Starbucks Coffee Company

Starbucks is going to kick off the holiday season with a special app for iPhone and Android devices that will interact with art on holiday cups at the popular coffee shops around the world. You can see the app in action in the video below. As you can see, it's not really so functional as just a fun way to interact with the company's product. But the app does provide a little bit of interactivity, and apparently you can send holiday ecards directly from the software, as well as possibly win a prize for playing with all of the AR scenes. The app is set to be available on November 15th, a few days before Thanksgiving. This release will end a year of really interesting mobile phone-based initiatives from the company, including that mobile payment app that came out back in January. That app has been used in over 20 million transactions already, and Starbucks has also release apps that work with QR codes for more in-store interactivity, as well as an app to manage the company's Starbucks card program. It is fair to say Starbucks has seen a bit of success using the mobile app market to develop its brand and its retail experience. It'll be interesting to see if other retailers try to take on this kind of interactivity next year. Read More

By Leanna Lofte, Saturday, Jul 23, 2011 | Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game. To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break! As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of Dropbox and apps that capitalize on it by tying into the APIs to create interesting new services. I also find Apple’s own Voice Memos app lacking in that there’s no easy way to get those recordings off my iPhone short of syncing (for now). DropVox is a little app that solves this problem simply. All it does it record audio and throw it into your Dropbox for you. Using compressed .m4a files, the app fires up quickly and sends faster than you might expect. It’s not the kind of thing you’d use to record a full album in the studio, but it’s super handy for quick thoughts. You can also set it up to record immediately on launch, which makes the flow even faster (this is how I have it set up because when I’m using something like this, time is of the essence). It’s a clean-looking app, with a singular function, and it does it well. Check it out. My little girl loves singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star so she absolutely loves this app. “Twinkle Twinkle” tells the story of a friendship between a restless owl and a little star that watches over the forest. The simple touch animations are designed to help children relax. Touch the screen to watch the owl’s wing’s flap and hear the owl hoot. See the star spin around. Help the owl and the star fly across the sky with a flick of your finger! It comes with different reading options as well as two videos showing the content of the book all beautifully rendered. It also includes a simple counting the stars game. If you have young children, they will love this app and story. Great for bedtimes! Really, did you expect anything else? After OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, whose changes were as profound as they invisible to end users, OS X Lion finally brings some user Read More

Starbucks updated its iPhone app to include the popular Starbucks Card eGift feature on a mobile device. Moreover the new application combines the features of two other Starbucks iOS apps – myStarbucks and Starbucks Card Mobile. As a result, folks can rely on a single app to access their Starbucks Card, use the mobile payment capability, track their My Starbucks Rewards and custom Starbucks features, along with the new option to send a mobile gift. Previously only available at Starbucks.com, Starbucks Card eGift allows customers to treat friends and family to their favorite Starbucks beverage, food or merchandise by sending a gift straight from their iPhone or iPod Touch. What’s more, Starbucks Card eGifts can be customized with a personal message and sent using your contacts or Facebook friends list, for any amount between $5 and $100. Additional features of the Starbucks iPhone app include the Starbucks store locator, ability to track My Starbucks Rewards Stars, access food and beverage nutrition information, build a virtual beverage, search for a job at Starbucks, and use the QR code reader to check out promotions. Starbucks (FREE) [iTunes link] Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis. Read More

By Leanna Lofte, Saturday, Jul 2, 2011 | Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game. To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break! If you’re anything like me, you receive a lot of important information in .pdf format. It’s become a pretty universal standard – everyone can read .pdf documents, regardless of platform, and the readers are almost always free. Newsletters, calendars, and even textbooks come in .pdf format, and with my iPhone, I always have them at my fingertips. But what happens when I need to send a .pdf to someone else? That’s when PDF Reader Pro comes in especially handy. I can snap a photo of whatever document I need to share from inside PDF Reader Pro, and it turns it into a .pdf that I can then email right from inside the app. This has been especially handy for my auto registration, license, and insurance information! PDF Reader Pro also makes it a snap to load documents to your iPhone (or iPad). You can transfer files from your computer using WiFi, download directly from a website, or download from a variety of webdav servers including Dropbox and GoogleDocs. Unlike some other .pdf apps I’ve tried, PDF Reader Pro doesn’t choke on large documents. For example, I have my entire French 1 textbook loaded, and it’s quite manageable even on the small screen of the iPhone. It would be a bargain at twice the price! One pick to rule them all. One pick to find them. One pick to bring them all. And on TiPb, bind them. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was as real and well executed as George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels were fake and ill-conceived. In the lush environs of New Zealand, with the brilliant practical and digital effects work of Weta, Toklein’s Middle Earth was brought magnificent, mesmerizing life. And while Steve Jobs may call Blu-ray a “bag of hurt”, the truth is their high-capacity physical media is still the best looking bag of hurt available to movie aficionados today. As a bonus, the package also contains a “digital copy”. Read More

By Leanna Lofte, Thursday, Jun 30, 2011 | Starbucks for iPhone as been refreshed with a new look and brings the ability to send eGifts via email or Facebook. You can now also transfer balances between cards within the app. If you pick this one up, send me an eGift and let us know what you think! Screenshots after the break. Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look. Read More

MyStarbucks is no more. Starbucks rolled out version 2 of its official app today, combining the functions of myStarbucks and Starbucks Card Mobile into a single program. The new app has a redesigned interface with the company's new logo. Performance is much faster and having the Starbucks Card capabilities added to the app makes sense since it's ridiculously easy to pay for your coffee with your iPhone and there's really no need to have a separate app for this. Mobile payments also were expanded to Starbucks locations in Safeway. You can now send eGifts, gifting Starbucks credit to a lucky receipent. It'll go straight to the person's email or Facebook and a QR scanner was added. It retains the other features from the older app such as customizing and viewing the nutrition stats for your drinks, Starbucks Rewards, a geolocation feature, view available job openings and more Starbucks is a free download. Starbucks Card Mobile is still a standalone app, but I expect it'll go away soon. Read More

Greg Kumparak is the Mobile Editor at Techcrunch. Greg has been writing for the TechCrunch network since May of 2008. Greg was born just outside of San Jose, and now lives in the East Bay of California. → Learn More Oh, how great it is to live in the future. Sure, we may never explore the galaxy in our personal space cruisers (single tear.), but we can buy our friends coffee without even being at a coffee shop. From our phones! I’m getting ahead of myself. Up until this point, Starbucks has had two applications for iOS: myStarbucks, and Starbucks Card Mobile. The first let you find nearby stores, explore Starbuck’s menu, view store hours, etc — all the basics. The second, however, was pretty neat: you went to a Starbucks store, bought a gift card, punched that card’s details into your phone, and bam: the Starbucks Card Mobile appbecame the gift card, showing a scannable code that the cute girl behind the counter could scan whenever it came time to pay up. Today, they’re merging the two apps into one, with the aptly titled “Starbucks for iPhone“. It brings all of the features from both apps into one, with one new cool trick thrown into the mix: mobile gifting. With just a click or two, you can send any of your contacts or Facebook friends an eGift card, which they can in turn use from their iPhone or at starbucksstore.com. The best part about all of this: next time someone you’ve just met says “Let me buy you coffee some time!”, you can respond by saying “Okay, go ahead!”, and staring at them awkwardly until the eGift alert arrives. Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Read More

By Leanna Lofte, Thursday, May 12, 2011 | Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you! feedly: Feed your mind. Get the best content from your favorite websites delivered to your iPhone and iPad. Powered by Google Reader, Twitter, Instapaper and Read it later. [Free - iTunes link] Safari To Go: Access thousands of books and videos about technology, digital media and professional development from more than 40 of the world’s most trusted publishers. Search, view and organize your content with the user-friendly interface designed specifically for iPad. [Free, with Safari Books Online account - iTunes link] FILMINK: Australia’s best movie magazine is now tailor-made for your iPad, taking every advantage of its stunning display and hands-on interactive capabilities. Now with an updated viewer to support Adobe Publishing Suite Version 10. [Free - iTunes link] Weather Doodle: Suns rise. Clouds glide into view. Raindrops, snowflakes and hail fall from the sky. The wind blows. All in a gorgeous, whimsical art style. And when you’re ready to see something different? Just download new art from within the app and experience an entirely new look with new animations. It’s simple, beautiful, intuitive, and more fun than a weather app has a right to be. Now a universal app for iPhone and iPad. [$0.99, with in-app purchases - iTunes link] myStarbucks: Now with a new scanner (QR Codes) experience for camera enabled-devices with iOS 4.0 and higher, and new Summer Products such as Starbucks Petites, Mocha Coconut Frappuccino and Coconut Crème Frappuccino. [Free - iTunes link] Any other big apps or game releases or updates today? If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think! Read More

Last week, Starbucks updated its Starbucks Card app to handle payments through your iPhone and iPod touch at most Starbucks locations throughout the country. It was originally part of a pilot program when the app debuted in 2009, then expanded to Starbucks locations inside Target stores, and now it's nationwide. There is still an exception, and that is Starbucks located inside Barnes & Noble. These locations are owned by Barnes & Noble themselves and will not accept Starbucks cards. Likewise, when checking for places that will accept mobile payments via the Starbucks Card app, Barnes & Noble locations are not listed. I tested out the app on a visit to the Starbucks at Avenue at White Marsh, just outside Baltimore. While using the app is simple, it takes some work to get it ready to go. If you have a Starbucks gift card, launch the app and tap the "add new" button in the top right corner. You'll enter in your Starbucks card number and security code, and it will add the contents of that particular card to your account. Do the same for any other Starbucks cards that you own, then shred the physical cards. You don't need them any longer. If you don't have a preloaded Starbucks card, there's no need to fret. First, create an account if you don't already have an older one with Starbucks. Then tap the account balance underneath the card picture and you get the option to "reload card," "refresh balance" and more options, which include setting up auto-reloading. Tap "reload card," enter your password, and you're taken to a screen where you can load your virtual Starbucks card in increments of $10. The first time you do a $25 reload on the card using a Visa-branded debit or credit card will net you $5 in extra credit. The app does store your credit card information, so if you're not using a passcode on your iPhone, now is the time to do so. Once you've enabled payments on the app -- this can be toggled in the settings -- the "click to pay" button will appear on the app's home screen. After you have credit, head to the counter and order as normal. When it came time to pay, I tapped the "touch to pay" button then offered the barista my phone. She picked up a scanner that was a bit larger than my Read More

By Leanna Lofte, Sunday, Jan 23, 2011 | Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game. To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break! LockInfo and BiteSMS are the single 2 reasons I can’t live without jailbreaking. Little tweaks and customizations I can do without, LockInfo I couldn’t be without. I was able to take a first look at LockInfo 3.0 before it was released to the public (it’s currently in public beta). This is a huge update to an already great app. The update adds themes, favorites, calendar status bar alerts, and more. If you’re a jailbreaker, make sure you check it out. There is a 14 day free trial as well. [$7.99 via Cydia] Chopper 2 is a very fun game not only available on iOS but also on the Mac App Store as well now. There are 36 missions that take place on 12 different levels. Your job is to escot vehicles across levels, defend different items from enemies, and even pick up civilians with your helicopter. The game allows you to use your gyroscope as well for increased controls. It features leaderboards and achievements and is universal across all of your iOS devices which is the best part! But are you ready for my favorite part about this game? If you buy the Mac version you can sit back with your computer and use your iOS device as a remote to play the game with rather than the keyboard! I tried it out and it took a bit of getting used to but I love it now! This game actually got me away from Angry Birds believe it or not! It is insanely fun so give it a shot! Over the last few days, I have been playing Ultimate Hangman with the family. This is a fun, well designed hangman game with a single or multiplayer mode. In single player mode, you can choose from a list of word categories (animals, SAT words, verbs, etc) although sometimes the words don’t quite match the categories. In multiplayer mode you can choose words for each other to Read More