Posts in Linked

Rdio Focuses on Freemium Model, Updates Apps with New Design

In the face of growing competition in the streaming music market, Rdio, a four-year-old service that charges for online subscriptions, has moved into a new phase with abundant free music — as well as free music’s ever-present companion, advertising.

“What we’ve learned collectively over the last few years,” said Anthony Bay, Rdio’s chief executive, “is that the most successful models are freemium models.”

As The New York Times reports today, Rdio has done well over the past few years, but it is clear that other competitors (most notably Spotify) have been doing far better by placing a strong focus on a freemium business model. As a result, today’s updates to Rdio aren’t much of a surprise to me, but I’m glad they have also taken the time to once again refine the design of their apps.

For those curious, the free version of Rdio will be available in 20 countries initially and will allow unlimited access to stations. Rdio Unlimited will unlock the ability to play albums and playlists, as well as remove ads for $9.99.

Rdio’s move is a result of a deal with the radio network Cumulus Media that was announced a year ago, in which Cumulus was granted an equity stake of at least 15 percent in Rdio’s parent company, Pulser Media, in exchange for providing content and promotional services that Cumulus says are worth $75 million over five years.

The new design is not a major departure from their existing designs, but rather a welcome refinement. For example the new apps get rid of the confusing to distinguish ‘Heavy Rotation’ and ‘Top Charts’ sections and are instead replaced with a far more understandable section called ‘Trending’. There is also a new ‘Browse’ section which has curated Rdio stations into various categories including ‘Top Stations’, ‘Aussie Hits’, ‘Alternative’ and ‘Fitness’.

The other big new feature isn’t actually available yet, but there will also be a ‘Home’ tab which promises to be “an evolving feed of personalized music stories that surfaces the best of Rdio in a single destination”. It’ll be built from what you listen to, your friends listening activity, recommendations from Rdio, and other factors. On the whole it seems like a more advanced music discovery tool than the currently available ‘Recommendations’ page, which is mostly based on your music listening habits.

App Store Review Guidelines Updated to Consider New iOS 8 Features→

To take into account of new iOS 8 and Yosemite features including app extensions, HealthKit, HomeKit and TestFlight, Apple has this week updated their App Store Review Guidelines for developers. The bulk of the new features are covered in the new guidelines in sections 25 to 28.

Whilst the new guidelines cover everything from requiring keyboard extensions to provide a number keyboard type and prohibiting HealthKit apps from writing false or inaccurate data, a majority of the new rules focus heavily on protecting the privacy of users. For example, keyboard extensions and apps using HealthKit or HomeKit must provide a privacy policy, apps using HealthKit or HomeKit cannot use data for advertising or marketing purposes and any apps using the HealthKit framework cannot store any health data in iCloud.

Furthermore, Apple has slightly changed one of its introduction dot-points to specifically warn developers not to create “plain creepy” apps.

We have over a million Apps in the App Store. If your App doesn’t do something useful, unique or provide some form of lasting entertainment, or if your app is plain creepy, it may not be accepted.

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IFTTT Introducing Paid Features “Soon”→

Reported last week, IFTTT has raised $30 million in funding. In the NYT article covering the news, Mike Isaac included a mention of paid features coming soon to the service:

The company also plans to soon introduce its first revenue streams, and will offer a paid version of its product for users who want to connect different accounts to the service. A social media manager for a company, for example, could connect multiple Twitter accounts to IFTTT and set up recipes specific to each account.

IFTTT has become a service that I rely upon for tasks that would waste several minutes every day. I archive my tweets in Evernote, receive notifications in Launch Center Pro, and save my sleep and weight logs using IFTTT. Paid accounts have been on the roadmap for years now, and I hope that what they’re planning will generate enough revenue to be sustainable. It’d be a sad geek world without IFTTT.

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PARC Scientist Larry Tesler Recalls Jobs’ Famous Xerox Visits→

Larry Tesler, one of the Xerox PARC scientists that gave the first demoes of the graphical user interface to Steve Jobs, recalls Apple’s original visits to PARC and Jobs’ reactions to what he saw.

Fortune writes:

This six-minute excerpt is part of a 100-minute panel discussion hosted by Paul Freiberger at San Jose’s Churchill Club in November 2011. It’s one of hundreds of tributes to Jobs’ legacy recorded in the weeks after his death, which may explain why I missed it the first time around and why fewer than 40,000 people in the world know about it.

You can watch the full video here.

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Common App Rejections→

As noted by AppFigures on Twitter, Apple has posted a new webpage detailing common app rejections during the review process for the App Store.

Before you develop your app, it’s important to become familiar with the technical, content, and design criteria that we use to review all apps. We’ve highlighted some of the most common issues that cause apps to get rejected to help you better prepare your apps before submitting them for review.

At the bottom of the page, Apple lists the top reasons for app rejections in a seven-day period ending August 28, 2014.

Unsurprisingly, apps that exhibited bugs/crashes and that did not comply with the developer agreement were rejected, but the list also contains mentions of “less than very good” interfaces, apps with “screenshots not relevant to the App Store”, and apps with “icons similar to other apps”. All these are common traits of many apps that have been approved, not rejected.

Check out Apple’s new webpage here.

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Choosing CloudKit→

Greg Pierce, the developer of Drafts, Phraseology, and Terminology, has written a post with his reasons for choosing CloudKit instead of other sync providers in iOS 8:

I’m glad choosing CloudKit removes the need for me to manage servers or engage another third party service to do so, but that is not why I chose it. I’m not afraid of servers.

Why am I willing to make these trade-offs for CloudKit, despite it’s limitations? Because, ultimately, developer perspectives aside, I felt it was the right choice for my customers.

If CloudKit will work as advertised, I, as a user, can only appreciate the fact that I won’t have to create additional online accounts or worry about the privacy policy of an app I just want to try for a couple of days. I have big hopes for more apps using iCloud on iOS 8.

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Apple Announces Media Event for September 9→

As first reported by Jim Dalrymple at The Loop, Apple today announced a media event for September 9, this time to be held at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino. The keynote will begin at 10 AM, and the invitation image shared by Apple shows the event’s date with the “Wish we could say more” tagline.

Apple is widely expected to introduce the next version of its iPhone at the event, with rumors suggesting that the company will introduce two new devices under the “iPhone 6” name, carrying larger screens than the current generation models. Apple is also expected to confirm the release of iOS 8, first introduced at WWDC in June and set to debut this Fall.

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Connected: The Pasta and The Pizza and The Sauce→

This week, Federico, Myke and Stephen follow up on the history of the iPod, then discusses software and hardware that are helping them get in better shape.

On this week’s episode of Connected, I briefly touch upon the launch of Perspective Icons 2, then, after some follow up, we talk about how wearables and iOS apps are helping us achieve healthier lifestyles.

The story about the apps I’ve been using for the past couple of months will become a longer article/series for the site, but, in the meantime, you can get the episode here.

This episode of Connected is sponsored by:

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The Technology Behind Hyperlapse→

Very early on in the development process of Hyperlapse, we decided that we wanted an interactive slider for selecting the level of time lapse. We wanted to provide instant feedback that encouraged experimentation and felt effortless, even when complex calculations were being performed under the hood.

This is a technical, but highly fascinating look at the technology Instagram used in Hyperlapse. Not as advanced as Microsoft’s research, but impressive for a mobile device.

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