The MEDL Shop

The plot thickens.

The protagonists of our story are now at a fascinating point in the company’s storied rise. From it’s simple goal of helping people turn great ideas into great apps, MEDL Mobile has grown into a player in the multiple-dimensionally expanding world of mobile apps. We are working with brilliant developers, amazing artists and performers, A-level marketers and C-suite clients.

Every single day brings something completely new and exciting.

For instance, today we….


Saw prototypes on a video game and briefed our team on a bunch more, demo’ed a new app to a very excited client, dropped a new app to the app store, and got an upgrade released on another.

We built the back end for an app for an airline and dropped our new API into Note to Haiti.

We also figured out a really tough piece of technology for a client. And we helped another with a marketing proposal.

We had a follow up call with a top tier VC firm.

We made viral videos for our very super cool new app, Boink (the app formerly known as Hump).

We designed an app to help a telco support a national charity.

We read about our apps and a few of our incubator developers in the press.

We worked with celebrities and a world class poker player and a movie studio and we sent out an email blast to nearly 50,000 people telling them about our latest flurry of SMO’s.

And the day’s not over yet.

The experiment is started to bubble up in the cauldron and it’s getting pretty interesting. Here’s to great ideas and the great apps they become.

Employee Spotlight: Scott @MEDL Mobile

12 months ago, I began a part-time internship under Dave Swartz, a friend to one my college instructors.

He was starting a cool new business and wanted me to help him in getting it off the ground. I was apprehensive because full time school with a part time silk-screening job was hard enough. Something about this new business seemed really exciting, so I rolled up my sleeves, downed a cup of coffee and jumped in. All I knew was that it had something to do with iPhones…

Looking back on 2009, working with MEDL Mobile was one of the best decisions I have made. I have gotten to participate in projects, meet people and make decisions I would have never had the chance to elsewhere.

I have written, filmed and even starred in my own viral promotional ads. I have composed both long form and short form copy for several different media, including App Store descriptions for many of your apps. I have gotten to film and edit charity events that were sponsored by MEDL Mobile, and in doing so have met several influential people of Orange County. I starred in the three-part zombie romance for our popular app, Boxhead, and I even allowed my fellow MEDL Heads to shoot me with my own paintball gun in the name of a great viral video. I have concepted, designed and animated flash video ads, developed app graphics and soon, will begin to facilitate the development of my own App Incubator submission.

The best part of it all was getting to work on all the great ideas from the Incubation Nation. With 2010 in full swing, I am now working on many new and exciting projects geared towards marketing our—i.e. your—awesome apps. To that end, if you have an idea for getting the word out about a MEDL app, I want to hear it. In closing, I want to thank every one of you for making this experience what it was, and continuing to make each day as enjoyable as the last.

Cheerz,
Scott Sagan, MEDL Mobile

MEDL 2.0

2010 is only two weeks old and already it’s been a phenomenal year.

- We launched our brand new look and feel for the site. Big props to Andy, Chris and Shannon for making it happen.

- We were featured on CNBC’s special, Planet of the Apps. Thank you so much to all of the clients, incubation nation and fans on our facebook page who have been sending in kind messages. The show airs again on Sunday night. Check your local listings. It will also be on Hulu starting next week.

Or you can just Check it out on our YouTube Channel.

- We had our best download week ever over the holidays – and because of that, a few new incubator developers started receiving monthly payments.

- We’ve brought some amazing new apps already on the store into the MEDL network with the MEDL Alliance.  Stay tuned for details…

- We dropped three new apps to the App Store:

Isometrics – This app was created by Paul Martin from North Wales, UK.  It allows users to find exercises they can do standing, sitting at their desk or even driving in your car.  With the timer feature and reminder settings iSometrics has taken away any excuse you had left for not exercising.

Day In The Life – Creator Mike Silvia’s brainchild reminds you every day to capture a photo or video of your children, and then allows you to flip through days, weeks, months and years. Categorize the events you capture and make it easy to remember all of the precious little moments that happen every day.

Pocket Reference – Created by Tim Vinsant from Little Rock, Arkansas.  Never be without a fact again.  It includes more than 500 reference sites – categorized by topic and incredibly convenient.

Also, we launched a great app back in December that was a little overshadowed by Mall Maps going to #1. Please check out Aromatherapy. Created by Brigitte Faubert from Gatineau, Canada.  Aroma Therapy holds the cure from everything from headaches, cuts and bruises, colds, dandruff, earwax, fatigue, gas, and even impatience and tension.

- Lastly, we are closing in on our goal of reviewing every app in the Incubator submitted in 2009 by the end of January. We will hit the goal and will update everyone the first week of February with where we are. In the meantime, if you get an email from Scott, please be nice to him. He, Kim and the rest of their team have been working non-stop for months to get through all 25,000 submissions.

Because there are so many, please understand that we had to say no to quite a few ideas. It’s not that we don’t love a lot of them. But we can only invest in a certain number. If you’d like to know what would be involved with building an app that has been rejected, we’d be more than happy to tell you. You can email mark at mark@medlmobile.com who can send you information on our paid development.

As for the incubator people who have made it to the second round, congratulations. We’ve gone from 25,000 down to about 1,200. So if your app is still in consideration on Feb 1, well, as Tyra would say, you’re still in the running to becoming America’s Next Top Model.

Here’s to 2010 and to great ideas!

Dave

Binman From Coventry To California

If someone had told me in January of 2010 I would visit the city of Los Angeles, I wouldn’t have believed them. By itself, getting my iPhone app idea Problem Halved made into an actual app was a tremendous surprise. Who knew that eventually it would take me halfway across the world?

The descent into the Los Angeles airport was very foggy; it was hard to see anything. The flight itself wasn’t too bad, but after 12 hours of it I was very glad to stretch my feet. I got through immigration without any big problems, but like usual my bags were the last to come out.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, my suitcase finally arrived and I made right for the exits. When I stepped outside, the first thing that hit me was the busyness of the traffic. It seemed like London during rush hour.

My first cigarette craving in 14 hours hit, and to my disbelief I had mislaid my lighter. A guy near me was smoking a cigarette, so I asked him for a light. After chatting for a couple minutes, he asked me if I was English and wanted to know if I liked The Beatles—I said yes to both. We talked a little about the current recession in the UK and USA and after finishing our cigarettes, we parted ways. As I stepped on the shuttle bus to Huntington Beach, where Dave Swartz and his family live, he wished me a nice vacation in Los Angeles.

While riding the bus, I met a couple of interesting characters. The first was a business lady from the LA area and the second was a guy who developed indestructible electronics. Both were very keen to hear what I had planned for my trip, so I told them my personal story of working as a binman and how I had become involved with MEDL Mobile. The business lady passed me her card and said that she worked in the recycling industry—she was interested in looking to build an iPhone app. An hour and a taxi ride later, I arrived in Huntington Beach. When I got out of the taxi, I was greet

ed by one of MEDL Mobile’s founders, Dave Swartz.

It was great to finally put a face to the voice and all the emails we had exchanged. Dave invited me into his home and introduced me to his

verywelcoming wife, Kim.  Their house felt very warm and homely, and I was impressed when I stepped inside.

Before leaving for Los Angeles, I had gotten gifts for Dave and Kim. Dave had spent some time in London as a student and was particularly fond of Cadbury Flakes. His wife Kim really enjoyed Bassets Licorice allsorts, so I made sure to pack six bars of Cadbury Flakes and a pack of licorice. They both loved the gifts very much! We chatted for about an hour before having a nice stroll with their dog Lucy around the block and then finally calling it a night.

At this point, I was seriously jetlagged and couldn’t get used to time. Dave showed me the bed that I’d be sleeping in—after 12 hours on a plane, it looked like heaven! But because my body clock was out of sync, I initially found it hard to fall asleep. I think I got about 6 hours before waking up at about 5:30AM, local time.

I didn’t want to disturb them sleeping so I quietly crept downstairs to watch TV, trying not to wake them up. ESPN was screening live Premiership football. Normally the games kick off at 12 or 3PM, so watching some live football at 5:30 in the morning was kind of strange.

I was soon greeted by Dave’s children. Both were very keen to show me their plates that they had decorated for their Jewish festival Hanukah. While on the flight, I had purchased them a remote control plane that Dave’s son quickly set up and loved. He showed me his collection of Thomas the Tank Engine trains, which took me back about 20 years to my childhood days. It was awesome—we had great fun playing with his train set. Then Dave’s daughter showed me all her toys her bunny rabbit.  Both their kids were really nice and had impeccable manners, which was very refreshing to see.

The weather was looking terrible outside but we all decided to head out so I could see some of Huntington Beach. I was looking forward to visiting Ruby’s, a traditional 1940’s American diner. After a wet, windy walk up the pier, we closed our umbrellas (yes, an umbrella in sunny LA) and went inside Ruby’s.

I opted for the American burger with fries and a large toffee fudge milkshake. What surprised me was the fact that you got refill fries. The burger tasted irresistible! In fact, I would go as far as to say it was one of the best burgers that had ever wet my lips. Dave and Kim were very kind and bought my girlfriend Sarah a Ruby’s t-shirt, which was totally unexpected and very nice of them. After lunch, we walked around the shops in Huntington Beach. It’s a picturesque Orange Country seaside town with a gorgeous beach, volleyball nets and an abundance of palm trees.

The shops were good too. If I had more money, I would have spent an absolute fortune as the clothing shops there are seriously cool. In the end, I picked up some baby clothes and popped into the Harley Davidson shop to pick up a gift for my Harley-mad coworker and friend. I wasn’t sure what to buy her, but decided on a couple of shot glasses with the Harley logo on it.

Later that evening, we headed towards LA for the big MEDL Mobile and DayNa Decker Christmas party. We arrived at about eight, which felt like 4AM to my body. All I can say is… What a house! There was a full valet car parking service—I felt like royalty! We went in and grabbed a drink before being introduced to Andrew Maltin, the other Co-Founder of MEDL Mobile and the host of the party. It was nice to see Andrew, who had always believed in my ideas and gave me employment with MEDL Mobile. I gave him a nice bottle of Scottish whiskey and some English sweets.

I took a look around his house. It was huge and very nicely furnished—my girlfriend Sarah would have loved it! My favorite room was the home cinema, which came equipped with a gigantic screen that must have been at least 120 inches and had more than a dozen leather reclining seats.

From there I was introduced to a guy also named Andrew who has just started at MEDL Mobile as a programmer. He was a nice lad and we spoke about MEDL and the differences between the USA and England. Most of the evening I spent outside as it had a smoking area next to the pool with extremely comfortable sofas and patio heaters.

I began talking to an American guy named Rob and a Ukrainian girl. I mentioned that my brother had visited the Chernobyl site, which led to a very interesting conversation. Rob had done a lot of work with Andrew Maltin and we talked about his time in London and the cultural differences. What I found funny was that people gave him funny looks while wearing Burberry clothing. I explained that the reason for this was English football hooligans wear this apparel to identify themselves to other football firms.

After an hour or so, Shannon from MEDL Mobile introduced herself to me. We had chatted a little on Skype and have exchanged a fair amount emails; it was nice to see her in person. She was very friendly and we had a good chat about all sorts of things.

Another guy who had recently worked for MEDL was Jason Reis, who was also great to talk to. We spoke about the USA and England and discussed my iPhone app Problem Halved 2 and about possible new functionality.

In the midst of all this, I had a moment to reflect on how much of a crazy year it’s been. To be in Los Angeles sitting in this mansion was incredible. I come from a normal working class background, so this experience was very new to me. What I found fascinating was the great mix of nationalities there. The party ended around 2AM, and I returned home to Huntington Beach with Dave and Kim.

I woke up at about 7AM on Sunday morning and a had a fun game of hide and seek with the kids. I pretended not to be able to see them as I walked past them. They greeted this with a series of laughs and giggles. The kids were awesome and had lovely little personalities. I gave them each a pound coin to put in their moneyboxes, which they both loved and thanked me for.

We had a whole free day so we decided to go out and about and explore Orange County. We traveled to Newport Beach further down the coast, which was gorgeous. The biggest difference I noticed was a lack of litter on the streets and how everything looked so perfect with immaculate gardens.

We then stopped at a Mexican restaurant. What I found funny was that there was a full car valet parking service in operation. We got out of the car right outside the restaurant, with them opening the car doors for us. I felt like a celebrity arriving at a movie premiere. This was totally alien to me, and this just doesn’t happen in England.

We decided to sit outside in this really swanky restaurant, where there were views of the ocean with palm trees. The waiter brought out a huge bowl of tortillas with salsa and extremely tasty guacamole dip. This in itself seemed like a big meal. I ordered a chicken enchilada with rice and fried beans. The beans tasted incredible; it was like the consistency of mashed potatoes with cheeses melted on the top.

Before my trip, I was doing some research into LA and I noticed everyone wore sunglasses. Now I know why. The weather was brilliant and so sunny, by this time I so could have done with some sunglasses.

From there we headed towards Laguna Beach. Me and my girlfriend Sarah are keen viewers of Laguna Beach and the Hills so I was excited to go and see it. This was a seriously expensive looking place. The houses looked marvelous and some of the cars were incredible. You could just tell their was serious money in this place by the array of cars whizzing past, including Aston Martins and two of my favourite cars: the Corvette and Mustang.

Laguna had some fantastic shops. I soon noticed an American Candy shop that I had to go into. It sold a variety of pick and mix American sweets as well as English imported chocolate. You will never guess how much they were charging for a Cadbury Curly Whirly. For those who are based in the USA they cost us about 25 pence. Well, they were charging $1.99. They must have been making a killing!

From there we could see and hear people dancing to music on sea front. My first impression was that it was Mexican music. Dave informed me it was Jewish dancing as it was Hanukkah celebrations at this time of year.

It was a great weather for me: around 17C. I found it funny that Dave and Kim found it cold and the kids were wearing coats. It was like a very warm midsummer to autumn’s day to me. On the way back to the car I noticed an ice cream shop which I couldn’t resist going into. There were dozens of different flavors. My girlfriend Sarah would have loved it! The strawberry flavor caught my eye—I ordered a large one immediately and the girl asked me “Don’t you want a tester pot first?” This doesn’t happen in England, you just get what you pay for and that’s it. If I had known, I would have had a sample of everything! The ice cream they gave me was huge. I was expecting a Cornetto sized cone—This must have been 3 to 4 times bigger! It fed all 5 of us. We then headed back home to Dave’s. All of us were tired from the party and the food we had consumed all day. As part of the Hanukkah celebrations, gifts are exchanged every night for 8 days. Dave and Kim had purchased me a nice Huntington Beach t-shirt, which was very kind of them, and had got the kids a Wii computer game each.

I was looking forward to playing them on the big 120-inch projector screen Dave had in his house. It was quality! I so want one of those, but don’t think our house is big enough to fit one! I think Dave, Kim and the youngest were really tired and Dave fell asleep, so his son and I played some racing games.

The evening soon came and they ordered pizzas for dinner. They were large ones but about 3 times the size of an English large pizza you would order from Dominos.

On Monday, my last day of the holiday, Dave took me to Fashion Island a mall not too far from where he lived. He had a meeting there so it gave me some time to explore some of the shops. The mall was beautiful with palm trees and a giant Christmas tree and carousal.  It was a stunning mall to visit, and so clean. The shops there were amazing and if it hadn’t been so close to Christmas, I could have spent hundreds.

As a lover of food I had to try a hot dog and some pretzels, which are obviously traditional American food. They tasted great! I purchased some nice Christmas gifts for people back home, which was fun. I had another half an hour to kill so went and sat on a bench and listened to some Christmas songs. It seemed strange listening to this with palm trees in the background and glorious sunny weather.

Dave then took me to the MEDL mobile office, which was cool. I saw Scott Sagan who couldn’t make the party. The table tennis table was set up and I was preparing myself for a battle with Dave but unfortunately the meeting room next door was being used so we were unable to play.

Was this a coincidence or did Dave bottle it? Did he deliberately book out the meeting room to avoid the English ping-pong master? I can’t wait to return and get this game on!

Just before I left the office, we took some cool pictures, but I noticed that my IPhone was missing from my pocket. I must had dropped it in the Mall. I searched franticly down the sofa at the MEDL shop and in Dave’s car to no avail. This had put a bit of a dampener on my last day in LA as I knew my girlfriend wouldn’t be happy, to say the least.

We returned home and had a look round for my IPhone but it wasn’t there. We only had 10 minutes before the taxi was due to arrive so I thanked Dave and Kim for their super hospitality and gave the kids a hug and a few dollars to put in their moneyboxes.

I had one more interesting experience on my way back to the airport. I began talking to a girl named Sandy who was from Cincinnati, Ohio, and had been visiting LA. We talked about our experiences in LA and about the USA and England. She was fun to talk with and to my surprise she gave me her card and offered me a place to stay in Cincinnati.

At about 9PM I took off from the airport back home, but wasn’t looking forward to the grueling 11 hour long flight. I had dinner just after takeoff and then shut my eyes. I was out for the count for about 6 hours.

I arrived back in Heathrow and was greeted at the airport by my brother and sister-in-law, which was very nice. I couldn’t hack the train back to Coventry so stayed at their house for the night. It was so cold compared to the weather in Los Angeles!

To my amazement my brother asked me if I’d lost my iPhone. How did he know that? Well someone found it in the Mall and handed it into Concierge. The battery was flat so the lady took it to the Apple shop and charged it for five minutes. She then tried to ring home but the SIM card was English and didn’t work. She then saw I had Facebook installed so she used Apple’s wireless network to connect to the Internet and posted a message on Facebook. How lucky is that? In Coventry the phone would have been long gone!

All in all, I had a fantastic time. Without MEDL Mobile, this wouldn’t have been possible. I know that MEDL Mobile are planning another party at some point next year so I would encourage everyone to keep sending their ideas into the incubator and you never know… you could be appearing on national television in your country and visit LA.

I will defiantly be revisiting the USA at some point next year and I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone in the USA who made me feel so welcome.

You can follow Rob’s progress on twitter @shoesmith81 or join the app incubators fan page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=photos&gid=169184906979

The future is gonna be really cool. And it's almost here.

There’s some really cool sh*t going on.

Pardon my French, but I gotta tell you, we are having a blast right now at MEDL Mobile. In between the ping pong games (Andrew and I are tied but rumor has it that Shannon is beating Scott), we’ve managed to crank out some amazing new apps, put a slew of killer new apps into development, meet some fantastic new people, and dream up some really big ideas.

The big idea of the day, a little app called Mall Maps.

For those of you who haven’t heard the story, we said “No.” to Shayne Faerber four times. Not because we didn’t love the idea. But because we knew it was nearly impossible to build. The time required to collect enough data to make the app worthwhile across all 50 states… let’s just say we thought for sure Shayne would go away after we charted it out for him. Instead, he came back a week later with the entire state of Alabama, malls, mall maps, store listings, everything.

“Now can we build it?” was all his email said. How could we say no?

Shayne worked for 7 months to compile the data and as he said to me tonight, it was all worth it.

Mall Maps is now Number ONE in reference apps.

It’s an App Store Essential App for Black Friday.

It’s been on CNN and CBS, in the New York Times and has been the topic of conversation in and around Naples, Florida. Congratulations Shayne. For those of you who haven’t downloaded it yet, please do. Shayne’s girlfriend deserves a really nice Christmas gift after all the time he put into Mall Maps. Shayne, there’s a bottle of champagne on it’s way.

To celebrate Mall Maps going to number one, WE ARE HAVING A SALE to help with your holiday shopping.

Problem Halved, because you can ask the thousands of users around the world for great gift ideas.

Feather Report, because Fashion + Weather = Feather Report. It’s the ultimate app for serious fashionistas with daily style inspiration based on your local weather forecast, plus outfits customized to your body type and lifestyle.

Doodle Chat, because it’s the most fun way to chat this holiday season.

This or That, because you can ask people which scarf matches which sweater? (Be forewarned, this app is still in beta so it may be a bit rough around the edges. But we are giving it a facelift and currently looking for feedback on new functions it needs. Don’t be shy.)

And Boxhead, because as my wife Kim asked me to point out, husbands can go shopping with their wives and sit patiently outside of dressing rooms yet still have something fun to do. And sometimes vice versa.

See all the MEDL apps here and look for the ones with the SALE banner.

This just IN – Our newest app hit the app store THIS MORNING.

Aromatherapy lists hundreds of natural cures for common ailments and illnesses. The submitter of this app, Brigite Faubert, spend hundreds of hours compiling this comprehensive database and we are proud to call it a Shiny MEDL Object!

The next big announcement – The MEDL Alliance.

Have you created a killer app that could do great things if people would just take notice?

Have you started an app that you don’t have the ability to finish? Have you built an app that you don’t have the time to maintain?

Does your app have what it takes to become a Shiny MEDL Object?

If so, we’d like to take a look at it. And if we love it, we’d like to include it in our network. Once included in our network, your app will become part of our intelligent recommendation engine – due to launch in February of 2010. This engine will recommend new apps to users based upon other apps they currently use. We call it the MEDL Shop and you can find a beta version of it on our newest apps launching in the next few weeks.

Think your app has what it takes to become a Shiny MEDL Object? Click here and lets find out.

Speaking of the MEDL Alliance…

The MEDL heads will be getting down this holiday season. Our big party will be on December 12 and it’s going to be a blast – with some very special surprise guests. Think your name should be on the guest list? Convince us with an email to pleaseputmynameontheguestlist@medlmobile.com. If we choose you, you’ll need to get yourself to Los Angeles. But trust us, our parties are not to be missed.

Speaking of the holiday season…

From now through the end of the year, Note To God will be FREE every Saturday and Sunday. Watching how people have been using this app is incredibly rewarding for us, for Allen Wright, and for his family. And we’d like to see as many people have a chance to share their prayers as possible. If you’ve never read the reviews, please take a moment to read them. This app is deeply effecting people’s lives.

We’d also like to thank a few really good people:

Thanks to Little Andrew, Shannon, WDIII and Chris for their hard work on our constantly evolving website. Thank you to Scott for being Scott. Welcome aboard to Jules and Kim. Thank you to Tiffany for all of her incredible work over the last year. We wish you huge success at your next job and we truly appreciate everything you’ve done for MEDL. Thank you to Rob Shoesmith for organizing the MEDL fan page on Facebook. Thank you to our investors – new and original – we wouldn’t be here without you. And of course, thank you to the nearly 10,000 people who have entrusted us with their great ideas. We are sorry that we can’t build all of them. But we are doing our best to build a lot of them – and well.

Speaking of good people, hats off to our friends at DGWB Advertising and at Wienerschnitzel.

The Wienerschnitzel iPhone app created by MEDL Mobile & DGWB Advertising officially launches on December 1. If you’re from Texas to California, then you know about their amazingly “Der”licious hot dogs, chili, and my personal favorite – The Pastrami Dog. What’s most cool about this app – Your iPhone is your coupon. So download Der Wienerschnitzel App next week and get yourself Der Daily Deal!

Last but not least, some top secret new screen shots that you’re not supposed to see just yet…

We are very excited about what’s in the pipeline. 30 new apps. Blackberry apps. Palm. Android. Cross-Platform. If you think apps are exciting now, wait until you see what’s around the corner. From us, and from the industry. The future is gonna be really cool. And it’s almost here.

Happy Thanksgiving.

- The entire team at MEDL Mobile.

It's alive!

Boxhead has arrived on the app store. Sean’s congratulatory bottle of Champagne has arrived at MEDL Mobile. (thank you Sean) And the emails from Incubation Nation are starting to arrive as well.

So far, the consensus seems to be: you like it. You really like it! And we are thrilled. In fact, I’ve been getting quite a few emails saying that people are getting addicted to Boxhead. I can totally empathize. As the official bug tester, I logged several hundred hours of Boxhead – The Zombie Wars in the last few months. And I never wanted to put it down. Now that the game is live on the App Store, I still can’t stop killing zombies.

I’m not alone. The game is moving up the charts and the high scores are going even higher! Congratulations to Ula who knocked me off the leader board by quadrupling my high score – on the second day! Well done Ula. I hope you submitted your email address along with your high score. We’ve got something for you.

You can see Ula’s high score – along with some great Boxhead action shots on the Boxhead Flickr page. Don’t be shy, add a few of your own. Just press the top button and the front button at the same time to take a snap shot of the action. But try not to die.

Speaking of dying and snapshots, here are a few fun shots of what’s been happening this week here in the MEDL Shop…

In summary…

Killing hordes of zombies is a lot of fun. If you agree and are a Boxhead fan – new or old – please let the world know by posting a review on the App Store. And if you think the game can get better, please let us know why by sending an email to boxhead@medlmobile.com. We built this game for the die hard fans out there. And, just like Sean has done with the original Boxhead, we want to constantly be making improvements. Look for version 1.1 soon with even faster action at the highest levels.

Lookout Zombies… we’re coming for you! And if you haven’t already, check out the  Boxhead Trailer on YouTube.

The MEDL Shop is buzzing.

We’ve been having a blast over here at MEDL Mobile.

We are releasing some amazing new apps, upgrading a few of our (and your) favorites, collaborating with some incredibly smart people and companies, and in one week, we’ll be unleashing an insane new game that’s been in the works for nearly six months.

Which leads us to…BOXHEAD – THE ZOMBIE WARS

We teamed up with the game’s creator, Sean T. Cooper, to bring all of the action, firepower and FUN to the iphone. We’ve got a lot of people the thank. Sean, Chris, Scott, Aniko, Warren, Chris, Jason, Keith, Kasey and the rest of the people who have helped us along the way. I think we’ve built one hell of a game.

And to my partner, Andrew, who spent four months pouring his time, his brain and his heart into this amazing game, I say thank you and well done. I may have the high score on the game. But he has the record for most hours spent filling out bug reports.  The game is seamless because of his hard work. (although you’d think that by now he’d know how to kill a devil.)

Just to make it interesting, I’ll put some money on the line.

To get ready for the launch, I’ve played A LOT of iPhone Boxhead. I think I’ve gotten pretty good. In fact, as of tonight I’ve got the top 19 scores. I’ll pay $100 out of my pocket to the first person who beats my high score (you can submit your email address in the game when you get a high score). Boxhead fans, let’s see what you got?

And on the other end of the ecumenical spectrum (look it up), Note to God goes prime time.

Two weeks ago, CNBC flew Allen Wright, the creator of Note to God, to Southern California so we could meet face to face and on camera. It was a blast.

Allen and I spoke to the reporter for a few hours about MEDL, Note to God, and the world of iphone apps.

We also played a few games of ping pong. (we won’t say who won)

CNBC chose to do a feature story about Note to God because of the way people have embraced it and have been using it. It’s been very rewarding for all of us.

If you’ve never seen it, please check out the reviews. It’s really quite something to see how this app has touched people.

We’ve also got some great new apps to announce!

The Feather Report, or as we like to say, Fashion plus Weather = Feather Report.

This app pulls your local weather conditions and breaks down the forecast into a style inspiration that actually makes sense. Feather Report can also search for outfits based on your body type, occasion, and weather condition.

So let’s say you’re a Curvy Cathy going to a Ball Game and Baby, It’s Cold outside…

Or, perhaps you’re a Petite Patty heading to Happy Hour and it’s a Hot Mess.

Feather Report will serve you up five outfits that meet your criteria.

Either way, check out The Feather Report. The app is the brainchild of Melisa Russo, a fashionista who has been providing this service to die hard fans in New York on her blog by the same name.

Now everyone in the country can know exactly what’s in style for today and today’s weather.  It’s like a stylist in your pocket.

Urdu Translator is now available thanks to Aftab Amjad, who moved to Australia to study to be an accountant but couldn’t find a way to translate English to his native Urdu. Now he can, and you can too. This app will help you translate a lexicon of 25,000 English words to Urdu.

Dropping to the app store over the next two weeks…

Aroma - The Aromatherapy App. Tired, anxious, asthmatic, headaches? Choose your condition and learn the organic way to heal what ails you.

Wienerschnitzel, the fast foot legend is one of the first to step onto the app scene with a brand new MEDL app that finds your nearest Wienerschnitzel, lets you check the menu, watch the commercials, tweet your wiener, and in a move that other restaurants are sure to follow - displays a coupon on screen and turns your iphone into your coupon.

Shiny MEDL Upgrades: A few of your favorite apps are getting even better.

Tree ID 1.1 and 1.2 – Hundreds more trees and coming in the next few weeks FALL FOLIAGE!

Note to God 1.1 - Improved icons, smoother functionality, just a little bit better. Any day now.

Problem Halved 2.0 - We have been working our butts off on this one. It’s going to rock. If you like the app that’s been an international sensation, you’re going to LOVE the new version! We are making it easier than ever to share your problems and solve the problems of others. Due out in late October. Buy it now cause the price is going up.

Welcome to our newest MEDL Heads.

The MEDL family is growing and we’d like to welcome some new arrivals.

First off, we have a few new investors – several of whom are giving their guidance in addition to their money. We greatly appreciate the trust you’ve put in us. As do the members of incubation nation, who’s apps you are helping to build.

We’d also like to welcome Mark Shoptaw. Mark is a seasoned marketing veteran who’s helped to build an ad agency, managed clients from every sector, been the client himself a few times, and has even launched a branded apps (he oversaw the Direct TV app). Mark joins us as Director of Branded App development.

If you work for an ad agency, marketing firm or a company that would like to understand more about how apps can help your businesses succeed, drop mark an email at Mark@medlmobile.com.

We’d also like to welcome Sophie, Chris, Jason (we know you’ll be back when you return from Chicago), and a very warm welcome to a familiar name – Rob Shoesmith.

Rob has offered to lend his talents of media outreach, twittering and blogging to the rest of incubation nation to other MEDL incubators succeed as well.

If you’d like to help Rob help our incubators to spread the word, drop him an email at rob@medlmobile.com. We can’t make any promises, but we can tell you that if you’re working with Rob to promote MEDL apps, we’ll be sure to take a closer look at apps you’ve submitted to the incubator.

Speaking of what you can do to help…

Download a MEDL app. If you like it, write a good review and tell other people about it.

It’s that simple. And it will help us to build even more of your apps – which is precisely why we started this thing in the first place.

MAKE YOUR OWN MEDL MOBILE APP VIRAL VIDEO COMMERCIAL

Make a commercial for any MEDL Mobile App. Put it on YouTube. Get lots of hits and you could get some money.

Get 10,000 hits, get $100. Offer good for the first 10 people who do. It’s up to you to let us know when you hit 10,000.

Your commercial can be funny, serious, off the wall or just a personal rant. Be sure to include a link back to the appropriate app page at MEDLMobile.com. No pornography or offensive content and you need to play by Facebook’s rules as well. The commercial also needs to clearly be for a medl app. You can’t claim a video is a medl commercial just because you happened to say they word metal in it. Our discretion is final.

If you are one of the first 3 to reach 100,000 hits for a MEDL Mobile commercial, you’ll get $500.

If you reach 1,000,000, we’ll really talk.

What’s up next? We are building apps for exercisers and diabetics, parents and practical jokers, couples, Chuck Norris fans, sports fans, comedy fans, hikers, business execs, blackberry and palms pre (yup, that’s right) and a whole lot more.

Maybe yours will be one of them?

And be sure to look for Boxhead: The Zombie Wars coming to the iPhone on October 15th.

Here’s to great ideas!

TreeID 2.0

Hi all (particularly you tree enthusiasts)-

You may notice fall is here. For those of us in the Northeast this mean leaf peeping. And now TreeID will help you identify that red tree, or that yellow tree, or that…well you get the idea.

Those of you in the great Northwest may be saying, “But we have trees, too! And they turn colors.” Well, now the upcoming update will include 100 new trees just for you. Of course, many of the West coast trees are conifers (“pines”) so they’ll stay green, but you get the idea.

We are rolling out some other new features, such a rebuilt and improved search engine and a search by region. The region with the most trees was the mid-Atlantic (not the Northeast). The least was the Arctic which should not be a big surprise.

We’re always looking for improvements, so please let us know.

My next post will be on creating data-driven apps…that is, how to get the data and licensing issues.

~Dr. J.

Dr J…ID Guy — Welcome

Hi all!

This is Dr. J, The TreeID guy.

I’ll try to keep everyone abreast of my experiences working with the fine folks at MEDL mobile as well as how I come up with app ideas, research and develop databases, storyboards, and use this a forum to return comments from reviews of my apps.

Take care, and I’ll be back soon!