While Sony Ericsson has teamed-up with Samsung, LG and 24 major carriers to form the Wholesale Applications Community, one of its parent companies – Ericsson – has just announced its own application store for mobile phones, called Ericsson eStore.
The Ericsson eStore is directly targeted at mobile operators rather than at end users – it allows carriers around the world to easily set-up and offer an application store to their customers.
According to Ericsson, the eStore application marketplace is designed for any mobile phone and, unlike other app stores, it includes a high number of applications from day one – more than 30,000 apps (both free and paid – the paid apps can be bought via your phone’s bill).
Ericsson says that the eStore is accessible as of now here – and it is, it’s just that it doesn’t seem to be fully functional.
Developers can also take advantage of the eStore – since they can develop only one app that will be published via multiple carriers.
The client framework for widgets and apps across multiple channels and devices for the Ericsson eStore is provided by Opera Software.
Via Press release
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Written by Ilinca Nita on February 15th, 2010 with no comments.
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I was checking out the App Store to see if anyone had already been releasing updates for their applications to take advantage of the larger screen on the new Apple iPad, and much to my surprise, I found this:
Apparently, a company called Groove Systems has been selling an application in the App Store called “iPad” since sometime back in late 2009. Whoops! Somehow the Apple lawyers didn’t catch that one.
While my Japanese isn’t very good, our friends at Google translate tell us that iPad is a some sort of note taking application that appears to do handwriting recognition and supports exchange of data over Bluetooth.
There’s no word on whether or not the iPad application will work on the actual iPad when it’s released, but if you do try it, I think it could cause a rift in the space-time-continuum – so try at your own risk.
At least this use of the iPad moniker is a bit more appropriate than this one:
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Written by technabob on January 30th, 2010 with no comments.
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Few hours ahead of Google’s grand unveiling of the Android Nexus One smartphone, Apple announced that its App Store passed the 3 billion downloads mark – only 18 months since it was launched (in the summer of 2008).
With the occasion of this announcement, Steve Jobs kind of dissed the competition (Google’s Android platform included) by saying: “The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”
I’m not sure what he means by “anytime soon”, but I really think that the Android Market can quickly reach the Apple App Store’s success.
I say this because the Android Market already has more than 20,000 applications, and this year we’ll surely see many, many new Android smartphones, launched by big manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, LG and so on. More smartphones = more users = more developers interested in making Android apps. And while there will be lots of Android handsets around, Apple will probably (still) have only the iPhone and iPod touch to lure users to its App Store with. But I guess we’d better wait and see how things are standing after 2010 is gone.
Via Press release
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Written by Ilinca Nita on January 5th, 2010 with no comments.
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We’ve featured a variety of iPhone musical instruments around here, including pianos, guitars, drums, and even ocarinas, but this is the first time I’ve come across an app that lets you play your iPhone like it was a violin, viola or cello.
Just load up greySox String Trio, choose a bit of classical music, and press “play”. The music loads in and plays based on the strokes of the virtual “bow” that is your iPhone or iPod Touch. String Trio uses the motion sensor in your iPhone to detect the angle and length of your strokes, and adjusts the playback of the music accordingly. You can either choose automatic accompaniment (hence the “trio” part of the name), or perform a solo without any backing instruments. The video below should give you a pretty good idea of how it works.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
I don’t know about you, but that Beethoven demo track sort of sounded like the theme from Fawlty Towers to me. They really should add that one to the app and they’d sell a lot more copies. For now, you’ll have to settle for one of the over 20 included classical and folks songs bundled with the App. greySox is also offering in-app downloads of two additional 10-track collections, priced at 99 cents each.
String Trio is available now over at the iTunes App Store for $1.99 (USD).
Written by technabob on December 28th, 2009 with no comments.
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Along with many other people, I’ll spend hours flying with young children this holiday season to visit family and, like many parents, I’d do anything within reason to keep my young children busy on a crowded airplane.
I’m a big fan of old-fashioned analog activities—books and crayons—but they’re not enough when you’re cooped up for six hours on a plane. In advance of a cross-country flight on Wednesday, my two kids and I spent several days trying out the most versatile and convenient gadget—offering movies, games and other electronic media—for keeping us entertained.
We looked at Apple’s iPod Touch, a Sony (SNE) PSPgo and a Nintendo DSi. Sony and Nintendo have updated their PlayStation Portable and DS game players with features aimed at going beyond traditional gaming. Apple (AAPL) is been promoting the iPod touch’s game capabilities.
Nintendo has done a lot to push the boundaries of gaming, with the Wii and other products. But the $169.99 DSi isn’t the entertainment Swiss army knife the iPod Touch and PSPgo are. It doesn’t play movies, for example—a big minus for my 2-year-old son, who is too young to be patient with most games.
It’s still a fun game-player, though, with popular titles for young kids, including two that are big with my 6-year-old daughter: the Nintendogs virtual pet and Pokemon adventure games, which run about $30 a title. One big change Nintendo made to the DSi is the addition of two cameras that are used in fun games, like the ones that put a player’s photo alongside other characters. One simple camera application lets you distort and doodle on images.
Nintendo and Sony also have followed the lead of the App Store—Apple’s online clearinghouse for iPhone and iPod Touch software—by letting users download software directly to the DSi and PSPgo over a Wi-Fi connection. It is more convenient than keeping track of a lot of external game cartridges and discs. Compared with the more than 100,000 titles in the App Store, however, Nintendo’s DSi Shop is sparsely stocked. It had only two free applications and about 90 titles, mostly costing $2 to $8.
One free DSi titles, Flipnote Studio, was a huge hit with my 6-year-old. It let her create an electronic version of an old-fashioned flip book, where you animate sketches by flipping pages. The DSi has only 256 megabytes of built-in storage, good for about a dozen games, though users can expand that with a storage card.
With the $249.99 PSPgo, Sony got rid of the old proprietary disc format for movies and games used in older PSP models, replacing it with 16 gigabytes of built-in flash storage onto which users can download games, movies and other content. The change allowed Sony to make a sleeker device with controls that slide away under its crisp color display.
The iPod Touch is still slimmer and easier to tuck into a pocket. A model with eight gigabytes sells for $199, while one with 32 gigabytes sells for $299.
The PSPgo’s display is slightly wider than that on the iPod Touch, but isn’t touch-sensitive. Still, the PSPgo and iPod Touch are fine for watching movies. They’re more convenient on airplanes than fumbling with a laptop and DVDs. And users can wirelessly download movies and games onto the PSPgo from Sony’s online PlayStation Store. I found it faster, though, to do the transaction on my PC over a wired Internet connection, and load the material onto the PSPgo over a USB cable with Sony’s version of Apple’s iTunes application, called Media Go. Media Go runs only on Windows.
Prices for movies on the iTunes and PlayStation Stores were mostly the same at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older ones. Rentals are $3.99. Both stores had a similar selection of new releases, but the PlayStation Store lacked some kid titles that were on iTunes, such as “Toy Story.” There is also a directory of free podcasts on iTunes that makes it easy to download free videos to the iPod Touch, including kid-friendly material such as NASA space-shuttle landings and “Sesame Street” clips.
Games for PSPgo tend to be more intricate than those for iPod Touch, but that comes at a price. While Sony sells cheaper games, many are in the $19 to $30 range. I liked an adventure game called “Little Big Planet” starring a character called Sack Boy—for $39.99.
That price is steep compared with all the inexpensive and free content on the App Store for the iPod Touch. My kids liked a lot of it: a free dress-up game called “Dress Chica” and a $1.99 snowball-fight game called “Grinchmas.” My son particularly loved a free, beautifully illustrated short book called “Voodoo Doll’s Halloween Story.” My 6-year-old spent hours with a free math-drills program.
I found the iPod Touch offers the best entertainment options for young kids at bargain prices. And that is a gift for parents.
Email Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.
Written by Nick Wingfield on December 23rd, 2009 with no comments.
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I’ve seen Craig Robinson’s wonderful little Minipops before, and now you can enjoy these tiny 8-bit pixel art caricatures on your iPhone with a brand new app.
The app features 1,000 celebrity and pop culture Minipop images, along with a directory which lets you quickly find the peeps you’re looking for. But the best part of the app (besides a tiny Alanis Morissette in her 8-bit birthday suit) is the “Guess Who?” mode, which is a nice little timewaster. Just turn your phone sideways, and the app hides the celebrity names. Flip it back to portrait mode, and you can see if your guess was correct. Hmmm… was that Mr. Roarke and Tattoo, or Dr. Evil and Mini-me?
You can get your hands on the new Minipop app over at the iTunes App Store for $2.99 (USD). It’s a solid 5-star app from my perspective. But then again, I’m a pixel art nut.
[via INVADERS.COM]
Written by technabob on December 19th, 2009 with no comments.
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Launched by Google at the end of October 2008, the Android Market has now passed the 20,000 apps milestone.
Most of the applications available via Android Market are free (62.3%), and only 37.7% of them are paid – so it’s probably still rather difficult for Android developers to make some good money out of this.
As you may already know, Apple’s App Store – one of the main rivals of Android Market – has reached 100,000 applications more than one month ago, so Google’s app store still has a long way to go until it reaches the success of Apple’s store.
Anyway, with the number of Android phones quickly growing (and Google’s own Nexus One just around the corner), the Android Market may host more than 100,000 apps by the end of 2010.
Via AndroLib, Mobile Crunch
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Written by Ilinca Nita on December 15th, 2009 with no comments.
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