Gadget Lab Hardware News and Reviews

Developers, Websites Respond to iPhone App Payola Story

The iPhone community has reacted strongly to the news that some app review sites have pay-to-play policies.

Wired.com last week reported on payola practices prevalent among several websites dedicated to reviewing iPhone apps. At least two authors of one site, TheiPhoneAppReview.com, recently required money from iPhone developers in exchange for reviews of their apps.

Those demands were at odds with TheiPhoneAppReview.com’s stated policy, which says that it only requires a fee for “expedited” reviews — those which are reviewed sooner than others.

Several developers have responded by promising to avoid sites with such policies. In reaction to our article, Jeff Campbell, owner of Tapestry Apps, pledged to blacklist pay-to-play websites and urged other developers to do so as well. Alexandra Peters, community manager of Firemint, which develops the popular iPhone game Flight Control, also said she would avoid sending news releases to pay-to-play sites.

“I encourage fellow developers to publicly pledge their intent to not support these sites by succumbing to their pay-to-play schemes,” wrote Jeff Campbell, owner of Tapestry Apps, in a blog post this week. “The sooner that well of income dries up, the sooner these guys might move on to more journalistically sound practices. Tapestry is willing to make that pledge.”

Paid reviews are not illegal, but critics of the practice say requiring money in exchange for reviews inevitably creates a conflict of interest, which brings a publication’s credibility into question. Rich Cleland, a member of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, told Wired.com last week that he frowns on the practice, because a paid review can very easily be the same as a paid advertisement. Payment can induce a more favorable evaluation, and consumers as a result may be misled into purchasing a product based on a falsely positive review that was bought, he explained.

The FTC in October 2009 issued guidelines requiring bloggers to provide disclosure on reviews whenever goods, such as money or gifts, are exchanged. TheiPhoneAppReview.com and other sites covered by Wired do disclose their “expedited review” fees in FAQs.

Some app review websites have responded to Wired.com’s coverage as well. Nine new websites have signed up to become part of the Organization for App Testing Standards (OATS), a set of ethical guidelines that rejects payment for reviews, according to Jeff Scott, owner of the app review site 148Apps and co-creator of OATS.

Apple news publication Macworld, which owns an app review website called AppGuide, is the latest OATS member. Jason Snell, editorial director of Macworld and a former journalism teacher at UC Berkeley, said the publication already follows “old-school journalistic practices,” so it was easy to join OATS.

“In the end, it’s all about being as transparent as possible so readers can make up their own minds about who to trust, and about not posing as something you’re not,” Snell said. “Readers need to know that true editorial reviews are fair, and aren’t the product of any quid pro quo involving money or any other favors…. People need to know where the opinions they’re reading are coming from.”

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With AT&T Femtocell, Your Coverage Troubles Could Be Over

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The incessant complaints about AT&T’s poor voice and data services could soon come to an end, though at a cost of $150.

AT&T on Wednesday announced the nationwide release of its 3G MicroCell, the company’s first femtocell. It’s a device that creates a tiny 3G data and voice signal for your personal use, eliminating AT&T’s network issues within a limited range.

Available for order today through AT&T’s website, the MicroCell acts like a mini cell tower in your home. It connects to your existing broadband internet service through an Ethernet cable, according to AT&T, and then beams out a cell signal that has a range of about 40 feet, or enough to cover most apartments and houses.

It will provide better cell-signal performance for both voice calls and cellular-data applications, such as picture messaging and web surfing, even if you’re in an area that has no AT&T coverage at all. Only devices that you authorize — up to 10 — can connect to your MicroCell.

“This will always be important for certain people whose home construction or topography makes network coverage difficult,” an AT&T spokesman told Wired.com.

The device is being offered for a one-time fee of $150; you activate it through AT&T with some self-install instructions (which include placing it near a window so it can pick up a GPS signal). The one-time pricing is good news, because when AT&T in September 2009 began consumer trials of the MicroCell in North Carolina, the trial version was being offered only in combination with a $20 monthly plan. (Paul Stamatiou reviewed a trial version of the MicroCell in November 2009.)

Customers still have the option to pay a companion rate of $20 a month for unlimited phone calls, which would give them $100 off the MicroCell. That plan would enable individuals and family-plan customers to make unlimited calls through a 3G MicroCell, without using minutes in their monthly wireless voice plan.

Since the release of the iPhone 3G, AT&T has come under fire for its patchy network performance. Wired.com in late 2008 led an independent study that revealed AT&T’s network performance was slower than networks in other countries, which suggested the AT&T network was overloaded. Later, in 2009, AT&T owned up to network issues and said it was dealing with massive traffic as a result of 3G smartphones becoming popular. A more recent study by PC World saw major improvements in AT&T’s network speeds.

Though we’re certain thousands of dissatisfied AT&T iPhone customers are going to buy one of these, we’re sure critics will still point out the fact that AT&T is requiring you to pay to improve their network service.

Product Page [AT&T]

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Image courtesy of AT&T

(Thanks, Seth!)

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Nyoombl Uses the TV for Video Conferencing

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A tiny device promises to make video conferencing a better experience by using the TV that’s already in your living room.

Nyoombl, an interestingly named startup, makes a gadget called Greypfroot that will sit on top of your TV and allow you to make calls from one TV to another or to a phone mobile or a PC.

“Why can’t [people] with laptops today enjoy video calls with loved ones who are currently familiar with TV sets?” Oladayo Olagunju, CEO of Nyoombl said during his presentation at the DEMO Spring conference Tuesday. “Teleconferencing really doesn’t have to require any corporate dedicated setup that has to cost thousands of dollars.”

The caller and receiver don’t have to always have the Nyoombl device, except in case of TV-to-TV teleconferencing, says the company. The only requirement is that one of the users have an account with an online e-mail service that also offers video chat such as Google Talk or Yahoo.

“We are working on open clients similar to Google Talk, and hope that the proprietary ones will open up to interoperability as we continue to engage them in talks,” says Nyoombl in its website.

Increasingly, TV makers are looking to add video conferencing as one of the applications built into TV sets. Samsung and LG, for instance, offer Skype on newer TVs. Skype on TVs will be similar in its interface to the application that PC users are familiar with, but it is not available on all TVs.

Nyoombl says its advantage is that it works with existing TV sets. The Nyoombl Greypfroot is a “palm-sized device” that sits on top of the TV screen. The device includes a webcam and comes with its basic conferencing own software that can send and receive calls from TVs. Nyoombl’s Greypfroot “connects via the TV’s coaxial connection and adds an interface to accept or reject incoming video chat requests,”  says CNET.

To initiate a call from a TV, you can use the TV’s remote, while the other person is on a laptop, say Google Talk. When the call’s connected, the TV screen is split into two halves, even as the show the TV is running continues in the background.

Nyoombl hasn’t disclosed pricing for the device yet but Olagunju says it will be more affordable than a “current smartphone on the market.”

Check out the video to see Nyoombl’s demo.

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MiFi Update Adds Movie and Music Streaming

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Today Novatel, the people behind the miraculous little MiFi personal hotspot, announced Novadrive, a cloud storage service for MiFi owners. Boring. What it didn’t announce is way better: an update to the MiFi which adds media streaming to the iPod Touch or any other connected device.

The update, demoed at the CTIA show and which will be available for many current MiFi models, lets users stream music and movies over Wi-Fi via the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) protocol to any DLNA-equipped device, including TV-sets. This combines with a not often mentioned feature of the MiFi, its microSD card slot. Load up a 32GB card with movies and media and you have just doubled the capacity of your iPhone, and as the MiFi acts as a USB mass storage device when plugged into a computer, even iTunes-haters can load it up.

The MiFi gets better and better, not just for connectivity but for extra tweaks like this. And with the launch of the Wi-Fi-only iPad in little over a week, having your own internet connection is starting to look quite attractive.

Next-Gen MiFis Stream Videos and Music to iPhone and iPod Touch [Laptop Mag]

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Neat Hack: Binder-Clip Cable-Keepers

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This one is more for the life-hacking crowd than the gadget-loving crowd, but the simplicity, ingenuity and plain good-looks of this little cable management hack make it worth showing off. It also plays right into my cable-tidying obsession, meaning I couldn’t not post it.

This binder-clip cable-saver comes from David Rudolf Bakker in the Netherlands, and is something you could replicate right now just by rummaging in the junk drawer. The clips clamp onto the edge of your desk and you thread power, ethernet and USB cables through the fold-back loops by disconnecting them temporarily from the clip body. That’s it: your cable will never escape down the back of the desk again, and will instead be held patiently at the ready to be plugged into you notebook. Those wire loops are even big enough that the cable itself won’t snag as it is pulled through.

I don’t have any clips, having given up on paper some years ago, but I do have cables. Lots and lots of snaky, tangled cables. I shall visit the stationery store today.

No more USB cables behind your desk for losses [Lifehacking via Lifehacker]

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8-Bit Hanger Brings Mouse Pointer Into Your Home

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My mother told me that it’s rude to point. Then again, we’re English, so pretty much everything is considered to be rude or inconsiderate to somebody. As a nation, we are uptight except when drunk. The 8-Bit Hanger, then, should never be sold in Blighty, as these pixelated pointy fingers would be the equivalent of shouting filthy abuse at your own parents.

In more balanced parts of the world, though, these cute little hooks are the perfect retro-styled hanger for pretty much any part of the house, from bags of onions in the kitchen to towels in the bathroom. The MDF and acrylic hangers come equipped with a permanently attached screw and measure 3 x 2.8 x 0.6-inches.

Actually, maybe these should be brought to England, and lined up in hallways across the nation as the perfect security device: Any well brought-up burglar would drop his swag-bag immediately upon seeing them and cower in shame at the mean accusatory tone of these jagged digits. $20 each.

8-Bit Hanger [Meninos via Noquedanblogs]

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Guitarbud Hooks Axe to iPhone

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The Guitarbud from PRS is little more than a cable that takes the output from the jack of an electric guitar and splits it to headphones and an iPhone. But this simple accessory, if done right, could offer almost endless possibilities for guitarists.

It all depends on which app you pump the sound into. The built-in voice-memo recorder will do if all you want is to record your music and mail it off to friends, but there turns out to be a slew of purpose-made guitar apps in the iTunes Store, from multi-track recorders to PRS’ own JamAmp software which lets you play along, via an amp-simulator, with backing tracks. In short, if you are a guitarist and you have an iPhone, you should probably have something like a Guitarbud.

Something like the Guitarbud, but not the actual Guitarbud itself. The problem start with the price: $30 for a splitter cable is clearly too much. Then there is the quality. Buyer reviews over at the Musician’s Friend store are almost unanimously bad, citing poor build quality (”it feels like it’s the $2 cord that you get when you buy a cheap guitar package”), crackling, non-shielded audio and problems getting anything other than a weak signal into the phone.

It’s a shame, as the possibilities are exciting, especially with the added power and size of the upcoming iPad. Based on the reviews, we’d hold off right now, and maybe even concoct our own solution from better hardware. But the idea of this little widget is enough to make me think about taking up the guitar again.

Guitarbud [PRS via Mac OSx86]

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Preview: Instapaper Pro for iPad

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Instapaper Pro, our favorite read-later iPhone application here at Gadget Lab, will be available for the iPad on day one. Over at the Instapaper blog, developer Marco Arment has posted screenshots and a great explanation of the problems facing developers without access to an actual, physical iPad.

Instapaper Pro for iPad will be a universal app, a bundle containing code for both the iPad and iPhone. This means that, if the app makes it through Apple’s approval channels, current Instapaper users will never have to see a pixel-doubled version, which “sucked, and it was completely unusable by my standards,” according to Arment.

Being a simple reading application, there aren’t many differences in the interface, which is mostly just text and pictures after all. Arment was wary of making changes without being able to see them in action: “I didn’t want to commit to any huge risks because I don’t have an iPad to test them on,” he says.

The one big change is the horizontal folder view, above. All it does is expose the folders into which your articles are organized (you knew Instapaper has folders, right?), but it looks to be a lot easier and more obvious to use.

Arment plans on making more tweaks when he has an iPad in his hands, but we’re very pleased he decided to go ahead with making an untested Instapaper available at launch. We feel exactly the same way as him about the app: “an iPad without native Instapaper Pro is not a device I want to own.”

Preview: Instapaper on iPad [Instapaper Blog]

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EcoCHARGE Wall-Wart: Slim On Power, Slim On Looks

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I’ll admit it: I’m obsessed with power cables and wall-warts of all kinds. Maybe its because nobody made a good one yet, so nowhere can I buy a power-brick that will fit neatly into a strip without crowding out others, that will charge USB devices and switch off when it isn’t needed. I shall keep looking until I find it.

The EcoCHARGE gets pretty close. Its narrow body slots in between bigger, greedier bricks and its tail trails away to either a mini or micro USB plug. A hatch on the block itself swings aside to allow a full-sized USB cable to be plugged in. The “Eco” part of the name comes from the device’s low power draw, and the fact that it switches off completely once charging has done, eliminating vampire draw like AT&T’s Zero Charger. Well, almost. Weirdly, the indicator LED appears to activate when the unit is *not* charging: “When the LED is off, the EcoCHARGE is active”. Still, it wins by pulling one tenth the power of an Energy Star compliant charger.

The EcoCHARGE costs $30 for both mini or micro USB flavors, with an iPhone/iPod version coming in April. Given that you can just plug your iPhone into the USB port, this future iPhone-specific version seems less useful.

EcoCHARGE [Ventev. Thanks, Anna!]

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Sprint, HTC Unveil First 4G Android Phone

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Android superfactory HTC’s latest smartphone is a 4G device designed just for Sprint. The phone, called HTV Evo, is a feature-packed gadget that will have the distinction of being the first phone offered for a 4G network in the United States.

The Evo has a 4.3-inch touchscreen (by comparison, the iPhone’s display is 3.5 inches, while the Nexus One and Motorola Droid have 3.7-inch screens), two cameras, GPS navigation, HDMI output and mobile hotspot capability. It will run Google’s Android 2.1 operating system and HTC’s custom user interface called the Sense.

And despite its large touchscreen, the Evo feels comfortable, says Into Mobile, which got some hands-on time with the phone.

Sprint claims its 4G network can offer download speeds up to 10 times faster than current 3G networks, allowing the Evo to be blazing fast when it comes to data access.

Over the last few years, Sprint has been building out its 4G network. The company’s 4G wireless service is available in 27 cities in the United States, though that doesn’t include most major hubs like San Francisco and New York. Sprint has said it will expand its 4G network in a big way this year.

Sprint has also recently launched a 4G wireless product called Overdrive that uses Sprint’s 4G wireless data connection to establish a local Wi-Fi hotspot. The hotspot supports up to five devices at a time.

Sprint and HTC haven’t announced pricing for the Evo, but say the device will launch this summer.

Like the Nexus One, another HTC-designed phone for Google, the Evo will use a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It will have an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with HD-capable video camcorder and a forward-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. (See a list of detailed specifications on Sprint’s site.)

Evo’s mobile hotspot functionality will allow up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices to share the network. The phone will also support Adobe Flash and will have a “custom” web browser, says Sprint.

UPDATE: See below for more photos of the Evo 4G from the Sprint HTC event, courtesy of Into Mobile.

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