Cupertino Restaurants - The leading mobile network for Suburban cities

TEARN media released the Cupertino Restaurant app for ordering from smartphones; with 15% of the restaurants participating. For web access, visit http://cupertino.moAPPo.com.

About Cupertino

Cupertino is a city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census.

Why Cupertino as the first city for mobile commerce?

Forbes ranked it as one of the most educated, wealthy small towns. It is best known as home to the worldwide headquarters of Apple Inc, as well as the laboratory for Lab 126, Amazon's Kindle Fire development team of thousands. Other Fortune 1,000 companies include Seagate, Agilent, and Symantec - while hundreds of high-tech start-ups work from their Cupertino homes.

Restaurants in Cupertino

About 200 restaurants serve the various ethnic groups who live and work in Cupertino. 15% of these Casual Dining (CDR), Quick Serve (QSR), and Fine Dining (FDR) restaurants have signed on to provide smartphone access to their menus and/or payment for their orders. This list includes BBQ from Hawaii, Greece, Armenia, Mexico, and India; Chinese, Indian, Thai, Italian, Californian, Mexican, and American venues; and unusual snacks like Beard Papa or Verde Pearl Tea.

Mobile Ordering from MoAPPo

MoAPPo integrates four digital businesses with mobile apps, Wi-Fi hotspots, payment, and online ordering experiences. One of the companies dominates the Wi-Fi hotspots in Silicon Valley while another has already gained 8 million downloads.

The Cupertino Restaurants App allows users to sign-up once, save their payment data, and save time at any of their favorite restaurants.

The innovative app supports various iPhone/iPad/iPod configurations; multiple versions of Android phones; multiple Kindles from Amazon; Palm, Blackberry, and Window Mobile; and many featured phones from Nokia, Pantech, and LG. No other company provides the same level of device support for menu display.

Feedback Welcome

Try the app. Provide feedback. Watch us grow to service all Bay Area restaurants.

Apple Takes Lead In Smartphone Shipments, But Samsung Is On Its Heels

According to a report from IDC, Apple shipped more smartphones than any other manufacturer in Q2, stealing bragging rights from a strugglingNokia. With 20.3 million units shipped, Apple managed to nab a 19.1 percent market share, representing year-over-year growth of 141.7 percent. Samsung and Nokia followed behind, with RIM and HTC bringing up the rear.

It’s worth noting that HTC posted record numbers this quarter with 166 percent YOY growth to claim an 11.7 percent market share, up from 8.9 percent last quarter. The HTC Sensation and Evo 3D had quite a bit to do with that, along with HTC’s increasing prominence in China. Even though the company ranks fifth, it still seemed to eat a large portion of RIM and Nokia’s share. But HTC wasn’t alone in that — Samsung took a big bite, too.

In fact, Samsung’s had an amazing year, seeing year-over-year growth of 380.6 percent. Much of that success can be attributed to the Samsung Galaxy S II, which sold 3 million units in its first 55 days on the market. If they can maintain anything like that growth for a little longer, they’ll leapfrog Apple with ease.

Now for the bad news. RIM shipped a little over one million more smartphones this quarter than it did in the same quarter of 2010 — which would be a respectable bump if the smartphone market itself hadn’t seen far greater growth, hitting 106.5 million shipments overall this quarter. So while RIM didship more handsets, they actually lost a ton of market share. (FULL)

Sprint’s Nexus S 4G Gets Final Price Cut: Free At Best Buy, A Penny At Amazon

As anticipated, the smartphone war has begun. The latest Google Android phone is free. Use this app to keep up with the announcements.

JORDAN CROOK

posted 37 mins ago

0 Comments

Less than two weeks ago, Sprint cut the price of its Google Nexus S 4G by half to just $99 on-contract. That had me pink in the cheek with barely controlled glee, so you can only imagine my reaction when I saw that both Best Buy and Amazon were offering the device for free (and nearly free).

(Full Article at Techcrunch)

Opening New AppStores With Enterprise Partners

Dozens of enterprises have worked with TEARN media to open their digital appstore. We have invested substantial time to support their efforts. Unfortunately, we see too many problems.

Get the Bugs Out

Here is our advice to our partners.

First, eliminate the hundreds of small bugs that prevent a positive user experience. Kill the bugs, fast.

Second, avoid feature creep - attempting to keep-up-with-the-joneses. No new team can catch up to Apple's 5-year, multi-billion development effort.

And third, stocking your store with the same New York Times and Angry Bird app won't make you better. You can't catch up to Apple's 350,000 apps.

What's the Answer?

The answer is to understand customers and look for large customer sets that have been ignored by Apple and Google. Then build your store, stock it with relevant apps, and serve your customers - simple advice from a hands-on partner who is working to make you successful.

We wish each enterprise the best of luck with their appstores.

Automatic Bookmarks for Keys Mobile Apps

Automatic bookmarking of each app has been released to iPhone, Android, Palm, Blackberry, Chrome, Safari, and other platforms. It's a significant change for the user experience and a new feature that allows rapid release of more enhancements.

Fat Library of E-books

Each Keys mobile app is a collection of 30 to 200 terms, hundreds of images and videos, and activities like Learn, Watch, Spin, Match, and Guess that aid learning and memorization. When compared to e-books, each app can have thousands of pages - ie thicker than the textbook to the right.

As our library has expanded to over 600 apps, we needed a better way to track the status in each app.

The automatic bookmark feature has no user interface - it just works. When you select a term, that bookmarked term travels from activity to activity. When you restart an app, the last term shows immediately. In short, it's a bookmark.

The Technical Details

We use local storage, a feature that is supported by the iPhone, iPad, and iTouch (v2 or better); Android (v2+); HP Palm (all versions); Blackberry (version 5+); Safari (v4+); Chrome (v4+); Opera (v10+); Firefox (v3.5+); and Explorer (v8+). Other browsers from Japan and Nokia may support the same feature. IE6, IE7, older Firefox browsers won't have the automatic bookmarking.

Using local storage, we'll be able to release many more features that enhance the learning experience.

PS: A belated thank you to the 1,500,000 users who have downloaded Keys. And a special thank to the Amazon tech who suggested this approach to improving the user experience.

Google Opens Android Market to Web Users

On February 3rd, Google opened its Android Market to web users. The impact for our Keys mobile platform has been unique and beyond all expectations.

Android Market from Phones

Prior to the third, the estimated 70 million Android phone users worldwide can only discover and download apps from their phone. This process is slow and limited, hindering discovery of apps buried on pages 2 through 100 of a category.

Further, mobile operators like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have packed the phones with pre-loaded apps - making it difficult for users to find the Android Market icon on their crowded phone.

Third-party websites have tried to provide discovery and purchase services for users from their PC. However, these companies lack the marketing needed to draw significant interest. Thus, we've seen little referrals from those websites.

Android Market from Computers

Google opened the market for users to access from computers via a website. A PC can download a page of apps and their icons in fractional seconds. Phones require 4 to 10 seconds per page. By creating a website for apps, users can use faster computers and faster networks to browse and search for apps. The web market sends the requested downloads directly to the phone. The impact has been dramatic and instantaneous.

Our Android traffic is up 300% to 400% - and still rising.

Featured apps that are already on page one are unlikely to notice any change. Also, developers with apps buried on page 200 are unlikely to notice any difference.

Our Keys apps are typically tops among dozens of mainstream subjects. However, these subjects can be easily buried by cute titles such as Angry Birds, Tap Tap Revenge, and other apps.

Now that it's easier and faster for users to find top apps on pages 2 to 100, we have been one of the main beneficiaries. Thank you for searching and downloading our apps.

Snapshot of Keys Users from Android/Linux, Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, and iPhone

Pageviews by Operating Systems

Linux 414,581 (34%) Palm 285,090 (23%) BlackBerry 249,240 (20%) Nokia 129,358 Samsung 40,335 Windows 35,353 SonyEricsson 32,547 LG 8,901 iPhone 8,024 iPod 3,233

Happy New Year!

Tap the image to start the app

A mobile Happy New Year greeting to one and all.

We're looking forward to a gala 2011 as four major brands join our effort to promote Keys - the coffee table apps - a small step toward saving the planet. Subscribe to this blog to keep up with the announcements.

#1 Android apps for SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, TOEFL vocab prep at Appolicious

Check out my app picks for
"#1 Android apps for SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT vocab prep"

Blackberry OS6 Review
RT @bbgeeks Learn and have fun on your BlackBerry with Keys | BB Geeks http://bit.ly/ddM7P3

Motorola Features Keys at Their App Store

For the release of the Motorola AppStore in Latin America Markets, their staff chose to highlight the Keys apps. We thank the Motorola staff and look forward to working with them to grow mobile markets in Latin America.

160,000 Android Phones Sold Per Day

160,000 Android Phones Sold Per Day

Android cofounder and Google vice president Andy Rubin just announced at the Droid X event that 160,000 Android devices are being sold per day. That’s up sharply from last month when Google announced that 100,000 Android devices were being activated each day.

As recently as February the number was just 60,000 per day. The Droid X will begin shipping on July 15 for $200. Given how hot the EVO is selling on Sprint, we can probably expect another jump in those Android sales numbers soon.

Verizon Rep: It's just like an iPhone ;-)

While visiting a Verizon store, I overheard a customer conversation.

Do you have the iPhone?

Is Verizon listening to their customers?

Verizon's Challenge

Verizon is the largest wireless network in the United States. (FYI - very small when compared to China Mobile and China Unicom as an aside.) Despite the massive advertising pissing-battle on TV, their 3G network is marginally faster than AT&T's network, equal when using the Wi-Fi option, and behind when shared with telephony services.

Verizon rejected Apple and enterprise politics block adding the iPhone to their product mix. AT&T has already announced that they will add Android phones, opening the door for Apple to choose more wireless partners in the USA.

Verizon offers Blackberry for business users, Palm Pre/Pixi for female customers, and the Android Droid series for tech-savvy customers. Thus, they concluded that they don't need the iPhone.

Wrong.

Troubles on the Android Platform

Verizon has pushed millions of Android phones to customers - made by Motorola, HTC, and Samsung. (ed: still a small fraction of iPhone, iPad, iPod shipments) Unfortunately, of the six phones tested:

• 2 failed to boot
• 1 crunched its content to less than 320px resolution
• 1 unit's touch typing failed to recognize any letter correctly
• 1 worked great, but had a few small quirks
• 1 worked perfectly
• All had Android 1.5 or better
  

As an app developer, I've pointed out the weakness of the Android strategy. Who is to blame for this inconsistent user experience? Google, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, Verizon, Taiwan, or the developer? Let the fingerpointing start.

Although the press has accused Apple of taking tough stances with wireless partners, developers, and Taiwan manufacturers, it's clear that Apple takes the user experience seriously and takes ownership of the issue.

On the Android platform, who takes ownership?

What the Verizon Customer Wants

Let's get back to the customer.

• She wants to stay with Verizon
• Her kids have asked for the iPhone
• She is told that the Droid is just like an iPhone. Is it? Which one?
  
• She asked about iTunes
• She is told that Verizon already has iTunes -- using MP3
• She asked when Verizon will offer the iPhone
• The rep lied, soon ;-)

Should Verizon make their reps look like a bunch of out-right fibbers? Politics aside, isn't it time for Verizon to listen to their customers?

Developing for Google Android

Android is an open-source, mobile platform from Google. The software development code base uses Java, and supports open-source development platforms like Eclipse. Webkit is the base technology behind the browser, similar to the Chrome desktop browser.

Strengths of Android

• Google technology, reach.
• Great alternative versus proprietary platforms like the iPhone or Palm.
  
• Wide adoption and interest among phone makers - including Acer, Dell, HTC, HP, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Samsung, SONY, Toshiba, ZTE, and possibly Nokia. See caveat below.
  
• Immediate, easy access to the Android Market - versus slower submission process at the iTunes app store and Palm app catalog.
• Simplest submission/update process.
  
• Connected with Google checkout - for servicing buyers and sellers of paid apps.
  

Weakness of Android

• Least Common Denominator (LDC) - Since each device maker chooses different screen resolutions, gesture support, and accelerator detailing - the platform causes problems for developers seeking to push-the-envelope on cool interfaces. In the interest of cross device use, developers often settle for the LDC of available features across phones. Thus, iPhone is likely to still command the most innovative apps.
  
• Google - known for great code, but poor User Interface design. The app review mechanism is an example of questionable UI.
  
• Google - war with China - stopping adoption among China device makers. China is the largest mobile market in the world.
• Not ready for international distribution and payments.
• Weak DRM - discouraging legacy publishers from submitting their content as apps.
• Fragmentation - Struggle to control app store between Google w/Checkout; and carriers with their own stores and credit via phone bills. (ref T-mobile, Verizon Vcast, WAC) China Mobile, European carriers, and Facebook all plan to brand Android with their own names.
  
• Missing support for tablets with higher screen resolutions.