Thursday, September 16, 2010

iOS has a bigger development army than Android, but will it be ‘cross-platform’ apps that rule the day?

Too often is it the case that raw numbers of available apps are bandied about when it comes to the comparison of mobile OS, but rarely do we have any idea of just how many people are working behind the scenes pushing out the content for each platform.  However, AppStoreHQ  have filled this void today with their dev directory, a list they claim to contain 55,000+ coders whose work is currently on show on the App Store or the Android Market.  Taking it a step further, they have grouped them into neat piles of Apple, Google and ‘Gapple’ programmers.  It’s obvious that single platform development is the norm, with Apple holding the bigger stake.  But highlighted are some of the most well know and well funded apps dealing with both sides.  However, an article from BNET  points out the difficulties faced by smaller developer who may not be able to call apon the necessary resources required to transfer content from one platform to another.

iPhone 4 jailbreak hits from iPhone Dev Team

  
JailbreakMe 2.0, a mobile Safari-based jailbreak app for iPhones and iPads, has just gone live and pretty much opens up any iOS device you have handy, all the way back to the iPhone 3G.





As a browser-based app, all you need to do is direct your device to the Jailbreak Me website at http://jailbreakme.com (currently very busy) and successfully load the page.

If you’re antsy about such a maneuver, wait a while and various sites, including the technical tipsters at Redmond Pie, will have some how-to guides handy for your enjoyment

Start-up aims to stream Flash games to iPads

Attention iPad owners pining for Flash-based games you enjoy playing on your PC: a start-up called iSwifter is launching technology today it says provides a way to tap into those games hosted on the Net.

Apple has banned Adobe Systems' Flash Player from its iOS devices, and although it recently relented on a broader ban of Flash-derived applications, game developers must retool those programs before they may be submitted. iSwifter's approach, though, provides a conduit to those games running on servers on the Internet.

The iSwifter service provides access to Flash games from a number of online game sites, including Yahoo Games, AOL's Games.com, Facebook, and Kongregate, the company said.

Apple has approved the iSwifter application, and it and the service are available now for free, said iSwifter founder Rajat Gupta. It's available worldwide, but requires a Wi-Fi network connection to run at present.

The technology runs the Flash games on a server and streams the screen's contents to the iPad.The app records how a player is touching the iPad and sends that information back to the server where the game is actually running. That comes with a certain amount of lag between when a player touches the screen and when the game running on a remote server actually gets that information. Of course, latency can be highly undesirable in games, but iSwifter said the service works for its intended market.

"The app is currently only supported over Wi-Fi, although 3G support is coming soon--so latency is not a problem at the moment," Gupta said. "Moreover, we're targeting casual/social gaming where play sessions are low-twitch and latency is not as big a deal as say, Halo on OnLive."

Although the service is initially geared for the iPad, the company will release it later this year for iPhones and iPod Touches "in a couple weeks," and support for Android soon after--as soon as a month later "if the market demands," Gupta said. A Windows Phone 7 version also is planned.

Although Flash Player 10.1 works on newer Android phones, performance is an issue, and iSwifter's approach runs the Flash games on relatively powerful hardware.

The iSwifter service provides access to Flash games from a number of online game sites, including Yahoo Games, AOl Games.com, Facebook, and Kongregate, the company said.

How exactly this service will translate into business success is something the company doesn't plan to announce until October. "We are working with the Flash developer community to fine-tune it," said Peter Relan, founder of start-up incubator and iSwifter funder YouWeb.

iSwifter's name no doubt is a takeoff on the Shockwave Flash "SWF" filename extension.

New applications for Windows Phone 7 detailed

Microsoft today detailed a number of the third-party apps that will be available this holiday season in conjunction with the release of Windows Phone 7: Netflix, Twitter, OpenTable, Flixster, and Travelocity have all confirmed plans for their Windows Phone 7 apps.

"Some of the biggest names in apps and games are working to bring the right mix of high quality content to Windows Phone 7," Microsoft's Brandon Watson said in a blog post.

The software maker also announced plans for its own bid-based mobile ad exchange and said it is ready with a final version of the developer tools for creating Windows Phone 7 applications. Developers looking to have their apps certified for sale in the Windows Phone Marketplace will need to use the final version of the tools, Watson said.

As for the ad exchange, Microsoft's Raj Kapoor said Microsoft has tools that will allow advertisers to target their ads based on demographics, carrier, location, and other factors. Both click to call and click to Web options will be possible, Kapoor said in a blog posting.

"With this launch, Windows Phone 7 app developers can maximize their mobile ad revenue by leveraging the industry's first real-time bidded Mobile Ad Exchange, our superior ad targeting, multiple purchase models and leading resellers including Microsoft's sales force--as well as the large-scale adCenter marketplace," Kapoor said.

The announcements come ahead of the release this fall of the first Windows Phone 7-based phones. Windows Phone 7 is expected to take center stage at a New York event on October 11. Microsoft finalized the Windows Phone 7 operating system earlier this month and devices are expected as early as next month from HTC, Samsung, LG, and possibly others.

Bing also released a free version of its mobile software development kit for use with Windows Phone 7 (which has Bing Maps as its default mapping program) as well as on other phones.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Mobile App Downloads Is Going To Hit 25 billion by 2015

As network operators and vendors increasingly deploy their own dedicated app stores, a new Juniper Research report has found that the annual number of consumer-oriented handset downloads is expected to rise from less than 2.6 billion in 2009 to more than 25 billion in 2015.
 
According to the Mobile App Stores report, players across the mobile value chain are seeking to emulate Apple's success with the App Store by launching own-brand storefronts, such as ‘Mobile Market' from China Unicom, ‘Airtel App Central' from Bharti and the ‘Apps & Games Shop' on Vodafone 360. Furthermore, the transition to an app-centric environment has also benefited more established storefronts such as GetJar, which passed 1 billion downloads earlier this month.
 
However, the Juniper report cautioned that players seeking to launch app stores would need to demonstrate sufficient scale to be able to induce developers to provide them with unique content. As report author Dr Windsor Holden observed, "Apple has been able to achieve several billion downloads from a comparatively small handset base because customers are buying the iPhone for the apps. That's not been the case with other handsets. So even if you have a subscriber base of tens of millions, your addressable market is a fraction of that - and spread across a variety of operating systems and handsets".
 
The report also noted that freemium was becoming the prevalent business model, with publishers increasingly offering applications free at point of sale and subsequently monetising them via in-app billing of subscription-based services, upgrades to premium content or micropayments for virtual items.
 
A white paper exploring the challenges of an app store-centric ecosystem, ‘A World of Apps' is available to download from the Juniper Research website.