Discovering that you already own an app when you go to buy it is the iTunes equivalent of finding that $5 bill in your winter coat pocket come that first cold fall day.
The good news: I feel like I saved myself $0.99.
The bad news: My brain is obviously broken.
Mr. Tickle and the rest of the “Mister Men” books are on iTunes, downloadable as iPhone apps. My favorite as a kid was “Mr. Greedy.”
Two bucks each, but I can’t bring myself to spend that just to check them out. For some reason, I have the suspicion that they suck in this format, but I’m not sure why I think that.
Source: itunes.apple.com
It's not as bad as all that
Marc and jimcloudman both chime in today with some legitimate criticisms of the iPad as a device to do, as Marc puts it, “work of any significance.”
The biggest shortcoming, says Marc, is support for background apps:
What I’m dying for is the ability to manage multiple clipboards and the ability to transform or expand text based on typed input. Basically, I want utilities like TextExpander and Pasteboard to be able to work fully in iOS with all apps, including Safari and Mail.
jimcloudman, meanwhile, takes issue with getting access to his data, specifically:
…a way to quickly and seamlessly move your work between apps so that you can manipulate your work with several apps and not just one. Sometimes you can manage to handle it with Dropbox, or copy-paste if it’s text, but there has to be a better way…
Jim’s not the only one to share this sentiment. Just a few days ago, Walt Mossberg took up the issue in his Personal Technology column, In and Out of the Office: Putting iPads to Work.
Both Marc and Jim are right in noting that “there has to be a better way.” But my experience with using my iPad to do “real work” has not been nearly so bleak. In my post challenging Mossberg’s article last week, where Apple’s platform has been deficient, clever application developers have stepped in to fill the void, and have, in many cases, done an exceptional job in creating a solution for their customers.
My focus in that post was on the data sync issue and how native Dropbox support pretty much eliminates this problem for me. But I am starting to see the same kind of developer creativity take on Marc’s problem, too.
When TextExpander Touch was released last year, Smile Software included clever hooks that allow developers to integrate its text expansion capabilities into their apps using their free SDK. Developers have been very receptive, and Smile now lists over 70 iOS applications that offer native text expansion.
Of course, the onus is on the consumer, who must make native support for DropBox and TextExpander part of their application buying criteria. In my own case, it has lead me to applications like Writer, PlainText and the native Twitter client.
(To Marc’c credit, the clipboard utilities he needs still appear to be M.I.A. on iOS.)
Obviously, this is far from ideal. Asking consumers to think about “native support” for anything is a non-starter for all but a minority of users. This is probably fine for people like Marc and Jim (and me) who lean to the geekier side of technology usage, but it is clearly so far from Apple’s philosophy that it would be foolish to consider it a true long-term solution at all.
Which brings us back, obviously, to Marc and Jim’s original point. Things like data access, synchronization and background processes ultimately need to be built into iOS by Apple. Developers of future applications should not need today’s “hacks” to develop viable solutions for their customers. On this, I entirely agree with both gentlemen.
But to argue that the lack of OS-level support for these things from Apple has rendered an iPad insufficient for more than, as Marc says, “consuming email, web pages, RSS feeds, and other content” is simply not true in my experience. In fact, by carefully selecting my applications, I was able to replace my 13” MacBook 6 months with my iPad.
Sure, I had to bring my Official Apple Nerd card along to the party sometimes, but there’s no denying that my iPad is now a tool that I use to create things, not just consume them. Going iPad-only has worked for me, and I’ve never looked back.
Source: marc
Who said anything about “Carlgate?”
The folks at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) managed to speak to Yann Lecoreller and G. Carre, CEO of Awyse yesterday concerning the Talking Carl story I have been obsessing about all week. It is a very good summary of the history, but there is not much new information that I haven’t already reported here.
They do cover an abortive update to Talking Carl that Lecoreller posted earlier in the week, noting that it was pulled, then re-submitted when it turned out to have some serious bugs. These details are not directly related to the Intellectual Property issues that are central to the dispute between Lecoreller and Awyse, but it certainly added to the confusion for Talking Carl customers this past week.
The whole article is worth a read if “Carlgate” is fascinating you as much as it is me.
Details here.
Talking Carl is back
On Saturday, I posted that the star of the iPhone app, Talking Carl, had been unceremoniously booted from the app and replaced with a much-less-charming, anthropomorphic cardboard box character named, “C.” Users were up in arms, the app was getting skewered in the ratings, and I was taking the developer, Awyse, to task for this idiotic change.
First, the good news. As of a few hours ago, Talking Carl is back on the iTunes App Store (thanks to reader Ian Graybill for the heads up). Even better, Carl is currently pimping his services out free of charge, so go grab him now before he comes to his senses.
Updated
“Talking Carl is back at a new home and publisher,” says the description on the iTunes App Store, and if you’re playing along at home, you’ll see a link to a new website now. Where it used to list Awyse.com, there is a link to Tayasui.com and an indication that the seller is yann le coroller.
I received so much interest in my previous post from users worried about Carl (or with just not that much to do on the weekend…not sure), that I decided that I needed to get to the bottom of it all.
A Note From a Reader
On Saturday afternoon, reader Shevi Bloom pointed me to the TalkingCarl.com website, noting that it “gives half a story” as to what might be going on. This is the first indication I got that there was a second party involved beyond Awyse, namely the folks from Tayasui. Moreover, the message on TalkingCarl.com seemed full of intrigue:
We are deeply sorry but we are not responsible for Awyse outrageous behavior regarding Talking Carl. They were court-ordered to stop selling the application but instead they choose to gives you this trash bag. If like us you want your old talking carl back, you should ask them : contact@awyse.com
After that, it didn’t take long to track down the Talking Carl Facebook page, on which Tayasui volunteers that, “I have a new publisher, awyse was a very bad home for me. [sic]”
Clearly the relationship between Awyse and Tayasui had gone south, and just as divorce is hardest on the children, Carl seemed to be the victim of this separation.
There were some holes, though. What was the role of Awyse versus Tayasui? And was Carl ever returning? With no clear answers online, I tracked down the folks from Tayasui over the weekend and ended up exchanging email with yann.
The Idea
It turns out that yann is the brains behind Talking Carl. “I am the designer of Carl and the Talking Carl App,” he told me.
“I had the idea and I made After Effects mockups to see if it was possible to bring a character to life with [a] few but carefully chosen pre-rendered sprites. I made the interaction model, voices and sound design and I directed the dev on a day to day basis for two months.”
Yann, for all of his design and animation skills, is not a developer. He could only take his idea so far. And that’s where Awyse came in.
Talking Carl “was done by a independent programmer paid by Awyse.”
Parting of the Ways
So what happened? According to yann, they “cut me off [as] the lead of the project, arguing that it was their idea and project and I was just a pain in the ass to deal with.” He adds, parenthetically, and with a wink “something [that] may be correct indeed.”
He doesn’t go into further details, but the negotiations obviously were heated, and yann decided to sue. He won and as a result, Awyse was given a simple order to stop selling Talking Carl by February 2. The way in which they responded, however, was hardly so clean.
The Switch
It’s worth taking a step back for a moment to understand how the iTunes Store handles apps, and specifically updates to those apps.
Every app in the iTunes Store has a unique identifier that Apple calls the “App ID.” This isn’t visible to users of the application, but behind the scenes, it’s how Apple handles things like updates in iTunes. When a developer completes an update, they submit it to Apple using the same App ID as the previous version. Later, once it’s approved and existing customers log into the iTunes Store, they’ll see that an update is available.
Now the common behavior for updates is that developers add and refine features, advancing the version number from 1.0 to 1.1, 1.14, 2.0 and so on as changes are made. Faced with a loss in court, Awyse decided to do something different. And something pretty terrible, in my opinion.
Not only did Awyse develop the original Talking Carl on behalf of yann, they also submitted the original versions to the store under their name. That’s why customers saw Awyse listed as the seller of Talking Carl in iTunes, not yann or Tayasui.
Once they were told to stop selling it, a logical next step would have been to transfer the iTunes listing back to yann and call it done. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. ITunes does not allow transfers and, once set, a developer cannot change their company name, either.
Now, most of us in the same situation as Awyse would have simply removed Talking Carl from the store. But remember that App ID? The one that thousands of Talking Carl customers around the world had listed in their iTunes accounts? The one that iTunes is checking every time a user hits the iTunes Store? With Talking Carl so popular, it appears that direct channel was just too lucrative for Awyse to pass up.
So, instead, they uploaded to the Store their own version of Talking Carl (presumably with the original Talking Carl code they wrote), dressed him in a box and changed his name “Talking C.” This last part is particularly pernicious, engineered, no doubt, to skirt any trademark claims by Tayasui while still keeping users unawares that the core of the application, Carl himself, was no longer there. The next time someone updated their device, the new app replaced the old and, poof, Carl was gone.
Unluckily for yann, who wanted to simply sell Talking Carl in a different way, Awyse effectively sabotaged his good name and left him with what he claims were “hundreds of bad review [sic] on MY app because of Awyse[’s] stupid move.”
To further “add insult to injury,” noted yann, Awyse’s new Talking C included “a very invasive add [sic] for Vito Panda,” a similar app that yann refers to as “one of the many rippoffs they made of Talking Carl.”
Happy Ending?
In his note to me, yann indicated that he was working on an update and had submitted a new Talking Carl to the store. That was a day ago and, as I mentioned above, the update is now live.
When I wrote my first post, Talking C was there, too, but searches for “him” now return no results. “I hope so,” said yann, “they were ordered to stop it a month ago!”
What happened to “Talking Carl?”
Carl, star of one of the most charming apps in the iTunes Store, is no more. His successor refers to himself by first initial only and wears a cardboard box, presumably to hide his shame.
For the uninitiated, Talking Carl is a simple yet enchanting bit of fun iPhone fun. The geometric Carl sits there on the screen, eyes askew and ready to listen. You speak, and he echoes your words, reinterpreted in his own squeaky voice. Poke him and he growls. Tickle him and he laughs. It’s all inane and ridiculous and yet I defy you to keep from smiling. You can even get Carl to face off with himself in a death match.
Regularly one of the highest rated free apps in the store, it’s unclear what Awyse was thinking in abandoning their popular character. In Carl’s place, they are now running a contest asking customers to submit drawings with the chance to see their work come to life in a future app update.
Judging by the comments and iTunes app ratings, the move was a mistake, and an enormous one at that. An app which previously had nearly 60% of its ratings as 4- and 5-stars has suddenly been banished to the basement with this update. The vitriol in the written comments is striking, too. People love their Carl.
What I don’t understand is why Awyse removed Carl from the app at all. It would seem trivial to have simply included the contest alongside their star, perhaps even using him to squeak out the rules for submitting your entry. Awyse clearly knows that they’ve got a problem on their hands, and manages to squeeze a lame warning into the “What’s New” section just above the fold:
Of course, no one will see this until it is too late, as most users will simply click the Update link in iTunes without reading what changes are in store (a shortcoming of the iTunes update model that is probably worth a discussion of its own). Hence the overwhelming sentiment in the comments that users feel duped and betrayed.
In the grand scheme of things, this is unquestionably small-potatoes stuff. But what it does show in miniature is just how fragile a brand can be, even one based on a free app with a talking red blob with eyes. Developers, marketers and designers risk a great deal with every product change they carry out. No good deed, the saying promises, goes unpunished. And the jilted Carl seems to be exacting his last revenge, indeed.
Great tip: send a webpage from your iPhone to your Mac
Here’s the scenario: you’re on your iPhone, catching up on Twitter. You read a tweet that contains a link and you open it.
A few moments later, you realize you don’t want to read it on your phone. Maybe you don’t have the time right now. Perhaps it’s a webpage loaded with photos and your iPhone is making choking noises. Or it’s a multi-page article. Or it has Flash. Or something. You decide it’s best to read it later on your Mac where you’ve got the bigger screen, the faster processor, the proximity to your morning coffee. Whatever.
So, what do you do?
I run into this all the time. And until today, my solution was to email the link to myself. It worked, but it wasn’t pretty.
Sometimes I’d send a pile of links at a time, clog up my inbox, and sit there clicking each link individually, one at a time. Sure, this qualifies unquestionably as a First World Problem, but it just felt so…so unnecessary. It’s 2011, and I was barely doing better than faxing myself a printout of the website.
Recently, MacStories posted a story describing how to send a link to your Mac using a combination of DropBox, Automator Folder Actions and a free service called SendToDropBox. You send the link in email from your iPhone to your special SendToDropBox account which kicks off a simple workflow that opens the webpage on your Mac just a few seconds later. Email is already the way I’m solving this problem, so other than a new address in the To: field, I don’t have to change how I work at all. Brilliant.
It takes a bit of work to set up, but it’s very straightforward. You can find the details on MacStories here
Addendum: What About Other Methods?
Some services exist that might appear to offer a solution. Instapaper is probably the most obvious. But I am very particular about keeping articles in Instapaper limited to things I actually intend to read. And more often than not, I haven’t decided what to do about that link I want to send my Mac. It might be a fantastic article, truly Instapaper-worthy. Or it might be a cat video. And I only keep the finest cat videos in Instapaper.
Another possibility would be to simply save the page as a Bookmark. My bookmarks get synced through MobileMe, so one would think that might be a good method. But it’s not. First, the workflow is broken. Many of the links I am opening on my iPhone are inside the Facebook or Twitter apps, not Mobile Safari itself. None of those apps offer any sort of UI for saving a bookmark. In order to create one, I’d need to tap to open it in the browser, wait for the page to reload, tap to save the bookmark, edit the name, et cetera. Meh. Too much hassle. I won’t do it. I know it.
Besides, I’ve already stated that almost all of these links fit into the category of “things I want to check out,” not “things I want to save.” And, while I know Safari can’t tell the difference, I have a tendency to be very lax about cleaning up my Bookmarks. Anything that goes in there pretty much becomes a permanent addition. Exhibit A: I believe I still have a Bookmark to my AOL account somewhere in there. So, yeah.
The aliens are coming, and they brought pastels
Rockin’ Rockets is one of those apps that I will probably buy just for how it looks. I mean, seriously, could a terrifying alien attack be any more beautiful?
Source: MacStories
Source: macstories.net
