Lottery Post, the world's largest community of lottery players, today announced that the new iPhone Edition of its popular Web site was awarded a Staff Pick by Apple.
The iPhone, built by Apple, is a combination cell phone and handheld computer. It went on sale June, 2007, and has sold over 5 millions units. Apple claimed Thursday that the iPhone currently makes up 28% of the smartphone market.
"The iPhone is an ideal platform for lottery results and other lottery-related content," said Todd Northrop, CEO of Lottery Post. "The need to check winning numbers and create new ticket numbers while at the store or in the car is something any daily lottery player can relate to."
Lottery Post iPhone Edition allows lottery players to instantly look up the latest drawing results for any lottery game played in the United States, Canada, or United Kingdom, as well as check the past ten draws.
In addition to the winning numbers, the web application also displays the game schedule, the current jackpot amount, and the amount the jackpot has changed since the last drawing.
Players can also generate up to 50 "Quick Picks" — randomly-generated ticket numbers — at a time for nearly every game, providing a little help for those looking for last-minute inspiration at the ticket counter.
Works on the iPod Touch too
In September 2007, Apple's iPod Touch went on sale, offering features similar to the iPhone, but lacking the cell phone and a few other features.
The iPod Touch can use the same web applications as the iPhone, and connects to the Internet through built-in wi-fi (wireless network) support.
"The iPhone allows people greater flexibility to connect from anywhere," Northrop explained. "But with wi-fi networks prevalent in homes and stores, iPod Touch users have almost the same ability to check lottery results from anywhere that iPhone users do."
With the January firmware update 1.1.3, iPod Touch users can even add web application icons to the main menu screen, just like the iPhone.
For lottery players, that means a Lottery Post icon on a user's main menu screen can put them one touch away from lottery results and all the other Lottery Post features.
More features to come
Northrop promised that more features are on the way in the future.
"From a design standpoint, because the iPhone interface is list-based, it lets application developers add new features without disturbing the layout," Northrop said.
"The next features added to the Lottery Post iPhone Edition will be a mix of existing Lottery Post features ported to the iPhone and features that are unique to the iPhone."
Some features built for iPhone may even get ported in the opposite direction — back to the main Web site.
"Creating an iPhone application requires a different kind of thinking, and sometimes that can come out in ways that are better than what we have already on the traditional Web site," Northrop said.
"For example, I'll probably be moving the Quick Picks interface created for the iPhone over to the main Web site, because it turned out to be much more intuitive than the existing Quick Picks page."
No installation necessary
The Lottery Post iPhone Edition requires no installation, and no special link for iPhone or iPod Touch users.
To use the web application, users start the Safari Web browser and then type the web address "www.lotterypost.com" using the touch screen keyboard.
The Lottery Post Web site recognizes the web visitor as an iPhone or iPod Touch user, and automatically starts the web application.
Lottery Post recommends that users create a home screen button the first time they visit, so that future visits to Lottery Post iPhone Edition can be accomplished by touching a single button.
To create the home screen button, users click the small plus sign ("+") at the bottom of the touch screen, and click the Add to Home Screen button. Upon doing that, a special Lottery Post button will be added to the user's home screen, much like a Favorite in Internet Explorer.
Users of Lottery Post iPhone Edition also continue to have full access to the traditional Lottery Post Web site. To enter the main web site, users can touch the "Go to main site" button from the iPhone Edition, and they will be instantly brought to the Lottery Post Web site.
Because the iPhone Edition is a web application, when new features are launched, they are immediately available to each user, without installation of new software.
The Lottery Post iPhone Edition listing at the Apple software directory can be found at the following link: http://www.apple.com/webapps/entertainment/lotterypostiphoneedition.html
Todd:
Totally cool to hear! To be affiliated with a comany like Apple is totally awesome!
Very impressive, to say the least!
— ohiopick3
Congrats Todd! It must feel good to be recognized for all your hard work.
Todd - It's about time You got some recognition for all your programing skills and hard work ... First from Microsoft and now Apple... It doesnt' get any bigger than that !!
A Big Congrats To you Todd, we here at LP family are very proud of You !!
Lucky
Quite an accomplishment, the sky's the limit Todd keep up the good work
A big congrats to all your hard work TODD
Congratulations Todd!!!
Awesome, that all I can say is Awesome. Great work Todd, as usual.
>Michael J. Smith, Mike's COmputer Picks / Quick Nickels
Outstanding Todd & LP - Congratulations! Jake
Congrats, Todd!!!!!!!!! You deserve this, and much, much, more.
Todd u are a ROCK STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!
Absolutely correct Lucky, that SUMS everything to a " T ".....
Congrats Todd..
Thanks everyone for the nice comments, much appreciated!
Todd, I posted a comment in one of your posts awhile back. I doubt if you will recall, " about resting on your laurels". This obviously proves you didn't. Congrats to a very deserving person, hard work sometimes, does payoff. Now, what will you do for an encore???? LOL
What do I do for an encore? SLEEP!!!
Congratulations, Todd. Good job!
I just found out an interesting statistic about Apple iPhone "Staff Picks".
Out of 1,135 applications in their catalog, only 10 are Staff Picks, and 1 of those is Lottery Post. I was surprised myself when I saw that. (Pleasantly!)
WOW~WTG Todd!!
Huge congratulations! Awesome well deserved recognition!!
CONGRATULATIONS TODD!! This is so well deserved!
WTG!!! Congratulations!! Now don't forget us little guys!
Outstanding accomplishment at the rate you are going you may even launch your own ISP web service.
Those odds sound like lottery odds, don't they? Sort of?
Not the jackpot ones, but still.
Congratulations!
Kudos Todd!!!
Great Job Todd, We are all proud of what you are doing on LP. Keep doing a great job
Hi Todd,
Congrats, you deserve it. I have to get an iPhone I guess.
$$$$$$$$$$$$
CopyCat
Todd,
congrats!! I want to buy that phone, and now I know I will sooner!!
ZEN
Congrats Todd!
I would have bought an iPhone myself, except then I'd have to switch to AT&T, and I don't want to do that. So I got an iPod Touch instead. It's a nifty little device that can do lots of things that the iPhone can do. The main limitation is that you must be connected to a wi-fi network to get Internet access, whereas the iPhone has the option to connect on it's own through the cellular connection in addition to wi-fi. (Although iPhone users definitely prefer to be on a wi-fi connection, as it is much faster.)
Once you're in range of a wi-fi network, I've never used a device that's easier to connect to the network than the iPod Touch. When you come back to a place where you've already connected once, it will automatically and silently connect for you, so the only thing you notice is that you're instantly online.
Thats great Todd.
I use my I Phone to read the posts and I did post a message or 2 from mine but I am having problems now that I'm trying to figure out how to fix. Probably something simple. When I connect to the screen you see on the I Phone I tap go to home page and it takes me to what I see on my home computer. I tap forums or anything else and it directs me back to the I phone screen. I cant read the posts, post anything, or see anything on the normal screen I used to get. Maybe I have to do something in my phone control panel.
Thanks for all the hard work and congrats on your connection to Apple now!!!
Congrats - What a great article and even better news with an affiliation to Apple... Simply Great!!! 1 more reason I wish I had an iPhone...
Be sure you did not disable cookies on the iPhone.
Thanks Todd I put allow cookies and still doesnt work.
The only time it re-directs back to the iPhone Edition of Lottery Post is if it cannot set a cookie. Be sure you are going to the main Lottery Post site by touching the "Go to main site" link, and not trying to go directly.
Also, if you previously had cookies disabled (you should never be running with cookies disabled (on iPhone or regular PC), then maybe you should go ahead and clear out the cache and old cookies (if there are some).
I can't test it myself at the moment, but I will do so later today. Just yesterday it was working fine, and I haven't changed anything, which is why I think it's something on your side. But who knows! I'll report back here later when I can test it myself.
Congratulations Todd. I will also look into upgrading so that I can get connected. If you don't see the lottery results on TV, here in Maryland, it is so hard to reach the lottery line on the phone. It amazes me because that line could be busy for an hour or more or sometimes not have the results until it's near the time for the next draw.
I've told friends,"I can call the Florida lottery line and get connected here in Maryland, long before I can get into the Maryland's line. It can be frustrating.
litebets
Don't forget, Lottery Post also has a regular mobile site for people who want lottery results from a regular cell phone with a built-in browser (most cell phones have that feature these days).
If you point your cell phone's web browser to www.lotterypost.com, it will automatically show you the mobile site.
Todd, I am having the same problems as Blackie. Before you made the changes it was working fine.
Thank you .
Right...I need to upgrade to a phone with a web browser.
Litebets
OK, I just got a chance to test, and you're right, there's a problem there. I'll see if I can find out what's going on.
Congratulations Todd!
Congradulations. I have been lurking around for many years and have always thought that you have put a lot of your own blood into this blog. When you get accolades, you deserve them. Life is about doing what you enjoy, doing it weel, and acknowledgement of that effort. The only thing that would make it better would be a few million in the bank!
Thanks Todd. I appreciate you looking into it. Blackie.
Blessings to you Todd!....Way to go!
You should be able to surf around the main site now without that problem happening. There's a few things that I'm working on to make it "perfect", and those should be finished by later this evening. For example, I'm going to change the Home link (directly underneath the logo) to go back to the iPhone site, because I realized there is no direct way of getting BACK to the iPhone site from here. (Non-iPhone/iPod users should just ignore this, because that changed link will only be visible to iPhone users.)
But in the meantime you should be fine surfing the main site.
Nicely put. Thanks very much!
Congratulations on your success Todd. A lot more will come your way as well! You got it going on!!!
Thanks Todd. I can read the posts and everything else now, just cant write into a post. Thats OK though. Thanks for what you fixed up!! Blackie.
Be sure that you have the rich text editor turned off when using the iPhone. It seems to be working well for me. This was written using my iPod Touch.
To close the loop on the issue mentioned earlier, I have finished updating the site with a few changes to make things better for iPhone and iPod Touch users who are navigating through the main site. Changes are posted in the change log.
thanks Todd. Using the I phone now had to go to main page in control panel put a check mark in the box to allow me to write in here. Thanks again. Blackie
Maybe you just finished updating the same time I was trying to get it working Todd. Thanks
I think maybe the first time you tried posting you had the Rich Text editor enabled, because I didn't change anything that would affect the ability to input text. The test message I posted above from my iPod was done before I updated the site.
Given the iPhone's limitations with input, there's no way the Rich Text editor would work. You need to have it disabled (and use the Simple Codes editor).
Congratulations Todd , even though I do not own a cell phone I can see the possibilities.
All the best,
yt
dx123
artificial future LP on iPhone
well i think more US
wager
would give an negative income in someday
oops i mean a negative or deficit income for the house of lottery
, Feliciter!
CONGRAT'ssssss Todd:
THANK'ssssssssssss>>>>>2008
PSYKOMO