What a cool idea! Flipboard, which just came out as a free iPad app, takes a user’s social content (from Facebook, Twitter, etc) and essentially creates a dynamic magazine-like experience - on the iPad. Although I haven’t used it myself, the screenshots and videos sure make the experience look beautiful. It almost looks like I can touch and feel a digital magazine that has been created just for me - using content from my own social networks. Flipboard also aggregates content from other sources, and creates it’s own curated hubs of data.

I’ve noticed a lot of mixed reviews about Flipboard. Some are saying it’s amazing, beautiful, easy-to-use, where others are complaining about not being able to sync up their Facebook content or getting errors (i.e. “over capacity”)  when trying to access data. Some of these complaints sound like some technical issues that may need some ironing out - so, I’m hoping that things will smooth out over time. (Remember: software nowadays is created in an agile process: we are always in a Beta!!!)

What I do question, however, is the need for yet another content aggregator. Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be so many of these out there that I can’t even keep track. Oh good: yet another tool to consolidate my YouTube videos and my Tweets? Do I really need this as an iPad app when I can get it easily through a website? It’s questions like these that make me see Flipboard is more about marketing hype and buzzwords (iPad, Social, big VC funding, etc) than it is about providing any useful tool for me. But, that is just my initial thoughts - I’d love to try it out as it looks pretty dang cool!

With the release of Google App Inventor, Google will be opening up it’s Android platform to non-developers with a friendly WYSIWYG-like tool that allows people to create applications without writing code. Apparently, Google has been testing this tool in school and kids are pumping out real, working Android applications!

I love the spirt of this, and can see how Google wants to promote their platform, and get people excited about creating applications for their app store - going right up against Apple.

The comparisons?

Apple iPhone

• closed environment
• app approval process for getting applications into it’s Store
• arguably complex programming language (Cocoa) - not trivial to learn to develop for (even for seasoned programmers)

Google Android

• open environment
• no app approval process for app store
• Android is based on Java - possibly the most popular programming language in the world

So, basically complete opposite approaches. There’s a lot more to say here, but this is the high level comparison and certainly paints an interesting picture.

Which is better?

While I love the sprit of Google’s open-ness, and I tend to disagree the closed approaches that Apple follows, I do worry about t over-saturation and dilution that could happen in the Google world - particularly now when anyone with an “App Inventor Kit” can throw together any app and give it away to the world. Again, the openness is cool, but it does come at a cost: quality. This is something Apple, with all their rigidness, refuses to let go of - and for good reason.

Perhaps, in the end, it could play out similar to how it happened in the 80s: Apple comes out first, with an amazing, inspiring product (the Mac), but refuses to open it up (in that case, refusing to allow the software to run on other hardware). Microsoft came along and created a cheaper product (Windows) that could run on any (lower cost) hardware, and they owned the market. As they say: “only time will tell.” With such totally opposite approaches to challenges that have already played-out in history, you’d think there’d be some kind of “magical” middle road to chose from.

I love apps that have a real utility and purpose. If they can “subtly” support the brand of the company providing the service, it becomes a great example of where a lot of the interactive/marketing biz is headed: creating service, utility and components of daily life verses passive, experiences and market awareness (pure advertising).

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/maybe-one-ipad-recipe-begins-dip-apple-in-kraft-caramels/

The app, which went live on Friday, is called Big Fork Little Fork, and is aimed at parents in their 20s and 30s with young children. The app includes more than 300 recipes, video clips and games.The iPad app costs $1.99 and is available at the Apple iTunes App Store at itunes.com.The interaction between Kraft and consumers with iPads is going to be “a lot more robust” than what took place in the days when consumers “would send away for recipe cards” after listening to or watching radio or TV shows like “Kraft Music Hall.”

All this is cool, but the big question I have is: When was there a TV show called Kraft Music Hall?

It looks like Nissan will be using Apple’s iAd platform to market their new Leaf electric car. There is already a video demo of the ad up on YouTube. I must say, the ad does looks amazing! However, I can’t help but question the uniqueness if this execution; it looks like a fancy Flash web banner to me (heck, it even reminds me of an old banner I built myself 10 years ago!)

There is not much about this ad that speaks to, or takes advantage of, the mobile medium. Instead, it appears to be another example of taking an experience designed for the desktop, and repurposing it for a mobile device.

Do users really want this type of distraction built into the apps they purchase? Personally, while I’m on my phone, I don’t think I want to be taken away from my current application process, and transfered (fullscreen) into a car ad where I’m suddenly busy exploring a new interface with a new objective (learning about a product). Although, to be fair, this type of explore and discovery experience could be nicely suited for the iPad (vs. iPhone in this example).

Don’t get me wrong, this is still really cool, and I’m sure that innovation will develop over time as designers become familiar with this new platform and what types of experiences work best for it. Thinking of this brings me back to those exciting, pioneering days of the early web. Nissan is one of the first to explore this new territory, and they deserve a lot of credit for taking the plunge!

I found this stumbling around YouTube and just had to share. So amazing to see how it all started. I love their idea for the original laptop. They called it a “portable computer” and it fit inside of a briefcase (or is that a suitcase?).

 And now there is a real name: Revue (code name “KA”). I’ve been waiting to see this! Now, I want one even more. Looking forward to seeing one in person, and looking even more forward to creating some apps for this thing! Note the use of iPhone for remote! The incorporation of Logitech’s whole Harmony remote, where a single device (in this case, an iPhone) could control all the devices in your entertainment system. This is pretty cool as it moves us in the direction of owning the whole digitally conntected living room!

Google just got fresher and faster with the release of their new indexing system,  Caffeine. In short, old Google indexing = built with layers that would get refreshed at varying frequencies and result in content often not updated for days or weeks. New Google indexing (Caffeine) = analyzes smaller chunks of the web and updates continuously; so content is much fresher!

Found this bit of news the other day; surprised that it’s not getting more attention considering all the noise out around Flash and Apple these days. To be clear, this app, Cloud Browse, is not actually installing the Flash runtime on the iPhone; so it’s not really Flash on the iPhone. It sounds like it works like VNC by allowing an iPhone to connect to another machine in order to see the content. Highlights from the USA Today post is below:“Here’s how it works: you download the free Cloud Browse App and install it. Then you direct the App to the website of your choice. Here’s where the interesting part comes in: the site is called up on another computer, which streams it back to your iPhone. The app, Cloud Browse, is free, has been out for a few weeks, and so far has picked up 150,000 downloads….it had already been approved by Apple by the time Apple CEO Steve Jobs penned his “Thoughts on Flash essay. Personally, I’d be concerned about the performance of this, but according to this report,  it’s apparently pretty darn good on the iPhone! I’m surprised Steve isn’t blocking it!http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/05/flash-comes-to-iphone–sort-of/1

You probably haven’t heard about this yet, but that little device they call the “iPhone” is about to get a re-haul. I wasn’t able to get tickets to the WWDC to see Steve announce it today in person, but thanks to Engadget, I can feel like I was right there in the middle of it all.  I was already hip to many of the new features after Steve announced the updates for the OS, but he was holding one of the most exciting features for today: video calling (FaceTime). I’m also impressed with the announcement of Retina Display, increasing pixel density by four times! The picture quality is unbelievable!