Editor’s note: Guest author Jon Evans is a novelist, journalist, and software engineer.

Oh, Research In Motion. You never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

RIM was born in my home town, at my alma mater, so it’s depressing watching their empire rot and crumble before the Android / iPhone onslaught. I had high hopes for their new tablet, a potential game-changer—but alas, they’ve hamstrung it before it’s even been released. Here’s what they should have done with it:

1) Embrace Android (phones)

RIM proudly announced that while their PlayBook can’t connect to cell networks, it can tether to a compatible BlackBerry via Bluetooth. They might as well have installed a ”For BlackBerry Owners Only” startup screen. Way to pre-alienate most of the market, guys.

Instead they should have stressed that they can also connect via Wi-Fi to Android 2.2 phones, and announced an Android app that syncs data between Androids and PlayBooks. They can’t support the iPhone, Apple would never allow it, but Android’s wide open.

“But Android is the competition!” No, Android tablets are. Tablets and phones are entirely different entities. RIM’s tech people understand that: it’s why the PlayBook runs a brand-new OS built by QNX, a company they bought earlier this year, rather than a new iteration of the archaic BlackBerry OS. Which is no bad thing—QNX is well-regarded, and time-tested. (I fondly remember being reprimanded for hacking into my high school’s QNX system many years ago.)

Until RIM drops that millstone called the BlackBerry OS, or replaces it with a QNX-based version, Android and Apple will eat their phones for lunch. Meanwhile, they need to accept that the PlayBook should complement rather than compete with Android phones.

2) WebWorks or AIR: Pick One.

I’m an app developer. Pity me. I have to know Java, Eclipse, Objective-C, XCode, and both the Android and iOS SDKs. I could use a cross-compiler like PhoneGap, but they’re clunky and slow to implement new features. If Windows Phone 7 takes off, I need to master another language, environment, and platform—and while BlackBerry apps are written in Java, it’s an older version than Android’s, and the SDK is completely different.

I liked Palm, but I was delighted to see it die, and Nokia’s decay into irrelevance is a relief. Nothing against them; I just don’t want the hassle. App developers don’t want choice, we want consistency.

So what does RIM give us? Choice. First they offer free PlayBooks to developers who build PlayBook apps with Adobe’s AIR. Then they say you can build both PlayBook and BlackBerry 6 apps with BlackBerry WebWorks. Rather than split their development and support resources between two different platforms, they should have chosen one and ran with it. These “choices” will only confuse and irritate the app makers who will determine their fate.

3) Change the name. And the target market.

PlayBook? Really? You’re Research In Motion. You’re business, baby. Your tech level may be a little antiquated, but you’re secure, you get stuff done, and the new tablet brings you back up to speed. You should be targeting corporate videoconferencing and hospital patient data and business travelers. That’s why you’ve got BlackBerry tethering, right?

Instead you called it the PlayBook and can’t stop talking about how it runs Flash, both of which will make CIOs everywhere raise skeptical eyebrows. You’re trying to be all things to all users, including consumers—but Android tablets run Flash too, and they’ll be available for Christmas; the iPad boasts a bigger screen, superior apps, and the Apple halo; and worst of all, the PlayBook will probably launch right in the teeth of the iPad 2 hype machine. RIM should conquer the business-tablet space first. Instead, they already look like also-rans before they even have their running shoes on.

It’s a shame. I wish RIM well, and their new tablet looks like a potentially superb device. But they’re squandering that potential before it even has a chance to succeed.

How RIM’s PlayBook Could Have Succeeded

While there are many players in the mobile advertising market, there’s no doubt that there’s a little bit of a rivalry between Google’s ad network AdMob and Apple’s new foray into mobile ads, iAd. Some say iAd is taking some of AdMob’s share in the mobile ad market thanks to better performance. One of the cornerstones to iAd’s claimed success is that the format was developed by the company that actually makes both the device and OS and provides a more engaging experience. The same theory is probably what has made RIM enter the mobile ad wars, recently launching a mobile ad platform for BlackBerry phones. But AdMob contends that its platform is still appealing to advertisers because it allows brands to reach consumers across many different mobile platforms with similar engaging ad formats, whereas programs like iAd restrict advertisers to one device. Oh, and there’s the minimum $1 million ad buy Apple reportedly requires to serve ads through its network.

Of course, it’s not surprising that AdMob is pushing its multi-platform network as its competitive advantage; the openness of Google’s network is its badge of honor. But some well-known advertisers are actually choosing AdMob because of its multi-platform support for many devices, especially with the ability to target both iPhone and Android users (which is a steadily growing population).

For example, Seattle’s Best Coffee chose AdMob for its campaign promoting the coffee company’s “Latte In A Can” product. Robson Grieve, the President of Creature, the ad agency responsible for the campaign, said that AdMob was the most logical choice because it was the “best chance to get a cross plaform consolidated campaign.”

The campaign included ads ranging from standard banners, animated banners with text links, to full page interactive interstitials on both Android and Apple devices. So far, he says performance has been great. More than 139,000 users were delivered to Seattle’s Best Coffee’s mobile site from the ads, and the full page expandable units had an interaction rate of 5.7 percent. The Interactive Interstitial formats earned a click-through rate of 5.4 percent, while CPM placements averaged a CTR of 0.9 percent.

Another well-known brand, car manufacturer Infiniti recently ran a cross-platform campaign across a range of devices including iPhone, Android and iPad with a series of advertisement formats that promised the interactivity and engagement of Apple’s iAd.

Of course, Google’s AdMob also helps companies target Android devices as well. Restaurant reservation platform OpenTable also chose AdMob to promote its Android app. The company ran CPC text ads on mobile websites and more than 16,000 Android apps on the network. During the campaign, daily downloads of the app increased by 125 percent and installs took place over 75 different Android devices. OpenTable also ran and iOS app promotion campaign with AdMob as well, and saw positive results.

On the other hand, Dictionary.com recently ran a similar ad campaign with Apple’s iAd on iPhone devices, and saw its overall iPhone mobile app eCPM (effective cost-per-thousand impressions) increase by 177 percent. Dictionary.com declined to reveal CTRs but did say that iAds are performing two to three times better than the average mobile display ads. Other brands have also seen positive engagement results with the iAd platform. For example, an ad for Dove products saw a “double-digit” percentage of users who wanted more information about the product that was advertised, with 20 percent of viewers returning to the advertisement. In august, Nissan reported CTRs for its iAd were five times the click-through-rates of same campaign on websites.

Of course, it’s tough to make an accurate comparison of AdMob’s data without comparable data from Apple’s iAd platform. We’ve received some statistics from the developer side on how much iAds are earning (which have been a mixed bag). A source with knowledge of the technology tells us that iAd CTRs are 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent generally, sometimes as high as 1 to 1.5 percent. One iAd developer claimed iAd CTRs as high as 11.8 percent (that’s compared to the 0.9 percent for the Seattle’s Best campaign). This seems high and could be an outlier. And this is not an apples to apples comparison (no pun intended) because we’re not sure if the CTRs are for the same type of ad format.

This iAd data on CTRs is inline with other reports as well. On this Apple developer forum, a user anecdotally reported that the developer’s app was seeing zero clicks on 700 iAd impressions. In contrast, the developer writes, AdMob reports around 10 clicks per 2000, in his experience. Another developer writes, ” I had 3000 impressions and 23 clicks on AdMob (0.77% CTR), I had 2200 and 14 clicks on iAds (0.61% CTR).”

Jason Spero, Google’s director of mobile for the Americas (he previously ran North America for AdMob before it was acquired by Google); says that because mobile is a collection of devices with different size screens, OS platforms, speeds and more, Google is trying to minimize the technology that advertisers need to deal with.

There are a few things we know for sure. With a $1 million minimum ad spend, iAd is definitely not going to replace AdMob’s more flexible advertising network. And with continued growth in the number of iPhone users, Apple’s iAd platform will be appealing for those big brands who can afford it. However, mobile advertising is on track to become a $1 billion market next year and there seems to be enough room for everyone to play nicely and make a few bucks.

In The Fight Against Apple’s iAds, Google Plays The Cross-Platform Card

CRYSTAL FANATICS CLUB – Breaking News! 2011 Swarovski NEW Issues

Dropbox, which develops an easy-to-use file sharing service, is releasing a new set of mobile apps today, including updates for the startup’s iPhone, iPad and Android apps, and the first release of Dropbox for BlackBerry (which the company hinted at earlier this year). And DropBox is launching an app directory complete with app information, screenshots and reviews for the over 100 third party mobile applications that use the company’s mobile APIs for document editing, image capture, note taking and more. DropBox opened up its mobile API in May, along with the initial launch of the company’s Android App. The startup, which won a Crunchie for Best Internet Application at this year’s recent awards ceremony, enables people to sync files and media across platforms and devices, in order to have them available from any location. Dropbox provides users with 2 GB of space for free, with add-on plans offering more storage and functionality for a fee.

Dropbox Updates Apps for Android, iOS; Launches App Directory And BlackBerry App

After the controversy with Apple and Steve Jobs over its analytics offerings, Flurry is making further moves towards the Android platform, launching its app recommendation engine AppCircle for Android phones. Flurry launched AppCircle for the iPhone last month and has attracted over 600 participating applications with a combined publisher reach of 22 million iOS device owners.

Flurry’s AppCircle attempts to match up app developers who want to gain more users with those who want to make money from promoting other apps. The service leverages Flurry’s recommendation engine in combination with Flurry Analytics to recommend the appropriate app to the right user at the right time from within participating Flurry network of applications.

AppCircle is built on top of Flurry Analytics, a service used by 45,000 applications on iPhone, Android,
BlackBerry and J2ME platforms. It’s unclear how many of the applications in Flurry’s network are Android apps, so the reach of the app circle is questionable.

For App publishers who want to earn money, they can integrate Flurry into their applications, which allows Flurry to serve targeted application recommendations to their consumers. Publishers earn 60% of the price for each app download. For promoters, application developers create campaigns and set bids on how much they are willing to pay for a new user. Flurry’s recommendation engine will match relevant promoter apps to display within publisher apps, and then use bidding to rank the order in which impressions are shown. Publishers can also use their own virtual currency to encourage downloads.

After the crackdown on Flurry from Apple for violating privacy policies, it is not surprising that the startup is broadening its horizons to other smartphone platforms. But Android may not be a save haven for long. In theory, it seems like a good idea to help developers who want more users be able to connect with publishers who want to make money; but I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before Google starts doing this with AdMob.

CrunchBase Information

Flurry

Information provided by CrunchBase

Flurry Brings Recommendation Engine To Android Apps

]]> http://www.invisionskins.net/flurry-brings-recommendation-engine-to-android-apps/feed/ 0 http://www.invisionskins.net/inside-apple%e2%80%99s-actual-distortion-field-giant-chambers-fake-heads-and-black-cloaks/ http://www.invisionskins.net/inside-apple%e2%80%99s-actual-distortion-field-giant-chambers-fake-heads-and-black-cloaks/#comments Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:52:46 +0000 admin http://invisionskins.net/inside-apple%e2%80%99s-actual-distortion-field-giant-chambers-fake-heads-and-black-cloaks/

If Apple really wanted to silence critics, they have a place to do so. I’ve now seen it with my own eyes.

Inside Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CA, there are a collection of rooms that house 17 giant anechoic chambers. Basically, they’re rooms where no waves (sound or electromagnetic) can reflect off of anything, so there is absolutely no interference when it comes to wireless testing. Apple places their devices from iPhones to iPads in these chambers to ensure the performance is up to their standards.

Yesterday after their press event, Apple gave myself and a handful of other journalists the chance to take a tour of these facilities. It was the first time anyone outside of Apple has ever seen them. In fact, most people who work at Apple have never seen them, we were told. The tour was led by Ruben Caballero, Apple’s senior antenna expert (and, incidentally, the man in the news recently thanks to a BusinessWeek story — a story which Apple says is a “crock” and “total bullshit”). Also there to answer questions were Apple executives Phil Schiller, Bob Mansfield, and Greg Joswiak.

Right off the bat, it was made very clear to us that we were not allowed to take pictures or record video inside of these rooms. (The pictures in this post are the ones Apple provided.) It’s pretty clear why. While the chambers themselves are custom-made for Apple by various third party industrial manufacturers, the areas these chambers are in also contain a ton of other testing equipment. And yes, there were several things hidden under black cloaks on tables in these rooms.

“This lab used to be secret. Most people don’t know it exists,” Caballero told us. Dubbed the “Black Labs,” when I asked about the black cloaks, Caballero said that “we have a lot of other projects going on.”

At one point we were told that the iPad had been in testing in this facility “for years.” Even more interesting may be that the iPhone 4 specifically had been in testing in these chambers for 2 years. You know that that means. Not only was the iPhone 5 likely in the same room that we were in. But the iPhone 6 may have been around as well.

Sadly, we weren’t allowed to lift up the cloaks.

The point of our visit to these labs was clear: Apple wants it to be known just how much testing goes into devices such as the iPhone. More specifically, Apple wants to the world to know just how much testing the iPhone 4 went through before they deemed it ready to go. Again, it was in these various chambers for 2 years. This is obviously a direct response to allegations made recently that perhaps Apple didn’t test the device enough before they shipped it.

So how do they test it? There are four stages. The first is a passive test to study the form factor of the device they want to create. The second stage is what Caballero calls the “junk in the trunk” stage. Apple puts the wireless components inside of the form factor and puts them in these chambers. The third part involves studying the device in one of these chambers but with human or dummy subjects. And the fourth part is a field test, done in vans that drive around various cities monitoring the device’s signal the entire time (both with real people and with dummies).

We were shown three different anechoic chambers, each used for slightly different purposes. Some where used to test the devices by themselves, some where meant for testing with humans and the devices.

The most interesting of these rooms was one that Caballero called “Stargate.” Why? Because well, it looks like it belongs in the movie/TV series Stargate. Inside this room, there’s a giant ring that a human sits on a raised chair in the center of. This chair slowly rotates around as signals are passed around the entire outer circle. This creates a 360 degree test area. I was told this room is completely safe for humans. And people typically spend 40 minutes in there at a time for testing. By comparison, devices can stay in the other anechoic chambers for up to 24 hours at a time.

Speaking of movies, one chamber we didn’t get to see was a giant one that looks exactly like Cerebo from the X-Men films. I mean, just look at the picture Apple provided (bottom). It’s the same thing. Of course, in Apple’s Cerebo, I assume the subject standing in the center can’t read every human beings’ mind. But I can only assume that as we didn’t get to see this room.

Each of these chambers is also a bit frightening because each is covered from floor to ceiling with giant blue spikes. Sure, these spikes are made of foam and simply used to absorb and dampen any waves, but still, these chambers look like they belong in a nightmare. Again, if Apple needs a place to silence critics, they have the rooms.

These chambers vary in cost, but each of the ones we saw cost over $1 million. All told, Apple said it has spent over $100 million on these testing facilities.

We then went into a room that contained fake heads. Obviously, these are used to test the various devices without having to use real humans. And Apple goes so far as to fill these heads with liquid mixtures of sugar, water, salt, and other components to replicate the make-up of the human brain. There were also replicas of the human hands and feet (that latter for Nike+ testing). If the tour started out as a bunch of people going to see the inside of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory for the first time, I was starting to grow concerned that it was turning into that scene where they enter the strange psychedelic tunnel.

But that feeling quickly subsided as we headed outside to see the vans Apple uses to test their devices in the real world. These are giant white vans with antennas on the top of them to pull in both cellular and GPS signals. The back of these vans contain various computer equipment to collect all the data and send it back to the labs at the headquarters.

Mansfield closed the tour by noting that they had hoped it was now a bit more clear the amount of time and energy Apple puts into testing these wireless products. “We hope to give you a sense of the real engineering going on here,” Mansfield said. It’s not just testing, it’s re-testing — and this goes on for months, he said.

No matter what your take is on the iPhone 4 antenna — my take is here: it’s real, but not a big deal — there is no question that Apple spends a huge amount of time and money testing these devices. And the fact that the thing people will care most about in this whole 1,200-word post is the passing mention that the iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 may have been in one of these rooms, says just about all you need to say about the state of the iPhone.

For those interesting in learning more, Apple has also posted the following page (and video) about the antenna labs.

CrunchBase Information

Apple

iPhone 4

Information provided by CrunchBase

Inside Apple’s Actual Distortion Field: Giant Chambers, Fake Heads, And Black Cloaks

]]> http://www.invisionskins.net/inside-apple%e2%80%99s-actual-distortion-field-giant-chambers-fake-heads-and-black-cloaks/feed/ 0 http://www.invisionskins.net/ips-resources-something-new-coming-to-gmm-skin-themes/ http://www.invisionskins.net/ips-resources-something-new-coming-to-gmm-skin-themes/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:20:19 +0000 admin http://invisionskins.net/ips-resources-something-new-coming-to-gmm-skin-themes/

Shortly I will be offering sets of skin themes. I am working on my first set skin theme. What this will be is that a skin theme will be offered in sets of 2 or 3. Each skin will be duplicated but in different colors. They will be offered as an individual purchase for 1 skin or a reduced price for the set. (ie) single skin $8.00 or set will be $11.00 or the triple set $15 so buying the set would be a savings over purchasing each individually. I have one set in the works and will be available sometime next week for sale. Here is preview of what the skin sets will appear like
There will at times be some changes to the markers and headers but will mostly duplicate each other.

Black Challis

Gray Challiis

IPS Resources – Something New coming to GMM Skin Themes

]]> http://www.invisionskins.net/ips-resources-something-new-coming-to-gmm-skin-themes/feed/ 0 http://www.invisionskins.net/jeff-bezos-on-the-ipad-%e2%80%9cit%e2%80%99s-really-a-different-product-category%e2%80%9d/ http://www.invisionskins.net/jeff-bezos-on-the-ipad-%e2%80%9cit%e2%80%99s-really-a-different-product-category%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:20:04 +0000 admin http://invisionskins.net/jeff-bezos-on-the-ipad-%e2%80%9cit%e2%80%99s-really-a-different-product-category%e2%80%9d/

A day after Amazon made it abundantly clear it’s gunning for world domination in the e-reading space by lowering the price of the Kindle from $259 to $189 – following competitor Barnes & Noble’s decision to slash the price of its Nook e-reader down to $199 – chief executive Jeff Bezos sat down with Fortune’s JP Mangalindan for a fairly interesting interview.

One of the things Bezos talked about was the iPad, Apple’s tablet computer that is selling like hotcakes and unequivocally poses a genuine threat to Amazon’s burgeoning ebooks and ereader business (and, as some claim, to reading in general).

According to Apple, it’s already taken about 22% of the U.S. ebooks market, with iPad owners having downloaded some 5 million books in the first 65 days of the iBooks store alone.

But Bezos does not seem terribly impressed.

Here’s the key part of the interview (which you should read in its entirety):

Fortune: Obviously, the Kindle’s price drop was in response to Barnes & Noble’s price cut on the Nook. Did the iPad and its overnight success play a role, too?

Bezos: No. The iPad… I think there are going to be a bunch of tablet-like devices. It’s really a different product category. The Kindle is for readers.

Fortune: So far you’ve been capturing consumers. Amazon accounted for about 80% of all electronic book sales last year. How has it grown so fast, and can you keep it up?

Bezos: It’s hard even for us to remember internally that we only launched Kindle a little over 30 months ago.

Our strategy with the ebookstore is ‘buy once, read everywhere.’ If you want to read on your iPhone, if you want to read on your BlackBerry. We want people to be able to read their books anywhere they want to read them. That’s the PC, that’s the Macintosh. It’s the iPad, it’s the iPhone. It’s the Kindle.

His words ring true, because this strategy is visible in the field too.

We now have a Kindle reader app for Android phones, a Kindle app that includes fresh support for video and audio for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and versions for BlackBerry devices, PC and Mac computers via a desktop client and of course the company’s own Kindle, which Bezos says has been purchased by “millions”.

Furthermore, Amazon boasts more than 620,000 ebooks in its catalog, significantly more than Apple, despite the latter’s agreements with 5 of the 6 top publishers in the United States.

Finally, I think Bezos is right about the fact that there will be many tablet devices making their way to the market in the coming months and years (according to Forrester Research, there will be 59 million tablets in use by 2015) and that Amazon should be focusing on being able to shift ebooks on as many platforms as possible.

But does all that mean Bezos should be dismissing the iPad for being a different product?

Cross-platform ebook selling strategy aside, with the Kindle Amazon has stepped into the hardware arena, and the reality is price doesn’t always make the difference. The iPad can simply do a lot more than the most recent model of the Kindle can, and the next-gen iPad is undoubtedly already in the works.

ZDnet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes put it best when he wrote:

The problem with the Kindle (and Nook) is that it’s a one-trick pony. One-trick ponies are cool in an ecosystem where there are no other ponies doing tricks. Add more ponies doing more tricks, and the one-trick pony gets long in the tooth real fast.

Maybe Amazon’s problem is that the iPad really is a different product category?

(Image via TechCN)

CrunchBase Information

Jeff Bezos

iPad

Amazon

Information provided by CrunchBase

Jeff Bezos On The iPad: “It’s Really A Different Product Category”

]]> http://www.invisionskins.net/jeff-bezos-on-the-ipad-%e2%80%9cit%e2%80%99s-really-a-different-product-category%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 http://www.invisionskins.net/blue-xm-skin-for-ipb-versions-22x-23x/ http://www.invisionskins.net/blue-xm-skin-for-ipb-versions-22x-23x/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:03:07 +0000 admin http://invisionskins.net/?p=57

This is a very high contrast Invision Power Board skin hosted at invisionize.com

It’s dark grey, black, and bright blue. It’s compatable with IPB versions 2.2 and 2.3
BlueXM Skin, another release by http://www.ipbshock.com
Much the same as the RedXM version only with a nice pale blue and dark greys in color with a black background, a nice color combination in my opinion!
What you will get in the download file is:

- 2 Skin files (xml)
- Readme.txt – please read this, its called read me for a reason

- Banner(logo4) .psd so you can change the text in the banner.
- Font(s) – Fonts there were used in the skin

]]> http://www.invisionskins.net/blue-xm-skin-for-ipb-versions-22x-23x/feed/ 0 http://www.invisionskins.net/plausable-pixels-dark-color-skin-for-ipb-22-23/ http://www.invisionskins.net/plausable-pixels-dark-color-skin-for-ipb-22-23/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:02:16 +0000 admin http://invisionskins.net/?p=41

“Plausable Pixels” is a nice dark skin made by plausiblepixels.com

The skin is black, grey, with white text. You could definetly use this for a gaming skin or perhaps some sort of urban/music/rap type skin. Below I have copy and pasted exactly what he said on his post.

The 4th and final version of my first skin. This is a Dark skin with some orange and Yellow formatting.
All images are custom, thats over 60 icons/buttons.
Only 2 skin edits, so this is a great skin for installing mods.
Includes PSD for logo, and the font I used to buttons and logo.
Comes with Fixed and Stretched versions for Import. On this skin I took a totally different approach for the boarder. So this means the global header and footer is very clean, even with the board around the skin you wont be able to see that html directly. The only other edited skin template was “render_row”, its very sexy now. Please note that the demo skin/site is very modified.
Screenshot:
http://www.xghozt.com/site/skins/images/ghoztcraft.png
=========================================
[Copyright Notice]
YOU ARE ALLOWED TO USE THIS SKIN FREE OF CHARGE.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE ANY CUSTOM IMAGES USED IN THIS SKIN ON
ANY OTHER SKIN OR EDIT THEM IN ANY WAY.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SELL THE SKIN OR MAKE ANY PROFIT DIRECTLY FROM THE SKIN.
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REMOVE THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT
THE FOOTER OF THE PAGE OR EDIT IT IN ANY WAY.
YOU DO HAVE THE RIGHT TO EDIT ANY LOGO FILES AND PROFILE IMAGES.
Please respect my wishes by simply keeping the copyright intact and I will continue to release my skins. Anyone one that wants to remove the copyright or change images, I have all the psd’s so please request permissions from me to modify any graphics I created.
Thank you and Enjoy,
~ XGhozt
~ Me[at]XGhozt.com

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