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Droid Ad Calls iPhone Digitally Clueless

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Once again, Verizon plays up the hardcore techie appeal of the Google Android-based Motorola Droid. Their latest advertisement contrasts the Droid’s raw mechanistic power with the iPhone’s glitz and glamour. In the words of this particularly edgy ad, the iPhone is a “digitally clueless beauty pageant queen”.

Contrary to Apple’s claims, more than one frustrated developer would probably agree with that assessment. After all, the iPhone app approval process is as fickle and arbitrary as any blonde bimbo. Sure, you’d show off your beauty queen girlfriend in public, and you’d certainly have lots of fun with her in private — but she probably wouldn’t make the most engaging conversationalist, or the most effective executive assistant.

With the open application development offered by the Google Android mobile OS, Verizon is clearly positioning the Motorola Droid not as a buxom blonde beauty queen, but as a fluent and flexible executive assistant. That certainly jives with their thrust to get developers and early adopters using the thing. Geeks love girls with glasses.

Originally posted on December 4, 2009 @ 6:53 am

Joel Comm Appeals to Steve Jobs for iPhone App Approval

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Love him or hate him, Internet marketer Joel Comm has been bringing us fun stuff decade after decade. In 1996, he founded the company that Yahoo bought and turned into Yahoo Games. At the end of 2008, he released iFart Mobile, which spent three weeks at the top of the iPhone app charts.

That’s why Apple CEO Steve Jobs should listen to Joel when he vents his frustration over the rejection of his latest iPhone app — especially when the app store carries so many other applications with similar functionalities.

Joel’s appeal should help remind Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller that, contrary to his deluded claims, developers are not happy with the arbitrary and opaque iPhone store approval process.

Originally posted on November 27, 2009 @ 7:09 am

Wired’s iTablet Demo with Digitized Magazine Content

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Wired Magazine’s parent company Conde Nast seems to be taking the rumored iTablet PC seriously. A couple of days ago, the company was convinced by All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka to share a video demo of  Wired’s iTablet PC.

The video doesn’t say much about the iTablet PC, but you can fairly observe how cool it’s going to be especially during the part where the iTablet PC’s capability to handle animated and interactive graphic was shown. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 21, 2009 @ 5:29 pm

Wearable Minority Report Computer!

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We’re getting closer and closer to the futuristic spatial computing seen in the movie Minority Report. Last year, somebody did it with clunky mittens and a roomful of huge monitors. This year, PhD student Pranav Mistry has miniaturized it all into a pendant. Yes, that’s right: it’s wearable spatial computing — or, as Mistry likes to call it, a wearable gestural interface.

Mistry’s technology, which he calls SixthSense, is built on an incredibly simple hardware combination: a projector and a camera. He even plans to open-source the software behind it. The best part: Mistry says the whole system costs only $300.

Originally posted on November 21, 2009 @ 4:04 pm

The Genius of Droid’s Geeky Marketing

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For weeks, I’ve been hearing Apple fanboys pan Verizon’s Motorola Droid ads as too geeky and unappealing for the mass market. I’ve been hearing fanboys claim that nongeeks can’t understand “open development”, that they’d be scared off by images of stealth bombers. Then I read an essay by Paul Graham about the abuses of the iPhone app store, and I suddenly realize the genius of Verizon’s nongeek-alienating marketing strategy. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 20, 2009 @ 10:33 am