Tag: Apps

Everything is about apps at the moment. A lot of what I mention under the apps tag is around iOS and mobile music, but there’s other stuff too, and not just iOS, but Android, Palm OS and Windows mobile.

App of the week: Business Model Toolbox for iPad is great for developing ideas

Posted by on in Work

I found this app because of some work I was doing around changing business models and revenue flows. It was interesting to read the book that generated this app/tool and use it in a practical sense.

The reviews on the app store for this app say that it’s overpriced for what it is, and I’d probably agree, but then again, given the relative niche market for the app it’s probably not a bad price in terms of the amount of work that went into it.

This app is really aimed at people who want or need to quickly understand the impact of different business models, so in a sense it’s a business model modelling tool, and in that sense it works very well. It’s best suited to that first step in evaluation, but once you’ve lined it up and got it where you wanted it you probably need something else, another tool after that.

The app is priced at £20.99.

Business Model Toolbox - Business Model Foundry

So, where next for my Pebble?

Posted by on in Wearable Computing

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I haven’t really used my Pebble smartwatch for about two months, possibly a bit less. Anyway, it’s just been sitting on a shelf for a while now and doing very little, which is a shame as it’s a lovely piece of technology. However, to be honest, I haven’t found a real use for it as yet sadly. I toyed with different faces for it, which was fun, and the notifications stuff was cool, but I never found it entirely compelling.

In many ways I’ve been struggling to find a real use for the technology, and it seems strange to try and find a use for something that’s meant to be useful straight away.

One thing I keep wondering is whether there’s a way to make the thing more useful in making music, but it doesn’t seem that this is being taken on board by developers really, or likely to be in the near future. My other main problem with it is that it isn’t particularly well supported by third party developers on iOS, whereas that’s not the case on Android. Now in part I expect that this is because Android is more open and developers are able to support lots of different integrations and features, such as Tasker support, which could make it very useful indeed.

But this doesn’t really work for me sadly as I don’t have an Android phone. However, I do have an cheap Android tablet that I’m starting to use more for bits and pieces, so my next step is to see what else I can use Android for and just how useful my Pebble will be connected to a tablet.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

The iOS7 dilema

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

 IMG_0327

So, iOS7 is upon us. On the one hand all the music app developers are saying don’t update. On the other hand there are loads of really amazing non-music updates already in, and at least one app that has become iOS7 only.

So I want to move, but I don’t want to break everything, and I certainly don’t want to end up with glitchy audio issues.

So the only thing I can do is to wait.

IFTTT and connecting things to other things

Posted by on in Tech

I haven’t written about IFTTT for a while now although I’m still a big fan. Of course, of late, their big news is their iOS app. It was a very clever way to bring the service to iOS. They didn’t just bring the web version of the service to the app store. Instead they made it work beautifully, but over and above that gave the app specific iOS only channels. Now that’s clever.

Of course one of the big problems with IFTTT is that it works so well. Which means that actually you can for the most part just forget about it and leave it to get on with what you wanted it to do in the first place. However, I guess that is almost a problem for IFTTT as they probably want you to do more than set up a bunch of recipes and then never return, or rarely return.

So the app addresses that to a degree. I found myself using it for a while and then recently a lot less. Again, the reason is that IFTTT works so well that I don’t need to do anything more.

There are still lots of things I think that IFTTT could improve. Support for multiple accounts for twitter and other services for example, but even without these it is very good.

So, what’s next for IFTTT? Well of course there’s Android. There’s room for an extended iPad version. But always wonder if they could perhaps push a little further than connecting two services. Perhaps they could become IF THIS THEN THAT (AND THIS), or perhaps IF THIS THEN THAT ELSE IF THIS? You get where I’m going anyway.

Who knows. One things for sum. Automation will continue.