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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
Red Laser - more than just a mobile wallet, baby

12/3/2009 3:21:11 PM

If Nav has been the killer phone feature of late, M Payments seem set to dominate the conversation next year. Protagonists like Visa and Amex are finally getting their acts together; Paypal is integrated with Blackberry; even Bank of America has a handy personal banking app that may foreseeably allow direct debit; iPhone apps like Zenius enable merchants to process credit card transactions; and today saw Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey showing off “Square”, a card-swipe gizmo that plugs into the headphone jack (sweeeeet!) and syncs with a register on the screen.
There are at least two troublesome issues with most of these innovations. Firstly, why the hell has it taken them so long, given the enormous value to customers and profit to providers that the ...

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags NFC Applications SMS Smartphone M-commerce
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
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
Mobile Analytics for Monkeys Pt 1

6/8/2009 1:34:58 PM

Welcome to ‘Mobile Analytics for Monkeys – Pt 1” - a collaborative study into the evolving economics of Mobile media. It comes in two parts, which readers are invited to contribute to (right here). [* When posting comments, please reference in your opening sentence any comments or key points that you are addressing].

Let’s start from the following premise: Mobile entertainment plus advertising promises to evolve into a multi-billion-dollar industry but so far it hasn’t, and won’t until the insiders do more to clarify it. The flow of mobile ad $ has been stymied by fragmentation of the market, unreliable performance, subjective analytics and other factors to be expected of nascent industries with lots of competing technologies, but Wireless has shown that it can learn ...

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Author TF

Category Mobile Marketing

Tags Advertising Branding New Ventures Applications Mobile Marketing
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
Bow Cam for iPhone

3/20/2009 6:55:00 AM

Application: Plays a selection of dog barks, allowing the user to attract the attention of dogs, rather than whistling, clicking fingers or yelling ‘Hair boy!’ like those Welsh blokes on TV. Could potentially be improved with pictures of chocolate buttons on the screen.

Brand match: This offers a limited amount of content so any brand in the dawg business could get a good scratch behind the ears for offering a range of additional barks. If I had my druthers I’d be programming an ancillary website with Crufts-certified “ringbark tones” and dandy doggie wallpapers for users to assign to different callers. Aunt Sallie, poodle; ex-girlfriend, pug; Dad, St Bernard… you get the picture.

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Category Mobile Applications

Tags Applications Apps Mobile
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