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Amazon’s App Store turns 2 this week, celebrates with app sales

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by Jared Peters on
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Amazon-Appstore

Amazon’s App Store is celebrating a birthday this week. It’ll be two years on March 22nd since Amazon brought their little creation into this world, and what better way to celebrate than by discounting piles of apps and games? Amazon will be running sales on certain apps through this weekend, discounting some stuff over 50% off. And there’s still the famous Free App of the Day, like always, so you’ll have plenty to pick from.

Right now, there’s some pretty big apps like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, and OfficeSuite Professional 7, all of which are at least 50% off. So if you frequently use the Amazon App Store or own a Kindle Fire, you’re probably going to pick up a few extra apps and games this week.

source: Amazon

ForeverMap2 now available in Amazon App Store for Amazon Kindle Fire owners

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by Jeff Causey on
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While many people were occupied in recent days with news of Google Maps return to the iOS platform, owners of Amazon Kindle Fire devices continued to make do without a pre-installed mapping app. Yesterday, skobbler announced the availability of ForeverMap2 (Kindle Tablet Edition) through Amazon’s app store. ForeverMap2 is free to download and install for Kindle Fire owners. ForeverMap2 provides the expected map functions like routing and search. skobbler claims to provide an excellent visual experience and due to the map database, the product is especially strong when off major roads according to reviews.

ForeverMap2 is based on the OpenStreetMap database, a crowdsourced project similar to Wikipedia. The OpenStreetMap project boasts 900,000 contributors using a variety of methods to update the database. In addition to the free app, users can buy downloadable maps. Doing so provides users with the ability to use the app online or offline. Hit the break for the full press release and a download link (just for Amazon Kindle Fire users). » Read the rest

Verizon shutting down its App Store by March 2013

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by Sean Stewart on
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For nearly three years, Verizon has offered apps through its own app store on its BlackBerry and Android devices. I suppose it was a decent business model three years ago but it’s hard to imagine too much interest going somewhere else other than the Play Store to get your apps. Times certainly change rather quickly. Beginning in January 2013, Verizon will begin removing its app store from all its devices via a software update. They will continue through March 2013 at which point all Verizon devices will not have the Verizon app store installed any longer. Current owners of Verizon apps will immediately begin being notified of the changes and recurring charges will expire in December.

source:  Verizon

Sony To Launch Playstation Store On October 3rd

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by Roy Alugbue on
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Looks like Playstation gamers will have something big to look forward to in a few weeks. Starting October 3rd, Sony will launch the Playstation Store for Playstation mobile devices. The Playstation Store will offer owners of Playstation-certified devices to play special content on select devices. Sony confirmed the Playstation Store will start in nine countries including Japan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia– with more countries to follow. There should be about 30 titles available at launch which will cost between 50 Yen (roughly 60¢ USD) to 850 Yen (roughly $10.70 USD). Oh and don’t think there will only be 30 titles and that’s it— Sony confirms further content will be released as additional titles become available.

Sony also took some time briefly to highlight some additional news as well. For all of the budding developers out there, the Sony Playstation SDK comes out of beta this November and be fully available to the development community. The SDK will be rolled out starting in Japan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, while costing $99 annually for a license. This will give developers additional chances to develop and port the next great games for existing Playstation-certified devices, as well as ones that will be updated for devices from Fujitsu and Sharp– which are both officially joining the Playstation party I might add.

Enough with the chit chatter— hit the break to see the full presser from Sony.

» Read the rest

Amazon Appstore App Update Really Fixes Notifications And Raises 3G/4G Size Limit To 50MB

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by Ed Caggiani on
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The latest update to the Amazon Appstore brings it to version 2.3 and raises the 3G/4G maximum app size that can be downloaded from 20MB to 50MB. Anything over 50MB will require a Wi-Fi connection. With apps getting bigger and richer, their sizes are growing, and it’s good to see Amazon upping the limit for non-Wi-Fi downloads.

Another great fix this update delivers is with notifications. Previously, notifications about app updates would still occur even when you disabled notifications all together. That’s a thing of the past once you update to the latest Appstore (thank goodness).

Minor bug fixes and stability enhancements round out this update. Download from the link or QR code below. 

qrcode

Download From Amazon

 

WIMM One open the doors to its Micro App Store

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by Chris Stewart on
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“What exactly is a Micro App Store” I hear you cry. Well it’s pretty much as it sounds, an app store that brings you micro apps for your micro device, specifically the WIMM One Android watch. The WIMM One boasts a 667MHz ARM processor with 256MB RAM and 2GB internal storage. There’s bluetooth and wireless connectivity as well as an accelerometer, GPS module and compass on board. The micro device weighs only 22g and measures in at 32 x 36 x 12.5mm, despite the tiny dimensions it manages to cram in a 1.41″, 160 x 160 capacitive touch screen.

Impressive tech-specs are simply the first step to success, without top notch developer support the specifications may well count for nothing and that’s where the Micro App Store comes into play. Similar to the Android Market website, WIMM’s store pushes the selected app from the web directly to the WIMM One watch. At the time of posting there are around 25 applications ready for download with the promise of many more to come. There’s no infrastructure for paid apps just yet so perhaps it’s the ideal to time to fill your boots with some free apps.

It seems that the mobile device size wars go round in cycles. In the days of the Nokia 8310 it was all about being the smallest, then the original RAZR arrived on the scene and thin was in, now with the 4.65″ Galaxy Nexus and 5.3″ Galaxy Note hitting the headlines, the current trend is all about being the biggest. Is 2012 set to be the year when we arrive full circle as we see the rise of the tiny, smart watches? We had a false dawn in 2010 with the, innovative but flawed, Sony Ericsson LiveView but this year is set to be more promising with Motorola’s MotoActv, the stylish i’mWatch and Sony’s forthcoming SmartWatch all hitting the market.

Check out the link for full details on the WIMM Micro App Store and be sure to let us know if you’re planning on picking up a smart watch this year in the comments below.

 

source : WIMM LABS

Samsung launches Premium App Store for the UK

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by Stacy Bruce on
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Today Samsung had another big official announcement to make public. No, not the unveiling of the next Nexus device but the next Android app store they refer to as a “Premium App Store For Android”.

Currently only available in the UK, Samsung’s new app store aims to provide customers “access to all the latest great content on Android,” and will include free and paid applications. As it stands right now, you must use a credit card to purchase premium apps. In the near future you will have  the option to add your purchase to your phone bill or have the funds deducted directly from your SIM card balance. So who’s ready to get their “shop” on?

Full press release after the break.

» Read the rest

Phone Story – The Production of Smartphones, Uncensored

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by Jim Farmer on
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Phone Story has become a hot topic at the moment following its recent removal from the Apple App Store. Apple contacted the developer of the game explaining that they violated four rules for iOS app creation; its depictions of child abuse (code 15.2), objectionable or crude content (16.1) and promises to turn over a portion of the money to charity (21.1 and 21.2). Not to mention the fact that they probably felt the “Story” hit too close to home.

The game depicts a dark look at smartphone production, starting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the mineral coltan is mined by children and prisoners of war. The app then follows the production process to a Chinese factory where workers are subjected to abuse, discrimination, inhumane conditions, and forced overtime, ultimately leading to suicides. Next the story presents us with the hordes of oblivious consumers bombarding what is no doubt meant to portray an Apple store. I’m sure they didn’t appreciate that. Finally the story ends up in Ghana, Japan, & China where obsolete “recycled” phones have ended up to be salvaged using methods harmful to people and our environment, and from there the cycle repeats itself. » Read the rest

Developers, Amazon offering Cloud-service credit for App Store submissions

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by Jim Farmer on
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Extra exposure, it’s free , and there’s less competition; there’s really not much reason why you shouldn’t submit your app to the Amazon App Store. Granted, even we’ve been skeptical of the profit to be had. Nevertheless, if your a developer who’s been holding back, Amazon has got an offer that hopes to change your mind. Starting this morning, anyone who submits and app to the store gets a $50 credit to Amazon’s Web Services suite. The credit is good toward any aspect of the suite which includes:

  • Amazon ElastiCache
  • Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
  • Amazon Elastic MapReduce
  • Amazon CloudFront
  • Amazon Relational Database Service(RDS)
  • Amazon Route 53
  • Amazon SimpleDB
  • Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
  • Amazon Simple Notification Service(SNS)
  • Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
  • Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk

While only a $50 credit, if you play your cards right, that may cover your app’s costs through testing up through launch.

View official Amazon release.

[via techcrunch]

Apple Forces Amazon To Stop App Submissions In Germany

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by Andrew Greenfield on
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Ever since Amazon launched the Amazon Appstore, Apple has been flinging lawsuits like it’s their job. And while they haven’t swayed the US judge to agree with them (and we don’t think they will), it appears there’s enough pressure in Germany that Amazon has stopped allowing developers to submit applications. While it is not clear when Amazon will allow them to submit apps again, Amazon has gone on the record expressing their distaste for this Apple lawsuit.

We have been forced to impose this restriction due to a legal action filed by Apple in Germany seeking to prevent us from using the term “appstore.” We believe Apple’s claim is without merit and are actively contesting it.

Apple’s new stance of suing everything that competes has officially bore fruit oversea. It will be interesting to see if other countries that Amazon sells in will follow with Germany’s decision or side with Amazon on this one. The good news for Amazon is that the United States version of Apple v Amazon won’t happen for another year or so. If the term “app” isn’t considered generic by then (since it somehow isn’t now) I’ll eat my sock.

[via pcmag]

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