Painted Saw Media

We just submitted to the app store, the 1st in a series of Children’s Picture books for the iPhone and Ipod Touch. The app will be Free, and barring any snags from Apple, it should be available mid-December. New apps for The Painted Saw Picture Book Series will be rolled out over the Winter and Spring of 2010.

The 1st app in the series The Hungry Wolf – which is also available as a Public Domain book through Project Gutenberg – is a classic Russian picture tale by Valery Carrick. The story is told in the Aesopic tradition with updated imagery based on the original illustrations. The Aesop fable is one of the most well known in the world. This style of fable remains a popular choice for moral education of children today. It provides a great opportunity to read and discus with your child.

The Hungry Wolf is the first in The Painted Saw Media Picture Books Series. The approach to this series is to repurpose the original imagery to create an updated yet captivating story. The app is specially deigned to easily read to children or let the children read themselves. With the fullscreen transparent navigation buttons, the user can easily navigate forward or backward through the book or go back to the menu at any point. This feature works very well in any location such as a doctor’s office waiting room, grocery store line, park bench, or reading in bed.

To celebrate this difficult 2009 Jets football season, the Jets Tweets iPhone app is now FREE! As mentioned in an earlier post, we have worked on creating a new model for supporting these apps. We worked with a few mobile advertising services, and found that Admob was the best solution. We will soon hope to switch all of our Twitter reader apps over to being Free apps.

Included in this update is the following:

• Updated User Interface
• Slimmed down Twitter Feed.
• Removed Info page and brought contact info to the front page.

Jets Tweets is available in the app store NOW… so go get it!

We have noticed that the NFL Twitter Reader apps have either not updated since November 5th or do not have any Tweets at all. This is due to our RSS host who has upgraded their servers and are delayed with getting the feeds out and updated. While the hosting company works on this issue, Painted Saw Media is attempting to move the RSS hosting services behind the scenes without an app update. We will update this post once the servers/RSS feeds are back up and running with your favorite NFL Tweets. Thank you for your patience!

UPDATE:
The RSS Feeds for ALL NFL TWITTER READER APPS have been ported and are working again. Thanks for your patience!

Painted Saw Media is holding our first Twitter Contest.
Follow @paintedsaw and Retweet in the next 48 hours to win $25 itunes gift card.

We will be releasing Version 2.0 of all of our Twitter readers. With the update, the apps will now be FREE! Starting with our most popular Twitter reader Jets Tweets. We have teamed up with mobile advertising marketplace Admob to bring the ability to switch all of our Twitter reader apps over to being Free apps. Also included in the update are the following:

• Updated User Interface
• Slimmed down Twitter Feed.
• Removed Info page and brought contact info to the front page.

Upon approval by Apple, Jets Tweets will be available in the app store this month with the remaining Twitter reader apps to follow.

For anybody following the updates that have been rolling out. We have a version 1.5 update that has been updating for free through iTunes. We will continue to work on the Twitter Reader reader apps to make sure they stay simple and remain a great experience for sports fans. Here are more details on the updates…

“In-App” Browser:
We have added an “in-app” browser allowing the More on Twitter button to open up the actual Twitter page in an “in-app” browser (or new web view) instead of switching to Mobile Safari. All additional links remain in that view with a button that will bring you back to the Twitter feed.

More Active Headline Tweets:
We have expanded the headlines tweets from 10 to 15 and reduced the Older Tweets from 10 to 5.

Continued UI tweaks:
Some apps, such as Titans Tweets have a changed background color for better reading ability. Thank you for the users on their feedback for this change!

Auto Rotate locked:
How many times do you turn the iphone to read? Probably not as much as you’d like it not to rotate. Reading these apps in bed with your iphone will no longer be a frustrating experience. We have locked the UI to remain vertical, so you can now do horizontal reading (This feature will be coming soon in the 1.6 update of Bengals, Chargers, Redskins, Giants, Cowboys, and Jets).

More reliable RSS feeds:
We have tweaked the way we aggregate and combine the Twitter RSS feeds. It is now a faster and more reliable aggregation. This also allows us to update the apps behind the scenes if a player gets traded or if a new player opens up a Twitter account.

Added Players:
Some apps have seen additional players added to the feed. This is in part due to our new RSS aggregation workflow.

If you are Jets’ season ticket holder, you may have received a voicemail from coach Rex Ryan looking for more fan involvement in their first home game against the Patriots. One interesting thing to note, Rex says they have a better Quarterback. That statement may not hold too long. Mark Sanchez had the 3rd most passing yards in NFL history for a rookie start with 272 passing yards.

Here is the transcript posted on thejetsblog.com:

Hey this is Rex Ryan Head Coach of theNew York Jets.  I just want to let you know how much we need you this week.  You know, I’ve already admitted that the Patriots have a better head coach and they got a better Quarterback than us, but … we got to see who’s got a better team. And the other part, the reason I’m so confident is that they’ve got to face you and the got to face the rest of our fans. And my challenge to you is that we need you at your best, so let’s come get ready to go for four quarters and get after them, especially when our defense is out there we really need you and we want it to be miserable for Brady & Company and seem like there’s 13 or 14 guys out there on defense.  It’s tough enough when we have 11 but when our fans are into it it’s almost impossible to do anything against us.  So, that’s my challenge to you and again I admit that I’m not as good as Belichick, but  at the end of the game, I want to be 1-0 against him.  So, help me out if you don’t mind, so that’s my challnege.  OK? Thank you. Bye.

Rex should really get on Twitter if he wants to get the word out. On the other hand, do the Jets really need an excuse to get loud? the truth is, we would really like to see him on Jets Tweets! Contact the Jets and let them know.

Earlier last week we posted a contest looking for the 1st Bengals Tweets’ screenshot of an Ocho Cinco gameday Tweet. Unfortunately, it never happend. We are extending this contest to any game this season, but of course it has to be the 1st screenshot we receive. After all, who knows when he is going to pull this off. Perhaps he never will. Here is some insight from his recent tweets regarding the next game against the Packers:

“Kodak moment: watching Packers on film eating Beignets at 1:30 in the morning , them damn corners are to aggressive=easily beatable:patience”

“I’ve watched packer film all day yesterday and I’ll do the same on this flight and when I land,Lambeau embrace thee interesting one(Esteban)”

Keep in mind. He said he is going to tweet after he scores a touchdown. So moving forward… We are going to offer a $25 itunes gift card to the first person to send us an iphone screenshot of Ocho Cinco’s game day Tweet.

Here are the rules for the contest:

• Screenshot must be from the Bengals Tweets iphone app.
• Ocho Cinco’s tweet must be during the restricted time of Twitter use per NFL policy – Within the 90 minutes before kickoff and before the end of media interviews that follow the game.

If you don’t have the app, go get it in the iTunes App Store and keep an eye out for Ocho’s big surprise tweet! Don’t know how to take a screenshot using your iPhone? Read our instructions here.

Email your screenshot to: giveaway@paintedsaw.com

According to Bengals infamous media/tech savvy wide receiver Ocho Cinco, there is a loop hole in the NFL’s gameday Twitter policy. This Sunday, when the Bengals play the Broncos, we are expecting him to somehow circumvent the policy during the game or maybe halftime. According to the Associated Press, he plans a big surprise for the NFL:

“I’ve been really, really quiet, and there’s a storm coming Sunday … That’s one of the things that I do when I’m back:  I have something.  I keep you on the edge of your seat.

NFL, I would like to apologize to you guys early.  I understand.  I read all the fine print in the letters you sent, but I did find loopholes.  I found loopholes.”

Are you on the edge of your seat? Painted Saw Media would like to put you there. We are going to offer a $25 itunes gift card giveaway to the first person to send us an iphone screenshot of Ocho Cinco’s game day Tweet.

Here are the rules for the contest:

• Screenshot must be from the Bengals Tweets iphone app.
• Ocho Cinco’s tweet must be during the restricted time of Twitter use per NFL policy – Within the 90 minutes before kickoff and before the end of media interviews that follow the game.

If you don’t have the app, go get it in the iTunes App Store and keep an eye out for Ocho’s big surprise tweet! Don’t know how to take a screenshot using your iPhone? Read our instructions here.

Email your screenshot to: giveaway@paintedsaw.com

In celebration of the new 2009 NFL season, we will be doing a promotion for all NFL Twitter reader iPhone apps. Jets Tweets, Giants Tweets, Chargers Tweets, Ravens Tweets, Bills Tweets, Bengals Tweets, Titans Tweets, and Redskins Tweets iPhone apps will be available for FREE in the iTunes app store until opening kickoff on Thursday Sept. 10th. If you are a fan of one of these teams and want to see what the players are up to, now is your chance to get a twitter reader for FREE! The apps enable you to read the latest Twitter updates from all of the players from your favorite team that are on Twitter. No Twitter account is needed!!