BRAND INFECTION » Products

iPod Air Fresheners By W5 Carcare

Nader Cserny — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:02:12 +0000

I’m more and more amazed of products imitating the Apple iPod look, even though they’ve got nothing to do with the company from Cupertino. Below are some W5 Carcare Air Fresheners that come in 3 flavors: “Oriental”, “Exotic” and “Ocean”. Want more? I found a great list of weird forms and shapes here.

[via fscklog]

KitchenAid Knife

Nader Cserny — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:11:05 +0000

KitchenAid started in 1919 with the legendary stand mixer and over the course of 90 years they have released many other great products, like the KitchenAid Knife Sets. Here’s a clever advertisement for one of their products.

KitchenAid Knife Sets

High-carbon stainless steel blades slice, dice and chop meats, vegetables and more.
Full tang extends the length of each knife for balance and strength.
Ergonomic handles rest comfortably in your hand, offering superior control.
Kitchen shears let you snip herbs, separate meats and perform household tasks.
Sharpening steel keeps each edge honed and ready to work.

KitchenAid Santoku Knife

Santoku design combines the power of a cleaver with the precision of a chef’s knife for quick work.
Stainless steel construction ensures simple cleanup.
Blade indentations prevent food from sticking and tearing.
Full tang adds balance and guarantees strength.
Triple-riveted handle provides a confident, secure grip.

Heinz Ketchup Dip & Squeeze: Smart Packaging

Nader Cserny — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:43:49 +0000

The new Heinz Ketchup Packet is pretty smart. You can either tear off the cap to squeeze it onto your burger or peel back to dip your french fries.

The iPhone AppStore Disaster – Why Developing Your Company’s App For It Is As Safe As Betting On Horses

Matteo Schreiber — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:16:10 +0000

A little more than a year has passed since Apple opened the doors to it’s AppStore back in July 2008, and the amount of love and hate alike in blogs all around the internet is showing the huge impact it had on the mobile applications market. After jailbreakers invented the process of providing additional software during the first revision of the iPhone, and, back from what was just a handful of apps at the time of its official release, the AppStore has grown ever since, encompassing over 65.000 apps by now, increasing this number day by day at a very high rate.

Something has been slowing down the growth, though. And surprisingly enough, that “something” is no one else but Apple itself.

During its short life of only one year so far, the AppStore – or more precisely, the approval policy of Apple – has been the target of criticism and numerous complaints coming from the press, the developers and even from the customers. While being unmistakenly the current most successful distribution network for mobile devices that is targeted at only one specific device, it is also the most curious if not politically influenced one.

Apple has made sure in their developer/distribution agreement that each application being submitted for distribution to the AppStore has to undergo a number of review processes before approval for release is given. According to Apple, this is done to make sure that the applications won’t be of any harmful nature, will be according to Apples very strict policies, and will not confuse and/or “lie” to it’s customers including duplicating the iPhone’s functionality.
While the official explanation for the aprovment policy sounds like it’s a fair and square deal, the truth seems to be very far from it.

Apple has repeatedly shown inability to be consistent in their approval process, up to the point where applications would first get the green light and be released to public, then suddenly – while reviewing an update to that same application – would lose the approval, stating as the reason for the rejection a state/fact that had been true for the earlier version just as much, only to see the app being approved again a few days later, with nothing having changed in terms of the application itself. This has made many developers question the competence of Apple’s reviewing team, that appearently isn’t very good at communicating between each other.

Available or not?

The real issue is not the competence of the reviewing personal though, to say the least. That could easily pass as starting troubles, seeing as the AppStore has only been online for a year now, and the team is still in the process of getting the subtle feeling to handle such situations.

The problem seems to be a few “higher authorities” that will actually abuse the policy to block an application from being released for very political, and not at all technical reasons. This seems to have been the issue numerous times in the past already (Skype being only allowed to make voice-calls when the iPhone is connecting over WiFi and the recent release of the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone OS 3.0 and it’s subsequent disapproval of all applications that will enhance the quality of the digital camera shots even though those apps had been approved already long ago, just to name two of these events).

“People are so annoyed by Apple and their shit, and if you give them opportunity to go around it, then they’ll even pay for it,” said Kim Streich, a developer whose app 3G Unrestrictor earned $19,000 in sales in just two weeks through Cydia.

Members of the development scene had been crying for a more transparent criteria catalogue so that they would be able to make sure not to waste their time on something that will never get approved anyway, and the customers had been crying for the apps they had so much hoped for when they bought their iPhone and had been missing from their older smartphones since then.
Recently though, Apple had made that same mistake again, by first approving the application for the brandnew service from Google (Google Voice, still in closed beta), only to remove it from the AppStore immediately again, including several other applications that had similar functionality and had been selling well in the AppStore for almost four months already.

This time, the wave throughout the internet was much bigger than it had been in the past. And one can’t even say it’s because of the name “Google” being a part of it, because the first time Google had been mentioned together with the words “Apple” and “rejected” was back when Google had developed an iPhone application to access it’s Latitude service, but then got asked from Apple to develop it as a web-application instead, to avoid confusion with it’s own Google Maps application.

No, the wave is not much bigger because of what exactly happened, but simply because of how many times it happened by now. Developers simply dont want to take it anymore, as long-term investments into the development of iPhone applications is as safe as betting your money on horses.

Some developers and iPhone users aren’t taking the rejection lying down: They’re turning instead to an unauthorized app store called Cydia, where forbidden wares continue to exist — and even earn developers some money.

Grundig: Your Customer Service Sucks!

Nader Cserny — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:40:48 +0000

It all started with a visit to my favorite bar where I saw those stylish speakers hanging down the ceiling. Shortly thereafter I got the Grundig Audiorama 9000 as a gift and was amazed. Such expensive speakers as a gift – one of those speakers costs around $700(!) – and unlucky me hasn’t got any amplifier to actually use them.

Until now I only had a micro stereo which wouldn’t handle speakers with more than 40W so I thought I’d ask German company Grundig if they have a recommendation. I explained my situation and waited for more than two weeks to finally receive this super helpful message:

Dear Mr. Cserny,

at the moment we don’t have any suitable amplifiers in our product range.

Best regards,

….

Doh! I have seen myself that they don’t have any suitable product on their website but I thought if somebody spends around $1400 for two speakers they at least have a recommendation where and what to look for.

Well, no…

The speakers are pure quality and very stylish but Grundig’s customer service sucks big time.

The Palm Pre Kicks Ass! Watch The Full Video From CES

Nader Cserny — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:11:37 +0000

When Palm announced their upcoming Palm Pre Smartphone the whole internet spoke about it. Positively.

If you want to know why, here’s the full video presentation from CES.

After having watched the video I can say the Palm Pre (facts) kicks iPhone’s ass in terms of usability, multi-tasking with flipping applications, seamless integration of the cloud, checking the calendar while on the speaker phone, unobstrusive notifications. Wow!

If Palm manages to market the device well, I think they’ll have a chance to survive and kick other phone’s asses. Some people say it’s their last chance or else they’ll go bust.

Burger King Perfume Smells Like Meat. Fire Meets Desire.

Nader Cserny — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 11:13:40 +0000

Burger King launched a new brand of perfume today called Flame by BK.

“The Whopper sandwich is America’s favorite burger. Flame by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you. Behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

The perfume itself is apparently for sale for $3.99 but sold out.

Thinking Inside The Box – Wine By Hauswein

Christiane Moore — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:51:59 +0000

Why limit wine, that has so many different tastes to just one boring container, e.g. a bottle?

This is what German company hauswein.de thought and decided to trade the bottle for the box. Beautifully designed it suits the product well: emphasis on the content not its packaging, easy to store and hard to break. Now if the wine tastes as good as the box looks, they have achieved a perfect match of simplicity and quality.

Laugh At Them: They’re Using Evian Facial Spray

Nader Cserny — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:40:32 +0000

People who want others to laugh at them should order the Evian facial spray. Evian sells a useful useless product called “Mineral spray” for around $10. Apparently it revives, e.g. moisturizes your face. Duh, obviously it revives your face, it’s water! The question is if you want to pay that much money or just go to the restroom.

The real cool people get the limited edition “Evian Paris Fashion” or “Evian New York Nights”.

From the website: Evian’s delightful cool mist rehydrates skin suffering from overheated or dry office air. It also revives your makeup throughout the day, and keeps you looking fresh by replenishing that much needed moisture.

Italy’s Fastest Police Car: Lamborghini Gallardo

Nader Cserny — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 12:39:48 +0000

Italian police will be using a special weapon to fight delinquents and traffic offenders: the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560-4, a car with 560 HP and maximum speed of around 190 MPH. Not to forget the price of $200,000. Is it the world’s fastest police car too?

Lamborghini Police Car Video

BRAND INFECTION » Products

iPod Air Fresheners By W5 Carcare

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