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Friday, June 17, 2011

App discovery gets smarter

Mark Bridge writes:

I’ve written previously about the changes happening to mobile application stores. Last week I was talking to Todd Levy about the family-friendly application store he’s planning to launch. He explained how BloomWorlds would be curated to provide trusted reviews that weren’t skewed by the app developers themselves.

Mobile affiliate network OfferMobi has also been bringing attention to the “dirty little secret” of the app charts suffering from developers who manipulate the figures. It says Incentivized Cost Per Install - offering users virtual currency in exchange for installing an app - is temporarily boosting installation figures but resulting in low quality users. As you’d probably expect, it’s a fan of app usage and not merely downloads… and it has a commercial solution.

Howie Schwartz of OfferMobi said “With such a large volume of app developers now attempting to manipulate the charts at once using incentivized CPI, it has become more difficult than ever for a company stay on them long enough to attract actual REAL users. After the Beta launch for iOS earlier this year of the OfferMobi App Discovery Network, we are pleased to bring the platform to Android devices to provide App developers with a cost-effective platform changing the game for App developers who desire non-incentivized installs of their apps to build true lifetime value with their installs.”

But the biggest news comes from Yahoo! Mobile, which has introduced a new mobile application called AppSpot. That’s right - not its own app store but an app-finding app. Apparently it “works like a flashlight in the darkness of more than 425,000-plus apps in the Apple App Store and 200,000 apps in Android Market”. Hyperbole aside, it’s available on iPhone and Android devices - and it’ll do its best to recommend apps based on your preferences.

Is this the future?  As Todd and I discussed last week, this sort of thing is certainly a solution... but the big-name app stores with their overloaded shelves will be with us for quite a while yet.

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Opinion Articles

India caps mobile text messages

Anjana Pasricha from voanews.com writes:

India’s millions of mobile phone subscribers have won relief from a growing nuisance on the subcontinent - unsolicited text messages. The crackdown by regulators targets the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market.

From remote villages to crowded metros, the number of mobile phones in India has grown exponentially to more than 850 million in just over a decade.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 3rd October 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s time for my summary of last week’s mobile industry news… and what a week it’s been. Not just for me – I made my first-ever visit to Over The Air on Friday – but for the world of mobile devices.

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I'm no developer - but I still fell in love with Over The Air

Mark Bridge writes:

The text message just said "Yellow Citroën hatchback".  At least the diaeresis on the ë was in the right place. It meant the stranger who was giving me a lift from the station was probably an urbane French speaker. Either that, or they had surprisingly good predictive text on their phone. The third possibility - a serial killer with an old Sagem - hadn't crossed my mind yet.

It was at this point I realised I'd already fallen for Over The Air, a unique event aimed at mobile developers. Throwing caution to the wind, I'd arranged a lift there via Twitter with a mysterious developer I'd never met. Or spoken to.

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The Amazon Android tablet and the Apple iPhone 5

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m not a big fan of reporting on rumours - I’d rather wait until the real thing happens - but I thought these two stories were too big and too well-defined to ignore completely.

Firstly, it looks as though Amazon will be announcing an Android-powered tablet tomorrow. Called the Kindle Fire, it probably won’t be a direct replacement for the Kindle e-book reader but an alternative. Most commentators suggest we should expect a 7-inch colour screen, a focus on cloud-based services and a pretty heavily customised version of Android.

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Are smartphones endangering security?

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of IP security specialists Wick Hill Group, writes:

Smartphones are spreading throughout the business world. Their use is growing across organisations and at all levels.

According to Gartner, sales of mobile devices in the second quarter of 2011 grew 16.5% year-on-year. Smartphone sales grew 74% year-on-year and accounted for 25% of overall sales in the second quarter of 2011, up from 17% in the second quarter of 2010.

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Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

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Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

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We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

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