Federation Square – “What’s On” iPhone Application
daniel

July 20th, 2010 by daniel

01Lookout mobile teamed up with FRANkVizeum to create the Federation Square ‘What’s On’ iPhone application.

Federation Square is Melbourne’s meeting place – a landmark cultural and entertainment destination where Melbournian’s and visitors gather. Locals have embraced “Fed Square” as a true reflection of their city, with rich cultural experiences, a diversity of places to eat and drink, unique shopping and a wealth of information to welcome visitors.

And with over 2,000 events a year, there’s always something happening at Fed Square. From free outdoor concerts to major multicultural festivals, art exhibitions to wine tasting, you can stay up to date with this handy “What’s On” application which will tell you exactly what’s happening and where to find it.

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July 2010 Melbourne CocoaHeads Presentation
sadat

July 9th, 2010 by sadat

We recently presented our flagship iPad app Aussie Rules Live HD at July’s Melbourne CocoaHeads meet up. The turnout of cocoa heads this month was just amazing. A lot of great developers are highly enthusiastic about developing apps on the iOS platform, and are happy to share their journeys and tips. In the same spirit, we are making available our presentation slides in this blog post. Comments and questions are welcome, and will be highly appreciated.

Aussie Rules Live HD – July 2010 Melbourne CocoaHeads

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Deloitte Leadership Academy iPhone App
daniel

July 2nd, 2010 by daniel

DLA Screen GrabsLookout Mobile have worked closely with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu over the last few months to produce their Leadership Academy iPhone apps. The aim of the Deloitte Leadership Academy (DLA) is to build the next generation of leaders through a 12 month blended learning program designed by business people, for business people, to increase your organisation’s competitive advantage.

As a member of the DLA program, you have access to some of the world’s best training around the clock. At the heart of the program is a world class online portal with extensive e-Learning from leading business schools, academics, researchers and CEOs globally. The role of the iPhone application is to give the Deloitte Leadership Academy clients further access to its program / content via a mobile platform.

The Leadership Academy consists twelve core competencies that form the foundation of the program. To get a taste of the program, you can download a ‘Free Lite’ version by clicking here:

DLA Online Portal

DLA competencies

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First iPad App is here: Aussie Rules Live!
daniel

June 3rd, 2010 by daniel

Lookout Mobile are VERY excited to announce our new Aussie Rules Live iPad App!

We have been working around the clock for the last 4 weeks to get this app ready and we are ecstatic to see it live in the App Store. A massive thanks to Carsales.com.au for making this free to all our great users!

ipad - Aussie rules live- live game

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Plus, we are being featured by Apple this week (19th July 2010):

Screen shot 2010-07-20 at 6.30.05 PMScreen shot 2010-07-20 at 6.25.53 PM

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Our first few weeks with the iPad
daniel

May 26th, 2010 by daniel

Daniel Kiss Its been a few weeks now since Pat and I received our brands spanken over inflated (thanks to eBay) iPads. My  first thought was, ‘where are the instructions’? It quickly dawned to me that Apple elected not to include  instructions in the box. All you receive is an iPad and a charger – this one act sums up the functionality of the  iPad. Simple and intuitive. As cheesy as it sounds, the device really does direct you to how it should be used.

Next was working out what do with the device and this has been an ongoing adventure. For example, I spent  the last week up north and found that I would use my iPad for reading the newspaper, checking emails,  downloading and watching Mad Men season 3 (best series of all time) and playing Real Racing. The device  just works, especially when you are lying back, sipping on your coffee and looking out at the view. Coupled  with my home and office use of the device, I have come to one clear conclusion. The device  is truly a content device and I cannot see myself using it for any other purpose than to read, watch and play. I  tried sending emails but found it a little frustrating and i tried writing documents via Pages and  lost interest  after 5 minutes. However, as soon as I opened the web, explored ‘The Age” or just surfed, I found  the  experience seamless and instant.  In addition, I found myself downloading a heap of podcasts and TED  talks  (www.ted.com/)and found the viewing experience to be a delight.

The iPad App Store: I have not been too excited on this front. There is a long way to go and for the success of the device, the App Store needs to improve. I have found a lot of the newspaper apps to be underwhelming with the New York Times disappointing me most. The app as Steve Smith describes ‘just curates a few sections of the newspaper/Web site and pastes select stories into a nondescript pair of screens for four main sections’. To me, the app is confusing. On the flip side, AP News and BBC news, caters to the iPad touch interface with a set of clear, animated and floating rectangular tiles for easy access to articles – they have done a great job utilising the native interface the iPad offers. It will be interesting to see which design formula works but I have no doubt that a user friendly newspaper app will be achieved with a lot of trial and error with a heap of effort and time.

From here it will be very interesting to see how succssful the iPad will be. Frank McPherson cited a few relevant metrics to go by (http://bit.ly/a2ldU7). Firstly, will the iPad impacts personal computer sales…? ‘If there are significant decreases in PC sales and high iPad (and other tablet computer) sales, then clearly the iPad will have had an impact on redefining personal computing’.  The second measure will be, ‘how many people buy an iPad or other tablets who never had, nor will, buy a personal computer’. This measure will illustrate whether the device draws ‘people to personal computing in a way that actual PCs were not able to achieve’.

In anycase, I have had not received one negative comment from family, friends and clients when I hand over the device to them for a play. In fact, everyone has been blown away.

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The iPad and Arcade Table have arrived at Lookout Mobile
daniel

April 27th, 2010 by daniel

The last week was an exciting week for Lookout Mobile. Firstly, we employed Rafif, our new iPhone developer who will be starting next week. We look forward to introducing him to you all. Secondly, we purchased an amazing arcade table that includes 1200 of the very latest 1980 games including, Golden Axe, Gallaga, Wonder Boy, Double Dragon, Street Fighter and the list goes on. We have an open door policy for all clients and friends, so feel free to pop in when you are in Prahran.

However, the most exciting part of the week was getting our hands on our first iPad (second iPad coming later this week). What a device! More thoughts to come in a future blog post but here are a few photos of the team having a little fun with our new toys.
pat and sadat Tamir Daniel Kiss

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Preloaded Apps onto 25,000 Nokia N97 Mini
daniel

April 27th, 2010 by daniel

A major event milestone occured at Lookout Mobile last month and that was the release of the new Nokia N97 Mini phones. We cannot lay claim to building this device but what we can claim is that 25,000 units have been shipped around Australia with our popular Aussie Rules Live application and Rugby League Live applications. It is great for Nokia to recognise local content and we can only hope this is the beginning of a strong relationship with local mobile application developers and Nokia Australia.

We also were featured in a current out-of-home advertising campaign that run throughout both Melbourne and Sydney during March 2010.

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N97 Mini Preloaded Photo

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2010 Melbourne International Jazz Festival
daniel

April 14th, 2010 by daniel

Lookout Mobile are proud to announce the 2010 Melbourne International Jazz Festival official iPhone applicaiton.

The application includes the complete guide to the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and is presented in a slick, contemporary and easy to use manner.

The Jazz Festival: During the first week of May, Melbourne will be transformed as its city streets, squares, concert halls, jazz clubs, galleries and bars play host to the world’s modern masters of jazz. One of Australia’s hallmark music events, the festival showcases the creativity and diversity of jazz across the artforms. In an exciting new age of technology and innovation, this year’s rich program of more than 100 events features leading international and Australian artists who are progressing the universal language of jazz, with an unprecedented number of Australian premiere and festival-exclusive concerts. For musicians, avid jazz fans, families and absolutely all lovers of music, this is a time to be entertained, to discover and to be inspired with films, talks, master classes, public art, children’s workshops and free outdoor concerts.

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further information, please visit www.melbournejazz.com

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Human Rights Arts and Film Festival
daniel

April 9th, 2010 by daniel

HRAFF Homepage

HRAFF Homepage

Lookout mobile is proud to support the 2010 Human Rights Arts and Film Festival (HRAFF) that will be held around Australia from the 23rd April to 30th May.

About the festival: The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival was founded in 2007 by Evelyn Tadros, Naziath Mantoo and a dedicated team of passionate her-aff-ers who had a vision to make human rights accessible, relevant and significant to the broader Australian community. In less than two years, HRAFF has grown into a nation wide Festival showing in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Through the commitment and hard work of the entire HRAFF team and the generosity of its supporters, the Festival’s first edition was an incredible success.

We hope you all can head down to a show and not only support the festival.

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AFL & NRL Sponsorship Rationale
daniel

March 12th, 2010 by daniel

We have received a few comments regarding the use of the carsales.com.au sponsorship model and wanted to explain our point of view.

Firstly, the 2009 AFL and NRL apps were purchased for that season only – any new update would of been charged for in 2010 - we apologise if this has caused some confusion and frustrations.

Our 2010 objective was to deliver more value and footy content to the user by offering an improved product with the objective of delivering a free app. We felt that the user had the right to free footy content via their iPhone. That’s why we have got the sponsor on board –  to fund these imporvements, plus our time and energy.

When incorporating the sponsors brand we have been very minfdul of the delicate balance required in serving the needs of users and the sponsor. We believe we have struck a good balance but are open to suggestions.

Please email all suggestions to info@lookoutmobile.com

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Aussie Rules LIVE – 2010
admin

March 11th, 2010 by admin

Screen shot 2010-07-19 at 5.20.48 PMAussie Rules Live 2010 update is here!

Where to start? Firstly, the 2010 Aussie Rules Live has been made free with the full support of www.carsales.com.au. With their support we have been able to make significant improvements to the app, buy more stats from Champion Data and best of all, make it FREE for users in 2010.

So whats new?

*** Footy tips integration (www.footytips.com.au)

*** AFL Today: get all the relevant information for your team in one place. Includes recent footy news during the week and instant access to scores, margins and time of games during the weekend.

*** Stats Central: 10 year history of Brownlow winners, drafts, All Australian teams and so much more

*** In app game previews from Contested Footy

*** Dreamteam AND Supercoach builder and scores

*** 2009 features like live text commentary, scoring worm, goal scorers, ladder and full fixtures remain.

2010 improvements:

  • Design: we wanted to move away from boring tables of data and make the experience more engaging and exciting. We hope you like it as much as we do
  • Thursday night teams: including late changes 40 minutes prior to the game
  • Player stats improvement
  • Team vs. team game stats

New server – there has also been a significant improvement behind the scenes with the investment of new servers and some clever new data packaging – you’ll notice the scores, fixtures and ladder loading much faster in 2010.

And best of all its version 1 with more updates to come in the coming weeks.

For constant updates head to our Twitter page – http://twitter.com/aussieruleslive.

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Rugby League LIVE – 2010
admin

March 11th, 2010 by admin

NRL2010 Update update is here:

Please note: we will be fixing ‘Aukland’ to its correct name New Zealand Warriors and updating all team lists.

Firstly, the 2010 Rugby League Live has been made free with the full support of www.carsales.com.au. With their support we have been able to make significant improvements to the app, purchase more content and best of all, make it FREE for users in 2010

Whats new?

Firstly, all the great features from 2009 are still included :

  • live scores
  • player lists
  • match results
  • fixtures
  • news
  • ladder
  • team injuries.

The most notable change in 2010 is how the app looks. We wanted to move away from boring tables of data and make the experience more engaging and exciting. We hope you like it as much as we do.

NRL Today – a big focus for us in the 2010 season was bringing scores and fixtures to rugby fans sooner. With the ‘NRL Today’ section, we have included a blackboard that will display the most recent rugby news during the week. On weekends, it comes to life giving you instant access to live matches, actual margins and time of game. The same blackboard in the ‘My Team’ page will give you quick access to previous and next game information.

Thanks to footytips.com.au we’ve been able to bring you a quick and easy way to enter your rugby tips each week. So there will be no excuses for forgetting to tip in 2010.

There has also been a significant improvement behind the scenes with the investment of new servers and some clever new data packaging – you’ll notice the scores, fixtures and ladder loading much faster in 2010.

Best of all, this is just version one for 2010. Stay tuned for even more great features when the season kicks off…

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2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival
daniel

February 18th, 2010 by daniel

2010 MICF Title

2010 MICF Title

2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival has arrived.

Click here to download today.

Lookout Mobile is proud to bring you the official 2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival iPhone application – Australia’s largest ticketed cultural event and the 3rd largest comedy festival in the world.

Running amok from 24th March to 18th April is this city’s most-loved celebration of tomfoolery, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Comedy’s finest are flying in from all corners of the globe, and they promise to stage shows that will get the whole city laughing, no matter what age, gender, ethnicity or persuasion. From red-eye late night gigs to jokes for the juniors, the Comedy Festival is a demographic-free zone – absolutely everyone is invited to converge on the CBD grid where the vibe is high and the guffaws even louder.

The 2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival iPhone Application Features Include:

Full program information including performance details, images for each production (over 360 shows have registered for the 2010 Festival) and venue directions via built in Google Maps with recommended near by restaurants to keep you entertained between shows.

Browse by performance:

Daily Diary

Daily Diary

> Date

> Genre

> Free events

There is also quick ‘one touch’ access to:

> Daily Diary

> Latest news and offerings (with ‘push notification’)

> Category listings

> Ticket’s where to buy

Push Notification – be the first to know about exclusive events, parties and discounted or free tickets. Daily text messages will be sent to your iPhone informing you of exclusive events that will be taking place during the festival.

My Planner section – bookmark your favourite performers or performances and gain easy future access.

Shake – not sure what to see? You can use the Festival’s shake function to select a completely random show on the day.

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Alice in iPhoneland
daniel

February 15th, 2010 by daniel

Alice in your iPhone

Alice in your iPhone

I came across an interested article about how Disney has released a free, stand-alone “Alice in Wonderland” iPhone app, plugging both the movie and an upcoming game based on the film for the Nintendo Wii.

What’s interesting is the iPhone-centric mobile push and how much faith movie studio’s are putting in this device when promoting their movies. What about Nokia? Or Google Android based phones?

Well, who can blame them with 50 million units to target (not including iPod Touch devices), its becoming a smart choice for a distributional channel when planning for media. For example, the studio has a fair idea of the user demographic and location of the iPhone user. Its common knowledge that the majority of iPhones have been purchased in developed countries, with around 65% of users aged between 25 – 54 years who have a higher than average income.

Alice in Wonderland isn’t the first movie that has utilized the iPhone as a distribution channel with Saw 5, Star Wars, Terminator and Star Trek producing top quality iPhone apps to support its movie release. Saw 5 deserves a special mention with their ‘jigsaw your voice’ app. The  ’jigsaw your voice’ app cleverly morph’s the users voice, with the aim of sounding like the game master in Saw. Once the user has morphed their voice, they are then given the option to their ‘morphed voice’ to their contacts – viral marketing at its best.

The idea sounds spooky but its been downloaded a heap of times with a valuable fan base who keep using the app and sending their morphed voice to their contacts. Furthermore, the power of the iPhone allows movie studios to push out exclusive content, behind the scenes info, characters profile, release dates and even giveaways. Even if the movie was ordinary and failed at the box-office, at least the studio has the opportunity to blow the public away with a relevant iPhone app that the user will hopefully absorb and connect with well after the movie has gone to DVD release.

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iPad and Apple’s World Domination
daniel

February 9th, 2010 by daniel

Great article from The Age’s Garry Barker looking into Apples new iPad and its current and future position in the mobile and e-reader marketplace. It was also great to contribute to this article with Daniel giving his opinion on the iPad and why there is no camera.

Click here for the full article.

Lookout Mobile Mention

Lookout Mobile -Daniel Kagan mentioned

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Lookout Mobile’s iPad Thoughts
daniel

February 3rd, 2010 by daniel

Our first impressions was ‘what type of name is the iPad?’

Homescreen

Homescreen

From a device perspective it looks great and will offer the user a clean and quick user experience when it comes to surfing the net, reading e-books, checking and responding to emails, watching movies and viewing pictures. The slickness is typical of Apple and once people start playing with it, and seeing it in the ‘real world’ the buzz will only intensify and people will probably start banging down on Apple’s door to get one.

The epicenter of this device is the iBookStore and to a lesser extent iTunes (movies). The ability to purchase eBooks, magazines, newspapers and uni/school material will serve as another massive revenues stream for Apple. While, having a 9.7 inch LED-backlit screen, will give the user a great movie watching experience.

It kind of feels like the auxiliary features like the web, iPod, email etc are just icing on the cake; the iPad is focused on the iBookStore. Hence, what they have created is purely an e-Reader on steroids. There is no doubt that the extra features will be the ‘hooks for the general immediate users’, but for the power users, business users, medical industries and educational areas, there are enormous potential markets that could open up with just the right applications.

Newspaper app

Newspaper app

From a more technical perspective, Apple’s purchase of the company PA Semiconductors a little while ago has shown to be a great move.  It would seem that PA Semiconductors work on developing specialized chips that ran on very little power has enabled Apple to engineer a custom chip to run this amazing new device.  This helps Apple to also keep things in house and under their very black hat.

There is no doubt that its a massive opportunity for app developers and we are excited about seeing our apps on the iPad but the real commerce and advancements will be seen in the iBookStore and rightly so. The monetization of good, relevant and unique content is the future for the sustainability of digital content and there is a good chance that the public will be in for a massive surprise when they commence viewing newspapers and books via the iPad.

Regarding the price of content: give it time and one would hope that the iPad’s seamless user interface, and simple and convenient delivery of content would justify the cost of content. Take the iTunes Store as an example: people thought charging for music would fail but to-date, Apple have sold more than 6 billion songs via the iTunes Store since it opened in 2003, making it the world’s largest music retailer.

Regarding the ‘missing in action’ features – who really cares if there’s no camera or flash support? The only real missing feature (that will be corrected) is multi-tasking. The iPad is an e-reader with sublime features, (as agreed by Michael – head programmer) the reason there is no camera is because of relevance and price. What purpose will a camera serve? Can you imagine people lugging their 9.7-inch screen in front of a friend, whilst positioning them for the perfect shot? Use a real camera with a decent lens or use a toy camera in a phone for un-important photos.  Don’t try to take a decent shot with a two handed hold on 2/3’s of an A4 page.

Finally, the price point is a real winner for the consumer and ultimately Apple. Its essentially suggestive selling on Apple’s behalf – give the shaver away for free and make money on the blade.

It will be really interesting in the uptake of the iPad. I doubt it will sell like the iPhone or iPod; nearly 50 million iPhones have been sold since its launch in June 2007 and the world’s iPod population is now more than 250 million and still growing. Where the iPad will have instant success will be within education. The education sector has been looking for a good portable device with good battery life, well priced, hooked in to the network and easy to interact with.  However, the real test will be how it competes with the Kindle and other competitors and how they will price its content. Only time will tell…

Update: click here to read Garry Barkers (The Age) thoughts on the iPad…

iPad Flat display

iPad Flat display

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Its no laughing matter, even in New Zealand!
daniel

January 25th, 2010 by daniel

Footer iPhone V2

Lookout Mobile has just been selected to create the 2010 New Zealand International Comedy Festival. The festival will take place in the month of May and will showcase the best of New Zealand and International Comedy.

The International Comedy Festival is a highlight on the entertainment NZ calendar and Lookout look forward to assisting patrons in discovering and encouraging their participation in the festival. Its broad mainstream appeal has been demonstrated by consistently high audience attendances since it’s inception in 1994.

Held simultaneously over three weeks in Auckland and Wellington, the Festival then takes to the road with the Crunchie Comedy Convoy, touring to regional cities across New Zealand.

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The Travelling iPhone
admin

January 21st, 2010 by admin

IMG_1984Yesterday i returned from a nice holiday break overseas. Instead of posting a hundred pictures of me standing in front of various churches (available on request though), I thought it might be useful to post some details on how my iPhone fit into my holiday experience. Firstly, data is crazy expensive overseas > which meant no email > a good start. Apart from the usual games and random entertainment, offline Maps was really the key app for me. Data will cost you a lot overseas so using google maps on your phone is not an option. The various offline maps applications made it a whole lot easier and I can’t imagine how I did it in the past… standing on every corner with an A2 foldout trying to work out where the hell i was. Parlez-vous anglais?

I am sure there a lot of other great apps for travellers, but here are a few of my favourite applications over the last 6 weeks:

  • oMaps (link) – ($2.49 AU) - probably my most used application. Using a WiFi connection, you select on a map the region to download. Once done, you can use this map the same way you would use google maps, including GPS, digital compass & adding placemarks etc. The compass made this even better by helping me get my orientation when working out where to next. I found this one extremely useful for all the cities i visited. For the small price, users can download unlimited maps so you can cover all of your destinations with the 1 purchase.
  • XE (link) – (FREE) – run of mill currency conversion application. There may be better ones out there, but this was free and served its purpose nicely.
  • Cricket Game (link) – ($1.19) – I’m not the biggest cricket fan, but for some reason I am quite addicted to this game, and during those boring airport waits I honed my skills and became extraordinarily good at this game. Expert difficulty level, 300 runs, 20 overs… easy.
  • Scrabble (link) – ($5.99) – The old classic. If you are travelling with someone who also has an iPhone, this game is great. Play against each other and get beaten every time like I did. Note that if you play vs computer, it definitely cheats.
  • London Tube (link) – ($1.19) – As the name suggests, tube map for london. Also covers busses i think and a journey planner. There are apps like this for most countries and always useful.
  • World Nomads French Language guide (link) – (FREE) – For those important times….  No boeuf cru s’il vous plaît (no raw beef please)

I tried a few of the more popular iPhone guide books… Lonely Planet, Wallpaper etc… but to be honest i found them to be pretty average, especially for the hefty price tag. There is a whole travel category in the app store so its certainly worth browsing before your next trip.

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Aussie Rules Live Top 2 App of 2009
daniel

December 21st, 2009 by daniel

We are very proud to announce that Aussie Rules Live has been acknowledged by Apple as the top 2 most popular app in 2009. We were also number 7 in total gross. We would like to thank everyone for your great support and encouragement.

Bring on 2010!

2nd most pop app of 2009Top 10 iPhone app of 2009

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