After many, many months of very hard work we finally released Google Sync for mobile on many platforms today.
Please read my official post on the Google Blog from earlier today. No, yesterday.
Then go to m.google.com/sync to find out ho to sync your device. Heed the warnings. The service is still in Beta.
So the iStrip app made it into the App Store after all. But only after the offending image of a woman in a bikini was covered up. How strange. And completely pointless. Because you can now just get the original image from Rock Cottage Industries anyway, without Apple having a say in it. That’s the way to do it.
Lets face it, the app is nothing to write home about. It is good for a laugh in the pub or with friends but you could probably live without it. Still, I always thought it was very funny, still think it is funny and really love the idea of being able to download the image that Apple had censored. So go get iStrip from the App Store and then get yourself the bikini girl from Rock Cottage Industries.
A couple of months ago Beth decided to start making high quality soft toys and other nice textile objects and sell them online. She originally is a costume designer and really knows how to handle a needle. And she has pretty good taste, too.
So recently our house has become even more cluttered, as the mountains of our kids’ toys were joined by boxes and boxes of fabric, buttons, trims, wrappings, packaging, cards, ribbons and all sorts of objects that I cannot name.
But now Beth has a pretty cool online store up and running and people do seem to love her designs. So if you need some handmade and high quality gifts for your own kids or presents for other people’s kids, you should check out The Linen Cat and The Linen Cat Blog.
I find it incredibly depressing that Apple has rejected iStrip Clock again. How can it be that some Californian decides on what is offensive or obscene in the whole world? Many people will find rubbish apps like iFart offensive. Just because iStrip contains a (1960s vintage) model in underwear. Sad world.
On the positive side, there is now a video of the rejected app on YouTube.
Over at Rock Cottage Industries they are eagerly awaiting Apple’s judgment on their new iStrip Clock application for the iPhone. The reviewers at Apple have rejected many apps for containing “objectionable content”, but sometimes I wonder if there is simply a cultural divide. What we Europeans find funny and maybe ironic, the American reviewers at Apple may simply not get. The recent case of iBoobs was widely discussed.
I think iStrip will be an interesting case to watch, because it really is very funny indeed in an ironic retro sort of way, but it may seem crude and offensive to someone from California. It would be a shame if we could not get apps for the iPhone to our own cultural tastes, because they don’t like them in America.
If you are into clocks and watches, check out the Tokyo Time app (iTunes Link) from Rock Cottage Industries, it is pretty cool.
Shocking…, but there are changes about. Firstly, I will move this page away from Yahoo! web hosting soon, because frankly it is not that great and pretty expensive. Probably to Wordpress.com. Secondly, I plan to start writing the occasional post again, but probably more focused on specific topics. There is a new year’s resolution for you. So stay tuned.
We have been working on this for a little while and today it finally saw the light of day. Check it out at Google Mobile or download it directly to your Blackberry from http://m.google.com/sync.
Also see my post to on the Google Mobile blog.
It has been great working with the Jaiku team over the past few months and I am really excited that they are now finally part of the family.
It was ten years ago today, that my friend Sebastian and I packed up my dad’s Lada estate with all the personal possessions we could fit into it, mounted our bikes on the roof and set off for Hamburg to catch the ferry to Harwich. Sebastian went back to Berlin a year later, but I have lived in the UK ever since.
Of course, at the time I would never have thought I was going to stay this long, get married, have children and be on course to spend the rest of my life in this country. So it wasn’t quite as significant a journey then. We were only going for a year, to study, maybe for two to get some work experience. But looking back now, our slow cruise up the Elbe in the sunset certainly marks one of the most defining moments in my life.
We arrived in the East End after a 24 hour journey, tired, excited but perhaps also a little scared. Sebastian had arranged for us to stay with a friend of his who lived in a huge loft apartment in Lana House on Commercial Street, just opposite Spitalfields Market. The area was already up and coming back then, but it was still extremely rough, dirty and poor. I remember that we went out to play basketball on a small court around the corner on that very first afternoon and that this felt incredibly comforting. It wasn’t the kind of thing that tourists did. We had only just arrived, but it already felt like we belonged. It was a great start.
If you have not signed the iPlayer Petition on the No 10 website, please do. I find it infuriating that the BBC could even consider in this day and age to launch such an important service for Windows and IE only. What are they thinking?
