Here is some free PR advice for the National Rifle Association: Now is not the time to release a target practice iOS app—especially one intended for kids. According to the NRA, the app is intended for children as young as age four. More »
BlackBerry 10 is only a half-month away from launching, and RIM just recently hosted two Port-a-Thon events to encourage developers to submit their games and apps for BlackBerry 10, while offering $100 for any app approved to the store. Naturally, the $100 incentive seemed to work, since 15,000 apps were submitted over the course of just over 36 hours.
Vice President of Director Relations Alec Saunders tweeted the news earlier this morning. And while developers would be given $100 for every approved app, BlackBerry 10 hardware was also being offered. The first developers submitting between two and five approved apps were promised a free PlayBook, while those writing more than five approved apps were entered into a random drawing to receive a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.
However, it’s essential to note that it’s highly unlikely that every app submitted will be approved for the store, but the company needs as many submissions as possible if they hope for a successful launch. Then again, it would be ignorant to assume the success or failure of a platform based solely on the number of apps available, which is why the devices and the OS themselves need be solid as well.
On average during those 36 hours, there were 405 apps submitted every hour, and if RIM ended up approving all 15,000 apps (unlikely), they would be paying out a whopping $1.5 million to developers, not counting all the hardware that they’ll be handing out. RIM is definitely putting their time and resources into this new platform, but let’s just hope it works for them.
BlackBerry 10 gets 15,000 app submissions in 36 hours is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Earlier today we reported that come Facebook’s press event tomorrow, a Facebook phone or Facebook mobile OS could be unveiled, and considering that this is a huge press event, obviously the social networking giant has more up their sleeves. Word on the street has it that Facebook could be gearing up to launch Facebook Messenger for the iPad and will basically be the same Messenger app that is already available for the iPhone, except that it will be scaled up and optimized for the iPad. According to Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch, her sources have informed her that the app is ready for launch on Tuesday and that if Facebook’s press event is geared around mobile products, the announcement of the app would make a perfect fit. Considering that Facebook took some time to release its Facebook for iPad app despite the Facebook version being available for a long time, we guess it’s not surprising that there was a lag between the Messenger for iPhone launch and the Messenger for Facebook launch as well. In any case we’ll definitely have our eyes on Facebook’s press event tomorrow, so check back with us then for the details.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPad Mini Installed In VW Jetta As An Entertainment System, Post-holiday Analytics Shows iPad Web Traffic Share Drop By 7.14%, 
Remember last year we reported that RIM would be holding a Blackberry 10 app port-a-thon over the weekend? Well that weekend has since come and gone, but in the meantime it looks like the event might have been a success as it seems that a whopping 15,000 Blackberry 10 apps were submitted in the process! Granted there is a chance that not all of them will be making it into the store, but it also means that RIM will have a wide selection of apps to choose from to load up into their stores once Blackberry 10 has gone live. We expect that the incentives such as $100 per approved app, free Playbooks and a chance to win a Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha device probably helped sweeten the deal, and based on our calculations, assuming all apps make the cut, RIM will be paying out $1.5 million to the developers involved! Not too shabby! Now we know that RIM promised to have at least 70,000 apps available for Blackberry 10 devices at launch and with these 15,000 submitted apps, we wouldn’t be surprised if RIM will be able to meet their goal.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Huawei Ascend W2 Headed For MWC 2013 Debut?, Kyocera Torque Gets FCC Approval, 
If you let the rows of 3D and 4k displays lining the halls of CES paint a picture of the future of television, you’d be missing a vital component. Tucked away inside a pair of ballrooms on Sin City’s famous Strip, representatives from television networks, software companies, cable providers and advertising firms held a powwow dubbed the Second Screen Summit to talk shop and discuss the fate of such experiences after a very busy 2012.
Over the past year, companies ranging from AT&T to Nintendo created a wave of experiences to complement TV content. Even the 2012 Summer Olympics received the second screen treatment with its very own Android and iOS apps, which let users catch live streams of events, access stats and more from the comfort of their couches. With so many solutions on the market, it’s not entirely clear who will come out on top, or if there’s room on the second screen for these myriad apps to coexist.
Continue reading The state of the second screen: Will TV companion apps proliferate or dwindle?
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD
If you’re familiar with jailbreaking, then you’re undoubtedly familiar with iOS hacker extraordinaire Pod2g, who’s responsible for the Absinth 2.0 release for iOS devices running iOS 5.1.1 back in May — his most recent endeavor. However, he’s been focusing on a slightly different area of iOS, and that’s app development. Pod2g released PodDJ today for the iPad.
We’ve seen plenty of DJ apps for the iPad in the past, but Pod2g claims that his app turns the iPad into “the most realistic virtual turntable you have ever seen,” allowing you to mix and scratch any track in your iTunes library. According to the description, PodDJ is the only app in the iTunes App Store “with which you can truly scratch on your iPad thanks to a brilliant touch to sound reactivity.”
PodDJ has been designed to provide you with an interface that’s both powerful and easy to use. The turntables and all the controls have been strategically placed so that your hands can navigate around each feature as quickly and easily as possible. PodDJ also claims to be the fastest scratching app in the App Store, boasting a sound output latency of just 5 milliseconds.
The app also offers zero latency cue points, so you’ll hear sound as soon as you hit the cue button, and it has zero latency key locks, which means that time shifting is applied at the source of the audio chain so you hear it instantly. Other features include transform buttons, BPM detection, turntable emulation, monitor output, and support for an external mixer. PodDJ will be available to download starting tomorrow. It will be priced at $5.99 during the first two days, and will go up to $7.99 until the end of January. After that, though, you’ll have to cough up $9.99.
iOS hacker Pod2g launches PodDJ for iPad is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Sometimes minor-sounding events presage bigger things to come (and sometimes not), so Cupertino’s recent addition of a new subscription service app to Apple TV in Germany, Watchever, made our ears perk up. The service — which is still rolling out in the country and may not work on all devices, according to its Facebook page — offers Netflix-like streaming of movies and TV shows in dubbed German or original formats for €9 ($12) per month. More significantly, it marks one of the first times Apple TV has added programming specific to a single region on its streaming service, perhaps marking a new trend we could see elsewhere, too. Apple currently has paid subscription apps like NBA, MLB and WSJ from which it gets a nice cut, so a regional expansion would make financial sense — particularly in countries that don’t know a pop fly from a pop tune.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Apple
Via: TNW
Source: Watchever (Facebook), (Twitter)
At the rate some gamers finish off their Angry Birds levels, developer Rovio must have a pretty trying time pushing out new levels on a constant basis. Well the good news is that if you’re already completed the latest Angry Birds Space update on your iOS or Android device, you might be interested to learn that a new update is already available. Called “Splash”, this update will introduce water levels to the space levels, giving gamers some new and interesting physics that they will have to work around with. As the image above suggests, there will be new obstacles to overcome although there will be power-ups which gamers can use to help get them through these new levels.
These power-ups include Flock of Birds, Space Egg and Puffer Fish. There will also be a new underwater boss, and for gamers who managed to obtain a three-star rating on every level they complete, it seems that you guys will be rewarded with three bonus levels to play through. The update is currently available for download via the iTunes App Store and the Google Play store, so head on over for the download!
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Video Game Retail Sales Down 22 Percent From 2011, Witcher 2 Developer Teases Cyberpunk 2077 In New Trailer,
Bitdefender’s Clueful, once an iOS app in its own right that Apple apparently took offence to, is now back as a webapp. Use it to find out if your apps are spying on you, storing your personal information, and sending it anywhere you might not want them to. Essential for the paranoid; interesting for the curious. [Clueful via TUAW] More »
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has issued Privacy on the Go, a report on mobile privacy recommendations aimed at developers and mobile-related companies, such as carriers. The guidelines are another step in the state’s push on digital privacy, and can be downloaded as a PDF from the California Attorney General’s website. These guidelines are the first of its kind in the United States.
The information in the report is largely common sense recommendations that one would assume do not need pointed out. The information is tailored towards those in specific areas where mobile privacy is relevant, such as ad networks, which are advised to, for example, avoid altering a handset’s browser settings. Developers are advised to avoid pulling personal information outside of the scope of their apps, among other things.
California is particularly strict when it comes to privacy. On October 30, it surfaced that California had warned multiple companies, including Delta Airlines, that changes were needed to their apps due to inaccessible privacy policies. About a month later, Delta was sued by the state for failing to specify the personal data collected by its app and the way it uses the information. This is due to the state’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires services to provide easily-accessible privacy policies that explicity detail certain things, such as how it uses collected data.
In the report, AG Harris states: “We are now offering this set of privacy practice recommendations to assist app developers, and others, in considering privacy early in the development process. We have arrived at these recommendations after consulting a broad spectrum of stakeholders: mobile carriers, device manufacturers, operating system developers, app developers, app platform providers, mobile ad networks, security and privacy professionals, technologists, academics, and privacy advocates.
[via California Attorney General]
California Attorney General issues mobile privacy recommendations report is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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