Apple culls risqué content from Store

Rating: No boobies and bikinis for Cupertino

Apple, which resides in the same US state that hosts Baywatch and the porn industry, has decided that boobs and bikinis are far too risqué for its iTunes app store. It has been quietly culling them.

Sprint + GetJar = Awesome. Mobile operator teams with indie store for 60,000 applications

American mobile operator Sprint has just announced a major deal with mobile application store GetJar. GetJar is the largest independent application store in the world - and counting everybody else, only the Apple Store is bigger than it. Sprint will now be offering the entire selection of 60,000 apps from GetJar to its mobile customers. Why is this such a good idea? Read on…

Earning free mobile minutes through marketing rears its head again - how will Embee do?

Blyk Mobile has featured heavily on GoMo News in the past. The ad-supported mobile operator had a bold plan to give users free mobile voice minutes and texts in return for receiving mobile advertising. It has been a rocky road for Blyk (see our recent report on the fortunes of the company) - and today we’ve been introduced to a company that is trying something very similar in the States. Embee Mobile is connecting brands, operators and mobile users in a way that allows phone owners to get minutes for free by participating in marketing… all through a Facebook application.

Key indicators for iPhone app success

Rating: Media reviews, user feedback and an App Store rating, perhaps?
It’s interesting to see what criteria app developers are using to judge how successful their iPhone app are. Brian Akaka, founder of Appular disclosed his criteria. The answer is a mixture of rave reviews in the media; user feedback; and a rating on the iTunes [...]

iWikiPhone offers smart iPhone app shopping

Rating: Social networking meets iconic handset
It had to happen. The two latest fads have collided – social networking and Apple’s iConic iPhone – to produce a smart way to shop for iPhone apps. iWikiPhone is a social network for iPhone users to glean information about apps which others have bothered to download.
The site has [...]

Mobile application downloads will only double in five years

Rating: Surely ABI Research is being very conservative?
In a new report,  ABI Research says it expects application downloads to reach five billion by 2014. That’s only double an estimated 2.3 billion applications downloaded in 2009. More controversial is the assertion that Android will take share from Apple’s  iPhone.
Wireless research associate, Bhavya Khanna, says, “The iPhone’s [...]

Apps stores go enterprise thanks to MobileIron

Rating: Power to the IT people
IT management software provider, MobileIron has introduced its latest version [2.0] of its Virtual Smartphone Platform. There’s a whole bunch of fancy new facilities but one of the most intriguing is the capability of building an in-house apps store.
There’s no doubt that network managers (otherwise known as network N*z*s) [...]

Orange App Shop client officially launched

Rating: Maybe they’ll get the shop client in time for Xmas
Perhaps just in time for Xmas, the new Orange App Shop has been launched. A special shop client has just been introduced and the company claims, ” ‘One-click’ access to useful services, information and entertainment across a wide range of mobile devices and platforms - [...]

Shazam offers RED to battle AIDS

Rating: Help fight AIDS with an iPhone download
It’s nice to see that mobile music discovery specialist, Shazam, has joined forces with RED to support World AIDS Day (1st December). It has produced a special edition of Shazam for the iPhone called Shazam Red.
When customers purchase Shazam Red from the App Store, 20 per cent [...]

Developing iPhone apps not so easy after all

Rating: Serious problems with App Store uploading
The lead developer for Stuck4Words (see our story here), Steven Dow, described his experience of trying to upload software to the Apple App Store as “like having a television not working and the way to fix it is to change a fuse in your toaster.” Perhaps things aren’t [...]

Symbian founder calls for single Java apps store

Rating: Launches free promotional app for AQA
It is rather amusing to see the man that could be seen as the father of Symbian, Colly Myers, launching his first mobile app in years. Not for Symbian, mark you, but for Java. He also launched a tirade against the lack of a single marketplace for apps written [...]

GoMo 1-to-1 at CTIA: GetJar talks mobile apps and update

I sat down with Patrick Mork, VP Marketing for GetJar. GetJar is the largest independent application store in the world, serving all mobile platforms. Patrick talks about the most popular OS, improved search, the new Application Download Page from GetJar, and the up-coming introduction of paid apps to the GetJar store.

iPhone-arama: prices for China and Orange ends UK exclusivity

Woop woop! French-owned operator Orange has announced today that it will being selling the iPhone in the UK later this year - putting an end to the exclusive contract held by O2. In an incredibly terse press release, Orange informed us that it will be selling the phone through all of its channels, and pre-registration is now open. Also, for those who are interested, China Unicom has announced dates and prices for its iPhone launch.

Guinness goes mobile for 250th anniversary with iPhone app

We recently covered a story on Guinness running a mobile competition with the Metro newspaper in Canada. Based around 2d barcodes, the winner of competition gets a free holiday to Dublin. Not just a once-off, this is part of a consolidated mobile marketing effort on behalf of Guinness - another part of which you can see today with the launch of a new iPhone app, the GUINNESS Pub Finder.

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