iPhone – Page 9

October 18, 2011

Get 50GB in Your Box.net Account Just for Logging In to the Mobile App

We give cloud storage a lot of love here. And why not? Having access to, and the ability to share, your files wherever you are is peachy keen — and convenient too. It’s a competitive world, though, and the main contenders — Dropbox, Box.net, and SugarSync — have been battling it out via pricing, free storage offerings, and promotions to ensure they get a solid chunk of the target market that is you. The latest play has come from Box.net — and it’s a doozie: 50GB of free storage just for logging in to their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch app.

Before you ask, there’s no catch. You don’t have to sell the idea to your friends, you don’t have to buy anything after so many days of use, and you don’t have to give them your first-born child. All you have to do is log in and the 50GB is yours! The promotion started October 12th, 2011 and runs until December 2nd, 2011 (50 days). Just make sure you have the most recent version of the iOS app, and away you go.

For those who take advantage of the promotion, Box.net has also increased the maximum file-size upload to 100MB — it’s usually 25MB for free accounts. That doesn’t beat out Dropbox, for me, but there’s a lot you can do with 50GB of 100MB files, and Box has cool collaboration features that most of the competitor services don’t match. The only other thing to watch for is the 10GB bandwidth limit.

If you’re already paying for an account with Box.net, don’t fret. You can get the 50GB, too, if you downgrade to a free account. You lose out on the more advanced security and collaboration features and the like, as well as your 1GB+ upload limit, but you will still be able to share your files quickly and easily.

If you’re on Android, you might be feeling a bit of “What the hell! Can I haz…???” For Android users in general, at the moment it appears you’re out of luck. However, if you have a Sony Tablet S — which uses Android — there’s a similar promotion running. BlackBerry Playbook and HP TouchPad users are on as well. But don’t get too upset, Android Army (or those with other devices), according to the Box.net blog, they have some more promotions up their sleeves just for you guys.

What will you do with your 50GB of free storage?

October 14, 2011

Springpad + iOS 5 = Easy Awesome

It’s been two days now since iOS 5 officially landed — and it’s a hit. There are always a few hiccups, of course, and there are things that could be better and worse, but it’s pretty much the biggest update that iOS has seen since Copy and Paste. In fact, the update was so anticipated that the amount of people trying to get it all at once overloaded Apple’s servers and, ironically, left a lot of customers with an unfortunate upgrade experience. The error 3200 problem seems to be resolved now, however (I had no issues last night), so feel free to jump on in!

Before I upgraded, one of the biggest questions on my mind was how apps and services would be able to integrate into some of the cooler features — like the new notification centre. I was extremely pleased to see that the Springpad team is, as usual, at the head of the curve. They’ve already turned the notification centre into something that will not only make your life easier, but it’ll make things easier for your iOS-using friends as well.

I’m talking about Springpad’s new send to phone feature. With a single click, you can send something from the Springpad web app directly to your iPhone’s notification centre, where you can then open it up in the mobile app with a touch. This makes for a fantastic way to work with something you might need to map on the go, like a restaurant, gift-location, or whatever/wherever you’re on your way to. It makes planning a breeze, and can even be used as a creative way to get an organized reading list onto your phone or iPad, so you can continue researching whatever you were up to on your desktop before you went out.

The coolest feature os Springpad’s send to phone, though, is that you can add in multiple devices. This allows you to not only send things to all of your own iOS devices, but you can add a family member or friend as well, and share recipes, directions, product ideas, bookmarks, note-reminders, and whatever else you think might be useful to them.

Take a look at the video below to see Springpad send to phone for iOS 5 in action:

Oh — and if you haven’t heard, Springpad is doing better than ever before. In the last six months, they’ve grown another million users, which puts them up over the 2 million mark. These users have created over 5 million notebooks (about 3.5 notebooks per person), and have become 150% more engaged due to integration of check-ins and likes into Facebook.

Are you using Springpad for iOS? If so, tell us how you like the new send to phone feature for iOS 5!

October 7, 2011

A Short Memoriam to Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was an innovator, a forward thinker, and an incredible entrepreneur. He took no prisoners in the battle with his competition and wasn’t afraid to make fun of them, belittle them, or otherwise express his opinion. He used that persona to help create a sense of elitism and superior quality around Apple products that catapulted the brand to wild success – a success only strengthened by the fact that the quality of Apple products often was superior.

Steve Jobs used all of his forceful personality to do what forceful personalities should do: change the world. Love him or hate him, without Steve Jobs the world as we know it would be a very different place. The man is responsible, on some level, for the computer, tablet, or smartphone you’re reading this on, for the mouse that you use to navigate your PC, and for changing the face of the music industry. And that’s just for starters.

I’m not going to bore you by reiterating what thousands of other blogs have already said. I just wanted to take a moment to express my respect for the man who helped define how I spend my life. He was no angel, and he might well have been a little crazy — but as he himself said:

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Rest in peace, Steve. You did big things.

September 10, 2011

iPhone 5 Thief Doesn’t Know Who He’s Messing With… Just Ask Conan [VIDEO]

You might remember the whole “iPhone 4 prototype swiped in a bar” fiasco. You’re probably aware that history has recently repeated itself with the iPhone 5. What you might not know is what Apple is planning to do about it. Never fear, however! Conan O’Brien and the good folks at Team Coco have put together a commercial that shows exactly what fate awaits the intrepid thief — and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

If you were Apple, what sort of fun things would you have in store for the prototype thief? How about the dumbass who let it happen – again? Presuming that it’s not all some sort of weird publicity stunt, of course.

Source: The Next Web

September 7, 2011

Google+ for iPhone and Android Sharing — Too Little Too Late?

Though the initial excitement of Google+ has worn off, millions of users are still using the service and more people connect every day. For its part, Google has been working hard at bringing the preview social network closer to a production offering, adding social gaming without annoying people, verified accounts for prominent users and famous folk, and ironing out their sign-up rules (the heavily debated real name only policy). They have also been paying attention to their mobile apps, finally adding post sharing into the Android app. iOS users had to wait a bit, as is per usual, but the much awaited update is now available in the app store.

But is development coming along too slowly to keep up interest?

Personally, I’m a huge fan of Google+. There are a lot of innovative uses that are cropping up — cooking classes via hangout, blog replacement, collaborative writing groups; Evan and I are even putting together a hangout-based pen and paper roleplaying game, cementing our geek status once and for all. Google+ is also a fantastic place to meet and converse with new people, focusing on like interests over general broadcasting, which makes for better conversation and better relationships.

The problem is, I’ve started to notice that my streams are starting to degrade. People appear to be less active, less conversant, or generally gone and gone. This could be due to the end of the summer — people are getting busier as the school season and work focus heat up — and it could be part of the overall ebb and flow of a new product. It could also be that Google is taking too long to get their service off the ground and into the hands of the general public.

Gmail was in beta for years, and to the point that it was really more of a long-standing joke than anything else, but the Internet back then was, if you can believe it, less fickle. With the world takeover of social networking and subsequent obsession with real-time streams, the attention span of your average user is practically gnat-sized. And let’s not forget that, in order to get noticed in the massive amounts of information flowing through the digital-verse, bloggers and people in general tend to gravitate toward sweeping sentiments of “wow this is awesome” build-up and “it’s never gonna make it, and here’s why!!!” doom and gloom statements. And yes, I realize that it wouldn’t take a stretch if the imagination to lump this post in with them, no matter what I say t the contrary. The point is, it makes it really hard to accurately gauge if a service will live or die.

To top things off, Facebook hasn’t been sitting about with thumbs in nethers, either. They’ve been paying attention to what people like about G+ over Facebook and have been making changes to how their own streams work, attempting to make it easier to share with those you want to share with, and even (finally) updating their mobile apps for new sharing and privacy options.

I say again, I’m digging Google+ — but I dug Google Wave, too. I think that Google’s push to integrate Plus into their overall offerings will help keep things moving, but I have to wonder: if users as a whole notice their streams downgrading in quality and movement, will it start one of those slow spirals into web oblivion?

It’s been a few months now, what are your thoughts?

Tag: iPhone (page 9 of 19)

Springpad + iOS 5 = Easy Awesome

A Short Memoriam to Steve Jobs

iPhone 5 Thief Doesn’t Know Who He’s Messing With… Just Ask Conan [VIDEO]

Google+ for iPhone and Android Sharing — Too Little Too Late?

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