Monthly Archives: April 2009
iPod vs. Zune? If You Have a Teenager, Don’t Bother to Ask – 100% Want an iPod
1st generation Zune (left), 1st generation iPod nano (middle), 4th generation iPod nano (right)
If you have a teenager, don’t bother to ask if he or she would prefer an iPod or a Zune. According to CNET’s summary of a Piper Jaffray survey…
Teen survey makes Microsoft’s Zune seem futile
The percentage of teens who want a zune as of the most recent survey is 100%. This is all the more surprising since their Fall 2008 survey showed that 15% planned to buy a Zune while 79% wanted an iPod (3% were looking at Sony’s offering).
I know I performed this survey on a very very small scale (my teenager) a few years ago (when she wasn’t a teenager to be honest). I asked her if she would like a Zune I had received as a gift since it can playback video and has an FM radio. She was using a 1st generation iPod nano at the time which did not have either feature. She looked at the Zune and said she would rather keep using her 1st generation nano. I later bought her an iPod touch. But, she preferred the nano even then, BTW. Last year, I replaced her 1st generation nano with a 4th generation model. She’s very happy with that now (still doesn’t use the iPod touch much).
Podcast 22: Oceanit Laboratories iPhone App Development Journey
Oceanit Laboratories is a Honolulu=based science and engineering firm whose projects have names like Underground Storage Tank Removal, Fugitive Dust Monitoring and Hurricane Tower Desalination System. So, how did they end up creating a free iPhone entertainment app named…
iFu Kung Fu (iTunes App Store)
The story is the focus of this podcast. It may be instructive to potential iPhone app developers as well firms not currently involved in iPhone app development who may want to test the waters.
You can find more information about the app itself at…
iFu Kung Fu product information page
…and don’t forget to read its disclaimer…
iFu Kung Fu disclaimer: This app is not useful for anything. It’s not fit for any purpose other than entertainment and for your amusement. We not liable if you smack into someone or something or drop your iPhone so don’t blame us
Note: I asked Oceanit’s David Takeyama and Todd Blume to participate in a podcast recording experiment. I asked both of them to speak with me on Skype using the new iPhone Skype app. While the audio quality is less than ideal, I think I learned a lot about what to ask people who call using Skype for iPhone in the future. I discuss these lessons learned in a future blog item.
– You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
– You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
– You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone.
Verisign iPhone Auth App Plays Nice with PayPal Security Fob
Interesting comment from pgrous to my out-loud wondering (over on MobileContentToday.com) if the new Verisign iPhone authentication app plays nicely with the PayPal security key fob…
I have multiple “devices” attached to my Paypal account:
3 football keyfobs
1 VIP card
1 VIP MobileWhen I log in, it prompts me with a drop down for which device I’m using and the 6 digit code.
I’m happily surprised that 2 of the devices (VIP card and VIP Mobile) didn’t come from Paypal and they still work with PayPal.
BTW, with Verisign’s VIP, you can create an OpenID there and log in to sites that support OpenID using your device.
Originally posted as a comment by pgrous on mediabistro.com: MobileContentToday using Disqus.
Excellent CNET Interview with Canon’s Chuck Westfall
CNET’s Stephan Shankland has an excellent (and lengthy) interview with Canon’s professional products technical advisor Chuck Westfall…
Q&A: Canon helps usher in the video SLR era
Stephen asked a lot of questions. But, the one I was most interested in was about including GPS capability. Westfall waffled on that one. But, it was encouraging that he said it would be sooner rather than later.
Canon’s soon-to-be-released Rebel T1i which is the first Rebel SLR to shoot video (let alone HD video though at “only” 24fps) is the SLR on my wish-list.
Stanford University’s Free iPhone Application Programming Course Live on iTunes U.
The first of the video podcasts for Stanford University’s free…
iPhone Application Programming
…is up on Apple’s iTunes U. I subscribed to it myself and hope to learn a thing or two (hopefully more). Note that since this is a video recording of a lecture, each video podcast file is rather large. the first one is 469.2MB.