Regardless of what you think of the entire Gizmodo / iPhone debacle, John Stewart has some very funny (but spot on) commentary from The Daily Show. My favorite line, “You guys (Apple) are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes! WTF is going on!” Classic…
If you have an iPhone, chances are you’ve had an issue with the battery suddenly draining even when not in use. When searching on google, you’ll come across usual quick fixes like turning off Push Notifications, changing email to Fetch, and so on. You might even consider doing the dreaded Backup and Restore – but who was 10 hours to wait for that? Kudos to Mobility Minded for figuring out a quick fix that at least worked for me. If you have Exchange Email hooked up, chances are the issue is as simple as deleting and recreating your email account. Not sure why the iPhone seems to do this but overall fix seems to work. Here’s directions straight from Mobility Minded’s site:
I have discovered that the sudden extreme battery drain has to do with your Exchange Account that has been set up on your iPhone. For some odd reason it keeps check and checking for new info and it won’t stop. Before trying to do a restore on your iPhone I would first recommend deleting your Exchange Push Account on your iPhone and set it up again as a new account. This will save some time in the fix for the extreme fast battery drainage.
Follow the steps below to fix the extreme battery drainage on your iPhone.
Go to your “Settings” on your iPhone.
Select “Mail,Contact,Calendars“.
Select your account that has been set up with an exchange server.
Select “Account Info“.
Copy down the information which you will need to set up this account again later on.
Select the “Arrow back ” on the top of your screen with the name of your account.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select “Delete Account“
Let the iPhone do its work. It will remove all e-mails, contacts and calendar items from your iPhone associated with your account.
When done Turn off your iPhone and Turn it back on.
Once your iPhone is turned back on you can go back to Step 1,2
Back in the “Mail,Contacts,Calendar” Settings you have to select “Add Account“
Select the “Microsoft Exchange” and enter the credentials you copied down before.
The server information is not visible in this field yet, it will appear after you set up your E-mail, Domain, Username and Password are entered and “Next” has been selected.
Now your account has been set up again. It will take some time for the iPhone to synchronize everything back. Give it some 5-10 minutes.
Now your Exchange Push account has been set up again and your extreme battery drainage has been stopped. If you think that after these steps you still have this issue, I would recommend using the “Restore” function in iTunes while your iPhone is connected.
In response to Apple’s recent shutting out of anything Flash on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad, Mike Chambers, Adobe’s product manager for the Flash platform, made a statement about Apple mobile development.
“As developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time, and for seemingly any reason. . . The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool Web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms.”
In one of the most interesting official statements to come out of Apple in a while, Apple spokesperson Trudy Miller responded,
“Someone has it backwards – it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary.”
Let’s take a second to get away from the spin and run through the facts about which side in this argument is more “closed and proprietary” than the other.
Distribution
iPhone: Apple maintains a closed distribution model (the App Store) that is the only way to get applications without breaking the warranty of your device. Apple also maintains a very profitable closed distribution method for music and video, and only allows select partners to deliver media outside of it.
Flash: While the Flash plugin is proprietary, it is available for use through all major web browsers and practically every smart phone, other than the iPhone, at no cost to the user and without limiting other interactive content platforms. Also, with Flash, the user has open access to many sites that offer free delivery of music and videos.
Development
iPhone: In order to develop for Apple’s mobile devices and distribute to the majority of users, the developer must pay Apple $99 a year for the right to not only submit applications and keep them in the App Store, but just to test them on a device. Compare this to Android, where all of that is 100% free. Also, a developer must sign an extensive terms of service agreement that effectively gives Apple the right to steal their application and release it as their own intellectual property.
Flash: While the Flash CS5 and Flash Builder development environments cost about $500 a piece, Adobe also provides the Flex SDK, which has the exact same coding abilities, completely free. It is relatively easy for a developer to make and distribute Flash applications, including desktop apps through AIR, at no charge and with no approval process or possibility of having it stolen by Adobe.
Other “Closed and Proprietary” Things That Apple Does on Mobile
Apple doesn’t allow fully functional third party apps that “duplicate functionality.”
Apple doesn’t allow apps that “ridicule public figures,” though the 1st Amendment does.
Apple limits how apps can use public data that can be accessed through the browser anyway.
Apple limits how third party Ad systems can send statistics.
Apple limits what languages can be used to make applications. Note that not one of Miller’s supported “open and standard” languages is Object-Oriented and capable of delivering native quality applications, through the browser, like Flash can.
With this list, I’m not trying to say that one side is morally better than the other, but Apple calling out Flash for being “closed and proprietary” is most certainly hypocritical, if not downright ridiculous. Personally, it’s getting annoying to have to regularly break down the spin, and sometimes logical inconsistencies, of an Apple statement to come to an estimate of the real reasoning behind the action (something I must do, because their decisions affect my profession). I can’t help but think that if the real reason was at all benevolent, such as supporting open standards, there would be no need for these types of blatant cover-ups.
Very cool stop motion video from Bruce Sterling’s blog Beyond The Beyond…
Info on video – “Our tour included stops in London – Cairo – Mumbay – Hong Kong – Tokyo – San Francisco – New York – London. This route is a tribute to the famous Jules Verne’s book “Le tour du monde en 80 jours”.”
I used to be one of those people who carried around both a Blackberry and iPhone with me at all times. iPhone was for personal use and Blackberry was for business. But over the last 6 months, I’ve been relying on my iPhone exclusively with exchange service and other features from iPhone 3.0. However, after using exchange on iPhone, there’s definitely some areas that need to be addressed so I’m not ultimately always going back to my laptop:
1. Ability to flag an email for follow-up
This is my #1 pain as when I’m travelling for business, I’m going through a pretty common drill now where I have to go back to my email after my trip and flag all the emails for follow-up that I had previously read on the iPhone. This is getting very annoying and seems like it should be a pretty easy fix to implement.
2. Quick scroll top to bottom for all emails
On Blackberry, you could hit ALT-T or ALT-B to quickly go to top or bottom of your emails. On iPhone, however, I seem to always have to continually flick to get anywhere. There’s got to be a better method Apple…
3. Implement the Importance Feature
This issue is becoming more prevalent as I’ve noticed there no ability to see if someone has flagged an email as important that might need a quick response. When using regular outlook, emails flagged this way catch your eye but on the iPhone, there’s no way to view the sender’s importance flag on the actual email.
Those are my 3 pressing issues. Do you have any? If so, I’ll add them to this list and hopefully someone from Apple eventually reads this blog post and maxes the required fixes
Comments right now are not working on AdAge.com so I wanted to post my reply to this article by Winston Binch from CP+B entitled, “Give Shops More Credit for Work That Bridges Digital Divide.”
Though I disagree with the general approach and intent of ‘full-service, one stop’ agencies, I think Winston articulated a very well thought out viewpoint from the traditional AOR end. There’s definitely arguments to be made for the traditional AOR owning the idea and all integrated efforts. You can read the full article here and I’ve included the main area I disagree with and my response below. (Winston – if you do read this, I’d be pleased to hear your thoughts in the comments section.)
AdAge Article
In the post-digital future, there’s room for a variety of business models. But to be relevant, agencies will need to be able to develop powerful business and strategic insights and tell brand stories. They’ll need to be able to start and curate pop-culture conversations and build scalable digital platforms that allow for long-term engagement and the generation of real-time business results. And of course, they will have to always have technological thinking embedded in their core.
Right now an important step is once and for all ending the conversation about the traditional and digital divide. The best agencies have closed it and now provide one-stop shopping for everything from Super Bowl commercials to digital platforms to mobile apps to social-media conversation management. (Rest of article here)
My Response
Winston,
First off, congratulations on the partner status. It’s well deserved…
Second, while reading your article, I was reminded of a saying, “Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None.” I have to disagree with some of your assumptions and overall thoughts in your AdAge writeup. I think that ‘full service, one stop shops’ will not survive in this new fragmented, digital environment. Though you might have an internal interactive production department, to say that you would be able to handle everything from CRM to social media to interactive video to mobile marketing and so on for a client is not going to be practical or cost effective in this new era. Nor will it be for any agency. Everything is fragmenting too quickly in the interactive ecosystem.
Even if a brand did trust their agency to handle all of these different interactive channels, this will ultimately lead to further outsourcing by an agency. Why should a brand pay a 15-20% fee on top of outsourced services to this one stop agency when they can deal with the specialized agency direct for less cost? We’ve been involved in quite a few collaborative efforts like this as of late and seem to be much preferred from the brand. Needless to say the projects run smoother and we’re still in constant communication with other agencies working on the project. Sure the full service, one stop shops can own the idea and marketing plan but should it own all the interactive components and relationships as well? I definitely think this old school way of thinking flies in the face of the new era of collaboration that agencies will need to adapt to for everybody to survive.
Too often traditional agencies come to interactive agencies or specialized vendors with ideas they’ve gotten buy in from a client on that just aren’t practical or even doable. Then by the time the feasibility of the idea is figured out, the time line for the initiative has been cut in half. Not to mention, what is often communicated from the specialist to the agency is not in turn communicated back to the client which often leads the blame game and further animosity between traditional and digital shops. With open collaboration and clear cut responsibilities spearheaded by the brand, think how more efficient this process can work. I hate to say it, but in most instances, agencies and their ‘one stop shop’ mindset are really, in effect, middle men that need to be cut out.
I do agree with your terminology in regards to ‘marketing agencies’, but I do think that outside of creating the idea and the actual marketing plan, most digital efforts and relationships should be left to the brands and the specialists. At the end of the day, it will save both time and money and help the brand get the best services available for their integrated effort.
Once in awhile you come across a very innovative use of interactive media.
Once in a blue moon you come across a very innovative use of integrated media using emerging media and technology.
A blue moon just appeared.
Take this McDonald’s promotion for example where a consumer needs to use their mobile phone to take a picture of a menu item moving on an interactive digital billboard to get the item for free. This is just an ingenious promotion since it’s not only creating awareness via the interactive billboard but also helping to push people in-store.
Great use of emerging media and technology. Just one thought though – if you take video of the billboard, you could theoretically just take a frame of the video that captures the actual menu item and so could win every time…but that’s splitting hairs. (By DDB Stockholm via Adfreak)
We Are Organized Chaos (WAOC) is Zugara’s (www.zugara.com) interactive marketing and advertising blog where we’ll be featuring some great projects and discussing upcoming trends in the digital world. Work — good and bad — will be critiqued. Hope you’ll enjoy reading our insights and thoughts on interactive.
