Posts Tagged ‘app store’

Google Launches App Inventor for Android

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Yesterday, Google unveiled its App Inventor for Android. The service is basically a simple tool for everyone who wants to build an app for Android devices. Instead of having to learn code, App Inventor enables the user to create apps by visually designing the way the app looks and uses blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

The thinking behind the initiative, Google said, is that as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves. To start creating applications, only a valid Google Gmail account is required.

“The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Abelson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project.

While App Inventor is such a simple tool, it also offers some powerful features like access to the GPS sensor, SMS and data storage using TinyDB. The App Inventor team has even created simple gateways to services like Twitter.

As this enables consumers without programming knowledge to create applications themselves, this move may result in the growth of the number of applications in Google Android Market to accelerate even more. To stay informed, subscribe to our free monthly report.

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Posted in Android Market | No Comments »

iBooks And Farmville Coming To The iPhone

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Yesterday at the WWDC, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone, along with its new platform iOS4 (formerly known as iPhone OS 4). While talking about the ‘i’ platform, Jobs mentioned that the Apple App Store now has over 225,000 apps available for download while 15,000 new apps are received every week.

iPhone iBooks

One of the ‘app’ highlights was the announcement that the iBooks application, which is now only available to iPad users, gets an update and will become available to iPhone and iPod users. The updated iBooks application will offer the possibility to share books across all iOS4 based devices. Book sharing across the iPhone, iPod and iPad will be extended with the sync of place, bookmarks and notes attached to the books. Another part of the update includes that iBooks users now can read PDF files just the way like they would read normal iBooks books.

Besides the addition of the iBooks application, the popular Facebook application Farmville will be available in the app store later this month. Zynga’s Farmville will feature in app purchase support, along with push notifications about events happening at your farm. The 35 million daily players will be able to play Farmville even when they are outside or on the way.

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Posted in Apple App Store for iPad, Apple App Store for iPhone | 1 Comment »

Verizon VCast App Store Launching Next Week

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

At the end of June last year, Verizon announced its plans to launch the VCast application store. Now at CTIA Wireless 2010, Verizon disclosed the launch date; March 29. The store will initially support BlackBerry devices, with more platforms to follow.

Verizon already offered applications to their subscribers for several years, but only for the BREW platform. With this new step, Verizon says it wants to make it easier for developers to get their applications in several stores:

The ultimate goal he said is to make it as easy as possible for developers to get their applications in the hands of consumers and to create more channels for accessing this content. This means that applications that have already been approved for RIM’s App World store will move through the process as quickly as possible and be ported directly to the Vcast store. The goal is to have most applications approved and on the network within 14 days. (Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless, via cnet)

Billing
Consumers that buy applications in the VCast store, will be able to pay with just one click. No credit card or Paypal needed, the purchase will be billed on the monthly Verzion phone bill.

Developer revenue share
Developers will receive 70% revenue share on sold applications.

Verizon is the largest operator in the US, with now over 87 million subscribers. We’ll keep track on the Verzion VCast launch and added the store to appstores.info.

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Posted in Verizon VCast | No Comments »

Archos launches AppsLib app store

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

This week, Archos launched its first Android based tablet PC. Along with the launch of this device, Archos launched an alternative app store to the Android Market, called AppsLib. This store targets high-end Android devices with large screen resolutions. AppsLib is pre-installed on the Archos 5 Tablet PC, and it seems that Android Market will not be pre-installed.

At launch, there were 40 applications available in AppsLib. Right now, this increased to 66 available apps. The applications are divided in the same categories as Android Market. Currently, only free applications are supported, but judging from the terms of service, paid applications are coming soon. It is not disclosed yet how billing will work and what the developer revenue share is.

Judging from the AppsLib website, Archos is also aiming to get this store on devices from other manufacturers. The store is open for developers to submit their applications.

We added AppsLib to our mobile app store overview.

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Posted in Archos AppsLib | 1 Comment »

Microsoft’s Zune has a Marketplace, with apps

Monday, August 24th, 2009
Zune HD

Zune HD

Micorsoft’s Zune HD Portable Media Player will be on the market this September 15. As mentioned earlier, the Zune will have a Marketplace for buying content for the device. Microsoft already does this for the Xbox.

During a Zune HD preview this weekend, a very interesting item appeared on its Marketplace screen (see screenshot below): “apps”. So, next to the obvious content for a media player, applications will be available for download as well.

Zune HD Marketplace

Zune HD Marketplace, via Boygenius

When the Zune will be launched in September, Microsoft will be maintaining three app stores: Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Xbox Marketplace and Zune HD Marketplace. It is unclear yet if these different stores will be integrated. Will there eventually be one Microsoft app store with content for phones, media players, gaming devices and maybe more? Let’s wait for the Zune launch first, to see how Zune’s Marketplace will look like.

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Posted in Windows Marketplace | 3 Comments »

Sony launching an app store for the PSP

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Sony confirmed its plans to launch an app store for the Playstation Portable. This is not the first sign of the app store model being applied beyond mobile phones. The store is said to support more than games:

Sony’s been working very hard to find our position in that and bring top-end gaming to not just the consumers who were there for the launch of PSP, but extending to an audience that is changing how it consumes entertainment and applications.

Their creations will then be sold via a specially-branded, separate area of the PlayStation Store open to the PSP and its upcoming successor the PSPgo.

We’re introducing new initiatives for the PSP which take it beyond traditional gaming, but still includes elements from gaming, and also includes new developers.

Over 50 studios around the world are already hard at work making these new kinds of games and applications – many more are on the cusp of signing up.

(Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s head of developer relations, via develop-online.net)

Since its launch, the PSP has been sold over 50 million times. The store will go live together with the new PSPgo in October this year. We’ll update when more details are announced.

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Posted in General | 1 Comment »

First turn-by-turn navigation app in Apple App Store: €74,99

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

mobilenavigator-europeThe first navigation app was released by NAVIGON AG, MobileNavigator Europe (iTunes link here). We gathered some interesting stats about the app from the data we collect.

The app has been doing great since its release, especially when we take into account its high price compared to other apps (€74,99). Most interestingly, although the maps only cover European countries, the app is even in the Navigation Top 100 in Hong Kong (ranking 36), Russia (6), Taiwan (27) and the United States (64) (as of June 22nd). It may be popular even in these countries because the app includes the map material, which can be used without an internet connection. This enables iPhone/iPod Touch users to use the software when they travel to one of the supported countries, without paying data roaming costs.

The second point worth mentioning about the app is that it was released in the Travel category first, before it was moved to the Navigation category. We can not identify a direct reason, since the Navigation category seems more appropriate, and moreover, the Travel category has approximately twice the amount of Apps as the Navigation category.

To give some insight in the popularity of the app, here is an overview of the rankings of the app in the most popular countries and the average price of the Navigation category Top 100 (June 21):

Country June 20 (Travel) June 21 (Navigation) Avg Price Navigation
category (€)
Belgium 3 1 4.0
Croatia - 6 3.1 ($)
Czech Republic 1 2 3.7
Denmark 9 2 25.4
Deutschland 1 1 4.9
Espana 31 3 3.6
Finland 26 3 3.0
France 3 2 3.67
Greece 5 2 3.3
Hong Kong - 36 3.1 ($)
Hungary - 3 3.1
Ireland - 4 3.0
Italia 2 1 2.8
Luxembourg 1 1 3.0
Nederland 2 1 3.5
Norway 3 4 34.0 (NOK)
Osterreich 1 1 3.8
Poland 1 1 3.4
Portugal - 4 3.4
Romania 17 4 2.2
Russia 50 6 2.9 ($)
Schweitz-Suisse 1 1 CH5.2
Slovakia 2 3 2.8
Slovenia - 2 3.0
Sweden 1 2 36.1
Taiwan - 27 2.7 ($)
United Kingdom 29 6 2.5 (£)
United States - 64 3.3 ($)

As we can see above, the app achieved a ranking better than 10 in 25 (!) countries (Navigation category). We are very curious to see how it will compete with the to be released TomTom iPhone app. As a side note; the high average prices in Denmark and Sweden were mostly caused by Marine Navigation apps (e.g. Marine: Greenland & Iceland, iTunes link).

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Posted in Apple App Store for iPhone | 4 Comments »

More on the Vodafone app store

Friday, May 15th, 2009

This week, Vodafone unveiled its app store initiative. There has been a lot of buzz around it and more details about the store became available:

Billing
Vodafone customers can buy applications via their regular phone bill. It is very likely that you will be able to buy applications with one single click, creating a low treshold for consumers. This also enables micro payments and in-application billing, something none of the existing app stores are offering yet. Vodafone customers that do not have a subscription but use pre-paid will also be able to buy applications through their pre-paid account.

Revenue share
The revenue share for developers is said to be 70%, in line with most other app stores. This is way better than what developers are currently receiving from selling their apps through most operator portals.

(more…)

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Posted in Vodafone 360 | 1 Comment »

Samsung’s applications store: state after 4 months

Monday, May 11th, 2009

Last January, Samsung launched its application store in beta. It was developed by Pocketgear and launched with around 1.000 applications. While in beta it mainly focuses on the UK market.

So, what is the status of this store four months later?

Content
Both free and paid applications for Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile are allowed. Right now these applications can be downloaded to 11 different Samsung handsets. Most paid applications also offer a free, but expiring, trial version.

Billing & revenue share
Consumers who buy an application pay using a credit card or PayPal. Billing from the mobile phone itself is not supported. Like the other stores, Samsung does not provide subscription billing yet. The revenue share for developers is 70%. There are no initial costs for a developer to submit applications.

(more…)

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Posted in Getjar, Samsung App Store | 4 Comments »

Colibria helps operators launch app stores

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Colibria offers messaging solutions to mobile operators worldwide. Recently, they launched App Center:

App Center is primarily designed for mobile operators to help them deploy their own mobile application stores.

Thanks to the flexible design, the system is deployed in a quick manner to the interested operators. Colibria does the hosting “work,” and the App Center can integrate with the existing internet communities such as social networks and instant messaging services, through a simple interface.
(via intomobile)

At this point, it’s unclear for which platforms Colibria will launch operator stores and how developers could get their apps in these stores.  We’re definitely hoping for an open entrance like Apple, Nokia, Blackberry and Microsoft have. This could be a good opportunity for both developers and operators.

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Posted in General | No Comments »

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