The Avengers Set to Friends Music
Perfection.
PermalinkPerfection.
PermalinkHave they labeled you a Jesus geek? Are you addicted to cool Bible apps or well-printed study Bibles? I’m selling a great domain for you! AJesusGeek.com is for sale on Flippa! Buy it now for $1000 or best offer!
PermalinkThe Apple Watch is more affordable than the original iPod was, priced in today’s dollars of course. When the first iPod shipped in 2001, with 5GB of storage capacity mind you, it was priced at $399. Adjusting for inflation, that’s equivalent to $526 in 2015. When Apple in 2002 released a 20GB second-gen iPod, it was priced at $499, the equivalent to $648 in 2015. Even the fourth-gen iPod, released in 2004 and starting at $299, was more expensive in today’s dollars ($369) than the entry level Apple Watch is.
I know a lot of people that say the Apple Watch prices are too much. You likely do too. You might be one of them. But the prices are right in line with the original iPod. And they can do considerably more than the original iPod. Will it be too high for some? Yes. Will Apple still sell millions of them? Yes.
PermalinkYears ago, I had one of the first 500 apps on the iPad, named Holiwrit. My goal was simple: create a beautiful and easy-to-use Bible for iPad. I was frustrated that no one in the space was making such a thing. Now, yes, Holiwrit was skeuomorphic, but all apps at the time were. Wood and paper matched with a columned layout and easy navigation. Beyond that, no features. Just reading.
The problem I found is one that I’m sure many have in trying to enter that space. The most popular translations had licensing that is above anything the independent developer could afford. For me to make any money at all from my endevour, I’d be forced to sell it for a high price or use free, “open-source” translations. The app didn’t go far, unfortunately because of this.
That pursuit of "beautiful utility," as designers like to say, stands in contrast to their less design-minded competitors. Papyrus scrolls, blazing crosses, clouds lit by divine beams of light—the App Store is chock-full of Bible apps with enough skeuomorphic, Christian-kitsch to give Jony Ive permanent nightmares. Even worse, many are riddled with design flaws, from feature-overload to poor navigation. But NeuBible stands apart, with a pared-down structure that puts the text front and center. The font choices are modern—no Italicized cursive, here—and the left-side navigation disappears from view while reading. Apart from verse numbers and chapter headings, the content is unadorned.
Today, a new Bible app was released that gives me hope once more. Focused 100% on usability and the text before features, NeuBible built an absolutely beautiful app. Download it on the App Store for $1.99 today!
PermalinkThis is not to suggest than an Android smartphone is the proverbial poor man's iPhone. But the economic reality of the competition between them is that iPhone owners have more disposable income and are more willing to spend it. Those are the first preconditions to finding a receptive audience to luxury goods — and a luxury good is exactly what the Tag Heuer Android Wear watch promises to be. The watch clashes with its stated purpose by introducing its own precondition: you won't be able to even boot it up without first connecting an Android device. Without Android, this Tag Heuer watch will be an expensive, probably splendid-looking paperweight.
Astute analysis.
PermalinkCool to see these guys again. My first iPod was the third generation and it was well loved until the screen broke while in Europe. It was replaced by an iPod nano (which I just sold last week) and then an iPod touch. Now, of course, I use my iPhone for all my music, Podcast, and video needs.
Permalink[T]he number of married adults has declined from 72 percent fifty years ago to about half today.
“These shifts are intimately connected to the reordering of economic institutions that once underpinned middle and working-class family life,” NBC reports. “As industrial sector and professional jobs that a half a century ago provided men with enough income to support a family disappear, so has the attachment to marriage as a prerequisite for an economically stable life.”
People are just not making as much today as they were in years past. The cost of living is growing dramatically, between gas and food, and salaries are stagnant.
PermalinkThat's just a sampling, but you can see the trend -- each of these analysts expects sales to be above 18 million for the calendar year. Over the past few years, these same analysts have been very conservative -- and wrong -- with their iPhone sales estimates. Even if the smartwatch market expands in 2015 because of new public awareness of the class of devices, I'd expect the Apple Watch to drastically cut into Pebble's sales -- even at the lower entry price points of $179 for the Pebble Time and $250 for the Pebble Time Steel.
Now I do believe there's a place in the market for Pebble Time, as the Pebble platform has a vibrant developer community for both iPhone and Android apps, the price point is lower and the new displays are much improved on the first-generation Pebble devices. Android Wear is even less of a competitor, with only about 500,000 devices sold in 2014 according to sources. Those half-million devices are split among a host of competitors, all of which are probably wondering why they chose to get into the smartwatch market.
Pebble has sold a million of their original devices and Android has sold 500,000. If Apple meets (when they usually exceed) analysts’ estimates of 18 million sales, these two categories of devices will be barely a blip on the radar of smartwatches. Hopefully the introduction and the success of the Apple Watch will encourage serious competitors in the space, but as of right now there are none.
PermalinkA United Airlines flight made a U-turn in the sky after a passenger ran toward the cockpit screaming "jihad, jihad," according to a government official with direct knowledge of the incident.
Doesn’t sound like a Muslim. Some fanatic. Not Muslim.
PermalinkSt. Patrick was tremendously effective and saw many pagans turn to put their faith in Christ. Despite how his extant writings testify to how much he missed his homeland, he chose to live and serve among the Irish he grew to love. He even suffered imprisonment and persecution at the hands of the Druids. But his dedicated and tireless evangelistic efforts, according to tradition, resulted in his baptizing 120,000 new believers and building over 300 churches in Ireland. He served and worked among the people for 30 years before he died on March 17, 461, and was buried in Ireland.
Love the story of St. Patrick, a man after God’s heart, sharing the Gospel to the natives of a dark land. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Stay safe.
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