All Articles Tagged app store

Back in January Rene made us all aware that the Apple App Store hit the half billion mark in terms of downloads. A few months later it seems like they will be doubling that number by hitting 1 billion app downloads. This is indeed impressive and Apple wants to celebrate with giving you a chance to win some really sweet prizes.

As of today, nearly one billion apps have been downloaded around the globe. So we just want to say thanks — a billion. Download an app and you’ll automatically get the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. Just go to the iTunes Store, browse the App Store, and download your best app yet.

Apple has even laid out the top 20 paid and free apps [iTunes Link] of all time with Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D and the Facebook app leading their respective categories. So what are you waiting for? Get your download on for your chance to win some sweet Apple goodness! (Just remember entries are limited to 25 per person per day.)

Good luck!

As it stands, many of you have been craving some Slingplayer action on your iPhones. Well the good news is you are about to get it, the bad news is you may be paying more than you originally thought.

Engadget has posted that folks with older Slingboxes must upgrade to newer hardware in order to be able to stream content to your iPhone. And to make matters worse, this upgrade is technically not needed! Yup, the good people at Sling have decided that for everyone who wants to use Slingplayer Mobile on their iPhone, you can dish out some extra cash on some fresh hardware at home as well.

the company just posted up a page saying that owners of every older SlingBox save the Slingbox PRO will have to upgrade to a Slingbox SOLO or Slingbox PRO-HD in order to stream to iPhones. Yes, this is totally ridiculous: we’ve been told that the limitation is purely money-driven and that previous builds of the iPhone client worked just fine with older Sling hardware

Ouch, there you go, the only reason you may have to upgrade is pure corporate greed. This is surely a shot below the belt to current owners of older Slingboxes. So what do you say, will this prevent you from using Slingplayer Mobile on your iPhones or is it time for you to upgrade? We are curious…

[Via Engadget]

First we had Crackulous, and now as is the case with any sort of media today, piracy is running rampant. It is something that is bound to happen no matter how many ways are created to prevent it. DVD’s, CD’s, Satellite TV, Video Games, and now iPhone applications. According to Wired.com nearly 20% of all the App Store apps have been pirated and are now available. One torrent file of 5.4 gigabytes worth of apps, 808 cracked apps to be exact, was recently floating around on the web. It’s all out there to grab… but it doesn’t make it right and no we won’t tell you where.

Wired.com interviewed a creator of one of these pirated app web sites:

“We want people to think of these as trial apps since Apple doesn’t allow trials of apps before purchase,” said “Omar,” one of the creators of the site, who refused to disclose his real name to Wired.com. “It’s Apple’s fault for not putting up a trials system.”

Has “Omar” ever really been on the App Store lately? There are lite versions all over the App Store and that rests in the developers hands whether or not they want to make that available, but certainly that is not Apple’s fault. Right? Either way, this is getting out of control just a bit, I mean you have pirates pirating other pirates now!

So who really is to blame for this piracy gone crazy in the App Store? Apple? Developers? Let us know where you stand on this one!

[Via Wired.com]

Apple has helpfully created a knowledge base article describing the process for creating an App Store account sans credit card.

The process involves making sure you’re not already logged in with another account, then choosing App Store from the menu, downloading a free app, choosing “none” for the payment type, and responding to the confirmation menu.

While this might also work for people stuck in countries where antiquated licensing agreements prevent apps from being available (like Skype in Canada! Ahem!) Apple probably intends it for users in the US without a credit card, not for cross-border hopper-shoppers. Right?

[Via iphoneincanada]

A few weeks back we reported that MLB At Bat 2009 [iTunes Link] would be available on April 3rd, well it seems it was pushed out a few days early and can now be found in the App Store. Most of it’s features, however, will not be activated until April 6th. The biggest feature being, live Gameday Audio, from either the home or visiting team radio announcers, streamed directly to your iPhone. That feature alone should make this app worth the price of admission for all of you hardcore baseball fans.

So you have to be asking, how much will this cost me? For the entire baseball season including post season play this will run you $9.99. That really is not too bad considering in-game audio for the complete season, directly from the MLB website, costs $14.99.

So how many of you will be picking this one up? Let us know what you think!

Things have been pretty slow this week in terms of noteworthy apps to bring to your attention. Nevertheless , we did find you two gems on sale in a sea of apps. To learn more about these discounted apps, read on after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

We mentioned in passing during our pre-iPhone 3.0 rumor round-up that:

G-Maps has mysteriously disappeared from the App Store, and will “return soon”…

While XRoad’s website said the US East and West coast maps were being improved, the real reason speculated at the time is that they were perhaps about to re-appear as a full turn-by-turn navigation solution as part of the Premium App Store. Neither of those things happened, and now Gizmodo shares what might really have been going on:

Update: Some developers have told us that the reason G-Map has been pulled is that by including turn-by-turn navigation, it violated the terms of agreement—which is why it was the first turn-by-turn app to come out.

Of course, the App Store terms of service have now changed, allowing for turn-by-turn as long as the developer “brings their own maps” so we’ll have to keep an eye on this one and see what happens come “summer” and the official iPhone 3.0 release…

Dieter gave us our first eyes-on look at Sygic’s Turn-by-Turn GPS solution for the iPhone 3G, but we wondered if Apple — whose iPhone SDK specifically forbid providing such navigation — would ever allow it.

Seems Sygic thinks they will:

Sygic is entering the AppStore to be the first on the market that offers full turn-by-turn navigation for Apple users. “We believe Apple users will benefit soon from Sygic Mobile 2009 turn-by-turn navigation worldwide – the same as all of our customers on different platforms” said Michal Stencl, CEO and founder of Sygic.

Could this be part of a new Premium App Store launch later today? Our tipper, antonioj, seems to think it will…

Only 2 hours left, so be sure to join us for our live meta-blog coverage and hopefully we’ll find out together!

Our guess is that the buildup to this Tuesday’s iPhone OS 3.0 Preview will be filled with rumors, new and old. Speaking of old, Wired has just dusted off the Premium App Store (or App Store Plus) story from back in January. While that story focused on Premium Games, and Wired re-enforces that focus, they all suggest there could be a wider range of content:

This “velvet rope” section of Apple’s store could feature software programs that cost $20 or more, making it friendlier to publishers whose products are too complicated to be created in one developer’s spare time. That change would make the App Store more friendly to game publishers, as well as enterprise software companies such as SAP that would otherwise prefer to focus on the more business-user targeted BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry is expected to launch its own app store, called the BlackBerry App World, later this month.

I would pay $20+ for an app that was worth $20+, and if separating those apps off from the $0.99 fartsnjiggles crowd helps developers pay their bills while making what we hope are the Next Great Apps, more power to them.

The question then becomes, what’s worth $20+ to you in an iPhone App?

This has been a good week so far for cheap apps on the App Store. Here are some of the highlights for the week.

If you are a MobileMe subscriber this first app is definitely one to check out, especially at the low price of FREE. MobileFiles [iTunes Link] is a very nifty app that allows you to access, view, and share files from your iPhone. The file viewing is pretty good, offering support for .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff, .gif, .svg, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .pdf, .htm, .html, .mht, .txt and .mp3. All files are viewed on the iPhone beautifully and even landscape mode has been included. You can also choose to download these files directly onto your iPhone itself for some easy offline accessibility. Keep in mind this is free only for a limited time so grab it while you can.

This next one happens to be one of my favorite games available for the iPhone, Zombieville USA [iTunes Link]. This one is still on sale for the low price of $.99 but this sale can end at any minute so be sure to get in on this deal. For a quick overview and a brief gameplay video on Zombieville USA, be sure to check out our Quick App from just a few days ago.

Lastly, we have one for all of the NASCAR fans out there. Days of Thunder [iTunes Link] is the first stock car racing game for the iPhone and it’s now on sale for a limited time for only $.99! Use your iPhone’s accelerometer to speed your way through six racing circuits, defeat your competition, and win the championship. This is a game any racing fan will appreciate!

Enjoy!