Hasta La Gadget!

We’re sure that Zynga was quite pleased with themselves when they bought Draw Something, thinking that they would be able to cash in on its popularity, but as we’re sure some of you guys have heard, Zynga is not doing very well for itself financially and in a bid to save more money, the company has announced that they would be shutting down 11 apps. Presumably these apps were shut down because Zynga is trying to cut their losses, and we guess that these apps aren’t doing as well as Zynga had hoped. While you might not have heard of all these apps, some of them are pretty big names such as Petville which supposedly numbered 1 million users, Mafia Wars 2, FishVille, Treasure Isle and Vampire Wars. Zynga still has a couple of big hitters under its belt and hopefully with less apps they have to focus on, more attention will be paid to their remaining lineup which might be able to help Zynga prosper in the year of 2013.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: The Legend of Zelda Fan-Made Cartoon Is Full Of Saturday Morning Goodness, Next Xbox Teased By Microsoft Countdown?,

Google may have a lot on its plate with Android and its ad business, but that doesn’t mean it can’t take the time to make quality apps for iOS. Lately we’ve been seeing Google make a push for Apple‘s mobile operating system, releasing new apps like Google Maps after Apple decided to give the navigation business a spin. However, iOS apps don’t just spring up from the ground – Google obviously needs developers to make these apps happen, so it has rolled out a new web ad campaign to attract the talent it requires.

It isn’t anything spectacular, just a small little box ad that switches through slides showing off Google’s iOS app offerings. It also invites developers to “Do cool things that matter,” and tells them that they “can reshape Google on iOS.” The ad is currently being shown on a variety of sites, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, one YouTube user has captured it on video and you can check it out below.

Clicking on the ad will take you to a page featuring a brief interview with Ken Bongort, who works on the Google Search App team. The interview is quite obviously meant to relay what it’s like to work as an app developer at Google, with Bongort talking about what kind of person these iOS app teams are looking for and what the most rewarding part of launching a new app is.

Those who are interested in working as an iOS app developer for Google can apply through that page, so if it sounds like something you’d want to do, it may not be a bad idea to fill out an application. This expansion seems to suggest that we’ll be seeing much more from Google in the iOS space moving forward, which is always exciting. Even though Google already has a number of its biggest apps available on iOS, we’re sure there’s plenty planned for the future, so stay tuned.

[via 9to5Mac]

Google’s new web ad campaign tries to tempt iOS developers is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The ever popular health and fitness tracking iPhone app RunKeeper has been updated to version 3.0 today. The update includes an all-new design that aims to make the user interface cleaner and simpler to use, it also comes with new features that make it easy to share your progress with friends and family.

Indeed, the user interface is a lot cleaner this time around. The team behind the app ended up cleaning up a lot of the code by scrapping the bold colors and text for a cleaner design that’s easier to read and navigate. They also wanted to design the app to showcase more of your personal fitness story, and they hope that the new look motivates its users even more.

One of the main selling points of RunKeeper is that the app makes it easy to set a goal and track your progress towards that goal, while also interacting and competing with friends right from the app. They’ve made it even easier by adding a few more features to the app, such as in-app photo features that allow you to take pictures before, during, and after workouts and share those with friends on Facebook or Twitter.

You now also enable live activity tracking, which allows friends and family to follow your progress in real-time and cheer you on as they do so. The company has more plans in the future for the app, including an update for the Android version of RunKeeper, but the company says they’ll have more features to come in 2013.

RunKeeper is a free download, and the update is available now in the iTunes App Store.

RunKeeper for iPhone updates with redesign and live activity tracking is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hackulous, the iOS piracy community behind the jailbreak app Installous, has suddenly shut down. Along with the community site, the Hackulous repository for the jailbreak store Cydia has also disappeared, rendering all of the community’s piracy tools dead. More »

Malware in the Google Play store is nothing new, and Google does their best to sift out most of the crap that makes its way in, but sometimes some of it sneaks through. A Google Play developer account by the name of “apkdeveloper” has released a ton of fake apps and games that are essentially rip-offs of other popular apps.

Some of the more popular titles that the developer rips off are Imangi’s Temple Run game and Glu Mobile’s Contract Killer Zombies. It appears the faux developer has put “Super” at the end of each app name, which should throw a red flag up right away as far as if it’s a legitimate app or not. Plus, all of the icons for all the apps are the same, rather than unique icons for each individual app or game.

Since many people won’t even dare to install these fake and malware-infested applications, we’re not quite sure what the malicious code might be capable of exactly, but several reports suggest that it delivers unwanted ads to several parts of your device. While doesn’t seem like a huge deal, it’s still annoying, and you never know what could be going on behind the scenes.

As always, be careful when downloading apps and make sure you’re not downloading a fake app that’s filled with malware. Usually, though, it’s all about common sense — check the name of the developer, check the reviews, check the descriptions and make sure you’re always downloading from legitimate sources. And if you come across a fake app, report it to Google.

Developer releases dozens of fake apps in Google Play store, user beware is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.