Review: LifeProof Nüüd for iPhone 5

LifeProof, the company who has won numerous awards and industry acclaim for having the best protective cases for electronics on the market have come up with a winner this time; a case that is water, dust, shock, and snow proof WITHOUT covering the screen.

By placing a high pressure seal around the edge of the screen they have kept the protection they are famous for without the cause of most criticism for cases in this category: lack of responsiveness to touch.

LifeProof was the first company in the marketplace to achieve IP68 durability certification from the US government, and the design and attention to detail on this product shows many of the reasons why this startup was bought out by the industry leader for many years, Otterbox.

Creative Marketing: Fab.com

Received the latest marketing "catalog" from Fab today, and am impressed enough by this one I had to post. Printed out like '70s era Polaroids are pictures posted to their Instagram feed of hip new items for sale. On the back are descriptions and info on the items pictured, along with a URL to find them quickly.
They may specialize in crazy hipster shopping trends, but they have marketing down to a science.

Special Event: Apple WWDC Keynote

Today Tim Cook and the folks from Apple took the stage to lay out the road map for the coming year in Apple Software and to announce new hardware.  As usual, Tim started the morning giving a "State of the Company" update.  Here are some numbers:

 

  • Over 6million registered developers
  • WWDC sold out in 71 seconds
  • Retail: More than 1 million daily visitors
  • Retail: 407 stores in 17 countries
  • Appstore: 50 Billion apps in less than 5 years
  • Appstore: 900,000 applications
  • Appstore: 375,000 iPad specific
  • Appstore: 575 Million accounts with credit cards attached, largest online store in the world
  • Appstore: More than $10 Billion paid to developers so far

 

New Developer ANKI, launching first product live on stage today.  Robotics and AI researchers.  ANKI Drive, autonomous capable cars, combination of computer control and human interaction.

Mac

 

  • 72 million sold last year
  • MacBook #1 Notebook in the market
  • Mac up 100% VS. Pc up 15%
  • #1 in customer sat and quality

 

28 million copies of Mt. Lion sold in last year, not standing still.  New OS is OS X Mavericks.  New naming scheme after Californian landmarks.  New features:

 

  • Finder tabs, no more million finder windows
  • Tagging! When you save a document, you can tag it wherever it is, and tags will appear in finder
  • Multiple display support built in.  Taking a window full screen on one display will not mess up your desktop.  HDTV will be able to be a full powered secondary display

 

DEMO

Tabs work like they do in Safari, allows for easier copying, finder can go full screen.  Tag field part of save dialog, tags have their own section in the finder sidebar, making finding important documents much easier.  Documents can be tagged simply by dragging the documents into the tagged group in finder as well.

Multiple displays also allows for multiple spaces on each display.  AppleTV now can be used as another full size display, with full screen applications.

New features of OS X Mavericks:

 

  • Compressed memory - compress used memory to make room for new documents without writing to disk
  • GPU video scaling
  • OpenGL 4
  • Accelerated scrolling
  • Enhanced timings reduce idle time and allow for 72% less CPU power drain

 

Safari:

 

  • First look at flattening of the OS, improved top sites
  • Shared links lets you see all the links shared by people you follow on Twitter and FaceBook
  • JAVA enhancements
  • Enhanced memory usage
  • Lower power usage
  • AppNap stops power drain by pausing the rendering cycles of apps not in focus
  • Top Sites: Very flat, dark grey with white text
  • Reading list: Puts articles in order, pre loading the next article so that they are stacked in a single page for easier reading.
  • iCloud Keychain: essentially OnePassword built in to your local system, but available on any iCloud connected device.  Will also hold credit card info, but you still need to know the 3-digit security code.

 

Enhanced notifications, allow for iOS device notifications to display on your Mac, including while Mac is locked.

Calendar Enhancements - Facebook events, flatter interface, map and drivetime awareness on events

Maps - Now on OS X, turn by turn directions, can send direction to the iPhone, display on lock screen.  SDK allows for mapping data to be sent from any app.

iBooks for Mac - Fully featured, interactive textbooks

New MacBook Air with the Haswell ULT chip, almost doubled battery life

11" - $999 w/ 128 GB, $1199 256 GB

13" - $1099 128 GB, $1299 256 GB

Shipping today

Mac Pro!

Amazing new design.  Large black cylinder.  2x processor performance.  1866MHz DDR3.  PCIe Flash HDD, 10x fastest drive previously available.  Thunderbolt 2, 10Gbps throughput.  Dual GPU, 384-Bit memory buses.  4k Display support off of each display port. Insanely small compared to current Mac Pro, 1/8th the volume.  Full unit spins for easy access to rear panel. Coming later this year.

Made and assembled in the USA.

New Airport Extreme - built in drive bays, 2 or 3 TB drives.

 

iCloud

300 million accounts.  240 Million GameCenter users.  800 Billion iMessages.

iWork integration into iCloud:  New releases later this year of both Mobile and Desktop applications.  iWork for iCloud - web based document creation.  Clearly Apple responding to Office365.  Platform agnostic, shown using Chrome on Windows 8. Available today for developers.

 

iOS

600 Million iOS devices sold.  Number one in customer usage.  iPhone users use their phone 50% more than Android owners.  Mobile web share 60% for iOS.  93% of users are using the latest version of iOS.

iOS 7!  Biggest change to iOS since original iPhone.  New flatter interface we expected. Changed color palate. A new beginning for iOS.  HUGE developer response.  

 

  • Animated backgrounds
  • Parallax allows you to see behind the icons
  • edge to edge design
  • "We ran out of green felt for GameCenter"
  • Great use of gestures for one handed use
  • multiple pages in each folder, no more "Games 2" on my home screen!
  • great today view in notification center
  • Notification center available from lock screen

 

10 new features:

 

  • Control center - quick access to settings
  • Multitasking - Full access for all applications.  OS learns usage patterns for "Opportunistic updates".  Card like feature for running apps.
  • Safari - New full screen look.  Smart search field for one-tap access.  Parental controls.  iCloud Keychain.
  • AirDrop - Quick file transfer, system wide peer-peer wi-fi.
  • Camera - Live photo filers, 4 cameras in one.
  • Photos - Organized into moments using meta data.  Can go wider to general areas or years.  Can tap and scrub through micro-thumbnail.  Shared photo streams allow multiple people to share into Family photo or event streams.  Can see comments live in stream, including video sharing.
  • Cloud service integration - SIRI has new interface, much cleaner.  All new voice.  Much smarter, has better control over your device including settings.  Can answer more questions because of Twitter integration, WikiPedia, bing search results.  iOS in the car: 95% of cars sold today have integrated voice control of music.  On screen display of iOS using in car display.  12 car manufacturers with integration in 2014.  AppStore now auto-updates applications.  
  • Music - Much cleaner and again a flatter view.
  • iTunes Radio! - Built into the music app, curated stations.  You can build your own station based on any song you are listening to.  Favorite songs tagged for purchase in history screen.  Built into all platforms including AppleTV.  Included in iTunes Match for $25 add free.
  • Facetime Audio, Notification sync, PDF annotation.  Phone, facetime, and iMessage blocking.
  • Activation Lock - Device cannot be wiped an reactivated without linked AppleID.  
  • 1500 new APIs in new SDK

Available today for iPhone 5, later weeks for iPad and iPad mini

 

 

 

First Look: OUYA Game System

I just received and am now connecting the OUYA, an open-source gaming system that was the biggest launch in KickStarter history, and which solidified said crowd-funding site as a legitimate way to launch new technology start ups without giving away the farm to venture capitalists.

As you can see, the hardware certainly looks impressive, and since there is no physical media drive is exceptionally small. Anytime your console is smaller than your controller, you have gained ground towards portability.

Setup so far has been easy: plug the unit into the wall and an available HDMI port on your TV, pair your controller via bluetooth, connect to your wireless network, and you are set. Since this is still beta, the software is constantly being tweaked, so my unit is updating now. Stay tuned for follow ups on game play!

First Look: Scrolls, the latest from the minds that brought us MineCraft

Today Scrolls, the latest game from the folks at Mojang who brought us MineCraft hit open BETA, giving everyone a chance to learn gameplay and strategy before the game goes world-wide in general release.  Gameplay is based on collectable card games such as Magic: The Gathering, but has some unique twists and strategy that will make it fresh and exciting.  I got my login for the beta this afternoon, and am taking this break to give you all a look!

Gameplay starts with customizing your game deck.You start by customizing your deck.  The minimum legal deck size is 50 cards, and you get a full deck from one of the three factions to start.  As you complete games versus the AI you earn gold, which can be used to buy additional cards, and allowing you to customize your deck in myriads of ways.  You also can trade cards with other players, giving you additional options to create a winning and powerful deck.

Once you have assembled your deck, to can play a quick game, or compete in trialsGameplay then begins, with quick play games to practice, and then trial scenarios allow you to win gold to use for purchasing more cards.  Gameplay is pretty simple to follow, but infinitely complex to master.  Each player has their own side of the board, and each row has an idol which you need to protect.  Once you get past the enemies and destroy three of the other players idols, you have won the game.  Likewise, if three of your idols fall, you are defeated.

When you win a game, you are awarded gold based on several criteriaOnce you win a game, awards and statistics are presented for your review.  Your ranking is based on how well you do against other players, not the computer.  The more you play, the more you increase your stats and improve your ranking.  One word of warning, the tutorial makes this game look very easy, but once you complete it the difficulty goes up incrementally.

As I get deeper into the game I will post updates, but this should give you a decent idea of what Mojang is up to.

 

Mojang — Makers of Minecraft:

Scrolls is in open beta! On-sale now!

 

Kickstarter Project to watch - nuplug

Kickstarter has allowed many great ideas to become reality in the last year or so, and this is a project that I would love to see work for the creator.  The concept is pretty ingenious.  An extension cord with USB and power outlets, but with a twist - it will clamp onto a solid surface to hold it in place.  This will help clean up the rats nest of cords most of us have by our couches and bedsides as well.

Watch the video and consider helping this guy out.  I think this will be a hit, but there are only four days left in the campaign and he still needs $14K to get it backed.

 

nuplug™ the most convenient outlet for your smart-devices by Michael Carpanzano — Kickstarter:

Get ready for a much more comfortable and convenient way to continue using your smart-devices while they are charging.  nuplug™ is an intuitive and functional solution for many of your power related needs, and with your support, we can make it available for everyone.