Category Archives: App stores
Shazam behind 1 in 14 of all music downloads
Meanwhile iTunes reaches 50 billion app downloads
Figures just released by Apple show that its App Store has now reached its 50 billionth app download. That figure represents unique downloads excluding re-downloads and updates. The winner of a $10,000 App Store gift card Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio, USA. He downloaded Say the Same Thing by Space Inch from here. But ITunes is about more than apps – it’s music too. As Shazam points out, it was behind the 25 billionth Apple music download back in February 2013. Continue reading
Apple’s App Store marks historic 50 billionth download
Press release
May 16th 2013. Apple has announced that customers have downloaded over 50 billion apps1 from the revolutionary App Store. Customers are downloading more than 800 apps per second at a rate of over two billion apps per month on the App Store. The 50 billionth app was Say the Same Thing by Space Inch which was downloaded by Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio USA who received a $10,000 App Store gift card to commemorate this historic milestone. Continue reading
Fiksu tracking hits 100bn app user actions across 1bn downloads
Cost per loyal user rises just 5% to $1.36
Through its mobile app marketing platform, Fiksu says it indexes depict a steady landscape for mobile app downloads and marketing costs in March 2013. The company has reached something of a landmark having recorded its one hundred billionth app user action and driven more than one billion app downloads. This data from its platform provides the foundation its analysis of the mobile app marketing sector and its ability to drive real-time optimisation of ad campaigns. In March 2013, the Fiksu cost per loyal user index increased by five per cent (or by seven cents) to $1.36 – from February’s $1.29. That’s despite a 12 per cent year-over-year increase in daily download volumes. Continue reading
Guest Post: Apple’s iTunes turns 10 years old
by John Oswald, business design lead, with Fjord
Apple reached a milestone on Sunday [April 28th 2013] with its iTunes online service turning ten years old. Today it is so easy to forget how ‘revolutionary’ this fore-runner of the modern app store actually was. iTunes legitimised digital music in an era where MP3s were synonymous with piracy. Continue reading
Amazon is morphing into the new Apple
Rating: Magister says Amazon has major design on mobile space
It is so obvious that Amazon is et to become the ‘next Apple’ that, “Even Inspector Clouseau* would not have difficulty working out that Amazon is a business with a deep interest in being a serious mobile player,” says Victor Basta, md with Magister Advisors. Apple is a hardware business which went e-commerce. Amazon is an e-commerce business that has gone hardware (read Kindle Fire). Now it looks like Amazon is setting its sights on being a major player in the mobile space. Continue reading
Apple still rakes in lion’s share of app revenues, but Google is closing gap fast
Search giant’s app income jumps 90 per cent in just one quarter
App revenues at Google Play are growing much faster than those at rival Apple’s iTunes, though it’s the latter that still accounts for three quarters of all purchases. Collectively the app stores brought in $2.2 billion in the first three months of this year, according to Canalys, with Apple’s App Store generating $1.48 billion of that. But Google is catching up fast. Separate data from another research firm, App Annie, show the search giant has made significant headway from a year ago when its apps generated just a tenth of Apple’s revenues. In fact, Google’s revenues jumped 90 per cent in Q1 2013 from the fourth quarter last year. Continue reading
A quicker way to re-install favourite Android apps
Rating: The fastest method GoMo could come up with
In a separate story here, GoMo News was describing the joys of moving the contact entries from one Android handset to another. One of the options we considered to remove the addressbook entries was a remote wipe. That facility used to be part of Motorola Blur but the latest RAZR HD doesn’t support Blur. The obvious answer is to install a remote wipe app but that means migrating all your favourite apps from one handset to another. Continue reading
How to recover from 2,700 entries in an Android addressbook
Rating: Fun and joys of migrating from one Motorola RAZR to another
Unlike rival publications, when GoMo News tests hardware it’s from a real world perspective. No quick run-down of a phone’s specs followed by a cursory glance at its screen for us. Here we’ve been trying out Motorola’s RAZR HD smartphone. Ironically, it looks such a cool Android phone that many people assume it must be a Samsung Galaxy of some kind. However, we want to share with you some of the downsides of migrating from one Android handset to another. As well as having to reinstall our favourite apps all over again, although it might sound unbelievable we ended up with 2,700 entries in the Android addressbook. Continue reading
Plane finding AR app not banned in the USA after all
Rating: Our investigation reveals WP7 version the most expensive
There’s nothing like a little adverse publicity to aid your app sales, is there? Well, British software house Pinkfroot seems to have befitted from it in our case. The rumour going around was that its Plane Finder AR app had been banned in the USA. Chiefly because it could allegedly be used as a terrorist tool to shoot down aircraft. Actually, that suggestion was made back in 2010 and the app is very much available in the iTunes App Store now. To prove the point our investigator actually bought a copy of the app. What an effective sales tool that rumour was. Continue reading
Apple may have to pull Pokerstars iOS app
Rating: Aussie report does features a Mr Xenophon. Hmmm
We’re pretty sure that this story isn’t intended as a joke but on April 1st it is hard to tell. Anyway, according to reports which first surfaced in the Canberra Times, an iOS poker app may be illegal in Australia. Called PokerStars, it appears to let players to bet real money. Its existence has angered one Australian senator, Richard di Natale, who is quoted as saying that Apple has “an obligation to take down apps that are against Australian law.” He also claimed that people in Australia are not allowed to lawfully play online poker under the Interactive Gambling Act. Continue reading
Windows Store apps pass magic 50,000 mark
Bunging developers $100 for every app made seems to be working
Microsoft’s initiative to pay developers $100 for every app they make for Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 looks to be paying off, with 50,000 programs now available. The landmark number was passed at the weekend [March 2013], according to industry watcher MetroStore Scanner, which says that an average of 279 apps have been developed daily in March alone, reversing what had been a rapid decline. Continue reading
Where are the stalker apps when you need them
Rating: GoMo News fails to track down Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog
About three years ago there was a big scare that the typical smartphone had mutated into a celebrity stalker’s weapon of choice. A typical headlines was ‘iPhone apps could encourage celebrity stalkers’ written by our old chum Jack Schofield in The Guardian here back in 2010. So when a young reader begged us to tell her what app she needed to try to track down ex-Abba singer, Agnetha Fältskog in London. We thought there’d be no problem helping her out. Wrong. Most of the apps have disappeared. So have some of the web sites, too. It might work for Justin Bieber fans but anyone less famous – forget it. Continue reading
Guest Post: Top 5 Android apps to check out
by Courtney Lee, a blogger who sometimes works with newegg.com
Did you know that Google Play currently offers over 450,000 apps? Out of all these many are useful and top-rated, but there are also many that will only waste your time if you download them. Anyhow, if you want to improve the functionality of your device here are the Top 5 android apps that you must check out: – Continue reading
Apple lures app developers with bigger cash pot
Apple is continuing to increase how much it pays to developers as it battles for supremacy in the app market with Google’s Android.
At a conference in Sans Francisco, CEO Tim Cook revealed that a colossal $8 billion had been paid to developers in the last quarter, up $500 million on the $6.5 billion handed out this time in 2011. Continue reading
iPhone app users – do you feel anxious about your investments’ safety – Apple doesn’t
Apple’s iTunesConnect system; the restrictive API; and the company’s definition of ‘spam’ prevent users from a better experience
Press release
February 11th 2013. Purchased software in the App Store often has to be updated with every new OS release – something which is normally done automatically by the developer for users. However, according to App Store policy, apps that are no longer being actively sold have to be removed entirely from the App Store, potentially leaving thousands of users without the proper ongoing support. At the same time, Apple’s iTunesConnect system does not permit developers to update software which is no longer available for sale and, as a result of this policy, these users can be left with incompatible software, out of step with the OS currently running on their phones, and frustrated. Continue reading
