KG InterDev Company Blog

KG InterDev Forms Torsion Mobile

Today we announced the formation of Torsion Mobile. "Torsion" is a wholly-owned subsidiary of KG InterDev and it will be the entity that brings our breakthrough mobile marketing service to market - Project M.

Richard Kirsner and I will be devoting our full attention to Torsion and so this will be the last blog post for KG InterDev (at least until we create the next entity to do something...).

So please check out our website at TorsionMobile.com, follow our Blog at torsionmobile.com/blog/ and keep a pulse on our activities on Twitter @torsion_mobile.

MG Siegler on iPad 2

TechCrunch editor MG Siegler was at the event and got hands-on time with the new Apple iPad 2.

So how does the iPad 2 stack up?

I got a chance to play with one for a solid half hour after the event today in the hands-on area. It’s great. It’s everything you love about the original iPad, but better.

iPad 2: How Many Wishes Were Granted?

So now that the next Apple iPad is announced, let's see how many of our wishes from 3/1/11 were granted:

• Front and Rear Cameras: Yes
• Improved Screen: Maybe. The discussion centered around graphics performance.
• Faster Syncing: No, at least no hardware change.
• Upload Photos from within Mobile Safari: iOS 4.3 does not appear to address this, although the Nitro JavaScript engine for Mobile Safari will bring welcome performance enhancements.

iPad Wishes

On the day prior to the much-anticipated Apple iPad event on March 2, we've put together a short list of wishes for the next generation of the tablet.

• Front and Rear Cameras: We use our iPad a lot when traveling and being able to video conference with it would be very nice.
• Improved Screen: Simply some improvement in the sharpness of the screen would be enough for us. We spend a lot of time reading on the iPad.
• Faster Syncing: It takes too long to sync the iPad with iTunes  over the existing connector - especially if you have movies.
• Upload Photos from within Mobile Safari: Not strictly an iPad feature, but adding access to the Camera Roll from the browser would be a much-appreciated addition for webApp solutions.

The Daily Delete to Reinstall Scoreboard: The Daily 3: Users Nil

So a new update (v1.0.3) of The Daily was released Friday and for the third time running, the advice of the producers is to delete the installed version prior to updating. Here is the text of the update screen from the Apple AppStore:

Deletion Time Again!

So why am I continually calling out The Daily on these and other issues? For the simple reason that the user experience using this application continues to be awful. I don't know if the tech team continues to advise users to delete the installed app out of an abundance of caution or because improving that experience hasn't yet risen to the top of their defect list. But it bad. This is the third time this advice has been presented and coupled with my subscription experience earlier this week, somehow The Daily team isn't getting it.

Which is too bad. Earlier this week, their piece on the history of Gadhafi was not only good journalism but also used the iPad capabilities to good advantage. So to be clear, I'm continuing to expose these user experience gaffs with the hope that maybe they will finally resolve them - because I want this experiment in journalism to succeed.

UPDATE: Just so you don't think I'm the only one with a bug up the strap over this deletion deal, Ted Landau over at MacWorld asked the same question back on February 11, the day after my first post. And Ted never got a response from The Daily tech support either and he works for a site someone might actually have heard of. Nice.

Verizon iPhone Sales Update

Two different perspectives were offered las week on the success of the Verizon iPhone launch.

On Wednesday, David Camoy of C|Net posted an article entitled "Why aren't people buying the Verizon iPhone?". He suggests six reasons why the Verizon iPhone may not be a huge hit people anticipated, mostly simple factors like people not wanting to eat the expense of breaking an existing contract and perhaps some confusion about iPhone5 and what a release in June might me to Verizon iPhone4 purchasers..

On Friday Shayndi Raice reported in the The Wall Street Journal an interview with comments from the Verizon CEO. Daniel Mead said that Verizon sold more iPhone4s on launch than any other product in their history. He further indicated that lack of long lines at retail outlets was due in large part because 60% of pre-orders occurred online. Actual sales numbers won't be released until Verizon's quarterly earnings statements.

One part of the story yet to be told is the impact of a CDMA iPhone for the Chinese market. We've always thought that this may be more significant in terms of Apple's success as a business than the Verizon story. In terms of market size, the two simply don't compare.

The Daily Update - Back to free Trial?

So at 2:00 PM today I fired up The Daily to see if anything had changed. It welcomed me to a two week free trial period and downloaded today's version. Huh.

I haven't received any communication from the support staff regarding the note I sent in last night, so really I don't know if I am a "subscriber" at this moment or a "free trialer".

This is all confusing and if I weren't a techie first adopter, I might be confused enough to delete the damn thing and go on with my life.

The Daily Subscription Broken?

The Daily app informed me tonight that my free trial period had expired. I tried to subscribe, they took my $.99 and the app is broken. So below is my note to The Daily support. I'll post responses if and when I get them.

Subscription does not work.

Today my edition of the Daily (v1.0.2) said my free trial period had expired. So when prompted, I subscribed, declined to provide personal information and was told the subscription period ended March 2. I then received an email from iTunes confirming the subscription.

However, the content has not refreshed to the 2/22 version despite 1) restarting the app, 2) restarting the iPad and 3) resetting the content from within the app settings. Every time the application is started, I get the warning that my free trial has expired and I need to subscribe.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the app is broken. I would appreciate your timely response as to what is wrong and how it might be corrected.

Response from The Daily autobot:

Thanks for contacting us. We may not respond to every email, but we read every single one. If you contacted us in need of product support we'll be back to you shortly.

Stay tuned...

UPDATE: As we wrote on 2/24/11, The Daily started loading content again. However, we have never had anything from The Daily support except the autobot response, which has about met my low expectations.

Robert Scoble Reports on His Personal Verizon iPhone

Robert Scoble has a piece on Business Insider about his use of a personal (as opposed to a press loaner) Verizon iPhone 4. A good summary of the pros and cons from the real world. He had this to say about simultaneous voice and data use where you can on AT&T and cannot on Verizon:

You can use Voice and Data at same time on AT&T. This is definitely something that bugs me, but it hasn’t bugged me as much as I expected.

iPad Intro Event on March 2?

According to Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, Apple will introduce the next generation iPad on Tuesday, March 2. The iPad 2 is thought to be thinner, sport at least one camera to facilitate video conferencing and perhaps an improved display. There is a lot of speculation as to whether or not Steve Jobs will be present. My bet is no.