Apple is launched the annual Japanese version of its back-to-school promotion, intended to encourage Mac sales. Unlike the US and Canada, many schools in Japan start classes on April 1st. This year the company is giving away a 10,000 yen ($129) gift card, which can be used toward content at the iTunes Store, the App Store, and/or the Mac App Store.
While Android users don't have Siri, some of them have a tenable alternative in Speaktoit, which has just become available on the App Store for iOS devices. While not exactly the same as Siri, it does offer most of the major features, customizable avatars to talk to, is compatible with older iPhones rather than just the iPhone 4S. It also offers some extra functionality Siri doesn't in some areas.
RIM's Developer Relations VP Alec Saunders made aggressive claims about the state of BlackBerry App World at his company's DevCon Europe keynote on Tuesday morning. He contended that the store was the second-most profitable mobile app store after Apple's own and that Android lagged behind significantly. Along with having more overall paid downloads than the normally larger Google shop, BlackBerry titles typically made about 40 percent more revenue than their paid Android counterparts.
The NFL has released its official app for Super Bowl XLVI. The app provides fans attending Sunday's upcoming contest between the New England Patriots and New York Giants a guide to Lucas Oil Stadium and the surrounding areas of Indianapolis (free, App Store, Android Market). The app provide viewers with a virtual 3D view of the stadium as well as a guide to nightlife and official NFL events.
Google's Android engineering VP Hiroshi Lockheimer has detailed a process of screening for malware at Android Market that it has quietly been running for the past year. Known as Bouncer, it automatically scans both incoming and existing apps for recognizable malicious code. The routine also runs the apps themselves and checks for hostile behavior in practice, hoping to catch apps with suspicious behavior.
Appafolio is a new app for the iPad and iPhone that enables users to create gallery-type portfolio apps in order to share photos, videos, artwork, catalog or product images or other presentations with other iOS users. Developer Treemo Labs has used the same tools found in Appafolio to develop apps for Beyoncé, The Roots and other clients. The resulting apps are not sold on the App Store but are available via the free Appafolio app itself or through the Appafolio web site.
(Updated for app's removal) Another iPhone app allowing unofficial tethering has slipped into the App Store. Called QuasiDisk, the title is mainly a file manager, enabling local and remote transfer. A January 28th update, though, is said to have quietly enabled tethering using a proxy. As of this writing, QuasiDisk is still on sale for $2.
Distimo has taken a fresh look at mobile app promos that has shown a sharp contrast in their effects on Android and iOS apps. Being featured in the official store has the most impact on Android, the research found. An Android developer typically jumps 42 spots in the popular rankings in the first three days after it's highlighted in Android Market, where iOS App Store titles jump a relatively small 27 spots on the iPad and just 15 on the iPhone.
Apple has posted blowout results for its fiscal first (calendar fourth) quarter with record iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales. It's holding a conference call to discuss the results and should have both more details as well as possible surprises. Check our live coverage page from 5PM Eastern for details as they arrive.
While Apple screens submitted apps for "reliability, technical, content and design criteria" according to its own developer page, the company does not yet seem to have found a foolproof way to prevent "counterfeit" apps from gaining approval. Recently a copycat version of Tap Tap Tap's Camera+ was spotted at the App Store, though it was pulled after being reported to Apple. The issue has also been seen on the Android platform on a larger scale.
Android Market isn't likely to come to China despite claims to the contrary, a source reportedly outlined Sunday. The tip described talks to Inside Mobile Apps as "exploratory," not a definite plan of action as suggested by the Wall Street Journal. "It's not really happening," according to the claimed insider.
OnLive's iPad app that allows users to access, run and work with the Windows version of Microsoft Office using touch controls via the cloud has gone live on the App Store. The free app promises an "instant response, no-compromise" touchscreen experience using a cloud-optimized version of Microsoft Office, but limits the connection to just the three main Office applications -- Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The company says even video and animations will play smoothly and lag-free.
SugarSync has updated its apps for both iOS and Android devices. The new releases provide enhanced backup, synchronization and access of photos, videos and files across multiple platforms (free, Android Market, App Store). SugarSync offers the apps in conjunction with its cloud storage service.
Unofficial Distimo tracking has shown Android Market already at over 400,000 active apps. The figure comes just four months after it reached 300,000 in August. Nearly 100,000 publishers are in the store, each of which posts about 4.1 apps on average.
An unconfirmed report from an app developer claims that Apple has removed its Battle Zone clone games Vector Tanks and Vector Tanks Extreme because of pressure from Atari, and says the company has a "special relationship" with Apple that has resulted in "hundreds of apps" that are too similar to well-known Atari titles being pulled from the App Store. The developer, Black Powder Media, claims its app was removed without any opportunity for rebuttal or review.
A 100-tester limit for iOS apps is causing problems for developers, says the Wall Street Journal. Apple imposes the cap on its standard-level developer accounts; a Journal source claims that Apple picked 100 thinking it would be a large enough sample for most companies but still easy enough to manage. For some developers, though, this is not enough.
iTunes Connect has returned from a scheduled downtime one day early, reports say. The service for Mac and iOS developers regularly goes offline for several days during the Christmas season. This year Connect was officially scheduled to be offline from December 22nd through to the 29th, during which time no changes by app developers would go live. Why Apple would resume Connect service early is unknown, but the company could theoretically be trying to cope with a heavy backlog.
Apple has started its promised 12 Days of Christmas promos in Canada and the UK (general iTunes link). The giveaways start off with a free three-track live Coldplay EP from the iTunes Festival in London (iTunes). It includes both the raw songs as well as videos and an iTunes LP interface.
User who, for the past few days, have been having issues with updating apps using iOS 3.1.x (the last version, 3.1.3, is the maximum possible with first-generation iPhones and the first- and second-generation iPod Touch) are now finding that the issue has been fixed on Apple's end, giving such users back the ability to update apps and buy new items from the App Store while still on their devices.
People still using versions of iOS 3.1.x on an iPhone or iPod touch have begun encountering problems with the App Store, according to threads (1, 2) on Apple's support forums. On a basic level, pages on the store may contain broken layouts and missing content. More serious are problems with actually downloading apps, such as having to use the Update All command, instead of having the flexibility of updating apps individually.
RIM faced an ignominious milestone on Monday after a stock crash following its BlackBerry 10 phone delay. With its share price down to $13.44 as of Friday's closing and down under $13.30 as of Monday morning, RIM's $7.04 billion market cap or less was smaller than an $7.08 billion contribution to Apple's market cap from the App Store, as estimated by Trefis and noted by Brian Hall. Apple's total market cap of $354 billion was itself over 50 times larger.
DriversEd.com -- the developer behind a fake license app pulled from the App Store -- is defending the title as useless for fooling authorities, a press release indicates. The company insists that the app was always meant purely for fun, and that the licenses produced are intentionally different from their real-world counterparts. These include "obvious layout differences, font and color discrepancies, and the words 'MOCK by DriversEd.com' in proximity to the word 'license'," according to the release. The resolution of generated images is also just 72dpi, and security features common to government IDs are missing.
Despite increases in device share, iOS app development is still three times larger, Flurry said Monday. New app starts on Android had actually declined in ratio from the start of 2011 to the end, shrinking from 37 percent to 27 percent in a fall estimate. iOS development had grown by an equal number of points and was now up to 73 of starts.
An app for creating fake drivers' licenses has been pulled from the App Store following political pressure. A group called the Coalition for a Secure Driver's License says that Senator Bob Casey from Pennsylvania recently sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, asking that the app -- simply called License -- be removed. The CSDL charges that the title contained license templates for all 50 US states, which if printed and laminated could pass for the real thing. A check of the App Store shows no sign of the software, which was produced by DriversEd.com.
(Updated with clarifications from Apple) Over 100 million downloads have now been made at the Mac App Store, Apple has announced. The online storefront has only been accessible since January of this year, and is limited to Macs running Snow Leopard or Lion. Apple is not offering a specific count of apps available, except to say there are "thousands of free and paid" titles.
Visual voicemail developer YouMail accused T-Mobile of trying to censor a competitor by blocking its app. The carrier relayed through Google that it believed the app could be "harmful to devices, networks or users" and was triggering an "adverse network disruption." T-Mobile didn't contact YouMail itself, which led CEO Alex Quilici to suspect that the provider simply wanted to shut down a voicemail alternative.
(Updated with note on regional differences) Apple has posted the 2011 edition of iTunes Rewind, its annual promotion of what it considers top picks at the iTunes Store, the App Store and the iBookstore. The content is divided into music, movies, TV shows, apps, books, and podcasts, and from there further broken up into subcategories. Under music Apple has chosen Adele as the artist of the year, for instance, and the Foo Fighters' Wasting Light as the album of the year.
Google is currently offering ten Android apps for just $0.10 each, kicking off a new promotion as the search giant counts down to 10 billion app downloads. The '10 Billion Promo' is expected to offer a range of different premium apps for the $0.10 discounted price over the next ten days as the company closes in on the milestone.
Online dating and matchmaker service Match.com found its iOS app pulled from the App Store due to a violation of the store's rules, specifically a direct subscription link in the app that allowed users to pay for the service without going through Apple's mandatory in-app purchasing system, which gives Apple a 30 percent cut of in-app purchases, TechCrunch reports. The company began dropping apps that violated the policy late in summer.
As expected, Apple has pulled iTether from the App Store. The removal has been confirmed by the app's developer, Tether, which has issued a statement revealing some behind-the-scenes details. "Around 12PM EST, Apple called our head office to let us know they were going to go ahead and pull our app iTether from the App Store. They stated it was because the app itself burdens the carrier network, however they offered us no way to remedy the solution," the page reads.
[Updated: Big Fish confirms Apple removed the app] Big Fish Games' Play Instantly iPad app, which the company claimed had "won approval" from Apple executives to introduce subscription gaming to the App Store, has been pulled without comment from Apple. The app disappeared after being available since Nov. 18th, following widespread reports about the change in Apple policy it heralded. An update to an earlier Bloomberg report confirms that Apple removed the app, not Big Fish.
Japanese game publisher Square Enix has announced plans to launch its own app store for Android-based devices. The portal, referred to as Square Enix Market, is expected to launch with an Android edition of the Final Fantasy iOS remake, along with a number of other titles such as Dragon Quest Monsters, Chaos Ring, and Crystal Defenders.
Apple has opened up the Chinese App Store to payments using Chinese bank cards based on the yuan, a support document shows. The store previously only allowed payments with credit cards supporting US dollars. Using bank cards, Chinese can add money to an iTunes account in preset amounts, an option not available in countries like the US; in China, though, such prepayments are commonplace.
Apple has silently updated the App Store to make it easier for iPad users to scroll through the latest "featured apps" and "new and noteworthy" additions on both the main page of the App Store and in each category section, Apple'n'Apps reports. The change, while small, makes the pages more touch-friendly by removing small arrows on each end of the featured boxes and instead making the grid swipe-driven.
Apple widened the scope of its lawsuit over Amazon's Appstore late Wednesday to include claims of false advertising in sync with the launch of the Kindle Fire. The amendment argued that, as the Android tablet was launched in September, Amazon started changing its "Amazon Appstore for Android" marketing line to either downplay the "for Android" part or remove it entirely. It was shedding the OS disclaimer in an attempt to "deceive" shoppers that the store was more like Apple's, the new claim added in remarks that also criticized the quality of Amazon's store in the process.
A new Juniper Global Threat Center study has pointed to Android malware possibly becoming a serious issue in just the past four months. The incidence in viruses, trojans, and other strains has jumped 472 percent since July, most of which has appeared in just the past two months. About 55 percent were spyware apps scraping and sending information in the background, while 44 percent were SMS trojans that send messages to premium numbers that put the bill on the caller.
Numeric Notes, a desktop notes app that integrates calculator functionality, has recently been updated in the App Store. Any calculation typed into the application is automatically solved, while text input allows users to add helpful descriptions and notes. Formatting occurs automatically as text is entered, allowing users to enter data naturally. Version 2.0 features a new calculation engine, as well as improved formatting and pasteboard operations. Numeric Notes is available as a $6 purchase in the Mac App Store.
Apple has started informing developers about this year's regular iTunes Connect shutdown. For 2011 the service will be offline between December 22nd and the 29th, as usual coinciding with Christmas. iTunes Connect is used to manage titles submitted to the App Store, and so many developer activities will be temporarily suspended.
Apple is in "no rush" to make a TD-SCDMA iPhone for China Mobile, says Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. Wu's industry sources claim that Apple has actually been beta-testing TD-SCDMA-equipped iPhones for a while. Because of success with current official carrier China Unicom, however -- as well as over 10 million unlocked iPhones on China Mobile, plus sales in Taiwan and Hong Kong -- Apple allegedly has no strong interest in TD-SCDMA, and may actually skip the Chinese-only 3G standard in favor of preparing for a 4G TD-LTE iPhone.
A researcher from computer security firm Accuvant claims to have unearthed a significant vulnerability in Apple's iOS operating system. The flaw allegedly leaves iOS devices open to malicious apps that pass through current App Store test criteria but allow hackers to upload unapproved commands. From remote servers, attackers can then access personal data, such as photos and messages, or instruct the device to play sounds or perform other functions.
Apple's iPad currently has the most competitive mobile app ecosystems, Strategy Analytics outlined in a new App Store Competitive Index. Its subset of the App Store is deemed the most likely to give newcomers and recent launches the best chances at success. Amazon's Appstore was lowest-ranked and more likely to let apps occupy the same positions or otherwise take attention from newer titles.
The South Korean government has lifted a ban on iOS games, reports say. Although the App Store has been accessible in Korea for some time, games were kept out because of rules making it illegal to sell titles not approved by the country's Game Ratings Board. Some limits began falling away in July, though, paving the way toward today's decision.
The BBC has added AirPlay sharing for its popular Global iPlayer iPad app (free, App Store). Version 1.2.5 of the app now allows users watch their content on a TV by pushing it to their Apple TV. The app gives users the ability to stream high quality TV programming over a 3G or Wi-Fi connection.
New analysis from research2guidance on Friday showed Android passing 500,000 published apps but with signs that it had trouble sustaining apps as well as Apple's iOS App Store. Although it had hit the milestone as of September, a considerably smaller 319,161 apps were still live on the store. About 37 percent of apps have been voluntarily pulled or forcibly removed.
Google has temporarily but voluntarily pulled Google Voice for iOS devices (App Store, cached) following a major bug with iOS 5. At least some users are reporting the app crashing when they try to sign in. Senior Product Manager Vincent Paquet explained that the company didn't want the problem to spread before it could provide a fix.
Verizon has announced plans to launch a private app portal that can be utilized by businesses. The Private Applications Store for Business is designed to work across a variety of platforms, enabling companies to securely manage app distribution to mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, without relying on public app stores.
Apple may be planning to allow iOS app rentals, code in iTunes 10.5 beta 9 shows. A series of strings contain related prompts, most importantly "Do you want to start playing the app '%S'," and "Apps are automatically removed from your iTunes library at the end of the rental period." Apple currently only rents movies, having even discontinued TV show rentals.
Most of those who have failed at tablets and other home electronics were too focused on the hardware alone, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in an interview following the launch of the Kindle Fire tablet. He explained to TechCrunch that Amazon would do well with the Kindle Fire because it treated the Android slate as an "end-to-end service," not just an isolated design. It was the software and the content that defined a tablet, and those who didn't create a complete effect have struggled.
Gameloft is offering the official iPhone and iPod Touch version of The Oregon Trail, a classic historical and educational simulation game, for free on the App Store for a limited time, MacRumors reports. The description of the sale on the application's page in the App Store says the giveaway will continue for "a few days," but gave no specifics. The game, which re-traces the travels and struggles of early pioneer families as they crossed from Missouri to Oregon, normally sells for $1.
Facebook's delay over its iPad app may have had as much to do with synchronizing with Apple as disputes with it, a rumor floated on Monday. The updated universal app is now believed by Mashable to be unveiled at the October 4 event for the iPhone 5. Apple's gathering is expected to introduce iOS 5 as well and may show an improved interface for the iPhone-sized version.
