or instituted some sort of minimum download rate then we wouldn’t be awash in a world of apps and could find the best ones easier.
2. Taking Care of Business:  TCB, it’s not just a cool rock song from the 80’s or a sweet abbreviation your boss uses anymore.  Apple needs to up its focus on business related apps to further trump the Black Berry.  I am tired of hearing people talk about their “Crack Berry” and how they have to have it for work.  Apple needs to deliver the deathblow and encourage developers to develop more enterprise related apps or do the heavy lifting themselves.
3. Be Nice to the Developers:  Apple needs to stop acting like developers are lucky to be working on their platform and listen to their complaints.  Apple has already opened up their review process a bit to keep mass defections from happening but if they want to stop software engineers from exclusively working on other platforms they need to embrace the developers.  Yes, you can’t give them everything they want but involving them more in the process and treating them like stakeholders as opposed to servants would be a good first step.
4. More Transparency:  The updated Apple review process is better than before but still needs work.  Now developers know what stage of review their work is in but that’s about it.  Apple needs to let developers see under the hood a little bit more and let them feel good that when they put in serious work they will have a good shot at getting it approved.
5. Ditch Ma Bell:  A lot of people don’t like AT&T as it is and having them involved in the app process is only making things worse.  They let Apple know that the Google Voice app couldn’t be approved and that no VOIP apps will be able to run on their 3G network.  This has raised some eyebrows over at the FCC and may lead to government intervention where none really should be.  For that and thousand other reasons Apple needs to open up the iPhone to other carriers.
6. Secrets Don’t Make Friends:  Apple is notorious for it’s CIA-like secret keeping.  This usually applies to new product launches and strategic future plans but when applied to the app store it spells trouble.  Apple doesn’t tell users or developers anything they don’t have to and this effects the overall experience.  Let us in Apple!  Who hurt you so bad in the past. . .?
7. Admit When You’re Wrong:  Apple has been caught before rejecting perfectly good apps while letting crap (baby shaking app) slip through the app review process.  When they get nailed by the media or disgruntled developers with good contacts they approve the app and never say anything.  Hey, you’re human and everyone makes mistakes; that’s why pencils have erasers.  Just fess up and say you’ve learned your lesson and move on.  But the problem is they haven’t learned anything and the problems continue.
8. Better Navigation:  One of the biggest issues I have with the app store is finding the one I want.  I usually have to hear about one second hand and then go hunting for it.  Even when I know something about it, actually finding the app actually takes some work.  The app store needs revamped navigation and advanced search features to help us find stuff a little more easily.
9. Don’t Forget the End User:  Apple needs to program one of their super computers to better understand the human consumer, or hire someone to do it.  They just don’t seem to get what people are looking for when it comes to apps.  While developers often pick up on it they are usually faced with a 50/50 chance of getting their work approved leaving the consumer in the dark.  Talk to some people, do a focus group and find out what your customers are looking for before Google or Black Berry does.
10. Hearing Footsteps?  Maybe the problem that is the driving issues behind all other problems listed here is that Apple doesn’t fear competition from anyone else.  While Google’s Android phones and Black Berrys have their appeal and are getting apps they are nowhere near what Apple offers.  Competition often pushes development and without the fear that someone is going to snatch the crown off their pretty little heads Apple doesn’t have the motivation to radically change.  Yeah, it works out great for their bottom line but at the end of the day if you stop innovating and pushing the envelope someone else will.

Originally posted 2009-12-28 03:39:44.

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