On Monday, a Touchstone Arcade thread from a disgruntled developer claimed numerous apps in Apple’s App Store were promoted into the top 25 using illegal services. The poster accused a number of big-name developers such as Crowdstar of using such services. Crowdstar’s co-founder Suren Markosian immediately denied the accusation, assuring customers it promotes its apps “using legitimate advertising channels such as flurry, chartboost, iAds, etc.” The thread gained a good deal of buzz, however, prompting Apple to post a warning to remind developers to adhere to guidelines when promoting their apps. “Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it,” reads Apple’s warning. “However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership.”

[Via MacRumors]

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Apple has hired a former marketing executive from Microsoft to help promote the App Store and iTunes in Europe, MCV reports. Robin Burrowes, former head of Xbox LIVE marketing in the EMEA region for Microsoft, joined Apple in January according to his LinkedIn profile. His formal duties at Apple remain unclear — Burrowes’s profile only states that his role involves “App Store Marketing” — but the executive’s background suggests gaming will be a strong focus. Apple has hired a number of executives with experience in the gaming market recently, including Nintendo’s former head of public relations Robert Saunders and former Activision, EA and Xbox PR head Nick Grange. The video game industry finds itself among a number of businesses that have been disrupted by Apple’s iOS lineup, and the company’s recent hires suggest that Apple intends to continue pushing the gaming capabilities of its mobile device lineup.

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Since the launch of the iPhone 4S, we have seen numerous Siri clones come and go. While Siri does have its flaws, the feature is unique, smart, user-friendly and at times, hilarious. Most alternatives promise these same features, unfortunately they never seem to deliver. Enter Evi, a Siri alternative that promises to bring users even more functionality than Apple’s digital personal assistant. The program is created by True Knowledge and uses the company’s Answer Engine to provide users with what it claims to be a limitless amount of information. The app is available for free in the Android Market and for $0.99 in the App Store, and that price covers the cost of using Nuance voice recognition (the same voice recognition technology as Siri), which the Android version does not feature require. Read on for more.

The company said the app contains “almost a billion facts” along with the ability to infer trillions if necessary. Evi also uses various sources, such as Yelp, third-party websites, traditional web searches and APIs to answer a wide range of questions.

The app is capable of delivering local data to users within the United Kingdom, which is something Siri cannot do. It also provides quicker information to users. For example, when asking “How do I make apple pie?” Siri is unable to provide a direct answer and will ask whether you want to search the web. Evi on the other hand is able to provide a list of recipes with web links. If you ask “Who was President when Queen Elizabeth II was born?” Evi determines who Queen Elizabeth II is, when she was born and then compares this against which U.S. presidents were in office over that time, delivering the results of both serving U.S. presidents during those years. Siri cannot do this.

In its current form, Evi is not capable of integrating with the iPhone’s Calendar and Reminders like Siri can, although support could be added in the future. Unfortunately, after downloading both the Android and iOS versions of this potentially great app, we were unable to connect to Evi’s servers. Although we couldn’t test the app, Evi certainly sounds like a worthy competitor to Siri — on paper, at least.

Read [AppStore] Read [AndroidMarket]

Google’s open approach with the Android platform means developers can build applications that make use of parts of the operating system that iOS developers can’t even consider if they hope to get their apps approved for distribution through Apple’s App Store. Even still, however, there are a number of Android developers with apps that have been banned from Google’s Android Market for various reasons. While iOS developers looking to get around Apple’s strict policies can turn to Cydia, the third-party app store available to jailbreakers, Android developers with banned apps do not have a centralized location through which they can distribute their wares — but that will soon change. Android developer Koushik Dutta recently revealed that he is working on a third-party application distribution resource that will function much like Cydia does on iOS devices. Dutta, known for his work on custom “CyanogenMod” Android ROMs, published an image of the app listing utility that will allow developers to add products to the store, hinting that progress is being made and we may soon see an initial release. Paid and free apps will be available in the CyanogenMod App Store, and a cut of sales will be taken just as it is in the Android Market. Dutta hasn’t yet announced a launch time frame for the new app store.

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One of the advantages of owning an Android device is the ability to install a custom ROM and making your device perfect for your tastes. You can’t talk about custom ROMs without mentioning the king of them all, CyanogenMod, which has just surpassed 1 million downloads. Created by Steve “Cyanogen” Kondik, the CyanogenMod team offers up-to-date custom ROMs that extend a phone’s capabilities with added features and utilities. Additionally, CM team member Koushik Dutta has been dabbling into the idea of creating an app store exclusively for root apps. With carriers and Google continuing to police the Android Market, removing tether apps, one click root apps, and emulators, Koush has become increasingly frustrated and originally proposed the idea of a root app store to Amazon, however the company was not interested. The proposed store would be open-source and available to any custom ROM, not just CyanogenMod.

Read [CyangenMod] Read [Koush]

Google’s Android Market reportedly reached a new milestone over New Year’s weekend, surpassing 400,000 available applications for the first time. Mobile app watcher Distimo on Tuesday reported the feat, which it says was accomplished in about the same amount of time that it took Apple’s App Store — both on-device software catalogs reportedly took approximately 40 months to pass the 400,000-app mark. Distimo notes that the pace at which the Android Market is growing has accelerated recently; the Market took 31 months to reach 200,000 apps, but it needed only four more months to reach 300,000 apps and another five months to pass 400,000 available apps. The report also states that developers are embracing the Android platform more quickly than ever before as well, and Google now has more than 100,000 publishers with an average of 4.1 apps each in the Market. Comparatively, Apple’s App Store is currently home to more than 530,000 apps according to third-party monitor AppShopper. Two graphs highlighting the Distimo’s data follow below.

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Apple’s Mac App Store hasn’t changed the industry quite like its iOS App Store did three years ago, but the Cupertino-based company on Monday announced that it has now served more than 100 million downloads from its desktop software store. ”In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.” Apple also said that its iOS App Store now holds more than 500,000 apps that have been collectively downloaded more than 18 billion times. The comapny’s full press release follows below.

Apple’s Mac App Store Downloads Top 100 Million

CUPERTINO, Calif., Dec 12, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Apple(R) today announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac(R) App Store(TM) in less than one year. With thousands of free and paid apps, the Mac App Store brings the App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes(R) account, and download and install them in just one step. Apple revolutionized the app industry with the App Store, which now has more than 500,000 apps and where customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps and continue to download more than 1 billion apps per month.

“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

“With Autodesk products in both the App Store and Mac App Store, we can reach hundreds of millions of Apple users around the world,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president of Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk. “With our free AutoCAD WS and the more powerful professional drafting tools of AutoCAD LT, we’re using the Mac App Store to deliver new products and reach a growing base of new Mac customers.”

“The Mac App Store has unparalleled reach and has completely transformed our distribution and development cycle,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Offering Pixelmator 2.0 exclusively on the Mac App Store allows us to streamline updates to our image editing software and stay ahead of the competition.”

“In less than one year we’ve shifted the distribution of djay for Mac exclusively to the Mac App Store,” said Karim Morsy, CEO of algoriddim. “With just a few clicks, djay for Mac is available to customers in 123 countries worldwide. We could never have that reach through traditional channels.”

The Mac App Store offers thousands of apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is included with Mac OS(R) X Lion and is available as a software update for any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard(R). For more information visit, www.apple.com/mac/app-store .

Mac developers set the prices for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit, developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

More than one million mobile applications are now available across the top-four mobile platforms according to analytics company Mobilewalla. The firm said recently that it anticipated the million-app threshold would likely be crossed this week, and as of Thursday the total number of available apps in Apple’s iOS App Store, Google’s Android Market, RIM’s BlackBerry App World and Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace totals 1,001,219 combined. The iOS App Store is home to 597,253 mobile apps according to Mobilewalla, and the Android Market now holds 324,003 apps. BlackBerry App World is home to 43,548 apps and Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace now includes 36,415 apps for the year-old Windows Phone platform. “The growth of apps is the fastest growing consumer segment in the history of commerce,” Mobilewalla founder Anindya Datta said in a statement last week.

The total number of mobile applications available across the top-four smartphone platforms in the world is now approaching the 1 million-app milestone, further highlighting the rapid growth of the smartphone and tablet software market. As of the end of last week, there were 989,863 applications available across Apple’s iOS App Store, Google’s Android Marketplace, RIM’s BlackBerry App World and Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace according to analytics company Mobilewalla. Apple continues to lead the pack in terms of volume with 590,138 apps in the App Store, Android trails with 320,315, RIM holds the No.3 spot with 43,544 and Microsoft rounds out the top-4 with 35,479 apps. ”This is truly an astonishing accomplishment that cannot be ignored,” Mobilewalla founder Anindya Datta said in a statement. “The growth of apps is the fastest growing consumer segment in the history of commerce. The app race began in July, 2008 when the iTunes App store opened and Google followed with the launch of the Android operating system in October, 2008. Recently, app marketplaces have been launched for the Blackberry RIM and Microsoft Windows Phone platforms.” Mobilewalla‘s full press release follows below.

Mobile Apps Approaching Major Milestone of 1 Million Apps in Marketplace: Mobilewalla

Today’s Count: 989,476

“Astonishing Accomplishment That Cannot Be Ignored”

NEW YORK and ATLANTA, Dec. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — The total number of individual mobile apps in the marketplace is approaching a major milestone, hitting the 1 million mark within the next week, according to Mobilewalla, the search, discovery and analytics engine that tracks apps in real time.

Today the app count rose to 987,863 across all 4 platforms; an average of 2,000 apps enter the marketplace each day (with numbers higher at end of year for holiday rush). In the last 12 months, Apple apps grew from 338,000 to 589,148. Similarly Android apps went from 115,000 to 319,774. Please follow us on Twitter at #millionmobileapps.

Here is the breakdown:                                                                                 

Platform	Total	Percentage of Total
Apple	590,138	59.95%
Android	320,315	32.54%
Blackberry	43,544	4.42%
Windows	35,479	3.60%

“This is truly an astonishing accomplishment that cannot be ignored,” says Anindya Datta, the founder and executive chairman of Mobilewalla. “The growth of apps is the fastest growing consumer segment in the history of commerce. The app race began in July, 2008 when the iTunes App store opened and Google followed with the launch of the Android operating system in October, 2008. Recently, app marketplaces have been launched for the Blackberry RIM and Microsoft Windows Phone platforms.”

“In the early days most of the initial apps were “fun, indie” apps, such as the Doodle Jump game, one of the first mass-market apps to gain viral popularity and paved the entryway for other mass successes like Angry Birds,” says Datta. “As app usage skyrocketed, the nature of the app ecosystem changed quickly – new apps were designed to improve our lives, disseminate news, weather and even crop data in places like rural India.”

Across all platforms, the top categories of apps are: Entertainment 16.68% Games 13.36% Books 10.21% Lifestyle 8.02% Utilities 7.13% Education 7.08% Travel 4.84% Business 3.76% Reference 3.73% Music 3.32% Health & Fitness 3.28% Productivity 3.09% Sports 2.92% News 2.85% Social Networking 2.71%.  For more app intelligence, please visit: http://www.mobilewalla.com/Desktop/AppIntel_AppCount.htm?filterDevicePlatform=101

Google’s Gmail application for iOS is again available in the iTunes App Store. The application originally launched on November 2nd but was pulled hours later after Google discovered that notifications weren’t working properly. Google says it has fixed the bug and that notifications now work as originally intended. Image HTML emails will also display properly now. In addition, Google said it is already working on future updates that will add support for customizations, improved notifications, mobile specific signatures and multiple accounts. Gmail for iOS requires iOS 4 or a later version of Apple’s mobile operating system, and you’ll need to uninstall the original buggy version before downloading the new app. 

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Applications downloaded to Android devices in the second quarter surpassed the number apps downloaded from Apple’s iOS App Store. New data from market research and intelligence firm ABI Research shows that Android overtook iOS by a substantial margin in the June quarter, having been responsible for 44% of mobile app downloads around the world compared to iOS at 31%. ”Android’s open source strategy is the main factor for its success,” said ABI researcher Lim Shiyang in a statement. “Being a free platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third party multi-platform and mobile operator app stores. These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market.” ABI notes that the shift can be partially attributed to Android’s rapid growth during the second quarter. Shipments of iOS devices grew just 9% between April and June compared to 15% in the first quarter, while global shipments of Android devices grew 36% in the June quarter compared to 20% a quarter earlier. Global application downloads this year are expected to reach 29 billion compared to just 9 billion in 2010. ABI’s full press release follows below.

Android Overtakes Apple with 44% Worldwide Share of Mobile App Downloads

SINGAPORE – October 24, 2011

In Q2 2011, Android overtook iOS to become the market share leader in mobile application downloads. The market shares of Android and iOS were 44% and 31%, respectively.

“Android’s open source strategy is the main factor for its success,” says Lim Shiyang, research associate. “Being a free platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third party multi-platform and mobile operator app stores. These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market.”

Recent quarterly shipment growth figures also explain Android’s ascent to the top app download position. iPhone shipment growth in Q2 2011 slowed to 9% from 15% a quarter earlier. In contrast, Android smartphone shipments increased 36% in Q2 2011, compared to 20% in Q1. Android’s install base now exceeds iOS by a factor of 2.4-to-1 worldwide; by 2016 this factor will grow to 3-to-1.

“Despite leading in total mobile application downloads, Android’s app downloads per user still lag behind Apple’s by 2-to-1,” adds Dan Shey, practice director, mobile services. “Apple’s superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience.”

Global app downloads for year-end 2011 are expected to balloon to 29 billion, compared to only nine billion in 2010. Such stellar increases are largely due to the proliferation of smartphones around the world. The total smartphone install base is expected to grow 46% in 2011.

ABI Research’s “Mobile Applications Market Data” tracks mobile application downloads and revenues segmented by mobile operating system platform. The database includes historical data and forecasts for application downloads for all major mobile OSs. It also provides mobile application revenue forecasts and an overview of the major mobile application storefronts.

This study is a part of the firm’s Mobile Applications Research Service.

The total number of published applications in Google’s Android Market climbed past the half-million mark in September. According to data from mobile app market intelligence firm research2guidance, the Android Market surpassed 500,000 published apps last month, but over 37% of submissions have been removed over time for a variety of reasons. Apple’s App Store has had over 600,000 successful submissions to date according to the firm, while 24% of apps have been removed. “Although Apple regularly cleans up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android,” research2guidance noted in a press release. “It is likely that the more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, demo and malware content.” Research2guidance’s full press release follows below.

Android Market reaches half a million successful submissions

37% of published apps have been removed from the Android Market.

The actual total number of applications published on the Android Market leapt to over 500,000 in September 2011. In the meantime, the Apple App Store stands at just over 600,000 successful submissions: just 20% more. But over 37% of the applications published were later removed from the Android Market for various reasons, whereas the Apple App Store has removed just 24% of published apps in comparison, as of the end of September.

Although Apple regularly cleans up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android. It is likely that the more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, demo and malware content. Over 78% of the apps removed from the Android Market were free, which could mean that publishers put more effort into the applications they place with the pay-per-download business model, thus ensuring that it is kept longer in store.

The share of deactivated apps in the WP7 Marketplace today stands at just 13%. However WP7 Marketplace is a comparably young store and many publishers are still exploring its potential. Fifteen months after its launch (comparable to the WP7 store now), the Android Market similarly had 86% of its apps active and a significant application store clean-up didn’t get started until the end of 2010.

Android developers are significantly more productive than Apple’s. The average publisher on Android has placed more than 6 applications in the Market since launch, compared to just over 4 apps on average that have been published by iOS developers.

Over the past few months, the Android Market has been maintaining an exponential growth, but is still lagging behind the app store market leader, Apple. In Q3 of 2011, the number of active mobile applications in the Android Market stood at 319,161 compared to 459,589 in Apple App store.

Download our free Android Market Insights Vol. 6.

Apple’s iOS App Store is the world’s most popular on-device mobile app portal by leaps and bounds, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best opportunity for developers according to Berlin, Germany-based market research firm research2guidance. Apple has a wide lead over competitors in terms of overall downloads and the number of applications in its App Store, but individual apps seemingly have a greater chance of success in rival offerings from Nokia, Microsoft and RIM. ”The ‘average app’ has a better chance to generate downloads on ‘non-hyped’ platforms,” the firm said in a press release on Wednesday. In the second quarter of 2011, the average application in Nokia’s Ovi Store generated 160% more daily downloads than the average iOS app in Apple’s App Store. Individual apps were downloaded from Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace 80% more often each day than from the App Store on average, and apps in RIM’s BlackBerry App World generated 43% more daily downloads than Apple’s offering. Software titles in Google’s Android Market were downloaded 5% less often each day compared to the iOS App Store, and Apple had HP’s webOS App Catalog beat by 95% last quarter. Research2guidance’s full press release follows below along with a chart outlining the firm’s second-quarter data.

Apps On Nokia’s OVI Store Had 2.5 Times Higher Download Numbers In Q2 2011 Compared To Apps on Apple App Store

The “average app” has a better chance to generate downloads on “non-hyped” platforms.

Despite all the hype around the major platforms Android and iOS, publishers are still overlooking the hidden potentials of the niche players. The Q2 2011 results of our smartphone application monitoring report indicate that those applications published on the less popular platforms, such as WP7 marketplace or Blackberry’s AppWorld, generate significantly more downloads compared to the Apple App Store.

Significantly lower competition, yet a sufficiently large user base that desires apps, are the major reasons for this.  Symbian still retains, by far, the highest potential user base. Even though its users are incomparably less active than iOS’s heavy downloaders, it still generates significant download volumes to Symbian publishers.  This is largely because whilst Apple boasts of its 400,000 apps, the OVI store contains less than a tenth of that number.

Looking into average numbers, the Android Market stands not far behind the Apple App Store.  This quarter, the average Android App attracted just 5% less users than iOS.  Competition is harsh.

However, going in for very small niche platforms may not be the best idea either. LG World! and Samsung’s App Store are struggling to generate user attention.  Although LG has less than 3,000 apps and as a result it is much easier to be discovered there, its user base is just too low.

Although the Symbian platform is seen by some developers to be clumsy and outdated, as well as Nokia’s transition to WP7 which has fuelled discussions as to when Nokia will give up its platform completely, the current status seems to be promising.  Recently, Nokia reported the launch of three new Symbian Smartphones and confirmed that these will not be the last of the products, nor updates, to be delivered on Symbian.

Find other important Q2 2011 market developments in the new volume of the research2guidance Smartphone App Market Monitor. The third volume of the report includes a special interest chapter on mobile retail market.

Nokia recently announced that its Ovi Store has served a record 7.62 million downloads in a single day. The figure is a large jump from the 3 million daily downloads Nokia said the Ovi Store was serving in October of last year. The phone maker attributed its app store’s popularity to the decision to remove a registration and login requirement from the shop. In addition, Nokia said downloads more than tripled in India, the top country in terms of overall download volume. To put the Ovi Store figures in perspective, earlier this month Apple announced that its iTunes App Store had served a total 15 billion downloads. By Business Insider’s math, that’s about of 13 million downloads per day.

[Via Business Insider]

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Amazon has updated its Kindle for iOS application with support for magazine and newspaper subscriptions. iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users can now browse, purchase, and read from more than 100 newspapers and magazines, complete with high resolution color photos, and the company confirmed that more content is on its way. Amazon customers with existing subscriptions can find recent issues under the “Archived Items” menu inside the application. The update also removes Amazon’s Kindle Store button from the the app now allows users to share quotes and passages with Facebook and Twitter friends. Kindle for iOS version 2.8 is available in the iTunes App Store for free.