Mobile Development Talk

iOS popular among mobile developers for games followed by Android, says research

harichandana — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:16:50 +0000

Well, one shouldn’t be really surprised with the news that iOS continues to be the most preferred platform by the game developers. Game Developer, Gamasutra’s sister publication conducted a survey with social and mobile developer technology, according to which, 94.7% developers have been building games on the iOS platform. Windows Phone 7, Blackberry and there are other few players who have been struggling to survive in the market. Devices running iOS 4.1 and above are being targeted by a majority of 39.4% of the iOS developers while there are 30.7% of these developers are found to be interested for iOS 5.0 and above. The number of developers who still wish to work on lower versions of iOS is very few.

The research says Unity, out of the mobile game engines available in the market, has been listed as the top one with 53.1% of developers reported using it rather than a custom engine. Game developers have rated faster development time as the most important factor while flexibility, engine performance, support and documentation and prior successful usage by another team remain the other factors, when it comes to determining a mobile gaming engine.

Facebook’s App Center : Common platform for the developers to submit social web, desktop and mobile apps

harichandana — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:59:11 +0000

Great news!!! Looking for apps for different devices becomes easy. Facebook sets in motion its App Center, that unites 900 million users at one place to find all social web, desktop and mobile apps. As a Facebook representative puts it “the goal is to solve the app discovery problem… based on what you and your friends enjoy”. The users are introduced to paid apps as well as the company intends the app developers to earn revenues initially from the in-app purchases.

The social media company also plans to focus on App Store like quality as it would gather data on the app usage along with the star ratings from the user. This shall help the developers in improving their product. With this, Facebook has lays its focus on distribution of apps and aiding the developers upgrade their apps.

Google Play reaches 15billion downloads; Will the app developers start targeting the Android customer?

harichandana — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:55:13 +0000

Google Play, previously known as the Android market reached another milestone of 15 billion downloads. It took less than five months for the market to reach this mark from ten billion downloads. Interestingly, according to the company, it is games which make up for more than a quarter of the downloads. Mobile app developers shall start mulling over the idea of writing the app on the platform for the growth it has seen since its inception.

Although Apple’s App Store rules the roost, Google does not seem to be far off as millions of Android devices are activated each month.

An Infographic on The Mobile Workforce

harichandana — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:49:04 +0000

Well, what smartphones and tablets have done to enterprises today is a very well-known. But the way employees have been reciprocating to the usage of mobile at work is equally interesting. According to an infographic “The Mobile Employee” by [x]cube LABS, the mobile workers in the global enterprise workforce are expected to increase by 209.2 million in the year, 2012 from 187.9 in 2011. The infographic intends to give an insight on the growth of the global enterprise, the mobile workers and their preferences on device usage and applications.

The ease of making work happen from any corner of the world with the help of mobile is also catching the eye of those who handle desk jobs. It is evident from the infographic that the preference for apps used by the mobile workers depends upon the platform enabled on their devices. So, it is time for the mobile app developers to be fully geared up to tap the opportunities available in the enterprise segment.

Click to view the complete infographic on The Mobile Workforce.

Without UDID, Mobile App Developers may lose upto 24% of Advertising Revenue

harichandana — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:09:04 +0000

According to a recent study by MoPub, international ad server for smartphone apps, mobile application developers without access to UDID data for iOS devices could see a loss in advertising revenue based on a price that is 24 percent lower. iOS app publishers who currently rely on the UDID both for ad performance and app usage data have been discontented with Apple’s depreciation of the unique device identifier, or UDID.
The report was compiled from three months’ worth of data from billions of impressions through MoPub’s real time bidding exchange, MoPub Marketplace. The data makes it clear on how developers can suffer loss in revenues without ad conversion data from UDID. The report read that those ad impressions without the UDIDs represented a lower eCPM. Apple’s recent response to UDID usage has raised concerns among thousands of app businesses that could be affected if conversion tracking data is not available, particularly developers of free apps that rely on advertising as their primary source of revenue. The alternative that many players, including MoPub, have decided to offer its publishers is OpenUDID, an open-source project that has also been adopted by Appsfire as an alternative solution to the UDID.
“The move away from UDIDs threatens advertising revenue that many publishers depend on in order to support their content creation and businesses,” said Jim Payne, CEO and co-founder of MoPub.

iPhone 5 rumored to have a bigger screen, more memory and a modified chip

harichandana — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:05:08 +0000

According to a research note by Brian white, an analyst at Topeka Capital Markets, iPhone 5 will have a bigger screen than the latest one available in the market. The next iPhone is expected to have a 4 inch screen and a body that will give it a sleek look.

The iPhone fans will be excited to know that this next version of the smartphone might have 4G capability. Also, there are reports from the website, 9to5Mac, that a prototype of the much awaited iPhone 5 uses a derivative of A5X processor used in the new iPad. According to White, Apple’s next much awaited product might roll out in August or September and said that “iPhone 5 ramp …could be extraordinary, dwarfing previous launches”.

ICS starts building its customer base, Gingerbread stays ahead of others

harichandana — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:48:03 +0000

Here I am with some key information for the developers. According to Android Developers official website, Android 3.0, the Gingerbread rules the roost with about 63% of the market share. The website describes the data as “the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform.” Ice Cream Sandwich, one of the much awaited versions is also increasing its reach and had 2.9 percent share. Interestingly, Froyo still holds 23.1 percent of the market share. The chart below provides data on how many devices have accessed Google Play in the past 14 days period ending April 2nd.

The website says that this data on device distribution shall aid the app developers in developing features for those devices that are currently being used. It is time for the developers to think over and prioritize which versions of the platform they should work on.

Great News!! Lenovo launches an Android app store especially for the Enterprise

harichandana — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:06:06 +0000

The computer manufacturing company Lenovo, has launched the “Lenovo Enterprise App Shop”. This App shop runs n Lenovo’s Android based tablets running 3.1 or higher and tablets from other PC makers as well.

This service by Lenovo offers custom management, deployment and publication of mobile applications. The “Lenovo App Shop Manager” allows the company’s IT administrator to build their own customized app store, which comprises of apps that are meant for usage by the company’s end users. With the increasing number of tablets gaining enterprise activations, Lenovo’s App Store shall also gain popularity in the market.

New iPad vs iPad 2 vs Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Motorola Xoom 2: Pick your choice!

harichandana — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:43:45 +0000

Apple’s new iPad has sold 3 million units over the first weekend. This gives us a clue as to how well it has been received by the consumers. With the usage of tablets on a rise, there are many other players hitting the market with their products. Here is a comparison of android based yet-to-be-launched Galaxy Note 10.1 and Motorola Xoom 2 and iOS based Apple’s new iPad and iPad 2. This post intends to aid the consumer in making the right move while buying the gadget.

New iPad vs iPad 2 vs Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Motorola Xoom 2

Mobile developers inclined towards HTML 5 & Windows Phone code but not their native apps

harichandana — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:30:32 +0000

Well, HTML 5 and Windows Phone might be really attractive to the developer’s eye but how much is it likely for a developer to convert this attraction into a material thing. According to a recent survey published by IDC and app tools maker Appcelerator, there are only a few mobile developers who would want to build apps that are completely HTML 5 based.

The survey says that about 80 percent of the app developers wish to insert the HTML 5 code into their apps during the current year, but only 6 percent of them were ready to develop purely HTML 5 based apps. Mike King, Principal mobile strategist at Appcelerator said that developers, today, are keen on taking up a hybrid approach that is blending the HTML 5 code with the native code for iOS, Android and other mobile operating systems.

As per the survey report, the developer priorities have not changed much over the last three months. Building apps on the iOS platform interests a majority of the developers who were surveyed while Android comes only next to iOS due to hassles of developing for the platform becoming a major turn off for some developers.