News tagged ‘App Store’
Survey Reveals 63 Million iOS Gamers Download 5 Million Games Per Day
Research firms Distimo and Newzoo conducted survey that revealed that there are roughly 63 million gamers on the iOS ecosystem who (individually) download, on average, 2.5 games per month. Games represent half of all apps downloaded across the iOS and Mac App Stores with more than 5 million games downloaded per day – based on the survey that included the US, UK and five other European countries. A clear majority of 4.6 million are downloaded for the iPhone or iPod Touch whilst just over 400,000 are for the iPad and just a sliver for the Mac with 41,000 per day.
Guinness World Records Awarded To The iPhone 4, App Store and iOS Games
The iPhone 4, the iOS App Store and a number of iOS games have been honored with Guiness World Record awards. The iPhone 4 was named the fastest-selling portable gaming system following a first day sales figure of 1.5 million units when it was released on June 24 last year.
“The release of the iPhone has not just changed the mobile industry, but the video game world too,”Gaz Deaves, Guinness World Records’ gaming editor, said in a statement. “With the never-ending App Store selection and an intuitive device, Apple has created a gigantic new space for itself in the casual games genre that literally brings entertainment to users wherever they may be.”
Microsoft, HTC, Nokia File Complaints Over Apple’s “App Store” Trademark
Microsoft, HTC, Nokia and Sony Ericsson filed formal complaints against Apple’s attempt at getting the terms “App Store” and “Appstore” trademarked. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said that Apple’s application was an “unsupportable claim of exclusivity” and noted that the terms “App Store” and “Appstore” are like “toy store” or “book store” – a generic term “that should continue to be available for everyone to use for stores that sell apps.”
50% of iPad Magazine Subscribers Allow Apple to Pass Info to Publishers
Publishers had previously argued that the lack of subscriber information from iPad subscriptions was even a bigger hurdle than the 30% revenue share. Instead of automatically sharing the data, Apple asks individual subscribers to opt in. As it turns out, up to 50% of users agree.
Apple Pulls iAds From Kid-Focused Apps as Advertisers Target Efforts
MacStories posted a message from one App Store developer who recently saw the iAd fill rate for his Dex application for iOS drop to zero. He asked Apple and received the following answer:
We periodically review the apps in the iAd Network to ensure that all apps receiving ads are aligned with the needs of our advertisers. Currently, our advertisers prefer that their advertising not appear in applications that are targeted for users that are young children, since their products are not targeted at that audience.
Apple Changes Its App Policy, Focuses On The Quality, Not Quantity
Recently Apple has made changes to its app policy and focused on making the iOS App Store the most attractive rather than simply the biggest.
Lately the company has banned the idea of "incentivized app installs", which was used by certain game developers to prompt players to install other apps if they want to continue playing. Because of the incentives some apps become artificially popular and don’t reflect the actual situation in top games chart, for instance.
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Apple Updated iBooks App to Version 1.2.2
On Thursday Apple published a new 1.2.2 version of its iBook app in the App Store.
Performance and stability Improvements include:
- Fixed a problem when some books open with an unexpected font;
- Increased responsiveness when work with books that have many items in the table of contents;
- Fixed issues with playing video in enhanced books downloaded from the iBookstore.
The 14.9 MB download is available
Free Mobile Version of RockMelt Browser Appears in App Store
As you may know, last November was released RockMelt, socially improved desktop browser for Macs and PCs. The idea of its developers was to customize Google Chrome browser in a way that would allow to interact with your friends even more while surfing the Internet. Last night the mobile version of the app appeared in the App Store.
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Apple’s financial results for Q2 2011
Yesterday Apple reported its financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2011. In this quarter Apple earned $24.67 billion and net quarterly profit amounts to $5.99 billion. In the year-ago quarter the company’s revenue was $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit was $3.07 billion. Gross margin was 41.4 percent, compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter’s revenue. This fiscal quarter is also the best quarter for the iTunes Store with $1.4 billion revenue. $2 billion was paid to developers in App Store.
Apple Announces Final Cut Pro X, Coming In June
Yesterday Apple previewed a new version of Final Cut Pro version X at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. The upgrade will be available on the Mac App Store in June for $299. Apple promised that the new version of Final Cut Pro will be "as revolutionary as the first version of FCP."
Apple is promoting the new FCP X as a complete and total rebuild. As reported by Photography Bay, new features in Final Cut Pro X include:
Microsoft Releases Bing for iPad
Microsoft released its first application for tablets, Bing for iPad that is now available on the US App Store. It looks really beautiful on the iPad large screen. The first thing you’ll notice in the application is the daily image. The application gives you information about Weather, News, Movies and more. Like the iPhone app it features a Voice Search alongside with the search by text and Bing Maps that let you search for address or business. The iPad app is curiously only available in the US iTunes App Store which is certainly odd considering the web version does have international editions, that even have a different daily picture.
iAd Gallery Violates Apple’s Own Guidelines
A couple days ago Apple released its own application for showcasing the best iAd advertisements. Noteworthy that iAd Gallery have already caused debates on the Internet about it features set that is rather limited. The Gallery only lets users to browse different iAd campaigns. Simply said, it’s a free iAd collection for iPhone. Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider noted that iAd Gallery may be violating Apple’s own guidelines for iOS apps and should have been rejected by Apple itself. In the 2.13 section of the guidelines, the company explains:
Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements will be rejected.
iAd Gallery indeed is based on marketing materials. The truth is, of course Apple won’t reject its own app even if it violates one of the Guidelines.
Companies Considering Cydia As Advertising Platform
Cydia is the well-known alternative App Store for jailbroken devices, now installed on 10-15 million iOS devices accounting for roughly 9% of the total iOS userbase worldwide, according to the latest numbers shared by Cydia’s creator and main developer, Jay Freeman aka Saurik. 1.5 million users log in Cydia on a daily basis. So it’s not surprise that such large companies like Toyota have seen the potentialities of the Cydia and now wish to promote their brand and products via Cydia or invest into an advertising campaign. They’re simply looking for new ways of promoting their products, for example, Scion, Toyota affiliate, already created the theme for jailbroken devices in order to advertise their new 2011 tC vehicle.
Happy birthday, iPad!
Yesterday, on April 3 the Apple’s iPad celebrated its first anniversary. 365 days ago the original iPad went on sale in the United States. The Apple’s “magical device” that was smaller than a laptop but bigger than a smartphone, was exactly what many people had been looking for. Moreover, the iPad created a new market of devices without physical keyboard with large Multitouch screen. iPad for Apple was a terrific commercial success. The company sold more than 15 million devices, and over 75, 000 native applications via the App Store. The iPad became an iconic device, and now there are long lines around the globe to get the chance of buying an iPad 2.
Cydia 1.1.1 released
Cydia lead developer Jay Freeman released Cydia 1.1.1. You can update it in Cydia. It became much faster and more stable.
Features of new Cydia will include:
- the ability to run and operate Activator, libstatusbar, and SimulatedKeyEvents while Cydia is running
- an overall speed improvement, including the “Loading Changes” dialog
- “much less” memory usage
- a more advanced search mechanism with a new relevancy algorithm
- better management of broken repositories
Here is a full changelog discussion from Saurik: