BestTechie

gMusic brings Google Play Music All Access to iOS

Shawn Farner — Sat, 25 May 2013 13:00:59 +0000

If you’ve signed up to take advantage of the discounted pricing for Google Play Music All Access, you may have noticed that there is no official app available for iOS devices. But just because Google isn’t supporting iOS doesn’t mean third-party developers aren’t. Enter gMusic, one of the better Google Play Music apps available for the platform.

The app was originally built to support Google’s music locker service. When All Access was launched, the developer behind the app quickly got to work to include Google’s on-demand streaming service. You can access the service inside gMusic by jumping over to the “Web” section of the app, or check out All Access’s radio feature in the “Radio” section.

I sent a few tweets back and forth with the app’s developer, who also runs the @gMusicApp Twitter account. According to this developer (who hasn’t given me a name to use yet), Google did not help with any of the All Access implementation in the app — it was all one person running on “lots of Mountain Dew.” The speed at which gMusic added All Access is impressive on its own, but to think that one person was responsible? Remarkable.

It begs the question, though — where is Google’s official app? I mean, here we are, a year and a half after Google Music opened up, and Google still does not have an official Google Music app for iOS, in spite of having apps for everything from Gmail to Google Translate. And now Google has launched this streaming service that, at the moment, seems to compete mainly with Spotify — yet Spotify is cross-platform and Google Play Music All Access is not.

And don’t even get me started on that long name. But we’ll save that for another time.

You can download the gMusic app for iOS from the App Store. The app includes support for the iPhone, the iPod touch and the iPad, and yes, the iPad version has a tablet-specific design. The app costs $1.99, but if you’re trying to lock in that $7.99 a month price for GPMAA, that two bucks is probably worth it.

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Realmac Software Leaks News of Clear for iPad “Coming Soon”

Jeff Weisbein — Fri, 24 May 2013 22:49:15 +0000

Do you ever read software change logs? Most people probably don’t, I don’t always read them either — don’t feel bad. However, this time around I happened to read all the way through the change log for the 1.0.1 update for Clear for Mac and I’m glad I did. The Realmac developers threw in a little gem for everyone: Clear for iPad is coming soon.

While details are still scarce, it seems the popular todo list app that is currently available on the iPhone and the Mac will finally be making its way over to the iPad. If you aren’t familiar with Clear, it’s a great little app — it even made our best iOS apps of 2012.

We’ll keep an eye out for more information and let you know as soon as we hear anything.

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How To: Use and Get the Most out of Siri

Kedar Joshi — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:12:56 +0000

These days it seems like everyone is on the run. Sometimes, it would be nice to have someone there to help take on the burden or help us with simple tasks like making reservations, checking scores, finding restaurants, and even getting directions. Siri makes it easy for people to get tasks accomplished without having to bury our skulls in a screen for too long or even dare I say it, having to pay for a personal assistant.

Enter the stage, Siri to the rescue! Siri is not new for most users of the iPhone, but it is a very underused and sometimes misunderstood service. Siri is Apple’s answer to the personal assistant, a voice recognition system that can help users accomplish small tasks with ease.

Or as Apple describes it “Siri is the intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. It allows you to use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. But Siri isn’t like traditional voice recognition software that requires you to remember keywords and speak specific commands. Siri understands your natural speech, and it asks you questions if it needs more information to complete a task.”

Siri is available on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 (and will likely be available on future iPhone’s as well). In addition to the iPhone, Siri is also available on the iPad (3^rd Generation and beyond), iPad Mini, and iPod Touch (5^th Generation and beyond). Please note that for the iPad (non 3G/4G/LTE version) and iPod, you must be connected to WiFi for Siri to function.

I’m not saying that Siri is the perfect assistant and can do everything, but it is an area that Apple has been increasingly focused on and is improving all the time. In addition, several car companies are now integrating the services into their vehicles. Chevrolet and Honda are trailblazing the way, with other companies following suit.

To use Siri, just hold down the home button for a few seconds (or the center button on your Apple EarPods). Once you hear the do-to-too jingle, you can start speaking your request in natural language (or robotic, if you are really bored).

Siri can handle a multitude of requests, from:

“How do I get to the Empire State Building?”

“I want some delicious Indian food.”

“What was the Philadelphia Eagles Score?”

“Make me a reservation at Cipriani at 8pm tonight.” (You must be a baller!)

“Send a message to Jeff, saying BestTechie is a great site for tech stuff exclamation point” (Yes, you have to say exclamation point, Siri will translate to !)

“When is Mom’s birthday?”

“Who is Miranda Kerr?”

“Play All The Small Things by blink-182.” (Requires that you have the song on your device.)

“Remind me to take the garbage out when I get home.” (You can even say a particular time, like at 7:15PM.)

“Tell me a joke” (Beware, it’s going to be a pretty corny joke.)

OK, ok… You get the idea.

If for whatever reason Siri isn’t working, it may not be enabled on your device. To enable Siri, follow these steps:

Click on Settings
Click on General
Click on Siri
Make sure it’s ON
Make any other adjustments that’ll make your life easier, such as the language you want Siri to use.
P.S.: I know some of you are going to change the My Info setting so Siri will call you “Master.”

Well, what are you waiting for?! Give it a try, make your life a bit easier. Comment with some of your most interesting requests and Siri’s responses.

A really helpful video by Sharon Vaknin of CNET shows Google Now and Apple’s Siri in a side-by-side comparison.

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How buying and selling pre-owned Xbox One games will work

Shawn Farner — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:35:11 +0000

The pre-owned games market is about to get shaken up in a big way — at least, it will for those retailers who plan to sell pre-owned Xbox One games. Sources for UK gaming blog MCV have provided more information on how Microsoft will be handling the buying and selling processes for pre-owned games on its Xbox One console.

According to these sources, not just any old retailer will be able to buy back and sell pre-owned Xbox One games. In order to become a part of this market, a retailer must agree to Microsoft’s terms and conditions, as well as integrate their systems with Microsoft’s own cloud-based pre-owned authentication system. When a gamer trades in their used game, that title is removed from the person’s Xbox One and they are paid for the title.

Don’t expect to see any deep discounts on Xbox One titles, thanks to Microsoft’s new pre-owned game system.

The really big changes are taking place when a retailer sells a previously-owned game to a new buyer. The retailer may set its own price for the game, but instead of keeping all profits to itself, both Microsoft and the game’s publisher receive cuts, as well. The retailer reportedly receives a ten percent cut of the resold game, with larger percentages going to Microsoft and the publisher.

Let that sink in for a minute. Imagine selling a used car to a local car dealer. Now imagine that dealer reselling your car and only being able to keep 10%, while paying out larger chunks to the original dealership and Ford. Those two entities are profiting twice off of the same product, and as long as that car is bought and resold, they’ll continue to profit.

And, according to unconfirmed reports cited in the MCV article, someone purchasing a used game from a retailer could expect to pay around £35 to purchase and activate it. In USD today, that is $52.94, or $7 and some change less than a brand-new game.

We’ll have to see what the pre-owned situation is like on the Playstation 4, but if its anything like what we’re seeing with the Xbox One here, the pre-owned industry’s days may be numbered.

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Gittip Wants to Make Working on Open Source A Sustainable Living

Jeff Weisbein — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:39:07 +0000

What if I told you could work on open source projects full-time and make a living from that? You would get to do what you love and make money for it. That’s what Chad Whitacre is looking to accomplish with Gittip. The site, which uses the tag line: inspiring generosity, is doing just that. With over 1,110 active community members on Gittip in under a year, they are currently exchanging over $3,000 every week. While it’s not necessarily at the point where you would be able to quit your job and work on open source projects full-time, the site has been continually growing.

“Gittip was sort of born out of this frustration with having chased the startup dream,” said Mr. Whitacre. He went on to say, ”I mean it’s risky, right? How many people get to build Instgram and get to sell it for a billion dollars… like six of us.” And he’s right. But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be able to work on what they are passionate about — now with Gittip they can and possibly even get paid for doing it.

Users of Gittip can elect to send and receive money from each other, people who send money can send anywhere from $0.25 cents to $24 every week. The idea behind the cap of $24 is to spread the load, “I want people to be able to rely on Gittip to pay their bills,” said Mr. Whitacre, so with the cap, if someone for whatever reason decided to stop giving, it wouldn’t be too hard of a hit on the individual receiving money on Gittip.

John Resig, the creator of the jQuery library is on Gittip and currently receives around $60 per week from people who feel his work is worth compensating him for. That’s pretty cool.

With more people being able to work on open source projects full-time, it could also have some very interesting affects on the open source community at large. ”I want to see open products, not just developer tools out in the open,” said Mr. Whitacre. By having people develop open products, it could lead to more collaboration and potentially even more innovation, which ultimately benefits everyone.

Gittip also recently launched something called Communities, to help other communities partake in Gittip. The idea being that any community that can self-organize can get their own home page on Gittip. The top communities on Gittip as of writing this article are for Javascript, Python, Korea, Node.js, and Ruby. All of them with over 200 members. But there are other communities on the site as well, I even saw one for NYC, which is awesome. “The hope is that Communities can give people the sense that they’re participating in something,” said Mr. Whitacre, who went on to say, “I hope this will help us branch beyond just programming, open source, and tech. I would love for Gittip to work for non-programmers and non-techies.”

In terms of fees, Gittip looks to charge as little fees as possible. The full details on the fees and how they work can be found here. But perhaps the most important thing is that gifts (which are sent out every Thursday), are received at the full face value of the gifted amount. So if someone is supposed to receive $3, they get $3 in their Gittip account — there are no fees taken out of that.

One of the key fundamentals behind Gittip is that it’s an open company, which means three things to Mr. Whitacre:

1. Share as much as possible (which is why we did an open interview), but you don’t share everything (e.g. server passwords).

2. Charge as little as possible for the service (which doesn’t necessarily mean charge nothing — price to cost, but don’t price to value).

3. Don’t compensate employees.

That’s his own interpretation of an open company, but he’s excited to see how other companies have been embracing the idea in their own ways.

So you might be wondering how Chad plans to earn a living if his company doesn’t compensate employees? The answer is via Gittip, of course!

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How To: Never Forget A Birthday With iOS

Kedar Joshi — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:53:39 +0000

Honey, do you know what today is?

I’m sure you or someone you know has faced the infamous question, “Do you know what is special about today?”, from a friend or loved one. This topic has been the premise and butt of many jokes on our beloved sitcoms and we laugh every time. But let’s be honest, it’s funny because it’s grounded in the all-together very true day-to-day reality. The fact is, everyone at some time or other has missed or forgotten really important annual celebrations.

Unfortunately forgetting these special days cause much unintentional grief, the silver lining, is only for retailers, who sell a lot of flowers and candy. Well, fret not my calendar challenged friend, there is a quick and easy way to make sure that you are alerted of that important date and no, the answer isn’t micromanaging your calendar and constantly manually maintaining such reoccurring events.

Since this is my first article ever, I figured it would be apropos to start out with the birthday topic, and here we go…

If you happen to be an Apple user, there is a quick and simple hidden gem to get your birthdays seamlessly integrated into your calendars. The next time you enter a contact in your iPhone (iPod and iPad), you can also add a birthday.

First, let’s make sure that it’s enabled in the Calendar app. Click on Calendar (top left) and make sure there is a check mark by Birthdays. Set it once and never think about it again.

Make sure that Birthday is checked

When you add a new contact or update an existing one, scroll down and click on the add field button.

Scroll down and click on Add field

Scroll down a bit and choose Birthday.

Scroll down and Click on Birthday

Now it is simply a matter of entering the birthday.

Enter the Birthday

Check your calendar, TADA, it’s automatically there!

TADA!!!

That’s it. Now your calendar will keep track of important dates forever. In fact, iCloud users will have this information propagate throughout their Apple devices. For added amazing functionality you can click on the birthday in your iPhone and be automatically taken to the contact’s phone number, just in case you want to text or call. Very simple, but cool stuff.

Now go make someone’s day by remembering their big day.

It’s the simple stuff that makes life grand.

Unfortunately, for Android users, to do this is a bit more of a process. However, if you’re interested check out this forum post which explains how to add birthdays into your calendar.

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Acer C7 Chromebook could get a slight refresh with 16 GB SSD

Shawn Farner — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:09:05 +0000

If you check out this page on the Best Buy website, you’ll see an Acer C7 Chromebook touting some specs that don’t quite match up with whats been released so far — namely, the 16 GB solid state drive. This development, first reported by Engadget, seems to suggest that Acer may be refreshing the C7, replacing its massive (and unnecessarily large) 320 GB hard drive with a 16 GB SSD.

I took issue with the C7 in the past, mainly because its specs didn’t really match up with the Chromebook mission. Sure, the machine is the cheapest available Chromebook there is at $199 (and this refreshed model appears to keep that price point), but the hard disk and poor battery life — 4 hours — hindered the experience. The presence of a solid state drive will help speed the machine up when booting up and working, but the battery still remains a concern.

It’s worth pointing out that, if you’re willing to plunk down $280, you can get a version of the Acer C7 that comes with a six-cell battery and 4 GB of RAM, instead of the standard 2 GB. It’s unknown at this time if that version of Acer’s Chromebook will be refreshed with the 16 GB SSD or if it will keep the 320 GB hard drive.

Samsung’s latest Chromebook is the one to beat.

In the Chromebook race, Samsung seems to be the only company that has built a sought-after laptop. Its 11.6-inch model comes in at $250 and, while it uses Samsung’s underpowered Exynos processor, it reaches about 6.5 hours of battery life. It also comes standard with a 16 GB solid state drive.

It’s really a shame Acer hasn’t found a way to include that larger battery with its refreshed $199 C7, because doing so might have helped it steal that “Best Chromebook” title away from Samsung. At this point, the new model would be a good buy if you can afford to stay close to an outlet, but until Acer addresses the battery life, it’ll continue playing second fiddle to the Samsung model that costs $50 more.

At this point, the Best Buy site says this particular Acer C7 is “Coming soon.” We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more.

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Bizzabo Is Like Business Dating For Conferences

Cassie Slane — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:34:03 +0000

Trade shows and conferences are big business, so it’s no surprise that a number of apps are surfacing to take advantage of the 1.8 million meetings, trade shows, conventions and other events that take place across the United States each year. One of the companies trying to tap into this multi-billion dollar industry is Bizzabo.

Bizzabo is an event and networking app for iOS and Android that provides attendees with information about the conference’s agenda, speakers and attendees. Through its integration with LinkedIn, it suggests people attendees should meet and speakers they should see at the event (sort of like business dating for conferences).

CMO and Co-Founder Alon Alroy said Bizzabo aims to help conference attendees get the most out of their event. “People are talking to the wrong people at events,” Alroy said. “When you think about it, one of the main reasons for them to go to an event is networking- they’re missing their work that day because they are going to an event, so they want to make sure it is making good use of their time.”

Bizzabo is primarily marketed to event organizers, who upload event content including agenda, speakers, twitter hash tags and other basic info. Organizers then invite attendees to join their event community on Bizzabo. Users can log in through LinkedIn if they want to utilize the social aspect of the app, which uses a matching algorithm to analyze business profiles from LinkedIn and previous conferences users may have attended to suggest relevant connections. An area called “event community” shows the top three people you should meet and refreshes as more people join the event community. It also allows you to check in and out of the event and view other logged in attendees. An in-app chat feature lets you send messages to other attendees, so you can set up meetings.

“We see a lot of engagement of people sending messages to one another and scheduling meetings with the app,” Alroy said. “They can check each others profile on LinkedIn and Twitter and search people through Google.”

Bizzabo, which launched in July, faces a competitive marketplace with other event and networking platforms like SpotMe and EventMobi, which have been in the market longer and have gained more traction with conference organizers. But unlike those competitors, which use web-based platforms that can be time-intensive and costly for organizers, Bizzabo’s native app puts the control in the users hands and taps into the already extensive networking capabilities of LinkedIn. It also allows event organizers to create an app for their conference in minutes.

As for the number of downloads of Bizzabo? Alroy said they aren’t interested in trying to get as many downloads as possible but in real users who will get value out of it. Bizzabo, which launched in private beta in Israel last year and quickly became the standard app for events there, is starting to gain traction in San Francisco and New York.

“We already have 2,000 conferences [that have gone] mobile and social. We [enable] event organizers to have a mobile social app for their event in less than 10 minutes and at a very attractive price, so it can be free or they can also purchase some of the premium packages,” Alroy said. ”We are trying to become that one app for events.”

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Yahoo gobbles up PlayerScale, its second acquisition of the week

Shawn Farner — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Another day, another acquisition by Yahoo. This time, it’s PlayerScale, a startup that designs and builds the infrastructures used by many cross-platform games, including those on iOS and Android.

Yahoo has had a presence in the gaming world for quite some time. One only needs to browse games.yahoo.com to see a mix of Yahoo’s classic offerings and newer Web-based titles like “The Hobbit” and “Dragons of Atlantis.” But one place Yahoo doesn’t have a stronghold is in mobile games. The acquisition of PlayerScale, which powers games played by over 150 million people a month, could give Yahoo the back-end it needs for mobile without having to build one from scratch.

And because PlayerScale is built to support cross-platform titles, Yahoo could conceivably unify its Web and mobile games under that one single back-end.

PlayerScale’s cross-platform capabilities fit right into Yahoo’s current plan. The company doesn’t have a mobile operating system of its own, nor would launching one be a particularly wise move at this point in the rebuilding process. By showing equal love to both iOS and Android, Yahoo can get its apps and games in front of as many people as possible.

In my mind, the purchase of PlayerScale is another play for the younger crowd, the first being Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr on Monday. If the company can get some of its Web-based games going on multiple mobile platforms, it could set itself up to give Zynga a run for its money and would have the pieces in place to push out new titles.

We’ll have to see how Yahoo intends to use PlayerScale, but simply running an online gaming back-end doesn’t seem like it fits into Yahoo’s plan unless the company is using that product itself.

On the front page of the PlayerScale website, CEO Jesper Jensen had this message for PlayerScale’s customers:

Dear Customers, Partners and Friends,

Today is a great day — both in our journey with PlayerScale and for users of our Player.IO product. We are happy to announce the next big step toward our goal of building the best possible gaming infrastructure platform: we have been acquired by Yahoo!. And don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere. Our platform will continue to support the same great games that you love playing today … and in fact, it will only get better from here!

Our goal has always been to help developers build the best possible games, without having to worry about building and scaling the infrastructure required to operate today’s biggest successes. In working with the folks at Yahoo!, it has become clear that we share this passion.

We have spent the past four years growing a three-person startup into a product that powers games played by over 150 million people worldwide and we are adding over 400,000 new users every day. In the last four months alone, we have increased our daily user growth rate by almost sixty percent. With Yahoo!’s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than ever before. We will continue to support our existing product and deliver new services to help you grow and manage your success in cross-platform gaming — whether it’s casual, social or mobile.

Today marks a milestone for PlayerScale and I want to sincerely thank the team, our developers and millions of users for the adventure so far and can promise there will be more to come.

- Jesper Jensen

What do you think of Yahoo’s latest pick-up? Let us know.

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AppGratis Launches on Android Weeks After Being Kicked Out of Apple Store

Cassie Slane — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:15:02 +0000

AppGratis, the French app promotion and discovery platform startup that was recently ejected from the App Store on the grounds that it violated two of Apple’s iOS Guideline, officially launched for Android users today.

“Just a few weeks after being pulled from Apple’s App Store, we’re happy to announce that AppGratis is now available in 9 languages for Android users worldwide,” the company said on its blog.

AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat said that while the company does not comment on the Apple situation, it has experienced very good feedback with its Android version with over 2,500 reviews and an average 4.7 rating. Dawlat said the Android version, which was uploaded over the weekend, had to pass a quick bug-fixing update yesterday before its official launch today.

AppGratis was kicked out of the Apple App Store in April for allegedly violating two App Store Review Guidelines including 2.25 that states “Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.”

Many argue that a number of other “Appfinding” programs that exist in the app store haven’t been under the same kind of scrutiny as AppGratis, including App-O-Day and AppsHawk. Even Facebook, arguably, is an “Appfinding” program because it has App Center, where it prominently displays well-designed apps and doesn’t list apps that receive poor ratings. The popularity of app discovery programs has grown as users look for guidance to find and discover apps in a store that now boasts more than 800,000 apps to choose from.

AppGratis, which still boasts more than 10 million users on iOS, will likely face less stringent oversight on the Google Play Store as its terms of service remain more lenient than the Apple App Store.

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