Tag: app store (Page 4 of 6)

      iPhone Gamers Love New Games, Want Them Less Than $2

      July 12, 2009 /

      iPhone app store spread.The folks at PocketGamer.biz recently took a look at the iPhone gaming situation to come away with some cold, hard data about what people are buying and why. I’ll spare you the full report (really I just don’t want to leech all the credit here) and focus instead on some of the more interesting details.

      For standards, PG took a snapshot of the top 100 applications and then broke down the results by price, price by rank, games by publisher, and source (new IP, console port, music, movie, etc.).

      Pricing was actually different than you might think. While most of the top 100 came in the $.99 category (36 titles), second place went to the $4.99 bracket with 20 titles. But that’s just number of games for each price bracket. Obviously since they are top 100 these are games that are getting downloaded a lot, but how much do the games get played after downloading?

      If you look at price by rank, the top 10 games average just $1.89/download. At 11-20, the price drops to $1.19. Of course there are a load of factors that could contribute to the rankings. Are people really playing these cheap games more or are they just deleting them more often and so being prompted to rate more of these games?

      Perhaps the most useful statistic, at least to industry developers, is the rate of new downloads and the desire for new IP. Of the top 100 games, 40 were released in June or July (this likely includes a few updates). Another 22 were April or May releases. As for IP, 52 of the top 100 are fresh content, designed just for the iPhone.

      If you’re downloading games, where does your allegiance lie? Are you a bargain shopper, only buying apps that are cheap or on sale? Or do you look for the best IPs from hot developers, regardless of price?

      Apps, Gaming, iPhone

      Update: Child Pornography Hits the iPhone [NSFW]

      July 1, 2009 /

      iPhone has some porn problems [censored].A photo purportedly showing a naked 15-year-old has made its way onto the iPhone App Store through an app called BeautyMeter this week, despite Apple’s strong stance against objectionable content in the store.

      Last week the application “Hottest Apps” was quickly pulled from the App Store due to “objectionable content,” namely, female nudity. It was adult female nudity, though, unlike today’s whopping PR nightmare for the iPhone.

      BeautyMeter allows users to upload photos of themselves and subsequently rate one another on body, face, and clothing appeal. If you’ve been to Hot or Not, you get the idea. Today, an iPhone app review site called KRAPPS found a picture of what appears to be a 15-year-old girl topless and partially nude below the waist in BeautyMeter. Nearly 5,000 users have voted on the picture.

      As of this posting, the application is still available in the app store, though the picture may have been removed. I would expect the app to at least get pulled for review before day’s end.

      According to the developer’s website, funnymals.com, they do not review submissions on a photo by photo basis. Rather, they go in and clean up “from time to time.” This certainly gives plenty of room for photos like the illegal nude in question to slip through. Users have even commented in the app store that, “There shouldnt be 14 year olds nude on there [sic].”

      The developer does supposedly capture your iPhone’s unique device ID when you upload a photo, making it possible to track down anyone who has posted illegal content. Neither Apple nor Funnymal will likely have legal liability in this case, though it does raise questions as to how Apple will handle user-generated content in future applications.

      Update:BeautyMeter has officially been pulled.

      Image from Wired

      Apple, Apps, Computers, iPhone, News, Websites

      Smartphone War: Are Apps the Deciding Battleground?

      June 30, 2009 /

      The touchscreen smartphones.Smartphones used to be the domain of supergeeks and tech professionals – people who needed or desperately wanted the functionality of a full computer in a tidy mobile platform. As the devices became more popular and the desire for on-the-go web capabilities grew you could almost smell the storm coming.

      Then the iPhone came out and sold millions, spurring competitors to make their own touchscreen wonderphone. We’ve now got the Blackberry Storm, the HTC G1, the Palm Pre, the Nokia N97, and the Samsung Jet, all running on a different operating system. While the manufacturers tout the hardware features that make their phone the best (physical keyboards, a screen that clicks, a camera with a flash), consumers are starting to look to the software that runs the phone, and the applications they’re finally able to install, to make a decision.

      Apple has been most successful with third party application sales and support due to their App Store, which opened in mid-July, 2008. Since release, the App Store has seen more than a billion application downloads and now showcases more than 50,000 third party applications. From games to translators, finance tools to ereaders, the Apple App Store has an app for almost anything, leaving its competitors lagging far behind.

      It’s taken nearly a year for competitors to get their mobile application stores up and running, time during which Apple has continued to lure consumers with the promise of a robust app catalog. As Business Insider points out, consumers aren’t just investing in a phone, they’re investing in a platform, with application quality and quantity as a major component of that investment. In a similar article, BI adds that time users spend with applications is replacing time spent on the web. Apps like Yelp allow users quick access to restaurant reviews, where before they would have been using Google.

      This isn’t just good news for Apple, it’s an important statistic for developers. Continue reading »

      Apps, Computers, Gaming, iPhone, Mobile

      Update: No Porn in the App Store

      June 26, 2009 /

      iPhone porn?Yesterday we ran a story concerning the application “Hottest Girls,” available up until yesterday in the iPhone App Store. Prior to OS 3.0, the application showed pictures of scantily clad women and allowed users to rate those images. An update yesterday pushed topless images through the application. The app was pulled within a few hours.

      The developer posted to his website later in the day, claiming the application was “sold out” due to server load from all the fresh boobies beaming to iPhones around the world. In truth, it was Apple pulled the app for, you guessed it, explicit content.

      When Steve Jobs announced the App Store, porn was among the first mention of all things verboten. Other unapproved apps included privacy invasion and other malicious apps. “Hottest Girls” would have been the first app sanctioned by Apple with explicit content.

      As an apple rep told CNN:

      Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.

      Once again we have more noise than necessary concerning porn on the infamous iPhone. Explicit content is still viewable on the device via the web browser, though I think the real issue here is whether or not Apple wishes to be complicit in skin traffic. Apparently they do not.

      Apple, Apps, iPhone

      Nudie iPhone App Goes Live, Gets Pulled

      June 25, 2009 /

      The first iPhone app showing any sort of nudity debuted today and has since been pulled from the app store.

      The app, called Hottest Girls, has been around longer than the parental controls that could supposedly allow explicit content to be viewed within an app on Apple’s iPhone. Previous to today’s update, the application simply showed pictures of girls (mostly asian) in various types of scanty clothing. The app was supposed to be the first to feature adult content.

      There’s been no word concerning the removal of the app from the app store yet. I’ll be surprised to see Apple try to keep the pics from returning. It’s not particularly hard to find porn on the phone, considering it has a nearly fully featured browser. You can imagine, though, the massive influx of applications we’ll see if porn apps get the official sanction.

      For now, looks like you’ll have to stick to Safari to get your mobile porn on.

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