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Subway Gets App-Happy

You know Subway? The sandwich shop? Of course, everyone does. As a staple of town-dwellers for lunch, the sub store has made the same journey from the United States that the iPhone has. The two seem to have a fondness for each other.

Firstly, Subway offer discounts through the Vouchercloud app. It's a free app that contains vouchers for special deals in your area.

When you load the app, you see a series of vouchers. You show the voucher at the till, and get the offer. Easy.

Well, it was easy. But now, Subway have come up with another idea - the SubCard. You download the SubCard app to your iPhone, and it shows a QR code. Scan the QR code at the till and you get points for free subs.

All very well and good, but to get the best possible deal, I now have to open two seperate apps and show the contents. What happens when Visa launch their QR code based payment app later in the year? Will that be a third app? What if Subway introduce a "make-your-own-sub" app, like Starbucks have for placing drinks orders in store? A fourth app to load at the till?

All that for a sandwich.

When I was at uni, Subway was a mainstay of my diet, and with good reason - the Sub Club stamps (8 earned a free sub) could be found littering the floor outside on a Friday night. Half an hour picking them up would feed me for a week. Unfortunately they were discontinued last year and now replaced with this un-exploitable electronic system.

RIP Sub Club stamps :(

Volo TV - An Update

This morning I wrote a somewhat scathing post about Volo TV, the on-demand TV service that is being rolled out across First Great Western's train services, and how the constant switched-on state of the screens was oppressive and annoying.

I sent the email I wrote about to Volo's main support email address, and it appears it was taken seriously, as I was quickly contacted (within an hour or so) by Paul, Volo's MD. It turns out that as from tomorrow, all Volo TV screens will now have the option of being switched off, and will remain off until the train stops at a station.

This is truly a result, as it will give the consumer the choice to utilise the service or not to, while still being informed of what the service has to offer.

Having met with the Volo TV team this afternoon at their offices in London, I can truly say that they seem to have the right business ethic, and they seem like they would be a good company to work with. It was particularly amazing, in my short tour of their systems, to see how integrated the system is - especially how they man the service 20 hours a day with a constant 2-way individual feed to every screen on every train.

It just goes to show, listening to your customers is the way forward. Nice work, Volo.

Fwd: Volo TV

I'm on a First Great Western train on the way to London, and they've installed these pay-per-view TV screens on the back of the screens. Like on airlines, but trying to extort £3.50 out of you.

They're bloody irritating. Rather than explain, here's the email I've just sent to their customer services department:

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bill Bennett
Date: 13 May 2010 07:57:28 GMT+01:00
To: "support@volo.tv" <support@volo.tv>
Subject: Volo TV

Just thought I'd let you know, your system is really annoying. There's no way to turn the blighter OFF. I do not WANT to watch it. And that includes the preview video. The on/off button doesn't do anything. I can turn the brightness down to make it less oppressive, but it's still visually violating my eyes for two hours (1 hour and 43 minutes to be exact) on a journey to London. If I stood infront of you for two hours each day on your daily commute, trying to extort £3.50 out of you, you'd probably punch me. With this in mind, if it weren't for the illegality of the plan, and the inevitable injury, I'd love to put my fist through the screen currently infront of me. There are at least 3 seperate people in this carriage today who have complained to the train manager about the lack of ways to cover it up, and I hope all of those complaints have, or will, filter down to you. There's not even a gap behind it, so I can't wedge a napkin in to fall over the screen. There's no external power source exposed, so no way to turn it off. And my Jedi mind tricks seem to have no power over SatanTV (sorry, VoloTV, or whatever it's called), so that's a no go. Of course, while your system may have a wide selection of TV or movies, this is no good if I just have a pounding headache and want to lay my head, because SatanTV also stops me resting my head on the back of the seat in front. Now, I shall continue my journey to London, where I shall spend the day working with a company that develops handheld HD video players and on-demand entertainment systems (ha, betcha didn't see that coming), and then on the way back I shall no doubt be accosted by your staff at the station in lime-green tshirts, upon whom I shall do my best not to vent my opinions about your system's intrusive nature, because it's not their fault.

Bill Bennett

PS I've just found a way to switch your screen off. You unscrew the headphone unit at the side and pour orange juice in, and the whole internal circuitry shorts out.

PPS Just kidding. But I still despise it.

PPPS That said, the guy sitting infront of me has just worked out a way. He's stuck some chewing gum to the top of the screen, and a leaflet for Sky ontop of that. Bravo to him for his ingenius solution.

Sent from my iPhone

Update: The story continues in part two of this post, which you can read here.

UK iPad Pre-Ordering

This is a vlog, so click play on the video:

Omnibus Blog Edition Time

I've not written anything in the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd bring you a quick little all-in-one post with a few things that I've taken photos of over the last week or so.

First up, this one:

 

It would appear that I'm drinking all too much Dr. Pepper.

Next, a shot of a McFlurry lid. It says "Remove lid to eat" on it. WHAT? Seriously? No shit...

Next one, see if you can work out what's wrong with this picture... ;)

(Answers in the comments section...)

And finally, a shot through a hole in a wall at work.

Yes, pigeons are nesting in our wall. Aww.