The deal will see the Spanish telecoms giant bundle augmented reality tech with its advertising offerings and promote the Aurasma app to its 300 million customers. But will marketing use-cases finally make the technology fly? Read more »
In the five years since the iPhone hit the market, Apple and Google have delivered more than 40 billion cumulative downloads of apps. Other sources predict the app marketplace will swell to surpass 66 billion downloads in 2016, a growth fueled by tablet, entertainment, and enterprise apps. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple’s new iPod touch is even more like an iPhone than its predecessors thanks to the new 4-inch Retina Display, improved camera sensor, and support for Bluetooth 4.0 LE. The processor gets a boost too, making this iPod touch model faster for gaming and images. Read more »
After releasing Google Drive for iOS in June, iPhone and iPad owners were disappointed by the lack of editing capabilities. Google fixes that with an app update today, but it’s still fairly limited: Only documents can be edited, even though Google’s demo video shows spreadsheet editing. Read more »
Gamified classroom management platform ClassDojo is rolling out its first mobile app. Through the iOS app teachers will be able to give students feedback in real-time from their smartphones and tablets. The company said an Android app will follow shortly. Read more »
I need a central place to store all my files, and Documents in the Cloud is an easy way for me to access them from any of my devices. Here’s a walk through how I’m using the software, as well as some pitfalls to avoid. Read more »
The common belief that “there’s no tablet market, just an iPad market” may be changing. Based on the number of daily device activations, the gap between Google tablet sales and those of Apple’s iPad is closing. Improved software and the Nexus 7 tablet are likely reasons. Read more »
With the photo app’s new ‘Discover’ feed pulling context from an impressive variety of sources, and with monetization plans including an entry into the stock photo business, we may be seeing evolution past the focus on art filters. Read more »
Samsung’s Galaxy S III continues to sell at a torrid pace…. for an Android device. Surely the new iPhone will outsell this one handset, but the success of the Galaxy S III shows that the gap between Android and iOS is lessening over time. Read more »
Which is better for a mobile app: short term revenues or long term relationships with a growing user base? RunKeeper thinks the latter is better over time and it can monetize later. The exercise tracking app for smartphones dropped fees for its training plans. Read more »
With new Lumia handsets, Nokia’s transition plan is effectively complete. While the company worked hard to get here — and it shows in the new hardware and software — the road ahead is still long as Nokia asks consumers to switch away from iOS and Android. Read more »
The FBI says it didn’t have them, and now Apple says it also never handed over UDIDs to any organization. This leads to plenty more questions about where the list of 1 million Apple device IDs came from that was posted on the web Tuesday. Read more »
As unlimited data plans disappear, consumers need new data-savings solutions. Snappli is the latest to out a mobile service that cuts down on data use through compression techniques; the free software, available today, works on iOS and saves data for the web, apps and even videos. Read more »
Knowing family members’ schedules is useful, but it’s also a way to stay connected. There is more than one way to keep an entire family up to date with the various events in our lives. Here are three techniques an iCloud-using family can use. Read more »
The rate at which Android and iOS-powered mobile devices are being adopted worldwide is far outpacing that of any other technology. That growth is being driven by purchases outside of early-adopting markets. The most dramatic growth is in Asia, South America and the Middle East. Read more »
Facebook says the app has been rewritten so it’ll not only open and scroll faster, but news feeds and notifications will load right away. To do that, Facebook rewrote it as a native iOS app, doing away with HTML5. Read more »
With a reported 50 percent of all smartphone owners not knowing how much mobile broadband their handsets use each month, data usage tracking tools are becoming valuable utilities. Boingo just added one to its Wi-Finder for iOS app, which can help save you money. Read more »
Standalone GPS navigation makers continue to face the battle against smartphones and location based service apps. At least one of them is embracing the change: TomTom first added support for Facebook Places and now it includes Foursquare, making it easier to get directions and check-in. Read more »
Things was my task management tool of choice in the pre-cloud era. When Cultured Code announced recently that, finally, after four years that cloud syncing was finally here, I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to try it out. Here’s my take on the new software. Read more »
Global positioning systems provide better location accuracy over solutions that use Wi-Fi networks, but just how much better is GPS? Yelp sifted through its check-in data to see and not only found out the accuracy variance, but also an interesting location tidbit on iPhones vs Androids. Read more »
After months with a sub-par user experience, the Google Play store is gaining needed improvements. Application updates comprised of just changed code now helps limit mobile broadband use while gift cards and wishlists are coming soon, per the latest version of Google Play. Read more »
A number of connected watches have hit — and been funded on — Kickstarter lately, but the newest doesn’t just show information from a smartphone; it works as a hands-free speaker phone. The watch also supports voice commands so you can use it directly with Siri. Read more »
Where’s the party at? That’s the question Vamos is trying to answer with an iOS app that aggregates and overlays Facebook event data on a map, for real-time and hyperlocal discovery Read more »
Smartphones can enable an amazing level of connectivity, but they can also allow that activity to be monitored and used in controversial ways. But for mobile marketing to realize its full potential, consumers may need to sacrifice their privacy to one degree or another. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The iPad “Flipboard for video” app Vodio is shrinking down to iPhone size starting Tuesday. We talked to the Tel Aviv-based Vodio about why the iPhone came next for the app instead of Android tablets. Read more »
Overall handset sales slumped last quarter as consumers face economic challenges or are waiting for newer phone models. But Android keeps outpacing iOS devices while handsets from Research In Motion and Nokia continue to drop, although Windows Phone is showing signs of sales life. Read more »
Social travel recommendation app Trover has slowly undergone a makeover the past month or so. CEO Jason Karas talked with us about how Trover’s users were the ones who turned the travel app into an aspirational, entertainment-oriented app that is only somewhat related to real-life travel. Read more »
FlightTrack Free is not replacing the popular, paid FlightTrack or FlightTrack Pro apps. It’s a separate, scaled-down version of FlightTrack with a redesigned interface. Mobiata, FlightTrack’s creator, plans eventually to add in-app purchase options. Read more »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: Apple and Samsung’s mutually beneficial partnership, the history of Apple’s branding, the next phase of iPhone, Google adds more features to iOS apps, and Apple still dominates mobile profits. Read more »
We know that Apple started seeing some validation of the 7-inch tablet market some 18 months ago. Those reasons still apply, but there are even more to consider today. Here’s another look at a handful of observations on why Apple should enter this market. Read more »
So long YouTube; Apple has pulled the app from the latest iOS 6 beta. Of course, you can still watch YouTube in Safari and Google is reportedly writing a YouTube app for the iTunes App Store. Maybe we see a better YouTube experience as a result. Read more »
How long has Apple been thinking about a smaller iPad? Since they read impressions about the Galaxy Tab 18 months ago. Matt shares experiences with Nexus 7 cases — and explains what pickleball is — while both hosts discuss the Chrome OS and T-Mobile’s new (old) Galaxy Note. Read more »
What really draws you in is the speed of the 3D environment, the detail of the in-game elements, and the nostalgic familiarity of the gameplay. This may well be one of the games you keep on your device longer than just a weekend or two. Read more »
The Berlin startup, which has been quietly developing its technology duirng a bootstrapped first couple of years, has gone into closed beta while revealing funding from VCs and SoundCloud and GameForge co-founders Read more »
Despite its current decline, RIM is a different firm today than it was in 2007, with new management, a full awareness of its shaky position, an upcoming OS release and a number of lingering advantages that can still be leveraged. Here’s how it just might survive. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Mobile analytics companies provide app publishers with data about their users. Hiptype, a Y Combinator startup, wants to do the same thing for ebooks. That could be huge for data-starved book publishers — except that for now, Hiptype only works on platforms that support HTML5. Read more at paidContent »
App discovery is one of the biggest challenges that faces iOS developers today. The acquisition is part of Appsfire’s mission to help developers and those in the mobile business understand the trends surrounding Apple’s gargantuan mobile app store, which now counts over 650,000 apps. Read more »
With the growth of sensors and microelectronics, the potential uses of wearable-computing technologies now reach to health and fitness, gaming, fashion, disabilities and augmented reality. Most importantly, the widespread adoption of wearables will drive the form function and market for mobiles in vital ways. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the Pebble smartwatch proved, to help sell a wearable device, you need support for iOS. Thanks to the new iOS 6 software, which now supports text message sharing over Bluetooth, the MetaWatch team is banking on Apple fans to fund its new Strata smartwatch. Read more »
