November last year, Google announced that they will make turn-by-turn GPS free. Following that announcement the current players, Garmin and TomTom, crapped their pants as stocks fell rapidly.

- If you haven't already, read about that incident.

Today, half a year later, let's see how are things doing:

OH, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT?

After initial overreaction, the market understood that GSM/3G based navigation is not all that super great. If you bought Garmin stock at the moment they fell, now you are 50% richer.

You're welcome. =)

I wrote an article on why is interface bad for you, but I didn't feel like posting it on this (black) blog. It is instead setup as a small webpage here: http://nivas.hr/pub/destroy/. Check it, you might earn something =)

Finally, a good use of iPad! :)

It's simple.

An App that has a fullscreen browsing experience by integrating Safari (as many iPhone Apps do), and over that in two dragable and maybe resizable "windows" Twitter and Facebook client.

This would enable users to be on two of the most popular social networks at the same time, and clicking/touching any links from them would open those pages in Safari running behind them.

Charge this $2.99, and you are a millionaire in one week.

(Why $2.99? Because Tweetie, the best iPhone Twitter client costs $2.99, Facebook App is free, and Safari is integrated from OS).

Like this:

Apple approved Opera for iPhone. Whole world is in shock & awe. I have installed it, and took it for a test drive on about 10 sites (mostly our latest sites, Facebook and similar other hard hitters).

Conclusion? Opera, as it is in this first release, sucks donkey balls. Yes, it is fast. There the good things stop. It renders pages horribly. Does not support any rendering engines (webkit comes to mind). Zooming is horrid. Scrolling is pain. Interface was poorly thought of. Copy to clipboard is insane (by insane I mean: not there). It is just bad.

Furthermore, there is no way to integrate Opera deep into iPhone. When you click a link from Mail, it will open in Safari. Shortcuts to websites you have on your Homescreen open in Safari. It is just too timeconsuming to jump from Safari to Opera in order to faster surf there.

In short, Apple approved Opera so people could quickly understand how sucky it is, and start talking words of praise for Safari and at the same time removed some of the Nazi attributes they gathered lately. They turned this while thing into superpositive spin for them. Hat down to you Apple, masters of marketing.

Shazam, out of nowhere, Twitter bought Tweetie.

The need for Twitter to have an iPhone App named "Twitter" is more than obvious. New users, who do not fully understand Twitter and it's ecosystem do not instinctively know that there are other applications that connect to Twitter. Hence, many people after not finding App named "Twitter" simply quit.

It was a long intention for Twitter to make official iPhone App. Not buy one!

But, alas, they bought Tweetie, App that many call the best Twitter client for iPhone. You could argue is it, or is it not the best, but no matter what is the conclusion, it is really really good.

Twitter bought it, and will put it back to Appstore as a free App.

WAIT ... WHAT?

One of the best Apps will become free and under direct control of Twitter. Yes. Exactly.

With this move, Twitter, in my super humble opinion kinda shot them selves in the foot. Jumped the shark. Why?

1: Unfair competition
Looking just from the level of development, Twitter does not need to use it's API and all the limitations. Other clients have lots of API limitations, they cannot fully stream tweets, but instead need to pull them in batches. And many more limits that are set by the API. Twitter's own App does not need to be hindered by any limitations.

2: Pricing
Tweetie / Twitter will now be free. Why would ANYONE buy another Twitter App (Twitterific comes to mind) when this one is free. By making the best Twitter client free and super-powerful, they basically screwed all the developers making Twitter Apps. Good bye Twitterific, it was nice to know you. Good bye Tweetdeck, see ya!

3: Killing community that created Twitter
Desktop and Mobile applications are the only reason Twitter exploded like crazy. Being able to connect to Twitter from anywhere is the key to Twitter's success. And who made that possible? People who made applications. And why did they make applications? Because there was some money involved in that for them as well. Atebits, creators of Tweetie, were selling Tweetie at $2.99. Even after you remove Apple's part, there is still a lot of cash earned there on that App. And now all the new App creators are simply discouraged to make new, diverse, Apps. With diversity being the key. Different people will find different Apps that fit them, that's why diversity is good.

So basically, Twitter killed the community that made them popular.

And let's get real for a moment now. If Twitter had volume of people even remotely close to Facebook's, it would MAYBE be understandable. But Twitter at this moment has less accounts than Farmville on Facebook. Yes, one silly game on Facebook has more people farming digital vegetables than all Twitter accounts put together. And into that account count go even those funny accounts made by people just to screw with someone or have some fun (I got few funny accounts besides my main account).

It will be pretty cool to watch what will happen with Twitter in the next 6 months. I mean, Twitter will not cease to be, it will not vanish (even tho many would like that), but there will be bad backfire from this acquisition, I guarantee it.

By the way, you should follow me on Twitter @gpeuc