App Store

How Jailbreakers Helped Create the App Store

The Associated Press seems to have gotten its hands on the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. The highly anticipated book is due out later this month, but excerpts have been surfacing on the web over the last 48 hours.

One of the more interesting tidbits that has come to light is a passage regarding Jobs' thoughts and comments on third-party applications. Apparently at one point, Jobs thought that web apps were the wave of the future...

Official Google Voice App Removed from the App Store

If you've tried downloading the official Google Voice app from the App Store within the last 21 hours, you've probably had no luck finding it. That's because Google has removed the app.

According to Engadget, Senior Product Manager for Google Voice Vincent Paquet stated that the app had been pulled, due to a bug in the new version that caused the app to crash at sign in...

WhatsApp Messenger Now Free For a Limited Time

WhatsApp Messenger, a popular IM app, has gone free in the App Store. What makes WhatsApp different from other IM apps is that it is cross platform, meaning it works on Android, BlackBerry, and Nokia phones.

WhatsApp is currently free in the App Store for a limited time. This is because Apple took WhatsApp head on with iMessage in iOS 5...

Apple Releases Cards App for iOS

Today Apple released the Cards app for iOS, which allows you create cards and mail them. Apple showed this app at their latest keynote, along with the iPhone 4S. This app lets you make custom cards on your iPhone and send them to any address in the world.

You can use this app for making custom cards for many occasions, Birthday parties, weddings, postcards, etc...

Facebook for iPad Now Available

Facebook has finally decided to release its official iPad app in the App Store. After months and months of waiting, the social networking giant decided to pull the trigger and release its iPad app.

Facebook for iPad was leaked a couple months ago, and jailbreakers were able to keep the iPad version running as long as the app wasn't updated. The real version is finally out...

Is Apple Set to Announce App Trials?

We're so close to tomorrow's iPhone event that we can taste it, and the rumors just keep on flying. The latest comes thanks to Apple's latest iTunes 10.5 beta, with 'The Tech Era' discovering a rogue bit of code that, they believe, could point to Apple's impending announcement of iOS app rentals.

The blog post points out that after the rental period has elapsed, the app in question would automatically be deleted from a user's iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. While that sounds theoretically possible, I'm not convinced that's the plan at all. What if Apple was planning on finally rectifying one of the issues that has plagued the App Store since day one? What if Apple was planning on announcing app trials?

It actually makes a lot of sense, and here's why...

20% of iOS Game Devs Are Making 97% of the Money

We've all heard the stories of the kids who sat in their basements coding hit iOS games that go on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. We've also heard about the likes of Rovio, a company that makes more money than it knows what to do with because some clever fellow decided that throwing birds at pigs would be fun.

There is money to be made in the App Store, so long as you're in the top 20% of iOS developers that are making a whopping 97% of the money that's out there...

Shazam Enables Unlimited Song Tagging in Free App

For those of you who aren't familiar with Shazam, it's a music identification service that can tell you song information just by hearing a sample of the music. The service has followed the smartphone's rise to popularity with multiple successful mobile apps.

In fact, Shazam was the first song I.D. app I downloaded when Apple launched the App Store in 2008. It worked great and even more importantly, it was free. You could tag as many songs as you wanted and it didn't cost a dime. But then things changed...

Classic Mac Game “Glider” Coming to iOS

Old-school Mac gamers rejoice! Word on the street is that Glider will soon be making its way to iOS. For those who aren't familiar with the title, the classic 2D scroller has been entertaining Mac users since 1988.

Due to low funding, the developer John Calhoun pulled the plug on the series in 1991. Now, after a 16 year stint in Cupertino as an Apple programmer, Calhoun says he's ready to jump back into the gaming industry...

Jailbreaking the iPhone Helped Pandora Succeed as a Company During Its Early Years

Pandora is one of those companies that really doesn't need an introduction. The popular streaming music service has garnered over 100 million registered users, and it just went public in June of this year with a stock price of $16/share.

But it hasn't always been smooth sailing for the company, according to Pandora's CTO Tom Conrad. Conrad spoke at GigaOM's Mobilize conference earlier this week about the company's rocky start, and how jailbreaking the iPhone changed everything...

Apple Launches “TV Time” Section in the App Store

Apple has launched a dedicated App Store page for "TV Time" apps for the iPhone and iPad. The listed apps let you watch, share, and do a host of other TV-related things on your iDevice.

Some of the App Store's greatest classics are listed in this new Spotlight page, and there are definitely plenty of apps there to help you take advantage of this Fall's TV season...

Optimum TV App Blocking Jailbroken Devices

Optimum, a big player in the New York cable TV business, also offers iPhone and iPad apps to its customers that bring live TV and on-demand content to iOS devices. Optimum's apps have proven popular for those who use the service, but they now appear to have waged something of a war on the jailbreak community.

According to reports from its customers, Optimum's iOS apps now fail to work on devices that have been jailbroken...