Calendar applications are great, but sometimes you need to track how many days until an upcoming event. Or in some cases, you might want to track how many consecutive days you’ve been doing something; handy for monitoring health and other activities. D-Day, found in the iTunes app store, is a free iOS program that manages both scenarios, making it a must-have app on my iPhone. The software is pretty simple; you just enter a date on one of the three tabs to track days left, days past, or days until someone’s birthday. You can easily customize the title of what you’re tracking and the events can be added to your native calendar app or be set to repeat. My main purpose for finding and using D-Day is my running streak, which I began on January 1, 2011. Today, for example, is my 400th consecutive day of running at least a mile. I need the daily counter that D-Day provides me for my running log. For additional fun, I keep track of my age in days. The app tells me that today I woke up for the 15,524th day. My kids swear I don’t look a day over 15,000, so the running must be helping. This slideshow requires JavaScript. Although my primary purpose for D-Day is my running streak, I’ve found it can be useful for so much more. People who stopped smoking and want to keep track of how long since that last light-up can use D-Day. Maybe you want to track how long it’s been since a quiet date with your significant other. (Trust me mobile younglings, this becomes important later in life as date night frequency drops off you’ve been alive for that 10,000 days!) Or perhaps you have a goal to lose 10 pounds in 100 days; D-Day can be your Read More
Super Bowl weekend is upon us, and this year, the big game is going to be streamed live online for the very first time. Who wants to see the game between the Giants and the Patriots on a tiny laptop screen, you might ask? Cord cutters and other folks without cable or even a TV set for one, but the live stream also comes with some extra perks that the TV broadcast won’t offer: Viewers will be able to select from different camera angles, pause the game and other fun stuff. Are you one of those people who just watch the game to catch a glimpse of the ads? No worries, you’ll find all of those online as well. There is also a bunch of second-screen action going on this year to deliver tweets and other extra content to your cell phone or iPad while you watch TV. And speaking of mobile: You’ll even be able to watch the entire game on your handset. You know, in case that laptop screen is to big, or you happen to be away from both Internet and TV. Here’s our growing list of online resources for Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday 02/05: We’re gonna update this list with additional links in the coming days. Stay tuned! Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. Read More
T-Mobile added a new family locator service to its suite of carrier-specific Android apps on Tuesday. Owners of T-Mobile handsets will now find FamilyWhere, powered by Location Labs’ Safely software, in the T-Mobile section of the Android Market on their smartphones. With Safely installed, family members can find each other from their phone or a browser, even if the other family phones aren’t equipped with a GPS radio. Safely has proven to be a popular people-locator solution, so T-Mobile isn’t partnering with an unproven startup. Coinciding with the T-Mobile news, Location Labs announced that its Safely service has now returned one billion premium “locates” on top-tier U.S. carriers. And by premium, it means paying subscribers: T-Mobile customers can use Safely free for 30 days, but after that, it’s $9.99 per month for up to 10 devices on an account. Clearly, a billion location requests is a huge milestone; location services are becoming more important as a growing number of people, including kids, are making smartphones central to their lives. And without an iPhone, T-Mobile has no free “Find My Friends” iOS app. I do wonder, however, how many paying FamilyWhere subscribers T-Mobile will pickup when Life360 offers the same type of service for free and has been growing like gangbusters. Regardless of sign ups, this is another example of carriers trying to add value services; a growing trend as they hope to avoid becoming fast, dumb pipes. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. Read More
Pixable, a photo viewing aggregation service, has won praise for the smart way it organizes photos and orders them by relevancy for users. Now, we’re seeing that users are catching on in a big way and have turned the iOS mobile app into a daily addiction. The New York City company told me it recently eclipsed the 1 million download mark on iOS, with almost of all of the downloads happening in the last few months of last year. But while noteworthy, that’s something that a lot of apps are able to pull off. What’s really interesting to me is how sticky Pixable has become for users, who are engaging continuously at a pretty impressive rate. Pixable says that its users are viewing 100 million photos a month and opening the app on average 11 times per month. Some 60 percent of those users are still active on the app since it launched in April while 60 percent of users also use the app on consecutive days. The Pixable app primarily aggregates Facebook and Twitter pictures, with fuller support for Facebook right now. It organizes photos into various categories such as top of the day, week or month, new profile pics, most recent photos. Pixable also aggregates Instagram, Flickr, yFrog, Twitpic photos and YouTube and Vimeo videos within a user’s Twitter feeds. Where Pixable shines is in how it uses machine learning and algorithms to process more than 70 signals, helping it to surface the most relevant pictures for users. It will try to measure the affinity between users and the strength of their relationships, taking into account things like common schools, or cities and how much they interact. It will also look at “likes” and comments to determine if it’s a picture that a user wouldn’t want to miss. Inaki Berenguer, Pixable’s CEO and Read More
A key advantage to owning an Android phone with a 720p display is that you can watch content in true high-definition. The 1280 x 720 screen on my Galaxy Nexus is what I call “an HDTV in my pocket.” I’ve been renting high-def videos from the Android Market, simply because they’re stunning to look at. But there’s a huge problem: After watching the rentals, the massive media files aren’t disappearing from my phone. I noticed this after my CES travels earlier this month. During that trip, I downloaded some HD content to the Galaxy Nexus so I could view it on the plane. That part of the process worked just fine, and I enjoyed both Pulp Fiction and Limitless. The Google Videos app supports streaming, but I chose offline use because I didn’t want to use in-flight Wi-Fi. So I “pinned” the two rentals for offline use and had them downloaded to my phone before the trip. About a week after watching the movies — each of which had a 24-hour viewing window once started — I noticed that my Galaxy Nexus only had about 3 GB of available storage. The phone comes with 16 GB of internal storage; about 13 of which is usable. By using the Apps function in the Android’s Settings and then sorting the apps by size, I found the culprit: the Google Videos app was using up more than 7 GB of storage. That’s interesting by itself, because I wouldn’t have thought movies files would be part of the app’s storage limit. Instead, I expected the movies to be part of the media storage section. Once I realized the movies were considered to be part of the application, I went into Videos to unpin them or delete them. Nothing worked. Unless I’m missing it, I see Read More
When President Obama makes his State of the Union address Tuesday evening at 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PT, his speech will be carried on all the major broadcast and cable news networks. And for all those away from the TV, the State of the Union will be available online and on multiple mobile and connected platforms as well. ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC will all broadcast President Obama’s speech live, as will CNBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Many of those channels will also have live streams of their networks available; for instance, ABC News, CNN and CSPAN will all have make their feeds available online. For the official online feed of the address, tune into the White House’s live stream at www.whitehouse.gov/sotu. In addition to the stream of President Obama’s speech, the White House feed will include an enhanced version of the broadcast that will include charts, stats and other data that will provide additional backing for how he makes and defends his policy decisions. There will also be live streams for those on mobile and other devices. The Official White House iPhone app and Android app will broadcast the video live to mobile users. Viewers watching at home who might not have cable can also tune into the State of the Union live through WSJ Live’s connected devices apps, which can be accessed on the Apple iPad and Apple TV, Boxee Box, Roku, Vizio, Panasonic Connected TV, Samsung Smart TV, Sony Internet TV and Yahoo! Connected TV platforms. Finally, for those looking for the Republican response to President Obama’s address, Speaker John Boehner will stream the rebuttal on his YouTube channel. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. Read More
Wikipedia’s website may have been dark yesterday in protest of SOPA, but now there is a new official Wikipedia app for Android devices. The free app is available in the Android Market for all Android smartphones and tablets running Android 2.2 or above. Just like the Wikipedia site, the app requires a web connection, but it also allows articles to be saved for offline reading. Android users could easily save a web bookmark for quick access to Wikipedia, but after just a few minutes of using the app, I know this software will be staying on my handset. A few key features are the reason: Loading Picture 1 of 4 Just like any Android app — or web page for that matter — you can also share a Wikipedia entry through Android’s native sharing features. You are not able to modify a Wikipedia page in the app, but for researching a topic or learning something new, Wikipedia’s new Android app might trump the mobile webpage. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. Read More
The last four years have shown remarkable growth in smartphone ownership, which has changed the mobile landscape. Prior to 2007, few folks had smartphones, and if they did, their handsets ran on PalmOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian or BlackBerry. These days, BlackBerry is still around, but stumbling, while Symbian is no longer a viable future platform. Instead, iOS and Android are the predominant players while Microsoft tries a second shot at this market with Windows Phone. I’ve used smartphone since before this shift and see both positive advances and new challenges. As a result, I’m rethinking my mobile toolset for 2012 using these ideas. In the early days of smartphones, having a great software solution was good enough. And for some, it still is. But the smartphone is becoming the tool of choice by a greater number of people each day, both at the family level and beyond. As a result, the best mobile apps and solutions going forward will need to be cross-platform, collaborative and offer centralized notifications to keep us all productive without overwhelming us with too much information. Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. Read More
What would New Year’s be without the traditional Times Square party? People in New York City have been watching the ball drop at midnight for more than a hundred years, and millions from all over the U.S. have been glued to their TV screens for decades to catch a glimpse of the action. This year, the party is once again live streamed online as well, and mobile apps for Android and iOS come in handy if you don’t want to miss it while on the go. Here’s how to watch the New Year’s celebration at Times Square live online and on your phone: Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial. Read More
Just in time for the winter season in the northern hemisphere: An alarm clock application that automatically wakes you earlier in case of frost or snow. Winter Wake-Up from Boondoggle is freely available for both Apple iOS and Google Android devices. The software takes the place of your handset’s native alarm clock and is fully configurable so you can specify how much earlier you want to be woken due to bad winter weather. Loading Picture 1 of 4 The interface is classy and simple to use for setting the clock or early wake-up calls. In fact, Winter Wake-Up has a nostalgic, throwback look to the old clocks that used small panels that flip to show the time. Once set, the app functions as a normal alarm clock, but checks your local weather during the night to see if frost or snow is expected. If either condition looks likely, you’ll be woken up early so you can scrape car windows or shovel a path. Here’s how the developers describe it: During the night, the Winter Wake Up app collects weather information for where you are. Based on this, the app decides whether it’s necessary to wake you up earlier. How much earlier is something you decide for yourself. With the Winter Wake Up app, Boondoggle hopes that its staff can get to work at a reasonable time this winter. If the situation seems really hopeless, there’s another solution. You can tell the alarm clock not to wake you. Then you can set the app to wake you to make up the lost hours on the following Saturday. I don’t see a setting for location, so it’s not clear if you need to leave your GPS radio on during the night or if the app gets a general location from Wi-Fi or mobile broadband Read More
