Friday Afternoon App Review: Vine

So, Vine. It is no longer only wine in a Transylvanian accent; it is now also a mobile app. One of those fast up and coming social media apps that are going to take over the world. We feel like we should be running right now, that kind of thing.

The general gist of Vine is that it with it, you can create and post video clips. These video clips have a maximum length of 6 seconds and are posted in an unending loop.

The video clips that are posted have the ability to be shared on both Facebook, and Twitter, who since Oct 2012 actually own the app. So, cool. But what exactly am I using this for?

Well, companies have started using it in branching out further into social media advertising; some people are using it in journalism, it’s become big in film and there have already been Vine film festivals, and there are even those who believe that soon, video will take over the internet, and it all starts here. Bye, words.

You also get to see cool things like a person making a dog look like they are eating cereal. AND you get to play with stop motion, which, call us geeks but… it’s rad.

Three reasons you might have heard of Vine recently:

1. The head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, climbed the Bay Bridge in San Francisco on June 3rd to celebrate the release of Vine for Android. He also put it on Vine.

2. Those people we all know who are always one step ahead of everyone else when it comes to cool new things are talking about it. Usually exclusively on social media.

3. Vine was also made famous for a reaction from one of the actresses of Game Of Thrones, regarding the so called ‘red wedding’ episode. And by that I mean I refuse to say anything more about it because the amount of people already talking about it is unbelieveable. Ever heard of spoilers people??

Anyway.

The app is pleasantly simple to use. You can browse through the editor’s picks of video’s, the popular section, or search for specific video’s by using people’s names or hashtags. To make your own video, simply press the video camera button, and Vine will take you through a tutorial.

Vine is free from the app store, however due to Twitter not forbidding pornography explicitly ( Ha!), upon Apple’s request, you now have to be 17 to download the app.

Image courtesy of agbeat.com

What Tim Cook said at D11: All Things Digital, and what it means.

Tim Cook has confirmed that OS X 10.8.4 and iOS 7 will be announced and previewed at WWDC 2013. Well, d’uh Tim Cook.

And I know I just said D’uh, but iPhone Antidote just thought that was obvious- we’re still SUPER excited about seeing the updated software previewed! Yay!

Mr. Cook confirmed this at D11: All things digital, where he also expressed Apple’s interest in wearable devices ( Hello iWatch), said that he can’t imagine trying to convince someone who doesn’t wear glasses to do so ( … take that Google glass!) and spoke about how Apple is, for reals, not done in the business of game changing technology. Duh! And Yay!

Mr Cook also announced the hiring of ex- Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lisa Jackson. Tim did forget Lisa’s official job title (oops) but said that her role within Apple would be to coordinate their environmental responsibility efforts. Cook also reiterated that Apple had achieved 100% renewable energy use at its data centers, with its corporate facilities using 75% renewable energy. Nice job, Apple.

So this is what a few people in the tech world are miffed about- what Tim Cook failed to do, and completely on purpose, is to give away anything that people hadn’t already kind of knew about. He was very good at staying mute on subjects such as the next iPhone, and only hinted at the possibility of other product lines in Apple’s future.

Which we should be used to, really. Apple is the king of secret products and well laid secrets, leaked when and to whom they want.

A lot of people say that they have been waiting for too long for an Apple game changer, a product that blew our minds, but in reality after a shockingly good rate of 3 game changing products in 10 years, and then a three year wait, now is the time where we are amping up. Where Apple is amping up. Apple has genuine competitors now, and a new look, tighter, executive team since last years shake up and Steve Jobs’ death.

Everything ( as well as a subtle Tim Cook) is pointing towards a software heavy WWDC, with the hopeful inclusion of iRadio and some super exciting announcements starting this fall, extending into early 2014. Think a beautiful new iOS and OS X,  iWatch, iRadio, iTV, new iPhone, new ipad, and new Macbooks.

It’s an exciting time to be an Apple user!

Image courtesy of techland.time.com 

100 million iPod Touch’s sold and a new, cheaper update released!

Another milestone for Apple- they’ve just sold their 100 millionth iPod touch! That’s like, 5 iPod touches for everyone in Australia! Yay!

The device has been around since 2007 and the latest update has just been released last Thursday- with interesting results.

The updated iPod only comes in two colors, is only 16GB and has no rear facing camera. That all sounds …a little bit bleh, until you discover the reason for this is the lowered price- now only $229 compared to the 32Gb at $299 and the 64Gb at $399.

Selling cheaper versions of their products has been something that Apple seemed to have shied away from previously. Now however, with this cheaper iPod update, it seems like the first steps for Apple in trying to provide a bigger price scale of their product line to reach more people.

This gives credence to the rumors that Apple is planning to bring out a less expensive version of the iPhone.

According to Analysts, an ‘iPhone mini’ will be announced in July, called such not in reference to size, but in price- with guestimates pointing at a price tag of about $350- $400 to buy outright.

That’s a pretty penny saved compared to the price of the iPhone 5 which is currently $700-$900.

Just like Apple, we’ll have to wait and see if this iPod touch product meets with enough success in sales to know if the move to provide cheaper Apple products is a good path to take.

The risk of trying out this path is that people might rather stick to what they know, be it more expensive Apple products with all the bells and whistles, or another cheaper brand that is already established in that price range.

We vote… good move, Apple!

Image courtesy of engadget.com

Tablets taking over the world?

Tablets are predicted to overtake notebooks this year in sales, and projected to overtake sales of PC’s and notebooks combined by 2015, making tablets pretty much the king of the computer castle.

This is according to research firm IDC who released the figures in the last week, saying that tablets are expected to grow 59% this year, shipping 229 million units compared to a measly 144.5 million last year.

Although tablets have been around for a long time, their recent popularity is thanks to the Apple iPad, but the current growth is due to the proliferation of cheaper Android tablets and the role of Apple pushing for tablet use in education.

Here is a graph:

Pretty impressive, tablets. Anyone would think you had an evil plot to take over the world…or something.

Of course, these numbers don’t account for the mini computers we call phones, or any super awesome blow your mind technology that will be released between now and then, and it certainly doesn’t render the personal computer sector obsolete. Take that, tablets.

Now, when we start to get tablets that are flexible, have holographic keyboards, floating capabilities ( so you don’t have to carry them, d’uh), and an included wormhole for teleporting, then maybe tablets will be ready to take over the world.

p.s I love you iPad.

Photo courtesy of crowdcare.com

More iOS speculation

More speculation yesterday about Apple’s upcoming iOS 7!

So far, we all ( think we) know that the system update will be flatter and less skeuomorphic than the iOS we all know.

This means that some such features originating under Steve Jobs, such as the Notes app looking like a real notepad and other real world aesthetic replication will be gone under the leadership of Mr Jony Ive who took over in October last year. Gone also will be the shine and gloss of app icons.

Now, according to website 9to5mac, as well as being flatter, iOS 7 will have a monochromatic design and according to their sources, each app will have a white back with a splash of color individually assigned to that app.

Jony Ive is said to have made his mark throughout the whole of the updated version of iOS 7, which is due to be announced and previewed at the keynote address of WWDC on June 10th in San Francisco.

Looking forward to it Jony!

image courtesy of Redmondpie.com

AT&T discontinuing HTC First!?

The Facebook phone, otherwise known as the HTC First, is not doing so well, guys. First released just over a month ago on April 12th, the phone is the first Android device to have Facebook’s interface- Facebook Home- preloaded.

The phone, once in critic’s and customer’s hands, was given overall generally positive reviews, especially for a low-end phone. The downsides were also duly noted by all, in particular a less than stellar camera with limited functionality, and the fact that your phone and therefore life was now taken over by Facebook. The phone actually encourages 25% more time on Facebook. eek.

Now, the end seems just a little nigh for the HTC First. On May 13th AT&T started selling the phone at a discount. Instead of paying $99 for the phone on a two year contract- now it’s just $0.99. If you wanted to pay for the phone off contract, you’re looking at a $100 price cut from $450 to $350. Take that anyone who bought the phone on the 12th!

The price cut is apparently due to poor sales, with less than 15,000 phones being sold since the phone’s launch and less than 1 million people downloading the Facebook Home interface for their Android phones.

Although this has yet to be confirmed, according to the guys at website BGR.com (who have secret AT&T sources, d’uh), AT&T has made the decision to discontinue the phone altogether, selling off as many units as they can before sending any unsold inventory back to HTC.

I’m fighting back tears, here.

But, it’s ok guys, really it is. It’s not the end of the line for Facebook Home! The Android interface is still available to download, and both the App and the joint App + device marriage will, after a bit of tweaking, be back. And better, maybe. And available on iOS at… well… some point. If we want it.

Until then, you can just  click on that little blue F whenever you want to, and spend that 25% of your time like, dancing instead. Yay!

Image courtesy of BGR.com

Know someone who broke their phone this weekend?

So, three day weekend, huh? Did everyone have a good time? Yeah? Party? Yeah?

Well here’s a story from our weekend for you.

One of iPhone Antidote’s friends was having a really good time, a couple of kegs were involved, a flip was attempted, and, as you do, the dude tried to take a video of said flip. On his iPhone 5. Whilst he was doing a drunken flip.

Needless to say, it was hilarious. Also; now he has an iPhone that looks like this:

Good thing he’s friends’ with iPhone Antidote, cos he just sold that stinky broken phone to us, and now he has this instead:

And that bag holds exactly $325 cash! Happy friend.

Do you guys know of anyone who may have committed a similar party foul this weekend? Let them know that they can be a friend of iPhone Antidote too!

We’ll make it allll better. With money of course! And… maybe a video of a dude trying to do a flip. Trust us, it is really hilarious.

The 2013 Webby Awards

The 17^th annual Webby Awards were held on Tuesday, celebrating the best of the best from the internet world. This is relevant because, well, we’re both on the Internet right now aren’t we? …right?

Each category has a people’s choice winner, taken from votes from over 200 countries and territories as well as a winner as judged by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Here are a couple of highlights from the people’s choice!

Best User Experience– Tumblr! They also snagged best community. Let’s hope it stays that way, eh Yahoo?

Best Writing on the Internet goes to – The New Yorker. Don’t worry, I’m not crying, it’s just been raining on my face…

Best Business Blog goes to Mashable. Yay! We love Mashable!

Best Cultural Blog goes to mentalfloss.com. Awesome site- check it out if you haven’t already!

Best Game was angry Birds Star Wars edition.

Best Social Media Winner was Pinterest. We don’t really get Pinterest yet, but looks like we’re going to have to give it a try!

The Webby Person of the Year was Frank Ocean, for his use of the internet ( specifically Tumblr) to come out as bisexual, which in turn will hopefully help to combat homophobia in the hip-hop world. That escalated quickly…

The Webby Awards are well known for restricting the winners to an acceptance speech of five words, which was demonstrated quite nicely on Tuesday night by Steve Wilhite, the creator of the GIF ( Graphics Interchange Format), who received the life time achievement award. His five word acceptance speech was thus:

“It’s pronounced JIF, not GIF.” Groovy.

Jerry Seinfeld, while accepting his award  for outstanding comedic performance (for his web series  ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’) said this:

“Why five words? It doesn’t…”

oh, that Jerry.

A full list of the 2013 Webby Award winners can be found here: http://winners.webbyawards.com/2013 but be warned, ironically enough, the website is a little clunky.

Image courtesy of geekosystem.com

New iPhone release speculation

More conjecture recently about the next iPhone release date has proposed that the phone will go into mass production in June, ready for a Fall announcement and public release.

There were earlier suggestions that the phone could be announced at WWDC in June, however now it seems that the consensus is that the main products on display at WWDC will in fact be iOS 7 and OS X 10.9, leaving the new iPhone to be released in the Fall.

Japanese Newspaper Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun has reported that Sharp will begin manufacturing LCD panels for the new iPhone in June, which would make sense for a September release.

This would also make sense looking at the history of Apple’s past iPhone release schedule, as although the iPhone 4 was announced at WWDC in 2010, the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 were both announced in September ( Sept. 27th 2011, and Sept. 12th 2012 respectively).

Just to keep everyone on there toes, popular tech Twitter dude @evleaks posted that Verizon will be offering $100 off the iPhone 5, leaving some to speculate that this is so they can make room for the new iPhone- which points towards an earlier release.

We here at iPhone Antidote suspect that this is not the case, but, as always with Apple,  no one can be a hundred percent sure on exactly when the next iPhone will come out and exactly what features it will include!

Even so, we love playing the game, so we’ll be doing our best to keep you up to date with specs, release date and as much secret source stuff as you can handle! (…About the new iPhone…)

Photo courtesy of iboomer.com

iOS 7 Testing

In the lead up to WWDC, beginning June 10th in San Francisco, the guys over at Apple have been working their little butts off to get OSX 10.9 and in particular iOS 7 software updates ready and perfect before announcing them both at the conference.

After the debacle of Maps last year (press inflated or not), the dude in charge, Jony Ive, is stealing people from the OS X team to work on iOS 7 instead, and making everyone work double time if all reports are true.

What is also happening is a large amount of real time testing using the updated software- both on iPhones and iPads.

Companies in the tech industry, such as Macrumors and Onswipe have both noticed that since the beginning of May, there have been spikes in visits to both their sites and their partner sites from devices with Apple’s block of IP addresses; devices using iOS 7.

The devices are being tested in Cupertino and San Francisco, with 75% visiting from iPhones.

This means that Apple is in the final testing phases for the software update, which is proposed to have a major redesign with a flatter, non-skeuomorphic interface. Good news us, not so much for those predicting that Jony Ive wouldn’t make it to WWDC with a previewable product!

WWDC, is only a few days away! ( 24 totally counts as a few. Yessir.)

Image courtesy of  igeeksblog.com