Apps - Tech News Articles: GigaOM GigaOM

AppsA Apple Hot Topic

Why You Should Care

The more we rely on smartphones, the more we rely on apps to perform many daily functions — from killing time with a mobile game to helping small businesses easily accept credit card payments. With the launch of Apple’s App Store, this concept of small, focused applications spread back to the desktop.

New York City kicked off voting today in its third annual BigApps competition, which rewards apps that use some its open data sets. But one of the most popular resources appears to be Foursquare, which is in use in more than half of the top apps. Read More »

Herbert Bay, co-founder and CEO of Kooaba

Advertisers and publishers have swarmed over QR codes as they try to add interactivity to analog media. Now the Swiss team behind retooled mobile app Shortcut hopes they can help make the black-and-white glyphs a thing of the past. Read More »

Earlier today, I shared information on the latest update to DoubleTwist, the media management software for Android. Rather than just read my experiences with the app, the DoubleTwist folks kindly offered 25 unlock codes for GigaOm readers, so if you hurry, you can get them here.… Read More »

Could the app economy be the cure for United States’ employment doldrums? A new report suggests that the nascent app economy spurred on by iOS, Android and Facebook apps has generated 466,000 jobs in the U.S. economy since 2007. Read More »

Google’s Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system went public in the same year but they haven’t converged until now. Google is finally introducing Chrome for Android, a robust beta with a lot of slick features which is limited to Android 4.0 devices. Read More »

Appsfire, an app discovery platform, is launching a free service called App Booster that allows developers to create a simple two-way inbox inside their apps to help establish a communication channel between developers and users. It’s designed to be an easy way to foster in-app engagement. Read More »

I took a look at Rdio’s new Android client and it’s a vast improvement. The application is a full re-write, rather than an update, and better supports Android 4.0 smartphones and tablets, allowing the app to be controlled on a device’s lock screen. Read More »

More Must Reads

Calendar apps are great, but sometimes you need to track how many days until a future event or project. In some cases, you might want to track days from the past. D-Day is a free, simple iOS program that manages both scenarios on iOS devices. Read More »

Romanian startup Skin Scan is selling an iPhone app that lets consumers take pictures of questionable moles and get back information on its threat level. However, the company has much grander goals than helping consumers figure out whether to see a doctor. Read More »

WillCall is now available for download, with a few acts already lined up. The coolest part of WillCall — besides enabling poor planners and procrastinators of the world — is its attempt to capture the inherently social nature of concert-going within the app. Read More »

IOS development is not for the faint of heart, and a new blog post by developer Kent Nguyen does a good job of pointing out exactly why. Nguyen targets those who would be footing the bill for app development, in the hopes of lessening sticker shock. Read More »

Just in time for its second birthday, food-finding app Foodspotting is rolling out some major design changes. Starting Wednesday, regular users of the app will notice a redesigned interface and a new logo, meant to emphasize new personalization and social features. Read More »

Mint’s financial management app for Android makes the move from phones to tablets on Wednesday. The software offers the same functionality as Mint’s iPad app, which is experiencing much higher take-up rates on tablets compared to smartphones. Here’s why Mint hopes for the same on Android. Read More »

There’s a new app store available for millions of devices, but it’s not built for iOS, Android, or Windows Phone handsets. As of Tuesday, the newest app store is for robots, and the first four apps are compatible with the estimated 6 million iRobot Roomba Vacuums. Read More »

T-Mobile added a new family locator service called FamilyWhere to its suite of carrier-specific Android apps on Tuesday. The software is powered by Safely, which now has passed one billion “locates” for premium subscribers. Will T-Mo customers pay after the free trial or simply use Life360? Read More »

RunKeeper announced nine new partner software titles on Monday, bringing the total number of compatible apps to 45. RunKeeper’s “secret sauce” is its HealthGraph effort, a method for health-tracking apps and devices to speak to each other in the same language. Read More »

One of the world’s most popular travel websites has decided mobile is better. On Monday, Kayak will reveal an updated design for its eight-year-old site. The interesting part? Kayak is now taking design cues from its recently updated iPad and iPhone apps, not vice versa. Read More »

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