Posts tagged with "iPad"

Report: iOS Devices Streaming 80% of Mobile Video

Freewheel, a video monetization startup, is reporting that Apple is dominating mobile video – 80 percent of it. FreeWheel said in its Q1 2011 report that the majority of video views are occuring on Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone and iPod each grabbed about 30 percent of all mobile video views while the iPad grabbed 20 percent; the remaining 20 percent belonged to Android devices. Everything else accounted for less than 1 percent of all video views on mobile devices.

FreeWheel attributes Apple’s dominance in mobile video to the early lead the company has had in the mobile video market with their line of iOS devices. They also believe that greater viewership on Apple devices represents the adoption of video publishers and mobile developers who build their apps / videos for iOS devices first before moving to other platforms. Despite having sold just 20 million tablets worldwide, the iPad already accounts for 20 percent of videos viewed on mobile devices, according to FreeWheel. GigaOM said in their article that “We thought the iPad would be an ideal device for viewing video when it was announced, but the extent to which it has been embraced by even traditional video producers and distributors speaks to the power of the platform. TV networks like ABC and HBO have built applications for the iPad, as have pay TV operators like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and others.”

While mobile video viewing accounts for only one percent of all online video views, much of it is driven by news and live events. Mobile views peaked during the Japanese tsunami / earthquake crisis and also during the NCAA Men’s College Basketball March Madness Tournament. This makes sense because much of the Japan / basketball events happened during “working hours” when viewers turned to their smartphones and mobile devices because they couldn’t watch TV at work.

The 20 percent that the iPad gets is the biggest stat in my opinion; most people don’t take their iPad with them everywhere they go, like an iPhone or iPod Touch. Most people use it after working hours, and to have that 20 percent is outstanding. [via GigaOM]

Dragontape for iPad Lets you Browse, Share, and Edit Video Mixtapes

We traditionally think of the classic mixtape as an audio compilation of power songs and remixes that we’ll then share with friends or pass along to the cute girl two seats behind you in math class. Recently brought to my attention was Dragontape, a website that takes the concept of the mixtape further by combining YouTube and SoundCloud, effectively allowing you to create video & audio playlists of music, concert, and related promotional videos for your favorite artists, gigs, and tours. With Dragontape for the iPad you can watch the latest mixtapes, browse through what’s popular, and revisit favorites all without the need of your web browser.

While it’s obvious you can preview the collections of video, not-so-obvious is the ability to edit movies iMovie style to clip and cut your way to the perfect mixtape. You can save and edit mixtapes to your liking, though I didn’t find the controls initially intuitive (you’ll also need a Dragontape account to save any edits you make to a mixtape). Too, the iPad app is still reliant on sometimes fussy YouTube videos, which may not play on the iPad. “Not optimized for mobile,” it says. What’s interesting to me, however, is how Dragontape handles the integration with SoundCloud with YouTube video. For a clip, Dragontape displays a synth-y, pixelated equalizer that bounces to the beat of the music that’s used as a placeholder for video.

There are some quirks about Dragontape, as pinch-to-zoom for video has been replaced with simple taps, and the background image displayed when browsing mixtapes ends up being a pixelated, centered mess that attempts to be cool, but is unfortunately unappealing. Otherwise, the menu and video controls look incredibly sharp: perhaps Dragontape is aiming for distinctness between the interface and background album art in their own, weird way. Simply changing the fading between tracks prompts users to save the altered mixtape: you’ll quickly develop that dismissive “Cancel” reflex. The app has crashed for me a few times, but I’m interested in Dragontape’s mobile interface enough to keep me from deleting the app off my homescreen as others may do.

There’s flaws, and the app icon doesn’t make clear the that name is Dragontape (and not Drag On Tape), but this is a novel idea that needs to be explored. Those YouTube playlists you peruse can all be intermixed for a better browsing experience, and I sense an opportunity for discovery as Dragontape moves out of beta and integrates with other popular video sites. I personally enjoyed watching lots of promotional tour videos with Dragontape, but maybe you’ll have a much more creative use for it. The price for admission is free on the App Store. You can learn more about the service and create a Dragontape account on their official website and iPad landing page.

Square Unveils “Card Case” and “Register” To Reinvent Digital Payments and Wallets

Mobile payment company Square teased last weekend they had some big announcements to make this morning. After the 2.0 update to the iPhone and iPad application that hit the App Store earlier today, Square’s Jack Dorsey announced with a live stream event on TechCrunch Disrupt a few minutes ago the next-generation of payment processing for merchants and mobile payments for customers: Square Register and Square Card Case, two new products aimed at revolutionizing the mobile payment scene and the whole concept of digital wallet.

With 500,000 card readers shipped across the United States and $1 billion gross payment volume, Square undoubtedly changed the way people thought of phones and tablets as point of sale units capable of receiving credit card payments with a simple swipe. But Square wanted to go one step further, and allow everyone, merchants and customers, to get rid of cumbersome cash registers, POS devices and wallets altogether by unifying the Square experience into a single software that takes care of the data, personal information, credit cards on file, location, and more. The Card Case is the first step to allow customers to forget about wallets, cash and credit cards to carry around all the time: within a single iPhone application, users are getting access to a virtual wallet that contains place-specific cards to pay, check out products, and get receipts. TechCrunch explains:

Once you’ve downloaded your mobile Card Case, you can fill your case with ‘cards’ of all the merchants you visit and buy from who accept Square. When you click on an individual merchant’s card, you’ll be able to see a map of where the merchant is located, contact information, your own order and purchase history, and receipts with the merchant and a daily live menu of items or services from the merchant. You’ll also be able to see what other customers are buying at the store, and merchants can serve customized offers to specific customers based on their purchase history.

So here’s where things get interesting. In a merchant’s card within the case, you can press a “use tab” button which allows the frequent customer to essentially put a purchase on their virtual tab with Square at the merchant. So once you press that button within two blocks of the merchant, you’ll be able to tell the cashier your name and your card will be charged on the merchant’s backend Square register. Because you are a repeat customer, Square already has your payment information. The purchaser will then receive a push notification when the merchant processes the payment.

The Card Case basically acts as a wallet to keep all the places you frequently visit together and set up tabs so payments will be processed automatically without even swiping a real credit card. In a video reel showcased by Jack Dorsey at the announcement event, a Square user was shown entering a coffee shop, ordering a cappuccino and simply asking the cashier to put it under his name. No swiping necessary, no need to sign any receipt or carry a wallet around – just an iPhone. After a purchase however, the app of course handles virtual receipts emailed or texted to you, so you’ll be able to organize all your expenses and view the places where you spent your money. The concept’s really simple and disruptive from a user standpoint – as long as you have an iPhone and the credit card on file, it’s as simple as walking into a bar and ordering what you want with your name. The software takes care of the rest.

On the merchant’s end, Square has also announced a new product, the Register, which will dramatically improve the way business owners used to deal with POS machines and real cash registers and engage with customers as well. Merchants have always been able with the Square reader to store customers information and send them a receipt via email or SMS; with today’s update, merchants get the possibility to send customers a link to download the Card Case app so next time payments will happen faster, over the air, and with more features to engage with a local shop and nearby places that support Square. Again, it all comes together with the reader used to set up a credit card for the first time, the iPhone app for customers to pay with their mobile device, and the iPad Register for merchants to check out analytics and customer data. From the website:

  • Transform your iPad into an elegant point of sale. Customize it with product photos, prices, and sortable categories. Accept cash and credit cards.
  • Swipe a card, let customers sign directly on the screen, and send them an email or text message receipt. Customers can add a tip as they sign.
  • Know how many cappuccinos you sell each day. Download full reports that give you insight into your sales patterns and inventory.
  • Let your regular customers set up a tab right from their phone and pay with their name. Publish your menu and share daily specials.

At this point, it’s clear Square isn’t a cool startup with a neat credit card gadget anymore. Square wants to disrupt mobile payments, bringing merchants and customers together socially, locally, just with software, phones and tablets. Square Register and Card Cases are rolling out today through 50 US merchants in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, St. Louis, and Los Angeles.

BlueNube Is The First CloudApp Client for iPad

If you love CloudApp as much as I do and you own an iPad, you’ve probably been looking for a way to upload and share items from the tablet without having to use Safari and the web application. There’s no shortage of CloudApp-enabled clients on the iPhone – the excellent Cloud2go is a staff favorite here at MacStories – but the iPad hasn’t seen a real native CloudApp client so far. BlueNube is a $1.99 app I bought a few months ago but never really used because it was only focused on letting you see uploads to your CloudApp account from the iPad, without letting you send an actual file or URL to the service from the device. I was told the next version would include full upload support and other features, so I decided to leave the app in my iTunes library and wait for it. Version 1.1, released yesterday, indeed adds upload capabilities to BlueNube, thus making it the first CloudApp client that runs natively on the iPad.

The interface design of BlueNube isn’t as delicious as the one I’m currently testing in the upcoming Stratus for iOS, nor does the app support live streams and other fancy things as in Cloud2go, but it sure is functional to the main purpose of uploading files and bookmarks to CloudApp using the iPad and third-party applications. The biggest feature of version 1.1, in fact, is the possibility to upload anything from any other app thanks to the “Open In” menu integration that allows you to select a file from 3rd party apps like, say, iFiles or GoodReader and send it to BlueNube, which will start uploading automatically and paste a link to the file in your clipboard.

You can also upload photos and videos within BlueNube with Camera Roll support, upload an image or link from your pasteboard as you open the app thanks to clipboard detection and even cache entire images and other files so BlueNube won’t have to download them every single time to display them. Cache size can be modified and reset from the settings; items uploaded to CloudApp can be shared on other social networks like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

Overall, BlueNube may not be as sexy as other apps but it gets it job done when it comes to integrating with CloudApp on the iPad to offer uploads and smart URL detection from the system clipboard. If you need CloudApp on your iPad, this simple and lightweight app is a $1.99 purchase here.

Retail iPad Displays Can Return to Home Screen, Run Custom Web App

A few more interesting tidbits about the iPad displays Apple has put up in their retail stores to showcase specs and prices and offer product comparisons have surfaced today. As we already knew, the iPads default to a device or computer they’re paired with to display additional information, making it impossible for customers to return to the iOS home screen by pressing the Home button. As reported by 9to5mac however, it is possible for store managers to “unlock” the devices with a custom gesture combination and use the regular iOS.

An Apple Store Manager relayed to us that the new iPad 2 displays are able to turn into “normal iPads” with a few swipes in secret combination. To find out if true, I went to the Soho store and tried it out. Yep, it works.

Additionally, MacRumors points out that an iPad was found unlocked in an Apple Store, with the iOS home screen displaying and “Enroll iPad” app icon. The app is not a native one but, as many suspected, a webclip that launches an AppleConnect interface in Mobile Safari to log in and associate the iPad to a Mac, iOS device or iPod inside the store. It’s likely that the custom retail software is getting all the data from Apple’s servers, meaning that all changes to iPad stores displays (prices, tech specs, artworks) can be performed remotely by Apple without local modifications by employees or store managers.

The interesting bit was the app that was on the dock which says Enroll iPad. It isnt actually an app but instead a Safari bookmark. Clicking on the app takes you to Safari shown in the last image. I tried to go back to the homescreen but I couldn’t seen the Home Button does not do anything.

Of all the rumors we’ve heard in the past weeks about the “Apple Store 2.0 experience”, there was one that claimed employees were instructed to download a folder containing GBs of data from Apple’s corporate servers – some suggested that private folder could be a retail-specific disk image for OS X Lion. We’re just speculating here, but it could be possible that employees were simply told to download the app data from the servers to test the retail software hours before launch, and the rumors posted were incorrect. Private folder or not, the new Apple Store experience has launched today, and now we’re waiting for the updated Apple Store app to go live in the Store.

First Impressions and More Details On Apple’s Updated Retail Stores

After last night’s photos of Apple’s changes to the retail experience (dubbed “Apple Store 2.0” in recent rumors and speculation), a MacTalk forum member has posted (via MacRumors) his first impressions of the new retail space and in-store tables featuring interactive iPad displays to offer more product information, compare tech specs, and call a Specialist for further assistance. As previously reported, the iPads being used by Apple next to each device and computer are special units glued to a mounting block that’s also glued to the main table, running a custom app that’s impossible to hide by locking the device or clicking the Home button. Forum poster jack112006 says he’s tried different combinations for pressing the Home button, but none of them worked as the iPads are likely impossible to hack in-store to visualize the underlying OS. Furthermore, as we saw from the pictures, the units are connected to a single cable that, once inside the mounting block, is divided into two separate cables: one for security and anti-theft measures, one (a very thin 30-pin dock connector) for charging purposes.

The second cable is quite special. It is an ultra-thin 30 pin ribbon cable. It is tight against the iPads body in the acrylic block, and is used for charging, and I would imagine periodic device re-imaging for a new product, etc. The software on all the iPads is very special, and is set up so that the Home button is inactive.

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Week Calendar HD Adds New Theme, Gets More Settings and Less Leather

Week Calendar HD is an excellent replacement for Apple’s own Calendar application I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago, when the app made the transition from the iPhone to the tablet’s larger screen. The first version of Week Calendar HD was a solid release, but left many surprised because of its skin that reminded of Apple’s app and, more importantly, of the theme the company implemented in iCal’s upcoming Lion version. Either because Apple called or because the developer realized a calendar application doesn’t need to look like a real-life calendar to be useful, the new version of Week Calendar HD changes the default skin to black leather and introduces a new “Modern” theme that gets rid of the leather-ish background altogether and looks gorgeous on the iPad.

Version 1.1 also comes with several bug fixes (particularly appreciated is the better handling of overlapping events, and the new event popup no longer disappearing) and enhancements to the settings to enable you to further customize the calendar experience throughout all your configured accounts. Custom calendar colors can now be synchronized across devices running Week Calendar with a new option in the settings; it’s now possible to only show daytime hours (very welcome change, as I don’t care about displaying hours I’m not going to be available anyway) and you can set up custom recurring intervals like “every 17 days.” The day view got some improvements too, as it can be swiped to navigate; last, the month view (which I love) got the possibility to hide time of events and change the font size. I’m not sure why events from my OmniFocus Reminders subscribed calendar still look weird in Week Calendar, but I’m pretty sure I’ll figure something out not that font options are available.

Week Calendar HD is a powerful calendar application for iPad, now with a beautiful modern skin, less leather and more settings. Get it here.