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Mobile Apps

Google to Introduce Restaurant Wait Times on Google Search and Maps

Do you hate planning a nice night out at your favorite restaurant just to learn that there’s a two hour wait time when you get there? I do. When I get to the restaurant, I’m usually fairly hungry (and I get hangry quite soon after that), so if there’s a long wait time, I usually end up eating somewhere else, and it often ruins my dining experience because my first destination was really where I wanted to eat. Well, thanks to Google, I will soon be able to check estimated wait times at restaurants around me ahead of time and plan accordingly. Neat.

Google already introduced this feature to show you which days of the week and time of day were the busiest for local businesses a little over two years ago, and the restaurant wait time is a great addition to this feature. The feature will allow users to see a chart showing popular time of attendance for restaurants. When you click on a time frame, a pop up box will appear containing either live or historical data (collected from Google users who enable Google Location History) showing whether the time frame you selected is usually “busy”, “usually busy,” “usually not busy,” etc., and the estimated wait time for a table. You’ll also be able to see how long diners typically take to finish their meals (for example, it’ll say “People typically spend 1hr to 2hr here”)

Unfortunately, and unlike the NoWait app, the new feature on Google Search and Google Maps won’t allow you to put your name on the waiting list ahead of time at establishments that don’t take reservations. The feature is being rolled out today both on mobile devices and desktops across the globe and will show data for over one million sit-down restaurants worldwide, so chances are your favorite hang-out place will be included. According to Google, once the feature is rolled out to Android devices, it will be working on adding busy and wait times in various grocery stores, as well, which would be extremely helpful to shorten shopping trips.

Dec 20, 2017 0 comment

iPad iPhone Mobile Apps

New iOS Game ‘Frost’ is Novel, Beautiful and Addictive

written by Don Eminizer

I’m a big fan of non-conventional games, i.e. games that don’t follow the same cookie cutter formula as so many do. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all sorts of games, but when I come across something that offers a novel approach to gaming, I’m more than a little curious. And Frost does just that, in a really good way.

The concept of the game is to guide swarms of light towards an orb of the same color using your finger. I have to say here that the first thing that caught my attention were the graphics. The background is pretty neutral, but it almost needs to be to allow those beautiful glimmering swarms of light to be displayed in all their glory (you can have a look for yourself here). Everything is light and smooth and somewhat appeasing and inviting at the same time, and I can easily imagine myself almost zoning out while the background music (a nice, soothing piano) drones on.

All right, so now on to why the game is different from countless others. First, it doesn’t tell you what you need to do, instead letting you figure it out for yourself. As far as puzzle games go, I feel like this is a very good thing. I like the challenge, but it doesn’t stop there. As games do, Frost gets progressively harder the more levels you beat, and the ‘rules’ change along the way. For example, in the first few levels, I was able to easily guide the light swarms right to their orbs. Later on, the swarms were actually scattering away from my finger until I realized that I had to use a different colored swarm to herd them and push them towards the orb. And then there are obstacles like light beams cutting you off, the need to mix two swarms to make the right color according to the orb, etc.

It’s a game I don’t mind spending a lot of time figuring out each level, simply because moving the swarms of light around is fun in of itself. If you enjoy puzzle games that keep on puzzling you, this one may just be what you’re looking for – but it’s currently only available for iOS devices. You can get it here for $4.99.

Dec 2, 2017 0 comment

iPad iPhone marketing Mobile Apps

AR View is Amazon’s New Virtual Shopping Feature

written by Don Eminizer

Not to be left behind by the likes of IKEA and Target, Amazon is rolling out its new AR View feature today for iOS devices running Apple’s latest OS, iOS 11, and iPhones 6S or higher. The new feature will let customers choose from thousands of items available on Amazon’s web site and, using their smartphone’s camera, see how they would look in their own living space. It’s a neat feature and one that is becoming increasingly popular. What’s different in Amazon’s case is that it doesn’t limit product selection to bigger items like furniture – customer can visualize anything from ‘Toys and Games’ to ‘Electronics’. Other categories include ‘Home Décor’, ‘Living Room’, ‘Bedroom’ and ‘Kitchen’. I’m not sure that people really need to visualize a Tonka truck sitting in their living room though, but the ‘Toys and Games’ category could potentially be useful for larger items such as the Hot Wheels garage that I never should have bought my son last Christmas. Seriously, the thing is huge.

But back to Amazon. I like that the app offers categories because it makes it easier to navigate through relevant items. I can see myself visualizing how a large mixer will look on my kitchen counter and whether the beside lamps will match with my beside tables. This feature is most definitely better than what Amazon was offering before, namely its ‘AR Stickers’. They looked like a cartoon version of the items you selected and frankly, the white border around them made it almost impossible to get a really good idea of how the items would look in your home.

I am once again left with only one criticism regarding these blooming virtual shopping capabilities: when I buy furniture, especially whey I buy a couch I intend to sit on for long periods of time, I want to know whether or not it’s comfortable. A couch means nothing to me if it looks fantastic but isn’t a pleasure to sit on. In the case of retailers who have brick and mortar stores, one could argue that we could pay the store a visit to test the couch before buying it. In Amazon’s case, that could prove to be a little tricky.

Nov 22, 2017 0 comment

iPhone

You Can Teach Siri How to Pronounce Names Properly

written by Don Eminizer

We all have that one friend or family member with a name that sounds nothing like it’s spelled. The one for me that immediately comes to mind is my friend Jordonne – everyone thinks it should sound like JOR-DONE when in fact her parents were just spelling what they wanted to sound like JOR-DAN in a quirky way. Of course, I also have to contend with my own last name (which, by the way, is pronounced EM-EN-I-ZER), but I don’t often need to call myself from my iPhone, so in this case it’s a non-issue. But it can be a pain in the you know what when I want to ask Siri to call my friend Jordonne, because it never recognizes the contact – and so I have to go in manually and look her up in my directory. But now, I can teach Siri just how to pronounce – and recognize the name when I ask her to dial for me.

Here’s how you do it: First, ask Siri to bring up your contact’s information by spelling out their name (rather than just using the pronunciation you know to be correct). Siri will oblige, bringing up the contact information and saying the contact name (wrongly, for now). You then need to let her know that she’s not saying it right by saying “Siri, you pronounced it wrong”. Siri will ask you if you’re both talking about the same person, you will tap “yes”, and then she will ask you for the correct pronunciation. All you need to do from here is give her the appropriate pronunciation, and Siri will respond with a few variants of it (all similar sounding) so you can pick the closest one and voilà – Siri now knows that Jordonne is pronounced Jordan. From here on, whenever you ask Siri to perform a task involving that person, she will know who you’re talking about and pronounce it correctly as well.

Alternatively, you can also correct Siri’s understanding and pronunciation of a name via typing. Simply go into the appropriate contact sheet, down to the ‘add’ field, add the pronunciation option and type your contact’s name phonetically.Additionally, if Siri isn’t pronouncing your own name properly when addressing you, you can ask her “Siri, who am I?” and after she answers say “Siri, you pronounced that wrong” and then go about correcting the issue in one of the two ways explained above.

Nov 17, 2017 0 comment

marketing Mobile Apps

myCheckout is Target’s Latest Customer Service App

written by Don Eminizer

We’re hearing a lot of good things about Target lately, and myCheckout is yet another one. It’s a very simple thing, but one that I wish more stores would look into. Basically, myCheckout will allow Target employees to order items for customers when said items are out of stock, so that customers don’t have to check back in later. So, for example, if you’re shopping at Target for shoes but can’t find your size, or are looking for that particular brand of coffee but the store is out of stock, you can find a target employee who, using a handheld mobile device, will locate exactly what you want online. You will then whip out your credit card, which the employee will insert inn the device, pay for your items and go back home to await delivery. Customers who opt for this option will receive an email notification, just like they would had they ordered the item themselves from home. Or, if you need the item right away, the Target employee will be able to tell you if it’s available in any other nearby Target so you can go and buy it from there.

I often find that it’s the little things that many business don’t really think about that make the biggest difference. I mean, this new service from Target is just so convenient! How often has this scenario happened to all of us? More often that I’d like, and Target’s solution to this problem is both clever and shows just how far it’s ready to go to make life easier for its customers. Of course, customers can order online themselves if they so wish, but if you’re already in the store shopping for supplies, why not get the ordering done right there and be done with it? It makes total sense.

The service was already being tested in select Target stores since last spring and this testing period has already processed over 10,000 transactions. Target says that its myCheckout service will be implemented across all stores in time for the holiday season which, again, makes a lot of sense and will indubitably make shopping for the holidays much easier for Target customers.

Nov 2, 2017 0 comment

Mobile Apps

Some of the Best Learning Apps for Kids

written by Don Eminizer

It sometimes feels like kids nowadays were born with a tablet in hand and the innate knowledge of how to use it. I know my 5 year old probably knows more about his Kindle Kids tablet than I could ever hope to learn. And that’s great, in a way, because the future seems to be headed towards all-digital environments – my 9 year old nephew is required to have an iPad to attend his school. But it’s important to me that my son’s tablet be more than a platform for games and videos – I want some of the time he spends on it to channel learning and encourage his curiosity. Here are a few of the best learning apps that my son doesn’t mind using, because they help him learn in a fun way.

DragonBox Numbers

Designed for kids aged 5 and up, this app focuses on math and numbers. It teaches children the rudiments of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing using fun little characters called Nooms. Kids can stack them up, slice them, group them, sort them and compare them. The app also offers a sandbox section where children can just play with the Nooms and get acquainted with basic numbers. DragonBox Numbers is $7.99 on the Apple Store.

Space

Tinybop’s Space app is a wonderful way to introduce children as young as 3 to space and the solar system. The beautiful graphics are inviting and aren’t marred by loads of text. Children can explore each planet and learn more about their characteristics, learn about the phases of the moon, and even launch meteorites and shooting stars. The app also allows kids to zoom in close and observe the surface of each planet, looking for water or moon rocks. Best of all, it’s only $2.99.

The Human Body

Another of Tinybop’s creations, The Human Body teaches kids about anatomy but also about how the body works. For example, kids can watch a mouth chew, then follow the food down to the stomach and watch it as it is broken down. The app also teaches about the nervous system, cardiovascular system, and so on. The sounds effects and graphics are truly spectacular, and the rendition of the human body, while not cartoonish, isn’t scary or gory either. The Human Body can be purchased for only $3.99 here.

Oct 30, 2017 0 comment

marketing Mobile Apps

Target’s New AR App Lets You Furnish Your Home Virtually

written by Don Eminizer

I find shopping for furniture to be a mostly frustrating process. Yes, it’s great to be getting a new couch or bed, but once you’ve found something you like, you have to make sure it’ll fit in the space you saved for it, figure out if it’ll go well with your other furniture and general décor, and on more than one occasion, even after measuring carefully and making a final decision, I found myself either not liking the final look of the room or realizing that I didn’t measure that carefully after all. In short, shopping for furniture is a pain that doesn’t always leads to good or satisfying results.

This is why I’m glad to hear that Target has taken some of the hassle out of furniture shopping by introducing an app that allows shoppers to take a picture of a room in their home and drag pieces of the retailer’s furniture to see how they would look in any space. The app also allows users to move and rotate furniture to their heart’s content, making it easy to see 1) if the furniture will fit in the space and 2) if it will go well with the rest of the house. Brilliant.

This new app comes on the heels of other high-tech new features for Target, who recently introduced, in collaboration with Pinterest, an app that allows users to take a picture of an object they like and see what similar objects are available at Target. It is perhaps important to mention that this new app is only available through mobile web as, according to a Target spokesperson, “…by using mobile web, it’s a simple experience — guests can easily snap pictures using their phone, they don’t have to use any additional hardware or apps. We just felt like it was a really straightforward experience.”

There are currently only 200 pieces of furniture to choose from at the moment, but Target is confident that there will be many, many more added to the app by 2018. The app also allows customers to add whatever piece of furniture to their cart, making the whole process fast and easy. The only downside to shopping virtually is that one would have no idea how comfortable their new couch or chair might be, but I suppose one could make their way to the store to try them on after they’ve ascertained that the piece will be a welcome addition to their home.

Oct 30, 2017 0 comment

marketing Mobile Apps

Amazon Key Will Allow Couriers to Deliver Your Packages Right in Your House

written by Don Eminizer

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Walmart’s testing of store-to-fridge delivery, which would allow Walmart employees to gain access to your home while you’re out to put your groceries away for you – an idea that I thought was novel but left me skeptic because Walmart did not require you to have a security camera to supervise the process. Amazon is now taking this idea a step further with its new Amazon Key service, which will allow couriers to deliver your packages right inside your front door if you’re not home, instead of relying on a ‘safe’ place of your choosing outside your house. And Amazon, unlike Walmart, does require you to have a camera to make sure nothing is stolen or untoward – more specifically, Amazon’s Cloud Cam. Here’s how it works.

You install a smart lock on your door, and Amazon’s Cloud Cam to your home (if you don’t already have one). When the courier arrives with your package, he or she will scan the bar code, which will activate an access request to the cloud. Once approved, the camera will start recording, the courier uses the app to unlock your door, leaves the package, re-locks your door and leaves. Once the process is complete, you get a notification on your app and a feed of the footage covering the delivery, which puts your mind at ease that all is well back at home. I’m more on board with this idea because 1) you are required to have a camera to cover the process (which is also a good thing for the courier, as if something is missing, or the house burglarized on the day of the delivery, they cannot be blamed) and 2) the courier doesn’t actually enter your house at all, simply reaches inside to drop your package. This, to me, makes more sense than Walmart’s potentially unsecure, almost invasion-of-privacy delivery idea.

What’s also neat about Amazon Key is that it isn’t merely for deliveries: you could use the key to let other people (people you trust, I should specify) like house cleaners, temporary guests or house sitters without wondering who you’ve given a key to and how many of them came back. You decide who can get in and when, and if you find out that someone has stolen from you or you simply don’t want them back, they can’t disappear with your key causing you to have to change the lock.

Oct 30, 2017 0 comment

Android iPad iPhone marketing Mobile Apps

eBay Has A New “Find It On eBay” Function

written by Don Eminizer

It seems like no one wants to be left behind on image searches. In recent weeks, Target has both partnered with Pinterest to add their ‘Lens’ feature to Target’s app, letting customers look for items similar to what they want using pictures, and introduced its new AR tool that allows potential furniture buyers to take a picture of any room in their house and see how a certain piece of furniture fits it. Now, eBay has launched pretty much the same feature as Target and Instagram’s ‘Lens’, with an added feature that is pretty neat. Whenever a shopper goes on line and sees something they like, all they have to do is click “Find it on eBay” and the app will automatically look through its billions of listings to try and find the same item, or will offer items that are as close in similarity with the picture as possible.

It seems that retailers are catching on to the fact that potential customers can be frustrated by word searches; indeed, and I’ve been there myself, it can be difficult and awkward to accurately describe, say, the exact shape of a flower vase or to find any specific object without knowing its brand. When my wife saw the perfect red shoes being worn by a stranger at the mall, she came home to look for them on the great wide web…I can’t begin to tell you how many images Google spit out at her ‘red high heels’ search terms. She never did find the ones she oh so liked, and image search would have been a great help to her at the time – assuming she could have taken a discreet picture of the lucky lady’s pumps.

The feature’s deep learning model (which is called a convolutional neural network, for those who are interested) gets smarter the more image searches it goes through, which means that it gradually gets better at producing results that are close to the original image (assuming that it doesn’t have just the thing you’re looking for, that is).

‘Find it on eBay’ is now live only on eBay’s Android app, but the ‘Image Search’ feature can be used both on Android and iOS devices.

Oct 28, 2017 0 comment

Mobile Apps Social Media Wearable

Twitter’s app for iWatch is dead

written by Don Eminizer

Or, at least, it seems to have disappeared. I’ve looked on the iTunes App Store page just to double check and, sure enough, the option to download or upgrade the Twitter app for the smart watch is gone. Every user who had updated their Apple Watch to the latest version of iOS and watchOS have noticed that the Twitter app no longer appears on their smart watch.

Twitter isn’t the first company to have removed its app from the Apple Watch. Google Maps, finding Apple Maps too much of a competition, have already dropped the iWatch. Amazon and eBay have also retired their apps from the smart watch. But in these cases, I can understand why. Most people shop on a computer, or tablet, or smart phone. The iWatch’s interface just isn’t conducive to that kind of activity. That’s why their disappearing from the Apple Watch went mostly under the radar – because very few people had those apps installed, very few missed them once they were gone.

With Twitter though, it’s another story altogether. Twitter’s popularity may be dwindling, but those users who tweeted regularly liked to be able to read updates and answer tweets from their smart watch. Many of them have tweeted their concerns (and have even complained) about Twitter removing its app from the Apple Watch. As far as tries to get its user growth back on track, this definitely isn’t Twitter’s best attempt, and it could mean serious backlash at a time when the social media platform can use all the help it can get. Worse of all seems to be the fact that Twitter effected the change without so much as a warning for its faithful users, whose tweets read as genuinely surprised and confused. Some users are asking Twitter to bring the app back, while others are appealing to tech support, wondering why the app is gone, tweeting: “@AppleSupport why isn’t twitter showing up on the Apple Watch?”.

Twitter’s saving grace may be that even without the app, users will still receive notifications from Twitter, notifications that will now hold more context than they did before. Users will not be able to see who posted a reply, and what it said, even if they are no longer able to browse their feed.

Sep 28, 2017 0 comment