The Online Magazine Focused on App Design, Branding & Marketing

There was a time, many moons ago, when I used Microsoft Office on my MacBook Pro. To be specific, I used Microsoft Office on my old MacBook Pro, the one that shuffled off its mortal coil a few years back, prompting the purchase of my current loyal machine. But when I opened up my new laptop, I didn’t install Microsoft Office. I didn’t see the point. For my purposes, TextEdit and Pages were all I needed in a word processor. For my purposes, Numbers did everything that Excel could do. And then there’s PowerPoint — I haven’t made a PowerPoint presentation since high school, so what was the point? Why waste money on Microsoft Office when my Apple computer literally came with everything I needed? I know that I’m not alone. Heck, I’ve worked with people and companies who exclusively use Google Docs because it’s cheaper and easier to share, a completely different experience than the archaic principles practiced by Microsoft.

Which brings us to Office 365, which at first sounded like Microsoft’s attempt to enter the 21st century and is now starting to sound like a public relations nightmare.

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What is science if not the constant pursuit of something that will change the world? What is curiosity if not fuel for science? Another vague and somewhat rhetorical question verging on pretentious that let’s me say “SCIENCE IS AWESOME!” without sounding a like a child. Eh, screw it: SCIENCE IS AWESOME.

We can thank science for computers. We can thank science for the internet. We can thank science for smartphones. And now, we can thank science for graphene, which looks less like a cool discovery and more like the next big step forward for how our world and our machines will function. For real.

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The internet and mobile media represent the pinnacle of human communication and technological achievement, offering us a future filled with unlimited opportunities, where we can be kinder, smarter and just simply better. It also gives us the forum to be awful and offensive and — let’s be perfectly honest here — frequently hilarious. Every act of kindness on the internet is instantly counteracted by something horribly (and often horribly amazing), ensuring that the online world never becomes a true force for good or a true force for evil. It’s a purely gray world where anyone can be anything they choose to, even if their avatar has completely different motivations than their real world self.

All of this is best encapsulated by Twitter contests, which represent a company or entity attempting to connect to people on a personal level…but everything generally devolves into chaos.

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How do you discover new apps? Unlike movies, books or video games, mobile apps are rarely hyped through for months in advance through traditional media. When an app finally appears on a news network or in the pages of a popular magazine, it’s because it’s already hit it big. The truth of the matter is that apps are still a young medium and like early cinema and early video games, the world is going to treat them as a niche for awhile, even after they’ve clearly evolved into something big and important. Heck, video games are only now being recognized as a vital part of the cultural landscape decades after they hit the scene and it took movies a good thirty years to stop being “just a fad.” Mobile apps are only a few years old, so it’ll probably be a few more years before we starting seeing them covered and previewed like other forms of entertainment.

In the meantime, there seems to be only one way to become a blockbuster app: you’ve got to get featured.

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There’s no denying it: the possibilities for Google Glass are endless. Like that transparent smartphone I wrote about earlier in the week, this isn’t just a cool gadget — this is some real sci-fi sh*t. This is the kind of thing you’d expect see Tom Cruise wearing in a science fiction action movie scheduled for the hot summer months, not something that your annoying neighbor can walk into a store and buy and wear everywhere that he goes. Much like Google’s proposed (and testing) driverless cars, Google Glass has been something that I’ve always admired from a distance, never quite believing that it was actually a thing that would one day exist.

And then came a new commercial for Google Glass that doesn’t sell the gadget as much as it sells the experience of using it and what it will be like to actually use it. Color me impressed. Also color me super annoyed.

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Every so often, I’m reminded that the entire nation of South Korea has access to free, high speed wireless internet and I get bummed out because it truly feels like the United States of America is falling behind in the “Keeping Up With The 21st Century” competition. I understand that there’s a huge difference between hooking up a small nation like South Korea with instantly accessible internet and somehow wiring the vast American countryside, but you’d think that some progress would have been made by now.

As always, the why’s and the why not’s are more complicated than you’d initially imagine. It turns out the war over free wireless internet in America has been going on since 2004 and involves the clashing of two impossibly powerful groups. It’s going to take a ridiculous amount of cash to bring free internet to America, but it’s also going to take a few fortunes to stop it.

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There’s a reason the smartphone conversation tends to revolve around the Samsung Galaxy series and whatever number iPhone has been announced: they’re generally the best and most popular devices out there. It really is that simple. There are a ton of good phones out there (heck, I even like many of the Windows Phones that I’ve had the chance to try out), but you often hear people say things like “Yeah, I only have [INSERT NAME OF DEVICE HERE] because I’m waiting for the next [INSERT NAME OF APPLE OR SAMSUNG DEVICE HERE].” Other companies release solid products, but they’re rarely as sexy, for lack of a better word.

But HTC announced the HTC One yesterday and while it would be foolish and premature to say something stupid like “This is going to change everything!”, the latest from the veteran smartphone manufacturer looks like an absolutely incredible device.

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It’s not a day in the tech world unless Apple is announcing something new or being amazing or being horrible and not living up to the legacy set by the late great/tyrant Steve Jobs. So, today in Apple News…

The success of the iPad Mini has led some people to predict that we will soon see the last of the traditional, full size 9.7 inch iPad. That’s a dumb opinion, but whatever, some people are saying it so I’m recounting it here. The long and short of it is that the regular ‘ol iPad is still the best tablet of its size on the market and it’s only being outsold by the Mini because the Mini is new and shiny and such. As expected, a new iPad will be announced sometime this year (most likely in the third quarter) and it will be a complete overhaul of the traditional design.

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Austin, Texas and SXSW have a mutually beneficial relationship. As a city, Austin is home to countless artists and start-ups and has a culture that encourages creative businesses. As a festival, SXSW brings all kinds of thinkers to the city to showcase their work, get noticed and advance to the next level. Because of the very nature of Austin, it’s a great city to plant your roots and pull yourself up by bootstraps (or whatever other cliche you want to apply) and SXSW is all about giving struggling designers, artists, developers a chance to flourish. One feeds other other and vice versa. It’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship.

And a new SXSW contest demonstrates just how intertwined the city and this festival have become: one start-up company will be relocated to Austin, all expenses paid.

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Crowdfunding is a relatively new phenomenon whereby individuals can post a project on a number of sites such as Kickstarter, Crowdtilt, or RocketHub (there are a lot to choose from). Basically, you come up with an idea, post it to one of these crowdfunding platforms, and hope the crowd comes to your project’s rescue in the form of donations or pre-orders.

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