As part of its ongoing fight to reinvent itself as a truly profitable social media company, Twitter is once again looking to make a change: hiring ex-Apple executive Natalie Kerris.
2 Cool Kickstarter Gadgets for the Health Conscious Techie
Techies care about their health and staying fit too! With the advent of the mobile technology era we’ve seen a plethora of apps, websites and gadgets geared towards conquering and tracking everyday life and improving productivity. The truth is that most of us find every excuse we can to never workout or indulge in as much as we want in our sweet tooth. We constantly look for ways to make tracking meals and those calories easier and Kickstarter has helped to launch quite a few products to help us with just that. The Apple Gazette Kickstarter store tracks and showcases fully-funded Apple-centric products geared towards our techies and lots of other products.
I found a couple health conscious launched projects that will definitely inspire you to start monitoring and working toward a healthier life. [Read more…]
Viral Videos – Hit or Miss?
Viral videos are pretty hit or miss, and not many brands can match the virality of independent series like Awkward Black Girl. Still, the brands who try can end up winning big: Old Spice and Progressive are just two brands who’ve used humor, silliness and social media to achieve virtually instant name recognition. Videos that are useful or entertaining are the most shared, but there’s no real formula to making a viral video. That doesn’t mean, however, that brands won’t try–and some of them succeed.
For the first few seconds of Till Dance Do We Part it’s not hard to think this is a real show. It’s flashy and gaudy and just weird enough to be plausible: big audience, technically skilled dancers, and a judge who looks like a cross between Liberace, David Alan Grier and Prince. So, when the camera cuts to a female dancer smacking sidelong into a washing machine, the viewer’s surprised. We’ve just been tricked into watching a nearly pitch-perfect pastiche of reality show–and when the punch line comes, the viewer feels a little cheated. That’s what makes it compelling: for a split second, the viewer is left squinting at their laptop screen, not in on the joke.
But that doesn’t last long, and the punch line becomes genuinely funny. It shouldn’t be, because laughing at people who hurt themselves isn’t nice; but the slapstick element is a reminder of just how absurd the reality television industry has become. With the appearance of appliances comes the relief that a dance competition this crazy isn’t actually real. It’s what makes this video both entertaining and shareable. This month-old Sears commercial is proof that virality sometimes doesn’t happen. But Sears’ brand is recognizable enough that it doesn’t need an instantly measurable ROI, and this commercial will eventually become a gamble that pays off.
Apple iPhone 5 Confirmation. Company Sends Out Press Invitations With Naming Hint
Apple divulged on Tuesday that it would be announcing the iPhone 5 on September 12, 2012. The company sent out a graphic that features the “12” for the press conference date with a large “5” shadow under the image. Revealing the name of a gadget before it arrives is a first for the world’s largest tech firm.
In 2011 Apple surprised everyone when it revealed the iPhone 4S after media outlets spent months calling the device the iPhone 5.
Apple pulled the same shenanigans in March of this year when the company revealed the ‘new iPad” in place of names that included iPad 3 and iPad HD (because of its Retina display).
With previous product releases Apple has received some backlash, for example when the iPhone 4S was released those in attendance seemed underwhelmed by the slight modifications made from the iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S models, focusing almost solely on Siri voice-assisted technology. [Read more…]
Apple Reveals New iPad With 4G LTE, 5MP Camera And Better Display
Apple on Wednesday unveiled the iPad 3, although at this time it’s just called the “new iPad.”
For the first time the tablet based iOS system will feature a 4G LTE data connection and users will be greeted with a 9.7-inch Retina display.
Also up for grabs starting at $499 is a 5 megapixel camera that uses the same optics sensor as the iPhone 4S which also means 1080p video recording.
Speaking about the new display Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing revealed:
“[It has] text sharper than a newspaper. Photos will look incredible. Fonts look amazing. [It has] the best mobile display that has ever shipped.” [Read more…]
Apple iPhone 5 ‘Assistant’ Provides Revolutionary Voice Command System [Rumor]
During an Apple conference on October 4 the iPhone 5 is expected to be announced and with that announcement a new ‘Assistant’ feature is expected to arrive, a feature that would double the devices RAM to 1GB.
According to reports Assistant is the next evolution of the Apple’s voice control system.
Rumors say Assistant is a new way to interact with your iPhone based solely off voice commands, for example a user might say “make appointment at 9am with Dentist” at which point the iPhone 5 will create that appointment in the user’s calendar.
Another example from WebProNews uses location based reminders alongside assistant for example a user might say:
“Remind me to buy milk when I arrive at the market.”
Once the iPhone 5 user arrives at a store that sells milk the reminder will be shown using location based services.
The Assistant feature is also expected to offer GPS directions based off voice commands, power your text messaging and read text messages back to users and even ask questions about what you want so it can provide proper assistance. For example you might say “Email John Doe” and the phone would ask you which one of their email addresses to use if multiple addresses are found. [Read more…]
iPhone 5 Rumors Roundup: Possible Features For Apple’s Next Generation
Apple is expected to officially announce the iPhone 5 in September or October of this year and on the heels of that announcement we have compiled a list of possible iPhone 5 features as rumored from various online sources. While we still don’t know what the iPhone 5 price will be, these rumors give us a good idea of some major possibilities for the devices hardware and software future.
New Design
Apple is expected to go bezel-free with the release of the iPhone 5, returning to a design that’s closer to the iPhone 3G than the iPhone 4. According to some reports the curved back can help eliminate “Death Grip” while a tapered design is said to be in the work that would create a thinner bottom than top, allowing the phone to sit on an angle while placed on a flat surface.
Another rumor says the device will feature a metallic back instead of the devices signature black and white options we’ve seen in the past, however a curved glass design could also be used as Apple is rumored to have recently purchased 300 glass cutting machines. [Read more…]
The Amazon Tablet Cometh
Tablets are the hottest thing right now and very few can stand up to the iPad. While Samsung’s Galaxy tablet and Amazon’s Kindle trail the iPad in popularity, the latter company is working on an iPad rival that could change the tablet landscape.
Amazon working on a tablet has yet to be officially confirmed but has been talked about in tech circles. The tablet is purportedly being built by Samsung, destined for a summer launch and will be running a highly customized version of Android instead of version 3.0 Honeycomb. So what else will the tablet pack? Peter Rojas talked about the tablet’s purported specs:
Let’s start with a critical question about this tablet: What version of Android will it run? I think there’s an assumption that any Amazon tablet will run Android 3.0, Google’s tablet-specific version of the OS. However, given Google’s recent moves to tighten how OEMs can use Honeycomb, this might not be so likely. In fact, it’s entirely possible that Amazon’s tablet, like the NOOK Color, will use Android as a base upon which to build a totally customized experience that tightly integrates Amazon services. That integration would let Amazon charge a lot less for its tablet than it would otherwise. The reason Barnes & Noble has been able to price the NOOK Color so aggressively ($250 versus $350 to $450 for comparably-sized and spec’d Android tablets) is because they’re assuming you’re going to buy a bunch of books from them over the course of owning it.
The question is, does the world need another tablet, especially one that aims to go head to head with the iPad? Amazon may be banking on integration with its music and book services to boost revenue in those departments. Apple took the opposite approach of using digital stores to boost sales of the Hardware but since Amazon has an established media store, tablets that leverage those purchases may give it some ammo against other tablets.
As expected, Apple introduces iPad 2
My pity goes to those who bought iPad yesterday.
As we were expecting, Apple has introduced iPad 2 with an entirely new design that is 33 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter than the original. While maintaining its 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen, iPad 2 boasts of having Apple’s new dual-core A5 processor for faster performance. It now has two cameras for FaceTime and Photo Booth and for capturing 720p HD video. Despite all the new features, battery life remains at 10 hours. The new tablet also runs on both AT&T and Verizon’s 3G networks. Black or white? They have both colors. The new iPad 2 Smart Cover with self-aligning magnetic hinge is also an innovative piece of product by itself. Prices stay the same.
What was more stunning was the presence of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who is currently on medical leave, to present the new product. The obviously ill head of Apple received a standing ovation from the throng of press people who witnessed the event.
“With more than 15 million iPads sold, iPad has defined an entirely new category of mobile devices,” jobs said. “While others have been scrambling to copy the first generation iPad, we’re launching iPad 2, which moves the bar far ahead of the competition and will likely cause them to go back to the drawing boards yet again.”
Would I buy iPad 2? I doubt. I’ll wait for iPad 3 which we expect to be better than iPad 2.
Twitter Demos Ping Integration [Video]
Twitter is moving quite fast this week, On Thursday morning we reported that Ping Integration was coming to the social network and later than afternoon they were already showing off the new feature which brings iTunes song previews to Twitter.com.
The new video demonstration of the integration shows how Twitter can now be used as a forum for music discovery.
Unfortunately the video demo is more of an ad than an actual product demonstration of the Ping, Twitter relationship. Although the sleek design and what appears to be an easy to navigate interface shows that Twitter is taking the partnership serious. [Read more…]
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