Nielsen: 1 in 2 Americans own a smartphone; app downloads surge 28%

Posted on May 17, 2012 by KiwiTech
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Consumers’ appetite for smartphones is booming as price points come down and features increase. If the latest numbers are to be believed, smartphone adoption now rests at 50.4 per cent of the overall mobile market in the United States. That means every 1 in 2 Americans are using smartphones than just plain feature phones – suggesting a booming mobile app economy. A new report from Nielsen states that users are downloading mobile apps than never before, as now they have an average 41 apps, a significant jump of 28 per cent as against 32 apps owned on average last year.

Nielsen’s app figures suggest that the app economy is mainly driven by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS – which now account for 88 per cent of all apps that were downloaded in the past 30 days. That also means that users are getting more actively involved with their respective app stores.

But at the same time the study points out that there wasn’t any significant rise in the time that consumer spent on using mobile apps, as it remains essentially flat:  39 minutes per day as of today, as against 37 minutes in 2011. According to Nielsen, personal data collection and privacy issues, were two major reasons that prevented people to get involved in mobile apps further.

Nielsen also notes that the growing personal app catalogue indicates that consumers are getting more diverse in terms of app usage. However, the time spent on the top 50 apps has come down significantly to 58 per cent today from 74 per cent in 2011.

However, there were no wonders when it comes to the statistics about which apps are actually driving traffic. The study reveals that we continue to fixate most on the exact same five apps this year as we did last year: Facebook, YouTube, Android Market, Google Search, and Gmail – which were used about 39 minutes per day on average. This shouldn’t come as surprising, since all of those apps except for Facebook are pre-loaded onto most Android devices, which remain the most popular smartphones.

It has become far clearer that Google and Apple are running away with the smartphone market, with Google suggesting 15 billion downloads in May, and Apple reporting 25 billion downloads in March 2012. One of the hardest hit is RIM, which the NPD data suggest that it down massive 59 per cent to a market share of 10 per cent now. Microsoft isn’t doing very well either.

An earlier study noted that people who have purchased a smartphone used it to watch internet TV, watch movies, play online games, watch streaming video, play games on social networking sites, check in to locations, use maps for navigation or traffic info, watch live news, use Twitter, and read/write blogs. Looking at that chart above, one thing is pretty much clear that the app culture is here to stay. Apps are no longer for early adopters. The current study highlights strong interest in apps that enable users to deal with daily challenges and interact with people, places and things in their urban surroundings.

Original post can be viewed at here.

Posted in Android Market, Google, Mobile App Facts, Uncategorized | Tagged Android, app minutes, appnation, iOS, mobile app trends, Mobile apps, mobile economy, social networking sites | Leave a comment

Facebook launches its own App Center to take on Apple and Google

Posted on May 10, 2012 by KiwiTech

Anyone with a smartphone is familiar with the concept of an “app store” – an online marketplace where users can browse, purchase and install applications to their devices. It was Apple, which pioneered the concept, but was soon emulated by Google, Amazon and Microsoft. The latest to jump on the bandwagon is social networking giant Facebook, which has unveiled a new hub for consumers to find games and other apps on the social networking site.

Aiming to connect with its more than 900 million members on mobile gadgets, Facebook’s App Center will feature apps that work on Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems and the web. If a user finds an app compatible with their device they will be sent to download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play. However, Facebook won’t make money from the sale of apps on other stores.

Strategic move

It is a strategic move from the world’s number one social networking site, which as of present has nearly 900 million active users. Through this hybrid marketplace: part store and part showcase, the company hopes to take monetary advantage of the app store model.

Growth for high-quality apps

You may wonder what sort of apps will Facebook promote through this store? The company has promised some serious quality apps. The App Center will prominently display well-designed apps that people enjoy and won’t list those apps which have received poor users rating or don’t meet the quality guidelines. Just like Apple’s App Store, each app will have a star rating, based on Facebook’s social graph. According to Facebook the idea is to solve the app discovery problem as in the App Center you will find only the most relevant and popular apps – the ones which are used by your friends. These apps will also surface in your newsfeeds and it is upto you to decide which one to pick and what to ignore.

Features paid apps

Besides offering one stop shop for your app needs, the App Center will also offer paid apps and games, a feature which was missing from Facebook so far. Making paid apps available through this platform would certainly offer a big business opportunity for both the developers and for Facebook. The payment feature will let users pay a flat fee to use an app on Facebook.com. And as standard, Facebook will take 30 per cent share of the profits.  Through this model, the social networking site hopes to attract more users to its services and promote the use of the various Facebook APIs for integration into applications and spread the use of non-platform-specific apps, or HTML5 apps.

What’s in it for developers?

As we know that Facebook has clear advantage in terms of number of users, so for a developer, there are indeed a lot of opportunities. Developers will not only get more users (read traffic), they will also find Facebook paid apps and Facebook Credits as a good source for monetization. It will also give a big boost for social apps to get popular in the Facebook App Center as compared to other stores.

The new App Center, which the social networking site will launch in the coming weeks, comes at a time when the company is preparing an initial public offering that would value the company between $77 billion and $96 billion. Facebook, which makes a large chunk of its revenue from online ads, was facing slowing revenue growth given that a lot of people are now using smartphones to access its services, where Facebook provides limited ads. But with this new venture, the company will surely solve some of those concerns.

Posted in Innovative Mobile Apps, Mobile App Facts, Uncategorized | Tagged App Center, Facebook App Center, Facebook apps, Mobile apps, social media apps | Leave a comment

Spotify launches new app for the iPad – Get it now!

Posted on May 3, 2012 by KiwiTech

After months of speculation, Spotify, the insanely popular and rapidly growing music-streaming service, has released a dedicated iPad version of the app. It is available for free at the Apple App Store, but only subscribers to the service will be able to enjoy tunes from their tablet at $9.99 per month. It is the version 0.5.0 of the existing Spotify app.

According to Spotify, the iPad app focuses more on discoverability as against the iPhone app’s focus on playing what you’ve already discovered. This means that you can follow an artist ‘down the rabbit hole’ to find out his/her discography, another album, to a similar artist, and to their bass player’s side project.

Undoubtedly, the new app is a well designed one which offers clean and intuitive interface – offering 18 million songs at your fingertips. In the iPad version, Spotify seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from Twitter’s design as there are navigation buttons on the left, a main window on the right besides sliding windows. There is a function called Search in the narrow sidebar on the left, which allows you to get real-time, instant unified results for artists, albums, “best matches”, playlists, and tracks matching your criteria. Tap an artist and you’ll get a list of related artists, top hits, albums and tracks. The navigaton is also pretty much smooth as you never have to worry about being getting lost since you can always retrace your steps by swiping from left to right. It means even after taking fifty steps deep in this fashion, you can still swipe your way back.

The iPad edition also includes the “What’s New” page from the desktop version, which shows you trending playlists and recommended music playing at center stage built around a Cover Flow-type interface.

Users can also view the playing track or playlist in full-screen and use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or through email, to share the track. Just like the Android and iPhone app, the current release can stream and sync music up to the “extreme” bit-rate of 320kbps. So all you have to do is plug it into your home stereo system and enjoy the service’s library at your fingertips. The app can be used in portrait or landscape mode, which goes well with the larger screen of the iPad.

In addition, the app also offers a unique tap-and-hold feature which gives you additional options such as the ability to add something to a playlist or star it and a new search-autofill feature (means you can find artists by just typing first few letters). Moreover, the app also threads messages from friends so that you can see what they are recommending.

Besides offering such an impressive line of features, you won’t find any third-party Spotify apps within this app. The developers are expected to add this facility in the future.

It’s been a long time coming, but Spotify’s iPad app lives up to expectations with a beautiful Retina-ready user interface with seamless music playback. Overall, the new Spotify app is something that you can’t afford to leave behind as it has got all that you need to replace your traditional home stereo system.

Download the app here.

Posted in Best Apps, Innovative Mobile Apps, Mobile App Facts | Tagged Spotify, Spotify iPad app | Leave a comment

Best Android apps of the month: Next Issue, Zeebox, TweetComb, Pocket (Free), DirecTV

Posted on May 1, 2012 by KiwiTech

Next Issue app: Next Issue Media, a joint venture between Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp, and Time Inc, has come out with its Android tablet newsstand titled Next Issue, much the way like Hulu.com. Users can avail this service by paying $10 a month, to read the latest full issues of 27 magazines on your tablet, along with back issues to the beginning of 2012. The app offers best-of-breed 32 titles, including, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, Time, Better Homes and Gardens, ELLE, Esquire, Fortune, Glamour, Parents, People, InStyle, Money, Parents, Real Simple, and Vanity Fair. There are also some less mainstream magazines which include: Cooking Light, Essence, Allure, Coastal Living, Golf, Health, Southern Living, Sports Illustrated Kids, People StyleWatch, Sunset. Most of them are monthly editions and the company hopes to increase the product catalogue later this year. These magazines cover pretty much all tastes and preferences of various age groups and professions. The app scores high in terms of good value for money – and saving on monthly magazine expenditure as it offers up an entire library of publications for nearly $10 rather than paying for monthly subscriptions to individual magazines, which can be $12 for print editions. However, if you are a current subscriber to a magazine and want to read that particular magazine, all you need to do is subscribe to that magazine. The app is available for Android tablets only, and only 7- or 10-inch models, and only those running the 3.0 or 4.0 versions of Android. So, if you use a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, you’ll get access to the 10-inch exclusive magazines but you won’t be able to access the 7-inch ones. In terms of interface, magazines are separated into “stacks” of dated issues, and you can download and read each issue one at a time. The reading experience is fairly good as each and every bit of text has been specifically formatted for the screen size and resolution.

Zeebox: Social TV app Zeebox has just arrived on Android, which allows Android smartphone and tablet owners to share what they are watching with friends and tweet their favourite shows. Users can sync the app and then use it as a remote control for TVs like Sony, Panasonic and Samsung TVs and Virgin TiVo boxes. The app makes discovering the popular TV content as easy as possible right before a show starts. It offers information about shows and the stars and presents in an easy to digest way. Thus now you can know what your friend and favourite celebrities are watching, invite them to watch with you, get the latest show ratings, play along with shows, follow celebrities and Twitter feeds, and get live stats during major sporting events. Along with the Android app, zeebox’s web service has also relaunched a new MY TV home page. According to former iPlayer boss and Zeebox co-founder Anthony Rose, the app provides new significant insights into TV viewing behavior as it’s fascinating to see how some programmes have high viewing but low social buzz, and vice versa.

TweetComb: It is a good app to get the perfect twitter experience. Designed specifically for Android OS 3.x (Honeycomb) tablet devices, it will make you quickly realize that you don’t need to look for anything else when it comes to the twitter. In case you are using TweetDeck as your desktop Twitter client, you will find TweetComb very familiar. The main Dashboard is split into three columns: timeline (Tweets of people you follow), mentions (Tweets that @ you), direct messages, favorites and other customisations as you desire. To act on a tweet – just tap to reply to the sender. Besides you can also retweet and mark as a favorite. Just next to the Dashboard there is the Profile section – which allows you to easily view your profile and that of followers, and Search option – which helps you customize three columns of search terms. Another cool feature about TweetComb is when new tweets arrive, it will alert you with an audio clip. To keep you aware of the trending topics, a line with a list of such topics will appear at the bottom of the screen. Overall, the app offers smooth scrolling, is pretty much responsive and is also very stable – meaning that you’ll not encounter crashes in the period of heavy usage. However, some of the biggest grips with the app are: 1. Selecting links or images within tweets takes you out the app into the browser 2. There’s no way to specify alerts for new mentions or direct messages 3. There are no background notification options. Overall, if you own an Android tablet and use Twitter frequently, then TweetComb is one of the best options available.

Pocket (Free): The content aggregation app, known as Read It Later, already a success with users, has now been rebranded as Pocket – with the focus on image, video and other multimedia. Earlier the app focused on saving lengthy articles to the cloud, but now it is pretty much anything that you can save in an organized way so that the content is ready to read. The new app has been redesigned to give a clean white layout, stroked with bright colours, which most the users are familiar with. On tablets and on desktop browsers, the users can view content in panels with big images pulled from the content. Adding content in your pocket is quite easy as you have to use a bookmarklet or extension in your browser, or use the save buttons in apps (like Tweetbot and Flipboard), or send the material to a custom e-mail address. The platform, which was originally a browser extension, is now used by 4.5 million active users. The app’s  main draw is its simplicity, and that it is free.

DirecTV: The app’s still-in-beta “everywhere” streaming package that arrived on the iPad a month earlier, is now available on Android smartphone or tablets. It allows you to stream HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Encore, Sony Movie Channel, and the few shows and movies available on DirecTV Cinema. The app works with Google’s operating systems like Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. However, users need to keep in mind that the amount of content that is accessible will depend on the kind of DirecTV package that you have. The app can be accessed over both Wi-Fi and a cellular network. The app features a new discovery tool which allows users to see what shows and movies other users are talking about.

Posted in Android, Android Market, Best Apps, Mobile App Facts | Tagged Android apps, DirecTV, Google Play, latest Android apps, Next Issue, Pocket (Free), TweetComb, Zeebox | Leave a comment

Top 5 must have apps

Posted on April 15, 2012 by KiwiTech

1. (Pinterest) Best app in social networking category

Quietly but firmly Pinterest has become the third most popular social network in the U.S. after Facebook and Twitter, says a study by marketing services company Experian. In February, Pinterest received 104 million total visits, as compared to Facebook’s 7 billion total visitors and Twitter’s 182 million. This ranking puts Pinterest, which saw its traffic jump 50 per cent between January and February, ahead of LinkedIn, Google+, MySpace and Tumblr. The mobile version of the website offers the same layout with a simple menu, which allows you to “pin” images and videos to spaces called “boards,” ‘explore’ pins from a range of categories, see the pins you’re following, and look at your profile. For instance, when you click on your friend’s Pinterest profile page, you will be presented with several boards, each having a specific name. Clicking upon a board will serve those photos the user has pinned to it, which is basically a grid of thumbnails along with description. One of the reasons for Pinterest’s massive popularity is due to the social factor that is attached to it. The service has proved especially popular with women who use it to share recipes, weeding tips, home decorating ideas, events, hobbies or videos, which is much quicker as compared to Facebook. Pretty soon, the app will be available on an iPad along with redesigned profile pages. While Pinterest hasn’t announced a release date yet, its current app is for iPod Touch and iPhone only. According to Pinterest CEO Ben Silberman, the boards are a very human way of seeing the world. It is about helping people to discover things they didn’t know they wanted, he says.

2. (NPR Music) Treat for music fans

It is a well-designed app that packs voluminous archive of music coverage and live performances into one single platform. The app beautifully presents music content that is much better than various radio station websites. It’s a platform for music discovery, articles, reviews, interviews, live concerts and exclusive streams. The NPR Music app includes live streams of 100 public radio stations in genres like: rock/pop/folk, jazz/blues, and classical. The home screen of the app offers links to featured stories, radio stations, headlines, archived audio and video performances and interviews. It has got a simple and clean interface, which allows user to easily navigate through the content in the sliding form. Users can browse through a searchable directory of content from 5,000 bands, musicians and singers, including interviews, reviews, performances, features and news from the NPR Music archives. There are even editor’s picks in each genre. You can also enjoy signature programs and popular series, such as All Songs Considered, World Cafe, First Listen, Song Of The Day. Most of the time you’ll find that the video and audio quality is quite good. It is truly one of a handful of music apps that you really must have.

3. (Instapaper) Best way you read the Web

Probably one of the best offline reading apps for iPad and iOS, it has been updated recently – to version 4.0.2. It has changed, for the better, what and how you read on the Internet. Basically, the app allows you to tag websites, news articles, Flickr pics, and just about everything else to read when you have a moment to spare. The documents can be saved from your PC, mobile, or even from apps that offer ‘send to Instapaper’ facility. In order to save a page to view it later, just click on the bookmark and the page will be automatically sent to Instapaper. Not only the app saves an article for later reading, it strips out all the graphics and unnecessary information to give you the cleanest version of the site. While the app is being primarily used to save web pages, it can also: a) forward long e-mail messages to your Instapaper account for later reading anywhere b) be used it in conjunction with Google Reader. The home screen of the app provides four choices: Browse, Unread (where you have stored your choices), Liked (your favorite entries), and Archive (for further reference). In the paid version, there is an option to ‘Star Articles’ if you want them to access in a separate folder. Moreover, the paid version also allows others to view your starred articles. The app can also be used to send ePub or Kindle-compatible files from the Instapaper account to read on your ebook reader. Other interesting features include adjustment of fonts, text sizes, and spacing, and a dark mode for night reading.

4. (Craigslist++) Best app for freebies

This app is a treasure trove of good deals and freebies. On opening the home page, you’ll be asked to select your location. You can add cities manually or let GPS autolocate you. On searching a particular item, the app will scour your locations and your search terms. The default is “for sale” but you can chose categories like housing, jobs, personals and resumes. The good part with Craigslist++ is that you can simultaneously search in multiple cities and preview results with thumbnails along with item descriptions. For instance, if you are searching for Honda Accord 1989 model, the app will simultaneously search different cities in the United States, which you could not possibly find on Craigslist.com. Contact is initiated through the same email address that appears on the Web version of Craigslist. Craigslist Pro also features the “best of Craigslist” category where you’ll find all outrageously hilarious postings.

5. (Goal Tender) Best app in tracking your goals

The app has been designed to remind you of your larger goals of tomorrow. This app may come extremely handy to those who may forget their future plans in the nitty-gritty of daily work routines. Goal-setting is easy and the progress can be conveniently monitored through a bar. At the home screen, you can view the type of goal, the due-date countdown, and your progress status. Daily, weekly and monthly goals can be added through this app. To remind you of your long-term goals, there is ‘someday’ section. To get to know how far you’ve come, slide the progress bar in the goal detail screen. Here you can know what steps you have taken to achieve a particular goal and what else needs to be done to finish it. Overall, it is a handsome tool for goal tracking, task management, and time management, especially things you need or want to do every day or week like losing weight or reading a book. It has got easy-to-use interface and allows you to add a lot of details about your goals.

Posted in Apps of the Week, Best Apps, iPad Games, Mobile App Facts, Mobile Gaming | Tagged 2012 mobile apps, app reviews, best iOS apps, Craigslist++, Goal Tender, Instapaper, latest app news, Mobile apps, NPR Music, Pinterest, Tumblr | Leave a comment

Facebook buys photo-sharing app Instagram for $1 billion: Mobile is the future

Posted on April 13, 2012 by KiwiTech

In what seems as a tactical and strategic move, the social networking site Facebook has bought Instagram – a popular mobile photo-sharing service, for $1 billion in cash and shares.

Photo-sharing is something near and dear to Facebook, and this deal would mean Facebook going proactive in the mobile space and developing mobile tools around social-local networks. Although Facebook is widely used by millions of people for photo-sharing purpose, now it will be able to offer the best experiences in the mobile space.

For Facebook, which do not have many worries on the user-base front, the 30 million users addition from Instagram would be an added benefit. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom feels there is tremendous potential to grow its user base to 100 million, especially due to its recent expansion onto the Andoid platform. Amazingly, Instagram’s Android version was downloaded 1 million times in its first 12 hours.

What’s notable about the deal is the price tag attached to it – $1 billion for a start-up, which just last week completed a $50 million funding round with a valuation of $500 million. The $1 billion price tag is the highest for a profitless startup since Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.

Announcing the deal, Mark Zuckerberg on his Facebook page said, “…we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.”

Although it is pretty clear that the acquisition will turbo-charge Facebook, some section of Instagram users are concerned about the deal as they think the app will lose all its creative juices that made it such an innovative and exciting site. But these worries may be short-lived as Instagram will remain independent, and its users will not have to become Facebook members.

But the question you may ask is why Facebook would want Instagram? The answer lies in Instagram’s mobile user base. Despite the fact that social networking giant has had a mobile app for years, it did not enjoyed such a massive fan following which some consider it to be due to navigational issues. A rapidly growing and super-engaged mobile audience is what Facebook is aiming for. After all, the future lies in mobile and no one can afford to ignore this fact.

Instagram, as we know, is a photo sharing app, which allows users to select vintage and rare photo filters and apply them to their personal photographs. It has its own social following where users can like, comment and share photos. The app, which combining the best of Facebook and Twitter, enjoys tremendous enthusiasm among the users. And for quite some time, Facebook was looking to make a foot-hold in this area, especially auto-tagging options for its in-network images. The social networking site’s addition of timeline feature would certainly pave the way for Instagram’s deep integration on a massive scale.

And not only to Facebook, the deal also means a lot to Instagram, which is yet to announce a revenue strategy. It is a free app, and has not advertising, and to scale up it certainly required a lot of money.

Based in San Francisco, Instagram has nearly a dozen employees. The deal has made founder and chief executive Kevin Systrom richer by $400 million and his co-founder Mike Krieger by about $100 million. But the biggest gainers would be three venture capital firms that reportedly invested $50 million in Instagram, valuing it $500 million, and in a week’s time just doubled their money.

Hopefully with this deal, Facebook has put an end to such an important business proposition going to the competitor. By wrapping up Instagram’s users, Facebook can now look forward for a more engaging ‘user experience’ and those numbers would definitely matter to those marketers who want users to view advertisements and interact with brands on the site.

Posted in Mobile App Facts | Tagged Facebook, Facebook-Instagram, Instagram, Mobile apps, photo sharing apps | Leave a comment

Apps watch: Munch Time HD, Regular Show: Nightmare-athon, Real Steel, Where’s Waldo?

Posted on April 9, 2012 by KiwiTech

Where’s Waldo? The Fantastic Journey: This app is one of the best games in the hidden object games genre. Based on the beloved book series by British illustrator Martin Handford, the game tests you observational skills in a series of search-and-find levels that spans from to Pyramids to futuristic levels. In each level, players scour the virtual globe in search of Waldo and his friends Wizard Whitebeard, Wenda and Woof, and Waldo foe, Odlaw. The players will be given the images of who or what you need to find at the bottom of the screen, like camera-donning Wenda, animal and objects, in a colourful way. In case you’re tasked with the object of finding Waldo’s nemesis, Odlaw, who is donned in black and yellow stripes, you need to respond quickly or else he’ll splash paint on the screen or flip the screen to obstruct your view. Finally, the game leads to finding the lost scrolls. Like other games, the subsequent levels get more complex with more items to be found. Although there are plenty of hidden object games available on App Store, Where’s Waldo? proves to be the best in class given that each image quite detailed and pretty intriguing since sometimes objects are part of the image.

Munch Time HD: It is a charming physics-based platform puzzler where you must guide Munch the colour-changing chameleon around over 40 levels in order to collect stars and reach the end of the stage. The gameplay involves a bouncing mechanism where you guide Munch to his lunch by making use of his long and sticky tongue as a grappling hook and thus swinging him in a garden full of obstacles. It is a visually appealing game where the cartoon presentation easily gels with brightly colored environments. The control mechanism of the game is quite easy to master as you simply have to tap wherever you want Munch to move. Planning ahead is the key to success since the creature’s movements are limited to swinging using his tongue and scampering along the ground. Tapping on a flower enables Munch to latch on it, but the hitch is that different flowers will have different effects on little Munch. For instance, some flowers can periodically bloom and some can turn him into a cannon. An interesting twist comes in form of wind flowers, which are another tool to collect stars and get to the grub. Along the path, Munch has to collect a maximum of three stars, and for quick completion, he gets points in return. The game has got significant replay value which is mostly attributed to its simple and yet addictive gameplay. Gamers can easily master the levels but certain difficulty may come from coordinating movements. Further you don’t need to be creative in how you approach and solve the puzzle, rather going by the flow can be easiest things to do. Although current levels too easy to master, the real challenge is when you decide to collect all the three stars in each level.

Regular Show: Nightmare-athon: It is a simple scrore attack game, where two protagonists Mordecai and Rigby take charge to protect the audience from the attack of zombies. The gameplay constitute of a static arcade shooter with Mordecai and Rigby being positioned on the left hand side of the screen, confronting the waves of zombies from the right side. While you control the game’ heroes by sliding your finger up and down, to let Mordecai toss a bowling ball at the oncoming undead, you need to tap anywhere else on the screen. During the attack, players can unleash Rigby by swiping the screen, which will make Rigby run across the field along a diagonal course, thus killing zombies with his stick – but only for a short period of time. As the players start taking down the zombies they will be given power-ups, which will allow to make use of weapons like discuses, javelins, or even a skips-driven golf cart that smashes multiple zombies in a row. As the game progresses, the number of zombies will start to grow, and players will then have to act swiftly in order to keep them away from the audience. The graphics of the app, though pretty simple, perfectly blend with the characters. Overall, the game does its job well, but after playing for a period of time, it may appear to be repetitive. The app is certainly worth a buck.

Real Steel: It is based on one simple idea: huge robot fighting other huge robot makes for a good video game. The app is based on the motion picture, “Real Steel” which stars Hugh Jackman and is set in the near future, where robot boxing is a top sport. The app has been designed to satisfy your robot bashing appetite and just like in the Mortal Kombat games, the robots bash each other endlessly until one falls down. To begin with, you select one of four robots available initially, and then indulge into battle with seven robots, one-by-one. To emerge as a winner, you need to challenge and defeat the final robot, Midas, the gold-blooded killer. Each robot comes with its own fighting style and signature special moves. The controls are given at the both left and right of the screen, wherein the left side control the movement and the right side is used to insert punches and kicks. You can repeat a tournament level until you eventually win and winning a match would mean tokens which you can use to upgrade your robots armor, power or speed attribute, for the next round in the tournament. Importantly, you can unlock four additional robots in “hard” difficulty mode upon winning an entire tournament. To control your robot, you’ll be given a virtual pad, along with four action buttons for right and left punches, block and other moves. Your scoring rate will depend on the type of attack you make: like a basic jab will earn you 150 points while special moves would get you 400 points. There are 24 achievements to nail and your scores are captured in six Game Center leader-boards.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Hit iOs apps, Latest iOS apps, Munch Time HD, Real Steel, Regular Show: Nightmare-athon, Where's Waldo? | Leave a comment

Hey developers, Amazon Appstore generates more revenue than Google Play; nearly as much as iOS apps

Posted on April 2, 2012 by KiwiTech

Amazon’s Appstore for Android, which celebrated its first birthday recently, is growing up fast. From just 3,800 apps to nearly ten-times that amount today (over 31,000), the list is getting bigger and better. Indeed a strong first year for an  app store that started as an alternative to the Android Market and then became an important source for Kindle Fire users to get their apps. One reason for such a steep rise may be attributed to the larger number of content publishing agreement that it has for movies, magazines and books, and all under one user interface.

Not only the Amazon Appstore for Android has gained traction among users due to exciting deals that it offers, but according to data from Flurry Analytics, Amazon generates nearly four times more revenue from in-app purchases than Google Play, formerly the Android Market, does.

Revenue comparison

In this study, Flurry compared revenues made by developers across three platforms: Apple’s iTunes App Store, Google Play and Amazon’s AppStore. Flurry first set the revenue generated in the iTunes App Store to 100 per cent since it generates the most, then compared the relative revenue generated by Amazon and Google to that of the App Store. The results revealed that Amazon revenue is 89 per cent of App Store revenue and Google revenue is on the far lower end – at 23 per cent of the App Store.

In simpler terms, for every dollar iOS apps generate in revenue, Amazon’s app marketplace generates $0.89 and Google Play brings in $0.23. Flurry compared those apps that generate most of their revenue from in-app purchases.

The study supports Flurry’s findings in December, which found that the Android Market generates 23 cents of revenue for every dollar generated by iTunes.

But just what makes Amazon Appstore so successful and profitable? Flurry attributes it to Amazon’s fabulous online presence, a company which has perfected online shopping with data, efficiency, and customer service. It says, running a store – whether digital or retail – is not one of Google’s core competencies.

Amazon’s potential as a viable third ecosystem for developers

Notwithstanding the reason that selling apps may be a stretch to a company that expertise in selling digital content, Amazon’s efforts have paid off. The current data speaks volumes about Amazon’s potential as a good third alternate to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Play. The rise of Amazon Appstore is mainly due to emergence of the Kindle Fire, which is well adopted by customers as a tablet for app downloads. The number of downloads generated by top 100 apps in the Amazon Appstore has witnessed a steep jump since the store was announced.

According to the retail giant, the most popular apps in the first year were Angry Birds Free, followed by Netflix and MobilityWare’s Solitaire. In the paid category, the most popular were Cut the Rope, followed by Angry Birds (Ad-Free) and Where’s My Water. The company also offers a paid app for free each day. Comparatively, the average price for the top 100 paid apps is 40 per cent less on the Amazon Appstore ($2.89) than on the Android Market ($3.47). It appears that this pricing strategy, in some cases, is working in favour of the developers as users not only find cheap apps but they also download others apps.

Though, the Amazon Appstore is only a small piece of the overall revenue pie for now, it is catching up fast in terms of size. It essentially means that a large number of developers are now seriously looking at the Amazon market to sell their products. The bottomline is, while the Android Market is still the Wild West in some ways, Amazon Appstore has managed to strike a balance between Apple’s sometimes crazy restrictions, and Android’s free-for-all.

Posted in Mobile App Facts, Mobile Gaming | Tagged Amazon, Amazon Appstore, Android, Apple, Google Play, iOS apps, Mobile apps | Leave a comment

Temple Run released for Android phones

Posted on March 31, 2012 by KiwiTech

Temple Run, the highly popular iOS game, has finally made its way to Google Play Store. Developed by Imangi Studio’s designer-couple Natalia Luckyanova and Keith Shepherd, the game is an Indiana Jones-style runner game that has seen over 45 million downloads from the iTunes App Store .

As of now, the developer is only offering a free, ad-supported version via Google’s mobile platform.

Gameplay

Temple Run is an endless running fun that will have you on the edge of your seat. The story revolves around a character who has stolen a cursed artifact from the temple and you have to stay out of the clutches of evil eagle-gorilla hybrid birds and avoid obstacles in your path by tilting and swiping your way through levels. As you try to escape the ancient temple walls and along sheer cliffs, you have to manoeuvre your character left or right to collect coins that comes in your pathway. These coins can be used to buy items such as characters, power-ups, and utilities from the store. The game is a sheer test of your reflexes as you have to jump and slide to avoid obstacles.

At any point in time, you’ll not find the game getting too repetitive due to variety of obstacles: as there are trees to avoid and barriers to cross. To keep things edgy, the character will start running on thinner ground where it is much easier to fall off. The whole path, just like a maze is filled with unexpected turns and twists. The objective of this game is simple: score as many points as you can before the game ends! You can then tweet the score. In January, Justin Bieber tweeted a screenshot of his high score—9,290,772 on an iOS.

The controls of the game are pretty easy to learn. To move left and right, you need to swipe in the direction you want to go. Swipe up to jump over tree trunks and swipe down to slide under barrier points. You may wonder where does the game end? Simply put, it can go as long as you can run, and in the Android version, there are 36 achievements which you can unlock as you progress.

The Android version of the game is pretty snappier since it allows you to tweak the sensitivity of your gestures on your Android devices, which is unavailable in the iOS version.

Adorable graphics

One of the scoring features of the game is its crispy graphics which are surprisingly detailed. The game has it all with the graphics: smooth 3D effects, vivid colors, scary temple guardians and great looking obstacles like mossy rocks, cliffs, burning arches, and wooden docks. The temple path which starts out as sturdy stones quickly turns into sprawling tree roots, crumbled pathways and slippery stones. Trees and rocks, covered in moss, further ads to the superb background.

Coins and Power Ups

What makes this game more compelling are power-ups that you’ll activate when you run through enough of the coins. For instance, a coin power-up would increase the value of your coins. Another is invisibility, which will help you easily run past the obstacles without worrying about swiping. Further, coins can be used to buy utilities like Resurrect – which lets you start from where you fell. Coins can also be used to change your wallpaper or character. In total, there are seven different characters, with the only difference in clothes and gender. You can also purchase coins through an in-app purchase, which starts at $0.99 for 2500 coins and $19.99 for 200,000.

Performance

You’ll find that the game works equally well for different devices across the board. With not too many bugs to complain about, the developers have done a pretty decent job.

Overall, Temple Run offers an addictive, arcade-like experience that can keep you busy for hours.

Download the app here

Posted in Android, Android Market, Google, Mobile App Facts | Tagged Android Games, Temple Run, top Android games | Leave a comment

App-solutely amazing: The rise and rise of Draw Something

Posted on March 30, 2012 by KiwiTech

Things are moving pretty fast in the mobile app business and as a developer if you have something good, exciting and unique to offer, the chances are that you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. New York based mobile app developer Omgpop is a glaring example of precisely that.

Soon after six-year-old OMGPOP launched its chart-buster game, “Draw Something,” gaming company Zynga was knocking on its door. And the prize money was worth $180 million. Dan Porter, chief of Omgpop, launched their latest app titled Draw Something on February 1, and soon after its launch, it was topping the charts.

Drawsome Gameplay

Draw Something app actually taps into its user’s creative side and allows users to play virtual Pictionary with other users. Rather than competing against each other, the app is two-player and more co-operative. After choosing your game partner, you are given a choice of three things to draw. The partner has to make a guess what it represents in the shortest time period possible. Guessing the image in the right manner would mean that both of the players get rewarded with virtual coins. The greater the difficulty, the higher number of coins you’ll get. Users can also press “Pass” to skip their turn if they are not able to figure out that word. Although the free app is quite popular, there’s also a paid version which gives the user advantage of 400 coins, 2,000 more words, and no ads.

Friendly Competition

Draw Something comes with deep Facebook integration, and after installing the app, you’ll be asked to create your account by connecting to Facebook or email. You can also choose random players to play against. And what makes this game so hilarious is that the other player can see an animation of you drawing an image. You’ll watch as the person draws a circle, and turns into a ship, etc. You can make the guess anytime. In each game, you’ll see your friend guessing your word, then you guess their word, and then you get to draw your next turn.

Another very interesting feature of the game is that the statistics that are integrated into the game. Here you can see how you stack up with each of your friends by providing statistics from your matches. Thus, you can view your longest streak with your friend, average guess and drawing speed, top three colors used, coin distribution as well as any other facts.

In-app Purchase

The app’s revenue generation scheme is well-thought out by the developer as in the beginning of the game, you are given four different colours to draw with: blue, red, yellow, and black. To add more virtual description to your image, you need to buy a color pack which will cost you 249 coins, so the more impatient players can go and purchase them which will help them when drawing certain words. Further, the more colors you have, the cooler you are compared to your friends. Users can also purchase bombs with coins as they are used to remove letters which aren’t part of the word.

Simply Addictive

Initially, the app was chalking up three drawings per second, but now it is clocking over 3000 drawings per second. What makes this app so hard to resist is its simple interface, an apt example of minimalist efficiency. When you launch the app for the first time, it only asks you for your online social networking accounts, which you can skip if you want to play with random people – and that’s it. It don’t require a tutorial, does not have any major rules, but it just requires your artistic impression. In many other similar games you’ll find complex point systems, time limit and various other rules. Here you just need to get into the game – pick an opponent, and start enjoying. Such is the simplicity of the app that it is highly popular in even non-native English speaking countries and among all age groups. The app not only shrinks the time and distance between people, but it also gets others involved with its simplicity.

Zynga buys Draw Something developer OMGPOP

Omgpop had been limping along until Draw Something took the app world by storm. That drew the attention of Zynga, the maker of FarmVille and the current king of social games, which purchased Omgpop for $180 million. And just within a short span of time the app has transformed Omgpop from a little-known startup into a must-have for an industry giant. The Zynga deal is a clear example of how quickly your fortune can change in the mobile app business. According to Charles Forman, founder of Omgpop, the entire company started as a joke. Then he brought on Dan Porter, the former president of Teach for America, who had experience at other startups, to be chief executive in December 2008. The company raised $17 million from investors and made about 35 games, but revenues were still elusive. The company was on its way to shut down until the wild success of Draw Something. According to Forman, the idea for the game came from playing catch with his son and the son’s friend in Brooklyn. He offered boys a prize if they could toss the football back and forth 100 times without dropping it. “Draw Something is just like catch due to togetherness involved in trying to achieve something.

But how Draw Something became such a big hit

According to Porter, the success of Draw Something was due to word of mouth, much more than press or even advertising. Since the game involves social element, the only way to play is to find a friend to play with. It means that you will be telling others about it over email, Facebook or Twitter. More players download the app, get their friends involved and the game spreads. Thus it instantly became a viral app.

Posted in Best Apps, Mobile App Facts | Tagged Dan Porter, Draw Something, Mobile apps | Leave a comment