Mobile app downloads over the week from Christmas to New Year’s Eve increased to 1.76 billion, up from 1.2 billion a year ago. It’s also a significant spike over the 1.07 billion weekly average recorded earlier in December. Read more »
Yahoo has open sourced Mojito, a JavaScript-based developer framework that will allow developers to leverage both client- and server-side technologies to get the best performance out of any device. The framework is now available on GitHub for anyone to play around with. Read more »
Which apps were the best rated and most buzzed about in 2011? That’s a question that app rating analytics firm Mobilewalla tackled, coming up with a list of the top five paid and free apps on four of the biggest mobile platforms. Read more »
Facebook’s new Timeline user interface is now available pretty much everywhere — including on mobile devices.Just a few hours after announcing worldwide availability of the new Timeline profile interface, Facebook on Thursday launched Timeline on its mobile Android app and on its mobile website, m.facebook.com. Read more »
Xamarin, the company born earlier this year when Novell laid off the entire workforce dedicated to maintaining Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET development framework, was up against big odds. But at just seven months old, Xamarin is now profitable without VC backing. Read more »
Path has enacted a dramatic redesign with the newest version of its app, “Path 2.” Path has expanded beyond photo sharing and now aims to be a “smart journal” that helps users catalog their lives — putting it more squarely in competition with Evernote and Facebook. Read more »
For years, owners of Android phones have generally gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to having great apps. But venture capital firms are finally starting to realize that the Android market should be much more than just an afterthought. Read more »
An Android version of Trover, the snappy mobile app aimed at letting travelers share photos of their off-the-beaten-path discoveries, is now available. For a social app like Trover, which is only as good as the content its users contribute, expanding to Android is key. Read more »
Cloud data storage can be awesome. But the fact is, most of us still use personal computers to store the bulk of our data. Polkast, an app for Android and Apple iOS, lets you access all the files on your PC from your mobile device. Read more »
Hipmunk, the San Francisco-based travel search startup, has finally brought its travel search application to the Android operating system. Hipmunk for Android, which for now only facilitates flight searches, is impressive because it retains all the slickness of the company’s web and iOS offerings. Read more »
San Francisco-based start up Xobni has been trying to improve the Outlook and Blackberry email experience for a while now, but today they’re launching their latest contact management platform and related products for Gmail and Android under the brand name Smartr. Read more »
Pandora jailbroke an iPhone to get an early start on development for Apple’s iOS platform, the company’s CTO Tom Conrad revealed at Mobilize 2011 on Monday. These days, Conrad is equally excited about HTML5 and the impact it will have on connected devices. Read more »
Seesmic, the company best known for making consumer-facing social networking apps, has shifted its strategy for the second time in its four-year history, this time to focus on building mobile apps for the enterprise. Can the third iteration of Seesmic finally bring the company success? Read more »
Android cell phones are notoriously bad at battery drain. But recently I discovered the single app that has smartly and simply solved many of these battery life problems for me: the PowerMax Android app made by Volt-Up. Read more »
Wearable smart displays aren’t new, but the category hasn’t caught on yet. WIMM hopes to change that with a wearable Android module that includes many smartphone components including a Wi-Fi radio. That could be the break these displays are looking for when it comes to apps. Read more »
It’s often said that the rise of mobile devices means that people are now “always on.” But it turns out there are still times when people are more “plugged in” than others. A new study about how — and when — people really use mobile apps. Read more »
When Google discontinued support for QR codes in its Places product earlier this year, many saw it as an early death knell for the barcode scanning technology. But Google’s latest acquisition is evidence that the company may not be completely abandoning QR technology just yet. Read more »
Many recent headlines have been devoted to Facebook’s focus on HTML5, and specifically on an internal HTML5-based project at the company dubbed “Project Spartan.” But Facebook’s investment in HTML5 is nothing new — and it’s certainly nothing that the company has been secretive about. Read more »
TV-loving Android users, rejoice: Bazaar Labs just released an Android application for its Miso social TV service. The release will bring all the same functionality that is already available to iPhone, iPad and web users in a native app available today on the Android market. Read more »
Vodpod became the latest online video startup to introduce more social features with the launch of mobile apps on the iPhone and Android mobile platforms. The new apps, which are available now, are designed to give its users a new way to discover mobile videos. Read more »
