For the first time, TGI Black Friday is available on the iPad. Check it out and get updated whenever Black Friday ads for your favorite stores are released.
Fresh from the success of the TGI Black Friday iPhone app (#2 in the App Store for a couple of days), we’ve partnered again with DealCatcher to design and develop an iPad app to showcase their content.
The app is free in the App store, and was built to support 1st and 2nd generation iPads as well as the New iPad’s Retina Display.
The DealCatcher iPad app allows users to browse all deals in a stream, or break them down into tags (Popular, Newest) or categories (HDTVs, Automotive, etc.). From any point within the application, it’s easy for the user to find the category and the deals that they are looking for.
Every deal is shown with its description, price, and any relevant information needed in order to complete a purchase. From this screen the user can also compare the deal to prices offered by other retailers using PriceGrabber data, share deals via Facebook and Twitter, and add deals to their favorites.
The DealCatcher app lets users bookmark their favorite deals for later retrieval. We track the expiration date of deals to help keep the interface clean and to notify the user of which deals are no longer valid. A deal can be removed from the list of favorites at any time by tapping the star at the top left.
Yavi is a cross-platform application that helps restaurants build a loyal following by incentivizing guests and rewarding repeat visitors. The app consists of multiple parts; a mobile app and web site for guests to find restaurants in their area and check in, a tablet app for restaurants to manage checked in guests and waiting lists, and a mobile app for managers to track everything at once.
The Yavi guest app is a web and native iOS and Android application that allows users to find nearby Yavi-participating restaurants and add themselves to the wait list (if there is one). The app also helps users track their reward points across restaurants and earn gifts from their favorite restaurants.
Yavi also features a tablet app for restaurant hosts to manage guests who have checked in via the mobile app, and also check in new guest walk-ins. The app auto-calculates wait times based on past turnover and current seating configurations. Yavi’s host app is built to support both iOS and Android tablets.
In addition to the mobile components of Yavi, we’ve built user account management into the web site as well. Even if you don’t have a smart phone you can visit Yavi.me and we will show you the closest restaurants to your location, allow you to track your visits, and get rewarded for visiting.
Transmogrify’s newest iPad app, made in partnership with DealCatcher, is now available for download! Check it out here.
Our own Dan Kelley will be a panelist in a live webinar on Thursday, June 14th where he’ll be discussing trademarking within app marketplaces. Joining him are Michael Leonard and John Sullivan, partners with the law firm of Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel, who specialize in trademark and copyright law. The webinar is from 12pm to 2pm EST. To register, visit: www.lawcatalog.com/jun14 or call: 212-457-7706.
From games to restaurant reservations, “apps” for smart phones and tablets address almost every topic imaginable. But there is a dark-side to this modern miracle.
Trademark infringers have exploited the software marketplaces opened by companies like Apple and Google by offering apps with names identical or confusingly similar to well-known brands. Serial infringers are winning because they often understand the new technology and online marketplaces better than the trademark owners.
This webinar explains how infringers operate; how to successfully police trademarks in the iTunes Store, Google Play, Facebook, YouTube and elsewhere; and how trademark owners can stamp out infringement and preserve their brands’ integrity.
Topics include:
· Trademark basics, what constitutes infringement, and the line between “inspiration” and “stealing”
· App development basics, including technology, standards, and procedures for approval
· Types of infringement in online marketplaces, best practices for detecting infringement, and strategies for effective trademark enforcement
The webinar concludes with a Q&A.
Do you have the cutest dog in the world? It’s time to find out with the world’s best digital dog show. Welcome to PuppyWars! PuppyWars is an iOS game for dog lovers to settle the all-important question: Who has the cuter dog? Take pictures of your pooch and challenge another user’s dog to a world-wide vote. If you don’t have a dog you can still play by voting for other people’s puppies (OPP)!
You can play PuppyWars in a variety of ways, even if you aren’t a dog owner. As soon as you start up the game, you can rotate your phone to landscape orientation and begin voting on PuppyWars. You can track other user’s dogs, see which dogs have won the most Puppy Wars, and try to hoard “Bones” to make your way up the charts. We’ve also built in a dog adoption tool that helps you find an adoptable dog in your area.
We wanted to make adding a dog to PuppyWars as fun as possible. Each dog breed has its own custom illustration, just pick the one that matches your dog, add a picture, and name your puppy. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to challenge other puppies to a Puppy War of cuteness. Once your dog is in PuppyWars, it’s also able to be challenged by other PuppyWars users, so keep an eye out for challengers. May the cutest puppy win!
The feature in PuppyWars that we’re most proud of is the ability to find adoptable dogs in your area. By combining location detection and the Petfinder API, you can easily find nearby dogs of any breed that need a forever home. We’ve made it simple: find the right dog for you and contact their shelter in just a few taps! In addition to that, 5% of all Bones purchases go directly to the ASPCA.
This the banner for BeardWars’ table at the East Coast Beard & Mustache Championship on March 31, 2012 from 6:00 PM to 10:45 PM. It’s hosted at The Blockley on 38th and Chestnut in Philly. Come by if you’re a beard owner, into people who have beards, or just curious. More information here.
This past Wednesday, xmog’s own Dan Kelley gave a talk at Philly Tech Meetup’s Education Edition. He talked about our work with our intern Fitz Tepper - a highschool senior – and our recent project teaching elementary aged kids the basics of programming. Using the open source project Robocode, Dan and Mark Spence hosted a four week program for a handful of students. The pilot program focused on friends and family, but we are looking to open it up to the public soon.
You can watch Dan’s talk below. Thanks to Technically Philly for the video.
Congrats to Fitz Tepper on the release of his iOS App for the Haverford School. Fitz is Xmog’s very first intern and has set the bar pretty high. He started the Haverford School app as an assignment for a senior level class, but soon saw that it could be a valuable resource to other students. Fitz figured it would be a great opportunity to learn more about iOS development and releasing an app and he approached Xmog to ask about an internship.
Mobile development turned out to be a little more difficult than he had expected. We worked with Fitz to teach him some of the concepts behind application development, design, and support. We explained how to eliminate the manual processes that were in place for maintaining the data in the application, and suggested other minor improvements. We were there to guide and answer questions, but let Fitz learn by doing the work himself.
Fitz learned another valuable lesson when Apple rejected his first submission. He persevered and with a few additional features (along with some navigation help) he was able to meet Apple’s high standards and pass the review process.
The story is far from over as we continue to work with Fitz on developing and improving his application.
A few weeks old now but still relevant, this article by designer Bret Victor discusses the path user experience is taking and why it might not be the optimal direction for human interaction with computers. Largely a response to Microsoft’s “Future Vision” demo, Victor has a fascinating viewpoint that some may not have considered in the face of flashy new technology.
Microsoft’s “Future Vision”:
Victor asserts that what he calls “Pictures Under Glass” interfaces lack the connection with human senses that good tools provide. This missing connection causes users to shape themselves and their behavior around tools, rather than tools acting as an extension of the human body.
As an example, Victor discusses the haptic feedback of reading an paperback book:
“Notice how you know where you are in the book by the distribution of weight in each hand, and the thickness of the page stacks between your fingers. Turn a page, and notice how you would know if you grabbed two pages together, by how they would slip apart when you rub them against each other.”
He then compares that to playing “piano” on the iPad:
“What did you feel? Did it feel glassy? Did it have no connection whatsoever with the task you were performing?
I call this technology Pictures Under Glass. Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade.
Is that so bad, to dump the tactile for the visual? Try this: close your eyes and tie your shoelaces. No problem at all, right? Now, how well do you think you could tie your shoes if your arm was asleep? Or even if your fingers were numb? When working with our hands, touch does the driving, and vision helps out from the back seat.
Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It’s a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it’s the star player in every Vision Of The Future.”
(This is likely the reason a predominant amount of “iPad Bands” you see on Youtube are horribly out of time.)
Though Victor’s article doesn’t offer anything in the way of an alternative to touch-screen interfaces (which he gladly admits in the beginning of his article), his argument is one that’s hard to write off.
Read his entire article here, it’s worth it.
