A new iPhone app released on Thursday brings a music social network to the iPhone. Not for the first time, mind you, but it does get a lot of things right that previous offerings, including Apple’s own Ping, haven’t yet been able to nail down. Read more »
How do you find new apps to download for your devices? A recent rash of app discovery tools available for iOS devices (including one out of left field from Yahoo) definitely identifies a problem, but I’m not sure it provides any real lasting solutions. Read more »
If you’re going paperless by transferring all your printed documents to digital text or PDF files, using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) makes the job much easier by eliminating manual input. Luckily, you can use your iPhone to do OCR, eliminating the need for any additional equipment. Read more »
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s rumors that Facebook would be launching an HTML5 App Store competitor and Facebook’s response that doesn’t exactly deny those allegations, the New York Times reports that an official Facebook iPad app is in the works and should be coming soon. Read more »
Apple’s iTunes Match has been accused of opening the door for piracy, but that’s probably not something Apple’s concerned about. Match will still make Apple money, and its other digital content marketplace, the App Store, may quickly become the primary breadwinner anyway. Read more »
When you buy a new Mac for school this year, you get a $100 gift card for use in the iTunes Store, Mac or iOS App Stores or iBookstore. It used to be a free iPod touch: technically a better value. Still, Apple’s playing it right. Read more »
Facebook is reportedly planning on launching an HTML5-based web app platform codenamed Project Spartan in order to take on Apple in the mobile app market. It’s the obvious play for a company that lives on the web, but here’s why it won’t work for mobile users. Read more »
The list of video-sharing apps in the Apple App Store continues to grow, with a number of startups all seeking to become the “Instagram of video.” To compete, Vlix has added and improved on a number of social features within its video-sharing app. Read more »
Is Twitter a platform now that Apple has endorsed it with integration in iOS 5? A new app called WITH seems based on the presumption that it is, leveraging the Twitter network to create its own service that lets you check in with friends and photos. Read more »
Appsfire and others have helped tackle the issue of app discovery by bringing new social and sharing tools to bear on the task. Now, Zwapp, a new start-up is trying to go one step further by building essentially a social network around app discovery. Read more »
Back in February, Apple announced its in-app subscription API, and it provided an ultimatum that would force developers that sell content for use within their apps to also do so via in-app purchase, or face expulsion. Kindle seemed on the chopping block, but now Apple has relented. Read more »
While Android Market is growing fast, it has an attrition rate that is twice as high as Apple’s App Store. That explains why, contrary to previous reports, Android Market is not on pace to overtake Apple’s App Store in overall apps. Read more »
Patent holder Lodsys is busy suing small developers making apps for Apple’s platform, but it now also faces an incoming complaint of its own. A Michigan analytics firm has filed a declaratory judgment action against Lodsys that could eventually lead to the invalidation of its patents. Read more »
One of the many traditions of Apple’s WWDC is the presentation of Apple Design Awards (ADA) for “excellence in iOS and Mac OS X app design and development.” This year, the winners include some familiar names, as well as some you probably won’t recognize. Read more »
iCloud doesn’t fully launch until iOS 5 arrives this fall, but you can check out some features right now. Apple has pushed out updates to the iOS 4.3 App Store, iBooks and iTunes apps that let you check out your purchase history, and setup Automatic Downloads. Read more »
Apple showed its hand today during the WWDC keynote, and the company is clearly all-in on a cloud-based mobile future. In fact, in many ways it looks a lot like the approach Android has taken, but in fact, Apple’s strategy couldn’t be more different. Read more »
Today, at WWDC, after Steve Jobs took the stage to highlight some new features in OS X Lion, Phil Schiller and others walked the audience through 10 important new changes to the OS. Read more »
Tapjoy, whose app promotion campaigns have been halted by Apple in new and updated iOS apps, has come up with a new solution that it hopes can help it avoid Apple’s recent ban. But Apple doesn’t appear interested in the proposed fix. Read more »
Phone app The Heist has been sitting pretty at the top of the App Store charts basically since its release last week. In that time, it’s seen over 500,000 downloads, and racked up $300,000 in revenue for its developers, making it a blockbuster by any measure. Read more »
In response to Apple’s letter claiming that the license it holds for using technology ostensibly patented by Lodsys, the patent holding firm has filed suit against a number of App Store developers Tuesday. The firm claims Apple’s license does not in fact extend to developers. Read more »
Apple’s App Store dominance isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, according to a new report. Despite an eroding lead thanks the growing popularity of the Android Market and other offerings, Apple shows signs of being able to hold on to its download advantage for a while yet. Read more »
While the Android Market is on pace to overtake Apple’s App Store in overall apps later this year in terms of sheer volume, it is trailing far behind as a money-making platform for developers, according to new analysis from app research firm Distimo. Read more »
Amazon unveiled its Mac Download Store today: a web-based competitor for the Mac App Store. The store provides direct downloads of Mac software directly from your browser, and ships with some marquee titles that aren’t yet available in Apple’s own marketplace. Read more »
How do you make waves in the crowded space that is mobile deals? How about by making bargains into an actual game, and not just by incentivizing group buying through gamification. That’s what The Heist, a new iPhone app released Tuesday, aims to do. Read more »
Server monitoring startup ServerDensity will launch an app store for plugins to its popular cloud-based service. Like many SaaS startups, ServerDensity provides a collection of core components, but is hoping to rely on its user community to address the longtail needs of certain customer segments. Read more »
Condé Nast continues its rollout of iPad magazine subscriptions with two marquee titles today, Wired and GQ. Both are now available both monthly for $1.99, and yearly for $19.99, and existing print subscribers will be able to access iPad editions for free. Read more »
Despite the recent improvements to Android Market, Amazon’s Appstore for Android is still winning over developers who are increasingly drawn to its marketplace for apps. The latest is TextPlus messaging app publisher Gogii, who has the featured free app of the day on Amazon today. Read more »
Apple Monday sent a letter to Lodsys and to developers, saying it has the rights to in-app purchases and that developers are fully able to use them, according to Macworld. Devs on Twitter had begun discussing the letter received by Apple just a few hours ago. Read more »
The best course of action for iOS developers faced with patent infringement suit threats issued by patent holding firm Lodsys earlier this month might be to play nice with licensing requests, according to one intellectual property researcher. It might be the only affordable course of action. Read more »
Lodsys, the patent holding company going after iOS developers, is little more than a “patent troll” according to the EFF. But Apple takes a nearly equal share of the blame for the situation in a new blog post by the Foundation posted Friday. Read more »
Playboy finally arrived fully uncensored on the iPad, but it couldn’t go through the App Store to get there. Instead, it’s a web app, sidestepping Apple’s rules and requirements. Sounds like a sweet deal, but is it a model that will be attractive to other magazines? Read more »
Apple is “actively investigating” the claims of patent infringement made by Lodsys against App Store developers, according to The Guardian. Lodsys, a patent holding firm, has been sending notices to independent developers giving them 21 days to secure a license for technology used in in-app purchases. Read more »
Condé Nast began offering in-app subscriptions for iPad versions of Allure, Glamour, Golf Digest and Vanity Fair on Monday. The publisher began offering The New Yorker iPad subscriptions just last week, marking the first time it has used Apple’s new in-app subscription system. Read more »
Apple’s App Store trademark is under siege, and four more companies joined the fight to have it declared invalid in the European Union Thursday. Microsoft, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and HTC all filed applications separately with the EU trademark agency yesterday in pursuit of that goal. Read more »
Android Market has hit 4.5 billion app downloads, but it’s sometimes been in spite of the store experience not because of it. Today, Google announced a set of improvements to Android Market meant to highlight more apps and developers and help guide consumers to relevant content. Read more »
Adobe’s three Photoshop Touch apps, which the company previewed last month, went live in the App Store early Tuesday morning. Here’s a look at how Eazel, Adobe Nav and Color Lav work, and how they might figure into your Photoshop workflow. Read more »
Condé Nast is the latest publisher to announce digital subscriptions for Apple’s iPad, and the deal represents a big victory for Cupertino. The publishers will begin offering The New Yorker via iPad subscription today, with seven other titles to follow by the end of May. Read more »
Mothers are getting more and more tech savvy. It is more than a little likely that flowers, candy and a trip to the spa will soon be replaced by apps, digital media, and pre-paid online services. Here are some gift ideas along those lines. Read more »
Come WWDC in June, we’ll likely see OS X Lion changing status from preview to official public release. That makes May a good time to look at the April report on OS market share from web-analytics firm Net Applications for some perspective on Snow Leopard. Read more »
Think the mobile app economy is a passing fad? Not so, says ABI Research, as it expects 44 billion mobile app downloads by 2016. The trend towards task-based computing on the go is good for those already in the game, but a challenge to newcomers. Read more »
