I might get a full paragraph by the time I retire

[davidn]

In a remarkably similar turn of events to the last time I was in a Boston newspaper, Track the T received a stunning half a sentence in a Boston Herald article a week after the transport reporter contacted me for a phone interview. He was particularly interested in its catering to Blackberry users, as it was until recently unique among the MBTA showcase in being a service that was on the Internet and could be accessed via anything (even a desktop computer, as you would think I was the only person in the world who still uses one).

I might as well take this opportunity to ask my watch list in general... what exactly is the attraction of "apps", now, anyway? I've been encouraged from a couple of quarters to produce iPhone or Android application versions of my current page, but even though I say to them that it's a possibility (and would do so if I had the time, seeing as people would then pay for it), I just don't really see how it helps to produce functionally identical things for specific devices when they can all get to the existing one anyway. It's been demonstrated to me that you can create a pseudo-app that links to a webpage on the iPhone itself, so you're not even missing out on the convenience of being able to open it from your desktop.

Still, if people are going to pay again for something you've already done if you make it available to far fewer people, all the better. And I should be proud of getting my name in the paper - most people have to be hit by a train to achieve that.

Comments

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

You seriously have a train that goes to a place called "Braintree"?! I want to come there, just to take that train, so that I can tell people that I've been to Braintree. "Braintree". . .

Perhaps the attraction of apps is created solely by marketing, so companies can sell a thing people could otherwise get for free in other ways. Seems to be how most of business operates, from what I can tell.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Braintree is also a town in Essex, where a friend and colleague of mine is from.

Due to an insane and stupid turn of events, he's returned to living there with his parents, and is making the daily two-hour commute to West London from it. [His last attempt to get a new flat fell apart really, really badly.]