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Jack Bauer considers iPad as lethal weapon

4/7/2010 7:48:44 AM

It is possible but highly unlikely that you will recall @riverphonic’s tweet from a few months back saying something on the lines of “Jaded tech critics can be so tiresome. Can someone please just say, The iPad – Wow!”. Well, it looks like the verdict is in, now that the crowd has had a few days to hold it up to the light, shake it, clasp it to its collective bosom etc, and it seems to be favorable.

As barometers of public opinion go, the commercial breaks in hit TV shows rate high, and none more so than those interrupting Fox’s indefatigable 24. On Monday night’s buttock-clenching episode, the commercials ran like one continuous ironic metaphor of the state of the US economy, as if ...

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Author TF

Category Digital media

Tags iPhone Advertising Fashion Lifestyle Gizmos Entertainment
Mobile Dev Dilemma - to App or to WAP?

3/18/2010 1:29:24 PM

Competition is heating up between smartphone applications and mobile browsers, prompting brands to rethink where to channel development resources. Some say that applications, popular with the youth market, will displace search engines. Others that open APIs allow browsers to adopt the best features of applications. ‘For smartphone users, mobile web is the killer app,’ says Nielsen’s David Gill at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Austin, TX. Given that most people either have or want a smartphone, mobile web, formerly known as WAP, is back in a big way.

Few would deny that smartphone applications have been the darlings of digital media the past year. Apple has transformed the mobile user experience with its highly successful < leohighlights_url='http%3A//thebrowserhighlighter.com/leonardo/highlights/keywords?keywords%3Diphone' id='leoHighlights_Underline_0' highlight='' onclick='leoHighlightsHandleClick('leoHighlights_Underline_0')' onmouseout='leoHighlightsHandleMouseOut('leoHighlights_Underline_0')' leohighlights_keywords='iphone' onmouseover='leoHighlightsHandleMouseOver('leoHighlights_Underline_0')' style='border-bottom: 2px solid #ffff96; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; display: inline; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;'>iPhone< highlight=''> App Store, opening the way ...

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Author TF

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Developers iPhone Branding Applications Apps Mobile Smartphone M-commerce
Back to Blighty - Land of the Quick Workaround

1/4/2010 2:55:01 PM

Just returned from annual hols to the mother country, insulated from the savage East Coast wind by an extra layer of lard from too many pints, pies and ultra-fat cream. As usual, England impresses as a country teeming with would-be entrepreneurs. Half the people you meet have got some idea for a short-cut, a scam or a start-up; or know someone who’s already doing what you’ve been thinking about on the plane over. It’s like going to Ireland and asking the cabbie for a bookshop recommendation (you’ll wind up feeling like you’ve been hanging out with James Joyce’s brother-in-law), except in England the driver turns out to be an expert on new media and digital business. In San Francisco the limo drivers have got the ...

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Author TF

Category Enterprise

Tags iPhone New Ventures Creative Networking Entertainment
iPhone gets the Gucci treatment

11/6/2009 2:35:49 PM

At last, I have a Gucci app on my phone. It accessorizes handsomely with what I’m wearing. Beautifully designed, of course, and free to download, and some would say, you can’t argue with that. Except that there’s nothing special about being free anymore on the app store, is there? We all know that brands have some ulterior motive in offering free stuff for the phone. Without wanting to sound like a spoilt New Yorker, I’ve got an opportunity cost in checking it out, so What, beyond a cool icon, is Gucci actually going to give me?

Well, for starters there’s the platform extension: pics of the latest collections and videos of their ads, rendered in a sleek mobile interface, and lovely eye candy it is ...

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Author TF

Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Branding Applications Fashion Lifestyle Music
Classic Poetry by Capelli for iPhone

11/3/2009 9:53:16 AM

Full marks for getting this visibility in the App store - 1000 of the greatest poems make tasty short form content for the ADHD crowd to consume in an idle minute of service downtime. Personally I have always wondered why they choose such odd poems to feature on the subway when the classics still don't get much airplay. These are all public domain of course, so no royalties to pay and at $1.99 to download I hope the publishers can make some money out of this. No doubt you can source it all free online but I'm heavily on the side of the Convenience Economists and reckon this app will help to prove them right.
On the endorsement side, literature generally makes a pleasant bedfellow ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Apps Smartphone Lifestyle Entertainment
Hung Up - is your phone a sex toy?

9/16/2009 8:57:20 AM

It’s smooth, it’s curved, it vibrates; it could even, if so desired, animate pictures of George Clooney’s fingers. It’s no surprise then that there are already some 25 “massage” apps competing on the iTunes Store, jostling for attention like so many buxom babes in the back of a local city guide. Some focus on the serious business of physical therapy and raise the bar with yogic text and oriental graphics; others coyly reference ‘emotional stimulation’; few come out and risk the wrath of Apple’s censors by telling it like it is.

Which is, Ladies and Gentlemen (or just you ladies then, since the lads are on Safari searching for visual titillation), a Pocket Rocket you can talk on! A mini orgasmatron that integrates with your ...

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Author TF

Category Mobile Applications

Tags Humor iPhone Apps Mobile Lifestyle
3-in-1 Mosquito Repeller by Vanilla Breeze for iPhone

7/30/2009 7:43:49 AM

Did you know there are at least 14 mosquito repellent applications on the iPhone store? They all work by emitting sound frequencies that mimic unfriendly insects (largely male mozzies that scare off the females that bite you) and most of them claim to be “Not just another mosquito repellent app!”.
So, which one to choose? Vanilla Breeze 3-1 has probably thought through the differentiation piece the best, with its built-in timer and music overlay, plus 2 types of mosquito sound and a dragonfly thrown in for good measure. Plug the phone into your hifi and before you can say “Buzz Kill” your home could hum like a veritable bug sausage fest. But it’s hard to tell if it works until you actually buy it and ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Applications Apps Sport Lifestyle
iHotDog by Cool Carat for iPhone

7/28/2009 11:56:29 AM

Not even going to dignify this geek chic accessory with a thumbnail. There are times when the enthusiastic hand of Riverphonic must clench into the crushing fist of criticism, and iHotDog has got it coming. Has our culture really come to this? A simulated virtual sausage sizzling on your handset, with eye-wateringly fatuous accelerometer controls. According to the App store blurb (which btw is too long and suggests everyone related to this atrocity had far too much time on their hands), this could help you "be the coolest guy at dinner, attract your love date, impress your pal, command attention from girls and women over lunch" (it actually uses those words). And it goes on...
Puhlease Give The World A Break! Try explaining the point ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags Humor iPhone Applications Apps Lifestyle
Dub Siren by Sawa Digital

7/1/2009 11:29:17 AM

Nuff respek for the tip from da Mighty G, the Riverphonic iPhone just went from zero to dub factor 10 with this excellent mobile radio aggregator, streaming 24/7 from reggae stations around the globe. Studio One to Nuskool Breaks, it's all here at a roll of the dial, with a DJ Selekta FX box for live jammin should you feel so inclined. It works pretty well when stationary and outside, but patchy reception spoils the walkabout listening experience in the city, and as for risking a public performance using the FX tool, yours truly would rather walk over hot coals in a pick tutu on American Idol before going in front of a dancehall crowd relying on AT&T not to drop the signal.
Brand match: ...

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Category Music

Tags Developers iPhone Applications Apps Mobile Entertainment Music
How fast is your phone? – A bluffer’s guide.

6/16/2009 7:17:09 AM

Spare a thought for those poor iPhoners that woke up recently to the unveiling of the 3GS. Imagine you’ve got the sleekest piece of hardware on the market and then there’s another, better, faster one, with 3 megapix video cam, a landscape fix of the really annoying keyboard, and “2x” the browsing power. Worse still, there’s that S, which stands for Speed, and makes you feel about as inadequate as not having ‘Turbo’ on the back of your black Porsche 911. Which is now a Mazda. And let’s not even talk about the $499 to upgrade, when any old Joe can sign up for a new one for just $199!

Instead, let’s remember last year’s fuss about the iPhone 3G ads vs the real experience (They ...

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Author TF

Category Digital media

Tags Jargon iPhone WAP Applications Apps Mobile Smartphone Lifestyle
iBanter, developed by Poke/Cobra for iPhone

6/1/2009 7:10:00 AM

Those cheeky Brits. Of course it had to happen, and it’s no surprise to see this coming out of the land of classic comedy TV, lager-drinking and curry (three national obsessions that make living in the rain-drenched UK almost ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags Humor iPhone Branding Applications Apps Mobile
SitorSquat, for iPhone & Blackberry

5/1/2009 7:07:00 AM

In many ways, SitorSquat is the ideal archetype for a brandable mobile app. It started online in 2007 as Google Maps mashed up into a wiki for ladies to list convenient & salubrious bathroom facilities. Add time and virality ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags Developers iPhone Branding Social Networking Blackberry Applications Apps Mobile Smartphone Lifestyle
Cor.kz by Applied Ambiguities, for iPhone

4/15/2009 7:04:00 AM

Application: Compare this visually to its worthy-but-ugly online engine Cellar Tracker and no further words are needed to sum up the difference between the fragmented, utilitarian world of internet commerce and the mobile experience at its most tactile, instant ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Blackberry Applications Apps Mobile Lifestyle
Ocarina by Smule

3/1/2009 9:01:00 AM

Application: This may seem a bit obvious given the massive popularity of this app, but it’s a fitting one to kick off with because it is So F-ing Cool. It’s not just the design and functionality of the app, ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags iPhone Branding Applications Apps Mobile Creative Networking Entertainment Music