The Blog of an African NERD

qStatus, kiss da baby, wow!!!

I knew I was big fan of Ocho Cinco back in 05 when I was stuck in line at Best Buy and was going to miss the start of the Bengals Steelers game.  I remember thinking 

“Damn, am going to miss Ocho Cinco’s celebration if he scores a touchdown”

Even before he changed his name, you could still get the Ocho Cinco jersey through NFL shop’s jersey customization, which I did. Speaking of customization, one of the most enjoyable aspects of our qStatus iPhone app as shown above is being able to customize the background. The idea is that since tweeting is something one does a lot, a custom background can make the experience more fun and with Ocho Cinco, things can be hilarious, thus I have been trying a few images of him as my background and am telling you the tweeting and facebook status update experience is so much more fun. You can see some of the other backgrounds I use here.

So do any other iPhone Twitter apps come close to offering this coolness? Child Pleeez. When it comes to the coolest tweeting experience on the iPhone you already know:

qStatus, Kiss Da Baby, Wow!!!

More info at http://www.qstatus.com 

Video: http://www.gx-5.com/products/qstatusforiphone/video.php

iTunes Store Link: http://bit.ly/zbVol

qStatus for the iPhone and iPod touch is here

Really excited to be launching qStatus for the iPhone and iPod touch. This app lets you update your Twitter and Facebook status at the same time. It is the best tweeting and status updating experience on the iPhone Bar None! It has many cool features too. Check it out at http://www.qstatus.com

Marketing Guru needed

Ringtone Makers, Ringtone Shufflers and March Madness Ringtones

 

March madness is here and with our RingToneMakers, ToneFXs for iPhone and Ringtone Shufflers, you can enjoy it more and show support for your team on your iPhone, BlackBerry or Windows Mobile Phone. When I lived in Kansas City, I fell in love with the Jayhawks mainly because of their fight song, which I think is the best in the country. Now with iPhoneRingToneMaker and ToneFXs, I can really enjoy these sounds on my iPhone and do some really cool stuff, particularly during this March Madness period.

It starts with getting the fight song of your favorite team. Simply go to Amazon MP3, and search “College Fight Song”. You can do the same search in iTunes.  Another good source is your College’s website. For example http://www.ku.edu/about/traditions/songs.shtml.

Once you download your college fight song, then the fun begins. Simply drag it into iPhoneRingToneMaker and create your college fight song ringtone.

 

It gets better.  For me, I love these two KU songs- Sunflower song and I’m a Jayhawk. Not to even mention the chant “Rock Chalk Jayhawk KUUUUUUUUU”. Of course I have created all these ringtone. However, how do I enjoy them all? Thanks to the Ringtone Shuffling feature in ToneFXs, I can shuffle all these ringtones, so that for every phone call I get, I hear one of these ringtones. Cool stuff indeed!!. Here is a screenshot

There is even more you can do with ToneFXs.  This app lets you customize pretty much all the mains sounds your iPhone makes. You can customize your text message alert sound, calendar alert sound, even the keyboard sound! So when a text message comes in or a calendar alert, rather than hearing Tri-Tone, I can hear the KU’s Fight Song or Rock Chalk.

As you may know, with the iPhone, you can assign a ringtone to a specific contact. I have some close friends who are passionate fans of K State and University of Maryland. So I have created the ringtones of these schools and assigned it to them so I know when these knuckle heads call me.

As you can see, with iPhoneRingToneMaker and ToneFXs, you can further enjoy March Madness in new and exciting ways.

Oh by the way, for you BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Folks, you can have these same experiences with BlackBerryRingToneMaker and wmRingToneMaker. We also have Ringtone Shuffler for these devices to. You can find them at http://www.ringtoneshuffler.com 

Ringtone Shuffler for Treos and Centros

If you love ringtones, then you should really like Ringtone Shuffler. Learn more here.

Job Openings at Gx5

Want to join us and help create some amazing applications and services for the latest and greatest gadgets? Learn more about available positions here.

Political Ringtones for your iPhone, Treo and Windows Mobile devices

If you use any of our ringtone products and you are into the White House race, you can get some fun political ringtones for your smartphone. Learn more at http://www.slate.com/id/2189303/

Savoring the KU championship on the go

One of the main ideas behind UltimatePhone and TreoWeather is that by giving the user the ability to set a custom background for these apps, it would greatly enhance the experience as they navigate within the apps. While am not a big college basketball fan, living in Kansas City I could not help but get on the KU bandwagon as March Madness approached. KU is really a fun team to watch and now that they are champions I can savor all the great memories while on the go and using my Treo.

gWeather, our entry for the Android Developer challenge

gWeather is our entry into the Android Developer Challenge. Big shout out to our development team for putting in really late hrs on this, Learn more here.

Thoughts on the iPhone SDK

After announcing the iPhone, His Highness( Steve Jobs ) once said
"You don’t want your phone to be an open platform....You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up."

With comments like these, it was a bit hard to fathom what we witnessed from the launching of the iPhone SDK on March 6th. Talk about a 360 degree change in policy from a company known for being hardheaded and standing it’s ground.

At first glance, am very impressed with the SDK, but then am probably still stuck in the Mr. Jobs’s reality distortion field and once our developers fully dive into the SDK will we know just how legit this all is. Regardless, March 6th for the mobile developer community was probably one of the most important days in history. For one, it marked the culmination of the efforts of a never say die developer community that did whatever it took to get apps on the iPhone despite Apple not wanting us too. Once Apple realized it could not prevent the avalanche of 3rd Party apps, it was forced to release a public SDK.  I have had many discussions with many of the iPhone Jailbreakers and hackers form the 13 year olds to Mr. ziphone and believe me, what all these folks have accomplished is a large reason why you saw what you saw on March 6th.

The launching of the SDK also marked a new sign of hope for developers. With the Palm OS dying anyway and nothing exciting on other Platforms, things are looking bleak. This new iPhone platform provides a viable avenue for 3rd party developers like us to make good money while developing some of the most amazing apps you will ever see.

So what does this mean for us here at Gx5/Efiko Software?
Well, we have had a great run developing Palm OS apps. We were fortunate to have best sellers that include UltimatePhone, TreoMemo and TreoWeather. Until the rebirth of the Palm OS, we have stopped new development for Palm devices and pretty much now have our sites set on the iPhone( and android by the way). Unlike the limitations of the Palm OS, the iPhone provides us a free canvas( knock on wood) to do some of the most creative things we could ever have imagined and we can’t wait to get started. Actually, we have already started, we are now just doing it the official way.