Mobile veteran taps appetite for apps
Tina Traster – Appitalism founder and Chief Executive Simon Buckingham says his site is not just a catalog of apps that work on a variety of smartphones, tablets, PCs and eBook readers. “Appitalism is an experience—a social experience,” he said. Mr. Buckingham, a veteran of the mobile and digital sectors, targets young app users with a shopping experience that combines social networking, opinion …

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BlackBerry Devices May Run Android Apps
crankyspice writes “RIM is allegedly prepping the QNX-based operating system running their forthcoming PlayBook tablet to run Android applications, according to a Bloomberg article. As RIM has stated that the QNX platform will run at least some of its upcoming smartphones as well, this could cinch Android’s status as the lingua franca of smartphone application environments, especially with …

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I hate that mobile apps have taken the world by storm. I hate not being able to access something because I have an Android phone and all that the site has is an iPhone app. As a developer I hate having to build for a crap-ton of different platforms to make sure my users have access to my content. If only there was some global phenomenon that was accessible on a mobile device and was completely cross-platform. Oh wait, there is, it’s called THE WEB.

Why in the hell are we building native mobile applications when we can just build a web application to accomplish the same thing? Now, I understand that there are some requirements, like camera, that force us into the native realm. But if you aren’t using the camera or some other device-specific API, you should be building a web app.

This is why I love Untappd so much. Untappd is essentially Foursquare for beer. Instead of checking into a location, you can “check-in” what beer you’re drinking. Instead of doing the native app thing, they built a mobile site. I can access it from any device. It uses the browser-based GPS API to get my location so I can attach that to my beer, and there’s no stupid install needed. Just a wonderful web app with all of the functionality I need accessible from anywhere.

I realize there are some caveats beyond the device-specific APIs, but there has to be ways around them. One of the biggies is responsiveness. I think this one is kind of a cop-out because a great web-app will be able to create a UI in such a way that it feels just as responsive as a native app. jQuery mobile and Sencha Touch are great at this. The biggest thing is monetization. Currently it’s really hard to monetize web apps and it’s very easy to monetize native mobile applications. This is one of the reasons I’m so jazzed on the idea of the Chrome web store. Being able to make money on web apps could (I think) help change the tide and encourage more developers to go the web app route.

It’s a shame that we’re able to do such cool stuff on the web but that developers are jumping through hoops to lock down their content to specific devices. We’ve got technologies like Phonegap in the interim, but the sooner we get back to the web, the better.

View full post on Digital Backcountry – Ryan Stewart’s Flash Platform Blog

Now that the AIR for Android runtime has been released it means you can publish applications that you’ve created with the AIR for Android prerelease to the Android Market. If you’ve published to the App Store, fear not, this is muuuuch easier.

The first thing you need to do is get your developer account set up. To do that, browse to http://market.android.com/publish/Home and you’ll be prompted to fill out some information about yourself as well as pay $25 via Google Checkout. It seems like the developer name has to be unique which seems odd but when I put in “Ryan Stewart” it said it was taken.

Once the process is completed you’ll be able to start uploading applications. The initial screen will show nothing but an empty blue box and a button for uploading apps. That takes you to the pretty self-explanitory upload page.

Now is a good time to see about creating the certificate and if you haven’t already, compiling the application. The Android Market lets you use a self-signed certificate and using adt you can create your own self-signed certificate. (Remember that you’ll need to be using adt from the AIR for Android prerelease). The only requirement is that it has to be valid for 25 years. The format is this:

adt -certificate -cn name [-ou org_unit][-o org_name]
[-c country] [-validityPeriod number_of_years]
key_type pfx_file password

And the example I used is this:

./adt -certificate -cn MyFirstSelfCert -ou ryanstewart
-validityPeriod 25 2048-RSA ~/Certificates/newselfcert.p12
mypassword

Which creates a 2048-RSA certificate in my Certificates directory with the name newselfcert.p12 and a password of mypassword. Now that you have that certificate created you can use it to package your APK file. Assuming you’ve already created a release version of your AIR for Android application you can use adt to compile an apk file with the following command:

./adt -package -target apk -storetype pkcs12 -keystore
PATH_TO_YOUR_CERTIFICATE -storepass
YOUR_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD YOUR_APPLICATION_NAME.apk
YOUR_APP_XML_FILE-app.xml YOUR_SWF_FILE.swf

That command (when you replace the capital letters) will build an APK file (that’s the -target) out of the app-xml file and the .swf file and use the certificate you just created to sign it.

And you’re pretty much all set. Upload the APK to the Android Market, give it some snazzy screenshots, a great description, and start making money!

View full post on Digital Backcountry – Ryan Stewart’s Flash Platform Blog

The iTunes App Store is becoming a trendsetter for other companies in the mobile market. With thousands of apps to choose from and over 60 million downloads total, what more could you ask for? Apparently a lot. Users still aren’t satisfied with the selection of apps that Apple is letting into the App Store. Apps that are extending the functionality of some of Apple’s standard offerings are being denied their chance to shine. This has resulted in a small, but talented pool of developers finding other ways to promote their apps to iPhone users.

Enter a method known as “jailbreaking”. Jailbreaking your iPhone voids your warranty, but allows you access to some of the most incredible apps that won’t be coming to the App Store anytime soon. Here’s our top 10 picks of apps worth jailbreaking your iPhone to get.

Pushr

There just aren’t enough dedicated Flickr apps in the iTunes App Store. To add injury to insult, the majority of dedicated Flickr apps don’t allow you to upload Flickr photos from your iPhone. In steps Pushr to fill this void! Pushr allows you to select a photo and edit a lot of the standard Flickr options. Users can edit the name, description, tags, and privacy options before uploading it their Flickr account. We’re huge fans of its tagging feature because it pulls from the list of previously used tags for better convenience.

Pushr also allows you to upload multiple photos at a time, which beats emailing each photo individually. If you want to delete a photo from the list, simply swipe your finger from right to left. Our only quirk with Pushr is that you can’t specify a set for images to go to. Otherwise, Pushr is the ultimate Flickr uploading tool for your iPhone.

Qik

Qik is one of the best livestreaming services available on the web. The service has recently expand its offerings of compatible handsets. Lucky for jailbreakers, Qik has recently become available on jailbroken iPhones. Since its initial release the Qik app has upgraded tremendously. You can now:

• Mute your broadcast
• Set privacy options
• Send an alert to Twitter
• Hide chat
• Set stream title
• Allow Qik to see your current location

It’s still recommended to livestream with Qik over Wifi or 3G connections. Though, that’s hardly something to complain about.

Flixwagon

If you’re not into Qik, you may like its competitor, Flixwagon. Most of what applies to the Qik app also applies to the Flixwagon application. So we won’t bore you with a rehash of the details.If you’re on Flixwagon instead of Qik, you won’t be left out in the cold. If only these apps were available in the App Store…

Winterboard

If you’re a customization junkie like some of us here, then you were probably disappointed in the fact that there’s very little you can do in terms of customizing the iPhone. The only customization option is the changing of the lock-screen wallpaper. Honestly, who even pays attention to that?

Winterboard is the ultimate solution for meeting your customization needs on your iPhone. There are thousands of compatible themes floating around for customizing the “real” background on your iPhone, icons, bars, keyboards, alert buttons, battery images, and tons more. The possibilities are endless with Winterboard. Quite frankly it’s one of the main apps that most people do jailbreak their iPhones for. Check out the awesome theme to the right I have installed on my iPhone thanks to Winterboard.

MxTube

The iPhone’s built-in Youtube app is great. Now you can watch videos all day without having to pay Apple a dime. What do you do when there’s no internet connection available? You could go through the process of downloading and converting Youtube videos into the iTunes compatible format. Sounds tedious, doesn’t it?

MxTube is a simple solution. With MxTube can stream Youtube videos just like you do with the standard Youtube app. MxTube also allows you to download and save these videos to your iPhone. The process is simple and entirely dependent upon your internet connection. Simply download the video you’d like to view later and that’s it. You can watch all your videos directly from the MxTube app. No conversion necessary.

NES

The NES emulator app allows you to run Nintendo ROMs right from your iPhone. Trust us, there are plenty floating around the web for downloading. It’s a little tricky to get these ROMs on your iPhone and also involves a bit of hacking. However, it’s nothing serious enough to brick your iPhone and well worth the effort. So if you’re in the mood for some old school games like Monopoly, a game that isn’t available in the App Store, then the NES emulator might be worth considering jailbreaking your iPhone for.

GSphone

If you were a bigger fan of the Gameboy system, then developers have you covered with the GSphone emulator. Like the NES emulator, GSphone allows you to run ROMs for the Gameboy gaming system. All you old school Pokemon fanatics will love this one! Too bad you have to jailbreak your iPhone for it.

Snapture

For all it’s worth, the iPhone’s camera is really basic with no built-in editing options. Snapture changes all of that in a jiffy. This app provides a host of options and features for editing your photos. Here’s a rundown of the many features you get with Snapture:

• QuickView thumbnail stack
• QuickView thumbnail enlarge
• QuickView delete
• EasyCapture
• QuickAccess
• Geotagging
• Color modes
• Multishot
• Delay timer
• Level aid
• Gesture zoom
• Auto-rotation
• Image size
• Touch zone
• Quiet mode

From easy access to photo sizing to color modes and image rotations, we know you wish you didn’t have to jailbreak your iPhone to get this awesome app.

Scrobble

Fans of the Last.FM music service have something to be thrilled about. While you can only scrobble the songs that you listen to via the Last.FM app, Scrobble is an app that runs in the background and scrobbles every song you listen to via the iPod app. You can view the latest stats on how many tracks have been scrobbled and how many are left in queue by heading to your settings. It stays out of the way and works really well with the iPod app.

Cycorder

When Qik became available for the iPhone, we noted how you could use Qik as a video recorder for your iPhone. Those tips aren’t obsolete, but Cycorder is a better option. Cycorder has great video recording quality ranging between 6-15 fps. We’ve been tipped off that for better recording quality with this app, you’ll need to be in a will lit area. You can playback your videos on your iPhone or simply download them to your computer for maximum viewing pleasure. Someone tell us why this isn’t in the App Store?

More to Come

The only hindrance with these apps is that you have to jailbreak your iPhone in order to get them. We really wish we didn’t. The process for jailbreaking your iPhone can be pretty confusing on the first go round. However, it’s relatively safe enough that if anything goes wrong you can restore your iPhone using iTunes.

The number of jailbroken apps available is tremendous, but doesn’t rival the number of App Store offerings. In terms of quality apps with consistent updates, we’d rather go with jailbroken repositories Cydia and Installer 4. We’re sure there are plenty more apps to look forward to like SwirlyMMS, which will make it easier for iPhone users to send MMS messages. We’ll keep you posted as they come down the pipeline.

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