The Best Mobile Application

The app I use on my mobile phone more than any other is: Google Maps. This app is simply the most useful application on my Blackberry. With it I:

1: Never get lost. Who needs GPS when you can pull over and enter the address of the house or business you are currently at, your destination, and it will map your route. Why would it need to know where you are? You can just look around and tell Google Maps where you are. It does the rest.

2: Find stuff you need or want. Lets say you are where you are, wherever you are, and have a hankering for noodles. Fire up Google Maps, enter your location, and search for noodles. Not only do you get all noodle places near you, you get their phone numbers, directions to and from them, and for some of them, user reviews. I used it the other day to find a used copy of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. After two phone calls, I had the location to the Gamestop in relation to where I was, their phone number and the route to get there.

3: Find my way via landmarks. Switch to satellite mode and you can see - oh ya, that store in in that strip mall, not the other one.

4: Will know exactly how long it will take for me to get somewhere, as the traffic buffer is built in.

I could venture to say that Google Maps is the most perfect application so far for my Blackberry. Can't really expect much more - alternate routes around traffic and walking/cycling directions would be nice but DAMN, this thing works great! I think theres copies for all manner of mobile phones as well.

I like apps that do one thing well, as opposed to a million things not so well. This is one of those apps.

Nice one, Steve!

Always the smart cult-leader, cobble together $200 worth of electronics, give it a nice face and suck the masses into paying over twice as much for it. Genius! Of course, unlike Falwell, Steve can't promise eternal salvation for your hard earned cash.


http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/07/02/teardown-reveals-iphone-parts-cost-two-bills/

My Issue With Apple...

Like I said on todays show

"Apple's products look great, but they are only about 80% there"

If the devil is in the details, then Steve don't give the devil his due. Sure, you can do most things with Apple products, but if you want it all, or specific little things, you are SOL. Case in point - a free phone you can get from Sprint can send pictures in email, the $600 iPhone cannot. It doesn't use 3G etc etc. If you wanna pay for the privilege of being a unpaid beta tester, you go right ahead. Not me. It shore is pretty tho'.

Podcast vs Blog

Well, the firestorm of controversy which originated from my last post basically ended up with these conclusions:

1: Don't bother attempting to get people to subscribe to your podcast. Its just too hard and will remain too hard

2: Most people just listen to your show at their desks anyways so the point is moot.

3: How to get more listeners? Forget point A. Embrace point B. Use a flash app to easily play your show from your site, then use the same old tactics to drive people to your site. You know SEO, blog etc etc etc.

It all comes down to the same thing: a podcast is nothing special. Nothing more special than a YouTube uploaded video, cause the whole downloadable/subscription thing is not worth doing. What makes a podcast a podcast? Obviously not the delivery mechanism.

Maybe podcast = user created audio or video? No, cause YouTube is not full of video podcasts, now is it? So the term podcast means its episodic and you CAN download it. If hardly anyone is downloading, why should we bother.

But thats not the main point of my post. If people listen online, then they can read online. You drive people to your site just like you drive people to your blog. A podcast is a blog.

The Problem With Podcasting

The mainstream market for podcasts is still yer typical horny geek. Look at whats on the top ten - maybe shows like Keith & The Girl are like Stern, and yer typical geek is into technology and scifi. The only easy way to get podcasts is via iTunes, and while there are lots and lots of iTunes subscribers, its still not the biggest part of the population. Podcasting needs to be as easy as: they start playing when you start your car, just like radio. How do we solve this problem? Heres my 2 point plan (can you tell I love 2 point plans?)

1: Since radio is dying, have the biggest podcasting publishers (like podshow) go out and buy some of these radio stations. They don't have to be big stations, just little stations in major markets, and play podcast after podcast. You may have to time delay and bleep out stuff in order to get past the FCC, but it will give the rest of the population access to the podcast. And like in commercial radio, you can run ads in between, make some money, and share it with the podcasters.

2: Right now, iTunes will give you a list of similar podcasts, based on what other people have subscribed to. But this is just connecting podcasts to podcast (tail content to tail content), we NEED some way in which to connect head content (like big radio and TV celebrities) to tail content (podcasts). For example, if you like Howard Stern, you probably like Keith & The Girl, if you like Rush Limbaugh, you probably like THINKfuture Radio, if you like NPR, you probably like Blast The Right. If you read the Chris Anderson whole head-tail content thingy, simply having the tail content available on the net is not enough - you NEED to connect the head content to the tail content in some way. In this way, you can guide folks to podcasts they may like based on the "head" content that they like. Only then can you start drawing people away from the head to the tail. And all of us "tail" folks like that thought.

So ya, its not simple, or cheap, but nothing ever is is it? Although, i don't see how a few programmers in a room cant throw together my point 2. As a matter of fact, one of the big directories should do just that. Are you listening Alley or Pickle or Pluggd?

Is Apple Phasing Out Their Computer Business?

Hot of the heels of the WWDC, I have a comment on Apple's computer business

OK, want I'm about to say may be controversial but hear me out for a second. If you look at Apple over time, when they were just a computer company they were floundering, directionless, and heading to lost even more market share, and possibly die. If you look at Apple, pre-Ipod (I call this the PI era), then they we ready to hit the skids.

Then Jobs said "Let There Be A Consumer Electronics Company Here", instead of a computer company. They launched, iPod and iTunes and saved Apple from the brink of extinction. As the company saw more and more success from the non-computer related divisions, and more and more profit, they have further strayed from the computer by launching Apple TV and soon now the iPhone. Apples profits come less and less from Macbooks and more and more from devices. When the computer business is less than 5% of their business, but 50% of their support and engineering costs, what do you think will happen?

At some point - and here comes the prediction from the Future Hall Of Predictions - Apple will discontinue, or severely restrict, or even allow their computer business to become niche. What is the market share of the Macbook now? 5%? 4%? Barely a blip, barely a market. Sure the Mac faithful will disagree, but look at the overall picture - the overall direction for Mac. When iPod and iTunes and iPhone make up 90%+ of their revenues, what would YOU do if you ran Apple?

the back of beyond

I spent the greater part of the end of last week completely disconnected from the internet and even cell phone service, out camping with my son - and about 100 other parents and kids.

And I hated it. We really do need ubiquitous internet everywhere. Contrary to some peoples belief, the internet augments my life. I don't ever want to be without it. I felt like less of a person when I was disconnected.

Is that wrong? Whats the problem with me wanted to augment my humanity with electronic connections to others all the time? Why not live in the matrix?