Fabrizio Giordano

When it comes to RSS readers, there’s no question that my preference is to use Reeder. Whether on iPhone, iPad, or the Mac, their apps brings a usability and elegance to an otherwise ugly medium. And obviously, design is a huge part of that. So when Reeder developer Silvio Rizzi saw that exact design being used by a competitor, MobileRSS, he was obviously pissed off. And from the looks of it, rightfully so.

What Rizzi did next was both ballsy and brilliant. He created a page on his site to show side-by-side examples of just how bad the rip-off is. And support quickly flowed in. Stories about the rip-off began surfacing. As did hundreds (if not thousands) of retweets. And now the community that is partially responsible for the success that MobileRSS has seen up until now has started responding as well.

Read It Later, the popular bookmarking service, has written a post to let users know that as a show of support for Reeder, they’ve disabled MobileRSS’s API key. The service notes that they’ve decided to do this even though MobileRSS is the third-highest news app used by Read It Later users over the past year. They say that any user who feels wronged by this decision should email them and they’ll figure out a way to offset the costs.

Hopefully no one does, because this is just the right thing to do.

We’ve reached out to MobileRSS for a comment about the situation and will update if we hear back.

Update: Instapaper developer Marco Arment had thrown his support behind Reeder as well.

Update 2: And now MobileRSS is backing down. They’ll re-submit the app removing the similarities.

When it comes to RSS readers, there’s no question that my preference is to use Reeder. Whether on iPhone, iPad, or the Mac, their apps brings a usability and elegance to an otherwise ugly medium. And obviously, design is a huge part of that. So when Reeder developer Silvio Rizzi saw that exact design being used by a competitor, MobileRSS, he was obviously pissed off. And from the looks of it, rightfully so.

What Rizzi did next was both ballsy and brilliant. He created a page on his site to show side-by-side examples of just how bad the rip-off is. And support quickly flowed in. Stories about the rip-off began surfacing. As did hundreds (if not thousands) of retweets. And now the community that is partially responsible for the success that MobileRSS has seen up until now has started responding as well.

Read It Later, the popular bookmarking service, has written a post to let users know that as a show of support for Reeder, they’ve disabled MobileRSS’s API key. The service notes that they’ve decided to do this even though MobileRSS is the third-highest news app used by Read It Later users over the past year. They say that any user who feels wronged by this decision should email them and they’ll figure out a way to offset the costs.

Hopefully no one does, because this is just the right thing to do.

We’ve reached out to MobileRSS for a comment about the situation and will update if we hear back.

Update: Instapaper developer Marco Arment had thrown his support behind Reeder as well.

Update 2: And now MobileRSS is backing down. They’ll re-submit the app removing the similarities.

Yummygum has previously shared a set of 60 free PSD vector icons, IconSweets.

IconSweets2 is another collection of 1000+ high quality free PSD vector icons, perfectly suitable for iPhone & iPad apps or for your new web project.

It contains 400+ icons both in 64×64 and 32×32 and 292 icons in 16×16, all created as vector Photoshop shapes. You may use these icons for both commercial and non-commercial projects and customize them any way you like.

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‘Tis the season, right?

Condé Nast, the owner of publications like tech magazine Wired and social news aggregation site Reddit, announced today it has raised a $500 million fund and brought in Andrew Siegel, a former Yahoo mergers and acquisitions expert, to help the publisher go on a shopping spree.

Condé Nast isn’t much of a stranger to trying out new forms of media. The publisher has been on the prowl for some new, defining media sources for several years now. Its flagship publication, Wired, launched an iPad version of its magazine earlier this year. It purchased the news aggregator site Reddit.com in 2006 as well, which has since exploded in popularity thanks to slipping traffic at rival site Digg.com.

With the success of upstart companies like Groupon that have essentially managed to generate completely new markets, it’s pretty clear why the publishing company would come topside and start looking for new revenue streams. There wasn’t any indication of what kind of companies Condé Nast was looking to pick up outside of a cryptic focus on “digital brands,” according to a report by All Things D. But with newcomers like Groupon spurning offers worth at least $6 billion, the publisher is probably going to be on the prowl for fresh, early-stage startups.

You can pretty much rule out news aggregation sites in that “digital brand” spectrum, though. After Condé Nast acquired Reddit in 2006, it became a bit reluctant to send additional resources to the site’s owners. The site as a result periodically experiences traffic overload and outages. To bypass Condé Nast’s frugal attitude, it began offering a premium subscription that had some additional features for a monthly fee.

Ben Huh, the mastermind behind the Cheezburger network that helped popularize some of the Internet’s most popular memes, even offered to buy the site at one point. Site founder Alexis Ohanian said he would be surprised if Condé Nast agreed to sell the site. But he said the two would chat at some point. It isn’t clear whether Condé Nast hasn’t found a way to monetize the Internet-savvy Reddit community, or if it simply has no interest.

Tags: digg, news aggregation, Reddit

Companies: Conde Nast, digg, Reddit, Wired

People: Ben Huh

HelloTXT, a product from mobile media and technology company Buongiorno, is just one of many mobile and Web applications one can use for updating various social networks from a single interface. It is, nevertheless, a smooth and mighty fine one.

The company has just announced a slew of improvements across all supported platforms, including for iPhone, iPad, Android and its Web app.

New features include in-line media viewing, which lets users see links, photo, videos and whatnot on supported networks without having to leave the feed view, and a new display for blogs and other online content via RSS. Social activities such as retweeting, liking and commenting have also been improved.

What makes HelloTXT worth a whirl in my opinion, is the Doodle feature, which lets you draw status updates and make fun of your Facebook friends (sorry Alexia), as well as the Suggestions feature, which gives you amusing suggestions for status updates whenever your mind goes blank.

Try it out and tell us what you think.

One of the major pain points in developing mobile applications for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) is testing those apps. As we’ve noted before, the traditional testing method is time-consuming and cumbersome – files have to be emailed or shared, then downloaded to a computer, dragged into iTunes and synced to the mobile device. When an update is required, the app in iTunes has to be deleted and the whole process must begin again.

But there’s a better way, as it turns out, thanks to a change Apple made in iOS 4.0 but didn’t publicize. Apps can be distributed via the “ad hoc” method for testing purposes, which means over-the-air, one-click installs for app beta testers. Here’s how.

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Although we’re not a mobile application review site per se, we’ve done our fair share of app reviews around here. And one thing that we’ve always found to be problem in doing so is the tiresome, tedious method of getting pre-release apps onto our iPhones. Download, unzip, drag and drop, sync, test, etc.

That’s why when mobile business card scanning solution CardMunch emailed us a link to install its latest pre-release version (now live) late last month, we were intrigued.

“If you would like to play with CardMunch 2.0 yourself, we made it easy for you to install this time since we already have your UDID. All you have to do is visit this link (no iTunes syncing required),” the email read, following by a link to a page on the CardMunch.com domain.

We clicked the link from within our iPhone’s email client and the app just installed on our device – no iTunes syncing required. What? How is this possible?

Apple’s Best Kept Secret

Apparently, a few developers have discovered the secret, documented in detail here. Now you may say that this isn’t a secret at all, but a well-known feature most developers already know about. We say this in return: Oh yeah? Then someone please (please!) tell the developers who keep emailing us zip files about this.

OK, I guess we will.

Why Ad Hoc: More Testers, More Feedback

Thanks to this feature, developers can distribute mobile apps wirelessly for testing purposes. Developers will still need access to the device IDs (UDIDs) and will still need to create provisioning files, but the actual distribution of the apps makes it far, far easier on those receiving the applications for testing.

With easier distribution, more beta testers are likely to actually install and try your apps. That means more feedback for developers, says Alex Okafor, a mobile application developer who shared the details of the new method on his blog ParadeofRain.com. It also means that some of your testers will be out in the field when they install the apps, instead of at home using Wi-Fi, which can help you spot issues related to 3G bandwidth and its effect on the responsiveness of an app’s functions.

How To Set Up Your Ad Hoc Distro

Thanks to Okafor’s guide, we have the instructions for setting up an ad hoc distro. Here’s how to do it:

1. Choose Build –> Build and Archive
2. If not already open, open the Organizer window (Window –> Organizer) and choose "Archived Applications"
3. Highlight the build you just archived and click on “Share Application”
4. Select “Distribute for Enterprise” and the correct provisioning profile should be automatically selected. If not, correct it.
5. Now, fill out the form presented to you with the app URL, title, subtitle (optional) and image URLs (optional). 
6. Click “OK” and specify where the file should be saved. Save the file as the same file name you gave it in the URL.
7. Upload both the IPA and PLIST file to the URL you specified in the form.
8. Drop the index.php file created by Jeffrey Sambells here in this post into the directory where you uploaded the IPA file. This index will generate the links for both the provisioning and IPA files.
9. You’re finished! Now, just share the link with your app testers!

Is this Legit?

So is this legit? It appears so. We spoke to another well-informed source on the matter who explained that this “Wireless App Distribution” method can now be done by either posting an XML file (a manifest file), using a PHP script or any other method. The idea is that the manifest will point to a single IPA file which itself can contain a provisioning file, they explained.

Developers registered under either the Standard or Enterprise program get 100 ad hoc invites, but Enterprise developers can distribute apps without linking to UDIDs. As far as this person knew, using an Enterprise developer license for distributing anything (beta or otherwise) to employees or contractors would be fine and not in violation of the Apple Developer Agreement. (Feel free to chime in if you know more.)

As we shared in October, a startup called TestFlight has developed a tool to further refine this process. It lets developers invite testers via email, and they can then see who has tested what builds of the app. The process of gathering and managing UDIDs is handled by the TestFlight service as well.

Have you tried ad hoc distribution for testing purposes? If so, what do you think about it?

Image credits: ParadeofRain

Discuss

A new report from International Data Corp. (IDC) is projecting that the mobile application business will soon grow from 10.9 billion downloads this year to 76.9 billion downloads in 2014. This growth will also mean a 60% per year increase in mobile application revenue, says the report.

By 2014, the mobile application business will generate $35 billion in revenue worldwide.

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Comparing the Numbers

IDC isn’t the first to report such a startling increase in revenue generated by mobile applications. In January, for example, research firm Gartner predicted that app stores would become a $7 billion dollar business this year. By March, independent mobile app store GetJar released a study which predicted the mobile app marketplace would reach $17.5 billion by 2012. And GetJar’s numbers lined up with yet another report from research2guidance that estimated the smartphone market would grow to $15.65 by 2013.

According to IDC’s report, however, mobile app revenue was at $4.9 billion this year, a bit lower than Gartner had predicted at 2010′s start.

IDC’s report talked about the “appification” of a broad categories of interactions.

“Mobile app developers will ‘appify’ just about every interaction you can think of in your physical and digital worlds,” said Scott Ellison, vice president, Mobile and Wireless research at IDC. “The extension of mobile apps to every aspect of our personal and business lives will be one of the hallmarks of the new decade with enormous opportunities for virtually every business sector.”

 

Discuss

nodeJsCloud is about to launch a cloud hosting service for node.js developers. node.js is a JavaScript framework for building server-side applications. It’s one of the hottest development platforms in use, with an explosion of interest since its introduction in early 2009. If you want to know more about node.js and why it’s so hot, read our article Why Developers Should Pay Attention to Node.js.

nodeJsCloud is the brain child of developer Cliff Moon (Update: Justin Keller of nodeJsCloud contacted us to clarify that Cliff Moon is not a part of the company) and will compete with Nodejitsu, an existing node.js hosting platform now in private beta.

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nodeJsCloud will offer:

• Dedicated Cloud Servers
• Git + SVN Integration
• RESTful API

Those interested in nodeJsCloud can follow the company on Twitter or sign-up for a mailing list to find out when the service is available.

If you want to get node.js running in the cloud now without waiting for nodeJsCloud or Nodejitsu, check out Nodejitsu’s tutorial on getting node.js up and running on RackSpace.

Last week Salesforce.com announced its planned $212 purchase of Heroku, a cloud provider for Ruby on Rails applications, for $212 million. Salesforce.com held a Q&A for press and analysts after the announcement, and the very first question asked was how long it would take Salesforce.com to support node.js.

Red Monk analyst recently wrote:

Heroku is currently spreading its wings, or should I say expanding the portfolio by looking to address the staggering opportunity around serverside Javascript in the shape of node.js. Why should you care about node.js? Because every developer in SF is currently going mental for it – its the emerging language for network services and services. Now interestingly enough Joyent recently acquired node.js outright, and its lead developer Ryan Dahl. Salesforce.com probably just added $150m to Joyent’s market value.

In other words, services like nodeJsCloud and Nodejitsu are already highly anticipated. Whether this anticipation translates into demand remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Heroku is already offering experimental support for node.js to a limited number of uses.

node.js recently became a part of IaaS provider Joyent, but remains free and open source.

Discuss

Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has been named Time Magazine’s person of the year. He will, of course, grace the magazine’s cover for the special edition, as the individual who has done the most to influence the events within a year.

Zuckerberg isn’t a surprising pick, considering the huge year Facebook has seen in terms of massive user growth, controversy surrounding privacy issues, and the release of new products. And The Social Network’s success also contributed to the media frenzy surrounding the company and its founder.

Here’s what the publication had to say about why they chose Zuck: “For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.

Zuck will join a host of Presidents who have received the honor including Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Other tech luminaries to have graced Time Magazine’s cover include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Is one of your goals for the new year to get in shape? As the saying goes, there’s an app for that — or at least there will be. Nike is prepping a new fitness app for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The app, Nike Training Club, will be available for free on January 1, 2011. Nike Training Club is targeted at women and designed to be a full-body training app. It includes workouts and drills in areas focusing on strength, cardio and core-training.

In 2009, Nike released the first version of NikeWomen Training Club as a supplement to its NikeWomen.com website.

The new version of Nike Training Club has a lot of new features and does not carry over from the old version. From the preview Nike provided us, it looks like the new app has a stronger focus on guided, customized workouts and a better hands-free audio experience. It also has a new user interface, which we think is a big step up from the cartoonish nature of the old app.

Some of the features of the app include:

• The ability to work out to music from your own library
• 15-, 30- and 45-minute workouts in beginner, intermediate and advanced levels
• Milestone rewards that can unlock different badges (a la Foursquare) and earn “inspiration” from Nike athletes and trainers
• Detailed videos showing how to do certain drills

Although the app can be used in a single-user setting, Nike will be rolling out the overall program at health clubs, gyms, studios and universities.

One of the more interesting aspects of the app, to me, is that it isn’t U.S.-centric. For the January 1 launch date, the app will be available in English (with UK and American accents), Mandarin, Taiwanese and Japanese. Nike says there is potential for other languages in the future.

This video offers a bit of an overview of the app in action:

Although Nike Training Club is designed for women, the company also has workout apps tailored for men. If you’re a guy looking for a workout app, you can check out Nike BOOM [iTunes link] for iPhone, iPod touch and in the Android Market.

We hope to get a hands-on with the app later this month and we’ll be sure to put it through its paces.

Are there any mobile apps you use to aid your workouts? Let us know in the comments.

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Reviews: Android Market, foursquare

More About: fitness, iphone apps, lifestyle, Nike, nike boom, nike training club, workout

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