Hasta La Gadget!

The Army Marketplace may be mired in bureaucratic muck, but the depot for mobile military apps isn’t simply stagnating in a stack of paperwork somewhere. Developers and commanders are still pushing forward with the project and hoping for the best. There are already 17 apps for Android and 16 for iPhones, created as part of the Apps for the Army contest last year, and designers have whipped up prototypes for the homepage (above) and personalized user pages (after the break) where soldiers can post ideas for apps, request features from devs, and write reviews. The chief of the Army’s Mobile Applications Branch, Lt. Col. Gregory Motes, hopes the Marketplace will make its debut at LandWarNet in August, even if there won’t be any approved smartphones to access it for several months after that. At least the military claim one victory, when its app store launches it’ll already have more titles than TegraZone.

Continue reading Army app store advances, tries to break through bureaucracy’s defenses

Army app store advances, tries to break through bureaucracy’s defenses originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On today’s session of “things to ponder before lunch,” we have a strange new text string added to the iTunes preview of some iOS apps, which identifies an “ix.Mac.MarketingName” as one of the compatible devices with software designed for iOS. We’re seeing it listed alongside a whole bunch of apps, but importantly not all of them, which hints that it might not be just a stray piece of code or a bug in the system. The location-aware and voice-centric MyVoice Communication Aid and Microsoft’s Bing for iPad apps do not include that funky MarketingName code, suggesting that it’s there as a placeholder for a new supported device of some sort — could apps finally be coming to the Apple TV? For now, we’d rather not stack speculation on top of uncertainty, so we’ll just jot this down as another interesting development in the walled garden of Cupertino and wait patiently to see what (if anything) comes from it.

[Thanks, Daniel, Chris and Nick]

What is ‘ix.Mac.MarketingName’ and why is it listed as a supported device for iOS apps? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The upcoming firmware update for the Nook Color is shaping up to be a hefty one for the e-reader-turned-Android tablet. Barnes & Noble has now announced that it’s officially opening up the device to developers, and will be taking app submissions through its developer site effective immediately. The Nook has long been one of the best bangs for your buck in the ever-expanding world of Android tablets, and all that’s left now is Honeycomb — and no, the hacked port doesn’t count.

B&N accepting Nook Color app submissions, because you can never have too many app stores originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Still waffling over that bank-shattering $4.99 iMovie purchase? We get it. Thankfully, you’ve held out long enough for the free market to come and rescue you (again) — Vimeo has just launched a legitimate alternative into the App Store today with a far, far more luscious price tag: $0.00. The official iOS app checks in at 20.1MB, and offers the ability to upload, manage, edit and watch your videos (as well as those conjured up by others, naturally). It’ll handle edits and uploads for both SD and HD footage, and there’s even support for pausing / resuming uploads, sharing via your favorite social networking website, and a view to statistics — if you’re into that type of narcissistic thing. The app’s up for grabs down in the source link below, and while we’re hearing that some folks are hitting upload snags every so often, we’re sure the v1.0 build will be refreshed in short order. Oh, and for the iPad and Android contingent? Your copy is en route, but a helping of patience is requested.

Continue reading Vimeo’s gratis iOS video editing app punks iMovie in its own house, available now

Vimeo’s gratis iOS video editing app punks iMovie in its own house, available now originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d say this was getting silly but that would imply that it wasn’t already. Microsoft and Apple are still at each other’s throat over the latter’s trademark application for the term “App Store,” with Microsoft now bringing in a Dr. Ronald Butters, Professor Emeritus at Duke University and a man with a taste for hardcore semantics. He says the compound noun “app store” is perfectly generic in that it “does not merely describe the thing named, it is the thing named.” In a wildly geeky turn, he references the potential for someone discovering a use for masers and trying to trademark the term “maser store” in response, which would seem immediately and logically absurd. An app store, says the good doctor, is no more capable of being trademarked than a grocery store or a stationery store or a computer store.

Of course, as with most trademark disputes, what’s truly at stake here isn’t linguistics, but a big fat wad of consumer goodwill. Having previously been quite uncomfortable with the idea of buying additional software for his mobile phone, Joe Consumer has nowadays grown quite accustomed to dropping little chunks of change on smartphone apps, and the terminology that sets his mind at ease most readily is indeed “app store.” Preventing others from using that well established moniker would clearly be a significant competitive advantage for Apple and it’s pretty hard to argue with its contention that it’s responsible for generating the goodwill that sits behind it. Then again, we reckon Android’s Market, webOS’ admittedly small App Catalog, and other moves by the likes of RIM, Nokia and Microsoft itself with WP7, haven’t done the app store cause any harm either, so in purely ethical terms it still seems a little rich for Apple to be claiming the app store crown all to itself. As to the legal battle itself, it’s descending into quite amusing minutiae, but its outcome will be of great interest to most of the aforementioned mobile ecosystem purveyors.

Microsoft keeps gunning after Apple’s ‘generic’ App Store trademark, brings in a linguistics expert originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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