Klout for iPhone goes 2.0: personalized content stream, topic explorer, Klout Perks and more

Klout started out in 2008 with the promise of measuring the world’s influence. Although its rapid rise to fame has inspired a bunch of similar services, Klout has remained my favorite social media analytics. 

Upon connecting your social media accounts with Klout, the service calculates your score on a scale of 1-100, depending on the popularity of your posts as measured by the number of interactions and reposts from your community, among other factors. 

To derive your score, Klout processes an astounding 50 billion pieces of information every single day. Granted, Klout isn’t the most accurate social analytics tool out there, but it does help you get noticed for your unique passions. 

Besides, the team is dutifully adding new features on a regular basis. My only gripe with Klout: its sub-par iPhone app – and I’m using the term ‘app’ loosely here – that would only let me see my Klout score and nothing else. 

Today’s version 2.0 update changes all that by adding several much-needed features such as personalized content streams, the new content scheduler and topic explorers, Klout Perks and more… 

Klout for iPhone honors Apple’s design guidelines for iOS 7 development and includes swiping-based navigation akin to Apple’s own stock iOS 7 apps. Other gestures are supported as well. For example, just drag up to preview and share a piece of content, or drag right to edit your topics.   

As illustrated below, Klout for iPhone is now all about content discovery. You can start by choosing an item from Klout’s curated list of popular topics from your network. This content stream is personalized, meaning stuff that gets surfaced is likely to go viral with your unique set of friends, fans and followers. 

“As with the desktop experience, the same helpful tags highlight articles that are trending or particularly relevant for your audience,” Klout noted.  

When you see something worth sharing, the app makes it easy to post the story URL to your connected social networks along with photos and location information. Like before, you can still check your Klout Score and add or remove topics from your Klout profile. 

As for Klout Perks, the updated software allows you to browse and claim these exclusive rewards right on your iPhone. Previously, you visited the web UI to redeem your perks.

If anything, the new app can finally help improve your Klout Score by discovering, creating and sharing popular content on the go.  

Speaking of which, those who obsess over their Klout score may have noticed that the service has recently gone from measuring the score and offering dubious Klout Perks to presenting you with a stream of popular content from your social media contacts.

This makes Klout more of a discovery tool than the arbiter of online influence it used to be, or a meaningless popularity contest.   

A look at my Klout score and stream on the web.

As a result of this newly-found business model, Klout’s web interface now lets you skim through trending topics from your network or create and share your own stories to one or all of your social networks (or schedule them for later), right from the Content page. A Klout URL gives away such tweets and Facebook posts. 

The company also offers Klout for Business, now 200,000 customers strong, and an API for web developers. 

Klout was acquired last month by Lithium Technologies in a stock deal estimated at $200 million, turning its founders into instant paper millionaires. 

Wrapping up, Klout will be rolling out an Android app shortly and you canjoin the wait list here. 

“Like Lannisters, Klout always pays its debts,” jokes the webpage. “We owe you an Android app.”

Download Klout free from the App Store.

The app requires iOS 7.0, but unfortunately doesn’t run natively on iPads.

GesturesPlus: improve the pinch-to-close iOS 7 animation

If you’ve used Auxo 2, you’re probably aware of the interesting animation that occurs when closing an app using a swipe-up gesture from the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. The result is an animation that features all of the app icons on the Home screen zooming out in sync with the closing application.

This is the same pinch-to-close gesture that’s available on the iPad, and it’s only recently gaining significant notoriety on the iPhone due to Auxo’s slick implementation of it. In iOS 7.1, Apple changed the animation slightly to better represent an app’s presence in iOS’ three dimensional space, andGesturesPlus—a recently released tweak  available for free on Cydia’s BigBoss repo—brings these changes to lesser firmware.

Admittedly, the function of this tweak is a bit difficult to explain in writing, so I encourage you to click past the break to watch the video  where I compare the animations before and after GesturesPlus is installed.  

Once you install GesturesPlus, there are no options or settings to configure. On an iPad, you can perform a four or five-finger pinch in order to see the new animation in action. On the iPhone, you’ll need a tweak like Auxo 2 installed to allow you to perform the pinch-to-close gesture.

Personally, I never saw a real issue with the animation, but I guess I just didn’t paid enough attention to how awkward it actually is. I’m interested to hear what you think about GesturesPlus. Do you believe that the resulting animation, and iOS 7.1′s animation in general, makes more sense than the one present on iOS 7.0.x? Sound off in the comments below.

Microsoft’s own CarPlay is predictably called Windows in the car

At the annual Build conference in San Francisco last week, software giant Microsoft unveiled its upcoming new platform for automotive, Windows in the car. The software, which appears to have borrowed some ideas from Apple’s CarPlay, could succeed Sync, Microsoft’s ill-fated in-car solution running on the Windows Embedded Automotive operating system. 

Microsoft’s largest partner for Sync, Ford, in February announced plans to stop producing Sync-equipped vehicles. Seeing where things were heading, coupled with weak support from car manufacturers, probably played an important factor in the decision to come up with a connected car software of the future, from scratch… 

In its current incarnation, Windows in the car requires a Windows Phone device, but Microsoft should be able to add support for the feature to its Windows 8 desktop operating system.

It should be noted that Microsoft bills Windows in the car as an early concept, one without a firm release date. That said, folks at Redmond did acknowledge that they’ve been testing out Windows in the car in both simulators and real-world vehicles. 

Microsoft also made noise of the fact that Windows in the car will be open to developers from the get-go. 

“There’s this opportunity for application developers to also participate in this ecosystem in a couple of different ways,” Microsoft’s product executive Steve Teixeira said in his Build conference presentation. 

He continued:

You can imagine that, maybe if my car’s in park, I can run any kind of arbitrary app, you know, project that up to this screen. 

But if my car’s in drive mode, one of the things that we will aim to do is enable application builders to write apps that conform with good, safe drive mode behavior and safe drive mode user interface standards.   

 There’s even a marketplace app so drivers can download – if need be – supported apps from third-party developers, while their device is in the car mode. 

This is somewhat similar to Apple’s CarPlay which does support select third-party music applications such as Spotify (with more to come later), but with one huge difference: CarPlay has no park mode that would enable drivers to project ANY iOS app to their vehicle’s in-car screen.  

Unlike CarPlay which taps BlackBerry’s QNX software to connect your iOS device to a bunch of different proprietary infotainment systems car vendors use or support, Microsoft’s solution is based on the industry-standard MirrorLink protocol. 

MirrorLink is owned by the Car Connectivity Consortium, which had 56 members as of May 2012, including almost all major automobile and mobile device manufacturers in the world, including Motorola, Alpine and Pioneer. 

MirrorLink currently works with Sony’s Xperia Z series Android phones and has aftermarket potential given that both Alpine and Pioneer committed to shipping MirrorLink-ready aftermarket solutions. Car makers Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota and Citroen confirmed work is underway on adding support for MirrorLink to their vehicles. 

Google, too, announced its Android-based in-car infotainment integration that will launch across a wide range of car models and industry partners later this year. 

Although some manufacturers, like launch CarPlay partner Mercedes-Benz and electronics maker Pioneer, hinted at aftermarket CarPlay solutions for older devices, they later back-tracked on their vague claims and said that supporting older vehicles would be extremely difficult to do.

Apple’s latest ‘Your Verse’ story is about iPad in Bollywood

You’ve seen how world-classmountainee use iPad for their extraordinary climbs and how coaches use the device to help diagnose athletes’ concussions so how about some more testimonials? 

You’re in for a treat as Apple’s just added a new story to the ‘Your Verse’ microsite highlighting how its popular post-PC device is being used by Bollywood choreographer Feroz Khan to capture inspiration for his passion. 

So, what does it take to choreograph a vision in Bollywood?

Read on for the full reveal… 

The story reads: 

A young woman sits alone at an outdoor cafe. A handsome man steps into view. She glances at him shyly. Seconds later, everyone breaks out in extravagant song and dance. Welcome to a typical day for famed Bollywood choreographer Feroz Khan. 

Armed with his imagination and his iPad Air, Khan is able to shape almost every aspect of his epic dance scenes, from finding the perfect costumes and props to perfecting every last gesture and twirl. 

For those wondering, Khan is using the Artemis HD (a $29.99 value) and SloPro (a free download) apps to help shape his routine, “frame by frame and step by step.”   

SloPro is used to capture super slow-motion video at up to a thousand frames per second. He’s then using Artemis HD to compose rough shots with the same field of view as the lenses the team will be shooting with later, meaning he can experiment with scenes before the actual shoot. 

“As a Bollywood choreographer, I don’t just direct dance movements,” Feroz tells. “I also scout locations, help choose costumes and props, and stay in touch constantly with the team.”

And of course, he depends on his iPad Air for all of it. 

A video of the meticulously choreographed Bollywood dance is available for streaming from Apple’s Your Verse site. Note that these supporting videos are unavailable for viewing through Apple’s YouTube channel. 

I’m finding these stories enjoyable, for the most part.

I just wish Your Verse spotlighted how ordinary people use the iPad – not everyone is a choreographer in Bollywood, a mountaineer or a sports coach. 

That being said, however, I do feel that explaining the many ways talented people use their iPad creatively serves as a nice motivation for the rest of us to reconsider using our devices for stuff beyond surfing the web, hanging out on Twitter and playing games.

15 Coins review: good luck collecting coins in this ultra hard arcade game

I never got into the Flappy Bird phenomenon. I remember hearing groups of people talking about it at a restaurant only days before its untimely demise wondering why something so simple was so popular. I think I have an understanding of that now. 

15 Coins is a simple arcade style game that is impossibly difficult. Similar to Flappy Bird, it makes you want to keep playing over and over, no matter how poorly you perform, just to try to get one more coin before you die…

Design

The design is simple the graphics are flat and bright. There is a dotted line in the center of the screen that represents the number of coins you must collect. Your “ship” is a cream colored pie-shaped object that trails a dotted line behind it wherever it moves. 

The coins are blinking dots that appear in random places on the screen. When you successfully grab a coin, one of the dotted lines highlights in yellow. Every time you collect coins, another line is highlighted. 

The game board is also peppered with black pie-shaped objects that represent the enemy’s ships. Avoid them at all cost. There is no way to destroy them. The enemies will follow you around, but will also disappear after a few seconds. So, as long as you stay away long enough, you will be clear of the danger. 

There is one power up that will help make your job a little easier. The blinking square that sometimes appears is a freeze ray that will stop enemy ships in their path and make them vulnerable. When frozen, you can crash into enemy ships to destroy them. Be careful. The freeze ray only lasts a few seconds. You might accidentally crash into an active ship if the power up runs out.   

The goal of the game is to collect 15 coins. As easy as that may sound, it is far from simple. First, your ship does not move in a straight line very well. Every time you touch or tilt the screen, the ship curves sharply to the right or left. Obviously, this makes it nearly impossible to reach an end point with any level of accuracy. You can reduce the sensitivity of the curve, but it is still very hard to control. 

Second, the enemy ships appear en masse and flood the screen, making it even harder for you to navigate the screen without crashing into bits. The enemies, called “Clone” ships, will follow you around, moving the same way you do at the moment they appeared on the screen. When you are bobbing and weaving because you can’t control your ship, having someone on your tail is a recipe for disaster. 

The coins don’t stay where they are, either. They appear and remain on screen for a few seconds, maybe as long as five, but they will fade away if you don’t grab them in time. The power ups work the same way. If you don’t reach them in time, they will disappear.

If you do manage to collect a power up, every enemy ship on the screen will freeze and turn into an outline. This signifies that they are vulnerable to attack. This is your time to take down as many ships as possible on your way to the nearest coin. The power up only lasts a few seconds, though. Maneuvering your ship will sometimes take that long just to get across the screen. 

This is one of those super hard games that drives a person to madness and causes an inexplicable desire to get just one more point no matter how long it takes. I played the game for more than an hour straight and my best score was four coins. I wonder what happens when you actually get 15 of them?

The Good

As I noted above, I was able to play this game for an hour straight without getting bored. The extreme challenge on easy mode – There are three modes of difficulty. How much harder can it get? – is frustrating, but triggers something in my brain that makes me want to keep going. I mean, one more coin can’t be that hard, right?

Because it is so simple and somewhat impossible, this is like a snack game. You can play it for a few minutes on your break without feeling like you need to sit down and focus. Chances are, you’ll die within 10 seconds anyway.

The Bad

I’d like to see some kind of countdown ticker to let you know how much time you have before the power up runs out. 

Although, I guess that would make the game easier, which would defeat the point.  15 Coins is on sale for half off at $0.99. For one dollar, this is a great game to throw some change at. It will keep you interested for any length of time without boring you. When the price doubles to $1.99, I’d say it is a bit steep for something so simple.

Apple’s PRODUCT (RED) contributions top $70 million

Product Red - styled as (PRODUCT)^RED - is a marketing brand licensed to other companies, established in 2006 by U2 frontman and activist, Bono, together with Bobby Shriver of the ONE/DATA, with the goal of raising awareness and funds to help eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa. 

The initiative earns money on each participating Product Red sale and proceeds go straight to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. 

Apple’s been one of Product Red backers since its inception, thanks mostly to late Steve Jobs who was on good terms with Bono. Product Red today announced that Apple’s contributions to the charity have reached a cool $70 million…

The revelation came in a tweet. 

Great news to end the week! Apple’s total for @RED reaches $70 MILLION. 100% goes to fight#AIDS. Thank you all for buying (APPLE)RED.
— (RED) (@RED) April 4, 2014

Apple is the charity’s largest partner. 

In September, the charity said Apple had contributed $65 million.

As of today, 9.7 million people are on life-saving HIV treatment, up from 300,000 in 2002.

Apple’s offering of Product Red products is constantly evolving and changing. 

The Product Red section of the online Apple Store reveals that currently the company offers Product Red versions of the iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch.   

The store also lists a few Product Red Apple accessories, such as Smart Cover and Smart Case for the iPad Air, the iPhone 5s Case and the iPhone 4s Bumper.

A notice on the website reads: 

Every day 700 babies are born with HIV. (RED) works with companies like Apple to fight for an AIDS‑free generation by creating (PRODUCT)RED merchandise. A percentage of gross profits from the sale of those products goes to the Global Fund to help fund AIDS programs in Africa. 

Since its introduction, (PRODUCT)RED has generated more than $215 million for the Global Fund — more than $70 million from Apple alone. You can help make an impact by purchasing a (PRODUCT)RED iPod or (PRODUCT)RED accessories for iPhone and iPad. 

Tim Cook is frequently pictured using an iPad Air with a Product Red Smart Cover. Last October, Apple’s design head Jony Ive created a one-off Product Red Mac Pro. The computer classed as the most expensive PC made to date as it was auctioned off the following month for a cool $977,000.  

In February, Bank of America and U2 teamed up for a Product Red free song promotion on the iTunes Store, with the Irish rock band donating to the charity $1 for every free iTunes download of its single ‘Invisible’. 

Apple also released a special Product Red edition of the fifth-generation iPod touch as well as a Product Red $25 iTunes Gift Card. In recognition of the World AIDS Day, Apple Storescolored the company’s iconic logo in red. 

To learn more about Product Red, visit the official website. 

Tim Cook made $74M last year, the highest among all tech CEOs except Zuckerberg

Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn’t have an easy job. Not only is he in charge of one of the largest companies in the world, but he has to do so in the shadow of one of the most highly regarded executives of our generation, amidst constant criticism from those that say Apple’s best days are behind it. 

No need to worry though, Tim is well compensated. According to a new report, he took home $4.3 million in salary and incentives last year, and another $70 million in vested stock options. All told, Cook banked more than any other tech CEO in 2013 except for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg… 

Here’s more from USA Today: 

Factoring in vested stock awards and options exercised last year, dozens of other CEOs pulled in well over twice the median CEO compensation. Apple’s Tim Cook received $4.3 million in pay and incentives. He was also able to take ownership of part of the $376.2 million restricted stock grant he received in 2011 for a $69.6 million gain. 

Cook’s $73.9 million topped HP’s Meg Whitman, who came in third at $17.6 million, but neither CEO stood a chance against Mark Zuckerberg. The 30 year-old CEO earned nearly $4 billion last year, after cashing in $3.3B in stock options. Sort of puts his $1 salary into perspective, doesn’t it? 

Opulent executive compensation packages have been a hot topic of debate in recent years, with some saying that the pay gap between execs and other employees is far too wide. But with Apple breaking numerous sales and revenue records under Tim Cook’s tenure, it’s hard to argue he’s overpaid. 

Last month, Fortune ranked Cook #33 on their list of the world’s top 50 greatest leaders.