One of the many changes that you’ll find in iOS 6 is the departure away from Google Maps and toward Apple’s own Maps app based on OpenStreetMap data. So, which is better and how do they compare? The best way to determine that is to look at them side by side.

You might already be familiar with the look and feel of the new Apple Maps, since Foursquare recently jumped ship over to OpenStreetMap too. It’s very fresh and clean-looking, but that comes at a significant price: it lacks details. When you look at the equivalent Google Maps image for the same area, you’ll find that Google bombards you with much more information about street names, transit stops, and points of interest. You only start to get some of this extra information when you zoom in quite a bit, which can be annoying if you’re trying to look for a specific street.

Similarly, traffic on Apple Maps is still quite lacking in information, but the crowdsourced nature of OpenStreetMap will hopefully improve that as iOS 6 is adopted by more people. Both Google Maps and Apple Maps do a good job of providing directions, but they do have their respective strengths: Google Maps can give you public transit directions, but Apple Maps can give you turn-by-turn directions. Google Maps is also the only one with Street View at the moment, though Apple Maps has that Flyover feature.

The shift to greater simplicity has always been a part of Apple’s M.O., so it’s not really surprising to see that Apple Maps is generally simpler than its Google counterpart. It’s simplicity at the price of more robust information.

[Source]

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Before you think that Microsoft is abandoning Bing Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap too, you have to realize that Microsoft has already been using the mapping tool since 2010. They’re already buddies. Microsoft is keeping this going by providing OpenStreetMap with access to Bing Aerial Imagery, as well as investing “big dollars” into the open-source project.

Google and Microsoft are constantly butting heads with one another, from search to e-mail to office productivity software, and now the mapping world has become another major battlefront. Who will emerge victorious? Or is there enough room for two winners?

[Source]

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More specifically, the Journals and Slideshows features in iPhoto no longer use Google Maps. While a jump to Bing Maps might have been easier, it looks like Apple has decided to switch to OpenStreetMap data instead. OpenStreetMap is an open-source map project that aggregates data from local knowledge, aerial photography, free government sources, portable GPS devices, and so on. Strangely, Apple did not tell the OSM Foundation that it was going to do this, nor did Apple give proper credit (which is mandatory) where credit is due. Apple also happens to be using the mapping data from April 2010 for some reason.

Apple isn’t the only one making the switch either. Foursquare recently switched from the Google Maps API to OpenStreetMap too. Google Maps and other Google services still play a big role in the whole of iOS and its apps, but this latest move indicates that Apple’s relationship with Google’s goodies is starting to drift apart.

[Source]

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The regular old Twitter client on your Android phone is fine for basic updates, but what if you’re using social networks for a small business and you need more features? What if you need to handle multiple accounts and manage different teams of workers? Thankfully, there are more than a few alternatives out there.

Sprout Social has been around as a web-based desktop client for some time now, they’ve also offered an iOS app. Now, they’ve updated us with an Android application to let you better “manage your social media on the go.” This is a companion app for users of Sprout Social, so you’ll need to start with an account there first.

A Sprout Social Overview

It’s clear right from the beginning that Sprout Social is catering itself to business owners, particularly those where there are multiple team members working on the same social media accounts. The core service is designed to give you more information for sales, marketing, and support, as well as that collaborative experience for everyone on your social media team.

You can manage mutliple social media accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, complete with analytics, monitoring, top performing posts, publishing options, discovery features, task assignment, CRM, and location information. That last bit is interesting, because you can keep tabs on Foursquare locations for check-in data and trends, which is great for brick and mortar businesses.

Navigating the Mobile App

But what about the new Android app?

Everything is laid out in a relatively easy to understand manner, allowing you group together different Twitter accounts into workgroups. From there, you can see the main home feed as well as access your sent updates, look at tasks, and so on. Everything that you’ve come to expect from a Twitter client is here, though I would have liked the ability to “swipe” from column to column rather than simply tapping on the icons near the top.

When composing a new message you can choose which social media accounts you’d like to use (that’s the left column). There are also options to attach images (it defaults to a low-res image to yfrog) and schedule your tweets into the future. Unfortunately, just like HootSuite, there does not appear to be a way to check your scheduled tweets from within the mobile app; you have to go to the web-based desktop client to see that.

The tasks and statistics are available to you, though, so you can see how many clicks and retweets you are getting from your sent messages, for instance. The team management function is great too, since you can assign tasks to team members for following up.

The Smart Inbox

The primary column in the Sprout Social Android app is the Smart Inbox. Again, clearly designed with businesses in mind, this allows you to monitor everything that has to do with your company and your brand from one convenient location. The criteria can be customized, but it effectively lets you see all the mentions and activity related to you across mutliple services.

For instance, I named the workgroup “Mobile Magazine” and linked up my @dotcompho Twitter account. As you can see in the screenshot, it picked up the tweets that mentioned “Mobile Magazine,” as well as the mention directed at @dotcompho. This one inbox gives you an “at a glance” survey of how the social web is responding to your brand(s).

How Much Does It Cost?

Ah, there’s the rub. While the Android app is free, using Sprout Social is not.

Each of these comes with a free 30 day trial with no credit card required, but there is no “free” plan that can be used with Sprout Social. The plans range from $9/month to $899/month, offering anywhere from 10 social profiles to unlimited profiles. The cheapest plan supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Reader, while the higher end includes Foursquare and Google Analytics, as well as local search, task assignments, Facebook tabs, branded reports, and more.

I’m not sure that Sprout Social is quite the right fit for the regular old consumer, but its robust feature set — particularly with monitoring and analytics — and could prove invaluable to businesses of all sizes.

The post Sprout Social for Android Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Recent studies show that most burglars these days are depending on social media to find their next targets. In particular, Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Google Street View are the most preferred tools by thieves in carrying out their modus.

Some of the former thieves said that an average break-in just takes around ten minutes to accomplish, and only two minutes to enter a household which has no visible security. So if you are planning to brag about your two weeks out-of-town getaway to the Bahamas or to the Caribbean on social networking sites, think again.

To keep yourself and your house from being targeted by these burglars, make sure that your privacy settings are not out there for public consumption.

The post Social media being used to rob your home appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Research in Motion has clearly seen some brighter days, but BlackBerry is pushing ahead with some new updates. Today, BlackBerry Messenger 6 was officially released and it comes with at least one novel feature that you might like. With BBM6, you can share news and updates from other apps as your BBM status.

Normally, your status is just a snippet of text. With the next BBM, you can connect your status to your most recent Foursquare check-in, for instance. This way, any of your BBM buddies can immediately know where you are without a) sending you a message to find out, or b) switching to the Foursquare app to look you up.

Foursquare isn’t the only app working with this kind of functionality, but aside from the Huffington Post and Poynt, not too many other major services have signed on. I’d imagine that Facebook and Twitter would be natural fits, too, but RIM will have to chat up those folks to see what kind of integration they’d want to have. You can see the full list of supported apps on the BB blog. The good thing is that if one of your BBM buddies shares a status with one of these apps and you don’t have it, you can download the necessary app directly from within the BBM 6 interface.

The post BBM 6 talks to other apps, even lets you share your location appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

eShadow works by recognizing nearby wireless networks, as well as the wireless communications technologies found within your smartphone. I don’t think that eShadow is particularly novel, though, since you could have had a similar experience with Google Latitude. I guess the idea here is that you can connect with new friends too, based on the personal and professional interests that you share.

They say that eShadow complements current social networks, because it emphasizes and facilitates face-to-face meetings. I imagine this could get really messy at trade shows where you have a lot of people in a small space, all of whom likely share some really similar interests. Thankfully, there are both whitelists and blacklists built into the software that you can define and adjust.

“Today, online social networking has advanced dramatically, but our ability to meet people face-to-face hasn’t gotten any easier,” said Dong Xuan, associate professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State University. “We want eShadow to close social gaps and connect people in meaningful ways, while keeping the technology non-intrusive and protecting privacy.”

I’m pretty public with what I do — via my blog, Twitter, and other places online — but these kinds of programs are a little too stalker-ish for me. What do you think?

The post eShadow smartphone app will direct you towards nearby friends appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

All the rage at SxSW this year happens to be mobile-location oriented services.  The divide between digital and real world is quickly vanishing. Social-networking is on an upward spiral of acceptance. Services that connect your physical whereabouts with virtual friends is gaining ground and companies like FourSquare, Gowalla, BrightKite and Whrrl are making it all happen.  Where are you? What are you doing? Who will know where you are? Those are the questions that will be asked by the next-generation of social-networking applications, are you prepared to give out the answer and send your location to the clouds?

First lets look at privacy.  Assuming we trust these companies with the best of intentions, we shouldn’t feel uncomfortable about our whereabouts being tracked by a group of marketing wolves now should we?  They sell our information to private research firms – big fortune 500 companies – who are able to target you exactly the way need to maximize their ROI’s.  It’s not like Ronald McDonald is going to jump out from behind an alley because McDonalds knows you bought 15 cheeseburgers the last month but none in the last 3 weeks.  You could expect something more along the lines of an SMS from a local retailer with a 20% off special on D&G belts, but only because they know you bought a D&G sweater last week at Holt’s and you just happen to be within 30′ of their store.

Facebook already has libraries of information on its users and we have a pretty good idea of who is behind them.   So why would giving out your exact whereabouts be any less of a privacy concern to these new companies?  University of Georgia researchers have found that they can determine how personality traits are expressed online, even to the point of identifying narcissists.  So how much more could they determine about you by adding a phsyical location to the mix? Do you work too much, drink too much? Perhaps you are compulsive shopper? You eat too much fast food! Whatever your hitch may be they will surely know it.

A simulated stalking scenario using mobile-location services.

The big brother scare gets old, and it’s not really the companies you should be worried about but your so called “virtual friends,” that you have never met.   How well do you know your friends within your social network, are you prepared to let them all know where you are throughout the day?   This is something you should consider before getting into mobile location-sharing.  Go through your friends and be sure you know them all, any unsuspecting new friendsters, ones you perhaps met at a bar and havent seen since could be that psycho stalker the University of Georgia has yet to profile, regardless, these are some safe-list practices that should be considered.

The big question on my mind is, how can these mobile location-oriented services benefit us? Is a virtual “check-in” really an important thing in our lives?  Does it matter to my Facebook friends if I’m picking up a donut at Tim Hortons? Or @ Ace Bar enjoying happy hour!  Do I care to be the mayor of McDonalds on the corner of 12th and 10th? It is a great way to keep in touch and stay connected with real friends, especially in dense communities where your paths may cross frequently, but when is too much too much and why does anyone even care if I’m mayor of BBQ town?

The post SXSW hot with mobile location-oriented services: Who’s stalking you today? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

If you own a Palm Pre and you don’t mind broadcasting your physical location to everyone, though, you just may be in luck. Following in the footsteps of the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry, webOS has now been provided with a proper Foursquare app.

Available for download through the App Catalog, the Foursquare app for webOS works in much the same way as the apps available on the other platforms. You log into your account, check into a location, and try to become mayor of said location.

Unfortunately, there is one function missing from the beta version of this app. You don’t get to see any city leaderboards, but that may change with future releases.

Source: Intomobile

The post Palm Pre Gets Stalked Too with New Foursquare App appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Foursquare thing is catching on with Android and iPhone users already, but those loyal to Research in Motion have been left out in the cold up until now. That’s change with the release of a new BlackBerry app that works with Foursquare. Collect those points!

The other added advantage to using Foursquare is that you can sometimes come across some free bonuses. For example, in the screenshot above, you can see that the user checked in at Bite Me Best and landed himself a two-for-one drink coupon as a result.

The Foursquare app for BlackBerry isn’t quite ready for public consumption just yet, but the plans are calling for an “early December” release.

Source: Intomobile

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