Jeff Rock

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Co-founder of Mobelux and the biological father of Tumblr for iPhone.

I love good beer and hate Zapfino.

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  • April 9, 2010 11:30 am

    iAds

    Historically, Steve Jobs likes to keep the biggest announcement for last. The last announcement in yesterdays iPhone OS 4.0 preview was iAds.

    I’m not sure if many people understand how big of a deal this is.

    Watch yesterday’s presentation and skip to about 44:00. What Apple has done is created a platform for companies to offer experiences for consumers within an existing app. And to clarify, these experiences are less like ads and more like apps themselves. Video. Audio. Games. Maps. Even App Store downloads and wallpapers. Delivered straight to the intended audience.

    The reason for iAds is pretty straight forward (read: another revenue stream) but I believe there are other benefits.

    • Cruft reduction. Many of the apps on the App Store are pure marketing. A map of store locations with coupons and product info. With iAds, you can deliver these apps to users without advertising to get them to search for your company in the App Store (in short, no more marketing for marketing). This will render most of the marketing and brand app useless and they can stop polluting the ecosystem.
    • iAd development. Ads are now full apps themselves, HTML 5 or not. Who’s going to make them? They are certainly not simple to create, with maps, web services and interactivity. It opens up an entirely new service market for devs to enter.
    • Simplicity. No more crappy Google ads in your apps. These are SDK sanctioned UIKit components. Drop an iAd container in your nib and collect the revenue (hopefully). There won’t be many devs that won’t switch over to iAds the second they are able.

    I hope that Apple can execute on this as well as they’ve presented it. It’s a huge new chapter of the iPhone OS story and an even bigger deal to an army of devs drowning in a sea of opportunity.

    It may well be the masterstroke that no one saw coming.

  • November 19, 2009 8:42 pm
    Damn. That’s some hot update action right there.

    Damn. That’s some hot update action right there.

  • November 16, 2009 11:00 pm
  • November 7, 2009 5:05 pm
    Last And 9, Or The Apple App Ghetto

I have an entire page of Apple apps that I cannot take off my iPhone and that I never use. This makes me sad, but even worse, adds an entire page to my Home Screen.

Here’s the list and why I don’t need them.



Voice Memos. Audio notes always sounds like something I’d be into, but in practice it never works well for me. Also, I can’t get past that icon.

Compass. Cute parlor trick, but I have Maps. This is the most maddening app of them all. Who at Apple decided to install a tech demo on every iPhone in the world that can’t be removed? Decision must have been made while Steve was ill.  

Stocks. I don’t trade stocks, and if I did I would require more data than this app provides. 

Contacts. It’s Phone without the phone. 

YouTube. Does anyone navigate YouTube this way? Yuck.

Clock. The only useful thing here is background alarms, and…well, that’s a subject of a different post. Come back in about a month.  

Notes. Worthless. You should be using SimpleNote. 

Calculator. I use the calculator in Convert. No, really. Two birds and all that. 

iTunes. I have never felt the urge (or had the need) to buy music on the go.

    Last And 9, Or The Apple App Ghetto

    I have an entire page of Apple apps that I cannot take off my iPhone and that I never use. This makes me sad, but even worse, adds an entire page to my Home Screen.

    Here’s the list and why I don’t need them.

    • Voice Memos. Audio notes always sounds like something I’d be into, but in practice it never works well for me. Also, I can’t get past that icon.
    • Compass. Cute parlor trick, but I have Maps. This is the most maddening app of them all. Who at Apple decided to install a tech demo on every iPhone in the world that can’t be removed? Decision must have been made while Steve was ill.
    • Stocks. I don’t trade stocks, and if I did I would require more data than this app provides.
    • Contacts. It’s Phone without the phone.
    • YouTube. Does anyone navigate YouTube this way? Yuck.
    • Clock. The only useful thing here is background alarms, and…well, that’s a subject of a different post. Come back in about a month.
    • Notes. Worthless. You should be using SimpleNote.
    • Calculator. I use the calculator in Convert. No, really. Two birds and all that.
    • iTunes. I have never felt the urge (or had the need) to buy music on the go.

  • October 22, 2009 1:01 pm

    Emily The Scientist

    • Emily:  Holy crap! Have u ever turned the iPhone calculator on it's side? It turns into a functions calc with sine cosine and tangent, etc
    • Me:  Um yeah. Welcome to THE FUTURE.
    • Emily:  Ugh why didn't u tell me???!!!
    • Me:  Didn't know you required calculating like a scientist.
    • Emily:  Dude I am a scientist!!! I've been borrowing a freaking scientific calc
    • Emily:  R u going to post this conversation on tumblr. It's pretty much a white whine.
    • Me:  Well. I am now.