Archive for the ‘Mobile Development’ Category

Traffic consumption by smartphone users doubled

Monday, June 27th, 2011

waze-4phonesThe 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.

Apple Changed Payment Rules in App Store

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

mobile_payment1Apple 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.

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.

icloud5303Cloud 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.

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.

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-213x186The 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.

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.

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.

Motorola announced iPad’s competitor

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

While software development companies work hard to create new applications and software, hardware development companies introduce new devices. At the exhibition in Las Vegas Motorola Mobility has announced its new tablet computer Xoom, reported Bloomberg.

The device is based on a Duo Core processor and is equipped with the 10.1-inch screen. Xoom will use the Android 3.0 Honeycomb operation system developed by Google Inc. Let’s remind that in September 2010 Samsung released the tablet Galaxy Tab that also works on the Android operation system. However, the given device will perform on the updated version of the software.

Xoom is supposed to enter thexoom-tablet-550x367 market in the first quarter of 2011. The developers haven’t specified how much the device will cost. According to the specialists, the price of Xoom shouldn’t exceed 500 dollars in order to be competitive with other similar devices – for example, with iPad from Apple.

It should be noted that on January 2, 2011 the company Motorola was divided into 2 companies – Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions. The first one is specialized on mobile devices, the second one – on the telecommunication equipment. The company had been preparing for this division for the last 3 years.

No matter how many mobile devices will see the market in future, mobile application developers will design applications for all of them.

10 bln apps downloaded in App Store

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Apple informed that by January 24, 2011, 10 bln apps for iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad have been downloaded from the App Store. Soon the company will announce who was that man who downloaded this app but Apple promised to give him a certificate for 10 000$ for buying apps in the iTunes Store.one-billion-apps-hero-20090418

Just to remind, the App Store was launched in 2008 году, by January 2010 about 3 bln apps had been downloaded and in the middle of the summer of 2010 this figure increased up to 6 bln. Half a year later in connection with the launch of iPhone 4 and iPad, Apple managed to double the number of mobile applications.

The next milestones of Apple are 15 and 20 bln apps. Let’s wait and see how quickly Appl will pass these milestones.
According to the recent tendencies when many software development companies offer various mobile development services, these marks will be passed in no time.

Future technology:Wi-Fi Fridge from Samsung

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

We are happy to introduce you an interesting device – a fridge RF 3289 with Wi-Fi – food and twitter in one device. Other companies apart from Samsung are also working on developing new devices with the Internet access considering energy saving resources and other ‘environmental issues. Samsung has taken another way: this company is interested more in providing their innovation devices with unusual functionality. In fact, what can attract a potential blogger more than the possibility to write in Twitter without distracting from snacks?

samsung-wifienabled-rf-refrigerator-cools-cooking-as-well-as-tweets-we-go-handson-1At least, you can get such impression from the fridge RF 3289 at the CES 2011 Show where the fridge was presented as the first in its kind device with the integrated Wi-Fi. It is fair to say that the new device isn’t limited exclusively by entertaining functions – its owner can work with the Google calendar, search for the weather forecast, download recipes from Epicurious or leave digital notes. Unfortunately, the built-in sensor display in the fridge doesn’t allow reading the information from it farther than a few meters due to a very small font.

So, big companies will develop cutting edge devices and software development companies will work hard and create application for such devices.