Jason Purdy's Virtual World

My Favorite Slides from Mary Meeker

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:41:42 -0400

There’s been a lot of chatter about Mary Meeker’s 2012 Internet Usage report. It’s quite long, over 112 pages, but here’s the slide that’s got people talking the most.

Working in mobile at the AP I know first hand how much spend ad money is spent on print vs mobile, yet the usage is strikingly the opposite. The fact that people are spending more time on mobile and less time with print is no surprise to anyone, but seeing the data and that shockingly small 1% for mobile ad spend shows the considerable opportunity in mobile advertising.

Here’s a few more I enjoyed.

As more users get access to the mobile internet, more customers will access your content/site/service from mobile than desktop computers. It’s already here in India and it will happen in the US within the next few years. I’d additionally like to see this data with total pageviews, as this makes it seems as though desktop internet is declining.

Amazing how quick mobile changed. Just 3 years ago, there wasn’t android or iOS. Now they dominate the US landscape. Taking this out another year and Android and iOS will gobble up more of the Symbian market and BB will probably be cut in half.

She also goes through some slides about the economy, our government and policy decisions. Although consumer confidence is on a 4 year high, it’s still considerably down over the 30 year average.

If I Was A Venture Capitalist: My List of 17 Hot Tech Companies

Thu, 31 May 2012 15:48:29 -0400

A friend of mine recently graduated from college and asked me where he should apply to work. We talked for a while about what he’s looking for in a company, what he wants to do and the various positives and negatives a company can offer. Venture capitalists are all about finding companies ready to grow, invest money and take equity. I told my friend that if he was interested in taking a pay cut and obtaining some equity, than his currency is even more valuable: his time. There’s nothing wrong with taking a job at a company that’s stabilized, take a salary and great benefits, but if you do take a pay cut and get equity, you better do your homework and find a company you believe in, like any VC.

I moved to New York from Silicon Valley after working for several mobile startups and now work at the world’s largest news agency. I stay in touch with a wide mix of companies from incubator and angel stage startups to larger more established companies. Here are the services my friend and I talked though and why I see so much potential in them.

Pre-Launch Companies

Circa: This is Matt Galligan’s 3^rd company after two successful exits, and he’s only 27. He’s developed a rockstar team to change how we consume news on mobile devices. They’re very hush hush about the product, but I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll be engaging and useful.

Simple: Everyone hates their bank. Contacting someone is a pain, the fees are confusing and they do nothing with the most valuable data in your life: your spending habits and cash details. Where Mint started in helping you see your spending, Simple goes a whole lot farther. This is real time spending and assistance for your budget and financial plan. The old world of banking was about physical locations and keeping your money safe. The next generation of banking is about service and experience. They nail both.

Pebble: After graduating from famed incubator YCombinator, Pebble found it difficult to raise the funds needed to build their small Bluetooth watch using an e-paper display (like the Kindle). They reached out to Kickstarter and have raised over $10 million, 100 times what they were looking for. Plus, instead of raising money via funds, they used the money to sell future watches. Their platform and strategy is amazing and I can’t even guess how big they’ll be in a year.

Early Stage Companies

Gumroad: Simply put, “Sell anything you can share.” I’ve written about Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia before, but the pace they are improving the service and rolling out new features is impressive. They’ll need to stay focused and not get dragged in multiple directions, but I see big things in the future for them.

Sincerely: As the world gravitates towards all things digital, Sincerely is about taking digital products back to the physical world. Let’s say you want to send a physical photo to your mom from a great trip you took. You’ll need to get the photo developed, find an envelope and stamp and then walk to the post office. Sincerely launched Postagram for this exact purpose and have built an SDK that allows dozens of other services to do the same. They’ll be moving into other services this year and are doing very well.

Uber: Getting a cab sucks. Even in New York’s midtown it can be near impossible around the 4pm shift change. At the same time, there are hundreds of private cars available, who are owned by their driver, and have free time to make money on the side. Uber pays them a set hourly wage and manages everything including payments. My favorite part about Uber is the decrease in crime this has resulted in for upscale drivers who typically had to carry a lot of cash. Instead the entire system is through Uber and no money is ever exchanged between the driver and the customer. No theft and a great experience, I highly recommend. Besides the great experience, I’m also bullish on this company as they look to get into other high end services like helicopters and boats.

Strava: Getting featured in the NY Times will certainly help Strava attract new customers and is my favorite cycling app by far. RunKeeper is fine for tracking your run/bike/etc but Strava adds innovative social elements like achievements for specific sections of your ride that you can compare versus your friends or the community as a whole.

UberConference: GoToMeeting and WebEx suck. They haven’t innovated nearly fast enough and their UI is terrible. UberConference has a much better end to end experience and has some great new features like “earmuffs”, which allows the organizer to put groups of people on hold. For instance, those outside your organization so you can talk freely without the clients hearing. I know how much we spend on WebEx and I suspect they’ll do well in the tech startup world. It’s whether they can break into the enterprise accounts that will determine how big they can get.

Later Stage Companies

Pinterest: This infographic from Shopify says it all. Pintrest is now driving more sales per order than any other network including facebook, google and amazon. Their community is engaged and their service shows the best aspects to a product, socially selected from your friends. Pintrest will continue to grow like crazy and will do very well the next few years.

Foursquare: Becoming the mayor at a location and getting discounts is fun, but Foursquare’s business relationship in the past few years have been great. Tristan Walker did such a good job he was poached by a VC for an Entrepreneur in Residence position. Any new consumer business must have a presence on Foursquare and they’ll continue to be the standard in location based services going forward.

Twitter: I’m biased because I’m such an avid Twitter user (@jasonpurdy), but I’m extremely bullish on Twitter. Their move into mobile advertising in ambitious and is something that even Facebook hasn’t figured out. Their engagement on social events, breaking news and all aspects of media is incredible. I expect big things to come from Twitter.

Square: My local bodega is cash only. Once a month I stumble down to get my much needed bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll (a NY hangover staple). Their ATM was almost always out or order and then I’d have to walk several blocks to the next closest ATM. Eventually I got sick of the hassle and ordered a Square device and loaned them an iPod touch for a month. Two days later they were processing more purchases through Square then they were cash and I got free breakfast whenever I wanted. Between Square’s new services like wallet and opening tabs at local venues, Square will be multi-billion dollar company by the end of the year (if they aren’t already).

Airbnb: The fact that I keep meeting people who haven’t heard of Airbnb means they are ripe for growth. They’ve saturated the tech space and just now crossing the chasm into the mainstream. The way they handled the theft of one of their users was delayed, but well done, and their $1MM guarantee has gone a long way to assure the average homeowner. My wife and I also use Rover, an AirBnb for dogs, when we travel, allowing for our dog sitter to stay at our house for less than the cost of a kennel.

Tumblr: I created my brother a website for his company Herries Design & Build in less than an hour. This allows him to easily upload photos, show off his work, engage clients and have a presence online. By far the best CMS for consumers hands down and is only getting started.

Public Companies

American Express: Amex gets that the future of financial services is about social media and the power of the consumer’s digital voice. Their relationship with Twitter and foursquare are really well done. Amex has always had a reputation for great service and the future economy is well suited for their model.

Apple: You don’t become the most valuable company in the world by accident. Tim Cook took a fast moving car, put two rockets on it and streamlined the aerodynamics. The next WWDC will be his first big step on his own as the iPhone will get a new body, iOS 6.0 will be unveiled with 3D maps and who knows what else. Between Apple’s vast amounts of capital and the ridiculously high margins they’re making, Apple will continue to grow the next 2 years. After that we’ll see where they go. Until then, enjoy the ride!

Amazon: When the internet first came about, customers would use the internet to do some research and narrow what they’re looking for to a few options. They’d then walk into a store, try them out, see how they look in person, feel the materials, and then buy it. Now, customers are doing the exact opposite. They’re going into a store, looking through which model they want and then going on Amazon on their phone to price check and order the product, leaving the store empty handed. No one does this better than Amazon and their mobile experience is only going to get better. Ok, Amazon doesn’t make the high margins that Apple does, but they make up for it in volume. I also like the huge bet on the Kindle Fire that is going to take at least a year to show, but it’s a smart one.

Data Storage in the Post-PC World

Tue, 29 May 2012 12:53:37 -0400

Last weekend I had the most fun technology conversation I’ve had in a long time. It wasn’t at a local iOS developer meetup or an industry conference. Instead it was with my brotherin-lawwho lives in Boulder, CO who was wondering what computer he should get to replace his 6 year old Toshiba which is on its way out.

I tend to get quite a few emails and requests from friends who I am in the mobile space. I love asking people about what they want vs what they need in a mobile device, tablet or computer. I would say Dirk is a pretty usual 30-something “normal” when it comes to technology. Last year he made the jump to the iPhone and although he has been using it for standard things like the internet, email and various services while out and about, he found that he rarely opens his laptop anymore.

His iPhone did everything his laptop could, but he wanted a better experience while on the couch or kitchen table. Although initially looking at a MacBook Air, he asked the best question I’ve been asked in a while: “Do I really need a computer? Could I just use an iPad?”

I was somewhat taken aback. I’ve been following the latest trend toward the Post-PC World, in which it’s not about big clunky computers anymore. It is about specialized mobile devices that are easier to use and have better integrated, connected services. The PC ecosystem was reliant on local files that needed to be stored on your computer, and then backed up on an external hard drive; lest you lose all your data. Overall he was excited about an iPad but had questions about how his documents, photos and music files were to be accessed with local storage.

Documents

Dropbox and Google Docs. Dropbox is great for storing valuable contracts and bringing them up anytime, anywhere. I mostly use Google Docs to store documents I need to edit, like longer form documents, letters, etc. whereas Dropbox is for documents that do not need editing, like PDFs. In the future I could see myself using Google Drive instead of Dropbox, but I simply have too many files on Dropbox today and the service works great.

Photos

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Google+ iPhone app actually works amazingly well for storing your photos (h/t @johndeguzman). Instead of downloading photos to your computer, sorting through them, and then backing them up to an external hard drive, I turned on G+’s instant upload which automatically uploads your photos to Google’s services. No need to manage photos again! Whenever you’d like to share a photo, post it facebook or email it, just bring up G+ and share it instantly. I also use Apple’s Photo Stream for added backup and better integration to the camera roll, but it’s only for the most recent photos. G+ will be where I store all of the photos I’ve ever taken.

Music

Dirk loves Pandora and I let him know a few of my favorites stations (Phil Collins OMG Radio gets any party started), but there’s so much innovation happening in music right now. If you’re willing to pay a monthly fee, Spotify is the best by far and has decent offline support. exfm and Band of the Day are great for discovery; Stitcher, WNYC and iHeartRadio for radio content. I still have a soft spot for digitally managing music albums, but I find myself relying on these apps more and more.

After an hour conversation we agreed that the iPad and cloud services should be enough for his needs, and I could sense the smile he had looking forward to it! He’ll never have to worry about a computer dying and losing all his data ever again. The best part is that he’s gaining all these cool new services, with more reliability, and an even better user experience. Never have so many people reached out so consistently and been so excited about technology. Perhaps that’s Steve Jobs’ most important legacy: transitioning computers from something you had to use to something you want to use. For that, I’m eternally grateful. Enjoy, Dirk!

P.S. If you’re in the Boulder area and looking for design, architecture, or construction projects, check out Dirk’s work: Herries Design & Build

Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day #ringtone #musicmonday

Mon, 28 May 2012 12:57:59 -0400

One of the best hip hop ringtones for iOS here and android and all others here.

Side note: Actual day discovered:http://murkavenue.tumblr.com/post/16553509655/i-found-ice-cubes-good-day

Aereo - TV Without the TV

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:52:15 -0400

After my wife and I moved out to Brooklyn we “cut the cord”, deciding not to sign for a cable TV service. Although we have an upgraded internet connection through Time Warner that streams Netflix well, we do not have any reliable way to watch live TV. We tried a HD antenna and that worked about as well as you’d expect a $5 product to work. My friend Matt showed me this video which I plan to build one summer weekend.

In the meantime, we got access to Aereo, which is still in private beta. Aereo has a warehouse in Brooklyn that houses thousands of TV antennas. If you verify that you live in Brooklyn (I think IP addressing? I don’t remember) for $15 a month you “rent out” an antennae and their service streams any content that the antennae picks up including network stations like Fox, NBC, ABC, as well as local and community stations like PBS.

Over a 3G connection it was watchable, barely, but over WiFi it looked great. The beauty of their service is if you have an Apple TV, your phone just became a TV antenna. How cool is that? Of course the networks are going to sue Aereo for the next several years, as with anything disruptive, wanting customers to pay for the more expensive packages but it’s a great service that works really well.

Unfortunately it’s only a web app (not a native iOS app), probably because Apple would reject them, and only for iOS devices. I have no idea why they don’t allow computers, and even their own site shows a couple using a laptop. False advertising? Legacy from their initial plan and then had to do only mobile for some reason? I don’t know, but it’s strange.

I enjoyed my free trial and love any new technology that allows me to use my iPhone/AppleTV but $12 a month is too high for me to get content that I can get for free. I think it’s a great idea and it’s going to do very well for the growing set of mobile youth out there who don’t have a TV. For them to watch live TV on their iPhone, iPad and iMac is huge. I have a nice plasma TV, so I just need to get around to building that antennae now…

How I Use Email + New iOS Mail Client Sparrow

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:49:38 -0400

When it comes to email, I am an adamant ‘inbox zero’ kind of guy. I love knowing how many emails I haven’t read. Whenever I see someone with “Unread: 4,534”, I shiver. How do they ever know if they received new email since the last time they checked? I’ve only had to commit email bankruptcy a few times (basically selecting all email and hitting either marked as read or archive), and those were very special circumstances. I’m fully aware that I check email far too often and am trying to limit myself to 4 or 5 times a day. So far I’m down to about 10 times a day. The biggest change has been switching email push off and only looking through email when I want to. This was a big change for me because I felt that I was “good” at email because I responded to requests so quickly. Instead I realized that if something was so important that it needed a response within a few hours, someone would call or text. Email, as a medium, is not meant to be used for urgent matters.

Although I’m trying to be on email less and less, especially on my phone, it’s still one of the top 4 apps on my phone:

I wouldn’t say I started using Sparrow because I was frustrated with the standard iOS mail client. The default app is clean and works quite well, but its feature set has stalled. Since adding in multiple accounts the app has stagnated and is largely the same as it was years ago. Sparrow doesn’t reinvent the wheel where they don’t need to and keeps the main screen largely the same, opening up the bottom bar for a few extra pixels. What I love about Sparrow is the compose flow. First the standard iOS compose page:

Now compare this to Sparrow. When creating a new email first select the receipt. Sparrow prepopulates a list of my most common recipients, which is to well over 90% of the emails I send.

And now, my favorite part of Sparrow hands down: attachments. It’s so simple, and I’ll be shocked if iOS doesn’t include this in the upcoming 6.0 this summer. I know you can (kind of) send photos via email through the Photos app (or API calls from other apps) but this is a no brainer.

There are all sorts of small improvements throughout the app that you don’t notice at first but as you use it as your default email client, it’s just a better experience. For instance, small avatars for your contacts, customized preview areas, reverse threads, etc. I highly recommend Sparrow…at least until iOS 6.0 comes out.

Mad Men Theme #musicmonday #ringtone

Mon, 21 May 2012 12:11:00 -0400

Who watched the episode of mad men last night? Soooo good. Celebrate the next to last season with this ringtone for iOS devices and Android and other phones

Click To Text

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:58:31 -0400

Everyone generally agrees that iOS is the cleanest, most intuitive mobile platform out there, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. Do you ever search for an app that you thought you had on my phone and then, upon realizing you hadn’t downloaded yet or previously deleted it, have to close the search, open the app store and search again? Instead, the OS should automatically search in the app store for the app or song as well as on your phone; driving more downloads for Apple and fewer clicks for the user. Win, win!

Here’s another that we all do, all the time. When someone emails you or texts you the number of a friend, in order to text that friend you either need to copy the number (which is sometimes impossible since it’s in the middle of a text), or, my favorite, call the number since iOS identifies it as a phone number. Then, immediately hang up, go into your recent calls, select more info on the number and hit send message. Oof, what a pain! Instead, while you’re already confirming whether to call or not, ask me if I want to text the number. So simple!

Android Fragmentation Visualized

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:02:46 -0400

First there was this photo from Hong Kong based Android Development shop Animoca:

Just look at all those beautiful Android options. Great for the consumer, horrific to develop and support. I thought that was fun, but this article from OpenSignalMaps is even better. They went through all their logs and noted how many different combinations they’ve seen and then mapped them on everything from OS versions to screen size, which were my favorite.

Android:

iOS:

Louis CK - A Sign of The Future of Online Content

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:01:18 -0400

I’ve heard of Louis CK before, but never watched any of his standups. His bold move to invest over $200,000 of his own money to produce, edit and more than anything, DISTRIBUTE his latest stand up, was pretty surprising. Perhaps this is old news for the tech folks that usually really this blog, but I was really happy to see this big, bold paragraph from Louis CK directly:

To those who might wish to “torrent” this video: look, I don’t really get the whole “torrent” thing. I don’t know enough about it to judge either way. But I’d just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without “corporate” restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I’m just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can’t stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

Sincerely,

Louis C.K.

Warner Brothers or FOX Studios could NEVER pull something like this off. By torrenting his content, he makes it clear that you can do so, but is $5 that much to offer a guy who did all this? The one huge mistake I see is their limit on the number of streams. I mean, really? Up to 4 downloads but only 2 streams? That’s just weird

There’s something to be said for the fact that he had the $200k to produce and edit this piece, and then the ~$50k to create the site. Not everyone has the money or ability to do so, but I think it’s a good sign for the future of online distribution. He’s done extremely well, supposedly up to $500k in sales and growing, but not everyone needs to spend so much money to SELL CONTENT. Check out Gumroad if you want a sneak peak at the next few years in online content sales.

Photos = Social...and $1,000,000,000

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:11:00 -0400

I love where I work on days like today. AP is the place to be for breaking news, hands down. Upon seeing the breaking news tweet about Instagram being acquired for $1BB for cash and Facebook stock (right before IPO too…nice), I ran downstairs like a child on Christmas, with my air-rifle wrapped present being the background and insight that only these few people know. Everyone was already in a heated discussion around the price, strategy and reason behind the acquisition. One thing that came out of this: this is a smart move for both parties.

Facebook knows that photos have always been the biggest driver of social content and services, and combined with the mobile growth that we’ll continue see, it’s a great fit for Facebook.

Instagram was reportedly raising $20-30MM on a $500MM valuation. I thought that was a bit crazy, but hey, if you’re at that level with the top VC’s in the world, doubling that valuation and cashing out is a pretty smart move. Their very successful launch of Android, dealing with all of its fragmentation, must have boosted it considerably, and they knew they were in a great position to negotiate. Further though, their mission has been three things: 1) Upload quickly (their secret sauce is uploading in the background when writing your comment) 2) Make photos beautiful (filters) and 3) Share easily across various networks. Sure selling to Facebook advances the sharing to Facebook but the others will be a big question. At the end of the day, it’s their extreme focus on doing these three things so well that’s made them such a big community. There are other apps that have filters, there are other apps that have the ability to share and upload easily, but they do all these things together better than anyone. Plus their community is so vibrant, a testament to their stability and outreach. Side note: I highly recommend Kevin Rose’s Foundation interview of Kevin Systrom.

There will be challenges too of course. Instagram has to be very careful with their current user base concerned about big, bad Facebook taking over their beloved independent application, and not just the options to share to non-facebook networks. My latest Instagram photo regarding the acquisition is filled with thumbs down and negativity about the purchase. Facebook’s press release (which received 80,000 likes an hour) states: “We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.” That said, it will be on the Instagram team to push back on Facebook hooks, not to mentions ads. Is Instagram going to be the next Flickr, a site still used, but that stopped innovating when it was sold to Yahoo? Will be very interesting to see where they are in a few years, but a huge congratulations is definitely deserved!

H/t @JohnDeguzman for your thoughts and opinions as always.

ATB - First Love #musicmonday #ringtone

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:02:26 -0400

One of my favorite ringtones. Also a great alarm too. Soothing and easy listening.

iOS and mp3

Population Density - World's Population in One City

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:01:09 -0400

I love infographics and this one is great. What if all of the world’s 7BB people lived in one city? The physical size of that city would depend on the density in which people lived right? This graphic compares how big that city would if the density was equal to various cities existing today. I love Paris, but surprising NYC isn’t more dense. Must be because of the Bronx, Harlem, etc. Would like to see what just Manhattan would be.

Full Link

All My Ringtones - Now on Gumroad

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:32:00 -0400

First off, let me say that I love Gumroad, I’m impressed by their founder Sahil Lavingia, and more than anything, I love their simplicity. I’ve always had a big problem with my ringtones, how to distribute them and more than anything, how to easily upload and host them in a way that’s easy for friends to download. I’ve had servers die, IP issues, and overall hosting content on your own is simple to do, it’s a nightmare to maintain. Gumroad does all these things, along with allowing me to make money. Their tag line is, “Sell anything you can share”. Genius.

I agree that $0.99 is on the higher end for a ringtone, but I’m also offering all 52 of my tones for only $10. 20 cents for a tone is a pretty good deal!

So, without further ado, here’s the full list of all the ringtones, available as m4r for your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, as well as simple access to the mp3 for Android, BlackBerry, or any other device.

I’ll also be posting a new ringtone every monday at 10am. If you ever have an inkling for a ringtone, for instance a craving for Mad Men’s theme (mp3) (iOS) now that they’re back, let me know, I’ll make anything!

Average American Budget

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:27:18 -0400

More cool infographics today, this time from NPR. I especially like the comparison vs 1949. Amazing how much more we pay in health care, despite all the technology available for simple services. Also transportation is a lot less for me since I live in NYC, but food, drinks and entertainment are more…actually rent should probably just be the entire graph.

Infographic on Religion

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:00:05 -0400

Full image

New House, New ISP...Clear? Time Warner?

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:52:47 -0400

My wife and I recently moved to Brooklyn and setting up internet was, as always, #1 priority. I loved Verizon Fios and was saddened to hear that our pre-war building didn’t have fiber connections, surprise surprise. Instead my options were DSL or Time Warner cable. I’ve heard horrific things about Time Warner’s customer service, and DSL is just far too slow, so I did some research.

If those were my only two wired connections, what were my wireless options? I have tethering on my iPhone but that’s certainly not enough for my whole house. Although “4G LTE” is all the rage, they cap your bandwidth to 10GB a month…I go through that in two days. I’ve seen Clear Wireless around for a while at Best Buy but looked into it more. Being in the mobile space I remember reading reports 5+ years ago about how WiMax was going to change everything. After Clearwire had to file bankruptcy, investors including Sprint, Time Warner and Comcast stepped up to give the company the cash it needed to move into the 4G space.

Today Clear is marketed as “mobile 4G broadband”, offering between 3MB-5MB downlink. Not exactly the speeds I had before, but Time Warner’s wait time for installation was about 10 days so I took the plunge. I called their sales number to ask a few questions, and although I could sign up at a Best Buy in NYC, they sent the router overnight and waived activation. Sweet, internet setup from initial call to actually using it in less than 12 hours. My main usage of internet is downloading large files like the Apple SDK and streaming Netflix, since we were “cutting the cord” and not having any standard TV contract. So how fast was Clear in reality?

The first hour went remarkably well. I downloaded the latest 5.1 SDK very quickly, averaging over 1.5 MB/s. After that finished I tried some Netflix which had some initial buffering time, but then seemed to play ok. Unfortunately, half way through a Mad Men episode (had to re-watch the last season before Sunday premier!) it started buffering again. This became a common occurrence until I noticed what caused it…any concurrent traffic on the same network. So if I tried to refresh my email on my other computer or check twitter on my phone, the entire network was hosed. I ran a few speed tests and speeds went from 5.72 Mb/s to less than one. It says 0.12 Mb/s, but just loading Gmail took over a minute.

I tried emailing Clear to see if this was just me or if I could pay 5 or 10 a month more to have preferential access. Their response was “I’m sorry, you may not be a good fit for Clear”. Well, at least they were honest. At this point it was pretty Clear (sorry) that this wasn’t going to work out and I ordered Time Warner. For the few days I had to wait for Time Warner this was a great solution, and certainly better than nothing at all. When I cancelled Clear they were very nice about it, asked why and what they could do, and ultimately gave me a full refund. I assumed I’d get the $100 back from the router I returned, but I tried to tell them to keep the $54 monthly fee. I did use their service quite a bit and was happy to have internet at my new home, but they wouldn’t accept it. Thanks Clear! Can you imagine if this launched in 2005? Everyone would have switched and the mobile space would have completely changed.

To finish up…Time Warner…your very first interaction with me as a new customer was to say “installation between 2pm-5pm”. Why can’t you offer installation for the vast majority of us who work during the day? Maybe 7-9am/pm? I left work early and came out of the subway at 1:45pm with two voicemails saying the technician was there. Ugh, ok. I then get another call at 1:55 that he’s there. Why didn’t he buzz up you may ask? Well, I went downstairs and around the corner was a Time Warner technician SLEEPING IN HIS TRUCK. I kid you not. I tried to wake him and boy was he rude. How dare I wake him up from his nice nap right? Well, 3 or 4 more calls later from dispatch and they sent another technician out. Ridiculous. That said, check out my new speeds! Single connection: 28.7 MB/s and 4 concurrent connections 25.17 Mb/s.

I’ll switch back to Fios if they offer it in my area, but for the time being I’m pretty much suck with Time Warner’s monopolistic hold on the broadband New York market. Hope this was helpful, let me know what you think in the comments!

Predictions for the iPad – iPad 2S/HD?

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:48:11 -0500

Everyone knows that today’s event is going to be about the iPad but what can we expect? I’ve guessed about past events before, and largely been correct, and I really wish I could be there for this one. Here are a few things off the top of my head:

For Sure’s:

- Updated display: When the iPhone 4 came out it was one of the best displays I’ve ever seen. Now it’s time to take that to the iPad and it’s going to be amazing. Curious how this will affect the App Store’s 20MB limit to WiFi as this will certainly bloat games’ artwork past that.

- LTE: As much as carriers hate being “dumb pipes”, I’m sure they don’t mind it when you’re paying an extra $30 for other devices.

- Memory/Processor: Although my good friend @johndeguzman doesn’t see a big upgrade in RAM, I’m sure there will be some kind of upgrade to the innards. They really nailed the case itself with the iPad 2, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar iPhone 4S type upgrade (iPad 2S/HD) to the processor/RAM/etc.

- Camera: Probably an update the camera(s), mostly the front facing for facetime. I chuckle a bit when I see someone taking a photo with their iPad.

- iTunesU: More information from their great announcement a few weeks back regarding the iTunes U market.

I Hope So’s:

- APPLE TV APPLE TV! Whether it’s some kind of integration with the iPad or a new hardware I’m anxious with excitement. Steve Jobs was rumored to have “cracked” the TV space and I’ve read reports of possibly a pay-per-channel type subscription. I’m actually moving this week and going to try the cut the cord again, after failing an attempt in 2008. How much would you pay for the 4 or 5 channels that you actually watch? $4.99? 100%. $14.99? I’d still think about it…

- Announcement of iOS 6.0: Won’t be live until WWDC, but Apple doesn’t sit on their hands. You know they’re working on all sorts of new software upgrades and some initial ones will likely be announced. For instance Game Center: I’m in love with Ticket To Ride, please make this easier to find friends.

How To Make an Amazing Sandwich

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:10:03 -0500

Step One: Whole wheat bread.

Step Two: Cheese

Step Three: More Cheese

Step Four: Cured meats. I love salami, sopresseta, and coppa.

Step Five: Toast it. 350 degrees minimum of 10 minutes.

Step Six: Add mayo and mustard.

Step Seven: Greens. I like a bit of arugula mixed with spinach.

Step Eight: Fried Egg…yes, right in the middle of the sando.

Cut it in half and dominate!

I dedicate this post to Kevin who taught me everything there is to know about sandwiches.

My iPhone Home Screen Today. I'll admit it, I Sort Apps by Color

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:53:13 -0500

I love my home screen of my iPhone and if your app makes it there, let alone the bottom app bar, you deserve huge kudos. I take these 20 locations very seriously and strive to minimize the number of swipes/taps to launch my most common apps. That said though, once I get my set of apps on the home screen, I’m constantly sorting by color…it just looks cool!

There’s the obvious ones, Weather Channel, Instagram, Economist, but probably a few you’ve never seen before.

New AP Mobile! We’ve completely redesigned out app, should be in the store in ~2 weeks.

Looking for a new ToDo list? Check out Clear. Some of the best interaction design I’ve ever used.

Like Instagram? Try out Cinemagram, it has the same feel that Instagram did when they were first starting. Plus, their technology is super cool.

Looking for an apartment? Nestio is the best hands down.

Honorable Mentions:

- Games: Ticket To Ride (TTR Pocket), Tank Hero, Temple Run and Super Stickman Golf.

- Utilities: PadMapper (great to find new apts on a map), WikiOffline, PBRmeASAP (Find a PBR near you!), UDID and TestFlight.

- Photography: Postagram (send high quality postcards), ColorStream (easy tool to create color pallets)

- Sports: WatchESPN, PrePlay

What’s on your home screen?