Frustrations, Rejections, Perseverence & Tweets

We've been rejected by Apple for our sports-based information centers. SEVERAL TIMES !! We've made suitable adjustments each time but the sports-based information centers keep getting rejected..... don't worry.... we're not stopping.


We've been polishing our Politics based information center over the last several weeks. One final smoke QA test and it should be ready for submission. Look out for this one .... this is the first application on the PRO version of the iHub platform which adds top ranked Twitter feed channels along with News Headlines & Top Blogs.

We're keeping the faith ... we're currently building iPad optimized view controllers for iPad specific versions of our PRO line of iHubs -- coming soon.

Bigger, Stronger & Better .... now only if Apple can get into an Approval state of mind.

Apples, Cookie Cutters and RSS Generators

So I was browsing some tech news headlines using iHubTech on my iPod Touch (of course).... and I came across this headline from TechCrunch - Apple's New Stance on 'Cookie Cutter" Apps : Add More Features Or Perish.

Seems like Apple is trying to filter out the bottom feeder applications that are created around a common template / core and customized into 100 different applications. RSS based applications are notorious for this crap - they'll provide a simple feed reading capability and a couple of feeds and create dozens of apps this way. Some programs actually provided round-trip engineering where you provide it an RSS feed and it will automatically CREATE the iPhone application for you based on that feed.

We actually created our iHub line of applications for iPhone / iPod Touch to compete against these simplistic RSS readers. From the beginning we were determined to create INTERNET INFORMATION CENTERS - central hubs composed of hundreds of feeds per each topic application. To fulfill this need we created a suite of tools to aggregate, organize, combine, randomize, rank and constantly refresh internet content from news, blogs, podcasts and forums on our own servers.... providing the user with only the TOP headlines from the TOP content providers from ALL over the internet.

I'm actually content (excuse the pun) with Apple's decision to clamp down on some of the low quality RSS based reader applications out there.... I just hope they take the time to correctly distinguish the heros from the zeros.

iHub - Sports - NFL & MLB - Submitted - FINALLY

Well... talk about a crazy 6 months. Late September, we needed to withdraw our iHubSports football application to rework some issues and then things went absolutely nuts. Each team member had significant life events (an iHubBaby is coming soon !!) and lucrative new contracts to complete which put a damper on our iPhone development efforts. Good news is that we're back and its time to

PLAY BALL !!

We polished our NFL football iHub and we completed our MLB baseball iHub content aggregator just in time for SPRING TRAINING !!

We included a couple neat features not previously available in prior iHub applications including keywords in the channel descriptions providing a granular "tag" for the channel - as whether the channel is dedicated to a single team or league-wide news. A cool one-button Twitter one-button capability will tweet the currently viewed article to your Twitter account.

We also put out a new website - www.ihublife.com - describing all of our offerings & content services (look out for new mobile platforms, PC applications & web services). Resources were applied to provide a more stable content platform from which to deliver our channel feeds and our composite headline feeds - a result of some hiccups we had regarding the technology feeds and our ISP.... lessons learned.

LINKS
iHubLife website - www.ihublife.com
iHubSportsNFL Product page
iHubSportsMLB Product page

iHubSportsNFL - Submitted - NFL Football Time !!!

I love the Fall season especially in the Northeast. Weather changes , wonderful cool breezes, leaves change color and most importantly

FALL = FOOTBALL

WHEW!! -- Busy summer, we released several updates to our current iHubTech & iHubHealth products but we're a little late on this one - the initial offering from our iHubSports line - iHubSportsNFL. We've just submitted over the weekend and we should be approved no later than week 4 of the season. No better way to keep up to date with all the breaking news & blogs from across all the NFL !!


We decided to organize the subtopics by NFL divisions and we added a new keyword label to each article listing - to help the user determine if the feed is relevant to their favorite team and/or division.


We've added a couple of new features to the line. First feature is a One-Click access to the NFL scoreboard (by tapping the logo on the News and/or Blogs screen). Instead of implementing a custom scoreboard capability which may experience a lag time - we decided to implement this by simply loading up the ESPN mobile NFL scoreboard - specifically formatted for the iPhone with a single click of the logo.

We've also added a Twitter client capability - allowing the user to Tweet the current article to his/her Twitter account.

iHubTech Approved -Tech News Headlines & Blogs

WOOHOO !!

iHubTech just got approved by Apple and is now available on iTunes. This enhanced TECH information hub contains approximately 200 channels providing the LATEST news and blogs content across the following subtopics.

Computer Hardware
Computer Software
Energy Tech
Gadgets & Mobile
Games
Hacker & Security
HOWTO
Military Tech
Robotics & A.I. & Nanotechnology
TOP Technology Headlines
Coding Development

We're not just saying this because we built it - this application is a must have for those interested and involved in Technology.

We've ranked and organized all the channels for you -- all you need to do is scan the headlines and choose what you want to read.... constantly updated content from WIRED, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, ArsTechnica, TechReport, CNET, PCMagazine, TechMeme, eWeek ...it just goes on and on.

Dump those corny RSS Readers - forcing you to do all the work searching for feeds or just giving you 5 or 10 articles or just a single channel !! C'mon dudes --- RESPECT THE GAME.

CONTENT EVERYWHERE - Why RSS readers suck !

It never ceases to amaze me how much free content is available on the internet. Newspaper websites, portals, university classes, company news, online video, consumer product reviews,etc. But even so, getting to the content could still be a laborious and infuriating task -- technical progress was needed to help ...

1. find and search content (Google)
   
2. aggregate content
   
3. organize, group and rank content
   
4. effectively and conveniently present the content.

To get to this point wasn't easy. Free content is everywhere on the internet but we all needed a "Google" or "Yahoo" to search for it. Then the portals came... but these were ad heavy websites that gave us aggregation at the expense of a dozen flashy ads battling for your eyeballs and forcing us to remember another user login and profile

The real breakthrough in terms of digitally available content on the internet was syndication and the syndication standards that followed. The RSS standard was the major winner in this space and a sleuth of RSS readers (i.e. Google Reader) followed suit but they all suffer the same problem. They force you to seek out, collect and organize your feeds. Who really has the time for that? Some readers (or portals) provided master list of feeds but they usually contained a bunch of stuff you weren't interested in ... and many were never updated to reflect dead links or blogs.

Content is KING -- but you need to give it to the user in an effective, convenient and organized fashion and this is why we created our iHub line of applications. We have "content owners" that intelligently seek out, group and organize our content along with servers that constantly refresh and rebuild our composite feeds.

iHub Theory of Content Evolution
CONTENT --> SEARCH ENGINES --> RSS FEEDS --> RSS READERS --> iHUB

I'm excited -- Our iHubTechnology product is coming out soon. Get Ready To Get Your Geek On because we collected and organized the best tech feeds available today.... hardware, software, hacker, security, coding ... YUMMY!

iPhone Application - Approval - iHubHealth

YAY !! -- Our iHubHealth 1.0 application has been approved and is currently available on iTunes.

The team would like to thank all the girlfriends, wives, nieces, moms, dads, cousins and friends that were thoroughly ignored throughout the past several months.

We still love you :)