tech drops

Just What Is Needed.

These days I had the task to setup an old PC of mine, so that it could be given to a friend’s family, whose needs are common and simple. Generally all the job is done in the browser these days, but maybe they need to edit a picture or a video once in a while, or compose and modify documents. So, I jot down a list of basic functionalities and personal favorites in each area of Windows PC usage, reminiscing the days I was «stuck» into it, before having the personal possibility to switch definitely to the Mac again.

Done with introducing, let me get to the list of goodies I feel should be installed on today’s Widows PCs.

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MacPilot is on sale on the Mac App Store

It’s powerful geek app to maintain your OS X system, to tweak it and to clean it up. I read several reviews in the past, and seeing it now on sale on the Mac App Store with a €10 discout gave the right motivation to get it!

Link to Mac App Store page.

Link to MacStories review.

some thoughts on iOS free (or lite) apps

I read about this interesting app called Dropkick, which i shared here in the previous post. On the developer website, it’s possible to download a free trial version for the Mac, and it says that’s there’s a trial for iPhone/iPod too… I was intrigued by what this meant, so I followed the link. I saw that it was just the app, for free. If you want to actually buy the app, there’s an in-app purchase for that.

This made me think about the structure of the App Store, and how it’s actually possible to create trial apps. If one doesn’t like the app, he just deletes it after trying it for a while, without paying for it. The in-app purchase unlocks a set of features, and without it, you just use the limited app.

In this way, there is less fragmentation from the same developer on the App Store, and most people would use the version of the app that is maintained by the developer, getting more people to review one app.

This model is used also by Shazam, as far as I know. There’s Shazam Encore, that is the paid app, but there’s also Shazam, the free version that has an in-app purchase at the same price to enable to pros of the paid version. I guess there are two versions cause of legacy issues (Shazam used to be the free-only version, millions of people already downloaded it, but the developer still wanted to monetize on them without asking them to buy another app), and generally speaking because it could actually be confusing for the casual user, that downloads a free app and then is required to purchase something more later.

A random idea: what if, after a certain period of time, the app would “lock” itself internally leaving the user only the opportunity to quit or to buy the in-app purchase? This would be truly time-trial model, but I guess could get users frustrated, especially the ones that don’t read App Store descriptions.

Sparrow, a new approach to Email.

In my opinion, one of the biggest letdowns of traditional email clients is that they are designed for traditional mail systems, where you fetch mail and sort it into folders. I say this because I’m totally in love with Gmail approach to email: archive messages, labeling system, just search to find, etc. These approaches are now part of my way to process emails.

Then why not using Gmail webmail client? Well, you might need your mail when you are not connected to the Internet. I’ve tried to use Google Gears before, to be able to access my data even when I was offline, but the results were never reliable and kind of bulky. Another shortcoming of webmail, is that you cannot be notified as quickly when new messages arrive. That’s not easy with an application inside a browser – we’ll see how this is gonna be with newer browsers with app tabs and HTML5’s offline database features.

In the meantime, a couple of months ago I stumbled upon a tweet by Loren Britcher (@atebits), the creator of Twitter for Mac (previously known as Tweetie) that said:

“Holy smokes. Check out http://t.co/GOQTQZa Mail clients are hard. This is insane.”

Well, i checked it out. Back in the day it was still a beta, that I could download and start to test. It was rather buggy, slow… it didn’t even support labels! Beta after beta, the application gained the shape of a solid piece of software, stable and reliable. It now has most of the features that Gmail webmail offers, including searching, labels, threaded conversations and quick replies. Moreover, it adds some cool features like Growl notifications, a menubar icon, Quick Look for attachments, and shows off some fancy animations to open and close message windows.

I find it very useful because I happen to check multiple accounts daily, so I can receive mail from all of them, without compromising the Gmail experience.

Now, some thoughts about the pricing: a mail client has a huge competition by the great and free alternatives that we talked about, either Gmail webmail, Apple’s Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird. Being these free, any price for an application would be expensive for the average user. Nevertheless, I believe that people that don’t want to compromise the Gmail experience, and still have many of the advantages that a client can offer, will find Sparrow a great solution, even at the price of $9,99 on the Mac App Store.

And, isn’t the icon lovely?

Super Update Me: updating maniacs Vs. lazy users

Yesterday my uncle asked me about an issue with his iPhone: the Mail app was crashing after launching, with badge showing something like 21 incoming messages. First thing I did was to check the OS version installed. I wasn’t surprised to find it outdated, but to my HUGE surprise, it was VERY old! He had installed iPhoneOS 2.2, while as of today, the most updated version is 4.2.1 (which also means he doesn’t even have the AppStore, right?). I suggested him to update the phone operating system, by briefly explaining how, with iTunes.

Just a couple of days ago I was reading an article, with a video interview (link below) to a member of Rovio, the makers of the popular mobile gaming app Angry Birds; he was saying that a large amount of their user base was using the latest version of the game, meaning that many users update their app. My reaction at that was: whaat??! Why, some users actually skip updates? Do they just not care about them, or even don’t even know what an app update is or why should they care? Especially with games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope or Doodle Jump, each update brings new awesome levels and hours of new fun.

Link to Article (with video interview)

This made me reflect on how developers often have to surrender or get frustrated by user behaviors that just look odd to tech people. Updating is just an example. I’m not an expert in this area, but I guess that companies have people specifically working on making thing dumb-proof and super-simple, maybe by cutting out some features.

Personally speaking, I might be an extreme case: I often randomly check for app updates when I’m on the go, because I feel the impelling need to have the most bug-free software or that new feature that the developer has been working for before releasing the new version of the app (or operating system for that matter). On my Mac I have dashboard widget called App Update which regularly scans your Applications folder and checks some websites like Apple.com, VersionTracker or MacUpdate to see if your version has a newer version available.

So what type are you, an update maniac or an easy going user?