Paid app reviews are bad app reviews
Michael (Admin) | Dec 26, 2011 News & Editorials
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...I’m gonna take a break from reviewing apps right now to rag on someone else’s website even though it means giving them undeserved publicity in the process!
The other day I came across a press release for this ass-ugly website called reviewroster.com. Wanna guess what they do? They “connect (app) developers with (app review) publishers” and, somewhere in the middle, money will change hands with Review Roster taking a cut.
The reason I’m bringing this up is just so I can call Bullshit! I’ve made it clear in the past that iPhone App Reviews.net does not do paid reviews. It’s true that we did a brief experiment where developers could pay for something called POV which was a point-counterpoint kind of thing (here’s an example), but it wasn’t long before I voluntarily flushed it down the toilet. Money was being made, but I didn’t like how it was being made, so I unilaterally crushed the program with extreme prejudice.
The point is, if you’re reading app reviews at websites that have been paid to write those reviews, what you’re reading is almost certainly a big steaming pile of BS. Think about it… when a customer gives you money, you’re going to want that customer to give you more money in the future, and possibly pissing off said customer with a negative review is bad for business… so the writer is compelled to handle the relationship gently and carefully, and in the end it’s readers who are robbed of the truly unbiased opinion they’re looking for.
Unfortunately for readers like you, and fortunately for sites like Review Roster, there will always be developers willing to do the shady thing and pay to get their app reviewed. But don’t get the wrong idea here… a lot of app developers despise the concept of paid reviews, and I know this because I conducted an informal poll before hatching my short-lived POV thing. I just hope the websites that Review Roster is targeting are above participating in such shenanigans. Yeah I know, people gotz ta get paid, but selling your credibility is the wrong way to do it.
Siri is funny
Michael (Admin) | Oct 17, 2011 News & Editorials
User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...We all knew it wouldn’t take long for the goofy Siri videos to start popping up on YouTube! Most of them cover the same key phrases that produce funny or surprising responses. I’d love to test these out myself but of course I’m stuck with my grossly outdated iPhone 4 for another year. :/
Steve Jobs quotes from his 2005 Stanford commencement speech
Michael (Admin) | Oct 6, 2011 News & Editorials
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...If you’re wondering where half the quotes you’re seeing on Facebook and Twitter came from, here they are! Unlike Jobs’ usually dynamic stage presence the delivery here is somewhat stilted, but for any aspiring entrepreneur and/or wannabe tech titan, I would consider this beautiful speech to be mandatory material.
Tags: Steve Jobs
Goodbye Steve Jobs
Michael (Admin) | Oct 6, 2011 News & Editorials
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Steve Jobs 1955-2011
iPhone App Reviews.net is still undergoing some much-needed overhauling before our soon-to-be “official” relaunch, but in the wake of Steve Jobs’ death on October 5th it seems appropriate to pause and acknowledge what this man has done with the tech industry and how his innovations have changed millions of peoples’ lifestyles including my own.
It’s hard to imagine a world without all the kickass stuff that Apple has created under Jobs’ leadership. I mean, really… no iPods? It’s kind of scary to think where MP3 players would be today if the bar were set low enough.
Even scarier is where smartphones would be. Would Blackberry rule that world? Maybe Palm OS would have made a comeback? Android probably wouldn’t exist if Jobs and Apple hadn’t laid the groundwork and set the standard that smartphones are now expected to live up to.
And then there’s everything else from iTunes (you’re welcome, music industry) to the App Store (an industry in itself) to the iPad’s single-handed spawning of an actual tablet PC market. Yeah, tablets have been around for a really long time but did you know anybody who owned one before the iPad came along? I didn’t think so!
Tags: Steve Jobs
Achieve iPhone game immortality
Michael (Admin) | Mar 24, 2010 News & Editorials
User rating: 
(7 votes, average: 3.29 out of 5)
(7 votes, average: 3.29 out of 5) Loading ...Have you ever been browsing the App Store and thought to yourself… geezzzz these people must have been high on crack when they named this app…? Well here’s your chance to do the naming yourself!
Trickshot Games is about to release a potentially fun game where you have to protect some cheese from a horde of evil (or possibly just hungry) mice. The working title is “Mouse Madness”, but hopefully you can come up with something far more clever. Your reward? 5 promo codes for yourself and your pals and, far more importantly, credit within the game. I have no idea if this game will be awesome to the max or shamefully bad, but I like the idea of letting the masses come up with the game title.
Check out the screenshots and if you have some brilliant ideas then post them in the comment box (not here, over there).
How about... MOUSE MADNESS! Wait that's already taken... then what about ALL MICE GO TO HELL! Hmm, I dunno...
Well, so much for that…
Michael (Admin) | Dec 15, 2009 News & Editorials
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I saw that the NY Times Crosswords iPhone app is on sale for free so I figured I’d give it a try and maybe post it here… and posting it I am, but with a big frowny face!
I’m sure the crosswords are great and nearly impossible as all NY Times crosswords are for dummies such as myself, but this app requires that you pay for a subscription. Was a subscription required with the app was $5.99 back in September? I have no idea, but if you really want to do crossword puzzles on your iPhone go with 2 Across. There’s a free lite version and the full version costs $5.99, but it has puzzles that range from People Magazine’s crossword for morons to more difficult puzzles from big newspapers.
The moral of the story, I guess, is that The New York Times doesn’t give its crossword puzzles away! So don’t get too excited about the price of the app being lowered. :x :x :x
Q&F: Amp Up Before Your Score
Michael (Admin) | Oct 15, 2009 Entertainment, News & Editorials, Quick & Free
User rating: (1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5) Loading ...
This is the app that, over the past week, has been written about over and over and over again… and now Pepsi is apologizing for it.
Apologizing is definitely the right move from a PR standpoint, but I’m just gonna come out and say what everyone else is apparently afraid to… AMP UP BEFORE YOUR SCORE IS FUNNY! Sorry ladies, I know it probably pisses off some of you, but for the rest who can see this app for the joke that it’s clearly intended to be, it’s pretty hilarious.
AMP UP Before Your Score is a very tongue-in-cheek guide to “scoring” with 24 different types of women who range from Aspiring Actress to Indie Girl to Trouble and everything in between. For each type there are numerous ways of engaging the lady that include pickup lines and various conversation starters that are customized for each personality. If you’re talking to Goth Girl, Before Your Score provides a list of vampires and goth bands. If you’re talking to Political Girl, the app launches an in-app browser and loads Obama’s Twitter account and some recent political news items. Pepsi went the distance here and actually put some thought into each content item and the result, although unfortunate for feminism, is an app that’s packed with some hysterically crude humor.
Tags: controversial, free, funny, mature
iPhone 3GS oleophobic = fantastic
Swain Valasek | Jun 29, 2009 News & Editorials
User rating: (6 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
(6 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5) Loading ...What seemed a total gimmic when first announced has proven itself to be the real deal. After putting the 3GS through its paces for about a week now and the 3G still fresh in my mind, there’s no doubt Apple’s new ‘oil-fearing’ coating on the 3GS is a marvel. I had to always carry around a quality microfiber cloth to truly get my 3G screen clean (which I had a screen protector on) as anything else really didn’t do much but move the smudges around to other parts of the screen. In contrast, the 3GS (with no screen protector) not only just stays cleaner longer in general but a wipe on the shirt or pants actually does clean it up nicely…impressive!
Tags: iPhone news, Swain Valasek
iPhone 3G S is now ’3GS’
Swain Valasek | Jun 24, 2009 News & Editorials
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Trivial? You bet! However, everything’s done for a reason in Apple-land. Not officially stated on their site but you’ll notice everything has been quietly changed to reflect the new naming scheme, for example the 3GS product page. Makes sense to me really, never did see any logic in the 3G<space>S gimmic. Of course, people will continue be confused by the ’3G’ tag anyway, wondering if it means ’3rd generation’ or ’3G cellular technology’ (it’s the latter).
Tags: iPhone news, Swain Valasek
iPhone 3G S First Impressions
Swain Valasek | Jun 22, 2009 News & Editorials
User rating: (4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
(4 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5) Loading ...Fedex delivered a nice little box of awesome today in the form of a 16GB iPhone 3G S (yes the S really does officially stand for speed). There’s gobs of articles and videos out there comparing the speed of the 3G S to the Pre and original 3G and unfortunately I just don’t have the lab & time to repeat stuff like that so what I’m doing here is just rambling a bit about the OBE or ‘out of box experience’ which is a sort of intangible quality associated with any and every piece of high tech gear a man ever buys (women may not understand what I just said but all the guys are like ‘dude man, word’). At the risk of alienating the fairer gender, I trudge onward.
Tags: iPhone 3G S, iPhone news, Swain Valasek
Wanna know if you qualify for a discounted iPhone upgrade?
Michael (Admin) | Jun 22, 2009 News & Editorials
User rating: (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...
It should only take a minute or two for a text message to be returned
If you’re not sure whether or not you qualify for a discounted iPhone upgrade ($199 for 16gb, $299 for 32gb), just dial *639# and you’ll get a text message back from AT&T with the date you’ll be eligible! (Sorry non-U.S. people, you’ll have to contact your carrier to see if they offer a similar option)
I had no idea this could be done until talking to a friend who works for AT&T and it confirmed what I’d already been told by a customer service rep. And in case you hadn’t heard, AT&T recently changed the upgrade policy so that you “may” qualify if your average monthly bill is at least $99/month.
I, unfortunately, have to wait until December because I have no friends and hardly use any minutes, but if you have a life and actually use your iPhone to talk to people then your chances should be much better. :)
iPhone 3G S!
Michael (Admin) | Jun 8, 2009 News & Editorials
User rating: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Well since the current vote tally is 38-28 in favor of non-review editorials , I suppose now is as good a time as any to start spewing nonsense…
So I was just over at TechCrunch reading about today’s iPhone 3G S announcement and I also soaked in everything I could from Apple’s site update. Here’s what you wanna know:
- U.S. release date: June 19
- Non-U.S. release date ~July 7
- Apps will run twice as fast
- 3 MP camera with autofocus!
- Video shooting & editing, currently only available on jailbreak apps
- Upload videos directly to YouTube or MobileMe
- Voice control similar to the “SYNC” system you see advertised in Ford car commercials, ie: “call the VD clinic” or “play a song by Wham!”
- Multimedia messaging (OS 3.0)
- Cut/copy/paste (OS 3.0)
- Built-in compass with map integration
- Improved battery life giving 9 hours of web surfing on WiFi vs. the current 6 hours
- 16 GB iPhone = $199
- 32 GB iPhone = $299
The article doesn’t say anything about contract requirements, but you can bet your broke ass that a two year contract is part of the deal. But hey, if you’re super poor like me you can now get the current iPhone 3G for $99! Yeah, you’re gonna run into another contract there as well. $99 is for the 8 GB model, and 16 GB will cost $149, or so I was just told less than a minute ago on the phone by some dude at a local AT&T store.
Tags: iPhone news
