Tag Archives: iOS App

Craigslist only took 11 years to make its own iOS app

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Considering the App Store has been around for 11 years and Craigslist for 13 years before that, it's astonishing the bastion of online classified ads hasn't bothered to create an official, first-party iOS app until now. It just hit the App Store and,...

Essential Online Apps for 21st Century Men

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In the increasing importance of smart phones and technology, man must use their devices to accentuate and broaden their horizons. Instead of just getting games where you idiotically kill hours of your time, try downloading an app that’ll make you more productive, healthy, or enlightened. Compiled is list of essential […]
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Stick Mobile App Helps You Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions

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Stick Mobile App 02

Out of all the people promising that they would change for the better once a New Year starts, only eight percent manage to stick to their promises, so it’s no wonder that January 17 has been declared national “Ditch Your New Year’s Resolution Day.”

It is said that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit, and yet, only 8% of the people starting the New Year with a new habit are able to keep it past the 17th day. With that in mind, GSW, a leader health and wellness advertising agency and an inVentiv Health company, has developed a mobile app that helps people stick to their resolutions. Intuitively titled Stick, the iOS app dissects the goals, quantifies the ongoing period the resolutions have been kept for, and offers a bonus via the included gamification scheme.

“The Stick app bridges modern thinking with modern tools to help achieve behavior change,” said GSW Executive Creative Director, Dave Sonderman. “Current behavior modification research has demonstrated that being clear and simple with new goals, and sharing these goals with others, is critical to successfully keeping new resolutions. The kinds of resolutions we want to achieve most thrive when backed by peer support.”

The problem with sticking to New Year’s resolution is that most of them are too generic. Most people (well, 92% of them, if we’re to give credit to statistics) don’t attach a number to these goals, and without something measurable in mind, it’s quite easy to lose track of the resolutions.

First of all, Stick asks you to choose whether you want to start (running a specific distance each day) or stop something (smoking is probably the best example here). Next, you’ll have to choose whether you want to do or not do that on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. After each such period passes, you are awarded points, and according to GSW, you’re receiving more points if you’re breaking a habit rather than when forming one, because it’s far more difficult to stop something than to start it.

Not at last, you can recruit friends, share your resolutions with them, and compare the points each of you has obtained for sticking to the New Year’s resolution.

“We’ve harnessed psychological guidance about how to make and actually stick to resolutions to help others succeed,” concluded Sonderman. “GSW has been passionate about translating health and wellness insights into action for more than 30 years. We call it Speaking People. Stick is a fun way to apply technology and wisdom into a tool that helps anyone who’s looking to shape their habits to achieve personal goals.”

The Stick app is available exclusively for iOS, and can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store. There’s no word on when or if an Android version will ever be developed. While there are several alternatives for Android (Habit Streak being one of them), none is as appealing as the one developed by GSW and inVentiv Technologies.

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Facebook Messenger Now Features Video Chat

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Facebook Messenger Video Chat

The social network’s mobile IM app is more like Skype now, as it also allows users to have video conversations, besides text-based ones.

The update announced on Monday for both the iOS and Android versions of the Messenger app carries video chat functionality, fact that puts Facebook’s app in direct competition with Skype and Viber. Currently, the update is only available for 18 markets including U.K., France, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, Portugal and the U.S., but there’s no doubt that Facebook will expand it to more countries in the near future.

“More and more of everything starts from a text conversation,” explained Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook Messenger’s Head of Product. “We think the same thing will happen with video.”

According to Chudnovsky, adding video chat capabilities to Facebook Messenger was the next logical step. In case you’re confused by the fact that the social network hasn’t added video calls to its other messaging app (WhatsApp), then you should know that this feature has been rumored for a while and it will be coming there soon, as well.

Starting a video call on Facebook Messenger is equally easy on Android and iOS. When initiating a text-based conversation with one of your Facebook contacts, you’ll see a camera in the upper right corner, provided that you’re in one of the countries where the update is currently available.

It’s becoming clear that Facebook Messenger goes well beyond just text-based messaging. Recently, the developers of this app have added peer-to-peer payments and even turned Messenger into an open platform others can build upon.

There has also been a major change in focus in terms of the devices targeted with each of Facebook’s messaging apps. Whereas WhatsApp was promoted as a perfect IM solution for emerging countries where Internet connection are not exactly top of the class, Facebook Messenger is also getting praised now for its compatibility with low-end devices and slow Internet connections.

It’ll be interesting to see what other type of functionality will Facebook add in the near future to its messaging apps. The good news is that their main app and Messenger are no longer the resource hogs they used to be not long ago. It also remains to be seen how the video call quality will stack against Skype’s or Viber’s.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Facebook Hello social caller ID app for Android, or the trimmed-down Facebook Lite for Android.

Google Launches YouTube Kids App for the Younger Crowd

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YouTube Kids 01

As not all YouTube content is appropriate for kids and site-wide censorship is out of the question, Google launched a children-friendly version of its video sharing website called YouTube Kids.

A kids-only version of the website won’t be launched anytime soon, as Google thought that a mobile app would be more adequate. After all, there are Android tablets for toddlers out there, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the new kids on the block are familiar with mobile devices from a very early age. I don’t see Apple launching a tablet for children, so iPad owners will probably cringe while handing their precious device with the YouTube Kids app running to their offsprings.

The main focus here is on parental control and on ways to prevent youngsters from accessing the dark side of YouTube (if such a thing even exists). While the search giant didn’t launch the app with a specific age range in mind, it’s safe to assume that 3 and 4-year olds will be thrilled with the content available in the app. I mentioned content and not only videos because the ads have been tailored to suit the taste and needs of the little ones, as well.

The built-in timer included in the app enables parents to quantify the amount of time their kids spend watching videos on YouTube. With a range from 30 to 120 minutes, the timer measures the time the app is being open, so kids that will complain that they’ve only watched a video for five minutes should be taught to jump right into it when you give them your tablet. Future updates should stop the timer when the app is in the background, as that is definitely not the case with the current version.

Parents also have sound options at their disposal, in case their kids get a little bit too obsessed with a particular tune. Besides that, it’s great to see that the user interface has been redesigned to include bigger (and fewer) buttons, so that children can learn more easily how to use the app. Overall, Google has done a great job with YouTube for Kids, as the app packs content and functionality that are perfect for toddlers.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about how Google pulled the plug on YouTube, or Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch in a moment when Google was interested in attaching it to YouTube.

Facebook Mentions Is an App for the Rich and Famous

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Facebook Mentions

Today, the social network announced that it will target a niche audience with its Mentions mobile app. As if famous people weren’t members of plenty of exclusive clubs, now they also have a private social network.

To make sure that this app is furthermore niched, Facebook only made Mentions available for iOS users. An Android equivalent will surely be launched further down the road, but for the moment the social network doesn’t seem to think that this audience is worth the attention.

The name of the app is rather straight-forward, in that the rich and the famous can see when the others are mentioning them. That should help celebrities interact better with the plebs, and from a certain point of view, it could help a lot with the public relations of the famous. Think of it as an alternative to Google Alerts, but one that’s specifically tailored for this social network.

Notifications no longer focus on news, but on direct interactions. In the above example, Dom Lane stated that while Whoopi Goldberg is a cool person, the movies she starred in are anything but cool. With the help of the Facebook Mentions app, Goldberg caught wind of that and whooped Lane’s behind.

I would’ve said that the goal of Facebook’s new iOS app is to censor people saying bad things about celebrities, but Goldberg emphasized that Lane is entitled to his own opinion. After all, it’s a matter of taste if someone likes an actress in particular, or a famous person, in general.

Since the app is only available to celebrities, there’ll definitely be a lot of people trying to impersonate famous people. Unfortunately for the impersonators, Facebook will make sure that only the target audience can use the app by providing access exclusively to Verified accounts.

I wouldn’t say that Facebook Mentions is a terribly original app, but I’ll admit that it has some functionality, and it could prove useful for the few ones that are allowed to use it. I just wonder when will Facebook consider me famous enough to provide me access to the app. At the moment, I’m a bit on the antisocial side of things, as any geek who respects himself should be. I’m kidding! Or am I?

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about how Virgin America targeted business travelers with an in-flight social network, and these Internet-connected light fixtures that reinvent physical social networking.

Oscar Mayer Wake Up & Smell The Bacon Alarm Clock

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Oscar Mayer - Wake Up and Smell the Bacon

The incredible alarm clock made by Oscar Mayer delivers the smell and sound of bacon that is being fried. Thought that the bacon frenzy was over? Far from it, says this American meat and cold cut production company!

Bacon definitely has a lot of fans (no, I’m not talking about Kevin Bacon), and has gained even more after becoming a subculture on the Internet. Need proofs for my previous statement? Well, we have the following products, which all smell like this delicious food:

  • Bacon toothpaste
  • Bacon lollipops
  • Bacon frosting
  • Bacon lip balm

Mind you, the list doesn’t end here, so some might assume that Oscar Mayer’s bacon-scented alarm clock might be yet another product in a sea full of similarly flavored items. Given the revolutionary concept, the smell and sound releasing alarm clock might actually be able to step out of the crowd.

Tom Bick, senior director of integrated marketing and advertising at Oscar Mayer, explained how this unique item came to be: “With nearly two million mentions of #bacon on Instagram, it seems people never get tired of bacon. That’s why our team decided to develop a device to give folks what they long for most. As the category leader, Oscar Mayer is thrilled to bring the first-ever bacon-scented mobile device to market, giving bacon aficionados a new reason to welcome their morning alarm clocks.”

The commercial for the Wake Up & Smell The Bacon alarm clock (which you can watch below) is also amazing! A lot of money and thought must have went into this, as our heroine witnesses a rain of bacon strips at first, only to find herself in a garden full of bacon roses at a later point. Eventually, she wakes up, but not before seeing the animal from which the bacon strips came from. Phil Roudenbusch narrates the following mesmerizing text: “At darkest midnight, the nostrils’ north star awaits you. When imagination blossoms, only this scent will guide you to the greatest awakening. Wake up … to the morning of your dreams.”

When every other alarm clock fails to wake you up, it’s time to give Wake Up & Smell The Bacon a try. Oscar Mayer Institute for the Advancement of Bacon announced that the bacon alarm clock will be available on the product’s site between March 3 and April 4, but that doesn’t mean that it can be bought from there. If you like the idea and would like to own one, feel free to fill in the form, and if you’re lucky enough, the company will pick you and send you one.

The companion iOS app, which features a skillet clock, is available on the iTunes App Store now, but without the bacon sound and smell emitting iPhone accessory, the experience is not the same.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about these wicked lollipops that encompass galaxies, insects and bats, and the earbud alarm clock.

Control Your Smartphone Using Head and Eye Gestures with Umoove

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Umoove Smartphone Gesture Control 2

There was a recent rumor about Galaxy S5 coming with head- and eye-gesture control, but it looks like an Israeli tech startup got ahead of Samsung in this aspect.

Umoove Experience, as the iPhone app (oh, the irony!) developed by the company is called, shows how face tracking technology can be used for playing games, even though the applications of this revolutionary control method go beyond that. As a proof that Umoove doesn’t intend to tease Samsung and the Android platform endlessly, the company promised that soon there would be a version of the app for Google’s mobile OS, as well. More than that, Umoove hopes that both Android and iOS developers will include this technology into their own apps and games.

Yitzi Kempinski, the CEO of Umoove, explained in an interview with Gizmag that “Umoove is not coming to replace touch, it is coming to add another layer and it opens an opportunity for new types of interfaces. A classic example is a first person shooter where you would shoot using touch and you could walk using a touch joystick, but you would aim and look around just by where you face.”

Some may be concerned about the accuracy of the motion capture, but Kempinski reminds them that “The tracking is both accurate and very sensitive, it senses movement as small as represented by one pixel of the image the camera captures. And we had to do it all at very low CPU, to not take over the device resources and leave room for the actual apps/games to run.” It’s great to know that the app and the technology itself is not power-hungry, especially considering today’s feeble smartphone batteries.

Kempinski also explained how the technology works: “Umoove is tracking the face and eyes. These body parts have been moving and involved in the user’s experiences even before technology began watching and tracking them – have you ever seen someone play a game such as a flight simulator with a frozen or still face and body? Users get involved in the experience and move their bodies even though it has no real effect on the game. So the key from a [user experience] perspective is to respond to movements users naturally do in the real world and not make the user start doing new types of movements.”

New technologies give birth to new types of content, and that’s exactly what Kempinski is expecting: “Think of an object or product on the 2D screen that acts as if it is 3D because it changes based on the angle you are looking at the screen. You can move around the object on screen as if you were looking at an object that is really in front of you.”

You can download the Umoove Experience from the iTunes Store. Flying Experience, the game used by the company to showcase the technology, is included in the app. An SDK enabling iOS developers to track head movements in 2D (3D head tracking is a work in progress) has been made available, while the one for Android will surely come soon.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories such as the gesture controlled hologram that opens the way for new user interfaces and the rumors surrounding the gesture control of Galaxy S5.