Lookout mobile blog
2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival
February 18th, 2010 by Lookout Mobile
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: > 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
February 15th, 2010 by Lookout Mobile
 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
February 9th, 2010 by Daniel Kagan
 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 -Daniel Kagan mentioned
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Lookout Mobile’s iPad Thoughts
February 3rd, 2010 by Lookout Mobile
Our first impressions was ‘what type of name is the iPad?’  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 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
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