The questions that immediately crossed my mind when I saw Google Keep:

• I thought Google were “focusing”?

• What’s to stop them from killing this in a year, or two, or five, after I’ve invested a tonne of time and data into it, just like they did Reader?

• If Reader was killed, presumably because the data it generated wasn’t sufficient to target ads, but this was green lighted, then if I do invest a tonne of time and data into it, what are Google going to be doing with that data?

My best answer to the first question is, well, ‘nothing’, and the answer to the second is clear: ads. If, like the guy in the demo video, I take a picture of a snazzy guitar, at some point in the future is Google’s Brain project going to recognise “that’s a guitar”¹ and serve me adverts for guitars. This is the shit I don’t want to be subject to, because maybe the latest controversy with Google Reader where “Even Billions of Dollars Won’t Support Free” has me jaded, but it may sound cliché but I’m sick of being the product rather than the customer. For that reason; if I had an Android phone, and if this product even appealed to me, and if I was an Evernote user already, then I can tell you I’d stick with Evernote, because the reality is that I sort of know where I stand with them. I can pay for their product.

It’s nice that people are working on an open standard for this when the best competition is Samsung’s custom AllShare on their TV’s, since AirPlay launched it has blown my mind time and time over with how easy it is to use, there should be an equivalent for Android. I just worry that even this won’t be a satisfying solution, with YouTube working on it rather than the Android team the implication is that this won’t be integrated at the system level, it will be at the content providers digression as to whether DIAL is supported¹, making it an inconsistent experience for users.

It’s questionable what Netflix’s motivation is here: to team up with YouTube to create a solution to add to its own app on Android as an AirPlay equivalent and be satisfied with that having it as a competitive advantage, or to push this standard to gain widespread adoption so that it is actually useful for users. If the prior the case, they have missed the entire point of AirPlay – it is universally integrated at the system level, in all apps² – and DIAL will never gain widespread adoption.

(via iDownloadBlog)

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The public’s faith in the management of Netflix definitely took a hit after the Qwikster debacle but Reed Hastings got it right with this one. The beauty of Netflix is its ubiquity including its availability on Apple TV, I wouldn’t pay for Netflix if I couldn’t get it on my Apple TV, especially in the UK where Netflix’s primary competitor LoveFilm from Amazon still isn’t on Apple TV to this day. The availability of Netflix is its selling point, and a proprietary set-top box of their own would have soured relationships and crippled that.

Sidebar: the Lost-inspired internal video promoting the Netflix box is crazy.

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Recognising that a limited selection of official back plates might not be enough for owners of its Lumia 820 Windows Phone handsets, Nokia has taken a different approach and has given device owners the opportunity to create their own cases with the release of its 3D-printing Development Kit (or 3DK).

By offering the development kit — available in three separate files — Nokia becomes the first major mobile manufacturer to provide such resources, allowing for further customisation and the chance to make improvements to its removable back plate designs.

Really cool idea. Also the only good reason left to have a removable back cover.

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Q: But for how long? A: Until it needs to make money.

(via The Next Web)

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In contrast to The Magazine though which is clearly inspired by Marco’s other product, Instapaper, and focuses heavily on just plain text and readability, the Prss/TRVL UI is definitely more “designed”, multi-column formatting for text, bio’s for photographers, shutter speed, ISO and camera used for photos, and iAd’s built in. It’s undoubtably going in a different and more rich direction than the bare-bones reading experience that The Magazine has been commended for, but it does feel more magazine like while remaining inoffensive with the focus still on the actual content rather than the “look at everything we can do with this!” attitude that other iPad magazines have been seen to do.

Talking of The Daily, its greatest failing early on was the download time of each issue, one thing that caught my eye from The Industry’s article was that when downloading issues and content, Prss cheats:

Another aspect they have added which gives way to its well thought out experience is that instead of having to download the entire magazine at once, it seems to load it bit by bit (see what I did there?) so you can start reading right away; no waiting for it to uncompress. One of the reasons they are able to present the content to you so efficiently is due to their (assumingly proprietary) algorithm which brings what would be a 200MB file, down to a measly 40MB. In a world full of impatient consumers wanting to consume every pixel of information they can, that is a vital component to a smooth UX.

In short: Prss compresses the issues and opens them instantly on the device and downloads incrementally, from using TRVL I can say theres no wait time to download an issue instead it just loads in content page-by-page ahead of you. Sneaky.

One of the most intriguing things about Prss though is that according to the landing page, “Prss will be free for everyone”, while I’m curious about what the business model is here² being free means that Prss definitely stands a chance at disrupting the likes of Mag+ which is used for The Next Web’s TNW Magazine and is prohibitively expensive just to publish a single issue. Being free means the barrier to entry for people wanting to play around with an idea they’ve had will be essentially (and literally) nil. I would expect to see a lot more independent content creators putting stuff out there using Prss, even just to see if it sticks. More stuff like Stephen Hackett’s System Extension which was a really interesting idea but ultimately failed because it was taking content away from the site and couldn’t use the jazzy stuff from iBooks Author. It could turn out to be a better way for independent writers to earn money since it supports every established revenue model going: in-app purchases, subscriptions and advertising.

Whats I’m really just noticing now though is that none of this, not The Magazine, not Prss, not TRVL, would ever have existed without that quasi-folder on all our springboard’s that we all love to mock called Newsstand. Newsstand went from being a “publishing revolution”, to a sleeper that nobody cared about, to a publishing revolution, but this time it isn’t in quotes.

I’m perfectly satisfied with 3.5″.

Today Polaroid finally started talking about the details of their new Android-powered camera, the iM1836, after they confirmed its existence a few weeks ago. Just like the rumoured pictures the industrial design is second to none, even if the photos being banded around by The Verge and Gizmodo right now feature the non-Android-powered counterpart, the iM1232W, which had me worried since unlike the iM1836, it’s ugly as sin. I’m frankly astounded at how good this thing looks, it may not be completely cutting edge, but it has everything I’m looking for in a camera. Here’s my personal thought process on what Polaroid has come out with. Reasons to be excited:

• 18.1-megapixel camera.
• 1080p video.
• It runs Android.
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
• 3.5″ screen.
• Interchangeable lenses. Rumoured to be compatible with Nikon 1 J2 lenses since the two are remarkably similar.
• Support for Micro Four Thirds lenses through an adapter, whether it’s just a mount or a digital adaptor remains to be seen. Probably the prior sadly.
• Launching Q1 this year (read: soon).
• $399 price tag.
• $399 price tag.
• $399 price tag.
• Get the message?

Reasons to be slightly disappointed:

• It runs Android. But only version 4.1. Meaning it won’t get the camera UI improvements shown off in Jellybean 4.2. This thing with Photo Sphere would be amazing but probably won’t happen.
• No 3G connectivity.
• 3.5″ screen¹.
• Support for Micro Four Thirds lenses through an adapter, whether it’s just a mount or a digital adaptor remains to be seen. Probably the prior sadly.

Update: My greatest thanks to Ronnie Lutes who was on the show floor at CES yesterday and stopped by the Polaroid booth to check out the iM1836 for me. The fact that the camera app loads slow is worrying to me, but in their hands-on Engadget already made very clear that this is not a final software build so I still have hope – there is time to optimise and unlike Android phones the Polaroid camera won’t be tied up in carrier bureaucracy so hopefully updates will come through quickly. It will definitely be interesting to see the reception on the Polaroid iM1836 once the reviews start to come in.

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Twiggy is a remarkably polished app for what is effectively a weekend project which then went on to spend over 2 months in review². It’s a really fast app that feels like a good iOS citizen, offering a unique take on that blue nav-bar you see in stock iOS apps with a bit of Tapmates charm.

For an app which uses the stock blue iOS UI it manages to convey a lot of personality through the custom fonts used in the tab-bar and on profiles that really just take the standard UI and twist it a little.

The app is also has a great feature in which I’m calling the “universal smart-compose button”, the compose button persists in the top-right corner wherever you are in the app and will intelligently pre-populate the post with things depending on where you are in the app; if you are on a users profile it will include the persons username, if you are viewing a hashtag it will include that in the post. It simply preempts what you are going to do and helps you out in a little way that most users won’t even notice. That is great design.

Feature-wise it is currently very bare-bones lacking read later support, push notifications and starring with the App.net API, though I’m looking forward to seeing persistent development. It supports photo uploads and geotagging of posts and even has great inline photo previews for photos from MobyPicture, img.ly and CloudApp that fill the whole width of the screen. I much prefer these photo previews to what Tweetbot/Netbot does with a small square preview that doesn’t really give you any insight into what the photo is.

It is also the first iOS client (maybe even the first client) to support full App.net search through the search API for adn.nanek.net which offers trending topics and saved searches, in my experience adn.nanek.net search is under a minute slower than Netbot’s search at indexing posts but the added features like trending topics and saved searches make it preferable.

However both Twiggy and Netbot make one mistake which breaks my heart – both apps nest the Global feed under the Search tab. My gripe with this is that it fundamentally just doesn’t doesn’t make sense, I don’t think the Global feed belongs under search, the Global feed is not search, users are not naturally going to look under search to find the Global feed. It’s bad user experience.

The point of view of the creators of Twiggy seems to be that as App.net grows the Global stream will become less and less readable, which will likely be the case, however I think they could have spend more time to find a better way to expose the Global feed rather than just hiding it under Search. They previously had a working concept where you would swipe to the right in the Stream tab to load the Global feed though this was removed later, probably to make room to add gestures in the future. It is clear then that the brilliant team at Tapmates are capable of solving this problem. I think they just need to spend some time on it.

Stream for iPhone is still my daily driver on the iPhone, it just pushes all the right buttons for me and I love the swipe gestures and design, but I think Twiggy is going to be a solid alternative in the future for people looking for an App.net client on the iPhone, and it’s definitely worth a try now at the introductory price of £1.49 in the App Store.

As part of its announcement of its new mapping platform, Here, Nokia has confirmed that it will be extending the service beyond Windows Phone platform with dedicated apps for iPhone, Android, and Mozilla’s Firefox OS. The iOS app will offer turn-by-turn directions, public transportation information, and will be available “soon,” pending approval by Apple.

Microsoft is solidifying their position as a hardware company with the Surface, their Windows Phone partner Nokia is becoming a cross-platform services provider. This is the crazy world we live in. And I like it.

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