Garmin Unveils Nüvifone, First Real Competitor to the iPhone?
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
When we say “first real competitor to the iPhone”, we aren’t alleging there are not better selling mobile phones than Apple’s iPhone (though selling more than 22,000 smart phones per day isn’t too shoddy). No, we’re speaking of UI; user interface design. Even many of those aren’t particular fans of Apple’s mobile device acknowledge the idea that many of the UI innovations introduced in the iPhone will begin making their way into other mobile phones in the coming months and years.
Verizon has marketed LG’s Voyager as very much the iPhone-style, touch screen-driven device, but the Voyager’s touch functionality is significantly limited and isn’t even the primary interface for the phone’s OS.
Garmin, however, producers of some of the best-selling hand-held GPS devices, is now entering the smartphone market later this year with the Nüvifone, and based some of the initial available screenshots, it may be the first competing smartphone to really give the iPhone a run for its money.
Electronista highlights just how the phone’s GPS core will integrate with its smartphone functionality:
Almost entirely controlled by a 3.5-inch touchscreen interface, the device centers around its native GPS unit: in addition to straightforward navigation, a host of Google apps allow it to search for local businesses, check traffic, and view nearby weather. Any photos or videos taken with the built-in camera are automatically geotagged for positioning in location-based services.
Of course, we’ve yet to see a working model of the Nüvi. As noted by John Gruber, the only “screenshots” we’ve seen thus far are entirely mocked up vector art; they are currently no legitimate screengrabs available. So who knows where this announcement falls on the vaporware scale, but assuming it does make its way to market at some point this year, Garmin may well have a hit on their hands.
Obey Obama
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Shepard Fairey, he of the ubiquitous Obey art installations, stickers, clothing and more, has produced a pair of limited edition posters supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Fairey, in his own words:
I believe with great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President. I have been paying close attention to him since the Democratic convention in 2004. I feel that he is more a statesman than a politician. He was against the war when it was an unpopular position (and Hillary was for the war at that time), Obama is for energy and environmental conservation. He is for healthcare reform. Check him out for yourself www.barackobama.com. Proceeds from this print go to produce prints for a large statewide poster campaign.
The “Hope” design (shown to the right) is being apparently being utilized by the Obama camp as a part of an awareness campaign; the second design, “Progress“, was released by Fairey today for sale (limited to 250 pieces) and sold out almost immediately.
(via Creative Review)
RIM to (Finally!) Add HTML Email Support to Blackberry Platform
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
RIM has finally announced support for viewing of HTML emails on its Blackberry devices, via a press release last week. Given the percentage of business users regularly employing Blackberrys for viewing their email (back in October we discussed the latest numbers on mobile access as a primary means of email viewing for 37% of business users). This is a major step forward for those of us on the production side of email marketing, as RIM holds a significant share of the smart phone market and the addition of this feature set will make it easier for marketers to know they’re targeting Blackberry users with the full impact of the graphic/HTML campaigns.
Based on their release, it appears that the functionality will be added as a software/firmware update, meaning existing Blackberry users should be able to install the update and gain the functionality on their current devices, rather than necessarily needing to purchase a new Blackberry model.
(via Campaign Monitor)
Website Launch: RideFlyReservations.com
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
We’re continuing to expand our footprint in the online travel sector with the launch of the newly redesigned RideFlyReservations.com. We’ve been working with the fine folks at RideFly for the past two months on developing the site’s front-end/user interface, which was then coded by their in-house development team for deployment. Click here to check out the newly redesigned site.
Website Launch: Vanessa Minnillo
Monday, January 28th, 2008
We’re very pleased to announce the launch of the new official website for television personality Vanessa Minnillo. Ms. Minnillo, the former host of MTV’s TRL and a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight, has been working with Bainbridge Studios over the past year on developing a new online presence, which is now live. We’ll be working with Ms. Minnillo over the coming weeks and months on expanding the site and its content.
2008 Macworld Keynote: The Small Business Perspective
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Yet another Steve Jobs Macworld keynote presentation is in the books and, as would be expected, the Apple faithful are all abuzz. As a major fan (and consumer) of Apple’s products, Jobs’ annual keynote is very much the equivalent of Christmas morning for (Mac) geeks. Present company included.
At the moment, most of the buzz coming out of this morning’s presentation is surrounding the new MacBook Air, Apple’s almost-but-not-quite-ultra-portable notebook computer. Weighing in at less than three pounds and barely 3/4″ inch, it’s clearly one sexy machine, and one that I’m sure will sell like crazy.
Sitting back and digesting this year’s event, I’m focusing on today’s announcements from the perspective of a small business owner; what did Steve Jobs unveil that we can really incorporate into our workflow to help us work better, faster and more efficiently for our clients?
Dreamhost Accidentally Charges Their Entire User Base for Hosting Services That Weren’t Yet Due
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Ouch. Glad I’m not in these guys shoes this morning.
The fine folks at Dreamhost, one of the better known (not always for the right reasons) low-cost shared hosting providers, managed to incorrectly bill all of their users for past-due web hosting services. For most of those users, though, their accounts weren’t past due. The billing happened because an automated billing system and one keystroke error: billing every as if today was 2008-12-31 (they intended to bill accounts that hadn’t paid up as of 2007-12-31).
You can see the fall out on their blog, the main posting for which currently has more than 1,000 comments (most of them none-too-happy).
This is just the latest in a long string of problems folks have experienced with Dreamhost’s shared-hosting services over the past couple years. We used to host our site and mail servers with Dreamhost, but their frequent outages (which always seemed to come at the most inopportune times) finally forced us to move on to our current hosts, MediaTemple (who do a spectacular job, btw!).
Script Leaked for Tomorrow’s Macworld Keynote?
Monday, January 14th, 2008
As with any Apple rumor, take this one with a grain of salt, but there’s been a supposed leaked copy of the script for Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote address (scheduled for tomorrow morning) that’s been making its way around the internet since first popping up on Wikipedia Friday.
It’s a fairly intriguing read, and seems to fall in realistic spot as far as expectations - this would be a good, though not earth-shattering set of announcements (hey, we can’t have the introduction of something as big as the iPhone every year).
The only item on this list that really makes me doubt it’s authenticity is the “one more thing”, which would simply be the ability to download Y0uTube clips (yawn). There’s no way Jobs is ending any Macworld keynote with an announcement that lackluster.
Still a good read though, whether it turns out to be authentic or simply a well-written fake.
Network Solutions Now in the Business of Domain Name Squatting?
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
A number of blogs in recent days have written up a rather disturbing practice implemented by Network Solutions, in which they apparently register domains that you search for (but don’t register) via their website. For instance, if I do a domain search for “ineedanewdomain.com” via the Network Solutions website, but decide not to register it at that time, I’ll no longer be able to purchase rights to that domain anywhere but Network Solutions. Any attempts to do so return a WHOIS search result listing “This Domain is available at NetworkSolutions.com” as the company name.
The practice is known as “front running”, scanning domain search records to find domains to purchase based on others having searched for them, and Network Solutions is claiming that what they’re doing is specifically designed to “protect customers from frontrunners.” By front running themselves. Of course, it makes perfect sense.
Harry & David’s Holiday Inundation
Sunday, January 13th, 2008
Click Z’s Anna Maria Virzi highlights findings from a recent Email Experience Council report on holiday email marketing. Overall, retailers increased holiday emails by more than 45% in December, but the largest increase (among 109 retailers featured) was Harry & David, purveyors of fruits, gift baskets, and Moose Munch. Harry & David, which normally send out a marketing email to customers roughly once per week, increased that eightfold during the holidays, bombarding customers inboxes more than one per day in the run-up to Christmas.
We’ve been customers of Harry & David for years, as we’ve used them for sending gift baskets to many of our clients each December, and we certainly noticed the significant increase in emails this year, to the point that we began routing them straight to the junk mail folder. It’s a shame that they became such an aggravation for us, because their products are excellent and we’ve always enjoyed sharing their treats with clients and friends.