Hooked Media turns in an entirely new take on app recommendation — one that Apple can’t kill

May 23, 2013 2:55 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

App recommendation engines are getting booted from Apple's app store because they suck, according to a new player in the app-finding business. But Hooked Media has come up with an entirely new take on app recommendation that has two unique qualities.

Apple kicks out Bang With Friends from app store with little explanation

May 17, 2013 3:30 PM Meghan Kelly
Meghan Kelly

Bang With Friends, the app that connects you with Facebook friends looking to hook up, was removed from the Apple app store only a week after it made its debut.

Apple hits 50 billion app downloads, just ahead of Google

May 15, 2013 2:15 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

It's a good thing Apple hit the number today, because if they waited even another week, the Cupertino company might have been second-best to Google's Android

iTunes users spend $40/year on apps, music, and digital shtuff

May 13, 2013 3:21 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Apple has built a massive and fast-growing $16 billion annual revenue stream in digital content alone, Apple analyst Horace Dediu says.

Twitter updates its Mac app, reinforcing its current consume-first, tweet-last philosophy

April 25, 2013 1:43 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Not only did the app's marketing pic showcase Twitter's current brand messaging around watching, getting, and reading, all of which are higher on the priority list than, God forbid, actually tweeting, but the app itself is designed for consumption, not creation.

Why developers choose the Amazon app store: fewer apps, ease of porting, and pending global expansion

April 25, 2013 9:45 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

While the iOS app store has well over 800,000 active apps and Google Play sports more than 600,000, the Amazon app store has only about 75,000.

That's a very good thing -- if you're an app developer.

Heroku developers get push messaging abilities with new Urban Airship app

April 24, 2013 6:00 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Smartphone notification startup Urban Airship has launched a new app in the add-on marketplace of platform-as-a-service provider Heroku, a move to give PaaS developers better access to push messaging solutions.

Chinese ‘app store’ lets you install pirated iPhone apps — without jailbreaking

April 18, 2013 3:09 PM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Chinese "app store" 7659.com is using Apple's own bulk enterprise licensing system to distributed pirated apps to Chinese iPhone and iPad users, completely free.

Google Play now at 90% of iOS app store downloads; iOS still holds a 2.6X revenue lead

April 17, 2013 7:30 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Google Play is quickly catching up to Apple's App Store, both in download numbers and in revenue.

Evernote launches no-equity accelerator program to promote ‘more cool things’ on its platform

April 16, 2013 9:01 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

How does an all-expenses-paid trip to Redwood City, Calif., for a month-long entrepreneurship course with Silicon Valley developers and designers sound?

AppGratis CEO resolves to keep calm and carry on in the face of attacks on his business — and integrity

April 15, 2013 10:09 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat has been through the storm of his entrepreneurial life in the last two weeks.

AppGratis launches online petition to protest app store ouster, 571K sign in just a few hours

April 15, 2013 8:07 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

AppGratis, the app-discovery engine Apple banned from the iOS App Store last week, has started an online petition against Apple that has gathered over half a million signatures in just a few short hours.

AppGratis speaks out: Apple didn’t talk to us, and Apple won’t talk to us

April 12, 2013 11:44 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Since Apple won't talk directly, AppGratis has taken to blogging. Apple did not talk to the French company before pulling its app from the iOS app store, says CEO Simon Dawlat, and won't talk now either.

ComiXology sheds light on explicit comic book ban (Note: It wasn’t Apple’s fault)

April 10, 2013 9:53 AM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Yesterday, creator Brian K. Vaughn informed the world that issue #12 of his and Fiona Staples' hit comic book series Saga was rejected by Apple due to explicit content and subsequently would not be available for sale within any of ComiXology's iOS apps.

Even Apple isn’t sure whether AppGratis actually violated Apple’s app store guidelines

April 10, 2013 8:01 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

Editor's Pick AppGratis may have violated Apple guidelines, and it may not have. It's very much up to interpretation and opinion. And very obviously, having first approved and then within days rejecting AppGratis, even Apple doesn't have the same opinion all the time about the same app.

Global apps report: Google has 51% of downloads, Apple has 74% of revenues

April 9, 2013 9:00 AM John Koetsier
John Koetsier

We downloaded 13.4 billion apps in the first three months of 2013, spending $2.2 billion U.S. on apps and in-app purchases.