Over the months there has been continuous speculation about what apples iPhone 5 will look like. The designs show manufacturers what areas need to be open or exposed for cases, but reveal little else.

In the past, this has caused some misunderstandings about future features. iPad 2 cases seemed to suggest an extra port at the top of the device, but that turned out to be a space for a microphone hole. Similarly, there are a few areas on the iPhone 5 case designs that are open to interpretation. Via mac macrumors.com

]]> http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2011/08/this-could-be-what-apples-iphone-5-looks-like/feed/ 0 http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2011/08/uk-carrier-orange-to-offer-customers-free-itunes-movie-rental-in-ongoing-promo/ http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2011/08/uk-carrier-orange-to-offer-customers-free-itunes-movie-rental-in-ongoing-promo/#comments Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:18:52 +0000 Timothy Bosworth http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/?p=4208

UK mobile carrier Orange seems to be working with Apple to provide “free” iTunes movie rentals each Thursday in an ongoing promotion called Orange Film To Go

Orange Film To Go offers Orange customers a specific film to download from iTunes every Thursday. The specific movies are pre-selected by Orange and early choices include The Wrestler, The Ghost and Che: Part One. This week’s selection is My Blueberry Nights

Coupon codes for each weekly film are retrieved by texting texting ‘FILMTOGO’ to 85060. A 35p text message cost does apply, so they are not quite free. Movies can then be redeemed (only) on Thursday and then the usual iTunes movie rental rules kick in. Customers have 30 days to start watching the movie and then 48 hours to finish watching it.

No surprises here. Google’s Android operating system continues to lead its rivals in the race for US smartphone market dominance, pulling further ahead of Apple, Research In Motion and pretty much everyone else.

According to Nielsen’s latest survey of the US smartphone market, Android now holds a 39 percent share of the U.S. consumer smartphone–up 3 percent from the research outfit’s last report which tracked market share between February and April. Apple’s iOS holds the second largest with 28 percent, up from 26 percent. And RIM’s Blackberry holds third with a 20 percent share, down 3 percent from that Feb. – Apr. 2011 time period.

So, the same basic breakdown we’ve been seeing for a while now. That said, viewed through the manufacturer share lens, the market looks quite different. There, Apple is the undisputed leader, RIM and HTC rank second with 20 percent shares, and Motorola, with an 11 percent share ranks third.

Bringing up the rear: Hewlett-Packard and the long suffering Nokia, with a meager 2 percent.

Via allthingsdigital

The rumors of the iPad 3 coming out this Fall have been bouncing around for a while now but an analyst is lending a bit more credence to the fact that we may see a followup to the Apple tablet soon and it may have a boosted screen.

“We hear Apple could migrate the iPad’s display resolution from a current pixel density of 132 (pixels per inch) to 250-300 ppi for the ‘iPad 2 Plus’ (note that the iPhone 4‘s screen is 326 ppi),” analyst Craig Berger wrote, according to AppleInsider.

According to this analyst, the iPad 2 Plus would have the major screen improvement, may include a storage bump but will have similar innards to the existing iPad 2. This way, Apple could bill this as an expansion of its tablet lineup without angering those who just dropped hundreds of dollars on the previous version. In some ways, this could be similar to what it does with its iPod lineup, as it will offer multiple versions of it at the same time.

This would indicate that the iPad 3 could still be coming next year as a full update and evolution but I still think that many Apple tablet owners would be upset with such a quick upgrade cycle. With the delay of the next iPhone until the third quarter, Apple has shown that it will adjust its timetables to fit its plans, so I wouldn’t completely rule this out.

Original post via appleinsider.com

We’ve noticed another handy feature Apple has added in iOS 5 is “Custom Vibrations.” This handy feature allows users to compose their own vibration patterns within the Settings app.

The feature itself can be turned on in the “Accessibility” section of the Settings app. However, in order to compose new vibrations users much navigate over to “Sounds.” As you can see in the screenshot below (taken on my iPhone), a variety of patterns are pre-loaded:

first published via appadvice.com

Nice looking infograhic that shows that Apple App Store reportedly hits 500,000 apps. Guess who’s still at the top?  Angry Birds. The company is predicting that more than 15 billion apps have been sold.

AdWeek put together a great collection of 66 Mac vs. PC television commercials, each accompanied by a short description and the embeddable YouTube clip. Apple kickstarted the Mac vs. PC campaign at a time when Microsoft unexpectedly dropped the ball with Vista.  They hired Justin Long as a young Mac-toting hipster and John Hodgman to portray a dull PC character. Here’s a selection of our favourites:

Get a Mac – Networking

Touche

Better Results

Self Pity

So. Have you decided yet? Are you a Mac or a PC? Let us know.

Apple on Thursday released a developer preview of Mac OS X Lion, which takes some of the best ideas the company has conceived for the iPad and brings them back to the Mac for the eighth major release of the flagship operating system due this summer. The beta also reveals a handful of previously undisclosed features such as AirDrop and FileVault

Among Lion’s core features are:

Mission Control: a powerful, entirely new feature that unifies Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces, and full screen apps to give you a bird’s eye view of every app and window running on your Mac. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps as well as your Dashboard, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere with a click.

Launchpad: makes it easier than ever to find and launch any app. With a single click, Launchpad displays all your Mac apps in a stunning full screen layout where you can launch, re-order or organize apps into folders. You can also arrange apps into multiple pages and swipe between them.

Full screen apps: Lion brings the full screen experience that iPad users love to the Mac. With one click, your application window goes full screen, taking advantage of your Mac’s brilliant display. You can swipe from one full screen window to another and even back to your Desktop or Dashboard.

New Multi-Touch gestures: New Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations give you a natural and intuitive way to interact with your Mac. New gestures include pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps and swiping up to enter Mission Control.

The Mac App Store: Apple’s new online store that allows you discover, install and automatically update Mac apps.

Additional features in Lion include:

• A new version of Mail, with an elegant, widescreen layout inspired by the iPad; Conversations, which automatically groups related messages into one easy to read timeline; more powerful search; and support for Microsoft Exchange 2010;
• AirDrop, a remarkably simple way to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup;
• Versions, which automatically saves successive versions of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, edit and even revert to previous versions;
• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• Auto Save, which automatically saves your documents as you work;
• The all new FileVault, that provides high performance full disk encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously; and
• Mac OS X Lion Server, which makes setting up a server easier than ever and adds support for managing Mac OS X Lion, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.

“The iPad has inspired a new generation of innovative features in Lion,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Developers are going to love Mission Control and Launchpad, and can now start adding great new Lion features like full screen, gestures, Versions and Auto Save to their own apps.”

First published via appleinsider.com

Just using google newstimeline to see what was happening in the world of technology a few years ago and I ended up finding a 1983 Apple Keynote by Steve Jobs. In the video [Jobs] without his soon to be signature beard black roll neck sweater and jeans and trainers look is both cool and confident in his attack at IBM.

he  “Hi I’m Steve Jobs..”  He then goes on to talk about how IBM dismissed them as being to small, then goes on to talk figures. 1981, Apple 2 has become $300,000 fastest growing company.  He then goes on to ask the excited audience “Was George Orwell right about 1984.

Fast forward 20 + years to the last Apple Keynote by Steve Jobs and you will see the familiar black roll neck and jeans and trainers look. The company is now estimated to be worth ….with a product line to die for. I wonder what the next 20+ years will bring us in terms of technology that will shape our everyday.

This is a guest post b y Michael Ohajuru. Michael is a veteran sales and marketing specialist in communications from 300 bits/s dial up modems of the late 1970s  to the broad band high speed 20 Mbits/s plus broadband of the 2010s.

With iTunes10 I believe Apple missed a trick to really update iTunes from the bloatware it has become into something like the code poetry Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak championed in the early MACs of the 1980s.  The Mac’s software Calculator exemplified the code poetry – loaded quickly from its small memory foot print efficient  and functional  no waiting, no unnecessary add ons and no frustrations.

The early Apple code poetry has been lost with the overblown pedestrian iTunes, it is simple slow and cumbersome. It is so frustrating iTunes insists on backing each attached devices up each and every time it is connected. For a company that produces truly wonderful hardware which is a joy to use and own. Just like Steve said  – magical! But  iTunes ? It is totally out of character with the intuitive responsiveness, almost human reaction one has come to expect of Apple products.

iTunes version 10 did not need new features Apple needed to go back to basics:

An intuitive user interface to consistently manage  any digital asset – game, picture, book, song, podcast – on any Apple device, drag and drop, pinch and pull instantly,  intuitively or  to put to steal a line from  the Windows 7 launch “ in, out and back to life!”

Wireless connectivity – why iTunes has hard wired syncing in twenty first century is totally beyond me.

Apple makes truly magical hardware a pity iTunes software  does not mirror this heritage,  perhaps Jonny Ives CBE , Apple’s  award winning industrial designer could spend   more time with iTunes rather than iPad and bring some of that iPad magic to iTunes!

Another great research report from Millennial Media’s Mobile Mix™ who deliver device intelligence that helps advertisers make informed mobile media planning and campaign decisions.
MM-MobileMix-Sept2010

Apple downsizes its mid-range iPod, but upsizes the awesomeness. At about half the size and weight of its predecessor, the iPod Nano 6 ($149-$179) shrinks down

and gets a new Multi-Touch display, a polished aluminum and glass enclosure with belt clip, and a built-in FM radio (with ability to pause and resume playing FM), a built-in pedometer, and support for Nike + iPod. Your choice 8GB or 16GB sizes in silver, graphite, blue, green, orange or pink.via uncrate.com

]]> http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2010/09/ipod-nano-6/feed/ 0 http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2010/08/iad-explained/ http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2010/08/iad-explained/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:00:06 +0000 Timothy Bosworth http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/?p=2823

This post is for those of you who are perhaps not so up to speed with all the major developments that are going on in the mobile and technology space. A few months ago Steve Jobs introduced what he described as something that would be able to give you “The emotion of TV. The interactivity of the web. The power of mobility. Introducing iAd.”

It all sounds fantastic in principle.  Apple says that iAd gives brands what they’ve been waiting for.  What’s that I hear you ask? Well for a start, how about access to the global audience of iPhone and iPod touch users, enhanced targeting, premium creative and robust measurement.

That’s their words not ours.  You have to give Apple credit though in terms of going where the money is. And where’s that? Well it’s search at the moment.  However Jobs says that you may use search on your desktop now, however on mobile it’s all about apps. People are not searching on their mobiles, they are using apps like yelp or qype to get data. This he suggests is where the opportunity lies for publishers and developers.

The big issue however with this opportunity is one that is currently present for most brands and that is one of interruption marketing. TV does a good job of this. Will the iAd solve this problem? Well since it’s announcement, there have been mixed reviews in the press. Only time will tell, however what is true, is that whatever Jobs seems to puts his hands to normally turns to gold.

So how does it work?

To find out more, you can download this PDF on how you can promote your app

Interesting article from Nielsen about the state of mobile Apps.  They start with the familiar “There’s an app for that” which is Apple’s catch phrase to promote the literally thousands of applications that can be downloaded to an iPhone. Whether you want to check the weather or traffic, bide time playing a game, or study a new language, there is likely a free or paid application that you can access. While Apple may be best known for mobile apps, BlackBerry, Android and other devices also have a huge range of apps available in their stores, as well as in those operated by mobile service providers.

Key Stats 21% of American wireless subscribers have a smartphone at Q4 2009, up from 19% in the previous quarter and significantly higher than the 14% at the end of 2008 14% of mobile subscribers have downloaded an app in the last 30 days Average number of apps: Smartphone: 22, Feature phone: 10 BlackBerry: 10 iPhone:37 Android: 22 Palm: 14 Windows Mobile: 13

• Games are the most downloaded – both free and paid
• Facebook, Google Maps and Weather Channel are the most popular apps across smartphones
  • iPhones: Facebook (58%), iTunes (48%), Google Maps (47%)
  • Android: Google Maps (67%), Facebook (50%), Weather Channel (38%)
  • Blackberry: Facebook (51%), Google Maps(34%), Weather Channel (28%)

• Social Networking: Facebook clearly favorite app, but MySpace is hugely popular among teens; LinkedIn attracts adults 25-44
• News/weather: Weather Channel was used by 58%; age distribution across sites was similar, save for Time Mobile and Thomson Reuters
• Shopping: Amazon and eBay lead (57% and 41%)
• Search/Map: skew male, particularly Instamapper (80/20)
• Video/Movie: skewed towards males; Imeem and Moviefone show a higher proportion of young users
• Music: iTunes, Pandora, Sirius XM appeal more to males, while Yahoo Music almost evenly split (51/49)

View the rest of the article on The state of Mobile Apps

Blackberry Vs. iPhone [Infographic]. Finally, numbers & stats that pit the 2 smart phones up against each other. This should make your decision a bit easier. See below for full image.

Apple’s decision to block third-party toolkits and middleware — particularly Flash — from being used to develop iPhone and iPad apps has certainly prompted a fair amount of debate around the web, and now it sounds like Steve and the gang might face some even harsher scrutiny: a single-sourced piece in the New York Post reports that the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice are currently tussling over which agency should be tasked with a potential antitrust inquiry into the matter. That would certainly make some noise in the industry, but it doesn’t mean much for those of us here in reality quite yet: assuming the report is true, an inquiry would still just be the very first step — whichever agency is ultimately put in charge would then have to launch a formal investigation and then finally file and win a lawsuit for any changes to occur. That’s a timeframe measured in months, if not years.

All that said, we can see why the feds are interested: Apple’s slowly moving into an ever-more dominant position in the mobile market, and forcing developers to make a hard choice about which platforms to target certainly puts the squeeze on competitors. We’ll be following this one closely — stay tuned. Original source via engaget.

As we come to the end of our 2nd month of the new decade it will be interesting to look at which brands will stand out from the rest at the end of the year.  When searching for great brands I came across adslogans who suggested that the following brands were good enough to enter the 2000 Advertising Slogan Hall of fame.

1. “We try Harder” – Avis”
2. “Go to work on an egg” Eggs marketing board
3. “Guinness is good for you.” Guinness
4. “Don’t be vague. Ask for Haig.” Haig Scotch Whisky
5. “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet.” Hamlet
6. “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.” Heineken
7. “Beanz Meanz Heinz.” Heinz
8. “It is. Are you?” The Independent
9. “Just do it.” Nike
10. “Think small.” Volkswagen

Do you remembers this from Burger King?

Which brands do you think should be in the Advertising Slogan Hall of fame 2010