5 things Ping needs. Desperately.
Apple’s Ping social network for iTunes has the potential to be massive. Enormo-huge. But at the moment, it’s far too limiting. It’s like going to a pub and only allowing you to talk about beer. And only the beer they have on tap, too. And no sharing drinks.
If I had Steve Jobs’ ear, these are the five improvements I’d suggest (before diving for cover):
1 Base Ping around your music library, not the iTunes store. I want to talk about the songs I’m listening to from my hard drive, not the handful I’ve downloaded from iTunes.
2 Allow streaming of full songs. If mFlow can do it, surely Apple can? Even if you’re limited to a single listen to any track (a la mFlow) it would surely lead to people buying more songs. What’s the point in a social network around songs that only allows you to listen to 30-second clips? (I’d also love to share in the profits if Apple sells songs I’ve recommended, but I’ll be realistic here – and leave mFlow with a USP…)
3 Support unsigned bands. The only artists you can follow at the moment are bands with content on iTunes. But the really interesting and engaging bands are the ones that are only just emerging. Apple needs to let them sign up as artists so they can post pictures, videos and music to their followers. Then it’s really bye-bye MySpace.
4 Integrate Social media. Apparently Apple’s currently having a little contretemps with Facebook, which explains the current lack of Facebook Connect. Fair enough, but you need to be able to share Pings (or Pongs?) on Twitter and Facebook. And you need to be able to import your social media contacts into Ping. And if Apple’s not going to allow full song streaming, plug Spotify in there to (wait, Steve, stop throwing things at me).
5 Allow me to post comments about anything. Does Ping have to be so music focussed? It would be great to recommend apps or movies. And does every new post have to be related to a bit of media? Sometimes it’s nice to say something that isn’t related to an album. Something that doesn’t have a pricetag next to it.
Ultimately, iTunes has a lot going for it: its catalogue, its iPhone/iPod integration, its vast user base… but with Ping, Apple needs to do something very un-Apple: loosen the reigns, and let the users take control.
Apple iPhone 4: the one that goes nuclear
The iPhone 4 went on sale just four hours ago, but it’s already a massive hit. And I mean MASSIVE. I’ve just returned from central London – I visited six Carphone Warehouse shops and two Phones4U – all had sold out within the first two hours.
Apple faithful queue for the iPhone 4
So I cycled up to Apple’s flagship Regent Street store, which had been open for two and a half hours. And yet people were still queueing round the block. Here’s what I saw (incidentally, I took the picture with the iPhone 4 – click to see it full res).
There were a few phone network stores that obviously had some stock left, because there were queues outside. This is certainly the most demand I’ve ever seen for a mobile phone. I’m guessing Apple’s going to make a lot of money today – and the iPhone 4 will lose its exclusive cool remarkably quickly. Fortunately, it’s still an amazing phone. Here’s my video review for Stuff.tv:
(BTW As many Toobers have pointed out, I make a mistake about the pixel count – it has four times the number of pixels, not double the number. What I meant to say was it has double the resolution (960×640 as opposed to the 480×320 on the 3GS).)
You can read the Stuff review of the Apple iPhone 4G here.
And you can see my unboxing blog here.
And finally, my favourite pic of the iPhone 4. It’s truly a thing of beauty. Click to embiggen.
The Times iPad app: are papers yesterday’s news?
I paid £9.99 for a month-long iPad subscription to The Times on Saturday. I wasn’t sure what i was going to get – i’d looked at the new paid-for website and found little that sets it apart from free sites from The Telegraph and The Guardian. Apart from a forest of serifs.
The Times iPad app, however, delivers a ‘proper’ newspaper experience – you download a daily edition and read through pages repurposed for the iPad, with a few picture galleries and videos to remind you that you are using a digital device. The idea is to give a sense of value – and it almost works.
Yes, the editorial quality is top-notch. And I’ll forgive the lack of interactivity or social features. This is, after all, the UK’s paper of record. But I before i buy another month’s subscription, I’d need to see the app’s two big problems addressed.
Firstly, design. The rigid adherence to multiple columns with force-justified text may make the Times app look like a paper, but it also makes it a pain to read on a screen. And there’s no way of increasing font size, which is bizarre when you consider that the pages appear to be text flowed into templates rather than human-designed.
Secondly, the publication process. The daily paper analogy may feel reassuringly familiar to publishers, but it strikes me as bizarre that The Times app doesn’t update its headlines during the day. I spent Saturday morning reading a positive profile of David Laws in The Times, not realising that he’d become embroiled in a scandal in the hours since the virtual presses stopped turning. In short, the Times app is yesterday’s news – understandable in print, unforgivable in pixels.
Of course, we’re all finding our way in the brave new world of editorial apps, and the Times app is providing a great service for those of us in publishing without the money or guts to dive in immediately. There’s an advantage to being first, too – the Times has managed to make me buy a month-long subscription when I rarely but its physical incarnation. I can confidently say I’ve never spend £10 on the Times in one month before. Probably not even in a year. Similarly, Wired’s magazine app managed to sell 24,000 in it’s first day on sale.
I still have grave doubts about The Times as a paid-for desktop experience. But its iPad app suggests there is a moneymaking future for publishing beyond paper – just so long as we publishers don’t rely too heavily on print analogies.
Oh, and as long as a few people in the UK actually buy iPads, too.
The Apple iPad heralds the age of sit-back computing
With every hour I spend with the Apple iPad, my initial skepticism evaporates a little more. I thought it was a beautiful gadget looking for a purpose. Now I’m starting to realise that it’s slicing a tidy little niche all of its own.
Apple iPad = sit-back computing
The iPad isn’t a replacement for a laptop. Nor even a netbook. It’s not a serious work tool. Its DNA is far more iPod than MacBook – but that is its strength. The large screen and zippy processor of the iPad open up a incredible new range of possibilities.
This is the computer reborn as a cross-generational leisure device. Its unbeatable when you’re sitting back on the sofa reading or watching TV. It’s also a social computer, perfect for sharing videos, pictures and games with friends. It lands firmly in between the sit-forward experience of traditional computing and the lie-back experience of passively consuming TV.
But if you’re thinking of buying one, it’s worth noting what the iPad can and can’t do. You can read my full stream-of-consciousness review of the Apple iPad Wi-Fi + 3G over at Stuff.tv.
Vote to upgrade the UK’s operating system.
This has been a thrilling election. Not just because the outcome is so unclear; but because the depressing dominance of the newspapers has been challenged by new media.
Xbox Live's party leaders. Ready, aim… fire!
Ok, TV isn’t exactly new media – and there’s no denying the leaders debates have engaged the voters and thrust Nick Clegg into the limelight. But what made the debates interesting for me was the meta-debates happening on Twitter and Facebook as the leaders wrangled on TV. Watching viewers’ minds change in realtime during that first debate was amazing. And reading Malcolm Tucker’s tweets made the boring bits bearable, too.
Since that first debate, most of the press has been working at hard to undermine the Lib Dems, churning out the usual fear-and-smear tricks. I don’t usually mind the antics of the press, but at election times I find the blatant bias sickening. But the web and TV debates have provided a more direct forum for people to make up their own minds without being muddied by the dark motives of newspaper editors and proprietors.
It feels like we’re close to something spectacular: an upgrade to the UK’s operating system.
mFlow: Twitter with a passion for tunes
Today I managed to bag an invite to mFlow, a new beta music service. To my surprise, it’s brilliant. Not quite fully formed, but very close.
And I’m no dewy eyed novice. I’ve see quite a few beta music services in my time, and only occasionally have they really made sense to me. I loved Pandora because it helped me discover new music, but it was ahead of its time and was eventually forced to withdraw from the UK.
I enjoy Spotify, but I find myself using less and less because I want to listen to great music without the pain of having to meticulously choose one track after another. I need recommendations. Last.fm is great, but strangely impersonal.
And of course all these services have been cowering in the shadow of the mighty iTunes, scrabbling for a few pennies while Apple makes cash both from hardware and the world’s biggest music superstore.
mFlow, though, is something different: Twitter meets iTunes. A social network built around a passion for music. A recommendation engine that relies on your friends. And – that rarest of things in digital music – a business model that seems to make sense.
Why BBC iPhone apps are a bad thing
BBC iPhone apps: exciting, but they should never see the light of day. Here’s why:
The tide is turning against the BBC. Whoever grabs power at the next election will be faced with a gaping black hole where the Bank once stood – every tax will be scrutinised, and the TV licence is likely to be seen as an inessential frippery.
Worse, while the tax-funded BBC is developing brilliant products (iPlayer, BBC News, HD, 3D) at a startling pace, the UK’s commercial media industry struggles to raise advertising and grapples with the impossibilities of charging for its wares online. It’s all falling apart.
The battle for the desktop is lost. People won’t pay for an in-browser experience. Which is why the holy grail for media is mobile. Because folks are willing to pay for stuff on iPhone and Android. Hence The Guardian can successfully charge £2.49 for an (admittedly lovely) iPhone app that does little more than repurpose its website. And so every magazine maker is looking to develop iPhone (and iPad) apps that replicate the magazine experience. Apps they can charge for. Every month.
So when the BBC rides into this nascent market and delivers free apps offering brilliant news, sports and video, it devalues the market. The BBC doesn’t need to chase after sponsors or wonder how to fit advertising onto a tiny screen. It doesn’t need to offer a premium service or get inventive with in-app purchases. It doesn’t even need come up with a business plan.
So as an iPhone user, and BBC fan, I want free BBC iPhone apps. But this time I have to play the role of killjoy: we’re more likely to see a healthy media industry – and therefore a reason to keep the licence-funded BBC – without free BBC iPhone apps.
The buzz on Buzz
I’m not exactly convinced by Google Buzz. And I’m not alone. I was asked by Mercedes Bunz at the Guardian to provide a comment on Google’s new social networking service – and there seems to be a consensus among those polled that Buzz is a long way from success.
I was asked “Will Buzz help Google keep up with Facebook?”. I replied:
“Buzz doesn’t have anything like the scope of Facebook. It’s more akin to Twitter – but it doesn’t really offer anything new. Sure, you can publish pics and videos, but any self-respecting Twitter software will do that too. And being able to type long status updates in Buzz ignores one of Twitter’s great appeals: distilling a thought into 140 characters.
But friends are more crucial than features – and there’s no escaping the fact that Twitter and Facebook have critical mass. Buzz will have all the appeal of an empty disco until it integrates fully with existing social networks, allowing you to aggregate and publish to all your social feeds at once.”
I was intrigued by the comments by Candace Kuss, who points out that Google is becoming less engineering-driven and more brand-driven. Unfortunately, as Candace points out, the Google brand is starting to feel more Microsoft than Apple, right down the colours in the logo.
VIDEO: CES 2010 in review
Never one to shy away from the limelight, I humbly present my coverage of CES for Stuff.tv, scripted, recorded and edited from the comfort of Teddington Studios, with the ever-helpful and often abusive Timothy Bunn manning camera and chopping suite.
VIDEO: The Future Squad’s verdict on tech in 2020
Since the demise of Tomorrow’s World there’s been a disappointing lack of hair-brained futurological speculation on the BBC.
Which is why it was an honour to be invited to be a part of The Future Squad for the BBC News website, alongside such luminaries as inventor Trevor Bayliss and scientist Robin Mannings.
You can see the whole three minutes of liquid-crystal-ball gazing over on the BBC News website. I look forward to the shame of seeing just how wrong I was in a decade’s time.
Tom Dunmore is HM 'Mad' Murdoch in… The Future Squad