Blogger iOS App: What Took You so Long?

The Blogger UI compared with Google+ and SquareSpace apps. (One thought: orange, seriously?)

I have just downloaded the first official Blogger iOS app from Google this morning. I am posting my initial thoughts and reactions while trying it out.

Firstly, I have to note that it is surprising that it took Google so long to launch this product. They introduced an Android version of the app earlier this year. The iPhone is four years old now and plenty of third-party Blogger client apps have been brought to market in that time, so the demand for this product has been there. Leaving aside the current antipathy between Google and Apple, the iPhone has a substantial user base that has to be well worth serving. Plus, I do not think the shine has gone off mobile blogging yet.

For a long-awaited product this app is very rudimentary. All of Google’s services, including Blogger, have all been getting a badly needed and long overdue update of their UI over the course of this Summer and are now much improved. There is little evidence of that kind of design thinking in the 1.0 release of this app. The recent Google+ app has been criticised in my circles for lacking functionality, features and finish. However, it is a work of art compared to this product.

My only experience to date with a blogging app has been the official SquareSpace client app that I use for our company website. The difference in both appearance and functionality between the two apps is stark. This Blogger 1.0 app is such a bare-bones client in contrast.

Given they have taken so long to provide this minimal app, I wonder how aggressive their update schedule is going to be and how much focus, attention and support Blogger is getting within Google. This product needs a lot of iteration.

Some people are all about their blog analytics and I expect that they will be a strongly requested feature for the next release, but I will be asking for Markdown support in version 1.1. (Pretty please.)

We Are All Semi-Geeks Now

Waiting on a friend in a bar the other night, I noticed that all of the conversations going on simultaneously at the three nearest tables (it was a small bar: everyone was pretty close together) were all about tech and/or social media. Now this was not a high-tech, early-adopter crowd, it was a typical off-Grafton Street Thursday night shopping crowd.

My Twenty Primary iPod/iPhone Apps

As people do seem to be asking me about iPhone/iPod apps quite a lot these days, I am posting this here so that in future I shall have something I can link to. Borrowing the format established by the excellent First and 20 website I have listed the twenty apps that are most useful to me and thus have earned a spot on my home screen. I am forever adding and subtracting apps off my iPod, but this core set remains consistent and any new app needs to really make an impression on me to knock one of these twenty off my first screen in SpringBoard.

Viral Bennymation

Over on KingKongsFinger, Benny has posted a quirky short animation he has created. It is based on that Garda Station prank phone call viral audio that has been doing the rounds recently, and was covered in the media over the weekend. There is an admirable flavour of Flann O’Brien to his piece. (Watch out for the bemused cow near the end.) It will be interesting to see how this animated version fares — it is definitely YouTube-friendly.

Postscript: After getting a lot of coverage, primarily in Bloggorah, but on many other blogs, the server in Galway that hosts Benny's site has more or less been slash-dotted, and the above link will return a 404. There is a lower-resolution version of the short on YouTube. There have been over 9,000 views as of 30 January 2007. Way to go Benjamin!

iPhone, uPhone, We All Phone

Seemingly Apple launched a mobile phone this week. You may have read about it. But seriously...
The rumour mill has been predicting the iPhone ever since the video iPod was announced. Apple’s watertight communications policy meant that no hints or leaks were forthcoming from Cupertino. Astute tech journalists were able to piece together some possible details about the product from analysis of Apple’s recent patent applications. Industry chatter about material orders and production schedules of the various Asian subcontractors provided more information. The notional phone was a recurring conversation topic on TWiT for weeks. Such is to state that what was being announced on Tuesday was surely the worst-kept secret in the tech industry.

But when what was still, by definition, a rumour can have a material effect on the telecommunications sector, I believe that is worth taking note of. Like it or not, varying degrees of rumour and gossip are strong currency within the blogosphere. Much more so than in traditional media. It therefore seems worthwhile thinking about how organisations, or individuals for that matter, manage their reputation within such an environment. Carefully crafted statements and press releases are increasing worth very little in the face of the collective opinion and the wisdom of the crowds.

Another fascinating aspect of his iPhone story is just the shear volume of online coverage and commentary that it has generated, and far beyond the usual Apple advocates. Nearly every blog that I read regularly has posted something about it this week. And this is not just tech blogs: I am talking about a broad spectrum of marketing blogs, branding blogs, graphic design blogs, web design blogs and a few literary author’s blogs in the mix as well. (This could equally just reflect on the fact that 95% of the blogs I read are written by white males with some in-built geeky pro-gadget bias.) More to the point, this has to be the first time I can recall a product announcement getting a full-page article in the editorial spread of The Irish Times. But for just plain silliness it will be hard to top the link I received for Kottke’s iPhone size comparison post with photos of a cut-out iPhone placed beside similar products. Unintentionally hilarious.

Delicious Tags: iPhone | Apple | Mobile
Technorati Tags: iPhone | Apple | Mobile

Vodafone Brand Mark Evolution

I see that Vodafone have refreshed their brand mark. A poster outside Clonsilla train station featuring the new three-dimensional, gradient-shaded iteration of their quote-mark symbol got my attention yesterday. A bit of digging on Wikipedia reveals that ‘Vodafone is gradually phasing-in the new 3D logo version in some countries’.


I had already noticed that Vodafone have been implementing a new bespoke corporate typeface over the last few months. This has followed in the wake of their make the most of now repositioning. What caught my eye at the time was that they had implemented their new typeface all the way through to the text in the routine promotional form letters that I receive as a customer. It is too often the case (due to licensing costs) that the New Corporate Typeface only ever lives in above-the-line and agency-created communications, while the vast majority of direct customer interaction remains typeset in some pre-installed Arial-esque font family. (For that reason, I would be interested in seeing Vodafone’s updated suite of presentation templates.)

A more subtle visual evolution has been their switch in emphasis from communications that predominately feature red with white elements reversed out, to a white field with red elements overlaid. Which has the effect of dialing back the cumulative impression of their brand from being overtly brash to a somewhat more considered tone.

This subsequent move to typeset their logotype in this new typeface (Vodafone Sans?) and refresh the treatment of their symbol surprised me at first. But after some thought, I can see the benefits it will bring them. One of the increasingly key functions of their brand mark will be as an element within the on-screen interface of the next iteration of consumer smartphones. Their old logotype with its clever little quote-marks-within-the counters motif is just not going to execute effectively given the limitations in the pixel-scarce environment of today’s technology.


As all of the mobile operators rush to brand their user’s experience of online services accessed wirelessly, having a symbol that can work equally well as an icon, and uses some of the aesthetic tropes of today’s 3D desktops icons, is no bad thing. Picture this symbol as an icon on your desktop beside Skype. In design terms there is a definite nod towards Doug Hamilton’s identity for Three in the evolution of the quote symbol. Three’s brand mark concept of a brushed metallic, technological exterior revealing a colourful, communicative heart seems equally applicable to this new quote mark treatment. I also see echoes of the SonyEricsson sphere. A symbol that is most effective when it is realised in three dimensions on mobile handsets. How long before the current screen-printed Vodafone branding on handsets is replaced by such integral fabricated branding? Especially considering the escalating power struggle between the handset makers and the operators and the shift represented by Vodafone’s own-branded ‘Simply’ handset.

Trying to analyse the change from the existing flat colour treatment to the new 3D mark also makes me think of last year’s rebranding of DC Comics. Where that company realised that the vast majority of its consumers never encountered the brand in its core printed product. So their new brand mark is designed to work best animated in the credit sequences to films like Batman Begins, and television shows like Smallville and licensed video games. How it looks on the cover of their traditional 32-page comic books is far less important today.

Altered circumstances: adapted brand.

Technorati Tags: corporate identity | branding | logo | vodafone

WriteMobileGo!

It seems that Charlie Stross is now planning to write his next novel on his mobile phone. Which may not turn out to be such a masochistic endeavour as I first thought when I heard about this yesterday. If he undertakes it using some flavour of Bluetooth keyboard rather than a smartphone/stylus combo – which really would be a brave/foolhardy attempt.

I encountered the limitations inherent in using that class of technology when I wrote a Lemony Snicket parody novella for Valerie’s birthday in Graffiti-Script on my Palm PDA a few years ago. (Which project wore a serious indentation onto the writing area on the screen too.)

Although, I should point out that at least ninety percent of the posts on Thoughport are stylus-scribed on my PDA; written on the morning train and then posted online over coffee. Which has the benefit (to my readers) of keeping most of the posts concise, as it is only a half-hour commute.

Go Charlie Go!

Addendum: I just registered the other statement in Charlie’s post that Neal Stephenson wrote all of The Baroque Cycle long-hand with a fountain pen! The combined page count of those three volumes runs close to 2,500 printed pages. Now that is determination.

Technorati Tags: writing | author

And Now Via the Ether...

Posting this one from my mobile email account. This time from my Sony Ericsson T610 handset over the mobile network. So lets see if the technology works...

Third Time Is the Charm...

Posting this over email from my mobile account.
Hopefully I will have put the correct Blogger email address into my phone’s contacts file this time!
(Sent over IP.)