developers

Microsoft will gather thousands of developers in San Francisco this week for its Build conference, with much of this year's event focused on generating excitement about updates to its Windows 8 operating system.

CNET will be there live on Wednesday, giving you the blow by blow of the opening keynote, with photos and running commentary as well. The keynote, which will offer a look at the Windows 8.1 update, starts at 9 a.m. PT at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco.

You can tune in here:

Verizon Wireless subscribers interested in the Galaxy S4 Developer Edition can now order one directly through Samsung.

Selling for $650, the unlocked developer edition offers all the features of the standard S4. But as per its name, it's geared toward developers and other people who want to tweak the phone without running into the obstacles posed by the locked version.

An unlocked boot-loader gives you the ability to reprogram the phone with custom ROMs that carry only the OS and basic apps. You can then install a variety of apps of your own choosing and make other changes.

The … Read more

Apple on Monday released the second beta of iOS 7, exactly two weeks after the first iteration of the software was doled out to developers.

The new version promises only to fix bugs and contains other undocumented "improvements."

But the big new thing in this release is a version of the software for iPads -- both the regular and Mini models. The first version of the software only came for iPhones and iPod Touches, with Apple promising to add support for other devices as time went on.

The software requires developers to sign a privacy agreement, but that … Read more

When Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer took the stage at the company's Build conference for developers last October, the software giant was buzzing from the Windows 8 launch the prior week.

The big news for the first day of that Build: Microsoft had sold 4 million copies of the new operating system in just four days.

This year's Build, which starts Wednesday in San Francisco, will be a bit of a reset for Windows 8. The Windows 8 buzz has long since dissipated, replaced by concerns that the operating system isn't sparking PC sales the way analysts, … Read more

It's been a bumpy few weeks for Adobe since announcing its controversial decision to move all its "perpetual license" Creative Suite applications to a subscription-only plan -- almost 32,000 people have signed a petition against the move and our own survey with Jeffries indicates that "Creative Suite users loathe Adobe's subscriptions" -- but as of Monday night it's officially here.

If you've bought into or opt to buy into the plan, you'll get a host of interesting application updates, settings sync via the cloud, and access to all of Adobe'… Read more

When the iPhone arrived six years ago, it was the hot commodity. It didn't take long for Apple's sleek, powerful smartphone to dominate the mobile phone market -- and one of its greatest draws was a rapidly growing software marketplace, curated and quality controlled, bringing extraordinarily useful features to what was essentially a pocket-size computer.

However, competitors weren't far behind. Some have continued on, others have failed, but by far the biggest is Internet giant Google's mobile operating system, Android. In fact, the number of Android devices activated outnumbers iOS devices by a mile -- 750 million Android to 600 million iOS.

Nevertheless, as we and many of you well know, the iTunes app marketplace seems vastly superior in quality of content, in spite of Apple's barriers to entry, such as a registration fee for app sellers, and the fact that Google Play is rapidly catching up in terms of quantity and downloads. Apple has pipped 50 billion downloads across over 900,000 apps, while Google Play is currently counting down to that number across 750,000 apps. But there's an even greater discrepancy in app revenue. A massive 76 percent of the entire revenue generated by apps goes to iOS -- leaving the other 24 percent of the pie to all other operating systems.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook's latest acquisition, Parse, announced on Wednesday evening that it has grown 25 percent since the social network bought it two months ago.

Parse CEO Ilya Sukhar told an audience at a World Wide Developers Conference event that the platform has grown by 20,000 apps since last month.

"We agreed to have Facebook buy us to accelerate our vision," he said.

Facebook bought developer platform Parse in April, letting the social network dip into the back end of thousands of mobile applications. More apps, more data.

Third-party apps are important to Facebook because … Read more

Internet, we love you, but why must you dangle before us things we cannot have?

Brian K. Anderson, the YouTube user who brought us the Lego Breaking Bad video game parody, has done it again -- this time with one of our favorite TV shows of all time, "Arrested Development."

In BluthFighter -- a mashup with Street Fighter -- we get to see GOB Bluth square off against Tobias Fünke in full blue-man regalia and never-nude short-shorts, tagging out for Tony Wonder and Carl Weathers, with such awesome moves as the Segway Slam. Who we'd really love to see is Lucille, possibly dealing out Martini Haymakers. … Read more

Update: Back up now; see update below.

Apparently a lot of developers are eager to get their mitts on preview versions of Apple's next iOS and OS X software.

Enough are visiting the developer site to bring things to a screeching halt. Users who attempt to make their way there are currently getting page load errors, as well as a page that tells users: "We'll be back soon."

This has happened plenty of other times, and is expected to be sorted out, though Apple's currently offering no guidance on when. Additionally, its fancy system status page … Read more