Best practices to avoid being removed from the Apple App Store
Tuesday, March 12, 2019 by Richard Harris
For any app developer, developing a top-ranking app on Apple’s App Store would be a career highlight. Yet thanks to Apple doubling down on user privacy, even popular apps like Facebook have been taken offline. For developers, it’s increasingly important to stay abreast of rapidly-changing privacy, compliance and policy changes to avoid a similar fate -the dr...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
Best GPS tracking app
Thursday, August 23, 2018 by Richard Harris
When the freedom of Summer has come to an end for millions of students starting School, kids fret about what a new year brings, but parents, rejoice! However 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 kids...
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...
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...
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...
Mobile Threat Landscape reports steady decrease in blacklisted apps
Friday, June 1, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
RiskIQ has released its Mobile Threat Landscape Q1 2018 Report, which analyzed 120 mobile app stores and more than two billion daily scanned resources. The findings showed that taking advantage of the popularity and volatility of the cryptocurrency landscape is paying off for threat actors via the mobile attack vector and that malicious apps leveraged by nation-state ac...
CARU refers Musical.ly to FTC
Monday, April 30, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
The Children’s Advertising Review Unit has referred The Musical.ly Inc., operator of the Musical.ly mobile application, to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), after the company said it would not comply with CARU’s recommendations regarding children’s privacy.CARU is an investigative unit of the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. CARU monitors websites and...
USC Games announces first student games expo
Wednesday, April 18, 2018 by Richard Harris
USC Games announced that its inaugural USC Games Expo will take place on May 9th, presented by Los Angeles-based mobile games company Jam City, a developer of mobile games like Cookie Jam, Panda Pop and Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. The event will provide a hands-on look at the future of interactive entertainment, showcasing games and innovations created by the next g...
AI and machine learning make app development and marketing smarter
Wednesday, December 13, 2017 by Brian Solis
Build it and they will come. Those were the good ole days. It used to be good enough to design a great app. Add to that an engaging user experience (UX), positive feedback, a high ranking and word of mouth, and your app was ensured continued success. Nowadays however, mobile consumers are simply overwhelmed by choice. Did you know that if you add up all the apps in the ...
The best and worst of banking apps in 2017
Tuesday, December 12, 2017 by Christian Hargrave
It’s difficult to remember how frustrating mobile banking was for users just five years ago. Some mobile banking apps would struggle to find the nearest ATM. Depositing checks by capturing an image was considered cutting edge. It was even quite possible your bank didn’t have a smartphone app.Fast forward to today. Now, alerts from banking apps is a feature that we take ...
What the iPhone X and iOS 11 mean to app developers
Tuesday, September 12, 2017 by Richard Harris
The excitement of Apple launch day always reminds me of the Willy Wonka “opening of the gates”, you know - where the public gets a peek inside Apple's secret factory for a brief moment. But this year the Apple event feels a bit different. Maybe it’s the recent leaks, maybe it’s because we all know Apple is facing a ceiling of innovation they have to punch through - and ...
Drawing app Da Vinci Eye releases for iOS
Friday, September 8, 2017 by Richard Harris
The “Da Vinci Eye: Anyone Can Draw” app is now available on the Apple app store. Da Vinci Eye allows people of all ages and skill levels to learn to draw by tracing a picture projected through their iPhone screen. The app includes three different settings called classic, step-by-step and lesson of the day. “After years of hearing family and friends explain to me t...
Mobile GPS Tracking app Chirp GPS launches 3.0
Monday, September 4, 2017 by Christian Hargrave
Chirp GPS, the professional mobile GPS tracking mobile app and website used by hundreds of thousands of professionals, has announced that the long awaited version 3.0 is now available for download in the Apple app store and Google play store.The update comes after a year in research and development, and through watching how users engaged with Chirp GPS in their daily li...
FishVerify app can help fishermen instantly identify their catch
Thursday, December 22, 2016 by Christian Hargrave
When a fisherman feels a tug on the line, he never knows what he might reel in. Sometimes identifying a fish species can be difficult, and without that knowledge it is impossible to determine whether or not it is in season or within the size and catch limit. Now there's an iOS app, FishVerify, to help fishermen instantly identify their catch and learn local fishing regu...
New app records your snoring then gives you a report to help you stop it
Monday, December 12, 2016 by Richard Harris
Snore Metrics has launched Snore Report - an iPhone app aimed at monitoring sleep and snoring. Snore Report will allow FitBit integration, and is available for download in the Apple App Store for free right now, with Android launching in the spring of 2017.
The app works by recording your sleep overnight. In the morning, the app provides a "Snore Score" as...
Yahoo explains what communitainment is and how it's mobile's killer app
Tuesday, December 6, 2016 by Simon Khalaf
Last August, in Flurry’s app usage report, we declared that “Content is King: Again.” That report showed U.S. users’ time spent consuming media in apps had grown from 46 mins/day in 2014 to 96 mins/day in 2015, a whopping 108% year-over-year increase. Curious to clock this year’s usage, we ran the numbers again and found that time spent con...
Meet the worlds first iMessage game development startup
Monday, December 5, 2016 by Richard Harris
At the Slush conference in Helsinki, MojiWorks Limited announced it's formation and seed funding from Sunstone Capital and Lifeline Ventures.MojiWorks has been founded by Matthew Wiggins (CEO) and Alan Harding (CTO), veteran technology leaders & entrepreneurs and previously founders of Wonderland Software which was acquired by Zynga in 2011. MojiWorks will be based ...
The impact of fake retail apps hitting the Apple App Store this year
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 by Christian Hargrave
Holiday retail woes have hit a little early this year, with hundreds of fake retail and product apps appearing in Apple’s App Store recently. The New York Times reports counterfeiters have disguised apps as retail chains like Dollar Tree and Foot Locker, department stores like Nordstrom and even luxury brands like Jimmy Choo. With Apple known to have a st...
Chirp GPS unlocks their app so free users can GPS track people in real time too
Saturday, October 29, 2016 by Christian Hargrave
Moonbeam Development has released an update to it’s popular Chirp GPS tracking app for mobile that incorporates some much anticipated features, including real-time tracking for everyone - even free users of the app.“It makes more sense to give everyone using Chirp GPS the ability to see each other in real-time, regardless of a subscription tier. Our goal is sa...
Think Your Mobile App is Hack Proof Think Again
Tuesday, September 20, 2016 by Sam Rehman
In today’s mobile app economy, time to market and quality are critical to stay competitive. Developers race against the clock to create amazing apps, and considerable time is spent to test it again and again; agile and automation plays a big part into this. The goal is a release that is user friendly and resilient as defect-free as possible, offering a product that deep...
How iOS 10 Is Going to Help App Developers More Than Ever
Tuesday, September 13, 2016 by Greg Cohn
The new Apple upgrade cycle with iOS 10 and the iPhone 7 is an exciting and opportune time for developers, and given what’s included in iOS 10, this round is no exception.We tend to think about Apple changes in two categories: first, what exciting and improved experiences can we bring to our users? And second, how can we use these new features to run our business m...
New Flurry Report: Mobile Trends from Latest Apple News
Sunday, September 11, 2016 by Richard Harris
Following the Apple event this week, Flurry from Yahoo released new data points on mobile trends that tie to several of the morning’s big announcements:Gaming Apps (Super Mario and Pokémon Go for Apple devices):Games were the only app category to see a decrease in growth 2015 (-1%, compared to the overall growth across all categories at 58%)This isn't to say that games ...
Developers Experiencing Apple App Store Upload Trouble With App Thinning: Tech Note 2432
Friday, September 9, 2016 by Richard Harris
If you’ve been experiencing issues trying to get your app to Apple in the past couple of days, you aren’t alone. We are hearing rumbles from around the Internet that Apple engineers might be fighting an issue surrounding bitcode (enabled or disabled) during app thinning. It’s something that I experienced myself over the past 24 hours.The message most are receiving looks...
New Apple App Store Review Guidelines
Friday, September 2, 2016 by Stuart Parkerson
Apple has announced that the Apple App Store Review Guidelines have been updated to include information on offering in-app digital subscriptions, SiriKit, and iMessage. iOS Developers planning on releasing apps for the upcoming releases of iOS 10, macOS Sierra, watchOS, and tvOS, should be sure to read these updated guidelines.Apple has also announced a couple of c...
Enterprise Mobile Threat Update for Q3 2016 Arrives
Thursday, August 11, 2016 by Richard Harris
Appthority has released it Enterprise Mobile Threat Update for Q3 2016, which provides insight into the mobile threat landscape over the last quarter.Appthority’s Enterprise Mobile Threat Team monitors and researches the latest mobile risks that are direct threats to the enterprise. The data is compiled into the quarterly Enterprise Mobile Threat Update, aimed at provid...
President of 360 Games Alex Xu Discusses Chinese Game Publishing Opportunities
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 by Richard Harris
To learn more about the growing Chinese gaming market and the opportunity China presents for game developers, we spoke with Alex Xu is president of 360 Games. The company is a leading Chinese game platform and publisher which recently released initiatives to attract global game developers to China, including the formation of the SUPER360° Strategy, a mobile ad revenue r...
Insight Into Using Progress Software's Project Garage Incubator
Thursday, March 24, 2016 by Richard Harris
We recently visited with Richard (Rich) J. Rosenthal Co-founder of PICS to discuss how his company used the development incubator “Project Garage” to create a new mobile app in an intensive sprint. Project Garage provides a hands-on learning approach to mobile application development that has become an increasingly popular choice for companies that need to launch a new ...
March Madness Apps May Be Accessing Your Data
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 by Stuart Parkerson
In its mobile app risk assessment report “March Madness or April Foods” Flexera Software highlighted BYOD security issues by analyzing the annual March Madness craze as employees are using apps on their corporate and BYOD devices to stream content, complete brackets and track March Madness activities.The report focused on what data these apps access, what device feature...
