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2:32 – New New Twitter
- Redesign web and mobile clients
- As a company, create the simplest, fastest service in the world that will allow us to reach every person on the planet. Went through entire service. Mobile, web, got it down to four key elements.
- Home Timeline (browser-style “home” icon). First navigational element. Simple, clean, universe of tweet is now contained within the tweet on multiple platforms. Web site, iPhone, Android, HTML5 mobile, Tweetdeck, etc. Retweets, favorites, etc. all right there. Additionally, click on tweet, copy embed code, stick in the story. Everything follows it in. Wasn’t just a change in the interface. Not just adding a couple features to Twitter. Product engineers, infrastructure engineers focused on making it as fast as possible.
- Connect (@ symbol). We wanted to create the easiest way to reach others. Enter username. Or retweet. Where you’re being mentioned. Any conversations that you have. Everything that you’re doing socially on Twitter is in here.
Discover (# symbol). The newest navigation element. When people see a hashtag on a billboard, can click on the symbol, enter the tag they say, and relevant conversations will surface. Come to Twitter and want to see what’s happening in your world. More than 250 million tweets per day, we’ll surface whatever seems relevant to your world. Discover experience is personalized, so the more you engage, the more personalized they’ll become. Activities. What tweets are my friends following. Who are friends following.
Me (profile outline icon). We wanted to group everything that happens about you in one specific area. Favorites, media, tweets. Wanted to tell more compelling stories. Profile pages for individual users much richer. Media: pictures, videos, etc. Best place to represent yourself on the internet. Also for brands.
- Also providing bigger branding pages
- Twitter for iPhone and Android also available right now. Downloading app unlocks new version on web site. Roll out new version to 100% of users in the next few weeks.
- Tweetdeck also rewritten for Mac – native and no longer written in Adobe Air but missing many of the power features of Tweetdeck
8:04 – Spotify Apps
- Not a pivot, but Spotify is adding apps
- Spotify is letting third party developers expand on its functionality using its API and offering the results to users in a new HTML5 app directory, CEO Daniel Ek announced today in New York.
- Developers have already have already built apps with features like the ability to find and purchase concert tickets, a way to display a song’s lyrics on-screen through TuneWiki and deeper Last.fm integration for better music recommendations.
- Rolling Stone cofounder and publisher Jann Wenner took to the stage to sing Spotify’s praises, just before Ek unveiled the application that Rolling Stone built to work within Spotify. It takes publication-curated playlists to a new level with a rich HTML5 interface and more room for editorial content.
- The move attempts to rebrand Spotify as more of a platform, much as Facebook once did when it opened up the ability for developers to build applications on top of the social network. It’s a wise move for Spotify, which faces a rapidly-expanding user base and only a limited capacity to roll out new features itself. By opening up its platform to developers, Spotify allows for more rapid innovation without distracting itself from the core product.
- Other available apps include SongKick, The Guardian, Billboard and Soundrop, presumably with plenty more to come. Any developer can code apps for Spotify but they do have to be approved by the company before appearing in the directory.
- Loving this – great playlists – really helps with discovery
- Brought me back to Spotify…but don’t know for how long
11:39 – Super Connected Cities coming to the UK
- The government will take £100m from the £5bn national infrastructure investment pot over the course of this Parliament in a move to speed up broadband networks in selected urban areas. Rural areas, meanwhile, have been passed over. George Osborne announced the extra cash that the likes of BT and Virgin Media will be able to bid for in his autumn statement today.
- “The government will invest £100m to create up to 10 ‘super-connected cities’ across the UK, with 80-100 megabits per second broadband and city-wide high-speed mobile connectivity,” said the government in its National Infrastructure Programme report, which was published immediately after the chancellor finished his mini budget speech in the Commons today.
- “There will be a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and strategic employment zones to support economic growth. Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and London will all receive support from this fund, and a UK-wide competition will decide up to six further cities that will also receive funding.”
- That investment comes on top of the £530m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds already dished out by the government to local authorities and Scotland.
Over the government’s next fiscal year (2012-2013), £20m will be allocated to help fun “super-connected cities”. In 2013/14 a further £60m will be spent, then in 2014/15 the final £20m left in that pot will be used.
- But, surprisingly, no extra cash was set aside by Osborne today for rural areas that are crying out for investment in broadband.
14:58 – Ofcom 2012/2013 Plans
- The auctioning off of the 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrums for 4G internet is coming as soon as the British FCC has booted off the remaining TV services that still use ‘em.
- It’s will open an online complaints site (for when the Saturday evening show of your choice offends you), crack down on slow broadband speeds and keep the airways clear for the Olympic Games.
19:12 – Carrier IQ
- Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone. Numbers called, text messages, websites visited, passwords – everything. Shudder.
- Android only…..so everyone thought
- On Blackberry and iOS too
- But then a lot of carriers said it wasn’t installed – certainly not in the UK
23:52 – Jawbone UP
- Released recently but having charging and bricking issues
- Jawbone is offering consumers who have problems a full refund, no questions asked, even if they choose to keep their $99 device. Or they can ask for a new device. Consumers can request their refund starting Dec. 9 here. People who received an UP as a gift will also be able to participate in the refund. As an alternative to the refund, Jawbone is also offering users credit toward a purchase of another Jawbone product.
- The company said it will resume taking orders once the issues have been fixed. And it will continue to push out software updates.
- Finally, Fitbit can be bought in the UK – £79.99 – from end of December
26:33 – Netherlands Anti-Piracy Group caught Pirating
- Anti-piracy group BREIN is caught up in a huge copyright scandal in the Netherlands. A musician who composed a track for use at a local film festival later found it being used without permission in an anti-piracy campaign. He is now claiming at least a million euros for the unauthorized distribution of his work on DVDs. To make matters even worse, a board member of a royalty collection agency offered to help the composer to recoup the money, but only if he received 33% of the loot.
29:53 – RIM take a charge
- announced it will book a $485 million write down on its large PlayBook tablet inventory in the company’s fiscal third quarter.
- The struggling Canadian device maker said it shipped around 150,000 PlayBooks to its channel partners during Q3, but sell-through to end users over the same period was higher than that amount, indicating retailers had leftover inventory. By comparison RIM shipped 200,000 tablets during its fiscal second quarter, and half a million in Q1 when the PlayBook first went on sale.
- In a statement RIM said it will require “an increase in promotional activity” to drive sales to end users, blaming weak demand on the competitive tablet market and the delay in the release of its PlayBook OS 2.0 software update.
31:52 – Web OS is Open Sourced
- HP to open source Web OS
- Say’s that new HP hardware will use Web OS
- Says they will make updates to it
- Reality is it’s dead? Android is the open source winner in the mobile and tablet space – can’t see it ever getting traction
33:08 – Facebook buys Gowalla
- Talent buy or killing a rival?
- Won’t buy app or data
- Service will wind down in January – plan to provide a way of exporting data
35:43 – Path v2
- For iOS and Android
- Private social network – quite lovely – so many novel design features
38:15 – Flipboard
- Really well done implementation of the iPad app
39:41 – iPlayer Update
- Now for iPhone, iPod Touch
- Also supports Airplay
- Streaming over 3G
- The Android version of the app remains restricted to wi-fi connections for the time being, but the BBC said a web version of the software would support 3G streams soon.
- The BBC said it had worked closely with network operators, but analysts fear it could put their systems under strain.
40:20 – Micorsoft release iOS Apps
- Skydrive – simple cloud app
- Kinectimals – good version of Xbox game
41:44 – GTA III for iOS and Android
- High end devices only
- Dec 15th – $4.99
- iOS: iPad 1 and 2, iPhone 4 and 4S, iPod touch 4th Generation
Android Phones: HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, T-Mobile G2x
Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive
- Virtual controls will be awkward?
42:44 – Skyrim
- Don’t look too close, and it’s absolutely beautiful – and soooo atmospheric.
- Personally find it quite hard but a fantastic time-sink.
- Only scratched the outer surface but impressed.
- Paul has got totally consumed by this game – which is extremely unlike him.
44:06 – XBox Dash Update
- New look – Metro UI
- New features – cloud storage of profile, Windows Phone app, iOS app – big surprise, voice search via connect, beacon
- Better?
- BBC not available until 2012, still not sure what will actually appear

Predictions
Ian
- Best Tech – iMac, Airport Extreme, Fitbit, Halo Reach
- Worst Tech – PS3
- 2012 Predictions
– iPad 3 – retina display iPad – will be buying
- See the new Xbox
- New Wii a flop compared to previous Nintendo consoles
- Apple growth slows – reaching a saturation point on iOS
Chris
- Best Tech – iPad 2 is a great bit of kit that has seeped into my daily routines. Love my Blue Yeti Pro mic.
- Worst Tech – Not so much worst tech – but annoyance that some of the biggest moves have been “US Only” this year. Kindle Fire is now rumoured for UK in new year… but still no announcements on content deals. iCloud ahead of the curve of peoples internet connections. No tablets taking it to Apple yet. PS hate the magic mouse. I know it’s not a “this year” thing! But I detest it that much, this one spans the ages.
- 2012 Predictions
- I will lose some of my life to rFactor 2,Looking forward to Mass Effect 3 and surely new Ghost Recon will be out! PS3/XBOX rumours will ramp up – if one gets announced, the other will be hot on the tails. Believe that they want current boxes to last till 2013 though. Surely iPlayer WILL make it to XBOX this year!!!
- Siri to iPad 3. Apple need some bigger (less incremental) products to herald the “post Jobs” era. Return of the “One more thing”. A lot of Bull Crap will be spread about iPad 3 and iPhone 5 that never materialises.
- Haven’t seen the “next big thing” that I see killing it next year… guess that’s the state of the economy… So an evolution year likely. Tweaks rather than revolution.
Henry
- Best Tech – iPad 2, trello.com
- Worst Tech – NFC – not so much bad tech as just not delivering on promise.
- 2012 Predictions
- Samsung to become #1 mobile manufacturer by market share
- Apple will not release a TV

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Shownotes
2:35 – Dropbox Breach
- Fewer than 100 accounts accessed
- But according to the letter, those accounts were all accessed by a single individual. In other words, these weren’t accidental logins due to typos — someone discovered the hole and actively used it to access files that were not theirs.
5:09 – Tony Blairs Personal Details Hacked…and Leaked
- A member of hacker group TeaMp0isoN (Team Poison) leaked personal information of U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, plus the phone numbers and addresses of dozens of members of the government who allegedly supported the war on Iraq, on Friday night.
- TriCk posted the list on Friday night, which included the National Insurance number of Tony Blair, the phone number of 10 Downing Street, plus the alleged phone numbers and addresses of some of Blair’s contacts, including Lord and Lady Irvine and Denis MacShane, Baroness Thornton, the MP for Rotherham. MacShane’s name was misspelled “McShane,” however.
- The information was obtained in Dec. 2010, TriCk posted. “We still have access to the Webmail server, phone numbers may have changed but all the information is 100% legit.”
- Strange – hardly any mainstream media coverage – Telegraph only
8:47 – Bye Bye Lulzsec
- Hacker group LulzSec has announced that after 50 days of hacking companies and organizations, it is finally done. Check out the message from LulzSec below, which was posted on Pastebin. Check out the video as well (embedded below).
LulzSec most recently released a torrent of data from Arizona law enforcement which included hundreds of classified documents including personal emails, names and phone numbers.
- As the post, says the group of six hackers has been “disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could.”
10:30 – Google +1
- Google’s +1 button, the search giant’s challenger to the Facebook Like button, is making its worldwide debut.
- “Today, +1’s will start appearing on Google search pages globally,” Google Product Manager Nick Radicevic announced on Google’sAdSense blog.
- “We’ll be starting off with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr, then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after.”
- In addition to an international rollout on search result pages, Google is expanding its rollout of the +1 button on websites across the world. The company announced partnerships with several publications, including The Telegraph, The Independent, Last.fm, SnapDeal, and El Pais.
13:09 – Google+ Project
- sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it. We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project:
- Circles
- It’s through Circles that users select and organize contacts into groups for optimal sharing. I know, I know — not more group management. But the truth is that Google has made the process as pleasant as possible. You simply select people from a list of recommended contacts (populated from your Gmail and/or Google Contacts) and drag them into Circles you designate. The UI for all of this is simple and intuitive — it’s so good, that you might even say it’s kind of fun. It beats the pants off of the method for creating a group within Facebook.
- Sparks
- With Sparks, you enter an interest you have and Google goes out and finds elements on the web that they think you’ll care about. These can be links to blog posts, videos, books — anything that Google searches for. If you find something you like, you can click on an item to add it to your interest list (where it will stay for you to quickly refer to anytime you want). Or you can see what others are liking and talking about globally in the “Featured interests” area.
- Mobile
- “Our goal here is to connect people. And everyone has a camera in their pocket,” Gundotra says as he shows me “Instant Upload”. This feature of Google+ relies on the use of an Android devices to take photos or shoot video. From a new app, you’ll do either of these things and the content will automatically be uploaded to Google+ in the background and stored in a private album (which you can share with one click later). We didn’t want “just” a mobile experience, however, so with Google+ we focused on things (like GPS, cameras, and messaging) to make your pocket computer even more personal.
- Hangouts
- Hangout attempts to solve the social problem of video chat by making it easy for you to let others know that you’re interested in chatting. And if you’re already chatting with a Circle, everyone else in that Circle will get an alert to come hang out. This works for up to 10 people. And seeing it in action is a bit magical. Gundotra starts a Hangout with some co-workers and as they join, conversations start between multiple people. But the Google+ system is smart enough to focus on who is controlling the conversation in any given minute. This makes the conversation easy to watch. It was almost as if an editor is working behind the scenes, cutting between people.
- Even cooler is that you can share a piece of content, like a YouTube clip, and everyone in the Hangout can watch it together while talking about it. It sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s really pretty great.
- Huddle
- It’s essentially a group messaging app that works across Android, iPhone, and SMS to allow you to communicate with the people in certain Circles.
- key to the project is the attempt to unify everything. This is done via the toolbar (which features a drop-down showing you all of your relevant Google+ activity), but also on the mobile apps (again, Android and iPhone), and, of course, on the web. The Google+ site is the main stream on which you’ll find everything. From here, you can easily switch between all of your Circles, share content with any of them, start a Hangout, look up Sparks, etc.
- All of the information flowing through the system does so in real time. As something is shared with you, it appears at the top of your stream. It’s a bit like FriendFeed…and Facebook
- Google is beginning to roll it out today, but it will only be a very limited field trial. You can submit your email address here to be entered into the system and notified as roll-outs continue, but Google says that they have no set time table for a full rollout. Again, this is phase one of what Google hopes to do with Google+, so they’re taking it slow.
- Learning from Buzz and Wave – slow roll out to make sure it works….spread word, tweak, create demand
- Design also looks very un Google – fun, clean and something different
- http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social/all/1
- That’s no surprise since the key interface designer was legendary software artist Andy Herzfeld. The former Macintosh wizard now works at Google — though he loves the company, he had previously felt constrained because its design standards didn’t allow for individual creativity. But with [Google+], he had a go-ahead to flex his creative muscles. “It wasn’t a given that anyone would like what I was doing, but they did,” he says.
- Photos up to 2048*2048 won’t count towards your free 1gB of Picasa storage – neither do 15 min videos – http://lifehacker.com/5817483/picasa-now-offering-virtually-unlimited-storage-brings-google%252B-tagging
- Not all photographers happy
- http://photofocus.com/2011/07/06/google-plus-read-the-fine-print-before-you-sign-up/
- Concern over Terms of Service and what it allows Google to do
34:14 – Google Swiffy
- Google Labs just launched Swiffy, a new web-based tool that allows developers to easily convert Adobe Flash animation SWF files into HTML5. This will allow developers to make Flash ads and basic ActionScript interactions accessible to users on devices that don’t support Flash, like the iPhone and iPad.
- Swiffy is very similar to a tool that Adobe released earlier this year called Wallaby. The main difference is that Swiffy is web-based, whereas Wallaby is a client that runs on a Mac or PC. Additionally, Wallaby’s code is designed to be edited and reused, whereas Swiffy’s code is optimized and compressed in such a way that makes editing difficult.
- The Swiffy demo page shows off the power of the tool. In addition to converting basic banner ad animations, click-event interactions can also be converted to HTML5. To be clear, this won’t convert videos, complex animations or games, but the tool meets its desired goal quite adequately.
35:31 – Google Redesign
- The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.
Focus: Whether you’re searching, emailing or looking for a map, the only thing you should be concerned about is getting what you want. Our job is to provide the tools and features that will get you there quickly and easily. With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
Elasticity: In the early days, there was pretty much just one way to use Google: on a desktop computer with an average-sized monitor. Over a decade later, all it takes is a look around one’s home or office at the various mobile devices, tablets, high-resolution monitors and TVs to see a plethora of ways to access the web. The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
Effortlessness: Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you.
- And a big black bar at the top of the screen
39:06 – Google Web Fonts
- Now have 180 free open source fonts that you can use on your website
40:25 – Google Update Calendar and Maps
- A couple of new features but the first of many updates to focus on design
- Will we start to see a more unified look and feel alongside the Google+ rollout?
43:20 – Picasa and Blogger brands to be replaced
- Picasa to become Google Photos
- Blogger to become Google Blogger
43:41 – Google Realtime Search disappears
- Googles realtime search has gone offline – reason?
- Google’s agreement with Twitter to carry its results has expired, taking with it much of the content that was in the service with it.
- Google also stressed that went Google Realtime Search relaunches — something it says will happen but with no set time frame — it will include content from a variety of sources and not just be solely devoted to Google+ material.
- There were multiple sources for Google realtime but mostly twitter
- Still, as said, Twitter was the by far the most dominant content within the service. It’s unclear why the agreement was allowed to expire. Twitter sent me this:
Since October 2009, Twitter has provided Google with the stream of public tweets for incorporation into their real-time search product and other uses. That agreement has now expired. We continue to provide this type of access to Microsoft, Yahoo!, NTT Docomo, Yahoo! Japan and dozens of other smaller developers. And, we work with Google in many other ways.
- For its part, Google said:
Twitter has been a valuable partner for nearly two years, and we remain open to exploring other collaborations in the future.
- I’d say we have a bit of a standoff.
46:46 – Facebooks Awesome Announcement
- They’ve hit 750 million users
- Group Messaging
- Rolling out today, group message everyone in a group
- 1 to 1 Video chat
- Your chatting to friend, click on video icon and start a video conversation
- Done via skype
- New design!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- If browser is wide enough your buddy list will be displayed in a sidebar
51:22 – Spotify coming to US
- Confirmed it’s coming
- Sign up to be one of the first
- They just aren’t sure when
52:08 – Huff Po launches UK edition
- Huffington Post launches UK edition
- Will it be as successful as US version?
- Lots of kickback over the free journalism that takes place
- Guardian don’t like it either
- Editorially, HuffPo feels like a very traditional kind of threat and certainly doesn’t feel like the future. Its formula relies on a fluency of established online skills (though admittedly ones traditional news organisations are still mystifyingly slow to deploy) such as comprehensive aggregation of news around a key story, live blogging and the obligatory social media bells and whistles. HuffPo’s UK launch is one very much for the news junkies. HuffPo’s cluttered design looks more dated than ever – moreDrudge than Flipboard. None of that seems groundbreaking, so what is the HuffPo’s killer proposition?
54:51 – Intereactive UK Broadband Map
- The first interactive map of broadband across the UK has been launched today.
Ofcom, the independent regulator for the UK communications industries, has created the map with data sourced from communications providers to visualise broadband infrastructure across the UK.
- The map allows users to zoom and shows information on the average sync speed (Mbit/s), percentage getting less than 2Mbit/, superfast broadband availability and broadband take up for that specific authority. The colour coded map also ranks areas for the best and worst (slowest) broadband, with one (green) the highest and five (red) the lowest.

Picks
Ian
Aupeo
- Europe’s Pandora?
- Web, iPhone and Android
- Great mix of stations and a good way to discover new music
- Free and paid options – free is ad supported and they can be loud!
- Sign up and if you hand over personal data you get premium access – 7 days

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Shownotes
2:30 – Sony Hacked
- Down since Wednesday evening – 5 days and counting
- Initially no word on what is causing this issue
- Eventually admitted it was an external intrusion and because of it Sony themselves had closed the network down – hack on the PS Network/Qriocity
- Second update on Sunday morning – having to rebuild network and increase security
- Monday headlines in Wall Street Journal – Sony Shuts Down PlayStation Network Indefinitely
- http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/25/22402/
- Then it got a whole load worse
- http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/04/26/psnqriocity-service-update/
- Due to the hack Sony have:
- 1) Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
2) Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
3) Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.
- Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state/province, zip or postal code), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity passwords and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence that credit card data was taken at this time, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, to be on the safe side we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may also have been obtained.
- Biggest ID theft yet? 71 million users worldwide, around 3 million in the UK
- What started off as embarrassing to the Sony brand and gaming network has taken a very serious and sinister turn
- But never mind – Sony hope to have the network back up and running in a week
- Further update
- http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/04/28/playstation-network-and-qriocity-outage-faq/
- Credit card data was encrypted
- They didn’t store the CVC (three digit number) at all
- Search your email for mail from “DoNotReply@ac.playstation.net”, subject “Wallet Funding”, to find which credit cards you’ve used on PSN. Those emails will show the first 4 and last 4 digits of any card you’ve used for PSN purchases.
- Passwords were in cleartext though – doh!!!!!!!!! Update – One other point to clarify is from this weekend’s press conference. While the passwords that were stored were not “encrypted,” they were transformed using a cryptographic hash function. There is a difference between these two types of security measures which is why we said the passwords had not been encrypted. But I want to be very clear that the passwords were not stored in our database in cleartext form. For a description of the difference between encryption and hashing, follow this link.

- Hacker forums are spreading news that the hackers have 2.2 million credit card details alongside names and addresses – http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/hackers-claim-to-have-playstation-users-card-data/
- Also claim that the hackers want to sell the database for upwards of $100,000 and also offered it back to Sony
- True or false? Sony deny it.
- Geohot’s thoughts – http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/2011/04/recent-news.html
- Sony execs probably haughtily chuckled at the idea of threat modeling. Traditionally the trust boundary for a web service exists between the server and the client. But Sony believes they own the client too, so if they just put a trust boundary between the consumer and the client(can’t trust those pesky consumers), everything is good. Since everyone knows the PS3 is unhackable, why waste money adding pointless security between the client and the server? This arrogance undermines a basic security principle, never trust the client. It’s the same reason MW2 was covered in cheaters, Activision even admitted to the mistake of trusting Sony’s client. Sony needs to accept that they no longer own and control the PS3 when they sell it to you. Notice it’s only PSN that gave away all your personal data, not Xbox Live when the 360 was hacked, not iTunes when the iPhone was jailbroken, and not GMail when Android was rooted. Because other companies aren’t crazy.
- http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/01/some-playstation-network-and-qriocity-services-to-be-available-this-week/
- Latest update – some services to resume this week, full service – this month
- Added automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks
- Enhanced levels of data protection and encryption
- Enhanced ability to detect software intrusions within the network, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns
- Implementation of additional firewalls
- Welcome back program
- Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
- All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
- Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.
- PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai said that up to ten million customer’s account details could have been compromised
- Worse – there was an earlier breech
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/may/03/sony-data-breach-online-entertainment
- The crisis at Sony deepened on Tuesday as it admitted that an extra 25m customers who played games on its Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) PC games network have had their personal details stolen – and that they were taken before the theft of 77m peoples’ details on the PlayStation Network (PSN).
The electronics giant said the names, addresses, emails, birth dates, phone numbers and other information from PC games customers were stolen from its servers as well as an “outdated database” from 2007 which contained details of around 23,400 people outside the US. That includes 10,700 direct debit records for customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, Sony said.
The dataset was stolen on 16 and 17 April, before the PSN break-in, which occurred from 17 to 19 April. Sony said that it had not previously thought that the data was copied by the hackers who broke into its systems.
- Lost faith in Sony.
- Upside of a poor console is that I hadn’t used my newer credit card with them – cc details not lost – achievement unlocked
13:02 – Sony Android Tablets
- The S1, sports a 9.4-inch screen. The other is the S2; it bears a novel dual-screen design. The device’s two 5.5-inch screens can be used separately or together; they can also be folded onto one another to create a compact and highly portable package.
- Both tablets are WiFi and 3G/4G compatible and integrate with PlayStation Suite, Sony’s new Android-friendly platform that allows users to download and play PlayStation games.
Sony says the S1 in particular “uses infrared technology and works as a universal remote control for a variety of AV devices … turning on TVs, changing the channel and adjusting the volume.” The tablets can also take advantage of DLNA functionality to “project” content to other, larger screens and speakers.
- Most notable that it’s not Windows
14:12 – iPhone Privacy Fears
- Security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the two are synchronised.
- The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner’s movements using a simple program.
- For some phones, there could be almost a year’s worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple’s iOS 4 update to the phone’s operating system, released in June 2010
- To view the data yourself – http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/
- Nice Mac app that visualises your data
- Ian – don’t see the issue really although it would have been good to:
- Know about it
- Switch it off if I want to
- Saying that – vis is cool, love it to be honest and I blog, RunKeeper, Flickr and Fitbit anyway – it’s mostly all out there allready
- Similar data captured on Android
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADSecond
- Similar data captured and sent to Google on Android devices
- One big difference – it’s an opt in so if you feel uncomfortable switch it off
- That’s the right way to do it
- Good technical explanation of what is being captured and why – http://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/3-new-thoughts-on-mobile-location/
- Data is being sent to Apple but only on radio device locations, not where you have been
- Apple eventually responds officially – http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_qa.html
- Treating this seriously – Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall do interviews – http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110427/qa-jobs-and-apple-execs-on-tracking-down-the-facts-about-iphones-and-location/
- Also admit bugs and and changes to come
- Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:
- reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
- ceases backing up this cache, and
- deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
- In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.
- Out today – iOS 4.3.3 improves the way iPhones and iPads handle the location tracking database stored on-device by making is smaller and encrypted. The location database will be no longer backed up to iTunes and it will be deleted entirely when Location Services are turned off.
23:54 – The White iPhone
- Available on April 28th
- Same price as black iPhone – same features, nothings changed, well almost – 0.2mm thicker (maybe) – http://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/28/white-iphone-4-slightly-thicker-than-black-iphone-4/
- 9 months after black iPhone
- “It was challenging,” Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller said during a joint interview with CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday. “It’s not as simple as making something white. There’s a lot more that goes into both the material science of it–how it holds up over time…but also in how it all works with the sensors.”
Schiller said that it turned out there were a lot of unexpected interactions between the color of the device and various internal components. Also, like fair-skinned humans, white iPhones need a little more UV protection from the sun.
- Stopgap as iPhone 5 is in the Autumn this year?
25:31 – New iMacs
- Sandy bridge
- 2 thunderbolt ports on 27”
- Facetime HD – 720p camera in widescreen
- New AMD graphics up to 2GB of ram
- Can drive 2 external displays (27” only) so you could have 3 screens
- Up to 16gb of RAM
- Powerful machines…at a powerful price
30:49 – Digital Magazine Tipping Point
- Time Inc., the country’s largest magazine publisher, has reached a deal with Apple Inc. to make all its iPad editions free for print subscribers, marking a break in the impasse between publishers and Apple and lending support to Time’s contention that it’s business-as-usual after the ouster of its chief executive.
- Starting Monday, subscribers to Sports Illustrated, Time and Fortune magazines will be able to access the iPad editions via the apps, which will be able to authenticate them as subscribers. Time Inc.’s People magazine already had such an arrangement, but readers of most publications have had to pay separately for the iPad version regardless of their subscriber status.
32:14 – Push Pop Press
- Developed by former Apple employees Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris, Push Pop Press will be a publishing platform for authors, publishers and artists to turn their books into interactive iPad or iPhone apps — no programming skills required.
- First book is Our Choice from Al Gore – £2.99
- Gore approached them in late 2009 – The result of the project was Push Pop Press, a full-on publishing platform that the pair have been developing for about a year-and-a-half.
- Gore’s book, which goes live in the App Store on Thursday morning, is in part a demonstration of the capabilities of Push Pop Press.
- Much better take on an interactive book/magazine than Wired for example
- Navigation is very easy – you know where you are at all times
- Photo’s are geotagged so you can see where they were taken – extra context
- Very fast despite all the animations – impressive – best attempt so far at adigital magazine that suits a tablet format
35:26 – Spotify Updates
- The European music service is rolling out new versions of its desktop and mobile apps today, which will allow all users (even those pesky ad-supported freeloaders) to sync Spotify desktop tracks with mobile devices, be they iPods, iPhones or Androids.
- Spotify intends to compete directly with iTunes, Spotify is also introducing its own music store, or “download service”, in which users can buy a range of MP3 “bundles” at 10 songs for roughly 8 pounds. Or 100 songs for 50 pounds. (Roughly the equivalent of $13 and $82, respectively.)
- So, not only will Spotify be offering its more than 10 million registered users a music store, it wants its music player to become the default mobile app on its listeners’ devices. To encourage this adoption, Spotify has enabled desktop-to-mobile sync-ing over WiFi. (Something iTunes, cough, doesn’t offer.)
37:17 – Tom Tom sells your data
- The company confessed that they’d been giving data to Dutch police who used it to target drivers.
- TomTom chief executive Harold Goddijn said the company sold the anonymous data believing it would be used to improve safety or relieve traffic bottlenecks.
- “We never foresaw this kind of use and many of our clients are not happy about it.”
- “We make this information available to local governments and authorities. It helps them to better understand where congestion takes place, where to build new roads and how to make roads safer.
- “We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit. We are aware a lot of our customers do not like the idea and we will look at if we should allow this type of usage.”
- In an update today TomTom CEO Harold Goodijn stresses that the tracking of its devices is voluntary and that customers can choose not to allow it. He also says the data is provided anonymously, and is valuable information the company uses to improve the guidance of its devices, by identifying problem areas and routing customers around them.
39:11 – Amazon Cloud Outage
- EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) had a bumpy few days
- Problems took down Foursquare, Quora, Redit and many others
- Amazon was fairly quiet during this outage
- Can you really blame amazon? What’s the fallback for these services?
- Highights need for redundancy – http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2011/04/the-aws-outage-the-clouds-shining-moment.html
- Also shows everything isn’t right for the cloud – https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=65649&tstart=0
- Life of our patients is at stake – I am desperately asking you to contact
- We are a monitoring company and are monitoring hundreds of cardiac patients at home.
We were unable to see their ECG signals since 21st of April
- Not restored. Not heard from Amazon
People out there – please take a look at our volumes!
This not just some social network website issue, but a serious threat to peoples lives!
- Don’t be that guy – great post from SmugMug on how they survived the outage – http://don.blogs.smugmug.com/2011/04/24/how-smugmug-survived-the-amazonpocalypse/
- Amazon eventually post long explanation – http://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/
- Make commitment to improve comms, speed up recovery and make it easier to use multiple availability zones
44:24 – DropBox Growth and Security Issues
- 25 million users
- 200 million files are saved daily to the service
- However, concerns are growing around Dropbox security – http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/19/dropbox-under-fire-for-security-concerns/
- Recently changed T&C’s to say that they will hand over your data to US government if asked, removing Dropbox encryption before doing so
- http://dereknewton.com/2011/04/dropbox-authentication-static-host-ids/
- config.db file (stores Dropbox client and security details) is portable, not tied to the system and so could be taken and used on another computer
- if used on another compute it would sync that persons Dropbox folder without notifying original user or prompting for any passwords or usernames
- So many app’s have built in Dropbox syncing as an option so hard to move away if your concerned
- Box.net is an alternative although I’ve no idea if it works in the same way
- Wuala from Lacie is another alternative – http://www.wuala.com/
50:24 – 30% of Youtube videos now in WebM
- Google have announced that all new video’s uploaded to YouTube are being transcoded to WebM
- They’ve also transitioned 30% of it’s whole library to WebM
- Sounds low but that 30% account for 99% of the views on YouTube
- WebM was the open source video format that Google has backed
- Bit confusing – if it’s open source why have Google just announced a WebM community cross-licence initiative – http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/04/introducing-webm-community-cross.html
- Is this to protect future users from patent threat?
53:05 – Google Docs and Talk Android Apps
- With this new app it’s easy to filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors.
- The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app
- The Docs app also allows you to upload content from your phone and open documents directly from Gmail. You can also add a widget to your home screen for easy access to three core tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap
- Also does OCR – take a photo with text on it and it will try and convert to editable text
- Doesn’t work with handwriting or some fonts but Google expects it to get better over time
56:07 – Delicious Acquired
- Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the founders of YouTube, have acquired the Delicious bookmarking service from Yahoo for an undisclosed price and added it to their new internet company Avos.
- aim is to “continue to provide the same great service users love and make the site even easier and more fun to save, share and discover the web’s ‘tastiest’ content.”
- Whats next – who knows
58:01 – Twitter break Osama Death
- News of Obama addressing the nation
- Keith Urban, ex bush staffer breaks the news
- Retweeted thousands of times
- Finally confirmed
- Turns out the attack was tweeted by @ReallyVirtual
1:03:16 – Nintendo admit disappointing 3DS sales
- Sold 3.6 million in March but had predicted 4 million…and probably wanted a whole load more so they could boast on it’s success
- CEO Satoru Iwata – The value of 3D images without the need for special glasses is hard to be understood through the existing media. However, we have found that people cannot feel it just by trying out a device, rather, some might even misestimate it when experiencing the images in an improper fashion.
- It is now clear that the combination of these new features is not necessarily easy-to-understand by just saying one word to those without experience… We have found that not all Nintendo 3DS users enjoy this software. There seems to be more than a few consumers who have Nintendo 3DS hardware but don’t know about this software and possibly haven’t had a chance to get interested in it.
- Mobile phones eating into Nintendo’s core market
1:05:47 – Darren Gibson quits twitter after 2 hours
- First Coleen Rooney joins twitter and gets abused
- Then Wayne Rooney joins and starts to defend her – gets 200,000 followers in 2 days
- Cue Darren Gibson joining twitter…before shutting the account down – why?
- @dgibbo28 your performance on saturday was one of the worst I’ve ever seen of any utd player. scared of the ball much?’
@dgibbo28 hasn’t tweeted yet. Seems somewhat fitting after the countless anonymous performances we’ve seen from the ‘footballer’
@dgibbo28 my mate thought you were about 33 years old in the heart of midfield! Movement like pirlo!!
@dgibbo28 team do all hard work keeping possession then u hit row Z every fuckin time!!
@dgibbo28 the biggest compliment i can give you is that you are better than Carrick
- Bless

Picks
Chris
Portal 2 Free DLC
- DLC – new test chambers for players, leaderboards, challenge mode for single and multiplayer modes, and more.
- Free on steam and as it will be free on PS3, for first time it will be free on 360 too
Ian
Planetary
- Visual music player for the ipad
- lovely – artists are stars, albums are planets, tracks are moons
- very nice way of browsing music collection
Terra
- browser with tabs for ipad
- nice app – fast
- incognito mode and can appear as ie7, firefox etx
- more features than safari

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:28 – Rural Fibre network across UK
- Fujitsu is planning a joint venture with Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Cisco to roll out 1Gbit/s fibre technology to five million homes in the UK, but the project hinges on BT’s Openreach division providing access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles.
- Fujitsu said it was effectively targeting rural areas in the UK where BT engineers won’t be laying fibre.
- “The proposals will provide future-proofed connectivity to five million households and beyond that would otherwise be unlikely to benefit from commercial investment in next generation digital networks,” it said.
- Fujitsu added that it planned to offer the “vast majority of areas” fibre optic cabling that runs directly to the home, rather than to the local cabinet. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t break down the numbers of how many people would benefit from fibre-to-the-premises on its network.
- Fujitsu said it was “willing” to invest between £1.5bn to £2bn in the project, but at the same time is relying on government funds of around £500m.
- BT, which has divvied up £2.5bn to deliver its own fibre broadband network to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2015, will finalise its ducts and telegraph poles pricing structure for other ISPs in the summer. But Ofcom could yet be asked to step in and regulate the process if the company’s rivals aren’t satisfied with the figures.
The telecoms giant today questioned Fujitsu’s plans. BT told The Register that it was unclear from Fujitsu’s announcement how much private investment the joint venture would pump into the project.
- “BT’s network is open to others on an equal and non-discriminatory basis and whilst it is encouraging that Fujitsu and the other companies are making welcome pledges, they do need to be clear that this will be on an open, equal access basis as BT has committed.
- “We do look forward to Virgin confirming that they will open their infrastructure to enable all companies to have the opportunity to invest in a new fibre future.”
7:04 – Official Steve Jobs Autobiography
- This isn’t a joke
- The first official biography of Steve Jobs will be making its debut in early 2012.
- The book, iSteve: The Book of Jobs, is being penned by famed biographer Walter Isaacson, the former CEO of CNN and managing editor of Time. While very little is known about the contents of the book, Isaacson did manage to obtain unprecedented access to Apple, Jobs and even his family. Simon & Schuster will publish and distribute the book.
- This will be Isaacson’s fourth biography, following Kissinger: A Biography, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Einstein: His Life and Universe.
9:21 – Adobe Project Launches
- Photoshop Touch SDK
- Three app’s for ipad
- Eazel, Nav and Color Lava
- Out in May
- Eazel – Paint via your fingers, transfer to Photoshop
- Nav – Customize toolbars, control Photoshop, select open documents
- Color Lava – Mix colors, cretae swatches, share with photoshop
- Creative Suite 5.5
- http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201104/041111AdobeCreativeSuite5.5.html
- Moving to 24 month lifecycle for major point releases
- .5 releases 12 months after major point release
- .5 release isn’t free – $299 or £318
- Lots of new features in this release
- Also introduce software leasing
- Photoshop for $35 a month for example
20:49 – YouTube to Stream Royal Wedding
- YouTube plans to live stream the wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Catherine Middleton on April 29, the online video service announced Tuesday.
- The live stream, hosted on the official Royal Channel, will run for four hours beginning at 10 a.m. BST (9:00 a.m. GMT, 2:00 a.m. PT, 5:00 a.m. ET).
- A multimedia live blog will accompany the stream — a YouTube first — with commentary, historical information, additional footage and an integrated Twitter feed from the staff at Clarence House and St. James’s Palace.
- 2 billion across world are expected to watch the event – TV, web and mobile
24:09 – Cisco Shutter Flip
- Cisco has just issued a release stating that in a strategic plan to “align its operations,” the company will exit parts of its consumer businesses and realign the remaining consumer business to support four of its five key company priorities: core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video. One of the casualties of this realignment: Cisco’s video camera Flip business, which was part of its $590 million acquisition of Pure Digital.
- As part of the plan, Cisco will close down its Flip business and “support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan.” Cisco will also refocus its Home Networking business and will integrate Cisco umi into the company’s Business TelePresence product line. As part of the transition, Cisco plans to eliminate 550 jobs.
- So Cisco is focusing on its enterprise customers, and is basically shutting down its consumer facing products. The writing was on the wall for the Flip video business. In a world where consumers can now record and stream video directly from their iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phone, Flip’s video camera business is no longer novel or useful.
27:44 – Flock Closes
- Social browser Flock is no more
- Recommends moving to Chrome or Firefox
29:57 – Spotify Bring in New Caps
- [I]t’s vital that we continue offering an on-demand free service to you and millions more like you,” the company said in its announcement, “but to make that possible we have to put some limits in place going forward.”
- Free account holders today are able to listen to up to 20 hours of music on-demand, song by song and album by album, each month. The new limits will allow 20 hours for the first 6 months of any user’s new account. After 6 months, free listening will be cut down to 10 hours.
- A sign of upcoming US launch ?
35:57 – Ad Supported Kindle
- Amazon launching Ad supported Kindle in US
- $25 less than wifi model – from $139 to $114 – why not $99???
- Amazon says that the ads will only show up on the Kindle’s home screen and screensavers — they won’t appear when you’re actually reading.
40:28 – 2010 Top Entertainment Titles
- 8 DVDs, 13 albums and nine video games in top 40
- Top 40 is as follows:
1. Call of Duty: Black Ops [Activision Blizzard] – 3,266,298
2. Avatar [20th Century Fox] – 3,001,769
3. FIFA 11 [Electronic Arts] – 2,390,231
4. Toy Story 3 [Walt Disney Studios] – 2,082,461
5. Progress (Take That) [Universal Music] – 1,933,205
6. The Twilight Saga: New Moon [Entertainment One] – 1,889,187
7. The Twlight Saga: Eclipse [Entertainment One] – 1,334,490
8. Inception [Warner Home Video] – 1,328,290
9. Just Dance [Ubisoft] – 1,305,338
10. 2012 [Sony Pictures] – 1,298,705
11. Crazy Love (Michael Buble) [Warner Music] – 1,289,304
12. Now That’s What I Call Music 77 [EMI Music/UniversalMusic] – 1,255,006
13. The Hurt Locker [Elevation Sales] – 1,247,604
14. Up [Walt Disney Studios] – 1,236,066
15. Sherlock Holmes [Warner Home Video] – 1,217,637
16. Red Dead Redemption [Take-Two] – 1,135,559
17. The Fame (Lady Gaga) [Universal Music] – 1,104,504
18. The Hangover [Warner Home Video] – 1,024,546
19. Alice In Wonderland [Walt Disney Studios] – 943,220
20. Shrek Forever After – The Final Chapter [Paramount] – 928,726
21. Wii Fit Plus [Nintendo] – 920,811
22. Just Dance 2 [Ubisoft ] – 903,866
23. Loud (Rihanna) [Universal Music] – 881,588
24. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood [Ubisoft] – 880,755
25. The Defamation of Strickland Banks (Plan B) [Warner Music] – 867,698
26. Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang [Universal Pictures] – 831,572
27. Iron Man 2 [Paramount] – 826,595
28. Wii Sports Resort [Nintendo] – 818,554
29. Now That’s What I Call Music 76 [EMI Music/UniversalMusic] – 807,764
30. Sunny Side Up (Paolo Nutini) [Warner Music] – 807,751
31. The Element of Freedom (Alicia Keys) [Sony Music] – 806,340
32. Lungs (Florence & The Machine) [Universal Music] – 789,847
33. District 9 [Sony Pictures] – 781,336
34. Halo: Reach [Microsoft] – 781,331
35. Alvin & The Chipmunks – The Squeakquel [20th Century Fox] – 781,327
36. Clash Of The Titans [Warner Home Video] – 766,681
37. Sex And The City 2 [Warner Home Video] – 765,961
38. Recovery (Eminem) [Universal Music] – 764,875
39. Sign No More (Mumford & Sons) [Universal Music] – 746,461
40. Come Around Sundown (Kings of Leon) [Sony Music] – 729,001
49:55 – Georgian Woman Cuts off Internet
- 75 year old woman, digging for metal, cuts off Internet for entire country
- Georgia provides 90% of internet access for neighbouring Armenia
- She accidentally sliced through a cable – cutting off net access for up to 3.2 million peoplefifi
- Took 5 hours to get issue fixed
- Oops

Picks
Chris
Blue Yeti Pro
- 24bit/192Khz (4x CD quality)
- USB + XLR
- Tri condensor capsule array…!
- Built in headphone socket for monitoring
- 4 paterns
- Mute
- Gain
- £210
- Huge!
- But plug and play
- Not sure how much better than Rock Band mic!!!
Ian
Day One
- Simple journaling app for Mac and iOS
- Sync via dropbox
- Reminder support
- Use it far more than other richer journaling app’s
- Just works for me

Spotify are really stepping up and offering something different to the current digital music stores. Stream for free in lower quality with ad’s or pay for great quality music that you can access from anywhere, offline or online. Not only that but with the addition this week of PayPal as a payment option they are making it easier than ever to subscribe to their service. Couple that to 4 million tracks available via search and many great playlists available online and you’ve got a very compelling service. It’s enough to keep me subscribing for another month after the launch of their iPhone app a few weeks ago. Over to you Apple?

Trying this at work meant relying on a 3G signal. Luckily I usually get a really good signal. On firing up the app for the first time I signed in and my playlists were sync’d. Not only were they sync’d, but really quickly too. I could easily spot collaborative playlists due to the difference in colour. I selected one of the Pitchfork top 100′s, hit Shuffle and four seconds later the track started. The audio quality was excellent. Selected next track and a couple of seconds later it started. I was really impressed with the speed – none of this content was stored locally and audio quality wise it was better than Last.fm although I felt caching speed was much the same. I’ve embedded a video from Spotify that shows off the app in action (if only you could record video on the iPhone as easily as taking a screenshot – do you hear me Apple?).

In practice the app is easy to use, quick and feels like an Apple supplied app. Some of my thoughts so far:

• Swipe to change tracks is lovely. Far easier than reaching for a button.
• Song position and iPod volume control in the same place and look the same. Confused me today.
• Play/pause on headphones doesn’t work in Spotify but starts iPod instead. Grrr. Hopefully a future update will support this.
• Unplug the headphones, no pausing off track like the iPod. Not a biggie but nice to have.
• Resuming Spotify resumes exactly from where you shutdown – in a playlist, searching or in the middle of playback of a track. Remember that when your listening to Girls Aloud and you shut the app down. Potentially embarrassing demo next time you start Spotify.
• No artist information, bio, lyrics etc. Missed opportunity or room to grow in future versions of the app.
• Creating playlists or adding to existing playlists is easy. Updating to/from Mac/PC client is also fast. However you can’t add multiple tracks to a playlist easily i.e. search for U2, finding lot’s of tracks but I can’t select multiple tracks and add them to a U2 playlist. One at a time only.
• No Last.fm scrobbling.
• Sharing of tracks or playlists form the iphone isn’t possible yet.
• The biggest issue is nothing to do with Spotify. Apple won’t allow background applications so if you want to surf, check twitter etc then you need to close Spotify. The excellent resume features soften the blow but the built in iPod app which does run in the background has a big advantage.
• Offline playlists works a treat – very impressive. From digging around I understand there’s a limit of 3,333 tracks that can be stored offline. Thats a lot of tracks!

Reading through that list could leave you thinking the app isn’t very good but that would be the wrong conclusion. It works really well, so much so that it’s made me seriously consider Spotify premium as great value for money. £120 a year for that much content is a bargain, especially at the quality and speed it’s available. Firing up search and looking for an artist, any artist, and seeing the myriad of songs available returned via a quick search is very liberating and a great demo of where cloud computing could take us. Spotify is a digital distribution model that works that people are willing to pay for.

I still wonder about Apple though. Everyone said they wouldn’t approve Spotify. It’s an iPod killer, who would use the iTunes store instead of this? The fact they approved it seemed to be at a time when the FCC investigation into Apple, Google and AT&T was underway. This was a different Apple. A changing Apple. I wonder if it is changing, and that they too will have a streaming option available in iTunes 9 and a future iPhone upgrade. If they did then the appearance of Spotify would make a lot more sense. Apple needs to do something with their new datacentre.

To conclude, Spotify on the iPhone is a brilliant addition to an already great platform (I mean Spotify and Apple in this case). More features over time would be welcomed. If your already a premium user this is a no brainer as the app is free. The real test will be how many people will convert from free to premium Spotify. I’ve signed up for a monthly subscription that can be cancelled at anytime. Going on today’s usage I will be keeping that subscription going but only when October hits will I truly know if it’s value for money. I’ll be sure to report back then.

One last thing – playlists. There are quite a few sites that have sprung up to help spread and share playlists. Some of the best are:

SpotifyLinks
ShareMyPlaylists
We Are hunted (opens Spotify)

If you know of anymore then leave a comment and link. Now, get listening!