Interesting rumor reported by BGR, whose sources are usually reliable and correct: the mythical Verizon iPhone hit “AP” testing stage, which is the last stage before the product release. Almost ready to go public, with final hardware and almost final operating system.
Verizon iPhone Hits Testing Stage, iPhone 5 Goes “EVT”
Advertising Age: Apple “Marketer of the Decade”
Advertising Age announced earlier today that it has named Apple “Marketer of the Decade”, a prestigious award to a company that ”influences business models across all media and creates exceptionally brand-loyal consumer base”.
It seems fitting: Apple kicked off the aughts in 2001 with the iPod, an electronic device that went on to disrupt and forever change the music industry; then mid-decade it dropped the iPhone, a mobile device that changed the mobile-phone industry and added the word “apps” to the English vocabulary; and finally, in 2010 it debuted the iPad, a computing device with the potential to disrupt the media, publishing, entertainment and computing industries.
Yes, it has been a golden decade for Apple. And while one can certainly argue that its influence has been overstated – it is No. 56 on the list of Fortune 500 by revenue – Apple’s influence on business models across industries from music and computing to entertainment and advertising, along with its impact on popular culture, media and, of course, marketing, has been indelible.
Apple and its agency, Omnicom Group’s TBWA, make a great case study on the benefits of long-term agency-client relationships. The two have been together since the iconic “1984” Super Bowl spot, although the agency was off the account from 1986 until 1997, which is almost identical to the years CEO Steve Jobs was absent from Apple (1985-1997).
Wi-Fi LED Lights + iOS App = iParty
This is a whole new use for the iPhone - the iGLO LED Set bundles a WiFi-enabled strip of 120 multi-color LEDs (over 16 feet) with a (free) iOS app to control them. The lights are $299, but imagine all the possibilities! Parties, raves, birthdays, college dorms, a colorful lasso - the possibilities are endless.
Apple Geeks Recreate Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” as “Tweet It”
A Michael Jackson spoof featuring iPhone and iPad rival gangs who fight over Twitter and different devices?
Oh boy. I don’t know what bothers me the most, the fact that these people spent hours filming this or that I actually enjoyed the video below. Read more
Meow Meow Happy Fight HD Review & Giveaway!
Japan has seen its fair share of crazed destruction through a never ending slew of anime porn and giant robots, but just when you thought lolcats couldn’t get any crazier than tackling Godzilla in the nether regions, Happy Cat appoints a legion of ramen noodles and rice balls to tear down Tokyo alongside zombie children and teen pop-star superheroes. If an invisible issue of glamour girl chasing you down the street with a barrage of homing missiles isn’t enough to get the blood pumping, fist boxing an overly ripe squid while dodging phaser lasers from a secondhand R2-D2 might do the trick. Or everything will just blow up in smoke, as usual.
How To: Add Tasks To OmniFocus or Things Using Dropbox and PlainText
OmniFocus and Things come with beautiful and useful mobile applications for iPhone and iPad, but sometimes you just want to have more control over how tasks are added to their databases. Or maybe you can’t afford paying for multiple mobile versions of the same app and you just use the desktop application.
But you’re a great Dropbox fan, and we’ve shown you many creative uses of Dropbox in the past. You can use the service to sync bookmarks and passwords across devices and computers, store music libraries, even control your Mac using Applescript and Folder Actions. Today, thanks to the efforts of our good friend Gianni Rondini (@giannivt), we’re featuring an interesting way to add tasks (with optional notes) to Things and OmniFocus for Mac using Dropbox and HogBay Software’s PlainText, inspired by Elastic Thread’s method to control your Mac using Dropbox.
Check out the instructions and download links after the break. Read more
SweetFM 2.0 - Last.fm Mac Client
Chocomoko has released version 2.0 of their SweetFM Mac application. SweetFM is a Last.fm client and player for Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4.
Version 2.0 has a completely redesigned UI that is more user-friendly and uses native Mac OS technologies. It also comes with Safari and Chrome browser extensions for Last.fm station control and can open the iTunes store pages from the current track. Other features: supports Media Keys, has an EQ, tagging and social network sharing, device scrobbling, multiple user accounts, hot keys and playlist management. Read more
iPad As The New Flash→
iPad As The New Flash
Jeffrey Zeldman:
Too many designers and publishers see the iPad as an opportunity to do all the wrong things—things they once did in Flash—without the taint of Flash.
Everything we’ve learned in the past decade about preferring open standards to proprietary platforms and user-focused interfaces to masturbatory ones is forgotten as designers and publishers once again scramble to create novelty interfaces no one but them cares about.
While some of this will lead to useful innovation, particularly in the area of gestural interfaces, that same innovation can just as readily be accomplished on websites built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—and the advantage of creating websites instead of iPad apps is that websites work for everyone, on browsers and devices at all price points. That, after all, is the point of the web. It’s the point of web standards and progressive enhancement.
But the iPad supports open web standards. More than hoping in Apple’s tablet to save their magazines, I think publishers just want to make a shitload of money out of iPad apps. It’s that simple.
Amazon Germany Leaks iLife ‘11 October 20 Release Date
It appears that the engineers over at Amazon Germany let a very brief detail slip though the lines of code: if you head over iLife’s product page and check on the “All Offers” box in the sidebar, it’ll tell you that iLife will be available on October 20th. Ring a bell?
As 9to5mac also notices, the US version seems to be less expensive. Hopefully we’ll know more on Wednesday.