

Color to Get Major Update, Fix ‘Loneliness’ Problem - markbao
http://mashable.com/2011/03/24/color-update/

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ookblah
So their solution to #1 is just to not let you use it? What.

Also, that last picture in the article had me loling. "Take photos together".
I'm sure in the near future we'll all be standing 10 ft from each other taking
pictures of the same things. I hope that wasn't the intended meaning...

Anyway, as much bashing as it's being given, I think the elastic social
network idea is very interesting. Anybody see some kind of guerilla
advertising going on in dense places? Like you have a buncha people invade an
area taking pics of advertisements hahaha.

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ghshephard
Two of us spent about 45 minutes trying "Color" out this evening.

Now, I love gadgets. And New technology. But, for the life of me, and the
people at the table, we really could not figure out the color interface. It
has a bunch of non-standard icons with clocks, and globes, and loops and a
color wheel (that we eventually discovered is the camera icon - not sure what
would have been wrong with a camera icon).

The app is still buggy. I would take pictures that eventually would be visible
to my friend, but It took me about 5 or 6 more minutes before I could see his.

The whole "We map out lighting to determine if you are in the same room"
algorithm may have been the same problem, as different parts of the room had
totally different lighting levels.

I'm certainly not getting that Instagram "Wow, this is awesome" feeling. We'll
see how it plays out.

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MostExtremeCake
I really wish they would also fix the "Crashing every 5 minutes" problem.

The problem I'm having with the app (besides the crashing) isn't the
loneliness. It's that it's supposed to be this totally new model for sharing
our lives, but I get no hints or instructions on how to use it well/as
intended.

Unfortunately I forgot who I'm paraphrasing when I say this, but there is not
intuitive, there is only familiar. The mechanics of this application are
completely unfamiliar to most people. It would be nice to get some guidance on
what kind of use tends to be fun.

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ctdonath
Reading about Color while watching news about Middle Eastern protests was an
interesting juxtaposition. Having a surge of people using this during a major
news event could prove interesting - to the degree of being "disruptive tech"
having consequences and uses we can't imagine yet.

At the other extreme, even being far away from others could prove useful, if
only to have a starting point for finding others and bootstrapping social
interaction. Someone has to be first to turn it on in an otherwise isolated
area.

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ookblah
I found this aspect of it the most interesting...and I hope that this is one
of the use cases.

Instead of needing to see pictures of things immediately around me, I'd want
to see pictures of everything happening around Friend A, City B, Event C, etc.

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jchonphoenix
Instead of focusing on the "loneliness" issue, how about you focus on the
"crash every 5 seconds" issue?

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b0sk
I don't get this application. Why would I want to use such a thing?

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drivebyacct2
Using the app confuses me. It prompted me for my name nonstop (when I say
nonstop, I mean I typed my name and clicked "OK", and then it asked me for my
name again, repeat), I finally had to press back until it dropped me at what I
presumed was the default screen of the app. After a while it stopped using my
name and just said "User". When I took pictures and clicked "Ok", it would
flash to the app and then back to the camera to have me take yet another
picture.

The interface has no hints as to what's going on. I'm just completely confused
by the app and I have a tendency to find my way around all sorts of bad apps
and websites.

All I know is, Sequoia better have seen some top secret stuff. My eyebrows are
at very different heights.

