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Friday, March 14, 2014

SXSW 2014 Recap & Notes

After a great 5 days in Austin, I'm back in Houston. I took a bit of time today to type up some of my written notes and expand on different themes I took away from SXSW. At a high level, the trends are pretty clear, and echo much of the premise of Robert Scoble's (pictured above) new book, "Age of Context": we're entering an era where mobile/wearable technologies are combined with big data, social layers, ubiquitous sensors, location-based services, and increasingly automated forms of movement (like drones & driverless cars). And all of this is happening extraordinarily fast to change what our expectations of privacy, leisure and self-actualization should truly be. Sound a little heady? Yes, perhaps, but that's kind of the idea when you're at a conference focused on figuring out the future.

Below I've assembled my disparate notes from each event I attended, broken down by day. There's a lot of content here, and not everything will make 100% sense without the context of what was also spoken during the sessions. However, if there's any bullet you find particularly intriguing but non-obvious, don't hesitate to ask a question in the comments, and I'll try to elaborate in more detail.

Friday

"The New Digital Age” with Eric Schmidt
- Securing data & communications is increasingly important in volatile regions of the world
- Activists & Hacktivists are good about using security; ordinary folks are not.
- The limits of our technology increasingly end at the barrel of a gun
- Google has an entrenched interest in making the internet available everywhere…just like Facebook
- Google treats US governments just like foreign governments when it comes to defending against cyber attacks

Pennzoil Presents Mario Karting Reimagined
- Combination of RFID, video capture/streaming, & contextual audio cues
- Interesting use case for first-person POV video streaming & gamification
- Video from Juston’s Google Glass perspective: https://twitter.com/JustonWestern/status/442119206612389888
- Video from GoPro cameras operated around the track: https://twitter.com/JustonWestern/status/442308702075228160

Saturday

A Virtual Conversation with Julian Assange
- Assange likes to pontificate
- No citizen is beyond the reach of surveillance, even the President of the United States or other world leaders
- Assange believes it is increasingly important for individual citizens to hold their governments accountable by leaking
- More journalists & leakers are moving to places like Berlin or Ecuador

So You Want Our Seed Money? Here's How to Get It!
- Warm introductions are by far the best way to get the attention of a VC
- Transitive Property of Hate: if I hate the person making the introduction of you to me, I now hate you
- Only ask your network for one or two solid introductions; quality over quantity
- Getting an introduction from a founder of portfolio is the best introduction of all
- Have a prototype built before you ask for a meeting
- Don’t push for an investor’s time; let the investor ask for your time once they’re interested
- A demo is infinitely better than merely a deck
- Make sure your deck is well designed…especially if you purport your product to incorporate solid design principles
- Be able to truly sell your story; you can back off some claims once the story has people interested
- 5 points of evaluation: Team, Market, Product, Idea, Product/Team Fit
- “Why is THIS team the BEST team in the world to build THIS product?”
- You want to be “socially proven” by virtue of navigating the social landscape to land an introduction; buys significant credibility
- Need a true depth of understanding of consumer behavior in that space if you don’t have the pedigree to back it up
- 1 out of 100 ideas actually get invested in
- Areas where a VC will provide support: Business Development, Customer Intros, Tech press PR, M&As, Raising next round
- It is critical that you have a true connection with your investor on the core vision of your product
- Setup a “Shadow Board” early on to understand the motions once your board is actually needed
- “We don’t fund you for what you’ve done. We fund you for where you going.”
- Be mentally prepared to stick with your idea/company for 8 - 10 years.

A Conversation with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Embrace the process of learning
- Encourage your kids to break eggs; they’ll learn many scientific concepts in the process
- Tooth Fairy example of maintaining childhood innocence while still keeping scientific integrity
- Power of metaphor/analogy and visualizations as concept grasping tools
- The facts aren’t important; it’s how you arrive at those facts. That’s the scientific approach.
- Don’t get attached to the number. The enumerated output is never the most important thing.
- Embrace the communities of entertainment & sports to advance a learning agenda.
- "There's so much amazing in the universe, I don't want you to be distracted by things that are not.”
- "The first trillionaire on earth will be the one who mines an asteroid."

Innovation in Big-Time College Football
- Primary recruiting tool for team is social media; almost exclusively Twitter DMs & Facebook messaging. 24/7 affair
- College football uniforms are increasingly a recruiting differentiator. Arms race between Under Armour/Nike translates into recruiting wins.
- Team communication handled exclusively through mass text messaging.
- Faker Twitter accounts of attractive girls are setup by team coaches to get players to friend them so their activity can then be monitored.
- Using media coverage to your advantage is so important when the university locale isn’t in a major market.
- Must have something to draw young players to smaller towns. The promise of something greater.
- Chip Kelly is heavily leveraging wearable technology to monitor his players in Philadelphia.

Connected Home Developers Garage Happy Hour at Silicon Laboratories
- User Experience of most smart home devices is still dreadful
- No agreed upon protocol yet for next generation smart home devices. Still a mishmash of Zigbee, Z-Wave, X10, etc.
- Increasing interest in Pebble as a controller
- Life360 partnership with BMW for iDrive system, attempting to make that service the platform
- Interesting advancements in low-powered devices, like thermostats, smoke detectors, doorbells

Sunday

Sunday Brunch with Robert Scoble & Expedia at Gypsy Lounge
- Recap of guiding theories from “Age of Context” book
- Twitter’s “Fail Whale” designer was also on stage
- Power of If This Then That for creating these new contextual experiences

Equipping & Inspiring the Next Generation with Dean Kamen
- High-tech Coke machines at restaurants are commercial by-product of a water filtration system
- FIRST program embraces celebrities like Will.i.am to champion the coolness of science & technology
- Creating a maker culture in your home is so important, especially for women/minorities to make it part of the lifestyle
- NRG has an engine to create electricity from compost & other trash to power water filtration; interesting possible applications
- Teach your children how to learn, not how to memorize. The learning part is the absolute key.

Sundar Pichai Conversation with John Battelle
- Google is launching an official SDK in 2 weeks: Android for Wearables.
- Q: "Why do we need Chrome AND Android?" A: "Chrome is best for web, Android best for mobile. Having both lets us keep each simple.”
- Asked audience who owned Chromecasts. Probably half the attendees raised hands. Not bad for a product less than a year old.
- "Does Google have a master plan? I mean, is there an architecture to all this shit you're doing?" Hilarity. A: Not a plan but maybe a thesis.
- Discussion around evolution of the master identifier away from mobile #’s to something else
- Cross-platform messaging characterized as “very difficult” as they’ve learned from Hangouts/Google Chat/Google Voice

The Future of Genetics in Our Everyday Lives with Anne Wojcicki
- Use data to change long-held opinions
- The more statistical insight you have about yourself, the more you can make healthier decisions
- Take an active role in your own healthcare conversations with physicians by providing supporting documentation
- To make systemic changes, there has to be an economic incentive to PREVENT vs TREAT; sick people are profitable

Glassholes: The Cultural Dissonance of Technology
- People are afraid because currently an online persona is self-curated; Glass has potential to take that away
- Society struggling with whose rights are more important: the right to not be recorded vs the right to don Glass
- Transparency & “being a good human” are key for something like this to work
- Parallels to existing body of law around public photography
- Businesses/Brands are eager to incorporate Glass into their offerings
- What is the impact on children? Relationship to 13+ Terms of Service vs actual psychological impacts
- Is Glass just a result of engineers wanting to create cool technology for themselves?
- Does technology always need a reason to exist? Can it be created “just because” & then let society identify applications?
- Glass is designed with the user/wearer in mind, to keep them in context & undistracted
- Audience very split on whether Glass is a force for good or a risk for society; impassioned opinions during Q&A session

Context is King: iBeacons & the Internet of Places
- Notifications should be different based on location, but also temporally relevant (dinner ad vs breakfast ad)
- Art Museum is a natural place for iBeacon deployments
- Personalization is critical.
- Make sure your alerts are highly valuable to the recipient
- Leverage the passive nature of these sensor/app combos
- Example of disarming the home alarm based upon entrance to driveway
- Don’t abuse the technology’s functionality so users aren’t bombarded. Mall example.
- Quality of Content vs Frequency of Content
- Utility must be clear
- Tickler effect: reminder to use the right app on your device at the right time.

Monday

Snowden 2.0: A Field Report from the NSA Archives
- Snowden characterized as immensely intelligent by Washington Post journalist
- Snowden has refused to disclose portions of the documents that would endanger government personnel
- The security/encryption technology community is “pissed off” and working to see this never happens again
- Discussion around whether RSA was complicit & gave backdoor access to key generation algorithm

A Virtual Conversation with Edward Snowden
- Snowden appearing through 7 proxies from Russia, so significant video latency, although audio clear
- Glenn Greenwald Test is failed with most tech: it’s too hard for the average user to figure out
- Using technology like TOR or PGP creates too high a barrier of entry for even people semi-tech literate
- Making the communication secured by default is the only way there will be mass adoption
- Encryption works. Much more likely to use social engineering to get the key than to break the encryption via brute force
- Effect of PRISM leaks led to significant changes at Google and Yahoo around secured email options
- Machiavellian perspective, but positive, public-benefitting changes have occurred since the leaks
- “I took an oath to support & defend the Constitution of the United States. That’s what I’m doing."

Top Tech Innovation Trends for 2014 with Robert Scoble & Gary Shapiro
- $4,000 waterproof LED t-shirt with programmable display via smartphone app; http://switchembassy.com/ & http://www.tshirtos.com/
- Wearables for kids are gaining significant traction
- MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) are driving most of the innovation
- Sensors placed upon football players to beam real-time data on heat, perspiration & intensity of hits to TV broadcasts
- Google Glass probably 3 - 5 years away as a truly mass scale product
- Glass characterized as the “most controversial product in my lifetime” by Robert Scoble
- Muse biofeedback brainwave headband: http://www.interaxon.ca/muse/
- Movement towards shorter, clearer, most standardized disclaimers on software agreements, following trend in credit card industry
- Debate of Privacy vs Value for much of the wearable tech
- BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) & iBeacons seeing much attention from tech community
- Pairing the sensors with a social layer creates compelling new applications
- 3-D printing really starting to take off because the initial patents have now expired
- Very quickly moving to printing meals and household items
- Fulfillment of online purchases will increasingly come from printing at home, drone delivery, or automated delivery trucks
- Cube sensors for monitoring your indoor environment: http://cubesensors.com/
- Ninja Innovation Book: http://www.amazon.com/Ninja-Innovation-Strategies-Successful-Businesses/dp/0062242326
- Wall-sized TVs for truly immersive rooms
- The most prized rooms in offices in the near future won’t be the corner suite, but the one completely covered in displays from floor to ceiling, all touch-enabled
- The 5 Sense experience (like getting together in person at SXSW) still very relevant to augment our daily, primarily virtual experiences
- Licensed vs unlicensed spectrum; investigating taking some spectrum back from local broadcasters
- Huge win for small companies with passage of JOBS Act that officially backed crowd funding
- Eureka Park at CES enables smaller companies to get mass exposure
- Google Glass technology was acquired by Google via an acquisition of a startup
- JBL headphone speaker designs are leveraging novel new shapes prototyped via 3-D printers
- What are the far reaching impacts of driverless cars on society? Huge impact on reduced insurance claims, truck drivers, billboards
- Notion of Car as API
- Car companies are being reshaped as technology companies

A Global Economy Driven by Platforms & APIs with Werner Vogels
- “Everybody loves to sell. Everybody hates to ship.”
- Cloud resources must be instant on, remote access guaranteed
- Sharing your core competencies with your competitors can actually become your competitive advantage.
- Embrace the notion of “not invented here”.
- You can get more out of your own platform by scaling it with your competitor’s data & usage
- Not doing it alone allows you be more successful
- Let others benefit from your scale
- The platform must be a level playing field
- Reward your sales people for how much money they save your customer
- Only 10 - 15% of IT infrastructure is typically utilized within companies. Amazon targets 100%.
- Lingering concerns about a winner take all / single point of failure when one company controls so much infrastructure

Relieving Frustration: Porn & User Experience
- Richness of content directly proportional to the number of engaged senses
- Realism is greatly determined the sensor fidelity
- How is participation defined? Self or Shared.
- Use Content AS the navigation
- Categorize content by making it highly tagged & crowd-sourced
- The more interconnected the content, the more organic the discovery
- Multi-site, predictive search allows discovery across properties
- Allow for minimal inputs to produce results
- Create multiple paths to content discovery, while limiting required input
- The closer you get to a first-person POV, the more immersive…a situational illusion
- Embrace greater fidelity and unique POVs
- Condense functionality across devices: computer, mobile, wearable
- Real-time language translation in chat to facilitate global content creators in non-native tongues
- Adding a new layer of sensory data to previously created content changes the experience of it
- Expand the Experience & cause “change at a distance"

Tuesday

Biz Stone in Conversation with Steven Johnson
- "If you want to succeed spectacularly, you must be willing to fail spectacularly. That's how you build a business of enduring value."
- "The promise of a highly-connected society is helping others.”
- Society will use technology in ways that you previously did not conceive
- Example of the proliferation of railroads exposing the shortcoming of no centralized time-keeping
- Example of flash photography in Germany leading to improvements in slum living conditions in NYC
- At Twitter, Ev was the business guy with money, Biz was the designer with product experience, & Jack was the technical mind
- Upcoming show from Steven: How We Got To Now - http://www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2013/how-we-got-to-now/
- Upcoming book from Ev: Things A Little Bird Told Me - http://www.amazon.com/Things-Little-Bird-Told-Me-ebook/dp/B00ECEA35C/

Walked the SXSW Trade Show Exhibition Floor
- Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream
- 3-D Printing technology is evolving very quickly
- Ring founder on site with prototype of motion-control ring - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcut-everything?ref=live
- Interesting table/wall displays from Digital Touch: http://digitaltouchsystems.com/
- Well-designed MacBook/iPhone docks from http://hengedocks.com/
- Remarkable human exoskeletons from Skeletonics: http://en.skeletonics.com/

Sunday, February 23, 2014

SXSW Survival Guide & Packing List 2014 - How One Geek Planned For It

SXSW 2014 will be my 4th year in Austin for the conference since 2010. The first two years were badgeless, just checking out the unofficial events around town and networking at the bars & restaurants near the Austin Convention Center. In 2012, I took the year off since my identical twin daughters were born on March 12, 2012. And last year, I officially attended with a badge, representing the ChaiOne team. Seeing each Elon Musk, Al Gore, Nate Silver, Rachel Maddow, & Dennis Crowley speak within 4 days was pretty remarkable.

Over the past 5 years I’ve learned that while serendipity is the key to an amazing SXSW, you don’t facilitate that without a fair amount of planning in the month before the conference. It helps to RSVP to parties, even if you know you can't attend all of them. It helps to pick several interesting talks at each time slot on the conference schedule so you have options when some are inevitably full or too far away. It helps to poll your network on Twitter & LinkedIn to gauge who will be in town, so you can note who to invite along to interesting events or meet for a drink. It also really helps to pack or buy the right gear to keep your gadgets and body charged for 5 days of abuse.

There are numerous well-written resources online about what to pack and how to maximize your experience while at SXSW. I suggest Googling “SXSW Survival Guide” or “SXSW Packing List” to get broad exposure to veterans’ opinions if you don’t know where to begin. Two I’ve found particularly valuable are Tantek Çelik’s list from 2011 & Aubrey Sabala’s guide from last year.

My list below isn’t intended to be a comprehensive checklist of what you should bring. If nothing else, I hope it may spark some ideas of things you might consider bringing if you’ll be in attendance, serve as a gauge of what an early adopter is using at a tech conference, or represent a humorous reminder of how quaint technology was when you read this 5 years from now.

I’ve broken the list into six sections. The first two are focused on the gadgets and the accessories that will power those gadgets. The next two are about powering the badge-wearing biomachine, and hacking that biomachine to endure 18 hour days of walking, learning, networking, and…drinking…heavily. The fifth is a quick rundown of the other non-battery-powered items I advocate keeping in your go bag each day. The last section is all about the mobile apps that will be getting their own respective workouts during the event.

Gadgets

- iPhone 5S: This will inevitably be my most-used device. Tablets, smart watches, glasses, & other wearable tech is important, but nothing matches the criticality of your phone at SXSW.

- iPad: I'm using a 3rd generation (the first with a Retina display) model, and intend to use this the most during conference talks for note taking, tweeting, and ad hoc Googling.

- Google Glass: I was able to get my prescription frames & lenses in just in time for SXSW this year, so I'll really be putting Glass through its paces for the first time at the event.

- Nike Fuelband: My second highest Nike Fuelpoints day of 2013 was the Saturday of SXSW. I'm hoping to top that while walking around downtown this year.

- Withings Pulse: I have a hunch that I'll get my target of 10,000 steps per day all 5 days of the event, but nowhere near the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night that this gadget will be monitoring.

- Pebble: Push Notifications from my iPhone on my wrist. I forgot my Pebble charger at SXSW last year, and missed its functionality dearly.

- Wii U Fit Meter: With all the hills in Austin, I'm hoping I make some measurable progress in Wii Fit U on ascending the equivalent height of Mt. Everest.

- Nintendo 3DS XL: While I don't think I'll get much playing time while in Austin, by tossing this in my bag, I'll easily be able to fill up my Nintendo ID with Play Coins from all the walking. Although, I'm always up for a game of Mario Kart!

Gadget Power

- Mophie Juice Pack Helium: My first line of defense in an electricity hungry conference, this extended battery case served me well last year and will be flipped on once my phone's internal battery hits 20%...which will likely be before lunch each day.

- Anker Astro 6,000 mAh Portable Charger: My second line of defense, this battery should be enough to get me 2 or 3 more full charges on the iPhone each day. Depending on the day, this will last me until I get back to my rental house each evening (read: 2:00-3:00AM).

- Anker Astro3 12,000 mAh Portable Charger: Here's the catch-all battery for everything else I'll be wearing or using each day. Likely gadgets to drink from this oasis include the iPad, Google Glass, and possibly the Pebble. Those new watch faces that are possible in the 2.0 Pebble firmware are really power hungry. If I blow through the charges in the first two items on the list, this guy will also be available for the iPhone.

- Anker 40W 5V / 8A 5-Port Travel USB Charger: This won't go out and about with me in my bag, but instead will serve as the main charging hub once I'm back in my room each evening.

- Mediabridge Portable Surge Protector with USB Chargers: One in my backpack each day, and then one back in the room.

- Assorted Lightning/30-Pin/Micro USB Cables: As you can infer from the list of gadgets and external batteries above, I'm going to need more than just a few of these to ensure I'm starting each morning 100% juiced up.

Body Fuel

First Thing In The Morning

- Bottled Water
- Gatorade
- Coconut Water
- Red Bull

Carried In The Bag To Consume Throughout The Day

- Powerbar
- Gatorade Chews
- Candy Bar
- Beef Jerky

Every Other Opportunity

- BBQ
- Tacos

Body Hacks

Did I mention every day pushes about 18 hours, for many of those hours you're drinking with new & old friends alike, and you'll shake hands countless times with folks from all over the planet who may or may not be in tip top health? Yeah, it's more than just a tad taxing on your body.

The first two years I attended SXSW, I thought "Hey, I went to undergrad in New Orleans, this will be a cake walk!" and came home to Houston a shell of a man both times. Last year, I proclaimed "I will beat the system...with science!" and stocked up on tons of fluids to slurp down each day, along with an assortment of supplements to battle the inevitable dehydration, lack of sleep, and the always looming SXSW Flu.

The plan worked wonders. It's by no means a silver bullet to avoid a hangover completely or make it to the first panel every morning, but it definitely levels the playing field. It also helps ensure you won't need a full week to recover from SXSW once you make it back home (which is more common than you'd believe).

- Hammer Nutrition Endurolytes: Usually employed by marathoners to ensure they keep enough electrolytes in their body while racing. SXSW is a marathon.

- Berroca: Magic fizzy pills from Europe to bring you back to life each morning with a surge of Vitamins B & C.

- Advil Liqui Gels: Short of taking prescription pain relievers for your inevitable headache, this is the next best thing. Prudent to wait until the next morning to take these, though, as mixing with alcohol at the end of the night can be dangerous.

- Airborne Powder: One packet mixed with a glass of water in the morning, one before bed.

- Emergen-C Powder: One packet mixed with a glass of water at lunch.

- Prolab Caffeine Tablets: Easier on the bladder than coffee, but with an equivalent jolt of caffeine as two cups of joe. You do want to be alert and engaged during the panels, right?

- Advocare Slam: Kind of like a 5 Hour Energy, but I've found it to make me less jittery. I down one of these after dinner before the evening parties.

- Visine: You won't get enough sleep and your eyes will be dry as a result. This helps.

- Burt's Bees Lip Balm: My lips never get chapped at any other time of year, but with the combination of recycled air inside the convention center, wind in the Austin streets, and sustained abuse on the body, they get chapped at SXSW. This lip balm works wonders to bring them back to normal.

- Altoid Smalls: While I'm sure the combination of breakfast tacos, smoked brisket, and Jack Daniels makes for a delightful daily menu, it doesn't make your breath smell like a fresh autumn breeze.

Misc

- SXSW Badge
- Evernote Moleskine Notebook
- Pen
- Moo Business Cards
- Warby Parker Sunglasses
- Rain Poncho
- Kleenex
- Wet Ones
- Microfiber Cloth
- Square Reader
- Index Cards

Apps

Part of the fun of SXSW is the dense population of active users of mobile apps, and the way in which that density changes the possible use cases of those apps. It's no accident that services like Twitter & Foursquare truly found their initial audiences and popularity at SXSW. Other classes of apps, like group messaging or ride sharing, have seen flashes of brilliance when targeting the hyper-connected conference goers. It's not clear if there will be a breakout class at SXSW 2014, although anonymous rumor/secret sharing apps like Secret & Whisper may find traction...especially amongst liquored up twenty/thirtysomethings at Geek Spring Break.

Each year I create a new folder on my iPhone of the apps I expect to primarily use each day while in Austin. Here's this year's batch:

SXSW GO: No need to lug around the printed book of all events when the mobile app can be updated & referenced on the fly.

Secret: I'm hoping for a juicy rumor involving Johnny Football & Miley Cyrus in the RVIP Lounge party bus to show up in my feed. Or just some ridiculousness from the Silicon Valley set.

Find My Friends: Especially if you're traveling to Austin with a team, this is a frictionless way to see where your teammates are around downtown without having to message each one of them.

Foursquare: While I use it daily to keep a digital passport of my life, it takes on new importance at SXSW, especially when you can see which parties or panels are swarming with attendees. The discovery aspect of the app is very useful, too, particularly for those unfamiliar with Austin.

Tweetbot: Create a Twitter list of people you know who will be at SXSW. Also add Twitter accounts that post SXSW news, like @SXSWLineBuddies & @unofficialsxsw. Then browse this list in Tweetbot to get a curated feed of people who you know will be talking about the event or breaking news about that impromptu secret party you want to attend. This is infinitely more useful than trying to follow the #SXSW hash tag which will be filled with a torrent of useless tweets. I heavily use this multiple times every day while in Austin.

GroupMe: This has served as my team's backchannel the last two years at SXSW. Very effective for group chatting and posting funny photos.

Google Maps: Since a lot of party tips travel via word of mouth or tweets/texts, you'll find yourself searching for new venues frequently. This app is a godsend.

Vine: Shooting long video clips at SXSW is bad for your battery. Restrict yourself to 6-second clips, and embrace the creative possibilities!

Instagram: You will see remarkable things at SXSW. Mike Tyson. Buzz-generating Daft Punk banners. Grumpy Cat. Document those memories here.

Eventbrite: Nearly every unofficial SXSW party has an Eventbrite page on which you must RSVP. Just go to the app, search for SXSW, and RSVP to all that interest you. Then when you're boots on the ground in Austin, you can use this as a rough agenda. You can also export your tickets from the Eventbrite app to Passbook so your e-tickets can be scanned at those venues that check.

Sidecar: My brother & I used this service extensively last SXSW. Sidecar is a ride-sharing app, but for SXSW 2013, it was effectively a free, on-demand cab service. I haven't heard yet if they'll be doing a similar promotion this year, but between Sidecar, Lyft, or Uber, there will likely be some method of scoring cheap or free ground transportation while you're in Austin.

Wrap-Up

So that's my toolkit for SXSW this year. Overkill? Perhaps. But it's kind of like going on that European vacation you spend so much time planning. Part of the overall enjoyment is the anticipation of the event.

I recall a quote from Foursquare CEO, Dennis Crowley, last year that went something like, "SXSW is where you experience the future for a few days before you have to go home and live in the present." That's why I still get so excited about the event. Yes, it's expensive. Sure, there's lots of debauchery involved. But, man, if you don't come away from the event with your head swimming in new ideas, dozens of new contacts, and a handful of unbelievable stories, then you're just not doing it right.

If you'll be in Austin for the Interactive portion of SXSW, ping me on Twitter at @JustonWestern. Perhaps we can grab a drink, brisket plate, or that much needed bottle of water together.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

JW's Favorite iPhone & iPad Apps Of 2013

For the sixth consecutive year, I’ve compiled a list of the iOS apps that I’m using the most across my iPhone & iPad. In 2013, I mostly used a 3rd generation iPad and iPhone 5, but upgraded to an iPhone 5S in the fall and continued to use my iPhone 4S for shooting video and docking in my car to use the BMW Connected app.

When I think about 2013, it was really characterized by the proliferation of app-enhanced hardware. Some people call the combo "packs". These connected devices, whether wearable tech or smart home tech, illustrated the continued maturation of iOS as a platform. I’ll talk about some of those apps working in tandem with devices below.

2013 also saw the arrival of iOS 7, unquestionably the most radical change to the OS since its introduction in 2007. The impact this had across the 3rd party developer landscape can’t be overstated. The retooling of apps to adopt the new design language was so non-trivial, that some developers chose to release new versions of their apps not as updates but entirely new apps. Two of my most used apps from 2012, Tweetbot & Reeder, took the path of releasing as entirely new apps given the radical iOS 7 optimization work.

Now read on for the breakdown of how I got things done on mobile in 2013.

iPhone Apps

Most Used Apps

Google Voice

I’m leading with this one because I have a feeling it won’t make the 2014 list. I’ve used Google Voice since 2009, but the product seems to be languishing with only a single minor app update in 2013. Google seems to be pouring more effort into their Hangouts app, but currently there’s no direct tie into the Voice service on iOS. Further diminishing my enthusiasm for the Google Voice app is the increasing role of OS-level hooks for things like Siri texting or dialing. Unless Google Voice gets some attention in early 2014, I’ll likely port my number out to Verizon. But in 2013, Google Voice was how I did all my texting & outbound calling on my iPhone.

Facebook

The Facebook app got updated no fewer than 20 times in 2013, and each release showed continued improvement. It’s gotten so good, that I’m rarely interacting with Facebook on my MacBook Pro anymore. Occasional quirks still appear (like some posts missing in the iOS app that are still viewable on the desktop), but for most of my Facebook needs, the app fits the bill.

Evernote

I’ve bought into the Evernote system. I’m using their Moleskine notebooks, scanning all my mail & other documents into it via a ScanSnap, and taking the dozens of whiteboard photos for archival into Evernote. Having all of that data searchable and instantly accessible wherever I am is beyond awesome. The iOS 7 refresh of the app is gorgeous, too.

Instagram

Although video capture was added here in 2013, I still find myself using Instagram mostly as a daily photo journaling tool. I keep the app on my main home screen to remind me to look for photo opportunities throughout the day.

Timehop

My own personal time machine. I check this app every morning to see my digital snippets from that date in previous years that I’ve captured on Twitter, Foursquare & Instagram. It’s entertaining seeing trends, especially around holidays.

Couple

This app was previously branded Pair and mentioned in my 2012 roundup. Couple is the messaging app my wife & I use for daily communication with each other. Sticker packs were added this year, too, and my wife seems to be rather fond of the Pug ones. A little more intimate than just using the stock Messages app or Google Voice for general purpose messaging.

Withings Health Mate

I really ramped up my interest in the quantified self movement this year, and this app is kind of the hub of that activity. In April, I ordered one of the Withings Smart Body Analyzers, picked up the Withings Blood Pressure Monitor in May, and finally added the Withings Pulse activity tracker in June. All of the data provided by these 3 devices is collected and displayed within the Health Mate app so I can track progress over time.

iPhone Apps I Began Using More Frequently In 2013

Dropbox

After becoming a paid subscriber in 2012, I effectively centralized all of my non-music files on Dropbox in 2013. Since all my iPhone photos auto-upload to Dropbox, it’s more convenient just having all of my photos, documents, and other files all accessible via Dropbox than having to log into my PC back at the house via something like LogMeIn.

Google Maps

Although I have a navigation system built into my car, sometimes it’s just quicker to search for something via the Google Maps app and drive away with my iPhone sitting on the dashboard providing navigation instead of finding the exact address and plugging that into my car’s system. Especially if I’m making short trips within the city, I find myself just defaulting to my phone more and more. For longer road trips, though, I still prefer using my car’s built-in navigation.

1Password

I’d been a longtime Splash ID user dating back to my Palm Pilot days in the late 90s, but in February 2013 I decided to switch over to 1Password for my password management needs when the software went on sale. The integration across iOS & OS X at a more seamless level is what swayed me, and I must say it’s been a definite improvement. I’ve finally improved on diversifying my passwords as a result, and given all of the data breaches we saw in 2013, I’m really glad I did.

Flickr

After its drastic 2.0 redesign in late 2012, this app gained another feature in 2013 that really increased my usage: auto-upload of the iPhone’s photos in full resolution. Although Dropbox is still providing a safety backup for my photos, Flickr is ultimately where all of my photos end up, so having them automatically uploaded from my iPhone is saving me a step.

Netflix

After picking up a Chromecast dongle earlier this summer, my usage of the Netflix iPhone app skyrocketed. Why? I attached the Chromecast to a small TV my brother gave me when he moved, setup that TV near my twins’ play area in our living room, and now constantly have cartoons playing on that 2nd TV when we’re watching something else on our main TV. As soon as one cartoon finishes, I queue up another one via the Netflix iPhone app, and the girls’ have their own programming available.

Dropcam

I bought my first Dropcam in early 2012 as a baby monitor for our twins’ nursery. On Memorial Day weekend 2013, my house got shot at (yes, in The Woodlands), and I kind of went into papa bear mode in securing the Casa De Western 4.0. I bought a Glock and a semi-automatic shotgun. I installed enough exterior LED lighting to rival airports. And I went crazy adding more Dropcams onto my home network. How crazy? Enough to merit adding another AirPort Extreme Base Station to my home network to help load-balance the influx of 24/7 video recording. I use the Dropcam app to view all of those video feeds at a glance or drill back into past footage to see what activity there’s been around my house. It also makes for some fun clips like this: https://twitter.com/JustonWestern/status/402645347115474944

Runkeeper

In large part because of its integration with the Withings Health Mate app and the Pebble watch, I’ve started using Runkeeper to track all of my runs and dog walks. Although I still keep all of my activity tracked within the Nike+ world via the FuelBand app, the 3rd party support of Runkeeper makes it a valuable piece of my overall logging system.

Nest Mobile

I received a pair of Nest Thermostats for our house as a birthday gift in 2013, and have since been more excited with thermostats than I ever thought I’d be. Using the iPhone app, I’ve been much more in tune with the house’s energy usage, and particularly enjoy turning on either the AC or heat a few hours before arriving home from a road trip so we arrive home to a comfortable house.

Favorite New iPhone Apps of 2013

Pebble

I backed the Pebble smart watch on Kickstarter during its 2012 campaign, and finally received my unit in February 2013. While it’s still not what I’d deem a mass market product, I’ve really enjoyed tinkering with mine, and have particularly enjoyed it the 2nd half of the year. Once iOS 7’s Apple Notification Center Service was implemented within the Pebble app, it increased the reliability of getting notifications from your phone to your watch significantly. I now wear mine all the time, and really love the Runkeeper app that runs on it that gives me time/distance/pace info on my wrist during my runs and walks. The Pebble app itself is kind of the conduit that facilitates that interaction between the iPhone and the Pebble watch.

Vine

Released early in 2013, Vine did to videos for me what Instagram did for photos. I’ve found myself looking for more opportunities to shoot those 6 second video clips that loop endlessly. You can see the nearly 100 clips I shot in 2013 here: https://vine.co/juston

Tweetbot 3

Although Tweetbot has been on my list for several years, this year saw the release of an entirely new app that leverages the new iOS 7 design language. Tweetbot is the gold standard by which all other social media apps are measured, and Tweetbot 3 reconfirmed that. This app is particularly useful if you have multiple Twitter accounts.

Reeder 2

Another app which chose the new app path for their iOS 7 redesign, Reeder 2 is the long-standing favorite iOS RSS client. Even with the shutdown of Google Reader earlier this year, I found refuge in a service called Feedbin that Reeder supported as an RSS backend. The resulting experience transitioning from Google Reader to Feedbin was painless, and Reeder 2 made the whole experience feel right at home on iOS 7.

ESPN SportsCenter

The Push Notifications from this app are what makes it great, and the development team seemed to recognize that, making per game notifications even easier to quickly set in the app’s major 4.0 release that arrived in late November. Since ESPN is the 800 pound gorilla in sports programming, you’re almost always assured of finding any relevant highlights available within the app, too.

Automatic

This app pairs with a Bluetooth dongle that plugs into the OBD port of your car. Then all of your driving activity is tracked in a way that suggests improvements in your driving style to optimize fuel efficiency and safety. It’s also kind of interesting to have something of a driving journal so you can see trends over time with commute times.

IFTTT

I’ve long been a fan of If This Then That (aka IFTTT), and the arrival of their iOS app this year just made me love the service more. Using a Trigger & Recipe model, this app allows me to link together different web-based services to automate various portions of my life. For some of the recipes I’ve created, check out my shared ones here: https://ifttt.com/p/juston

iPad Apps

Gmail

When I’m working with email on my iPad, I’m usually looking to do a bit more than just read messages like I do on my iPhone with the native Mail app. I heavily use labels in Gmail, so if I’m looking to label & archive messages as I triage my Inbox, this has proven to be the most effective iPad mail client for me.

TiVo

We’ve been a TiVo household since 2005, and the past two years have been fantastic when it comes to integration with iOS devices. When we’re traveling, we download shows locally from the TiVo Roamio Pro to the iPad and then watch on the road. In 2013, the iPad app also gained the ability to stream live TV, which I used most often to watch NFL games while we were traveling that weren’t available in the NFL Sunday Ticket app. I also downloaded the full Iron Bowl broadcast to watch on our drive back to Houston from Auburn. War Damn Eagle.

WatchESPN

This is perhaps my most used iPad app, especially during college football season. Since the Southeastern Conference has a contract with ESPN (and will be launching the SEC Network this August), my wife & I were almost always assured to have either the LSU or Auburn games available on the iPad via the WatchESPN app if we had the other game on the TV in our living room.

Tweetbot

In my opinion, this is still the killer app for a second screen experience. When we’re watching a game or some other live event on TV where there’s a high likelihood that people will be tweeting about it, I just set the iPad beside me on the couch with this app running to watch the backchannel conversation roll in. Sadly the iPad version of Tweetbot didn’t see an iOS 7 refresh in 2013, but hopefully that arrives early in 2014.

Kindle

Probably my second most used app on the iPad, Kindle quenches my thirst for long-form reading. I blew through 10 books in the Kindle app in 2013, and am targeting at least that many in 2014. While I will occasionally read some chapters of books via the Kindle iPhone app, the iPad incarnation is still my favorite.

Reeder 2

While this app sees much less of my eyeballs than the iPhone version of Reeder 2, if I’m looking for a quick fix of RSS feeds before bed, I regularly spend about half an hour reading through articles in this app. Reeder 2 is a universal app, unlike its predecessor which required different purchases for the iPhone & iPad versions.

NFL Sunday Ticket

Hands down the most expensive app in my library, on account of the required subscription at a rate of $300 each year. But as a New Orleans Saints fan living in Houston, this app (reasonably) assures me that I’ll get to watch every Saints game each season. As I mentioned last year, yes, this is insanely expensive, but it’s still cheaper than going to a sports bar each Sunday.

Tweet Library

I discovered this app early in 2013 and it’s changed the way I dig through my 6,500 tweets from the past 7 years. Tweet Library allows you to import your Twitter archive of tweets (which you request from your Settings page on Twitter.com), and then makes that entire catalogue of tweets searchable to you. Tweet Library is also a full fledged Twitter client, but it’s the import/search functionality that makes it truly stand out.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Vote For Juston's Two SXSW 2014 Panels

For SXSW 2014, I've submitted two panels for consideration. One focuses on the evolution of wearable technology, and the other is a historical look at the electronic music culture that thrived in New Orleans at the beginning of the last decade. Detailed descriptions for each are contained in the links below.

Public voting on panel submissions accounts for 30% of the selection criteria, with the other 70% consisting of evaluation by SXSW staff & advisors. If you can spare a few minutes and find either of these topics interesting, I'd be honored if you could vote for mine.

First, if you don't already have a SXSW account, you'll need to sign up for one first. It's free, and is easy to get setup here:

https://auth.sxsw.com/users/sign_up

Voting does require you to be signed into your SXSW account.

Once you get up & running, here are my two talks (1 for SXSW Interactive & 1 for SXSW Music):

SXSW Interactive: "Wearable Technology: From Battlefield To Boardroom"

SXSW Music: "Impact of Electronica in Pre-Katrina New Orleans"

If you find them interesting, please share broadly on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.! You can also post comments or questions directly on the panel pages.

Voting ends on September 6, 2013 at 11:59 PM CT. Thanks in advance for your support, and I'll be updating this post over the next few weeks as selections are finalized.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

If I Want To Build An iPhone App & Android App, Will It Cost Twice As Much?

(Cross-posted from the ChaiONE Blog)

Here at ChaiONE, we're often approached by individuals & companies looking for guidance on their mobile initiatives. One issue that frequently surfaces concerns addressing a user base that may consist of a mixture of iOS & Android users. This is common when the software will be consumer-facing where Android has a large market share, or in BYOD (bring your own device) scenarios where a company won't be issuing a standard device across its workforce.

In cases where the user base platform landscape will be heterogeneous, many organizations consider building a cross-platform app using technologies such as HTML5 or Titanium. Depending on the type of app desired, this may be an economic option. For simpler apps where access to the device's more advanced capabilities aren't needed, a cross-platform app can sometimes get your software into the hands of users for less upfront development cash outlay.

While ChaiONE's Director of Development, Ben Scheirman, will discuss in detail in an upcoming blog post about the many advantages of developing native apps instead of cross-platform apps, for the remainder of this article let us just assume that there are indeed compelling reasons to build individual native apps for each platform instead of a write-once, deploy everywhere approach. If you're considering building a native app for iOS, and a native version for Android, will this cost you twice as much? The short answer is no. Let me explain why.

During the course of an app development project, there are several types of activities that must occur. Usually a period of user research will precede all other activities to ensure the yet-to-be-built app will in fact meet the needs or fulfill the desires of the individuals who will actually be using the software. Once that is validated, an app development team will then begin designing the app, both in the context of user experience paired with visual design and foundational technical architecture. Notice that I haven't mentioned anything specific to iOS development or Android development yet. This is important.

Apps rarely exist in isolation. By that I mean most modern mobile software isn't self-contained. Instead, it's more common that an app will frequently communicate with the outside world, pulling in new data from different sources or pushing out data created in the app to other servers. This communication with the outside world is accomplished via Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs. While the concept of APIs are beyond the scope of this article, at a high-level it's a structured way for two software entities to consume & transmit data between each other. If the APIs your app will utilize already exist, the app development team will just need to document the structure and plan to build the app in such a way that can interact with them. If the APIs your app needs don't currently exist, then the development team will need to define and subsequently build them so the app can eventually utilize them.

All of the activities I have outlined so far are mostly platform agnostic. Regardless of the platform you target, these efforts would need take place. These efforts are also foundational, meaning they need to take place before the team begins development on the app itself in earnest. Depending on the nature of the app, these efforts can often be time-consuming, especially when you'll be creating your own APIs. However, once these activities are complete, the outcomes can be leveraged across multiple platforms in a near-trivial manner.

Let's say it took somewhere between 25% & 50% of an overall single-platform project budget to accomplish the tasks described above. If you opted to build an iOS app first, you wouldn't have to allocate the same amount of time if you then decided to build an Android app, too. You can make whatever minor adjustments from a design perspective that are necessary for the new platform, but you don't have to rethink the overall structure or technical foundations that you've previously defined. And that's why it won't cost you twice as much to build for two platforms.

As a final consideration, I'd like to highlight one approach that I've observed to work well. If you do opt to natively develop for two or more platforms, consider staggering the development efforts. For instance, let the Android development efforts lag a few weeks behind the features being developed in the iOS app, or vice versa. The advantage of this approach is that it allows new problems or challenges to be solved on one platform before they're encountered on the others. This way, if business logic or other considerations must be unclogged, you're not delaying progress on multiple platforms at the same time.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

JW's Favorite iPhone & iPad Apps Of 2012

Not since the original iPhone release in 2007 or the original iPad release in 2010 has the software landscape for iOS been so directly impacted by new hardware as it was in 2012. With the new iPad gaining a Retina display in March, the iPhone 5 getting a taller screen in September, and the iPad mini showing a new iOS device form factor in November, iOS developers had an increasingly diverse suite of screen resolutions and design considerations to address.

As an app consumer (especially if you were an early adopter of those new devices), the impact of the steady march forward in hardware was jarring at times. If your favorite iPad apps weren't Retina-optimized, they sometimes looked terrible. If your favorite iPhone apps weren't optimized for the taller iPhone 5 display, you needed to adjust to having black bars letter-boxing your app at the top & bottom of the screen.

Despite these relatively minor nuisances, 2012 was also an absolutely fascinating time to follow the evolution of app design & development. While I'm fortunate enough to be involved in this space as part of my day job at ChaiONE, I also continue to be legitimately passionate about this stuff and spend much of my free time trying out new apps on my own devices or running initiatives like the Houston App Aficionados.

As I've done the past four years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), I've taken stock of the apps I'm regularly using across my iPhone & iPad, and written a quick blurb about each of them below. I'm hopeful you'll find some on this list that you can use to make your days better in 2013.

iPhone Apps

Most Used iPhone Apps

Tweetbot
This third-party Twitter client from Tapbots is still how most of my social network status updates originate (with syndication to Facebook via the Twitter app now that Ifttt can no longer use Twitter triggers). With multiple account support, it's the one client I use on my iPhone across 5 Twitter accounts.

Foursquare
The granddaddy of checkin apps, I use this as my personal passport, checking into each venue I enter every day. With nearly 4 years worth of my checkin data in this app, it's fascinating to see the stats on elapsed time between visits.

Reeder
If you want an efficient means of consuming website articles, this Google Reader client is still best in class. This single app accounts for the majority of app use on my iPhone.

Evernote
Particularly since the UI-overhauled 5.0 release of this app in November, I find myself creating more notes via the iPhone app, as opposed to the Mac app. This is especially true for capturing photographs of notes/drawings on whiteboards around the office and at home.

Instagram
Despite the Facebook acquisition of Instagram in April, and its Terms of Service PR firestorm in December, the app & its highly-engaged community still set the standard for mobile-first photo sharing. While I cross-post all my Instagram shots to Flickr & Blogger, I still originate the majority of my photos in Instagram.

iPhone Apps I Began Using More Frequently In 2012

Gmail
Google's iOS team was prolific in 2012, overhauling some of their existing iPhone apps, and releasing several completely new ones. One to see a significant improvement towards the end of the year was version 2.0 of Gmail, with multiple account support & a crisp white user interface that made email on the iPhone fresh again. If you're a heavy user of labels in Gmail, this app is a must-have.

Google Voice
Despite the proliferation of the iMessage protocol to OS X in Mountain Lion, and continued feature enhancements in iOS 6, I still conduct the majority of my text-based communications through the Google Voice iPhone app. When I'm at my computer, I'll compose & respond via the Chrome Google Voice extension, but when I'm away from my desk, this app is still my go to solution.

Flickr
With the executive shakeup at Yahoo earlier this year, there seems to be a revived interest in their Flickr product. The iPhone app benefitted from that renewed attention, with a redesign that finally looks and behaves like a mobile photo social network. Today I'm mostly using it to view photos instead of photo capture, but that may change in 2013 if Instagram clutters up their app interface.

Dropbox
After lightly using the service for the past several years, I finally became a paying Pro subscriber in 2012, driven in large part by the Camera Upload functionality added to their iPhone app. Having become a new father in March, I wanted to ensure I never had to worry about losing photos or videos I shot of my twins on my iPhone, so the Dropbox app has become a critical piece of my daily data backup scheme.

Facebook
The Facebook iPhone app had been limping along for years until its 5.0 release in August. Now with a native implementation of several features that were previously built using HTML5, getting your Newsfeed & Timeline to load within the iPhone app is significantly faster & less frustrating.

Amazon
Our household became Amazon Prime members in January in preparation for getting regular shipments of baby items like diapers & formula. Now we order everything from scissors to plungers through the site thanks to its free two day shipping, and I normally reach for my iPhone to add things to our cart via the Amazon app. It's not as robust for browsing Amazon.com as using a web browser on your laptop, but for quickly searching & buying items, it serves the purpose quite well.

Slice
Since during any given week we have several Amazon orders headed our way thanks to that Prime subscription, this app has become indispensable for quickly knowing what is going to arrive and when. Getting Push Notifications when your package is out for delivery and then when it's actually delivered saves me the time & effort of logging into the UPS or FedEx sites to track shipment progress.

Favorite New iPhone Apps of 2012

Timehop
Remember the 4 years worth of Foursquare checkin data I mentioned earlier? Well Timehop helps me resurface it, every single day. By connecting your Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram accounts to Timehop, the app will send you a Push Notification each morning letting you know your personal history for that day has been assembled. You'll see what updates you posted to those various social networks last year, 2 years ago, all the way back to 2004 if you were using Facebook back then.

Letterpress
Developed by Loren Brichter, who invented the 'pull to refresh' functionality now leveraged across countless iOS apps, this casual word game is like a more entertaining Words With Friends or Scrabble. Whereas Words With Friends just became tedious after a few rounds, Letterpress has become a fun attention diversion that I'm still enjoying daily even after several months of play.

Pair
This app is an iOS-only social network between you and your significant other. My wife & I use it to send messages, photos, and videos back and forth to each other throughout the day. We could accomplish the same thing via traditional text messages, but this app feels more intimate and has some cute couples-centric features that make it enjoyable to incorporate into our daily routines.

Netbot
Netbot is effectively a clone of Tweetbot, but targeted at the ad-free, paid App.net social network instead of Twitter. I signed up for a year subscription to App.net after Netbot was released in October, and it's been a fun community of mostly geeks reminiscent of Twitter circa 2007.

WithBaby
After our twins arrived in March, I wanted to outfit their nursery with a video baby monitor. I settled on two, with the Withings Smart Baby Monitor being particularly well-suited to our needs because of the baby-centric nature versus a standard web cam. WithBaby is the iPhone app companion and allows my wife & I to see the girls when we're at work, turn on lullabies, monitor the temperature & humidity in the nursery, and even talk to the twins via the built-in speaker of the baby monitor.

Dropcam
This was the second video baby monitor I chose. While not marketed solely as a baby monitor, Dropcam was attractive because it provided an online DVR feature that let me rewind to any motion or sound events that took place in the nursery. Aside from iPhone & iPad apps, I can also access my video footage via a web browser when I'm at my desk.

Frameographer
This app was developed by the creators of the Glif iPhone tripod mount accessory. It allows you to create stop-motion & time-lapse videos. I've used it to create some interesting videos, such as this one of my daughters swinging in baby seats and this one of clouds billowing over Houston on Halloween.

Nike+ FuelBand
A recent addition to my fitness app arsenal, I'm looking to leverage this app + wristband combo meaningfully in 2013 as a way to stay motivated to hit my fitness & weight loss goals. By earning Nike Fuel points each day and competing against your Facebook friends, the idea is that you'll move more. My wife says it makes me a little more like a robot. I think I'm OK with that.

Google Maps
Even if you don't follow mobile technology closely, you likely heard about this app due to the high-profile negative PR surrounding Apple's Maps in iOS 6. In short, Google Maps is worthy of the hype. The data is accurate, the UI is crisp, the turn by turn voice directions are well executed, and the app pulls in search history of location queries you've done on your computer. It's awesome.

Google Drive
Google Docs was rebranded as Google Drive this year. I have nearly 8 years of documents & spreadsheets within the Google Drive system, so having a way to natively access and edit my files on my iPhone has been a tremendous addition to my productivity toolkit.

iPad Apps

SoundCloud
When Megaupload was shut down in January, it had a chilling effect on the availability of podcasts and live mix set recordings from DJs around the world. I speculated at that time that we'd see a consolidation of mixes to the SoundCloud platform as a result, and the rest of 2012 seemed to support that hypothesis. Soundcloud's iPad app is excellent, and if you follow the right artists on the site, it becomes a reasonable alternative to services like Spotify or Rdio for electronic music fans.

Sunday Ticket
In NFL seasons past, if we didn't get the Saints game on our Comcast cable package here in Houston, we'd just go to one of the local sports bars to watch the game. Since having two infants complicated that approach, this season we subscribed to the online-only package of Direct TV's NFL Sunday Ticket. The Sunday Ticket iPad app allowed us to watch the Saints games at home on the couch with the girls, while we had the Texans game on the big screen.

WatchESPN
When ESPN & Comcast reached a content agreement in May of 2012 to allow Comcast customers access to the WatchESPN app, I knew football season was going to be awesome. I was right. Every Saturday during the fall, we'd have a football game on our TV, and then two other games pulled up in the WatchESPN apps on our iPads. It was like our living room was a more comfortable Buffalo Wild Wings. Perfect.

TiVo
We added a TiVo Premiere XL4 & TiVo Stream box to our home theater setup in 2012, which meant the TiVo iPad app became significantly more feature packed. The app allows us to stream shows wirelessly over our home network to the iPad while something else is being watched on TV. Or we can download previously recorded shows to the iPad app to take with us while we're traveling. It also allows us to schedule recordings or browse the program guide on the iPad instead of interrupting viewing on the TV.

Chrome
While I still mostly use Safari on my iPhone for web browsing, I've found myself using the Chrome browser on my iPad more each month since it was released during the summer. As someone who spends his days working in the Chrome browser on the Mac, the familiarity of Chrome on the iPad feels nice when I'm casually web browsing at night.

Tweetbot
This is my most used iPad app. When we're watching television in the evenings, I'll leave my iPad next to me on the couch with Tweetbot open and watch as the stream of updates roll in. This is particularly compelling during live sporting events, or other live events like elections and news broadcasts. This is the best second-screen experience app I've come across.

GV Mobile +
Since Google still hasn't developed an iPad-optimzed Google Voice app, I use GV Mobile + for responding to text messages when I have my iPad next to me, but my iPhone is on the charger. It was developed by Sean Kovacs, who really drove the movement for Google Voice on the iPhone in 2009 & 2010 before Google ever released their own first-party solution.

iControlAV
This app is for the Pioneer VSX-1122 AV receiver we added to our home theater this summer. It allows me to change source inputs, volume, zone outputs, and basically all other functionality that you'd normally need to use the IR remote to execute, but over Wi-Fi via the app. That means I can change audio sources on my backyard patio while smoking a cigar without ever impacting the show or volume my family is watching in the living room.

Scanner Pro
Since the third-generation iPad added a respectable camera to the device, apps like Scanner Pro can leverage photo-capture capabilities to accomplish tasks like scanning in documents. While you won't mistake the resulting PDF for something produced by a quality hardware scanner like a Fujitsu ScanSnap, it's very convenient to be able to scan in documents on the spot when at a client site with only your iPad, instead of waiting to get back to a dedicated scanner to digitize a few pieces of paper.

CNN
With the ability to stream the live TV broadcast of CNN through the iPad app, I've found myself setting up the iPad on my desk at work whenever there's a breaking news story. While the merits of cable news journalism can be debated ad nauseam, it's still an integral piece of my data consumption workflow when something of national or international significance is happening at that very moment.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Houston App Aficionados October 2012 - Great Videography Apps

JW / Blog