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Posts Tagged ‘Apple’
jack - Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Investment in augmented reality development is one key to our industry’s success. So we thought we’d aggregate, and share a list of our industry’s “success stories”. We’d like this list to not only be about the developers that are getting venture capital funding, but the large corporations that are validating the space by investing their resources/money towards AR as well.
As you can see, the space is starting to heat up.
We’ll try to update this list regularly, so please feel free to add anything I’m missing in the comments.
- Total Immersion gets $5.5M to expand augmented reality (Link)
- Layar Augments Reality With $14M in New Funding (Link)
- Tonchidot Raises $12 Million Round B, Expands Augmented Reality/Social Gaming Platform SoLAR Globally (Link)
- EU backs ST-Ericsson to deliver augmented reality (Link)
- Google, Apple Making Augmented Reality Cool Amid CES (Link)
- Microsoft And TechStars Launch Kinect Accelerator For New Kinect-Based Startups (Link)
- Qualcomm opens submissions for its $200,000 Augmented Reality Developer Challenge (Link)
- Blippar raises seed funding from Qualcomm for mobile augmented reality technology (Link)
- Gamma III structures first round funding of Mobilizy GmbH (Makers of Wikitude) (Link)
- HP Acquires Control of Autonomy Corporation (Makers of Aurasma) (Link)
- Augmented Reality App Maker CrowdOptic Scores $500,000 In New Funding (Link)
- More funding news in Poland: augmented reality game ShootAR is backed by IIF (Link)
- 110 Stories: Augmented Reality Twin Towers iPhone App (Link)
- GoldRun Scores Funding for Mobile Discovery/AR App (Link)
- DARPA’s next-gen wearable display: augmented-reality, holographic sunglasses (Link)
- AR Developers Ogmento Raise $3.5M for Augmented Gaming Apps (Link)
Updated 1/27/12
Zugara - Friday, November 5th, 2010
Here are the stories that got the most activity in the Augmented Reality Facebook Group this past week:
Zugara - Friday, October 8th, 2010
Here are the stories that got the most activity in the Augmented Reality Facebook Group this past week:
blake - Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
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.
Follow me on Twitter: @blakecallens
matt - Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
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 
blake - Monday, April 12th, 2010
I never cease to be amazed at the ferocity with which Apple fanboys will defend the latest iProduct, nor with how the opposition to their blind devotion is presented with an equally uninformed opinion. The arguments seem to regularly break down into two sentiments:
Apple Fanboy: “All you Microsoft/Linux slaves/geeks don’t understand the beauty of Apple’s design. Can’t you see that Steve Jobs is trying to bring us into a digital utopia.”
Opposition: “Can’t you see that Steve Jobs is Big Brother/Satan!?”
Both arguments lack an attempt to analyze the core of the issue at hand, and serve to only further confuse non-techies that don’t belong to either camp. In order to better understand the rational behind Apple fanboys’ side of the argument, let’s go through the corporate marketing strategies that shape their opinions and, if you’re of the other persuasion, the proper way to retort.
The Cult of Mac
The brilliance of Apple’s marketing strategy is that it appeals to one of humanity’s basest emotions, the desire to feel superior to others by tying oneself to a cultural or group identity. Apple loyalists are led to believe that they are going against the grain of society, distinguishing themselves from average people buy purchasing a product that is so perfectly designed, so inherently simple to use, so free of bugs. Others that choose to follow the same path are their brothers and sisters in arms, while those that don’t are slaves to – dare I say it – bland corporate UI designs in a buggy operating system. Like any proselyte, they can’t see that their leader, like all evangelists, exaggerates the shortcomings of any teaching that contradicts his own.
Because of this need to maintain their unwaivering status as a member of the group, and because admission that the latest product is anything less that spectacular would also be admitting that they were wrong about Apple’s (supposed) flawlessness, the fanboy wraps himself in a cocoon of cognitive dissonance. This is best exemplified by comments made by a fanboy on my post, Why I Won’t Be Buying a First Gen iPad.
“I get it – you don’t get it. Which is OK. . . You’ll get it better soon, if you will allow yourself.”
And in a follow up comment. . .
“I’ll be at the coffee shop with my iPad. You’ll have your Ubuntu netbook.”
First, the fanboy asserts that if if have reasons for not being interested in the iPad, it’s not because they’re valid, but because I “don’t get it.” I would be able to get it if I allow myself to see the beauty of his Cupertino oriented point of view. Then he unwittingly admits his true reason for wanting the device: to be seen using it in public so he can be identified as one of the chosen few.
Here’s a gem from the comments section of a recent TechCrunch post, Is Steve Jobs Ignoring History, Or Trying To Rewrite It?
“He’s inventing a new world. History will just follow.”
No wonder they call it the Cult of Mac.
This is not to say that there aren’t others who prefer some of Apple’s products, but don’t follow the company line. I, for one, love the user flow of OSX, especially because it’s a beautiful UI wrapped around a UNIX shell. I’m writing this in Open Office on Ubuntu Linux, though, so my fanboy status is negated by membership in an even smaller faction.
Responding Through Passive Aggressiveness
Trying to counter an Apple fanboy’s opinion is like trying to convince someone that their religion is pointless; it’s just not going to happen. Instead of confronting them head on, consider flanking them with one of these questions:
- “I’m having trouble with my iPad, could you help me? I can’t seem to find the button that allows me to access the file system.”
- “I was playing Farmville on my friend’s Android phone the other day. When I tried to do it on my iPhone, it didn’t work. Do you know why?”
- “My boss left me a message on Google Voice and I need to hear it right now. I’m away from my computer, so is there a way I can do it with my iPhone?”
Perhaps the best way to respond is through self reflection, asking yourself, “Do I, with my own gadget preferences, operate with something of the same cognitive dissonance by rejecting everything Apple?”
Follow me on Twitter: @blakecallens
Zugara - Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Zugara - Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
blake - Friday, February 12th, 2010
I used to hate Macs. A work experience with a G3, that seemed to crash every ten minutes, turned me off to anything Apple for years. Everything changed, though, when I got my first Intel based Mac in late 2008. The user interface was flawless, the UNIX shell made it a cinch to do back-end tasks, and I never had to worry about the issues that plagued that old G3. I haven’t bought a PC since (at least not without immediately wiping the hard drive with Linux) and I’m known around work as a hardcore Apple fanboy, but that might be changing really soon.
The vast majority of applications I write are for Flash (written in Flex). I love the ease of Flash development and rarely have any issues with programs I write for it. That’s why I’m particularly troubled with, what seems to be, Steve Jobs’ fevered desire to destroy the platform. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, Jobs reportedly told a group of Apple employees that Adobe, the developers of Flash, are “lazy” and that the platform is “buggy.”
I call shenanigans.
There’s a common myth about Flash circulated by developers not familiar with the platform (also known as “my platform is better than your platform” developers). They say that Flash causes most browser crashes when, in fact, it’s not Flash itself causing most of those crashes, but bad Flash coding by inexperienced developers. To put that into perspective, I’ll pose a rhetorical question. When an iPhone developer makes an app that crashes constantly or leaks so much memory that you have to restart the device, does anyone say that Apple should dump Objective C and Cocoa?
Since making the move to Flex, a while back, I haven’t gotten word of a single one of my applications ever causing a browser to crash. This is after extensive use of these applications, not only by the public, but also by a quality assurance department as well. Flash is a very stable platform when used correctly.
The iPad and Flash
Adobe has had a fully working version of Flash ready for all major mobile devices for a little while now. Other mobile operating systems, like Android and Windows Mobile, are going to use it, so why not iPhone or iPad? Steve Jobs, among others, would have you believe that it’s because the platform isn’t good enough for their devices, but that’s just a cheap cover-up. The real reason is that it would take a massive chunk out of App Store profits.
If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch then you know that the majority of apps for those devices are – and I don’t say this lightly – complete crap. The App Store is overrun with weekend projects by novice developers and rip-off products by companies re-skinning the same worthless app to get more 99-cent sales, and Apple is making a killing off of the suckers that buy them. Don’t believe me? Look at these screen caps from the App Store for latest releases in the Entertainment and Lifestyle categories, taken while I was writing this.
If Flash were allowed on these devices, almost all of those developers would opt to release their apps as “iPhone ready Flash,” raking in all the revenue from dozens of ads for enlargement pills and naked video chat, which they would surely cover the page in. If Apple allowed Flash on iPad and iPhone, App Store profits would drop by a double-digit percentage practically overnight.
Why HTML5 won’t be a Flash killer
Because of this, Apple is publicly throwing their hat in the ring for HTML5, all while completely ignoring some of the glaring problems that come with it. Mind you, HTML5 is a good advancement for the web, but it’s anything but a Flash killer, and here’s why:
1. Video codecs aren’t free. The reason that Flash works with all sorts of video codecs is because Adobe paid for them. When that responsibility is moved to the browser, problems ensue, because not every browser supports all those codecs. Mozilla has chosen Ogg, Apple is with h.264, since that’s what iTunes runs off of, and while Google is also currently with h.264, word is that they might be about to opt for a codec they just gained ownership of. This means that not all HTML5 video players will work in all HTML5 capable browsers. This is a huge headache for developers, since cross-browser is the name of the internet game.
2. HTML5 can’t make the level of games that Flash can, or at least not with anything near the same ease of development. Casual Flash gaming is a huge moneymaker, and no one is ready to drop it anytime soon. Just for fun, ask just about any Flash game developer what he would think about dumping ActionScript to write a game in JavaScript and enjoy watching his head explode.
3. Whatever HTML5 will do, Flash can already do it and then some. As time goes on, and more functionality becomes available with HTML5, Adobe will, through their normal development cycle, give Flash more and more features that HTML5 won’t be able to compete with. Two years from now, it might be that video players and simple rich internet applications are best done in HTML5, but, in order to do the latest things available, you’ll still need Flash.
4. Flash has a dedicated user base. 99% of computers in the modernized world have Flash installed. Safari and Chrome, which make up about 14% of total browser penetration, are the only browsers capable of running YouTube’s HTML5 video player. Things might change for HTML5 penetration, but not soon.
The future of my Apple fanboy status
I’m struggling to remain an Apple fanboy, with their ridiculous practices regarding Flash and closed development. The truth is, while I’m not happy with the direction their mobile division is going, I love OSX to death. I guess, as a developer, I still admire the hard working people at Apple who, behind the scenes, actually do all the heavy lifting that results in great products.
On the other hand, Steve Jobs is starting to look less like an innovator to me and more like the delusional cult leader that so many Windows fanboys characterize him as – blindly saying that technologies that don’t conform to his wishes are buggy and that their developers are lazy. I can’t help but think, at least for a while, that I won’t be drinking his special brand of Kool-Aid.
Oh, and he also reportedly trashed Google because they’re making competitive products. When the Google Tablet mockup shows multitasking and multi-touch, the Chrome OS has open development, and the device will almost assuredly run Flash, it feels to me like nothing more than sour grapes.
Follow me on Twitter, @blakecallens
Zugara - Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
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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.
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