Posts Tagged ‘smartphones’

Radar v.1.1 Shows How To Come Back

Monday, October 24th, 2011

At present mobile phone application development is conquering new heights. Now you can find any possible app for your iPhones, Androids, smartphones, iPads, etc. Such mobile apps cover practically all spheres of our life – from business to entertainment.

The Russian start-up Sibity that specializes on mobile software programming has informed about the release of the new mobile application – Radar v.1.1 – for Windows Phone 7 smartphones that allows finding your way back to any chosen point without connecting to the Internet or to Google Maps.

The Radar application will help a user not to be lost and feel confident in an unknown place, especially when going out of the city or to the forest. Now, in order to find the way back you just have to set the coordinates of your current location using the built-in GPS and then you can start your journey. If you need to return back, just open the application and follow the direction showed on the radar screen. Additionally you can find out the distance to the chosen place and the time. The application will be very useful for tourists, motorists, hunters and simply for absent –minded people who often have to find way in unknown places.

Free Games Stimulate Gaming Industry Growth

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

According to the analytics from the German IT Association Bitkom, the growing popularity of free games provides the growth of the gaming industry income.

Having analyzed the German market, Bitkom made a conclusion that 45% of gamers have never bought the projects for ‘big’ platforms – they have preferred casual fakes for smartphones, social networks and all possible shareware. It may seem strange but the total profit of this industry is even increasing.

43% players in Germany are ready to spend no more than €15 monthly for buying games for PCs and gaming consoles. But at the same time these people are ready to give away with several thousand for the sake of some inter-gaming tools and bonuses. That is exactly what makes a profit for a software development company who specializes on free games.

The auditory of free projects is increasing with an incredible speed. For example, the European mobile application development company of social network games Wooga increased its client database from January 2010 to June 2011 from 3.15 mln people to 32.83 mln.

Thus, the analytics have made a very simple conclusion: In the nearest future the market share of games for social networks, 99-cent mobile applications for smartphones and tablets are likely to grow and soon it will take the leading position in the market.

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.

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.

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.

Microsoft wants to get patent fees from Android smartphones

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

According to the internet portal Digitimes, Microsoft is planning to place the demands to the Thai producers of Android devices for using a number of patented innovations related to e-mails, multimedia and some other functions.

The main targets of the given claim will be the largest producers – Acer and Asustek Computer. However, the official representatives in these two companies reported that in this way Microsoft is trying to reduce the popularity of Android and make the producers refuse from the part of mobile devices based on this system.

In future, these claims are likely to touch the Chrome OS as well because its pre-installation is in the plans of Asus and Acer. The interest to Microsoft products is much lower. But mobile application developers still like developing apps for Windows Mobile as well as for Android judgebased devices.

Digitimes informs that neither Acer not Asus is planning to sign an agreement with Microsoft since both companies think that the justification of Microsoft patent claims has to be proved. However, the Thai manufacturer of NTC smartphones has already signed the agreement with Microsoft as it considered, probably, that sorting out the claims could be much expensive. According to this agreement, NTC will pay a certain percent to Microsoft from each Android installation.

Google is criticized for Android Market performance

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

paid applicationThe Internet store Google Android Market where users can download for free or buy applications for their Android smartphones steadily expands the volume of available soft, however, the company is facing tough critics from the side of users and mobile application developers because the paid options of the Android Market are limited.

The analytics say that in comparison with the App Store, in the Android Market only some percent of applications are paid and it scares serious mobile application development companies and developers who got used to getting financial reward from their software. The main problem in realizing the commercial strategy in the Android Market is the fact that only 13 countries can get paid applications from the store: USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and Switzerland.

The company promises to expand the geography of paid applications availability but the details are not announced. The reliable sources from Google inform that by the end of the year paid applications at the Android Market will work at the other 46 markets.

Steve Ballmer will tell about Windows Phone 7 in detail

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Programmers who specialize in apps development for Windows Mobile platform is waiting for the Microsoft MIX conference. This event will be held from the 15th to 17th of March in Las Vegas.

Microsoft has already demonstrated Windows Phone 7 to mobile developers and journalists. As all admitted, the next generation of Microsoft mobile operating system reverses the usual ideas, changes concepts of smartphones running Windows.

The developers changed their standard GUI in the new version of the operating system: now user content, tools for work and entertainment functions are divided into big five sections (or so called five “hubs”). Everything related to user contacts was placed in the first section “People”.

Windows_Phone_people
The next hub “Pictures” provides access to galleries of pictures, photos as well as automatically updated photo albums in Facebook.

The third section “Office” is dedicated to work with documents. Microsoft promises that Mobile Office will be closer to the desktop version.

The fourth section was called “Music and Video”. As it was expected, its interface looks like the GUI of the Zune HD media player that was shown in the past year.

Windows_Phone_music_video
And the last hub “Games” offers all the features for work with the Xbox LIVE gaming network, where users can communicate and customize appearance of their virtual characters (avatars).

Windows_Phone_games
In the conclusion we should admit that Win Phone 7 supports multitouch opening new possibilities for Windows mobile applications development.

Google Nexus One: it includes Multi-Touch now!

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Hurray! The American version of Nexus One supports multitouch, notwithstanding the fact that it’s a patented Apple technology. Google representatives do not comment it.

Google Inc. released its first update pack for the Nexus One smartphone, which was shown to the general public just a month ago. Besides some fixes this fresh mobile software contained a very useful innovation – support of multitouch technology.

It means that now interface and screen-oriented capabilities of Googlephone do not yield to its main rival, Apple iPhone. So users of the first Google smartphone can test multitouch in action. It works in Google Maps Navigation, picture viewer, as well as in web browser.

android-multitouch-1

As can be seen, a mutual agreement between Apple and Google (so called “promise not to add multitouch support in Nexus One”) now is worth nothing. Search Corporation decided to change its word in the light of recent events.

Studying different modern devices from the main manufacturers, starting with Apple and Palm, and ending with HTC and Motorola, Google’s experts has realized that multi-touch support has become a standard, so many users are accustomed to this option. Undoubtedly it opens new possibilities for innovative mobile applications development, now they can create new software for Android taking into account this new potential.

So now we have a smartphone that based on Android 2.1, and we also can use a new way of control and navigation. By the way, the European version of Nexus One has this function by default. However, the sales in Europe start not earlier than in spring this year.

google-nexus-multitouch