Tag: appstore

Amazon Lends a Lifeline to Blackberry

Just when we though that Canadian handset-maker Blackberry was counting its last days, they have come up with some exciting news. It looks like the former mobile giant is attempting a comeback, with a little help from Amazon. BlackBerry announced on Wednesday that when it launches BlackBerry OS 10.3 this fall, the Amazon app store – and its 240,000 Android apps – will come with it.

In an attempt to solve the app deficit that BlackBerry users are facing, the Canadian handset-maker has entered a licensing agreement with the Amazon Appstore. The deal will also allow BlackBerry to bundle Amazon Appstore on its devices. The company will provide access to two app stores BlackBerry World and Amazon Appstore when the BlackBerry 10.3 OS reaches the public in September-October 2014.

With the availability of Amazon Appstore on BlackBerry 10 devices, the company can meet two essential needs – greater app availability for its smartphone users and enhanced productivity solutions for enterprises. BlackBerry users can also access video and music through a number of popular third-party services available on Amazon Appstore and BlackBerry World.

Interestingly, BlackBerry 10 users (on BlackBerry OS 10.2.1) can also install third-party app stores like Amazon Appstore and 1Mobile Market through their websites and install Android apps through them.

With this move, BlackBerry is heavily expanding the app selection for its handsets, allowing for easy installation of Android applications in an officially-sanctioned way. And as Amazon lends BlackBerry a lifeline, the e-commerce company also announced its own foray into the smartphone market with the unveiling of a rumored 3-D mobile device called Amazon Fire.

June 21, 2014
RIM’s New CEO plans massive comeback for Blackberry with new UI and feature rich Ecosystem

Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins is promising to restore the BlackBerry phone’s stature as a trailblazing device even as many investors fret about its potential demise. Heins took the stage Tuesday at a conference for mobile applications developers to rally support for the upcoming release of BlackBerry 10, a new operating system that Research In Motion Ltd. is touting as its salvation after years of blundering wiped out some $80 billion in shareholder wealth.

Blackberry held almost 50% of the market share prior to the Android and iPhone era. With new UI that is more user centric blackberry plans to make a comeback not only in the consumer segment, but its primary source the business/enterprise segment.

RIM is also planning Native apps for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and LinkedIN, which are quite identical to their iOS/Android counterparts.

In addition to sharing new details about its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 OS, RIM used the BlackBerry Jam keynote to make an announcement about App World. The company just revealed that in addition to applications and games, the store will sell music, movies and TV shows. There are currently 105,000 apps in the store, with 3 billion downloads logged since the store’s opening.

RIM says, BB 10 applications will join the herd soon: the company will begin accepting submissions on October 10th.

September 26, 2012
Facebook updates iOS apps

Facebook has rolled out new iPhone and iPad apps rebuilt from the bottom up in a drive to boost speeds and give better performance.

The long-awaited move was part of the social networking giant’s effort to appeal to the growing number of users accessing Facebook from mobile devices.

It was also an attempt to placate mobile users who for years have complained that the old apps were clunky and sluggish.

But while Facebook ads are well-established on its website, the company only recently started experimenting with mobile advertisements. That’s been a concern for investors, who’ve sent Facebook’s stock down by nearly half since the company’s initial public offering three months ago.

The app is available for free from Apple’s App Store.

Still absent from Facebook’s app is any integration of Instagram. That’s because Facebook hasn’t closed the acquisition of the photo-sharing app. Though it got a step closer Wednesday, when the Federal Trade Commission said it has closed its investigation into Facebook’s planned acquisition.

August 24, 2012
Amazon may be planning a Smartphone

If popular media company “Bloomberg” is to be believed Amazon is planning a smartphone to be launched this year. Amazon is apparently already in pursuit of wireless patents and a production agreement with major OEM Foxconn for manufacturing the said Smartphone.

No further details on the matter are available, although Amazon is very capable of delivering a smartphone to the market, with their ecosystem already in place, the App Store, the Cloud services, the Music streaming and Kindle. The only thing you can be sure of is, that if Amazon does make a Smartphone there is almost a 100% chance that it will be an Android ICS 4.0 or Jelly Bean 4.1 device and it is likely to be skinned by Amazon to match the Kindle Fire UI.

[Bloomberg]

July 6, 2012
Apple App Store gets 650,000 apps, $5 Billion payed to Devs

Apple’s WWDC Event has just kicked off and Tim Cook has just announced that the Apple App Store has hit 650,000 apps and over $5 billion have been payed out to App Developers. 225,000 of these apps are specific to the iPad. Customers have downloaded 30 billion of the apps since they became an option four years ago.

Apple also wants its developers to know that they are taken care of.

More developing ….

June 11, 2012
Apple Releases Free iBooks Author app to the Mac App Store : Hands on

Considering how Apple just reinvented the text book with the new iBooks 2 App, the best feature about iBooks 2 is the ability of authors to write textbooks and publish them on iBooks. To make that project easier, Mac users can now download the iBooks Publisher App. This new app allows would be book sellers the ability to drag and drop photos, videos and even Microsoft Word files into various templates. If you use iWork you can drop a Keynote presentation into the doc, and it becomes an interactive widget. Authors can also arrange glossaries by highlighting and clicking words, and clicking again to add a definition.

The books can then be published straight to the Apple iBooks Store for either Free or a maximum of US $ 14.99, The paid books will go on revenue share with Apple, in a 70/30 split where the Authors get 70% of the total sales.

The App itself is quite amazing as we ant hands on with it.

When you start it up , it shows you a bunch of templates.

You can select your type and then continue to drag and drop media as per your convenience.

Influenced to write your own book yet!

January 20, 2012
Over 1.2 Billion apps downloaded in the last week of December

According to reports the total downloads of Apps was at an all time high in the last week of December ( also considered holiday season) . Apps downloaded on the iTunes and Android Market crossed a massive 1.2 billion downloads. This could also be considering the millions of activations received during the previous christmas week.

[Flurry]

January 6, 2012
Apple fixes AppStore bug on iOS 3.1.3, upgrades till avoidable

If you are still feeling lazy after yesterday’s news on the download block by Apple on devices on iOS 3.1.3 or prior. Apple has acted swiftly and is prompt to say that it was merely a bug that was preventing download of apps directly to devices. There is no fix or update that needs to be installed and everything should be back to normal.

[Apple Support Communities]

December 21, 2011
Still on iOS 3.1.3? Apple ends AppStore downloads for your iPhone, iPad and iPod

If you are still on an older version of iOS, namely 3.1.3, you will no longer be able to download Apps from the AppStore. For those with first generation devices that no longer support iOS updates beyond 3.1.3, they can download apps to the iTunes on their PC/Mac and transfer from there. A direct download to device is no longer possible. So its time to stop being lazy and get that update going. Seriously, you are missing out on quite a lot on iOS 5, iMessage?

December 20, 2011
Apple Mac App Store crosses the 100 Million download mark (PR)

In less than a year since its debut on Apple computer screens, the Mac App store has crossed 1 million downloads. Thats a huge number if you consider it a Mac only download store, if you compare it to the iOS App Store its mere digits in front of the 18 Billion downloads. The App store already has most of the Apps available for Mac Computers with others coming in fast. Check out the full PR below.

[toggle title_open=”Press Release” title_closed=”Press Release” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Apple’s Mac App Store Downloads Top 100 Million

CUPERTINO, California-December 12, 2011-Apple® today announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac® App Store™ in less than one year. With thousands of free and paid apps, the Mac App Store brings the App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, and download and install them in just one step. Apple revolutionized the app industry with the App Store, which now has more than 500,000 apps and where customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps and continue to download more than 1 billion apps per month.

“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

“With Autodesk products in both the App Store and Mac App Store, we can reach hundreds of millions of Apple users around the world,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president of Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk. “With our free AutoCAD WS and the more powerful professional drafting tools of AutoCAD LT, we’re using the Mac App Store to deliver new products and reach a growing base of new Mac customers.”

“The Mac App Store has unparalleled reach and has completely transformed our distribution and development cycle,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Offering Pixelmator 2.0 exclusively on the Mac App Store allows us to streamline updates to our image editing software and stay ahead of the competition.”

“In less than one year we’ve shifted the distribution of djay for Mac exclusively to the Mac App Store,” said Karim Morsy, CEO of algoriddim. “With just a few clicks, djay for Mac is available to customers in 123 countries worldwide. We could never have that reach through traditional channels.”

The Mac App Store offers thousands of apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is included with Mac OS® X Lion and is available as a software update for any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard®. For more information visit, www.apple.com/mac/app-store.

Mac developers set the prices for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit, developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.[/toggle]

December 13, 2011
Eric Schmidt says ‘Android will be bigger than iOS’

Speaking at Le Web in Paris Google CEO, spoke about why Apps were first written for iOS and then ported over to Android. The response was one that would not surprise any Android user, Schmidt claims ” In about 6 months its going to be the other way round.” He predicts that the new OS Ice Cream Sandwich will remove the device fragmentation and lead people closer to the OS, making it a preferred choice of developers.

[Engadget]

[Le Web (YouTube)]

December 8, 2011
Google’s iOS search app renewed , especially for iPad users

Google just released a new revision to mobile search app for the iOS, focusing on improvements to iPad users. Prima-focus on seeing results side-by-side, adding instant previews and Google instant, along with full screen browsing and access to Google Apps.

[Google Mobile Blog, Google Search (App Store)]

November 22, 2011
GarageBand comes to iPod Touch and iPhone (PR)

This is one of those moments where some of you go like “whatever” and some are like “awesome”. The popular Apple official GarageBand app for the iPad has been converted to fit the iPhone and iPod Touch. The app enables users to record and mix up to eight tracks and then share the finished product with friends or send it to your Mac to keep working on it in GarageBand for Mac or other softwares like Logic Pro.

The App costs $4.99 and costs nothing if you already bought it for the iPad.

Get it Here

US Store:

India Store:

[toggle title_open=”Press Release” title_closed=”Press Release” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]

GarageBand Now Available for iPhone and iPod touch Users

CUPERTINO, California-November 1, 2011-Apple® today announced that GarageBand®, its breakthrough music creation app, is now available for iPhone® and iPod touch® users. Introduced earlier this year on iPad®, GarageBand uses Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ interface to make it easy for anyone to create and record their own songs, even if they’ve never played an instrument before.

“GarageBand on iPad has been a big hit and we think customers will love using it on their iPhone or iPod touch,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The innovative Multi-Touch interface combined with Smart Instruments makes it easy to create great sounding music, even if you’ve never studied music or played an instrument before.”

GarageBand features a collection of fun Touch Instruments that sound great and make it easy for beginners or experienced musicians to play and record keyboards, guitars, drums and basses in a wide variety of styles. Smart Instruments now allow you to choose from an extensive new library of custom chords so you can play and strum along with your favorite songs.

You can plug your electric guitar into iPad, iPhone or iPod touch to play and record through classic amps and stompbox effects, or record your voice or any acoustic sound using the built-in microphone. GarageBand allows you to record and mix up to eight tracks and then share your finished song with friends or send it to your Mac® to keep working on it in GarageBand or Logic® Pro.

Pricing & Availability
GarageBand 1.1 for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is available on the App Store™ for $4.99 (US) to new users, or as a free update for existing GarageBand for iPad customers. GarageBand is a universal app that runs on iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod touch (3rd & 4th generation).

[/toggle]

November 2, 2011
Amazon Appstore now available Globally – Including Europe, Australia and India

Amazon’s Appstore for Android Apps was earlier only available in the US and now is available worldwide including in India. Simply register on Amazon and you are ready to get daily downloads for free that include premium apps that Amazon gives to its registered users.

[Amazon]

September 20, 2011
Apple Starts Selling Lion OSX USB stick online : US$ 69

Apple has finally released its OS X Lion USB thumb drive, available now at its online store. If you want an alternative to the Mac App Store download file which deletes itself after each install, this usb stick might be the correct answer for you.

The only catch is that the usb stick sells for US$ 69, when you can download the OS for just US$ 29 from the App store. These are only currently available in the US, so you will either need to wait several weeks, or find alternate ways to get them to your doorstep.

[Apple]

August 17, 2011