Crenk » store

Orange Makes Multimedia on Your Mobile More Accessible With the Launch of New Store

Steven Finch — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:52:07 +0000

Orange have launched a new store in Milton Keynes, UK.

The first Orange UK Multimedia Store opens today in thecentre:mk, Milton Keynes
The world’s first Motorola DEXT™ with MOTOBLUR™* will be exclusively on sale at the new Milton Keynes store on opening day, before anywhere else in the world**
It is also the first Orange store to feature a giant 70-inch cinema style screen and seating area, bringing multimedia to life

First Augmented Reality App – Metro Paris Subway

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:50:49 +0000

The first ever augmented reality app has appeared in the Apple App store for the iPhone. I know – what the hell is Augmented Reality or AR as it’s often called? Basically, it’s a layer of digital information displayed over real information.

The app is called ‘Metro Paris Subway’ and what it does is use the iPhone’s GPS, compass and camera all together to give you information about your surroundings when in the city. Basically, you point your camera at a certain location and details of local shops, restaurants and tourist locations will pop up as you can see in the screenshot. It gives you direction and distance also.

This kind of technology wasn’t expected until Apple released an updated version of the iPhone OS in a few months.

It’s cool and everything, but for some reason I can’t see it catching on in this form. People like their GPS and it suits them fine. As soon as the novelty wears off they will retreat back to GPS. You don’t need AR to tell you where to go – GPS does a better job at twice the speed with half the effort. However, if you do get this app (which bear in mind will only work in Paris) then don’t worry about discarding it after purchase as it costs a reasonable 99c – I was expecting it to cost $30!

Microsoft Opens Windows Marketplace for Mobile to Developers

Steven Finch — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:54:44 +0000

Today represents a significant milestone for Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and more importantly, the first big opportunity for developers. Microsoft are now accepting application submissions from all 29 supported countries and have launched a Race to Market Challenge to kick things off. It’s time to show us what you’ve got!

Registered developers and ISVs can now upload their application, game or widget to the Windows Marketplace platform and we’ll begin certifying those apps according to the process, policies and guidelines we’ve published. Microsoft will certify apps on a First In, First Out (FIFO) basis. Certification should normally take about 10 business days initially and you can always check on your application during the process through our Developer Dashboard. To better market your app, you can provide us with all the product information and promotional materials you’d like us to use to describe and showcase your application for the more than 30 million Windows Mobile devices out there.

Microsoft are aiming to create a global marketplace for Windows Phones where developers and users meet to sell and buy high quality and high value applications, so in other words an iTunes app store competitor

But it all starts today with the applications, and as I mentioned earlier we’re kicking this process off with a little contest we’re calling the Race to Market Challenge.

The Race to Market Challenge is just another reason for developers to get in on the ground floor of the new Windows Marketplace. While we do sincerely believe that everyone who submits an app will benefit from being among the first available when Windows Marketplace opens for business, we’re offering a few other prizes as well.

Amazon Mp3 Launches Their Music Download Store in France

Steven Finch — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:47:41 +0000

Amazon.fr has today launched Amazon Mp3 (www.amazon.fr/mp3). The French Amazon download store will look and function in exactly the same way as the USA version. The simple to use digital music store is launching with over 5.5 million DRM-free tracks in their catalogue, in which work on any mp3 player including the iPod and iPhone.

Pricing will be similar to the UK store in which top selling albums from just €2.99 and popular individual tracks from €0.49.

Amazon MP3 has all the things that Amazon customers have come to expect from Amazon.fr – a broad selection of albums and tracks across many genres, with a simplified user interface and all at the lowest possible prices. In addition, customers can find exclusive videos from artists such as Pep’s, Phoenix, Amandine Bourgeois, Dream Theater and more on www.amazon.fr/mp3.

“Amazon is excited to provide customers in France with more ways to find, discover and buy music,” said Greg Greeley, Vice-President, Amazon EU Retail. “With the launch of Amazon MP3 in France, customers can find a vast selection of digital music along with millions of lowpriced CDs available on Amazon.fr.”

Nokia’s Ovi Store Launches Today

Steven Finch — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:35:00 +0000

Nokia’s much avaited application showcase the Ovi Store was launched today. The store contains both free and paid applications – “a mountain of mobile content” according to the the Nokia Conversations blog. The Ovi store is compatible with more than 50 Nokia devices, which the company believes gives them access to 50 million people.

Given the dominance of Nokia the Ovi store would be expected to have many more eyeballs than the iPhone App store, but at the moment their app section doesnt really seem upto scratch. I tried to download a new application but unfortunately the application was unavailable. The Ovi app section might not be fully operational with old Nokia handsets and thus they are waiting for replacement of handsets.

There are 1236 apps in all at the Ovi store, and navigation is, quite frankly, painful. The site is taking too long to load, perhaps unable to handle the first day traffic. Im quite surprised that Nokia released something that was this bad, but I kind of understand that they need to be in this market sooner rather than later even if they do have an inferior product.

A majority of the content available at the App store is paid, with one a few free applications. Paid content includes ringtones, mobile apps, games etc.

Overall the Ovi Store is very disappointing and I was expecting a lot more from Nokia. Im sure however with their resources and popularity over time they will get this right and will really challenge apple in terms of customers usability.

Amazon Launches Kindle Store for iPhone and iPod Touch

Steven Finch — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:36:18 +0000

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) today launched a Kindle Store optimized for the Safari Web browser on iPhone. Now when users of the Kindle for iPhone app click on “Get Books,” the new Kindle Store tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens automatically opens in Safari. This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store’s 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers and most New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less.

Apple App Store Hits 1 Billion Downloads

Steven Finch — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:01:25 +0000

Apple hits 1 Billion downloads from their App Store! Since launching the App store on the 27 th June last year, Apple has been making big waves with their iPhone and iPod Touch products. Apple currently pays 70% of all revenues from the App store to developers. Thus, if there was an average of $0.50 per download, then Apple would be $150m richer and App developers $350m richer.

Organise Your iPhone and iPod Touch Apps into Folders

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:23:44 +0000

No I know what most of you are thinking, why the hell isn’t this an iPhone app or why hasn’t Apple done this already, well they should have! The Next Web is reporting on a new app that is really going to help.

It’s an awesome app in Cydia called “Categories” which lets you organise your apps into folders. The app provides an array of different icons you can use, you can easily rename folders via the app and adding/removing apps is relatively easy. However, this is not available in the app store and you need to have your iPhone jailbroken.

Currently, on my iPod touch I have over 5 pages worth of applications that I use on a monthly basis. At the moment I’m having so much trouble keep track of the apps and actually arranging them so they can be easily used and organised. Apple needs to come up with an app like this, either that or they need to be able to arrange your apps directly in iTunes.

One limitation: the app doesn’t recognise iPhone web apps only genuinely local apps.

As I noted above, this is only for Jailbroken iPhones. Other features which Cydia (jailbroken app database) brings is copy & paste, 5 apps in the dock amongst hundreds of others.

Tap Tap Revenge 2: The Sequel To The Most Popular iPhone Game Ever

Steven Finch — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:19:22 +0000

The sequel to the iPhone’s most popular ever game is here, Tap Tap Revenge 2. The latest version has hit the app store today. The previous version of the game had more than six million downloads and featured licensed music from some of the worlds largest bands including Weezer and Nine Inch Nails. You can Download the app here.

Ambiance: Create an Ambiant Atmosphere with this iPhone and iPod Touch App

Steven Finch — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:14:10 +0000

Have you ever had a hard time falling asleep? Well Ambiance is for you! Ambiance is a new iphone or ipod touch app that plays relaxing sounds.

Ambiance is designed to help you create the perfect ambient atmosphere to focus and relax. You can choose from hundreds of free sounds, exclusive to Ambiance, to download and listen to, create customised sound mixes, cycle through playlists and more.

Currently, the app is only $2.99 in the app stores so check it out.

RouteNote Partners with Bittorrent Site to Distribute Live Music Sessions

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:06:45 +0000

Over at RouteNote (a free digital music distribution service) they have started to offer some of their artists live session videos via bittorrent sites. RouteNote has partned with Mininova to provide their content on the Mininova platform for all users to download for free.

At RouteNote the belief is that bittorrent clients provide a great access to millions of viewers every month. With major labels currently fighting sites like The Pirate Bay over copyright issues, it is good to see that RouteNote is adopting this technology and trying to find ways for it to help spread the word of their artists and music.

My belief is that bittorrent trackers arent going to go away any time soon, and that the technology has great benefits and sometimes you just have to think outside the box to find revenues streams. Music on the internet is currently quite a complex market and in the future I think that download sales arent going to be a key revenue stream, and more sites will appear that have advertising models such as Spotify and Imeem. The era of CDs and albums are over, artists will have to produce great tracks not albums and then promote these either as paid downloads or for mass adoption which makes money in other forms.

RouteNote downloads can be found at Mininova.

Disclosure: Im CEO of Insomnia Ltd which ownes RouteNote

Dell Download Store Launches With Games, Music and Software at Great Prices

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:49:50 +0000

Dell has finally launched their new download store. Dell has partnered with French company Nexway to release the download store which offers music, games and software. The Dell download store allows all worldwide users to purchase games and software, but there currently is a restriction on music because of “publishing and licencing agreements with [Dell's] digital music partners.”

The music files will be available from major labels and will include leading artists, all without digital right managements solutions as MP3 files.

The store currently sells the Brit Awards 2009 for £9.99; both Play.com and Amazon did not have the album available for digital download.

Single tracks are available for 79 pence but the user interface lacks the intuitiveness of other available solutions like 7digital.

Accomedion: Keyboard Harmonica and Accordion iPhone App

Steven Finch — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:21:23 +0000

Accomedion is a new musical instrument application that combines a keyboard harmonica and an accordion.
Sound sources from keyboard harmonica are used, and chord buttons similar to the ones on accordion are attached. The wide range of tunes will be played as accompaniment.

Main functions
- Capable to shift between major chord and minor chord
- Capable to record and replay up to three tunes
- Five demonstration tunes are stored. Capable to play in accordance with the tutorial guide.
- You can play it like a real keyboard harmonica by blowing the microphone. (iPhone only)

You can download this application from the iTunes store here.

Amazon Launches Casual Gaming Download Store

Steven Finch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:01:51 +0000

Amazon has launched on Tuesday a new video game download store. The site itself can be found here. The initial library offers over 600 games which are all under $10. All casual games are currently for the PC platform, but Im sure this will branch out in the near future.

The store allows customers to download and try any game for 30 minutes, after which point they may choose to pay for the full version.

“We have 88 million active customers who can appreciate the convenience of the true amazon shopping experience combined with the casual games experience,” Greg Hart, VP of video games and software at Amazon, told Kotaku.

While the service currently lacks some of the more popular casual games from top publishers, it will look to expand its selection.

Amazon recently acquired casual game developer Reflexive, which counts a library of over 1,000 games.

First Look: Chordica: iPhone App That Allows Anyone To Easily Make Music

Steven Finch — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:14:18 +0000

I received a very interesting email today about a new iPhone / iPod Touch application that will be launching in the App store very shortly. Take a look at the video below and let me know what you think about Chordica.

Apple Hits The 500 Million Download Mark for Apps Store

Steven Finch — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:24:36 +0000

Apple has announced today that they have reached the 500 million download mark for iPhone / iPod Touch applications from their appstore.

It has been reported by Mashable and TheNextWeb that the 300 million download happened on December 5th, thus more than 200 million downloads have happened in the last 5 weeks. For Apple these are some very impressive stats and it just shows their push just within iTunes. Currently their are approximately 15,000 apps available in the Apple App Store, and im sure this will rise very quickly. Compare the App Store success to iTunes when it first began, because iTunes took almost two years to hit the 500 million download mark.

Amazon Mp3 Store Launches For UK Market

Steven Finch — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:19:48 +0000

Amazon has just launched their Mp3 Music store in the UK. The store can be found at http://mp3.amazon.co.uk. The simple-to-use digital music store offering over 3 million DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) songs which will work on any MP3 player including the iPod™- with top-selling albums from just £3 and individual songs from 59p.

Amazon Mp3 UK has all four major labels signed up, SonyBMG, Universal Music, EMI Music and Warner Music – and leading independents such as Cooking Vinyl, Harmonia Mundi, Beggars Banquet, The Orchard, Concord and IODA.

Greg Greeley, Vice-President of Amazon EU Retail said: “We’re excited to provide our UK customers with more ways to discover and enjoy great music. In addition to the millions of low-priced CDs available in our music store, Amazon MP3 now provides a vast selection of DRM-free albums and songs across every genre you can think of, ready to enjoy in seconds”.

How To Create an iTunes U.S. Store Account Without a Credit Card

Steven Finch — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:53:57 +0000

Over at gHacks they have a great article about how to create an iTunes U.S. account without a credit card.

Here are the basics from the article!

The first thing you do is to download the iTunes software and install it. Once that is done start it and locate the Redeem link in the top right Quick Links menu.

This will load a page with a form that accepts coupons and gift certificates. All you need to is to paste a coupon code into the form and click on Redeem to send it to iTunes. Coupons can be found here or here.

The iTunes software will throw an error message if the gift certificate or coupon is no longer valid. That however is not a problem at all. Return to the homepage by clicking on the home icon in the upper left corner of the iTunes store.

Once the homepage has loaded it is time to create the account. You can do that by clicking on the Sign In button on the upper right corner of the iTunes store. It offers you login possibilities and a button to create a new account. Click on that button.

Click continue on the welcome page and accept the terms and conditions of the iTunes store in the second. This finally leads to the account creation page.

Enter your details on that page and continue to the next and final step of the account creation.

If everything went well you should now see the page where you can select a payment method and enter the address of the account. The payment method has to offer None as one option for this to work. If that is the case choose none. Now you need to enter an US address in the last step to create the account.

The zip code, state and city have to match. Everything else does not. Just select the location of a friend or relative to be on the safe side but it is practically possible to enter any information you like.

The account will be created in the last step and the contents of the US iTunes store are now available.

Pocket Clapper: iPhone App for Making Motion Pictures More Fun

Steven Finch — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:48:30 +0000

This is a new iPhone application on the market that I thought would make a few people smile. Its a motion picture clapper. Pocket Clapper is its name and it is now available for sale in the iTunes App store for $0.99.

Pocket Clapper is a pocket size gadget which can be used for making a clap sound whenever it is necessary. It is also possible for you to write the outline of a shooting scene on the blackboard in Pocket Clapper with a white chalk.

Available here on the iTunes App Store.

Napster Is Looking For a Buyer. They Should Never Have Turned Into a Download Store!

Steven Finch — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:41:32 +0000

Napster has hinted that the company is up for sale again, saying in its response to a dissident shareholder group that the company is once again exploring possible strategic alternatives, and has retained UBS Investment Bank to assist in the process. The company hired UBS two years ago to explore a possible sale, but no deal emerged. Napster informed shareholders of the move in a letter that also said the company believes that three proposed dissident board candidates are “unqualified.”

The company said the dissident candidates “have offered no specific business plan, other than suggesting a vague review of Napster’s business,” and also “have no significant ownership in Napster and, in fact, have been frequent sellers of Napster stock.”

Napster instead urged shareholders to re-elect its current slate of independent directors.

I predicted something like this happening to Napster back in December of last year. Napster has a business model that was rapidly decreasing and they didn’t even look like changing it. The company has a great brand, but they are still just moving in the wrong direction. A download store was never going to be right for this brand, they should have done something ad supported and in the same market as Imeem, build a community around this great brand. I so wish I had control of this brand!

Amazom Relaunches Latin Music Store

Steven Finch — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:18:53 +0000

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the relaunch of its Latin Music Store, www.amazon.com/latin, with Earth’s largest selection of Latin music titles. Focused on delivering Tu Musica, Tu Sabor (Your Music, Your Flavor) to customers, the newly updated Amazon Latin Music Store carries nearly 140,000 unique titles and brings both English-language and Spanish-language content to Amazon customers. The store features nine categories including, Latin Pop, Latin Rock, Regional Mexican, Tropical, Urban, World, Latin Children’s, Latin Christian and Latin Jazz along with 23 subcategories.

Spiral Frog Claim To Be Third Largest Legal Music Download Store

Steven Finch — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:24:33 +0000

Minic over at 901am has reported that Spiral Frog is now the third largest legal music download site. Spiral Frog reports that they have 850,000 registered users, thus putting them in third largest behind iTunes and Rhapsody. The company also reports that their traffic is also increasing at a constant rate, already surpassing two million unique visitors for March.

Im not really too sure if Spiral Frog should claim the fact that they are the third largest legal download store, mainly because they dont actually sell anything compared to iTunes and Rhapsody. Therefore, they should really be in first place, because people are willing to sign up to something in which they have the opportunity to get something for free rather than paying.

LimeWire Download Store Finally Launches

Steven Finch — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:31:28 +0000

After about 6 months of announcing plans, the LimeWire store has finally launched. The site is completely separate from the LimeWire peer to peer file sharing application. The company is planning on slowly integrating both services and then finally moving to a legitimate store. All tracks are available as 256kbps MP3 files. Pricing is $.99 for a single track. Or you can get 25 downloads per month for $9.99, 50 for $14.99 or 75 for $19.99. At that last price, you essentially get 75 songs for $.27 each, assuming you actually download 75 tracks each month.

Limewire has already announced some great partnerships including Nettwerk and Redeye. It is going to be very interesting to see how they can prevent customers from downloading music from their store and then sharing the music via their free P2p network.

Disclosure: LimeWire is a partner of RouteNote in which I am currently CEO.

Amazon Download Store Finally Open

Steven Finch — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:16:40 +0000

After more than a year of speculation, The Amazon DRM-free download store Â has finally opened with an impressive 2,323,235 mp3’s available from 180,000 artists on 20,000 labels. All tracks are 256 kps mp3’s priced at 89 to 99 cents.

Included are thousands of tracks from Universal (more it appears than are available elsewhere) and virtually the entire EMI catalog including Radiohead and Pink Floyd. Missing are digital hold outs The Beatles and Bob Seger.

Leading independent labels offering their catalog of music for the first time DRM-free include Alligator, HighTone, Madacy, Sanctuary, Rounder, Righteous Babe, Sugar Hill, Trojan and Phillip Glass’ Orange Mountain.

Press Release