Tag: apps

Messaging Apps I Use

I had this drafted for a Path post but what the hell, I’ll put it here instead. Probably going for a longer post some other time.

Messaging apps are a dime a dozen and there’s zero financial cost of switching or adopting one app over the other although it’s always about who’s on which service. My latest post on DailySocial about the subject addresses this fact. It’s so easy to sign up to and use each one, it’s no big deal to have multiple messaging apps installed although some people may prefer to stick to one or no more than two or three to keep things simple.

Me, I try almost any of the major apps and each app has different groups of people using it. For most work contacts I use email while Facebook Messenger, Path message, and Twitter DM are used interchangeably depending which one is the easiest to use to contact the other person. iMessage and FaceTime are for people who also use iOS. I also use Couple with my girlfriend, it’s a fun little app just for two.

Funny thing is the supposedly more popular apps like Line, KakaoTalk, and WhatsApp don’t see that much use from me but they do get used regularly with certain people who are on those services. I also use Telegram with a limited set of contacts. Kakao is getting more interesting though. I’m thinking of exploring it for group chats and coordinating things with people. Apparently it even has a voting feature which is really neat and surprising. Considering it for communications for future projects.

For internal comms at work, we use Slack. It’s really easy to use and practical, but perhaps due to the tech it uses to connect, it has connectivity delays that forces me to wait for up to a minute before I can send a message or sometimes it even freezes, forcing me to kill and relaunch the app.

So yeah, that’s the list of messaging apps I use. It changes over time depending on priorities and practicality obviously. For example, I used to use Google Hangouts until last year but not anymore. The app on iOS is unstable and just terrible to use. I’m also weaning off Skype, that horrible, horrible app that’s completely unreliable.

Samsung could show off Tizen-based phone at MWC in February

I can’t believe I forgot about Tizen, the MeeGo offshoot that Intel and Samsung had been working on since September after Nokia practically abandoned MeeGo to join the Windows phone camp. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in my earlier blog post.

Looks like Tizen is far enough in its development that Samsung is said to be ready to show it at Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona.

Given that Samsung has been delivering phones that have become hits among consumers, it’s only a matter of convincing them that these Tizen phones are as good if not better than its Android offerings.

Though Tizen right now looks like a poor copy of Android, things could change between now and launch time.

An important factor in delivering a mobile platform is the support of third party developers working on the most important apps for consumers. Right now, apps and web services are still the primary draw cards for smartphone platforms and if Samsung can convince developers to create the right apps for Tizen, consumers could be ready to pick up.

It’s never the number of apps available on a platform but which apps, games, and services are available. At the moment, social network services as well as photography apps are the major draw cards to smartphones in addition to productivity and games.

Put the right apps and payment system in a platform’s application store, and consumers will be tempted. Of course, this is if the phones and the operating system themselves are solid enough. Nokia’s N9 with MeeGo and Microsoft’s Windows Phone have the hardware and operating systems all set but neither have managed to convince developers of the most persuasive apps and web services to adopt their respective platforms.

Not having killer apps would kill a platform. All platform vendors know this and it’s something they have to deliver to ensure consumer adoption.

Samsung could show off Tizen-based phone at MWC in February

Google Currents adds to interface inconsistencies across Google’s mobile apps

Lo Min Ming, former UX designer intern at Google:

The reason why there are such differences in these Google apps is that the designers in each of these teams know that Android design is ugly. They all want to change the standard popup design. They want to change the icons. They want to tweak the style. Both the Currents and Google+ team clearly wanted a more flat look compared to the more 3D look of other apps.

I used to rant a lot about Google web services – Search vs Maps vs Gmail vs News, etc. But with the recent efforts to unify the look of these web services to use design language of Google+, they now look much better. More importantly, these web services have a more consistent feel to it.

Let’s hope that they do something across all their Android apps too.

Google Currents adds to interface inconsistencies across Google’s mobile apps

IDC: $1.32 billion worth of pirated software in Indonesia

Software piracy in Indonesia went up in 2010 according to a study by IDC. The research claimed a record 87 percent of applications installed on computers in Indonesia are pirated.

This 1 percent increase over 2009 figures actually caused a significant increase in monetary losses to software companies from $886 million to $1.32 billion. In 2003 the losses amounted to a relatively small $157 million.

IDC: $1.32 billion worth of pirated software in Indonesia

Collection of Instagram apps

If you’ve been bitten by the Instagram bug like millions of people have or annoyed that you can’t properly view the Instagrammed photos on the web, you might want to check out this list of apps and services created using Instagram’s API.

For whatever reason the folks behind Instagram aren’t keen on the idea of taking the Instagram experience outside of the iPhone app and into the open web. The app’s not even available on any other platform, at least not for a while yet.

Visually it’s not a great list to look at but if you want to find out what Instagram oriented apps have people come up with, it’s worth checking it out.

Collection of Instagram apps

One of these apps is not like the other (App Store Indonesia)

iTunes really love to freeze on me -_-.. isn’t it about time to have a separate Music Player and App Manager?

@rajasa

About the lack of paid apps in the Android Market

You can buy Android apps from the Android Market in only 13 out of 46 countries and you can only develop paid apps in 9 countries.

Of course there are third party Android app stores but who knows about them? Do they advertise? Are they being promoted to potential Android buyers? How do operators fit in to this equation?

Google is an advertising company. Android’s existence is a vehicle to deliver ads in the mobile space. Having
a large library of universally accessible paid apps is counter to Google’s reason to have Android.

About the lack of paid apps in the Android Market

Loic Le Meur: How much can you really make developing mobile apps?

“$2,500 average per paid app isn’t enough to cover the costs of an app, especially those that require constant updates to stay ahead of the competition. Remove the Angry Birds best revenue apps from that average and I am sure the average revenue of the average paid apps will be around $500 or so.”

Loic Le Meur: How much can you really make developing mobile apps?

Replacing the Mac with the iPad

I’ve pretty much offloaded most of the things I used to do on my Mac to the iPhone and the iPad for a much lighter traveling set.

Last week I spent four days out of town and left the MacBook at home. It was a test to see if it might be time to return to the desktop should I decide to replace my notebook. For the most part, it worked especially when time came to look for a power outlet. There was much less need for this ridiculous exercise.

Aside from browsing and email, Notes and Pastebot took care of my writing needs, I’ve got plenty of games in both devices to keep me entertained, iBooks works great as a portable library, and I’ve got almost a full folder of apps to play around with my photos.

What I haven’t found is an app that can fully replace Pixelmator on either the iPhone or the iPad. There are apps like PhotoForge and Photogene but they cover strictly photo manipulation processes. iDraw is an interesting proposition but will need to see convincing reviews for it.

Sometimes I need to come up with a quick image that’s not necessarily based on a photograph and I haven’t found the right app for it. Wanted to check out iDraw on the iPad but I need to know if it’s worth buying or if it’s overkill.

One last hurdle for replacing the Mac as my primary workstation is the fact that there’s no way you can embed a URL inside text. I consider that a deal breaker.

Aside from that and being the hub for the iPad and iPhone, there’s not a lot that I use the Mac for anymore.