Top stories

Top 5 Things To Check Out at Macworld 2010

Macworld 2010 opens today. It is the 25th annual gathering of Mac users. That’s right, 25 years!
But thanks to the absence of Apple this year, this “Mecca for Mac Heads” may be the last. So check it out while you can.

The show runs for 5 days. The Expo showfloor opens on Thursday at noon.
For the [...]

Opinion: MacBook, or iMac + iPad?

20100208-imacipad.jpg

The announcement of the iPad has done a lot of things: it’s stoked up excitement in the Mac using community, it’s got a bunch of developers feverishly coding exciting new stuff, and it’s got retailers and cell phone companies the world over drooling over the money they can make from it.
And it’s also somewhat upset [...]

In Depth: 30 Days with the Nexus One

It’s been a month since my review of Google’s “SuperPhone”, the Nexus One. Since that time, we’ve surfed, updated facebook, navigated, called, played endless hands of cribbage and even tried to freeze it to death on a trip to Dayton Ohio. Follow me after the jump to find out does the “SuperPhone” stand the [...]

Apple second only to Microsoft in cash and investments… and that’s about to change

Silicon Insider posted this interesting graph putting into perspective exactly how large Apple is, compared with the other big three tech companies out there. And it’s all about cash.
Essentially, Apple is the second most cash rich company out there, with a little under $39.8 billion in cash and short and long term securities to call [...]

New iPhone Ads Are Third Party App-Tacular


Apple’s advertising for the iPhone is changing in interesting ways. When the product was brand new, all of the attention was on the interface, just introducing people to the idea of multitouch. Now, the focus has shifted to what you can do with an iPhone that you either can’t do or is too much harder to do on any other phone. The one above, “Fix,” is all about the little everyday problems the iPhone can solve, like finding a taxi, calculating your tip, or checking how level a shelf is. All of the featured applications (Rocket Taxi, Tipulator and Multilevel) are third-party, and each has a nice UI and a cool hook into signature iPhone 3G features, like GPS or the accelerometer.

Another new ad fits the same pattern, this one entitled “Read,” which goes into the many things you could read on the iPhone, including restaurant reviews (Yelp), an MRI (!) (OsiriX), or, well, a book (Classics). I’ve embedded it after the jump.

It’s a really smart way for Apple to make the App Store its own…killer app. How long until Apple makes the “Fart” commercial?

Via iPhone Savior


About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

Email the author | Read more posts by Pete Mortensen.

3 comments

    Man ….

    It’s stuff like this that’ll get it in folks’s heads that the iPhone
    is a pockecomputer more than a quote/unquote “Phone That Does Stuff”.

    Bring on the iPhone nano, Guydamnit !

    8^ ]

    A very true observation — the iPhone’s functionality is definitely the main attraction now. I think in particular the notion of the iPhone as a paying/ordering mechanism is gaining speed — the whole “mobile” credit card thing is covered in another post here at CoM, and there are apps like Taxi Magic — similar to the aforementioned Rocket Taxi but with the ability to call and track a cab right from the phone. There was a rumor — is there any truth to it? — that yelp may add a functionality where one can make a reservation at a participating restaurant via iPhone. Either way, the iPhone is quickly becoming a hub of gratification that needs few other tools to be used in tandem.

    You can’t compare taxi magic to rocket taxi. What if your city is not supported by taxi magic? What if you’re in Canada, France, UK, Australia? Rocket taxi has over 10000 cities + 17000 taxi companies and supports more than 1 country. To me it’s a no brainer!

Buy Inside Steve's Brain Buy from Amazon.com Buy from Barnes & Noble