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Archive for the ‘Mobile Development’ Category

iPad: Weapon of Business

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Thousands of companies all over the world consider iPad not as a fashionable toy but an effective tool for promoting business. In order to ‘get into iPad’ they even change their business strategies.

The range of mobile 1291793053_274600 applications in the AppStore and in the department of the online supermarket iTunes Store where Apple sell apps for mobile gadgets is more than ten thousands of goods. More than 65 mln software development companies from Top-100 of the Fortune create or implement new mobile apps. Among them are Lowes, Hyatt, NBC Universal and Procter & Gamble.

iPad is used for attracting new users as well as for supporting and encouraging the company’s image. IPad software applications have been developed for restaurants, real estate agencies, travelling agencies, hospitals and educational institutions.

iPad gives many opportunities for online stores. Some online store owners have ordered the development of a free application for iPad in the form of a fashionable magazine where you can make purchases with just one click.

Tags: AppStore, Hyatt, iPad apps, iPad software applications, iTunes Store, Lowes, NBC Universal, Procter & Gamble
Posted in Mobile Development | No Comments »

Facebook Made Apps Filtration More Severe

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

Facebook has introduced a new tool for regulating the work of applications, whose main purpose is to decrease the number of spam programs. The new algorithm takes into account users’ feedbacks about mobile applications. As a result, if many users mark the program as ‘spam’ or ‘unwanted’, it can be blocked.

As AllFacebook blog reports, the innovation was presented last week. By the way, some mobile apps with the daily auditory of several thousands of users have already been blocked.

The Facebook official clarified that the main reason for changing he algorithm of apps filtration was the growth of complaints sent by users. At this, the applications that too often leave notes or comments on the users’ walls and in the news section suffer this filtration.

Facebook acknowledged that it had introduced the new tool without the preliminary notification of mobile apps developers. At the same time, the social network offered the authors of the blocked apps to send a request for unblocking. It was also informed that during blocking the content of the application is not deleted and will be available for users in the full amount after unblocking.

Tags: AllFacebook, Facebook, mobile applications
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Traffic consumption by smartphone users doubled

Monday, June 27th, 2011

waze-4phones The Nielsen company has evaluated the consumption of internet traffic by smartphone users on various mobile platforms.
In the first quarter the average amount of downloaded traffic was about 435 Мb. Just for comparison, a year before this figure was about 230 Мb. Android users have showed the biggest web activity – they download 582 Мb of information monthly. They are followed by iPhone users (492 Мb) and Windows Phone 7 users (314Mb).

The Nielsen’s statistics is based on the analysis of mobile phone bills of about 65,000 users. In 2010 nearly 305 mln smartphones controlled by various mobile phone operating systems were sold worldwide. This year the growth is expected to increase by 55% – up to 472 mln items and by the year 2015 this figure will have reached 1 bln items.

What do users download? In a word, everything. If you look at the mobile application market, you’ll see that iphone and Android phone developers can satisfy all your needs and requirements, no matter how strange or complicated they can be. Mobile Phone Applications Development has entered the new stage when all our wishes can be realized.

Tags: Android, iPhone, moble application development, smartphones
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Apple Changed Payment Rules in App Store

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

mobile_payment1 Apple has changed the policy in the App Store which before required from Mobile Android Phone Developers to use their own mechanisms for carrying out internal payments.

Now in case of placing into the store a paid application, software developers have to transfer 30% from each purchase via the App Store in favor of Apple and then can legally use their own mechanisms of accepting payments which can be installed into the application. However, they can use the methods suggested by Apple, but in this case Apple will charge another 30% from each payment.

Earlier many mobile development companies didn’t agree with the requirement on the obligatory 100% payments via Apple. This requirement keeps from placing in the App Store such apps as the client solution of the Financial Times, the musical service Rhapsody and others. Moreover, there were developers who think that sharing the profit from selling or re-selling the content for already downloaded application is unfair.

Tags: App Store, Apple, Mobile Android Phone Developers, mobile development
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iCloud:What’s this?

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

On June 6 Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, presented the new service – iCloud – as well as the latest versions of programming platforms for mobile software programming portable devices and personal computers – Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5.

icloud5303 Cloud services provide an opportunity to port the data to the remote servers and recently they have become the main trend in the development of information technologies. This approach has many benefits. However, most mobile apps developers are not making haste to abandon completely the local infrastructure since the new service requires high quality communication and a very reliable cyber security system.

Experts have been expecting for long the appearance of the cloud service ‘iCloud’. It will allow users to store their record library online. Amazon and Google have already launched the similar services. The services from the Internet companies Google and Amazon make users download their musical collection on the servers. And if the library is big, it will take much time. Apple offers a simpler decision – scanning user’s musical files and creating the copy using the service database of iTunes Store.

In general, iCloud is a substitute to the synchronization service MobileMe (which is not free). The free functions of iCloudа are the following: storing and synchronizing information between various portable and desktop devices.

Posted in Mobile Development, Software Development | No Comments »

Analytics are sure in Windows Phone success

Monday, April 4th, 2011

Gartner Company agree with their colleagues from IDC that by the end of 2015 Windows Phone will have overcome Apple iOS and BlackBerry OS in terms of popularity and will surrender to Android only. At this the sales of Symbian smartphones will have completely stopped by this time. microsoft-windows-phone-logo

At the end of 2012 the market share of Google Android will be about 49% of the general smartphone market. In other words, in 2012 every other smartphone bought will be based on Android, said Gartner.

It is expected that in 2012 about 310.09 mln smartphones will be based on Android in comparison with 179.87 mln units this year and 67.23 mln last year.

According to Roberta Cozza, the leading analyst from Gartner, first of all the increase in the Android market share in the nearest future will be mainly due to the increase of the given operating system in the segment of the device of low and medium price categories.

Now all analytics think that by the end of 2015 Symbian will have left the three leading places – the given platform will have disappeared completely. The first three leaders will be Android, Windows Phone and iOS and BlackBerry OS will be the third. The market shares of these platforms will be 48.8%, 19.5%, 17.2% and 11.1%.

Thus, mobile application developers will also have to consider this tendency and I’m sure that the number of Windows Phone applications will increase considerably as well.

Tags: Android, BlackBerry, Gartner, smartphones, Symbian, Windows Phone
Posted in Mobile Development, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Opera Mobile Store – mobile application store for popular platforms

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

Recently Opera Software has launched its own online store, Opera Mobile Store, the mobile application store. So far this service has been in the test mode. Simultaneously with the launch of Opera Mobile Store, another resource – Opera Publisher Portal – for mobile software developers was launched. The company decided not to choose only one platform and offers various popular games and applications for Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry, Java, Palm, Symbian.

opera-mini-213x186 The version of the store is available from the PC as well as from mobile devices. In the first case, you will have to choose the operating system and the model of the phone where you are going to look for applications yourself and in the second case the operating system definition will be done automatically.

The store offers free and paid applications and there is also a system of application selection – according to genres, date, popularity, etc. Thus, mobile application developers should consider this store for distributing their apps.

Tags: Android, BlackBerry, Java, Opera Mobile Store, Opera Publisher Portal, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile
Posted in Mobile Development | 1 Comment »

Google solved the problem of application fragmentation

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

So far the main problem of Android application developers has been the fragmentation of applications for various screen resolutions. Now thanks to Google efforts, this problem has been solved. For these purposes, Google has launched the special library – Android Compatibility Package which is available for downloading to all users.

Not so long ago the launch of Fragments API intended for Android 3.0 was announced. The new API interface should have automatically scaled applications according to the screen size of the device, thus, mobile application developers didn’t have to create several versions of one application for the devices with various screens.

The main drawback of Fragments API was the fact that it wasn’t compatible with the Android operating system lower than 3.0. Now the possibility to use API is available for the users with the Android 1.6 operating system and higher.

This innovation is especially up-to-date against the rapid growth in Android devices at the market. As it is expected, the year 2011 will become the year of Android and apart from smartphones, the market will be flooded with the wave of tablets.

As reported, new libraries can be installed using SDK, the standard tool of updating.

Tags: Android, Fragments API, Google, SDK, smartphones
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Android Developers Created Trade Union

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

Android developers have established their own trade union and have stated seven requirements to Google concerning the terms and conditions of cooperating with Android Market.

What do developers want?

- Abolish a 32% tax on applications
- Fix the viewing options: now Android Market can be viewed only in two ways: Most Recent and Top Selling.
- Open bag tracking
- Increase possible ways of payment
- Introduce the clear rules and the description of the appellation process concerning the deletion of the application
- Direct contact with the team of developers of the Android Market
- Transparency of algorithms (since the open source codes of the Market are closed, sometimes it isn’t clear how the search functions have to work, why the application doesn’t always get into the list “Most Recent” and how the list “Featured Apps” is made). android-developers-union

According to the trade union leaders, the execution of these demands will considerably improve the working conditions of mobile application developers as well as restore the ecosystem and provide better conditions for users.

“If the proposed conditions are not satisfied, we’ll move our applications to the alternative platforms and will use other open platforms instead of Android Market. Moreover, we’ll talk other Android developers out of creating Android products and will constantly work on destroying any statements from Google about the openness of this platform”, reported the statement.

Tags: Android developers, Android Market, Google
Posted in Mobile Development | 2 Comments »