Smartphone Apps

Comparison chart shows paid apps for Windows Phones are on average more expensive than apps for iPhones. According to O’Reilly Research, the average Windows phone app will cost you $6.16, whereas the apps for the iPhone are only $3.43 on average. In an article by Jay Yarow, Business Insider, gives us a comparison chart for the various app categories.

Windows Phone Apps More Expensive than iPhone Apps Really?

True or false? Windows Phone 7 apps are actually much cheaper than the rest of the Smartphone apps. According to research done by app store analytics company Distimo, “overall, paid apps on Windows Phone 7 average $1.95 in the U.S., compared with more than $4 on the iPhone and more than $3 on Android.” Why such a difference in reports? The research done by O’Reilly doesn’t make obvious that the research is done for the old Windows Mobile platform. According to an article by Todd Bishop, TechFlash, Seattle, WA, prices are much lower for the new Windows Mobile 7 apps. Paid apps for Windows Phone 7 “are the cheapest of all stores,” compared with the average price of paid apps for Palm, BlackBerry, Android, iPhone and Nokia devices, according to the Distimo report.

Microsoft debuted the new Windows Phone 7 in October in New York City. Microsoft was hoping to lure users away from Apple’s iPhone and Google Android phones. The new interface is reportedly pretty cool, but is seriously lacking in apps. Apple has more than 300,000 apps available for the iPhone, and Google is fast on Apple’s heels. As of November 22nd, there were only 2,674 Windows Phone apps. Microsoft will have to really hustle to catch up. Knowing this, Microsoft has been wooing the game developers as well as going after business apps. At the October 11th debut, Microsoft touted apps from big name developers such as Netflix. The integration with Xbox Live may draw some folks as well. It is easy to conclude however, that Microsoft has some marketing challenges ahead of them.

New Windows Phone 7 apps are coming down in price compared to previous Windows Mobile devices. According to the article by Todd Bishop, the average price of $1.95 for paid Windows Phone apps is down from an average price of $6.27 for paid apps in the marketplace for the previous Windows Mobile 6.x devices. Microsoft has been encouraging app developers not to underprice their apps, but still keep them within the affordability range. Microsoft is counting on the new Windows Phone platform to bring them back into the mobile market. The company is promising 3,000 new apps by the end of the year, with some 15,000 app developers working on new products.

Will the new Windows Phone 7 make a ripple in the Smartphone market? From all the ratings, the Windows Phone 7 is receiving outstanding marks. It is apparently pretty snappy as far as speed goes, and the user interface is friendly. With more apps, both paid and free, it may claim a larger portion of the market than some of the other platforms like BlackBerry and Palm. Time will tell..

lehighvalleylive.com announces new Android and iPhone customizable high school sports team apps

Easton, PA (PRWEB) August 26, 2011

The Lehigh Valley High School Sports Android app and the Lehigh Valley High School Sports iPhone app feature content from the fast-growing Lehigh Valley news, sports and information website in affiliation with The Express-Times.

“The new app on lehighvalleylive.com makes it even easier for high school sports fans in our area to keep track of the teams they follow. No other website has high school sports stats that are as quick and complete, so we’re pleased we can deliver our coverage in such a useful way,” said Alyssa Young, assistant managing editor/online at The Express-Times. “High school sports are an integral part of our communities and newsgathering. With the new app fans can get results and updates as they happen.”

The apps are free for consumers to download and use. Fans are able to select and save their favorite teams to appear on the home screen of the app. Users who select favorite teams will see each team’s latest game scoreboard and upcoming schedule. They also will have the option of requesting “push alert” notifications whenever any of their favorite teams has completed a game.

“We are very excited to expand our ever-growing mobile offerings to include our high school sports fans,” said Ashley Zywusko, senior producer at lehighvalleylive.com, “The new app allows our users to engage and interact with high school sports content in a convenient, meaningful way.”

The apps are available for download at no charge in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. They were developed and launched with Advance Internet and Mobile IQ. The technology development firm Mobile IQ worked with Advance Internet to provide a unique and engaging smartphone app experience for the millions of high school sports fans using Advance Internet sites, including lehighvalleylive.com – the fast-growing local source of high school sports news and information in Lehigh Valley.

The apps will leverage Advance Internet’s custom-built high school sports platform, which manages news, stats, standings and schedules in 44 sports. There are 110,000 team pages for users to choose from across all Advance Internet markets. The platform generates more than 100 million page views a year.

Download the Lehigh Valley High School Sports app from the Android Market here .

Download the Lehigh Valley High School Sports app from the App Store here .

(lehighvalleylive.com also has a high school sports mobile website that can be accessed by going to lehighvalleylive.com on mobile device web browsers.)

About lehighvalleylive.com

lehighvalleylive.com, an affiliate of Advance Internet, Inc., is the leading local website for news and information throughout Lehigh Valley featuring the latest Lehigh Valley news , business, sports, travel, weather, traffic, shopping and entertainment information. In addition, lehighvalleylive.com has a comprehensive business listings directory, as well as local classified listings for jobs, homes, apartment rentals and autos. lehighvalleylive.com is the online home of The Express-Times.

About The Express-Times

Serving the Greater Lehigh Valley since 1855, The Express-Times remains Northampton and Warren Counties’ first choice for news and information. Published every day, The Express-Times offers a comprehensive Real Estate publication Home Source every Saturday and a sports roundup SportsPlus every Monday. Exposed is the Entertainment tabloid published every Friday. The Express-Times also offers the region’s largest Classified Marketplace for Recruitment, Real Estate, Automotive, Legal Notices and Classified advertising.

About Advance Internet

Advance Internet, Inc ., based in Jersey City, NJ, is a leading creator of highly interactive, online community-based news and information websites created in alliance over 25 newspapers affiliated with Advance Publications, Inc. Advance Internet’s websites are the number one local news and information online destinations for the markets they serve. The websites include al.com, cleveland.com, gulflive.com, MLive.com, NJ.com, NOLA.com, OregonLive.com, SILive.com, syracuse.com, MassLive.com, PennLive.com, and lehighvalleylive.com.

About Mobile IQ

Mobile IQ helps publishers and media agencies take their content mobile in intelligent, engaging, profitable ways. Its publishing hub enables content owners large and small to reach new audiences and make new revenue. Added with its ability to rapidly develop, integrated smartphone apps, Mobile IQ helps its customers stand out from the crowd. Please visit or for more information.

Toccara Labady
lehighvalleylive.com
201.459.2861
Email Information

A Smartphone is a sophisticated communications device that has the following features:

It works as a cellular phone.

It contains an operating system that enables it to run applications.

It is able to connect faster to the Internet because it has the ability to connect to the newer 3G data networks.

It has the power to carry and run handy software – examples: word-editing, photo editing, etc.

It comes with a built-in keypad.

It has emailing capabilities.

Smartphones can be of different types based on the technology used and the operating system they employ. For example: smart phones based on operating systems like Mac X, Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, Android and technologies like 3G,4G, Wi-Fi.

Smartphone applications help users stay connected to interesting happenings in any field of interest. Breaking news, economic measures, political developments, foreign exchange fluctuations, stock market and commodity prices, sports news, games, email, location-specific deals – you name it. Smartphones help you stay connected with your area of interest as well as share your knowledge/views with others! There’s no doubt that Smartphones bring entertainment, communication and information literally at your fingertips and help make your life more fun and your business easier.

Smartphone applications’ ability to entertain and inform users has led to an explosive growth in the sales of Smartphones, and therefore, a greater demand for novel applications. With time, the market is sure to see newer apps that carry many innovative methods of interaction, entertainment, information and engagement.

There are hundreds of Smartphones applications out there – some free, some priced. These applications allow a whole range of activities. For example:

Social networking

Video watching/uploading

Picture viewing/uploading

Viewing currency exchange rates

Viewing stock/commodity prices

Getting the latest news

Downloaders and Readers/Viewers (TV shows, music, books, movies)

Map viewers/Location finders

Ticket booking/Reservation making

Weather forecasts

There are many more types of apps, and the main users of Smartphone applications are businessmen, who find it convenient communicating and transacting business while being on the go. In fact, Smartphone applications have made Smartphones indispensible for businessmen. Today, Smartphone apps help businessmen to:

Dabble in commodities and stocks while they are on their way to their workplace.

Keep up to speed with world markets and sensitive global events

Know of latest currency exchange rates

Get breaking news from the corporate world

Reserve tickets or places

Get deals

Know what the weather will be like

Interact with other businessmen while being on the move

Smartphone applications are getting smarter by the day and by the look of things, they will prove to be the new trendsetters. Millions of folks around the world use Smartphone applications, and the number keeps increasing. Here’s a sneak peek into the next wave of Smartphone applications: Predictive analysis applications will be programmed to analyze behavioral data. For example, your application will inform you that it’s time to visit your doctor or reserve an airline ticket.

The folks at Google are creating Google Goggles, a Smartphone application that promotes computer vision. Once Google Goggles views a landmark and recognizes it, it serves up web pages about its history. This can be a great tool for tourists and researchers.

The next generation of Smartphone apps is slated to exploit device sensors and networks. 3D cameras, multiple microphones and other new inventions will be fully exploited by the coming wave of apps.

With time, Smartphone apps will start recognizing speech, taking away the inconvenience of typing on tiny keypads.

3D games will make their debut.

Healthcare apps, aside from the usual alerts, will use the power of hardware to serve information. For example, if the pollution level is beyond the permissible levels, your Smartphone will tell you that.

These were just a few examples. There’s no doubt that with innovative hardware and powerful computing finding its way into the system, Smartphone apps will continue to grow and surprise us with their creativity and usefulness.

Hurricane season isn’t a problem if you live in Nebraska, but many residents on the East Coast are keeping a wary eye on Hurricane Irene this week. Fortunately, there are plenty of smartphone apps that can help you track hurricanes approaching your area and prepare for them.

While many weather apps , such as The Weather Channel app (free for iOS and Android ), will give updates on hurricanes, there are dedicated hurricane-tracking applications that are much more detailed. Depending on the app, users can find live radar and infrared feeds from weather satellites and information on what the various hurricane classifications mean.

For iPhone and iPad users, an app called Hurricane HD ($2.99) provides videos and up-to-date information from experts at HurricaneTrack.com.

Another app, called Hurricane Tracker (free, or $1.99 for full version), offers dedicated versions of the app for specific areas of the coastline, organized by state.

Other iOS hurricane apps include Hurricane Watch ($1.99, or $2.99 for HD version), Hurricane Tracking Center (free), Hurricane Track (free) and Hurricane Station (free, or $0.99 for full version).

Android users have many similar options, sometimes by the same companies that make the iPhone apps. Some options for Android users include Hurricane Tracker ($1.49), Hurricane Hound (free, or $1.99 for full version), Hurricane Net ($0.99) and SeaStorm ($1.99).

If you don’t want to purchase an app, you can still stay up to date by reading the National Hurricane Center website , which has a wealth of free information on hurricanes. There is even a mobile-optimized version of the site so that users can easily use the site in a smartphone browser.

However you decide to track hurricanes, remember to be prepared and follow directions from your local authorities.

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Placecast’s ShopAlerts service , which delivers retailer and merchant offers and discounts to consumers via their mobile phones, is announcing new functionality today”integration with mobile smartphone apps.

As we’ve written in the past, ShopAlerts is a white-label geofencing platform for businesses that want to deliver geo-triggered offers to their customers on their mobile phones. Consumers can opt-in to receiving text messages in a variety of ways”at the store, online, via text-message, mobile websites or on Facebook. Geofences are virtual areas set around physical locations; when an opted-in consumer is inside a geofenced area, she receives a message from a business, including a discount, notice of a sale, directions to a store or other content.

With the new feature, retailers deploying mobile apps can allow consumers to receive a location-based message from the retailer’s nearest store or other relevant location, without the app being open Just as ShopAlerts programs work on any phone, this new feature works on any smartphone platform.

After a retailer integrates with ShopAlerts, customers (who are opted into receiving alerts) will receive location-based push notifications when they are in a geofenced area. Retailers can also leverage preferences expressed by the consumer, such as loyalty or past purchase data to increase the relevance of the message or deal. Time of day and weather can also be taken into account to create added relevance, and brands could also enable a location-based notification when a specific product is available at a nearby store.

Placecast says that it will work directly with retailers to integrate ShopAlerts into their apps, helping them to design a program and create a messaging strategy, select the number and size of geofences and activate locations.

The integration with retailer smartphone apps makes a lot of sense for Placecast. With the growth in online to offline commerce, Placecast is giving retailers another way to target consumers and offer relevant deals and information. The goal is to bring the consumer into the store, and messages sent via a smartphone app can help accomplish this.

Placecast is already being used by a number of high profile brands such as The North Face , and even ATT.

MLive.com announces new Android and iPhone customizable high school sports team apps

Ann Arbor, MI (PRWEB) August 15, 2011

The Michigan High School Sports Android app and the Michigan High School Sports iPhone app feature content from Michigan’s most popular news, sports and information website in affiliation with The Bay City Times, The Flint Journal, The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News along with mlive.com/detroit.

“MLive.com’s high school sports network is already the most robust website in Michigan for scores, stats and coverage”, said Bill Emkow, Editor-in-Chief of MLive.com. “Our new mobile app will keep you in-the-know with every team from any school in the state. If your team isn’t currently covered by our nine newsrooms around the state, please sign up to be a community reporter at mlive.com/highschool.”

The apps are free for consumers to download and use. Fans are able to select and save their favorite teams to appear on the home screen of the app. Users who select favorite teams will see each team’s latest game scoreboard and upcoming schedule. They also will have the option of requesting “push alert” notifications whenever any of their favorite teams has completed a game.

“This app is exactly what a lot of our readers have been waiting for,” said Dave McVety, MLive.com high school sports project manager. “Now, from virtually anywhere, you can follow your favorite sport, school or team. There will be no faster way to keep up with Michigan high school sports.”

The apps are available for download at no charge in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. They were developed and launched with Advance Internet and Mobile IQ. The technology development firm Mobile IQ worked with Advance Internet to provide a unique and engaging smartphone app experience for the millions of high school sports fans using Advance Internet sites, including MLive.com – the leading local source of high school sports news and information in Michigan.

The apps will leverage Advance Internet’s custom-built high school sports platform, which manages news, stats, standings and schedules in 44 sports. There are 110,000 team pages for users to choose from across all Advance Internet markets. The platform generates more than 100 million page views a year.

Download the Michigan High School Sports app from the Android Market here .

Download the Michigan High School Sports app from the App Store here.

(MLive.com also has a mobile website that can be accessed by going to mlive.com on mobile device web browsers.)

About MLive.com

MLive.com, an affiliate of Advance Internet, Inc., is the leading local website for news and information throughout Michigan featuring the latest Michigan news , business, sports, travel, weather, traffic, shopping and entertainment information. In addition, MLive.com has a comprehensive business listings directory, as well as local classified listings for jobs, homes, apartment rentals and autos. MLive.com is the online home of The Bay City Times, The Flint Journal, The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News.

About BoothMichigan

Booth Michigan, based in Grand Rapids, MI, is a multi-media marketing group and publisher of The Bay City Times, The Flint Journal, The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen-Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News.

About Advance Internet

Advance Internet, Inc ., based in Jersey City, NJ, is a leading creator of highly interactive, online community-based news and information websites created in alliance over 25 newspapers affiliated with Advance Publications, Inc. Advance Internet’s websites are the number one local news and information online destinations for the markets they serve. The websites include al.com, cleveland.com, gulflive.com, MLive.com, NJ.com, NOLA.com, OregonLive.com, SILive.com, syracuse.com, MassLive.com, PennLive.com, and lehighvalleylive.com.

About Mobile IQ

Mobile IQ helps publishers and media agencies take their content mobile in intelligent, engaging, profitable ways. Its publishing hub enables content owners large and small to reach new audiences and make new revenue. Added with its ability to rapidly develop, integrated smartphone apps, Mobile IQ helps its customers stand out from the crowd. Please visit or for more information.

Colin Thomas
MLive.com
734.997.7095
Email Information

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A recent survey in the US revealed that sending and receiving text messages is still more popular than other smartphone apps such as the NFC-based wallets and the Angry Birds games. The survey, which was carried out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, revealed that 92 percent of smartphone owners utilize their devices for sending or receiving text messages, making it the most widely-sued smartphone app. Aside from texting, 92 percent of smartphone users also use the device in taking pictures.

The survey also revealed other popular smartphone apps being used by smartphone users. The survey indicated that 84 percent of the respondents use the smartphones in surfing the internet, 80 percent use the device in sending videos or picture, while 76 percent send or receive emails using their smartphones.

The survey also pointed out that most smartphone owners use numerous smartphone apps with around 64 percent of the owners using the smartphone for playing games. Around 59 percent of smartphone owners use the device to access social networking websites and around 54 percent use smartphone apps to watch videos on their smartphones.

One surprising result that observers noted was only 15 percent of smartphone owners use smartphone apps in accessing Twitter, which is among the widely-used social networking websites.

The survey also revealed that the gap on the kinds of smartphone apps used by smartphone owners and the apps used by conventional mobile phone owners was wide.

Most conventional mobile phone owners use their devices for sending and receiving text messages as well as taking pictures. Only 15 percent use their devices for surfing the internet, 10 percent access their email, and around 14 percent play games with it.

Despite the bigger number of smartphone apps available for smartphone owners compared to conventional mobile phone owners, the number of smartphone owners is smaller compared to conventional mobile phone owners. Smartphone owners only account for 35 percent of all American adults.

The results of the survey which shows the wide acceptance of gaming smartphone apps is similar to the Nielsen research which was revealed a month ago. The Nielsen research revealed that 64 percent of smartphone owners played a gaming smartphone app in the last month.

Over two-thirds of Windows Phone, Android and iPhone users played a game using their smartphone in the last month. While only 24 percent of BlackBerry owners played a gaming smartphone app using their BlackBerry device. The Nielsen research also revealed that weather apps, social networking and maps were the other widely-used smartphone apps.