The Network Garden - Mark Sigal's Blog

Unicorn Disco: The Dance Jukebox Visualizer - possibly the coolest iOS app ever (you have to see this video)

Unicorn Disco is a Dance Jukebox Visualizer where you build life-like characters that literally dance to the music in your iPhone/iPod touch.

First, you give your character a face using your Camera, Photo Library or the app’s Face Gallery of Cuddly Animals, Icons and Creepy Monsters. Then, outfit it with Hair and Clothing. And finally, play your music or post your scene to Facebook in a tap.

You have to see it to believe it.

Unicorn Disco - Dance Jukebox Visualizer is DONE! Awaiting App Store Approval

Five months of heads-down work to deliver Unicorn Disco, a music companion app for iPhone and iPod touch.  I feel strongly that it will entertain and engage users, give them a laugh and add a dimension to their music experience, but of course, would love your feedback as soon as it's available.

Description: Unicorn Disco is a Dance Jukebox Visualizer where you build life-like characters that literally dance to the music in your iPod. First, you give your character a face using your Camera, Photo Library or the app’s Face Gallery of Cuddly Animals, Icons and Creepy Monsters. Then, outfit it with Hair and Clothing. And finally, play your music or post your scene to Facebook in a tap. You have to see it to believe it.

A longer post is coming shortly on the pattern recognition gained from building this app.

Related:

1. Link to Unicorn Labs products in App Store.
2. Join our Facebook community.
3. We Are Live! Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race HD: See, Touch & Learn

Guest Column @Radar: Apple's segmentation strategy, and the folly of conventional wisdom

There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path."

In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes.

via radar.oreilly.com

An analysis of why, one decade after its iPod-powered rebirth, Apple's impressive run continues unabated, and what it says about conventional wisdom.

Update: Daring Fireball picked up my piece, and gave it some love (thanks, John).

Related:

1. Five reasons iPhone vs Android isn't Mac vs Windows
   
2. Open "ish": The meaning of open, according to Google
3. Holy Sh-t! Apple's Halo Effect

Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race HD Now at #23 in Top Grossing Books in App Store

The eBook is terrific. Please check it out (we debuted at #32, and are on the move UP):

Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race HD: See, Touch & Learn 
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rabbit-turtles-amazing-race/id391149031?mt=8

Related:

We Are Live! Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race HD: See, Touch & Learn 

We Are Live! Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race HD: See, Touch & Learn

 

After months of heads-down, inspired work with a great team of folks at my iOS Apps and Games Company, Unicorn Labs, we are at the finish line, having created a Children's eBook for the iPad that I am really proud of:

Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race HD: See, Touch & Learn (Listing @ App Store)

No less, Apple approved us on the first pass.

Everyone who has seen the book comments first on the vibrant beauty of the art; then on the sounds, animation and interaction; and then finally, on the rhythmic, values-driven story.

If you own an iPad (and especially if you have kids), please check out the book, which is now live in the App Store. If you like it, please tell a friend (or ten) by forwarding this link. 

I would also greatly appreciate you writing a review/rating for it in the App Store, as such early comments are critical to the success of new iPad offerings.

Btw, if you haven't seen it yet, here is a video preview of the book. 

Thank you so much in advance for your support.

Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race (eBook for iPad preview)

"This is the tale of an amazing race. But the story is not about who takes first place. It's about trying hard, all the way to the end. Having pride in one's self and being a friend."

This is the opening paragraph to our (Unicorn Labs) new children’s book for the iPad, ‘Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race.’

We're parents first, so we wrote the kind of book that we want our kids, nieces, nephews and neighbors reading; namely, one that engages the mind with sound values.

Throughout the build process, we solicited feedback from parents, teachers and kids alike, and the end product, they've told us, is visually beautiful to look at, poetic (it’s a rhyming book) and highly entertaining.

Our target audience of first graders (+/- 2 yrs) has embraced the iPad in a big way, and in recognition of this, we infused the concept of a "book" with fun animations, quirky touch interactions and great sound. And we were ultra-careful to make sure that none of this feels artificially bolted on.

It’s Pop-up Book meets the iPad, and it’s built by the same folks who created Unicorn Shots (200K+ downloads), which was recently featured by The New York Times.

If you have young kids and an iPad, you will love this book. Please check it out, and tell a friend, too. You (and they) won’t be disappointed.

UPDATE: This has been submitted to the App Store, and we are hoping for approval by the end of this week, early next.)

Understanding today’s Apple's iPod and iTunes Event with Steve Jobs

I am so tempted to confuse the tail with the dog.

At today's Apple Event, Steve Jobs (who looked, dare I say, healthy) said something that is worth ruminating on.

He said that the consumers of Apple TV, Apple’s favorite hobby, don't want a computer in their living room, specifically citing “storage management” as a problem that consumers wish to avoid.

What they want instead is top-flight Hollywood programming, such as first-run HD Movies, Music, and TV Shows.

It was an odd distinction; especially since the knockout success of iPad proves the irrelevance of such arbitrary distinctions.

Thus, it almost seemed like Apple worked backwards from $99, and needing a wedge into being a ubiquitous living room peripheral, they chose a domain that they Own and Control (iTunes Media) over one that they merely Profit From (iOS Apps).

Why do I say this? Conventional wisdom was that the revamped Apple TV was going to become an iOS device, and specifically run iOS Games and Apps, a logical, an obvious stronghold for Apple to pursue, specifically because it is so disruptive to Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox (a combined 150M user installed base).

Plus, one can see the power benefit of vertical integration for consumers and developers vis-a-vis an integrated platform that scales from handheld media devices to mobile phones, tablets and big screen, HD TV screens.

But, alas, nix that. At $99, they couldn't figure out how to make games and other apps work. Given that the device is running an A4 and can support up to 720p HD Video Output, I can only guess that it's a storage issue, some combination of footprint and target margins colliding.

Do the Nano-Nano Shuffle

Also of note, Apple has embraced the job of wear-ability, by focusing on making both the iPod shuffle and the iPad Nano easy to operate while being attached to a jacket, belt or ear (okay, I am joking about that last point).

In fact, the Nano was effectively reborn as a multi-touch device -- but won't run iOS apps.

Can you feel a fragmentation headache coming on? Given ‘em credit, though. There is a method to the madness. 

iOS, iPod touch and…Ping!

Meanwhile, back in the land of iOS, or what Apple calls a revolution in touch and apps (operators standing by), there have now shipped 120M iOS devices, and Apple is activating 230K new iOS devices a day, with a subtle dig at Google inflating Android activation counts.

If Steve Jobs isn’t the Second Coming of Michael Jordan, I don’t know who’s better.

App store has also generated 6.5B app downloads (200 apps/sec) across 250K apps, and the biggest deal on the horizon is a unified 4.2 software release in November that upgrades the iPad to the same level of functionality as the iPhone and iPod touch.

Stuff that matters Is the fact that printing is coming to the iPad, and the activation of AirPlay, which allows you to push audio, video, photos over wi-fi to other devices.

The entrée of the event, though, was the iPod touch, now the most popular iPod AND the #1 Portable game player.

(Scratches head wondering again, "Why new Apple TV doesn't play iOS apps and games?)

Jobs officially the dubbed iPod touch, the "iPhone without the phone," and promptly gave it a Retina Display, front-facing camera and FaceTime, a rear-facing camera with HD video recording at $300 for the mid-level version.

I am so totally buying that, and so will a lot of people if the success of iPhone 4 is worth anything.

The other big deal of the event was the revamp of iTunes, now focused on improving Discovery via Ping, an inspired name for what could be an inspired service.

The intersection of my media likes, my circle of friends and my favorite artists has a lot of potential.

Apple is combining the equivalent of a short post on Facebook with the dumb simplicity of Twitter in expressing taste and filtering based on similar interests.

Best of all, Apple has logically baked Ping down to the device-level of the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

How many companies could introduce a major step up like Apple, with their iPod touch, and surround it by reinvention of Nano and Apple TV, while making iTunes social?

Of those, who could be trusted to accomplish all that in a year, let alone one tightly synchronized event.

Apple is simply an amazing company, albeit leaving me a bit confused as a developer -- at the level of tail, not the level of dog.

Related Posts

1. Riddle Me This: Aren't the Rumors of a $99 Apple TV a "tell"?
2. Check Mate: Understanding Apple's iPad
3. Apple, TV and the Smart, Connected Living Room