developers

These days, lots of folks are talking about apps and how they might join what looks like the app gold rush. Unfortunately, like the gold rush of yore, most people will come away deeply disappointed.

A recent New York Times article by David Streitfeld, "As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living," showed the reality of trying to make it in the app-making world. In the piece, one unscientific survey of developers showed these stats: "A quarter of the respondents said they had made less than $200 in lifetime revenue from Apple. A quarter … Read more

Facebook put up a new blog post today, patting itself on the back for Open Graph's role in the success of Playdom's Avengers Alliance game.

The social network said shared stories that linked to the game on people's news feeds and timelines were clicked on 7 million times -- the third-largest source of clicks to the Marvel game -- and users who installed the game after clicking through Open Graph stories made an in-game purchase twice as often as those who joined the game through an invite.

The post also included comments from the game developer about … Read more

Talk about a pivot.

When I last talked to SherLabs in March, CEO Satjot Sawhney was busy getting his TapFame product into the hands of game developers. TapFame was a sweepstakes engine that any developer could drop into a game with the aim of raising awareness and loyalty.

But after a recent chat, Sawhney said the company had changed directions yet again, this time turning TapFame into a networking business that connected developers with companies looking for talent in app design.

Sawhney had built a vast network of both brands and strong developers in his effort to push the sweepstakes … Read more

Recognizing that fragmentation of the Android platform frustrates consumers and developers alike, Google is looking to put a stop to it.

The company has modified its legal agreement with developers working on Android apps to specifically prohibit them from any action that could contribute to further fragmentation of the mobile platform. The anti-fragmentation clause was recently added to the Android SDK licensing terms and conditions, which developers must accept in order to build Android apps.

Section 3.4 of Google's new terms, which were updated Tuesday, reads, "You agree that you will not take any actions that may … Read more

You can now get a taste of Firefox OS straight from your desktop browser, thanks to a new Firefox add-on called r2d2b2g that bakes a Firefox OS simulator right into your desktop browser.

Mozilla wrote in its blog post announcing the simulator add-on that the tool has two complementary goals for helping developers. Currently at version 0.7, the company hopes that by version 1.0 the add-on will be stable enough to let developers easily create apps for the new OS.

The second goal for the add-on is that it frees developers from having a device to install a … Read more

Perhaps you've just ordered a Nexus 4 or a Nexus 10, or maybe you just updated your Nexus device (among other rooted Android devices) to Android 4.2. Either way, you're likely to notice that Developer Options is missing from your Settings menu. For whatever reason, Google decided to hide the Developer Options item in the latest Android release. As Android Central posted a few days ago, you can easily unlock the Developer Options listing and restore it to its rightful place.

Showing off its ability to draw music lovers to music apps on its Open Graph, Facebook revealed today that its users have played 62.6 million songs 22 billion times in the last 13 months.

Facebook posted the stats of six music apps on the platform's Open Graph, which lets third-party companies build applications for Facebook. Since the graph launched in September 2011, these apps have seen a lot of social referrals, according to Facebook. The company is reminding developers that it has the ability to put apps in front of users who then share them with their friends, … Read more

Alongside its public release of iOS 6.0.1 earlier today, Apple doled out a beta version of iOS 6.1 to developers as well.

Before you get too excited, the software so far appears to be light on new, user-facing features. Instead, one of the key improvements is new back-end technology that will let developers better use the company's homegrown maps inside their own applications.

To provide a frame of reference, it took Apple about four months to release iOS 5.1 after it released iOS 5.0.1. That update brought a reworked camera application on the … Read more

Apple increased the amount it spent on research and development during 2012, though it remained a fraction of its overall spending.

According to the company's annual report, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this afternoon, Apple spent $3.4 billion on research and development during its fiscal year, up $952 million, or 39 percent from last year. The year prior, the company spent $2.4 billion, up $647 million or 36 percent from the year before.

While the cost went up, the amount Apple spends on R&D versus its overall sales remained … Read more