The Kin Foundation wants more app developers
Tuesday, January 15, 2019 by Richard Harris
The Kin Foundation, the nonprofit governance body for the cryptocurrency Kin, has announced the second Kin Developer Program, an initiative that awards Kin and fiat currency to select developers who successfully launch Kin-powered features in consumer apps.
Through the program, up to 100 consumer app developers will have the opportunity to integrate Kin using the new...
National Geographic just updated their app
Monday, January 14, 2019 by Richard Harris
National Geographic just launched a new mobile app that is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store to customers in the U.S. and Canada. Compatible with both Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, the app provides users with a personalized digital experience that includes access to the National Geographic magazine archives, an immense photo library, digi...
Guest Post: It's Not a Web App, It's An App You Install From the Web
Monday, January 7, 2019 by Richard Harris
We received an email…
"I heard about Forecast, but I couldn’t find it in the App Store. How do I get it?"
"You don’t get it from the App Store: just go to http://forecast.io/ on your phone, and you’ll be given instructions on how to download it."
"Wow, this is great! I didn’t know you could get apps outsid...
App localization done right
Thursday, December 27, 2018 by Neal Thoms
Mobile devices are everywhere, and so are the apps that run on them. Vast numbers of smartphones mean vast numbers of users – and irrespective of the language they speak or where they live, these users demand a wide range of specialized applications.
If you’re a mobile app developer, you may have already considered adapting your product to other markets. ...
Apple is about to share your email address with the Republic of Korea
Thursday, December 20, 2018 by Richard Harris
Got a game in the Apple app store and have it set to publish across the entire swath of countries the app store supports? Then your developer email address is about to be shared with the Korean Government due to a change in Korean law. What law changed exactly, we aren't sure yet.
But what we do know is almost every developer chooses to distribute in all cou...
Best gifts for programmers, developers, and nerds 2018
Friday, December 14, 2018 by Richard Harris
Why is it so hard to buy something for techie people? It’s probably because they seem to just “get” whatever they want at the moment the need arises. Programmers, developers, and designers can be some of the worst about it too, because a lot of what we need to have just to do out jobs, falls in the category of a gift to ourselves too. Yeah - I rea...
Naughty or Nice app Christmas anomaly redo
Friday, November 23, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
The Santa Naughty or Nice Scan game, app, or whatever word you use to describe it, was first created and published in 2011 by Moonbeam Development. It was an instant hit, and it's now grown into a favorite app kids and parents download and use every year as leverage with their kids, or just to celebrate some sort of holiday tradition. O...
The best Thanksgiving 2018 game that makes you look busy
Thursday, November 22, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Want some Thanksgiving fun this year? The Turkey plucker game seems like a completely useless game where you pluck the feathers from a turkey as fast as you can, and you keep plucking until your fingers bleed - or you simply give up! But under the hood is an addictive and unique gameplay style, that keeps you hooked - plucking turkey for hours it seems.
The turke...
Get your hyperlocal news fix with the Patch
Wednesday, November 21, 2018 by Richard Harris
Patch has launched a new app for iOS and Android. The Patch app allows users to subscribe to a personalized newsfeed from multiple cities and towns across the U.S. Following a soft launch earlier this year, the app already has over 233,000 downloads and averages a 4.5-star rating on both the Apple and Android app stores.
“Everyone has a different idea of ...
Apple Search Ads support from Appbi
Friday, November 9, 2018 by Richard Harris
Apple Search Ads is Apple’s proprietary ad platform that offers iOS mobile app publishers a way to get their app found through app store specific searches. It’s reported that 65 - 80 percent of all app installs happen after a search through the app store. So understanding the challenges with being discovered through searches in the app store is a big deal.
...
Holiday marketing strategies 2018 from Helpshift
Tuesday, November 6, 2018 by Richard Harris
New proprietary internal data has been released from Helpshift, the company whose AI-powered customer service platform enables consumer brands to message back and forth with their customers to get their questions answered efficiently.
Helpshift’s inaugural Holiday Performance Index includes data from the company’s retail and e-commerce customers for...
The differences between web apps and native apps
Thursday, October 18, 2018 by Richard Harris
Even in 2018, years past the origional question, the debate rages on across the land, in office spaces and conference rooms every day - should we build a full-blown native mobile app, or is distributing over the web good enough?
By now everyone knows the “mobile-first” mentality because statistics like 50% of web searches being done from a mobile dev...
Sell any digital service using AppDirect's new platform
Thursday, October 18, 2018 by Richard Harris
AppDirect has announced major platform additions that aim to empower businesses to sell, monetize, and manage digital services - alongside physical goods - across any channel they say.
It is a significant challenge for businesses to manage and customize how they sell, as older systems struggle to scale with the growing number of new product types and the multit...
iOS 12 development tips from a highly rated instructor
Thursday, October 11, 2018 by Angela Yu
While this year’s iOS update was not accompanied by visual overhauls, the latest version of the most advanced mobile operating system is designed to make everyday tasks on iPhone and iPad faster and more responsive.
If you are a developer, you’re in luck. Some of the latest features deliver faster ways to get things done by providing the ability for any a...
Areas threatened by Hurricane Michael get a free GPS tracking app
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Chirp GPS, the mobile GPS tracking company has released an update to their family, friends, and fleet tracking app today to help people prepare for the imminent threat that Hurricane Michael poses to Florida and surrounding states, as the storm grows closer and strengthens into a devastating category three Hurricane.
The new update allows Chirp GPS to activate the ap...
Low code app platform FileMaker Go hits 4 million downloads
Tuesday, September 25, 2018 by Richard Harris
FileMaker, Inc. has said that its FileMaker Go app for iPad and iPhone has reached 4 million downloads from the iTunes App Store. This milestone is a testament to the enduring success and popularity of FileMaker - and they say it underscores the company’s commitment to helping organizations of all sizes work better, solve problems and innovate.
&nb...
30,000 blacklisted apps hosted on the Google Play Store report finds
Friday, September 21, 2018 by Richard Harris
RiskIQ has released its Mobile Threat Landscape Q2 2018 Report, which analyzed 120 mobile app stores and more than two billion daily scanned resources. The findings show a spike in blacklisted apps headlined by Trojans and Adware, as well as a fascinating shift in tactics by mobile threat actors.
For the second year in a row, RiskIQ observed a sharp increase in black...
Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures app launches by Mattel
Tuesday, September 18, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Barbie is giving an inside look into her famous Dreamhouse with the launch of Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures, a brand new app based on the animated Netflix series by the same title that’s now available on Android devices. The popular iOS version, which debuted on the App Store last month, has already hit the #1 spot for Top iPad Kids App in 100+ countries.
Just i...
Pretzel Land arrives for iOS and Android
Tuesday, September 18, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
The new mobile game Pretzel Land, published by Wild River, the gaming label of Bavarian company Eurovideo Medien GmbH, has been given an official release date. From Tuesday, 18th September, the funny simulation with Bavarian atmosphere is available to download for iOS and Android. Fans of Bavarian culture can get in the mood for the Munich Oktoberfest a few days before ...
To make a progressive web app or not
Thursday, September 6, 2018 by Richard Harris
Mobile users are spending 80 to 94 percent of their mobile use time in apps, so you’d think the mobile web would be a thing of the past right? But the average mobile user also visits 100 different websites each month, and only half of all mobile users don’t download any new apps during that same period.
In order to achieve the speed and ease of use p...
iOS 12 subscription based app tips for success
Wednesday, August 29, 2018 by Eran Kinsbruner
Last year, Apple held a secret meeting with a select group of iOS app developers in New York to talk about changing the current app delivery model from one-time purchases to subscription-based. From Apple’s view, these one-time purchases typically are inexpensive ($1-2), yet grant end-users unlimited access to the app and support, which can prove to be costly from...
Five tips for taking mobile payments from inside your app
Friday, August 24, 2018 by Carol Oles
Back in 2008 when the Apple App Store began, there were a mere 800 apps available for download. Fast forward ten years and there are over two million apps on the Apple App Store and approximately 8 million in the Google Play store. Thousands of mobile apps are being published to Google Play and Apple App Store daily, but are the ones geared toward e-commerce or requirin...
GPS tracking app for kids going back to school
Thursday, August 23, 2018 by Richard Harris
The freedom of Summer has come to an end for millions of students starting School in 2018. While the kids fret about what a new year brings, parents rejoice, but worry at the same time because despite their best preparation to ready kids to start the year - it’s just part of being a parent to be concerned about everything, especially knowing the location of their ...
Mobile game spending is dominated by women says Liftoff
Wednesday, August 22, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Liftoff released a data report exploring the booming world of mobile gaming. Since last year, Liftoff has detected a golden age of mobile game marketing with acquisition costs at all stages of the funnel decreasing and post-install conversion rates increasing. And as multi-platform gaming sensations like Fortnite bring high-quality play experiences to smartphones, more ...
Smart ball game converts data from the ball into usable game events
Wednesday, August 15, 2018 by Richard Harris
WRLDS announced the release of a new augmented reality (AR) and Bluetooth-enabled smart ball and platform. The ball is made of a lightweight, bouncy material and has a built-in chip to control mobile games, giving “tween” players healthy new ways to engage in active, outdoor play by essentially turning the whole world into a game.
“We wanted to brid...
Fortnite for Android is a trailblazing risk for mobile banking
Tuesday, August 14, 2018 by Sam Bakken
CEO Tim Sweeny of Epic Games, the publisher of the wildly popular Fortnite game, is on a mission to “advance the openness of all platforms” - not to mention side-step Google’s 30% take of developer proceeds - by distributing Fortnite for the Android platform via their website rather than the Google Play store. I applaud a maverick challenging the statu...
The Twilio API for WhatsApp is now available
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Twilio has announced the Twilio API for WhatsApp that lets Twilio customers message with their users via WhatsApp for the first time. Twilio removes the operational overhead of managing and scaling WhatsApp for developers, making it a fast and reliable way for businesses to start communicating with the more than 1.5 billion users of WhatsApp. With one API, develope...
Intercom launches app store to the public with more than 100 apps
Thursday, August 2, 2018 by Richard Harris
Intercom just joined the growing list of providers with their own app store by launching the Intercom App Store. With over 100 apps already in the catalog that are using their developer platform, early publishers include Coda, Hubspot, and Shopify. The app store was a bit "behind closed doors" within the Intercom product dashboard but it just got a huge shove ...
New AR shark game is probably funner than Shark Week was this year
Wednesday, August 1, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
A new AR-networked game focused on protecting the ruler of the seas from pollution has been released by Krikey and Conservation International to put a fin-tastic twist on Shark Week. The AR app launched a shark game to put the impact of ocean pollution right in the hands of mobile gamers and Shark Week fans.
The game takes place wherever you are, turning your surroun...
AR on the web too!
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 by Erik Murphy-Chutorian
Augmented Reality belongs online. To date, AR has primarily been confined to the app store, but there’s a growing group of visionary developers and companies that have figured out that by “AR-ifying” their products for the web, they win in a larger number of more satisfied and enthusiastic users and customers.
At the moment, we’re seeing an ex...
Best mobile gaming apps will share $300K in prizes from new contest
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 by Richard Harris
AppLovin announced the launch of Lion Studios, a media division of AppLovin that works with mobile developers to publish and promote their apps. To celebrate the launch, AppLovin also announced a contest in which the company will award $300K in prizes for the four best mobile gaming apps submitted.
Lion Studios furthers AppLovin’s mission by fueling growth of t...
10 years of apps but over 95 percent of them are invisible to users
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 by Richard Harris
I've been developing software since before the Apple App store existed, so I have a before and after picture of what the app store has done for me in terms of being a developer, and what it's done for consumers alike.
If I were to sum up the last ten years of the App store experience as a developer, put simply in a Haiku-like format - "Apps have changed ...
Avoid mobile cybersecurity threats by checking the source
Thursday, July 5, 2018 by Sam Bakken
Earlier this month IT news organizations around the globe reported that Epic Games’ popular Fortnite game was being counterfeited and malicious actors were, in fact, lacing the imposter apps with malware.
We’re only human, and people unwittingly let their guard down in anticipation of something they're passionate about, or when they think they might b...
Building native mobile apps with Creo
Thursday, June 21, 2018 by Richard Harris
A new mobile app development platform for MacOS has been released by Creolabs named Creo. Creo combines the Design and Development process into a single application. Traditional mobile app creation process is split between the design process and the development process, the platform merges the two separated steps into a single tool which helps reduce development time.
...
The iOS app store sales data app AppSalesTrends gets an update
Tuesday, June 5, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
Finnish indie developer, Esa Helttula announces AppSalesTrends 2.30, the update to his iOS and Mac App Store sales tracking application for macOS. The app allows iOS and macOS developers to download and analyze tracking information about their apps. Users can track an unlimited number of apps and bundles, view daily sales reports, sales graphs, and much more. Version 2....
