iPad / iPhone Video Chat Predictions

My prediction is the iPhone will get a video-chat camera in the next update. It's a very logical update that again steps ahead of most competitors. But the iPad won't for at least another generation or two.

My thinking why? Bandwidth vs Screen Size. The bigger the video, the more speed is needed.

On an iPhone, a video feed of 320x320 would fill the screen horizontally, still leaving space below for buttons. And an even smaller video window could be done if a thumbnail of your own video was displayed too in some sort of overlapping rectangles. With some eye-candy around the squares (and having them not overlap), it could likely get to a pretty small video dimension that needed to be sent over the Internet and it would still look good on the iPhone's screen.

AT&T and other cell phone providers might be able to handle that :)

A similar sized video rectangle would look not only look tiny on an iPad screen, it would look silly at that size. WiFi could handle the speeds needed to do a video size that would look reasonable (640x480 or something like that.) AT&T and other cell phone providers I think would struggle to do that.

So that's my predictions!

What a Week.

A week ago, we got the notice that both our Poker vs Girls and Poker vs Guys apps were removed from the App Store as part of the big purge of sexy apps. Definitely a bummer, they had been a good percent of our iPhone app income the past few months. (But not the biggest apps for us, the business tool FTP On The Go had that honor, and we still have the regular Heads Up: Hold'em poker game among many others.)

That led to an article on TechFlash. Which led this morning to an interview with KOMO4 TV News (in Seattle). I don't even know what might happen tomorrow. But silly things like people actually googling and finding this blog is one thing!

We also quickly did a new version of the poker games, Poker vs Strong Female Role Models. (pictures here) It's in review at Apple, we'll see what kind of splash that makes in the news when it arrives. {UPDATE: It got approved just fine. Get It Here}

That same day last week is when our little Knife Dancing game that had been lurking in the App Store for months finally decided to start growing..and growing...and growing.

We spent a few days watching in disbelief. Hardly able to post "we're at #20" on Facebook, before another one would post "And now #18". Posting on Facebook when our app passed the Facebook app was fun. And waking up on Wednesday to be the #1 free game and #2 free app.

So in the same week we've been sad to lose the strip poker apps, we've been amazed at how well Knife Dancing is doing--and how quickly it happened. And even more crazy, thanks to its In-App Purchase, it's been bouncing around on the Top Grossing lists as well. In the 30s to 40s. (At one point, I saw it at #27--above Grand Theft Auto at #28! Ridiculous.) We'll miss the income from the strip poker apps; but that's sure a huge consolation prize!

It's been a ride, seeing the downside of the App Store, where apps can be pulled with no notice...and the great side, where the right app can strike a chord and jump right to the top.

iPad vs Kindle

I've only seen pictures of the iPad; but I think for most people it will kill the idea of getting a Kindle.

There are people who read the occasional book--the new Stephan King or Harry Potter--and then there are people who Read books. My wife and I each got a Kindle about a year ago. Looking at the price savings on books, as well as bookcases to store them, a Kindle was a smart choice. I read a lot and over the past year have 35 books finished on the Kindle. My wife on the other hand is in another league--fast reader + insomnia = she has 201 books read! The savings has more than paid for buying the Kindles.

For people like us, the Kindle will probably win over the iPad for reading. For a decent percent of people like us, I'd bet they've already invested in a Kindle too. But we're a small minority--for everybody else, the ability of the iPad to do everything else too wins.

The big loser are bookstores. Barnes and Noble used to be a regular visit to get more books--not so much anymore.

For every category of device, there are the hardcore users, and then there is everybody else.

Photographers will have a great expensive camera with good lenses, but most of us will settle for the cell phone camera because it's convenient. Some people spend a ton on a great home theatre, many buy a TV at Walmart or Costco. Avid readers will choose a Kindle or other dedicated one, most will use an iPad or their phone.

There are always a lot more people in the second category--that's who Apple is targeting with the iPad.

Poker vs Girls, finally

Finally, after 4 rejections and nearly 3 months, we got the 2.0 version update to Poker vs Girls (our iPhone strip poker app) accepted by Apple.

The good news is it is more than what was allowed for version 1.0. The "17+" rating that was added since then does allow more, but still nothing you couldn't see at a PG-13 movie.

Two of these images got rejected (one when Apple called us and talked on the phone about what was OK and not OK), and the other three were accepted. Can you tell which?

It's the two on the right that were rejected. According to the phone call from Apple, it is not acceptable to have hands, fingers, or anything touching the model's lips or mouth. And they can't be actively taking off underwear even though having it already off and covering themselves is OK.

Now we've got to go back to the difficult job of looking through photos to add the next set of girls. (Don't forget we are equal opportunity, we also have Poker vs Guys. Strangely, it doesn't sell nearly as well.)

{UPDATE: And just like that, it's gone. The good news is many of them went on to graduate school... Get It Here}

Somebody Really Likes our Logo

Thank you Apple graphic designer...you must really like our FTP On The Go logo!

The big app display banner in Apple stores. Lots of motion-blur on all the icons, but it does look like ours. And it's not just on the display, it's there 4 times that I could find!

Scam or Legit?

Yesterday some door-to-door salesman came by, from ECR magazine company or something like that. Bec initially agreed to get some magazines, but when she came in to get a checkbook, I said I don't like to ever buy things like that since it's impossible to tell if it's a scam. I just never buy anything if you call me or show up at my door.

The kid was understandably upset we backed out of buying, and it was a bit of a hassle to get some contact info so we could make sure nothing would get charged or sent to collections. You have to cancel in writing within 3 days? With no email or fax or website listed? It just seemed shadier and shadier as we were trying to stop. Bec did get a number and talked to somebody and sent a fax to cancel, so that should be good.

I wish I'd have thought to whip out the iPhone and start searching right then on the doorstep. The only references to the company I found were at RipoffReport.com. Bad sign for them.

And the continued magic of the Internet: according to Google, this is what is at their address in Florida. Doesn't really inspire confidence. I was expecting to at least see an office park or a "Mailboxes Etc" type store. Which building do you think is "Suite #3"?

Magazines make sense if I was making up a scam, you'd not notice anything was wrong until months later when nothing had arrived.

I'll never know if it could have been legit, but that Googling raised some big suspicions. We'd just be out the cost of a magazine. The kid earns points and will (supposedly) get a big $5000 reward for getting enough points. From Seattle, what's he going to do if some company in Florida decides to not pay?

Wow! Thanks again Apple!

So after a lot of thought I decided to upgrade to the new iPhone 3GS. I could upgrade without paying the early-upgrade penalty, and really need to be able to test with all the different devices.

Waiting at the store seeing the various displays and things, I thought "Wouldn't it be cool if they had one of our icons." Next thing I see is our FTP On The Go icon! At the end of the promo video running in every AT&T and Apple store. It's only there for a few seconds, but it is an obvious one "installed" on the iPhone at the end, not just one of the flyby icons (it's possible another might be in those, we'll have to do a frame-by-frame view to see.)

I filmed it with the new iPhone, and uploaded to YouTube sitting in the car in the parking lot.