Ever since Apple introduced the App Store in 2008, the world of mobile applications has never been the same. The App Store created the status quo for other mobile app marketplaces to replicate.
Years later, it's interesting to see The State of the Mobile App World. What are the top app platforms? Top mobile devices? How does the iPhone and the App Store play into these numbers?
Check out this infographic...
Many car makers have been looking at integrating smartphones with their latest vehicle models. Just look at the mobile application for the Chevy Volt. The app allows you to unlock and start your car via your smartphone.
Other companies, like BMW, are trying to push the integration even further. While cars have offered iPod interfaces and hands-free systems for quite some time now, they've never compared to what the german car maker has been working on with their ConnectedDrive...
A couple days ago, we told you about a discovery made by two researchers concerning location data collection on the iPhone. Apparently, the iPhone logs your GPS coordinates for an unspecified amount of time and saves that data to a system-level consolidated.db file that is then synced over to iTunes upon backup.
This finding was demonstrated at the Where 2.0 conference by British programmers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allen. They claimed the discovery as their own, when in fact it has actually been a known issue in the security community since last year.
While an NFL season is questionable, the draft seems to be right on schedule. On April 28th, last year's top college football players will participate in the NFL Draft where players are selected by professional teams.
The NFL iPad app will allow you to watch live video of the draft, along with several other great features. You can check which positions your favorite team needs help in and view a detailed breakdown of each player that gets drafted. You can even set the application to alert you when your favorite team is up for selection.
Outside of the exclusive draft coverage, the application is pretty bare. There is a section where you can read general news and view the entire NFL schedule, but that's pretty much it.
If a 2011 season does go on as planned, the NFL has mentioned that there will be a lot more content pushed out to users via an update. You'll most likely get the usual cocktail of features like in-game highlights and up to the minute league scoreboards.
I would be interested to see Fantasy Football get integrated into the application. Maybe even throw in some audio clips of popular players that are wearing microphones throughout the game.
Although it's kind of on the light side right now, if you're planning on watching the draft next week, this application would make a nice accessory. NFL 2011 for iPad is free to download from the App Store.
What do you think?
We told you about all of the fire Time Warner Cable was under after releasing its new iPad application. The popular software saw tremendous success until networks starting interfering.
Discovery and Fox networks pressured TWC into removing their channels from the app. Viacom forced Time Warner to remove 11 of their channels from the application, and is currently in litigation with the cable giant.
Today we bring you an update on the situation, as several media outlets are reporting that some of the pulled channels are starting to reappear in the iPad app.
The returning channels include Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet from Discovery networks, and National Geographic, FX, and Fox News from Fox. Obviously due to their legal dispute, Viacom channels still remain excluded.
What's really interesting is that competing cable company, Cablevision, has recently rolled out its own iPad application that allows customers access to close to 300 channels. TWC is currently offering around 50 channels, depending on the subscriber package.
The difference might be in the technology used to stream the content. While TWC broadcasts the video over the internet, Cablevision streams the media via Wi-Fi from their digital cable boxes. However, both methods require the user of the iPad app to be in their home to view the content.
The good news is that major cable networks are starting to realize that we are in the 21st century. Times are a changing, and only the companies that figure out how to adapt will survive. We'll keep you updated on future news regarding the iPad app lawsuit.
What do you think?
[Tuaw]
It seems like you can never get enough high-tech innovation, especially when it involves using ordinary products to accomplish extraordinary things. We've shown you 3D graphics on the iPhone 4 in the past and even lenses that give the iPhone 360-degree video capturing abilities. What could they possibly come up with next?
Let me introduce you to Tim Soo. On top of being a medical student, he also happens to be a hacker/musician. His Kickstarter video asking for donations to fund an interesting project has really been making its rounds on the internet recently...
Things can get a little heated when iPhone and Android users start arguing over who has the better phone. The Android/iPhone debate is king of the smartphone rivalries, and iPhone fanatics swear by their platform just as much as Android users.
Few people actually use both an Android and iPhone device for any extended period of time. Usually, the fights occur between people that are sitting on opposite sides of the smartphone fence. It's always interesting to hear the experience of someone that's thoroughly used both platforms...
Ever wanted the ability to set your iPhone to automatically answer incoming calls? Auto answer is a feature I've seen requested several times, across multiple iPhone message boards. If your iPhone is jailbroken, you have a handful of options.
Applications like CallControl are nice, but have limited auto answering capabilities. If you have been looking for an auto answer app with more features, you need to check out AutoAnswer. The new Cydia app promises to handle all of your auto answering needs for your iPhone...
Let's face it, Apple's default Safari web browser on the iPhone could use an upgrade. It's not bad by any means, but it could certainly stand to add some much needed features. Maybe that's why 3rd party web browsers in the App Store are so popular.
If apps like Opera Mini and Skyfire don't quench your thirst for alternative browsing options, allow me to introduce you to something different. As of today jailbroken iPhone users can download Nimbus, a new web browsing application in Cydia...
qTweeter by Efiko has been around for quite some time. Sebastien even mentioned it in his list of some of the best jailbreak apps last year. The funny thing is, I hadn't really feigned interest in trying it out until I came across it in my Cydia Changes log yesterday.
While I had heard about qTweeter before, for one reason or another I never downloaded it. I guess I never considered myself the kind of social networking power user that would need something like that. Well I'm still not a social networking king but I gotta say my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try out this popular Twitter app...
Have you ever used an Android device and iPhone side by side? If you compare the same app that's been ported to both platforms, you should notice some differences.
There are plenty of cross-platform apps that now exist on the Android OS and iOS. Larger brands now offer their apps on multiple mobile operating systems, but the user experience usually ranges for the same app from platform to platform.
Android Gripes has posted a brief comparison of some popular iOS and Android apps...
[iDB does not condone app piracy.]
Have you ever been inside a peddler's mall? It's basically a huge consignment shop where different vendors come and sell their knick knacks under one roof.
People who have items to sell in a peddler's mall pay the mall's owner a percentage of their sales for the rights to sell in the store. People will come to the peddler's mall to see what kind of deals they can find and to barter with the sellers.
In a way, the peddler's mall is a lot like the App Store. And folks, people are shoplifting.