Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

JulianSmith Official Released!

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Over the last year we have been privileged to team up with several YouTube content providers to provide their official iOS apps into the app store. We are making every effort to provide you, our faithful users, with a diverse collection of “the best of the best” in their respective categories.

One of the categories that is growing in popularity on YouTube is the role of the filmmaker. Once a haven for pet videos and total random postings by unsuspecting family members, YouTube is quickly maturing into a source for content that rivals network and cable television – both in content quality and production quality.

One of the sources of this remarkable “content shift” towards quality is Julian Smith. For those of you who might not know Julian, he’s the creative mind behind some awesome original comedic shorts, parodies, webisodes, and music videos — all of which have gained him the public spotlight more than once. One of his most well-known videos, entitled “25 things I hate about facebook” went viral, landed him an interview on the Tyra Banks show, and yielded an invitation to facebook’s home office to film a sequel.

Julian’s attention to detail in his videos extends to his unique, easy to navigate, custom website and into everything he does. Given all of this, and especially given Julian’s discriminating eye for new media – we are very excited to announce that we have partnered with Julian to provide his Official iOS application into the app store. It’s more than a privilege to catch the eye of someone with such a talented eye ;).

JulianSmith Official has been launched into the app store and is available now! To download the application, simply click here – whether you are on your computer or on your device, you will be directed right to the app’s listing in the app store. The application is currently optimized for the iPhone/iPod, and will function just fine in compatibility mode on your iPad. A future release of this app specific to iPad and Android is also planned, as with all of our other popular apps.

Julian’s app gives you super easy access to all of his YouTube content, and features push notifications whenever new videos are posted. The app allows you to use common YouTube community functionality to rate/comment/subscribe and interact with Julian’s content, as well as peruse his various social streams, website, and store. If you are a fan of Julian – we know you’ll love this convenient way to keep Julian in your pocket wherever you go!

As always, the app also contains three tabs intended to keep you “in the loop” with our latest developments. The “About” tab gives you a quick way to check your version and contact us with any feature suggestions, questions, or bug reports. The “dev blog” tab gives you a mobile view of this blog, so that you can stay up to date with new releases, known outages, and tips and tricks. Finally, the “More Apps” tab gives you a direct route to download any of our other popular applications.

We hope that you enjoy this new addition to our lineup as much as we enjoyed building it.

The Fine Brothers Interactive!

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

We really enjoy the Fine Brothers because they’re always doing something new and cool that pushes the bounds of what is possible on YouTube. This holiday season, they’ve done an interactive “Year in Review” style video that is awesome.

Unfortunately, as you know, Interactive videos are not possible (yet) on the mobile platforms like the iPhone, iPod, iPad, or Android. So even though iOS specific apps like our awesome Fine Brothers App facilitate staying up to date with their latest content on the go – they aren’t ideal for great interactive productions like this one.

We did, however, want to make sure that you get a chance to experience it as it was meant to be experienced – so we wanted to call it out on our website so you could view on a regular computer 😉

We think it’s pretty cool – what do you think?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5kMWDug-Ns&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&autoplay=1&hd=1]

Retina Display Support

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

UPDATE: SoldierKnowsBest v1.1.1 has been released to the app store as of 12/7/2010.  Now everything in the app, including the bottom tab bar icons, is optimized for Retina where applicable.  Enjoy. 😉

While we love hearing suggestions and comments from fans of our applications, we’ve been suprised by some nastygrams we’ve received over the past couple of days regarding retina display support in our latest “Soldier Knows Best” application.  A few of you have sent us notes (some even quite sarcastic and/or rude) claiming that the app does not support the retina display – and we even saw a couple of unfavorable reviews in the app store claiming that the app doesn’t support the retina display.

Although it’s not my normal process to respond to negativity, I take pride in these apps that I develop and I felt it necessary to set the record straight. ALL of our apps support the retina display.  However, in the latest “Soldier Knows Best” app, we noticed after we had already submitted the app to the app store that the icons we use on the bottom bar (and on the more screen) were not optimized for the retina display. Important Note – I state again, only the icons on the tab bar (and the more screen, which is part of the tab bar) are not optimized for retina.

Rather than delay the launch of the app any further by removing and resubmitting to the app store – we let this version go through the app store review process.

Everything else – the thumbnails of each video, the fonts used in the video descriptions, the shading properties on the fonts, the YouTube login header, the video duration overlays, the app icon, the load screen, wait screens, EVERYTHING other than the tab icons is optimized for the best viewing on the retina display.

Shortly after the SKB app was approved, we submitted an update to Apple that fixes the bottom bar icons so that they are “Retina Enabled”.   As soon as this update is approved (hopefully sometime this week), the bottom bar icons will also be retina enabled and the update will be available from the app store.

Because most of you who emailed us regarding this issue must not be able to tell the TRUE difference between retina and non-retina optimized app – below you will find screenshots from version 1.1 (The same version initially released to the app store) of the SoldierKnowsBest app.  One of these screenshots is from an iPhone3GS, the other from an iPhone 4.  You can clearly see the difference in our framework depending on the screen resolution (retina vs. non retina). Look at the fonts, look at the thumbnails, look at the video duration that is superimposed over the thumbnail, look at shading, look at the overall resolution difference in the screenshots.

The only thing that is not retina is the bottom bar icons, which will be corrected shortly – had we known these were going to cause such a fuss – we would have delayed the launch of the app – is that what we should have done?  🙂

To truly visualize this correctly, view this page from our website (www.geekutils.com) on a computer and click the links below to open each image in a separate window and compare side by side. Each image is an actual screenshot at full screen resolution from the device specified.

Now, can you tell the difference?

iPhone 3GS (Click to open in a new window):

iPhone 4 (Click to open in a new window):

Watch KevJumba on Amazing Race 17

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Earlier this year, we released an official iPhone app for KevJumba’s awesome YouTube channels.

Tonight, on CBS, Amazing Race 17 premieres and Kevin and his dad are part of the cast.  For more information, click this link.

Be sure to tune in tonight at 8:30/7:30c on CBS to watch Kevin and his Dad take on the race!  Good luck Team Jumba!

On Vacation!

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

If you are wondering why there have not been any updates, announcements, or posts the past several days… It’s because we are on vacation!

It doesn’t happen very often (unfortunately for us), but when it does, it really helps us to regroup, relax, and come back refreshed and with new ideas.

We are still responding to all email as soon as possible. If you send us mail using the “about” link on the “more” tab of any of our apps… we will respond as soon as possible.

Regular updates will resume once we return on August 30.