apple app store

Apple's iOS platform generates four times as much revenue as Google's app store, Google Play, according to a new study.

In its first research report (PDF), App Annie Intelligence, an app analytics company, reported that Apple is pulling in four times as much revenue from iOS sales as Google does from sales of apps for the Android platform.

However, the study, reported on by The Next Web, also suggested that Apple's App Store is a far more mature business than Google Play -- and has less upside over time. According to the App Annie report, Google Play … Read more

Apple is reportedly warning developers of iOS games with the word "memory" in the title that unless they change their app's name, it will be removed from the Apple Store.

The notices are being sent at the behest of Ravensburger, a German game maker that sells a popular series of board games under the brand "Memory" and claims to hold the trademark for the word "memory" in game titles in some 42 countries, according to a report in Gamasutra.

Darren Murtha, developer of the popular Preschool Memory Match, told Gamasutra he was too … Read more

Browsing "Incognito" on Chrome for iOS may help protect users' privacy, but it was having the opposite effect on their saved passwords.

The Next Web reported earlier today that numerous iPhone and iPad users had been complaining about their saved passwords vanishing in the recently updated Chrome iOS app.

According to a thread on the Chrome development site Chromium, the problem had to do with closing an Incognito tab after browsing anonymously.

But it seems the Chrome folks heard the gripes:

"We know about the data loss and are working to recover your passwords and typed URLs (… Read more

With mobile as Facebook's financial Achilles heel, the company continues to drum up hype around its forthcoming App Center for mobile apps. The company announced today that it is making it easier for developers to place their apps on Facebook and is also helping users install apps via a mobile device or computer.

"Facebook sends over 160 million people to mobile apps each month through news feed and timeline," Facebook software engineer Brent Goldman wrote in a blog post today. "Soon, with the App Center, it will be easier than ever to drive mobile app installs … Read more

Dropbox has confirmed that the latest update to its developer SDK complies with Apple's policies that strictly forbid apps to send users to external sites to buy products if an in-app option is not also available.

Previously Dropbox had included a link to purchase extra storage space on its servers, which sent users to the Dropbox Web site to complete the transaction. That method cuts Apple (and its 30 percent revenue share) out of the process.

Dropbox had temporarily removed its "Make account" feature (the one that included the ability to buy more storage directly through Dropbox) … Read more

Editor's note: This a guest post by Igor Faletski, whose bio is below.

Since the Apple App store opened on July 10, 2008, it has paid out more than $4 billion to iOS developers--70 percent of the $5.71 billion it has booked in revenue.

Pretty big numbers, right?

Well, yes and no. Yes, those are big numbers that make my head spin and dwarf my personal tax return. At the same time, the real answer has to be no.

In the mobile commerce world, $4 billion is significant, but it's not a headline. It's more … Read more

Apple has declared war on lookalikes in its App Store.

The company today removed a handful of iOS applications that bore a resemblance to more popular apps, and had climbed the charts as a result.

As spotted by TechCrunch, apps like Tiny Birds, Plants vs. Zombie, Numbers with Friends, and Temple Jump have been removed from the App Store. That's not to be confused with titles like Tiny Wings, Plants vs. Zombies, Words with Friends, and Temple Run, longtime crowd favorites and best-sellers that remain available.

The removals come on the heels of a report posted by The Guardian … Read more

iPhone users were busy in December downloading more than 6 million of Apple's top free apps each day.

For the last month of 2011, the iPhone app store witnessed a record 6.04 million downloads per day, a 7 percent jump over the previous high of 5.45 million daily downloads in November.

Compiled by mobile ad firm Fiksu, the App Store Competitive Index looks at the total number of downloads of the top 200 free iPhone apps in the United States. The downloads have been gaining momentum since September when the average daily number was 3.8 million.… Read more

Google's Android Market has hit an important milestone, according to analytics firm Distimo.

The mobile application marketplace now has 400,000 available programs, according to Distimo. Out of that, two-thirds of the available applications are free, jumping from 60 percent last April

It's important to point out that Distimo is not the official word on available Android apps--Google is. And so far, the search giant has not immediately responded to CNET's request for confirmation of Distimo's report.

If Distimo's estimate is true, it would put the Android Market within striking distance of Apple's App … Read more