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iPad is standard equipment in the 2013 Cadillac XTS
When you pick up that 2013 Cadillac XTS at the dealership, you're going to get more than just the keys, the car, and a free bottle of car wax. That new luxury car of yours is also going to come with an iPad.
The purpose of the iPad is to provide new XTS owners with training about the many features of their new car, including the powerful built-in CUE infotainment system. Cadillac's head of customer experience, Mark Harland, notes that "The moment you pull away from the dealership there's this kind of black hole for 90 days" during which the owner and dealer rarely have any contact.
The iPad comes loaded with OnStar RemoteLink, MyCadillac, and a CUE simulator. With the iPad, new Caddy owners can learn about all of the features of the car and CUE on their own time and at their own pace. Other parts of the Cadillac customer experience initiative include having the CUE team visit Cadillac forums, community sites, and social media to resolve issues before they get out of control.
Oh, and if you own an iPhone, the XTS appears to have a nice little niche in the center console just for your favorite communications device (check the bottom right of the image above).
iPad is standard equipment in the 2013 Cadillac XTS originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Miami zoo orangutans use iPads to communicate
iPads are everywhere, even in the orangutan cages at Miami's Jungle Island. As reported by Fox News, the Florida zoo is experimenting with iPads and using them to communicate with their apes. The apes are using a graphics-rich app designed to communicate with autistic children. Not surprisingly, it's the younger apes that are most adept at picking up the iPad, while the older ones just ignore it.
Linda Jacobs, who oversees the iPad project, is excited by the possibility of letting other people communicate with the zoo's orangutans, Currently, only those trained in the ape's sign language can effectively communicate with the animals. Now that the orangutans are armed with iPads, they can talk to untrained personnel and maybe even interact with park visitors.
Miami zoo orangutans use iPads to communicate originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Office for Mac 14.2.2 rollup patch now available
Microsoft today announced the availability of the Office for Mac 2011 14.2.2 Update. According to Microsoft, "this update fixes extremely important issues and also helps improve security. It includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code."
This is a rollup patch, meaning that it includes all of the improvements released in previous Office 2011 updates since the 14.1.0 update. To install the update, you must be running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later and have previously installed the Office 2011 for Mac 14.1 update. Office users can verify that the previous update is in place by opening any Office application and checking the "About" dialog box.
The update should appear if you're running Microsoft AutoUpdate, or it can be downloaded directly from Microsoft.
Office for Mac 14.2.2 rollup patch now available originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
DevJuice: Promotion from the Trenches
TUAW Dev Juice talks with Mac developer Lyle Andrews, who agreed to discuss his real-world experience launching applications. He'll be sharing tips and hints about practical app promotion skills.
I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me and to TUAW readers. The reason I asked you here was because I think you have a really compelling story to tell and tips to share. You're a small developer who's achieved some exciting success in Apple's App Stores, yes? Can you tell us about your background and your products?
Yes, I've been coding since I was 12, have been through 14 languages, have a degree in philosophy, and am a veteran of the dot.com wars where I ran over 60 projects including a dot.com startup and a Fortune 500 web deployment. My project history can be seen here.
I've been moving into consumer software development and have two large projects in the works, Ynnis Myrddin, an interactive film about Merlin, and MetaView, a 3D market vizualizer.
When the Mac App Store started operations I decided to write a few small apps to learn its dynamics: Tempest - a video lightning screensaver, Fireworks HD, another screensaver, and Network Logger, an active network monitor. Network Logger is currently selling in the top 6%, Fireworks HD in the top 2.5% and Tempest! in the top 2% of their categories on the US store.
I first came across your work when I reviewed your Fireworks app just before New Years. Can you share how that process of pitching and reviewing worked from your end and talk about how the TUAW review affected your sales?
Getting Fireworks HD reviewed by Apple was straightforward compared to getting the first screensaver on the store, since the App Store doesn't sell screensavers directly. I tried numerous ways around this restriction, including zipping up the saver and storing it in a shell app's bundle or having the app download the saver.
After half a dozen rejection cycles one of the Apple reviewers took pity on me and suggested adding a download link that the user could click on in the app. This puts the onus of responsibility on the user, gives them control, and with that approach I was able to get approved and onto the store.
Being very much a developer I have the classic indie tendency to just keep coding and sit around wishing that someone was promoting my apps full time. This does make the exposure the App Store affords very attractive. I do occasionally send out press releases and hold free promotions on the store.
For Fireworks HD, I knew getting some exposure for New Year's Eve was important so I emailed an editor at TUAW about the possibility of a review right after Christmas. I saw that as a win/win since that was the app on the store most appropriate for New Years' Eve at the time. Fireworks HD was named Mac App of the Day on Dec 27, 2011 and the sales rank responded immediately and dramatically, moving from around rank #100 up to #4 in Top Paid Entertainment within a day.
On New Year's Eve itself Fireworks HD was on the Top 10 Entertainment charts of 13 countries. Over the next few weeks Fireworks HD trended down as expected but happily ended in a higher average range which has persisted for five months to date.
Can you tell me about some of the strategies you've used in-store for helping your apps stand out from the competition? I know you mentioned something about icons when I first started talking to you about doing this interview. What other suggestions do you have?
I anticipated your question, so here is a very long list of suggestions.
Pop out. Your icon has to pop out. Look at the primary category you will be listed in, imagine you are in the top 200, what similarities or appearance trends can you find in the app icons, and how can you break them in a way that draws attention and invites a click. A number of people have told me that they clicked on Network Logger just because of the icon. Something about it just makes you want to click it whatever it leads to.
Keep it short. This indicates that you are confident that the customer is going to like your product if they are interested in general. It shows you feel like you don't have to say that much to make the sale. This is true with new clients as well as products.
A long description starts to feel like an apology after awhile. However, some things are complex and merit a longer description. Conciseness is the actual metric. How can you say the most with the least words?
Keep it Plain. Plain descriptions with minimal self-praise and adjectives are trusted more by App Store customers than overinflated rhetoric.
Focus on Strength. Best in class in some way? Definitely say so. If nothing is the best, should you be aiming higher? This is true for Fireworks HD, it is in some ways a silly app I built to test out the store, but if you need beautiful 100% realistic HD fireworks for your event that don't repeat in sequence and work when no network connection is available, there is nothing better available for Mac than Fireworks HD.
Be a master of the obvious. While there are many great naming strategies, if you can name a product after its product category, you have a home field advantage. With "Network Logger" for instance, the genus is instantly obvious, the customer just needs to know the species. They click, they are coming to see you, you are the category, the sale is yours to lose.
Don't sweat bad reviews. They are going to happen, if an app has merit it will tend to sell anyway and time will equalize things. Tempest has been in the top 10 in Spain in Paid Entertainment for many weeks despite having only two reviews there, both 1 star.
Follow or lead the market, either way know which you are doing. Leading the market is much more challenging, and can be much more rewarding. Can you come up with a way of systematizing a part of the raw unordered universe and create a new class of human activities? If you succeed your glories will be sung in Valhalla. Following the market can be safer and is often more lucrative. Can you rethink a better way to handle a common human activity?
Use resonance awareness. There are some things you just know are going to resonate with a particular audience, fireworks, lightning, beaches, white rounded kitchen appliances...resonance awareness is really a diverse skill set it pays to hone. We know Steve Jobs actively developed this skill set throughout his life.
Understand need. You need their need. What fundamental emotions are driving the user as they use your software? A desire for order? Curiosity? Love? A desire to conquer? Every activity has a number of emotions that are commonly associated with it. Knowing what your audience is experiencing and wants to experience emotionally is the foundation of an evolving relationship. It's not just woven into the advertising, the product is built around it.
In conclusion, these things are all simple in theory, but if the execution sounds simple, think again. The student sees the simple and thinks it simple, the master sees the simple and thinks it profound. I hope one day to be such a master myself.
There's been a lot of negative talk over the last few years about the App Stores being too saturated, that small guys can't make a living at it, that there's no room to break in. What would you say to that?
I would say that oversaturation is bound to happen given the gold rush mentality, but overall the App Stores have been really empowering to smaller developers and that virtue will be recognized if one persists. The bar is higher now and development and marketing effort have to reflect that.
The App Store gets far more traffic than my own web sites and provides more than just sales exposure; the review system has sort of opened up a dialog between me and my customers that wasn't there before.
There are a lot of nasty reviews on the US App Store but internationally they are much more measured; they all make you tougher (better at taking criticism), and your app better.
Being able to say you have apps on the store also has a certain social cachet these days that's valuable in personal and professional situations and that opens up new opportunities.
Lyle, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. I'm hoping that your experience and your insights will help inspire other developers, especially those just getting started.
And if you're still reading this post and you like this kind of developer-centric coverage, please let our editorial team know. Drop a note and tell TUAW that you care about dev topics.
DevJuice: Promotion from the Trenches originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Wednesday Odds and Ends
-Ignacio Oreamuno , formerly CEO at the Tomorrow Awards, joined the Art Directors Club as executive director.
-Gaston Serpenti joined Anomaly’s Amsterdam offcie as digital creative director.
-McCann Erickson NY gives us a taste of the “Fountain of Electrolytenment” for Nestle Waters (above).
-So, who wants to hear Joe Pytka talk? link
-Well, One Show Design already picked its winners. link
-AOL will give all proceeds “directly back to shareholders.” link
-LightSquared alum Frank Boulben joined up with RIM as CMO. link
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Apple tops e-store satisfaction survey
If you've been happy with a purchase that you made at Apple's online store, you're not the only one. Michigan-based ForeSee announced today that the Apple online store received the highest satisfaction score of any computer-related company and was tied for second place overall with QVC.com.
ForeSee surveys almost 21,000 visitors to the top 100 online stores as ranked by annual revenue, and has been doing so since 2005. Apple scored an 85 this year, up from an 80 ranking last year. The only e-store that beat Apple's was Amazon, which ForeSee says "continues to set the standard for e-retailers." Amazon received an 89 score.
Other electronics manufacturers fell behind Apple, with Dell at a score of 80, HP at 79, and Sony and Microsoft both at 78. There's good news in the report for anyone purchasing electronics online -- scores of 80 and higher, which ForeSee CEO Larry Freed refers to as being on "the threshold of excellence," are becoming much more common than in the past.
The complete report can be downloaded for free from ForeSee by filling out an online form.
Apple tops e-store satisfaction survey originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Brand New Awards, 2010 Inventory Clearance
Tips For Installing Photoshop CS6 From Purchase Or Beta
DigiPlate - Laptop Mount For Tethered Shooting
iPad to launch in 30 more countries on May 11-12
Apple continues to roll out the new iPad at a quick clip. As spotted by MacRumors, a new round of iPad sales will kick off on May 11 and 12, when the tablet lands in 30 new countries. This will bring the total list of countries with the iPad to almost 90.
The list of locations getting the iPad on May 11 include Argentina, Aruba, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Malta, Martinique, Mauritius, Morocco, Peru, Taiwan, Tunisia, and Vietnam. A smaller list of Middle Eastern countries (Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) will get the iPad on May 12.
iPad to launch in 30 more countries on May 11-12 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
View full track info in iOS Music App
[kirkmc adds: Nice. I hadn't heard of this before, but searching the web shows that it is not totally unknown. Since it hasn't shown up here before, it's worth posting.]
Allow custom URL protocols in Lion Server wiki pages
VW, Deutsch LA Warn About Dangers of Idiocy
So yeah, we just watched that, a clusterfuck of marketing that’s making us believe in the automotive system that is Volkswagen,which is strong enough for a man but waged valiant tit-for-tat with the audience. Check out the video promoting Deutsch’s effort above. You can view another spot from the agency for the carmaker after the jump.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Apple revises nano-SIM design to address Nokia concerns
SIM card maker Giesecke & Devrient attended CTIA and talked to The Verge about the nano-SIM it's designing using Apple's proposed standard. G&D said Apple listened to Nokia's complaint about its design and modified the shape so it would be almost impossible to jam it accidentally into a micro-SIM slot. With Nokia's major gripe now alleviated, Apple's design has a good chance of being approved when the European Telecommunications Standards Institute votes on the standard. According to the report, voting is back underway and could be decided as soon as this week.
Apple revises nano-SIM design to address Nokia concerns originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple and Samsung drop some claims but still disagree
Apple and Samsung are battling in a California courtroom over Samsung's Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets. On Monday, the Cupertino company limited the scope of the case by cutting its patent and trademark infringement claims in half, says a report in FOSS Patents. Samsung responded by dropping 5 of the 12 patents in its counterclaim.
Despite this reconciliatory move, the two companies still disagree about many details of the lawsuit. The two companies are bickering about the ability of the case to go to trial starting this summer. Apple says Samsung is being uncooperative, while Samsung blames Apple for keeping the case too broad. The two companies also disagree about the infringement with Apple calling Samsung a copycat and Samsung arguing it used "innovative, independently developed technologies."
You can read a detailed analysis of these latest developments on FOSS Patents's website.
Apple and Samsung drop some claims but still disagree originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 09 May 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Wednesday Robot Rip-Off: The Flyerbot vs. the Chalkbot
If you’ve recently attended a Philadelphia Flyers’ playoff game at the Wells Fargo Center, you perhaps encountered the FLYERBOT.
Towed around by a truck that features the Flyers players standing next to the Stanley Cup, the FLYERBOT paints real-time tweets of fan support on the Wells Fargo Center parking not. First, take a moment to giggle about the somewhat presumptuous painting of the Flyers winning a championship, as the team was actually knocked out of the Stanley Cup race last night with a loss to the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Semifinals. Now that you’ve laughed at the Flyers’ continuing streak of misfortune, consider that this invention is pretty similar to another machine we saw for the first time almost three years ago.
Now, maybe this isn’t as much of a case of “rip-off” as it is a lack of patent. Yes, Nike, LIVESTRONG, and agency W+K maybe should’ve copyrighted their invention, but then, do you think Chalkbot is jealous of all the attention FLYERBOT is getting? Is it possible that Nike just doesn’t care? Can these two social media activated spray-painting robots can co-exist? Let us know what you think, dear readers.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra
Barrett Splits from Goodby, Starts New Shop
Well, maybe it’s too little, too late since other folks picked this up but hey, still newsworthy. Since we were out indulging ourselves in all the ADC Awards shenanigans, we missed a couple of tips that came into the Spy line last night telling us that Goodby Silverstein & Partners ECD/partner Jamie Barrett called it quits at the agency after an 11-year run. Jeff Goodby himself sent a lovely memo out to his San Francisco operation, which you can read in full after the jump. Here’s the first paragraph of Goodby’s tome regarding his former employee, who led creative work on everything from the NBA to Comcast to the now-defunct Sprint account and is now starting up his own Bay Area operation.
“With regret and incandescent best wishes, we must announce today that Jamie Barrett is leaving us to start his own company, somewhere in San Francisco. We are happy for him, of course, because this company started one day with a similar leaving. We know how scary/liberating/appalling/delicious it can be. We are also happy because it is all very amicable. We will stay close to Jamie’s venture, and probably even share some projects together.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
So, Is This the Outline for a Luxottica Media Review?
A generous tipster, or so we think, sent us a verbatim note that seems to outline a $500 million global media review for Luxottica, the Italian monolith that is home to eyewear lines including Ray-Ban, Oakley and Patrick Bateman’s personal fave, Oliver Peoples. We’ve contacted the brand to get some clarification on the matter, but see for yourself below and after the jump. Strap on your guns, kids.
Global Media Review Considerations
Scope of the review and desirable outcome
ï Re-asses and challenge our current media agencies
ï Consolidate our media services, possibly into one agency
ï Reconsider the media agency services, notably in the light of an exponential growth in media-generated content and analytics
ï Aim for best partner for Luxotticaís brands in terms of:
1. Strategy and new media services
2. Engaged and pro-active client service
3. Global coordination and local implementation
4. Excellent capabilities across all digital platforms
5. Cost-effective media buying (or the right media quality for our brands at the best price)
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
