America is so big that an iPhone application like Car Finder [iTunes link] had to be written. You haven’t experienced American capitalism at its most sinister until you’ve walked from one end of a Super Wal-mart to the other. Such large abominations stocking goods produced in South Asia have parking lots that go farther than the eye can see. A 5 minute walk from your car to the front entrance is not anything new, and the fattest of the fat fuck families usually drop off Brother Bacon and Sister Soda Pop at the front anyway, while the person with the lowest BMI has to trek on a journey across a sea of Ford F150 pick up trucks to rejoin their obese offspring near the seated disabled greeter making less than minimum wage. Car Finder uses the iPhone’s GPS, compass, and camera, to help you find your car once you’re done paying for your weekly purchase of what is equivalent to the monthly dietary requirements of a family of 5 in Africa.
A company called Intermundia is hitting the AppStore with its Opera project, consisting of 24 applications with the librettos of the most famous and well-known Operas. In addition to lyrics/libretto, each of the apps include information about the plot, characters and history.
Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has just announced a milestone of sorts. 100,000 apps are now available in the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch. 15,000 of which are fart apps (kidding).
“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”
While many developers complain about a frustrating submission and inclusion process, and others simply complain about the lack of quality overall (crappy free apps)… there’s no disputing that the App Store is the ‘place to be’ for developers looking to make some coin.
In the months and years ahead, I’m REALLY looking forward to see what happens on the whole ‘App Store’ scene. Me thinks the Apple App Store and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android Market are going to tangle toe-to-toe. With Android’s rapidly growing developer base, not to mention the proliferation of Android devices in the second half of 2009… Apple and Google are no doubt gearing up for a fierce battle in 2010. Can I get a seconder?
The following post is to let you know about a breakthrough. Something so powerful and ‘game changing’ that you may never look at a Windows Mobile app the same way again. What am I talking about? The first ‘fart’ app has been spotted in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Yeeeeeehaaaaaaw!
Of course, I’m being a bit ‘cheeky’ here, but I found it hilarious to note that the new ‘MyFart’ app has made an appearance for all the WinMo users feeling a touch of ‘flatulence fail’. There’s no telling if this will open the flood gates on a whole new generation of ‘fart’ apps for WinMo, but I certainly hope not. I think we have enough of those types of apps in the App Store, thank you very much.
Description of the ‘MyFart’ app for WinMo:
MyFart is a fun little application that makes funny fart sounds. Choose from 12 different funny fart sounds and prank your friends!! Use MyFart to create endless nights of laughs!!
Disclaimer: I was personally involved in the development of these apps!
Don’t know about you, but I like reading quotes from time to time. Not like reading dozens of them, but few per day just to keep me entertained and eventually to learn something new. Hence, I was working with a friend on 4 free quote apps for the iPhone I’m shamelessly presenting you today:
I’m sure you can figure out what kind of quotes each one of the apps contains. I’ll only add that each of the apps comes with more than 500 quotes, the user interface is super simple, and you can easily email any quote you like. That’s it.
As I said, the apps are free, and we’re trying to see/test whether one can earn some money by displaying banners from AdMob’s network. Hope you download the apps and help us spread the work. I would appreciate a lot.
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has recently updated its Analytics product to help developers see how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and Android applications.
As with websites, you can track pageviews and events. Since there are no HTML pages involved in mobile apps, developers should determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the “Content” reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates.
In addition, developers can track visitor actions such as watching videos, button clicks, downloads, etc. – all which don’t correspond directly to pageviews using “Event Tracking.” As a result, individuals and companies behind mobile apps can know which features are most popular and eventually fine tune their products. But first, you’ll need to grab the SDK and implement the necessary code in order for Google Analytics to start doing its magic.
Finally, in case you’re wondering whether someone has tried this already, here as a video featuring Redfin’s Sasha Aickin who explains how they implemented Google Analytics in their iPhone app. That’s actually after the jump. Enjoy!
The iPhone AppStore is a wonderful place filled with tens of thousands of really nifty and useful iPhone apps. It’s also cluttered with iPhone apps that make fart noises and calculate tips for your waitress. How is anyone supposed to find their way around this crowded mess? With an iPhone app specifically made to pull app recommendations from your friends, of course. Enter Chorus for iPhone. [iTunes link]
Chorus is a free iPhone app that looks and works a lot like the AppStore you already have on your iPhone. But, instead of spamming you with thousands of useless apps and hundreds of useful apps you really couldn’t care less about, Chorus finds what your network of friends are using and suggests apps that it thinks you might like. The app is powered by envIO Networks’ Social Genome technology, which takes into account how you interact with your friends and infers how much credibility you’re likely to give your friends for various app categories. And, that’s where the app shines.
You don’t have to click through dozens and dozens of app reviews, tediously indicating which apps you like and which apps you think suck. Chorus learns from your interactions with your friends and picks up on your app preferences automatically. The app also features expert app recommendations and reviews from its AppMavens service as well as reviews from bloggers like us – so even if your friends don’t give you good app suggestions, at least you can look to the experts!
We’re going to let the screenshots and demo video show you how the app works in more detail:
Chorus is free, and once its user-base hit critical mass, it’ll revolutionize the way you discover iPhone apps. Give it a download here.
Users of the Android app Twidroid have an update to install. The Android-lovin’ Twitter client has gone to 2.6.3, and YES, there IS a changelog available! New in 2.6.3 are the following updates:
directly open any user profile via search
fix for avatar uploads & resizing on certain devices
fix for directly taken photos on HTC devices that store them in non-standard locations
fix for reply from search page
Unfortunately Twitter Lists are not yet supported in this update… Expect list support to come down the pipe in the next Twidroid release.
Waking up and receiving good news doesn’t happen often enough, so when I opened my crusty teared eyes at 10 in the morning (Helsinki time) and got this press release in the mail, I hit the roof. Opera, the Norwegian company we all love, makers of the Opera desktop browser, Opera Mobile for Windows Mobile, and Opera Mini, one of my favorite mobile applications of all time, has released Opera Mobile 10 Beta for Symbian.
At this point you’re expect a full on review/preview of the application, but I would be wasting my breathe trying to say something genuinely new. It’s literally Opera Mini 5 Beta, but written in Symbian code rather than J2ME code. It’s noticeably more responsive than Opera Mini 5 Beta, the copy and paste actually works now, best of all it is possible to copy and paste text from the browser to another application. Opera Turbo support is included, but disabled by default. Turbo is the same technology that powers Opera Mini. You type in a URL, Opera intercepts that request, feeds it to a server sitting somewhere next to a moose in Northern Europe, renders the page, compresses it, and then spits it back to your mobile phone. I’d be lying if I said a website rendered with Opera Mobile 10 Beta consumed the same information as the same website rendered in Opera Mini 5 Beta; the J2ME client wins hands down at using the least amount of data necessary to display a website.
Things of note: this works on both touch (S60 5th Edition) and non touch (S60 Everything Else Edition) devices, and with the ability of Opera Link you’ll be able to sync bookmarks and passwords between the desktop version of Opera and the mobile version.
Check out the demo video below:
Oh and if you want to download it yourself, just type m.opera.com/mobile into your mobile browser.
Ever tried visiting Adobe’s “Download Flash” page from an iPhone or iPod Touch? It’s hilarious as you can see from the screenshot above. Since Adobe couldn’t get Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to support Flash in the iPhone’s Safari, they decided to try to pitch the end users who could eventually notify the Cupertino folks to act on the matter. I’m guessing Adobe’s thinking is that once a user sees this message, he or she will immediately write an email to steve@apple.com saying just how frustrated he/she is because his beloved devices can’t handle Flash. That, of course, will force Apple to change its ways and accept the inevitable by adding Flash support to Safari. Hmmm, something doesn’t work here, right?
The following post is to let you know about a breakthrough. Something so powerful and ‘game changing’ that you may never look at a Windows Mobile app the same way again. What am I talking about? The first ‘fart’ app has been spotted in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Yeeeeeehaaaaaaw! 
