Happy Birthday, Running Man!

Posted Sep 15th 2009 10:49AM by Edwin Aoki
Filed under: Announcement, General

Today is the Running Man's birthday.

If you're an iPhone user (and I don't know why you're reading this blog if you're not), then you'll easily recognize the familiar form of the Running Man popping out from your home screen on a field of red or purple. AOL's Running Man has been an icon - both literally and figuratively - in the online world since he was conceived, and now he's a core champion of our mission to inform, entertain, and connect the world.

He's been around the world; he's been on TV, he's even been a super hero, and it was 13 years ago today that he first arrived on the scene. So here's to you, Running Man. Happy birthday, and thanks for pointing the way to a better, more connected Internet.

The Running Man doesn't need gifts, but he could use your vote. He's been nominated (for a third year) for the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. It's the highest honor an icon can get. The Advertising Week poll runs until Sept. 18, and he's up against some strong competition. Won't you help him out by clicking over to http://runningman.aol.com to follow his campaign and to vote? You could even win an Acer Aspire One or two tickets to an exclusive AOL Music Event!

System Administrator Appreciation Day

Posted Jul 31st 2009 6:59PM by Edwin Aoki
Filed under: Announcement, General

When you use one of our iPhone apps - AIM, AOL Radio, Pixcetera, Daily Finance, or the many other apps that we produce - you're tasting the fruits of a lot of people's labor - software engineers, designers, quality assurance folks, product managers, and more. But there's a set of unsung heroes that I want to call out today - the hard working men and women who work behind the scenes keeping all these services running.

It takes a lot of effort - not to mention thousands of servers - to deliver the billions of instant messages we process each day, or to serve up thousands of hours of streaming radio, or to deliver millions of pictures and maps and stock quotes and movie times. Behind every one of those services is a system administrator - or more often than not - a team of system administrators - that make sure that the machines keep running, that your data stays safe, and that we can continue to provide you with the services that power all those great iPhone apps you love.

We usually take these folks for granted; most of the time the work they do is invisible. It's only when something goes wrong that we notice just how much we are in their debt each day. So today, on System Administrator Appreciation Day, all of us would like to offer a huge thank you to all of the hard working IT professionals - across the industry and especially here at AOL - for helping us to deliver the apps that you use and rely on every day. We couldn't do it without you!

Christina Wick featured in Apple's WWDC Promo Video

Posted Mar 26th 2009 2:13PM by Edwin Aoki
Filed under: Announcement, General

As a longtime and hardcore Apple fan and developer (starting for me way back with the Apple II), I think one of the one of the greatest honors is to be recognized by Apple for your work. A short while ago, Apple contacted us wanting to feature some of the work we'd done for the iPhone in an upcoming video. Apple brought in a big production crew, but like many things with Apple, we didn't know it was all for. Today, we found out, and I can't be prouder of our team and its development manager, Christina Wick, who stars in the video. Check it out at http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/iphone, and click on the video link on the right! Congrats, Christina, and congrats to the team!

Let's Get It Started

Posted Mar 18th 2009 10:22AM by Edwin Aoki
Filed under: iPhone, Announcement, General

Welcome to our new iPhone blog. I was thrilled when the team asked me if I could kick this off by making the first post, until I realized it was probably so that I would leave them alone for a little bit. This blog is where we'll be telling you a little bit about the work I and the rest of the team here do for the iPhone (and of course, the iPod Touch) and get a chance to hear from you with your questions, rants, and hopefully some raves. I'll start it off by introducing the rest of the blogging team here:
  • Lee Givens, iPhone and Mac product lead extraordinaire. He's been to more Apple Store openings than anyone I know (I suspect he's been to a majority of them in the US)
  • Christina Wick, Engineering Director for Mac products. She's responsible for the team that produces AIM, AOL Radio, ICQ, touchTXT, and SHOUTcast Radio for iPhone. (Yes, all that from one team - and they do Mac software, too)
  • Darren Austin, Director of Mobile Products. Darren helps herd the cats here and makes sure that we're able to bring you all the great stuff we've got going at AOL to your iPhone and iPod Touch.

And from time to time, I suspect we'll also hear from:

  • Todd Brannam, Chief Architect. You may have seen Todd speak at WWDC 2008, or you might have seen his hand when we launched AIM for iPhone at the Apple SDK launch event last year. When he's not sharing the stage with Apple luminaries, he's cooking up the hot fresh bits that end up on your phone.
  • Ron Anderson, Principal Engineer. For the many of you who love AOL Radio for iPhone, you have Ron to thank. Along with one other engineer, Ron built the first prototype for AOL Radio over a weekend, and it was too good not to make into a product.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be talking some about the new products and upgrades we'll be releasing soon, show you what goes on behind the scenes, and we'll continue with the Mac Blog's famous Feedback Friday feature, where we'll answer your questions. And yes, we'll even go into excruciating detail about why AIM for iPhone doesn't support landscape mode (yet). Stay tuned!

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About The Team

Hi. I'm Edwin Aoki, and I'm a Technology Fellow at AOL. Contrary to popular belief (and wishful thinking) this doesn't mean I get to sit around and be fed grapes while thinking Deep Thoughts. In fact, I can't remember the last time I had any Deep Thoughts, let alone the last time anyone fed me grapes. But I'm thrilled to be part of the iPhone development effort at AOL, and I hope to provide some perspective on what it is we do here, why we do it, and to hear your thoughts on how we can do it better. You can follow my updates @edwinaoki.

Hi, I'm Christina Wick, Technical Director for the AOL Mac team. My team is responsible for the development and testing of all the desktop Mac applications as well as a bunch of iPhone apps including AIM, AOL Radio, SHOUTcast, touchTXT, and many more. I took over managing the Mac team a little over two years ago when AOL decided to "Get Back on the Mac." Since then, we have released numerous desktop products and iPhone apps. We look forward to bringing more exciting apps to the Mac community. I'm on Twitter, if you would like to follow me - @ChristinaWick.

My name is Lee Givens and I'm the Product Lead for the Mac products at AOL and you can find me on the Mac@AOL blog too. When I'm not at the office, I'm probably in line at the local Apple Store whenever a new iPhone is released (actually, when anything from Apple is released :) I've been at AOL since 2007 and lead product management for Mac and iPhone apps. During my spare time, I collect vintage Macs (and Apple IIs) and root for the Univ. of Maryland Terps. If you would like to follow me, I'm at @MacGivens.

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Get the behind-the-scenes perspective on the iPhone development at AOL. Learn about new features, and provide feedback and suggestions to the people who build AOL software for the iPhone and iPod touch