Come Join Us for ‘App Smack’ Later Today – Live
Live iPhone Chat at 5:00PM Eastern Today (12/11/09)
Fancy a bit of apps talk “ some live chat about apps and the App Store? Of course you do “ and we ‘ve got a fun offering of just that kind of thing, live this afternoon thanks to the lovely folks at Vokle.com. Vokle is a new service that lets you host live online events, with video and live chat and lots of other slick features “ and Jesse and Edward were kind enough to ask us to give it whirl as it launches to the public today.
Our event is titled ‘App Smack ‘ and we are doing it in tandem with our good friends at KRAPPS. We ‘re planning to have some fun with this, and here ‘s the menu of topics we hope to cover:
* Happy Holidays – Worst / Most Bizarre Holiday apps
* End of Year App Awards – Best Apps Ever and App Star Awards
* App Store Bannage – 1% of apps banned, from one dev
* I bought a ‘milk and cereal physics app’ – and I’m proud 
* An app so cute it’ll make your head explode?
* Giveaway – 2 Exploded iPhone shirts
You can join in and comment / ask questions via your keyboard, or come in with a video question if you prefer, ask questions via Twitter, and all that good stuff. Oh, and I ‘m in the right time zone for cracking a beer while we ‘re doing this “ hope some of you can come along and raise a glass.
To watch and / or join in just go here at 5:00 Eastern today:
http://vokle.com/events/210-app-smack
Alternatively, you can participate by throwing questions at us via Twitter. Just make sure to add #Appsmack to your tweet!
What I'd really like to see, and for some reason, no one is taking on is the negative change to Maps app.
I bought the iPhone in part, knowing that when I wanted to look up a quick nearby business I could. Since I have owned my 3Gs, it has actually lost usability in this regard due to "featured listings" appearing first. At first it was annoying, but now its just dysfunctional. Last night I had gps find me, I zoomed in on my city around my blue dot and typed in a men's department store. First 10 matches were in TN, FL, and the like. I live almost in the exact center of the U.S. That's ridiculous. The other day I was looking up Chica-fila because I knew one was around me. According to the list view, it first had one over 20 miles away and then a different one 60 miles away, when I recognized the address of the third one in the list I realized that was the one I was 1 mile away from.
I am not trying to promote any product or service or change this blog. I absolutely love what you guys do, but I think this requires some serious attention. Maybe a jailbreak designer can add something that automatically sorts by distance? I understand Google needs to make money and if they want to design their website and search a certain way that's up to them, but I paid for functionality of Maps (which is probably in my top 3 of most often used apps).
Happy Friday
Hi John – thanks for the kind words about the site! I haven't seen issues as severe as you have on Maps (it shows me results in my town, close byt etc) – but I do keep hearing that the whole Google and Apple no longer BFFs sort of vibe is beginning to adversely affect the quality of Google apps on iPhone in comparison to their apps on Android. Then again, can't see Apple playing any nicer if the roles were reversed.
Searches are working for me just fine. I tried several after reading your comment and could not find any problems.
Interesting that neither of you have been able to see this first hand. I did some testing to verify my craziness. On 4 out of 5 searches it did not organize the list by what was closest to me; however, only on 1 search did it starting going over 60 miles away. I don't know if this is a regional issue or what. Its not a GPS issue because I wait for the blue dot to place me properly before I search. On the days of my Touch, I would have just switched to Live search (which had self-updating turn-by-turn directions). The Google Navigation program looks perfect BTW, I love the price and am fine only getting directions where I have service. TomTom has now dropped down to $50 though, and I may bite…
If I figure out a pattern I'll let you know. A while ago I asked some folks on a Tuaw discussion, and several said they saw the same thing… Thanks for the feedback!