Google+ is already available on Android and on the mobile web, but the search giant’s social network will soon make its debut on iPhone and iPad.
As Google technician Erica Joy revealed on Google+, “the Google+ iPhone app has been submitted to the App Store (no not today, sometime prior to today) and is awaiting approval.”
We knew the iPhone app was coming soon, but we didn’t think the iOS app was already completed and submitted to Apple for approval. Based on previous experience with the approval process, we believe that the Google+ iOS app will debut sometime in the next two weeks.
Google+ is still in private beta and requires invites to access. Despite that restriction, Google+ has quickly become the hot topic of the social media universe. The reaction to Google’s social initiative has been mostly positive, but the company will have to prove that it can differentiate itself from Facebook while retaining users. Neither will be easy tasks.
[via app store, apple, Google, Google Plus, iOS, iOS app, iphone app
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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Onavo
Quick Pitch: Onavo helps smartphone users reduce, understand and manage their data usage.
Genius Idea: Data shrinkage.
It’s likely the coveted unlimited mobile phone data plan will soon become a relic of a simpler, less data-hungry mobile past. And yet, our data consumption will only grow exponentially on mobile as devices become more sophisticated and our lives become more centered around them.
“As a society, we’re addicted to data, especially on mobile devices,” says Guy Rosen, co-founder and CEO of Onavo. “There just isn’t the infrastructure there to see this addiction. This is how Onavo came into being.”
Onavo launched its first application for iPhone in April of this year to give mobile users transparency and control over the data they consume.
“Our mission is to empower mobile users to take back control of their mobile data,” Rosen says. “It’s a resource. You’re paying for it. You should get to decide how it’s used, when and how much.”
Onavo, says Rosen, saves you money, plain and simple. “It connects your phone to what we call the ‘magical shrinking machine.’ This means that all the data you consume on your phone is compressed … we shrink it by as much as 80%, which means you pay less.”
How Onavo shrinks your mobile data is a tightly kept secret — all Rosen reveals is that the startup has developed an array of compression techniques. The magical shrinking machine is mysteriously working away; it’s saved app users more than 6.5 million megabytes since launch. “That’s about 75 megabytes a minute,” Rosen says. “Megabytes consumed by more than 55,000 apps,” he adds.
In addition to data shrinkage, Onavo provides the iPhone user with visibility as to which of their applications are consuming the most data. The intention, says Rosen, is to inform mobile users and help them make smarter choices and ultimately save money.
Eventually, Onavo hopes to mature into an even more intelligent service that watches users’ backs as they consume mobile data.
“Today we focus … on compression. What we’re working on is to expand the level of information that we can provide to users,” says Rosen. The idea, he says, is to have an application that manages your data usage for you.
In the more immediate future, Onavo will release an Android build for beta testers. Rosen says the application will be slightly different in nature, but equally impressive.
Onavo is a venture-backed startup with $3 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and Magma Venture Partners.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sd619
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
More About: bizspark, data plans, iphone, iphone app, mobile data, spark-of-genius
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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Banjo
Quick Pitch: Banjo harnesses publicly-available social and local information and gives users the ability to filter that content based on their interests and location.
Genius Idea: Discover what you might be missing in the world around you.
The marriage of the digital and physical realms is perhaps best made by way of location services that allow users to share their whereabouts and link them to venues, photos and objects.
And yet, that all-important physical link is often missed in real world scenarios when it matters most. Case in a point: An out-of-town friend posts a photo to Instagram from a place just a few miles away from you, but you never see the update, and you miss the chance to reconnect with an old friend.
Damien Patton says this very scenario was the impetus for his startup Banjo, a location-based mobile application to rule them all.
Banjo, launched Wednesday for iPhone and Android, isn’t a checkin application — although you can do that, too. Instead, it’s an aggregator of all location-based social updates and it’s designed for both social-mobile-local early adopters and newbies alike.
Banjo is intended to help you avoid missed opportunities, whether the opportunity takes the shape of a nearby friend or information shared by a nearby stranger. “Whatever it is that is going on around you,” Patton says, “it could have an impact on you in an important way.”
The application is simple to use. Fire it up and you’ll instantly see the 16 people nearest you, as sourced from numerous third-party public geo-tagged social media updates, and what they’re saying via a map or list view. Or optionally, navigate around the world to get a snapshot of what’s happening at any given place.
Banjo works whether or not you connect your own Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter or Gowalla accounts. When you connect your social accounts, the application highlights your friends and allows you to filter results for just your friends.
Patton says the mobile applications are ideal for right here, right now moments, but also useful if you wish to plan ahead. So you could, for instance, peek in on what’s happening at Disneyland, by way of status updates streaming in, and get some pre-visit information from strangers in the know.
“Whenever you open Banjo, you have an instant community, and you’re never alone,” says Patton.
Airports, he says, are already hotspots among day-one Banjo users. The assumption is that users are turning to Banjo to discover if friends happen to be just a few gates away.
Ultimately, Patton sees Banjo as a funnel for the noise coming out Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, Gowalla, Facebook and so forth. “We’re making that information digestible for people at large,” he says.
Banjo has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a round led by BlueRun Ventures.
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
More About: Android App, banjo, bizspark, geolocation, iphone app, location, social media, spark-of-genius
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Mobile search startup Do@ is changing how we hunt for information on our phones.
Typically, if you want to find something while you’re out and about, you turn to the mobile web and spend a few minutes on a search engine’s mobile website. Or you launch one of a dozen or more apps to help you find the specific thing you want — you turn to your Yelp app to find a good restaurant nearby, and you open Fandango to find a theater showing that movie you want to see.
Wouldn’t it be easier to have a single utility that searched a slew of mobile apps and websites for the exact thing you need, returning just the pages most relevant to you?
That’s Do@‘s premise and mission: to create a revolutionary mobile search experience.
Here’s how the app works: First, the user types in a keyword, subject or topic, including movies, music, foods, products and more. The app then recognizes what categories the keyword fits into. For example, if you start by typing “lady g,” the app would predict “lady gaga @music” as a query, understanding that you might be looking for music from artist Lady Gaga. (The app will also offer up possible queries like “lady gaga @reference” for Wikipedia content.) You could also search for something like “sushi @restaurants,” for example.
Once you tap the query that fits your needs, Do@ loads your results, which will appear as mobile web apps from a carefully curated selection of the best publishers and app developers. You can quickly swipe from one app with relevant content to the next until you spot the exact tidbit of information or functionality you seek.
Using the previous example, a search for “lady gaga @music” would bring up a slider of results from YouTube, iTunes, Pandora, Last.fm and more, allowing you to instantly listen, download or watch the exact content you wanted.
Here’s a quick demo video showing the Do@ app in action:
So far, Do@ covers almost everything you might want to find from your phone, including music, film, television, shopping, sports, cooking, and a lot more.
Do@ co-founder Ami Ben David also revealed exclusively to Mashable that the search utility is adding a few interesting and valuable new categories to the product:
The product launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last month, earning a finalist spot.
You can download the free Do@ iPhone app [iTunes link] now.
More About: do@, doat, iphone, iphone app, Mobile 2.0, mobile app, mobile search
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Mobile search startup Do@ is changing how we hunt for information on our phones.
Typically, if you want to find something while you’re out and about, you turn to the mobile web and spend a few minutes on a search engine’s mobile website. Or you launch one of a dozen or more apps to help you find the specific thing you want — you turn to your Yelp app to find a good restaurant nearby, and you open Fandango to find a theater showing that movie you want to see.
Wouldn’t it be easier to have a single utility that searched a slew of mobile apps and websites for the exact thing you need, returning just the pages most relevant to you?
That’s Do@‘s premise and mission: to create a revolutionary mobile search experience.
Here’s how the app works: First, the user types in a keyword, subject or topic, including movies, music, foods, products and more. The app then recognizes what categories the keyword fits into. For example, if you start by typing “lady g,” the app would predict “lady gaga @music” as a query, understanding that you might be looking for music from artist Lady Gaga. (The app will also offer up possible queries like “lady gaga @reference” for Wikipedia content.) You could also search for something like “sushi @restaurants,” for example.
Once you tap the query that fits your needs, Do@ loads your results, which will appear as mobile web apps from a carefully curated selection of the best publishers and app developers. You can quickly swipe from one app with relevant content to the next until you spot the exact tidbit of information or functionality you seek.
Using the previous example, a search for “lady gaga @music” would bring up a slider of results from YouTube, iTunes, Pandora, Last.fm and more, allowing you to instantly listen, download or watch the exact content you wanted.
Here’s a quick demo video showing the Do@ app in action:
So far, Do@ covers almost everything you might want to find from your phone, including music, film, television, shopping, sports, cooking, and a lot more.
Do@ co-founder Ami Ben David also revealed exclusively to Mashable that the search utility is adding a few interesting and valuable new categories to the product:
The product launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last month, earning a finalist spot.
You can download the free Do@ iPhone app [iTunes link] now.
More About: do@, doat, iphone, iphone app, Mobile 2.0, mobile app, mobile search
For more Mobile coverage:
Mobile search startup Do@ is changing how we hunt for information on our phones.
Typically, if you want to find something while you’re out and about, you turn to the mobile web and spend a few minutes on a search engine’s mobile website. Or you launch one of a dozen or more apps to help you find the specific thing you want — you turn to your Yelp app to find a good restaurant nearby, and you open Fandango to find a theater showing that movie you want to see.
Wouldn’t it be easier to have a single utility that searched a slew of mobile apps and websites for the exact thing you need, returning just the pages most relevant to you?
That’s Do@‘s premise and mission: to create a revolutionary mobile search experience.
Here’s how the app works: First, the user types in a keyword, subject or topic, including movies, music, foods, products and more. The app then recognizes what categories the keyword fits into. For example, if you start by typing “lady g,” the app would predict “lady gaga @music” as a query, understanding that you might be looking for music from artist Lady Gaga. (The app will also offer up possible queries like “lady gaga @reference” for Wikipedia content.) You could also search for something like “sushi @restaurants,” for example.
Once you tap the query that fits your needs, Do@ loads your results, which will appear as mobile web apps from a carefully curated selection of the best publishers and app developers. You can quickly swipe from one app with relevant content to the next until you spot the exact tidbit of information or functionality you seek.
Using the previous example, a search for “lady gaga @music” would bring up a slider of results from YouTube, iTunes, Pandora, Last.fm and more, allowing you to instantly listen, download or watch the exact content you wanted.
Here’s a quick demo video showing the Do@ app in action:
So far, Do@ covers almost everything you might want to find from your phone, including music, film, television, shopping, sports, cooking, and a lot more.
Do@ co-founder Ami Ben David also revealed exclusively to Mashable that the search utility is adding a few interesting and valuable new categories to the product:
The product launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last month, earning a finalist spot.
You can download the free Do@ iPhone app [iTunes link] now.
More About: do@, doat, iphone, iphone app, Mobile 2.0, mobile app, mobile search
For more Mobile coverage:
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: SpotWorld
Quick Pitch: SpotWorld helps users discover the best travel spots anywhere in the world via iPhone.
Genius Idea: Travel guides for a mobile, social generation.
With Facebook’s and Twitter’s social graphs, startups in the travel category are reinventing the way the world goes on vacation. Airbnb is perhaps the most prominent standout, but there’s also a crop of up-and-coming startups — Wanderfly and Gtrot come to mind — with a fresh, social media-infused approach to travel.
Add newcomer SpotWorld, which launched its iPhone app just weeks ago, to the list; it’s taking a hybrid mobile and social approach to reinventing the age-old concept of travel guides.
The two-person company was envisioned by startup veterans Joseph Chong, formerly of PayPal and AdBrite, and Shashank Likhite, previously with social gaming startup Playdom.
“We love to travel. We love going places. We’ve lived all over … and we’ve traveled the world,” says Chong. “But, there’s this universal travelers’ dilemma: ‘How do i discover the best travel spots where I’m going?’”
He points to dated guide books, ill-informed hotel concierges and lengthy web searches as common symptoms of the traveler’s conundrum. “The most trusted information is recommendations from friends,” says Chong, “and the better way to solve this problem is with mobile.”
SpotWorld’s mobile travel guide is a location-aware application designed for place and itinerary discovery at over 500,000 places around the world. Users can fire up the app for quick, nearby spot checks, browse far-away destinations or popular itineraries, and build their own itineraries.
“What makes us different is that the app works in popular destinations all over the world,” Chong says.
Users can create, define and add to their itineraries as they browse, pulling from destination photo tours, popular itineraries or friends’ favorite places. These itineraries can be saved for personal use, published and shared with the SpotWorld community or shared with friends on Facebook.
The entire SpotWorld experience is rich with color and centered around photos of places — the destinations module, for instance, puts images front-and-center in photo tours.
And while SpotWorld is a travel app for travelers, it could be a handy tool to use for uncovering hidden gems in your own neighborhood.
“Users will pull up popular spots near them and discover something new,” Chong says. “That’s the experience that has really delighted users and keeps them coming back.”
SpotWorld also houses a number of subtle novelties, including a feature called “Been There.” Users can browse through the application and mark places they’ve been with the Been There button and build out a place history. The feature, says Chong, has been surprisingly popular with users, and so the startup recently added the ability for users to share their Been There maps with friends on Facebook.
Weeks old, SpotWorld has already netted Apple’s coveted approbation: It’s been featured on the homepage of the App Store in 61 countries and, at one point, was the top travel app in 12 countries.
Now the nascent bootstrapped startup is looking to raise growth capital so it can build on its early momentum and deliver engaging features for each of the three stages of travel: pre, during and post.
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
More About: bizspark, iphone app, spark-of-genius, SpotWorld, travel
For more Startups coverage:
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: SpotWorld
Quick Pitch: SpotWorld helps users discover the best travel spots anywhere in the world via iPhone.
Genius Idea: Travel guides for a mobile, social generation.
With Facebook’s and Twitter’s social graphs, startups in the travel category are reinventing the way the world goes on vacation. Airbnb is perhaps the most prominent standout, but there’s also a crop of up-and-coming startups — Wanderfly and Gtrot come to mind — with a fresh, social media-infused approach to travel.
Add newcomer SpotWorld, which launched its iPhone app just weeks ago, to the list; it’s taking a hybrid mobile and social approach to reinventing the age-old concept of travel guides.
The two-person company was envisioned by startup veterans Joseph Chong, formerly of PayPal and AdBrite, and Shashank Likhite, previously with social gaming startup Playdom.
“We love to travel. We love going places. We’ve lived all over … and we’ve traveled the world,” says Chong. “But, there’s this universal travelers’ dilemma: ‘How do i discover the best travel spots where I’m going?’”
He points to dated guide books, ill-informed hotel concierges and lengthy web searches as common symptoms of the traveler’s conundrum. “The most trusted information is recommendations from friends,” says Chong, “and the better way to solve this problem is with mobile.”
SpotWorld’s mobile travel guide is a location-aware application designed for place and itinerary discovery at over 500,000 places around the world. Users can fire up the app for quick, nearby spot checks, browse far-away destinations or popular itineraries, and build their own itineraries.
“What makes us different is that the app works in popular destinations all over the world,” Chong says.
Users can create, define and add to their itineraries as they browse, pulling from destination photo tours, popular itineraries or friends’ favorite places. These itineraries can be saved for personal use, published and shared with the SpotWorld community or shared with friends on Facebook.
The entire SpotWorld experience is rich with color and centered around photos of places — the destinations module, for instance, puts images front-and-center in photo tours.
And while SpotWorld is a travel app for travelers, it could be a handy tool to use for uncovering hidden gems in your own neighborhood.
“Users will pull up popular spots near them and discover something new,” Chong says. “That’s the experience that has really delighted users and keeps them coming back.”
SpotWorld also houses a number of subtle novelties, including a feature called “Been There.” Users can browse through the application and mark places they’ve been with the Been There button and build out a place history. The feature, says Chong, has been surprisingly popular with users, and so the startup recently added the ability for users to share their Been There maps with friends on Facebook.
Weeks old, SpotWorld has already netted Apple’s coveted approbation: It’s been featured on the homepage of the App Store in 61 countries and, at one point, was the top travel app in 12 countries.
Now the nascent bootstrapped startup is looking to raise growth capital so it can build on its early momentum and deliver engaging features for each of the three stages of travel: pre, during and post.
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
More About: bizspark, iphone app, spark-of-genius, SpotWorld, travel
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Photogram is remixing the mobile-photos-meets-postcard genre of iPhone apps with an application for sending up to four photos, packaged together atop an artistic background, to friends via email, Facebook or Twitter.
The free photo application for iPhone, released Wednesday on the App Store, offers users a simple way to create and share bunches of photos in a digital postcard-like fashion.
Photogram [iTunes link], developed by startup Timelines, was created with simplicity, design and artistry in mind. Sending a Photogram is an easy matter of capturing or choosing four photos, picking a theme and then selecting recipients. You can also connect to Facebook and Twitter and post your Photograms to those sites.
“The iPhone has dramatically increased the number of everyday photographers documenting moments in their lives,” Timelines CEO Bob Armour says. “We saw a need for a simple app to share those photos, and we wanted to improve and enhance their delivery.”
Timelines has collaborated with independent artists to feature their artwork in its Theme Gallery. Themes are the photo backdrops you can choose from to add personality to your Photogram. You’ll have access to a number of free themes or you can choose to purchase additional themes at $0.99 a piece, with artists receiving a portion of sales. Purchased themes are included in your Theme Library and usable on all future Photograms.
Photogram stands out amid an ever-growing crop of iPhone camera and postcard applications for its ease of us and design.
More About: iphone app, mobile photo sharing, Photos, Postagram
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Photogram is remixing the mobile-photos-meets-postcard genre of iPhone apps with an application for sending up to four photos, packaged together atop an artistic background, to friends via email, Facebook or Twitter.
The free photo application for iPhone, released Wednesday on the App Store, offers users a simple way to create and share bunches of photos in a digital postcard-like fashion.
Photogram [iTunes link], developed by startup Timelines, was created with simplicity, design and artistry in mind. Sending a Photogram is an easy matter of capturing or choosing four photos, picking a theme and then selecting recipients. You can also connect to Facebook and Twitter and post your Photograms to those sites.
“The iPhone has dramatically increased the number of everyday photographers documenting moments in their lives,” Timelines CEO Bob Armour says. “We saw a need for a simple app to share those photos, and we wanted to improve and enhance their delivery.”
Timelines has collaborated with independent artists to feature their artwork in its Theme Gallery. Themes are the photo backdrops you can choose from to add personality to your Photogram. You’ll have access to a number of free themes or you can choose to purchase additional themes at $0.99 a piece, with artists receiving a portion of sales. Purchased themes are included in your Theme Library and usable on all future Photograms.
Photogram stands out amid an ever-growing crop of iPhone camera and postcard applications for its ease of us and design.
More About: iphone app, mobile photo sharing, Photos, Postagram, trending
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