TechnoCloud

Condé Nast are repurposing the entire December issue of GQ, with the same ads and articles, into an iPhone app. The app will be launched the same day the print issue will appear and will be priced at $2.99, two dollars less than the print version.

The app will also include e-commerce, audio and video functions. Turned sideways, the iPhone displays the magazine in its traditional print layout. Users can flip through pages sequentially and zoom in and out of each page. As the app is a full replica of the magazine, it will count towards its ABC paid circulation figures.

iPhone users generally view ads in paid apps unfavourably, so it will be interesting to see the consumer reaction to largely a print business model and content (newsstand, plus ads) on the iPhone.

If, like me, only a cruel lack of opportunity prevented you from being crowned F1 World Champion in Jenson Button’s place, then help could be at hand with Real Time Race.

This is a system that allows players to drive alongside the actual drivers in real-time as you watch the race. The technology maps the circuit just before the race so the virtual track would matches up to the one on TV. Although the game is unlikely to be ready until next year, a demo is available.

Of course, you won’t be able to drive Alonso off the track, no matter how much you want to, but it’s another example of the blurring of real world and digital experiences.

Google has entered the online music market with a new service for finding and buying music online, OneBox, through a partnership with music sites Lala and MySpace-owned iLike. The US-only service allows people to search using song titles, artists or snippets of lyrics. The songs are then available as ad-supported streams and paid downloads.

As the service appears in Google’s search results, it provides an alternative (albeit streaming rather than free downloads) to illegal torrents when searching for tracks.

Another week, another Spotify business model, this time a bundled subscription to Spotify’s premium service on HTC’s Hero Android Smartphone which is available on the UK’s 3 network. For a £35 a month tariff, plus a £99 fee (similar to iPhone pricing), users get two years of Spotify’s premium service included in the deal.

They may have their work cut out after leaked figures emerged for Nokia’s similar ‘Comes with Music’ service indicating they had only signed up 107,000 customers since their January launch, albeit on a less impressive handset.

Just when you thought app stores could not appear on anything else, it seems ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’ wouldn’t be complete without its own app store. The BMW app store is just a concept for now, but the apps on offer covered the likes of multimedia travel guides, games and inevitably social networks.

So, if your gadget-obsessed friend updates their status with ‘crashing into a hedge’ you know why…

Amazon’s much anticipated international version of the Kindle has finally been launched.

Initially sold through Amazon.com, it is priced at $279 and will ship from 19th October. The international version is the smaller six inch screen Kindle 2, as opposed to the larger Kindle DX only available in the US, and will run on 3G networks (USB syncing where unavailable). Accordingly, Forrester has raised its forecast for e-reader sales in 2009 from 2m to 3m and to 10m in 2010, when colour e-readers are expected to become more widely available.

And if you’re stuck deciding which of the 250k books to read, then why not start with one of the 613 Lonely Planet guides now available on the Kindle…

The Spotify iPhone app has finally been approved by Apple, providing streaming, and more limited offline, access to Spotify’s music catalogue for premium users of the service (£9.99).

It’s been interesting to see the mixed reviews to what is an impressive service, if you’re willing to accept the price that is. Despite making it clear that you could only access the streaming service if you had a premium account, numerous reviewers have complained that their ‘free’ app hasn’t worked, showing the importance of managing expectations very clearly on a free app (or indeed a subscription based app).

The challenge in getting users to click on ads is well known, but an inspired piece of creative for Pringles plays on this by including a mini-story within the ad which reveals itself through a seemingly never ending number of clicks (I gave up at 20), earning itself a gold Cyber Lion award in the process.

See it in action here.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority is using an innovative approach to raise awareness of and funds for endangered gorillas. The ‘Friend a Gorilla’ website allows users to become friends on Facebook with their chosen gorilla for $1. The gorilla will then appear in their friends list and its status updates will appear in their news feed.

This is the first example I’ve seen of paying for friends on Facebook. While a charity is a laudable start, it may open up the practice to commercial organisations. Would you pay £1 to be one of a limited number of friends of Stephen Fry to get exclusive updates? And if so, how long until this practice is extended to creating a private Twitter network?

The long awaited Spotify iPhone application has been submitted to Apple for approval and already several details have emerged:

- Ability to take your playlists with you
- Download songs or playlists to listen offline
- Search for new tracks
- Of course being an iPhone app, you can’t run it in the background while using other applications, a major annoyance for the multi-taskers.

But, what of pricing? It is likely to be available to premium users paying the £9.99 a month for the ad-free, higher quality version of the tracks. This pricing would be key in ensuring a rosy future for Spotify and indeed its competitors’ subscription services with the challenge of getting all those free users to upgrade (2m in Europe is the touted number).

The other big question that remains is whether Apple will approve it given the challenge to the iTunes music store. Early indications are that they will.

With no subscription available as yet in iTunes, will Spotify’s alternative be compelling and how might Apple themselves respond with a subscription service remaining only a rumour at present?

See it in action here: