The US Department of Defense Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit is look for a few good coders to help build apps and an entire app store for bomb technicians and soldiers involved in ordnance handling. This is when sliding to unlock could mean the difference between life or death.

The request for proposals is as dull as dirt (you can read it here) but the requirements are clear: they’re looking for apps that will replace paper pocket guides and references used by the folks that blow up the big badda booms.

If you’re interested the funding can run as high as $750,000 and $1,250,000, according to an engineer familiar with the proceedings and all you have to do is ensure the product is encrypted and password protected and that it involves lots of cool, wire-frame graphics so it looks like all of those computer programs used by hackers in the movies.

The deadline is March 9, 2012, so get cracking. Don’t keep the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office waiting.

Yesterday, Bloomberg published a story stating that Apple had made a major (and, frankly, somewhat surprising) change to its App Store policies: it was going to begin allowing game publishers to sell bundles of games as monthly subscriptions, as opposed to a la carte. Historically all games on the App Store have been sold as one-off purchases (or for free), and they can generate further revenue by offering in-app goods and services.

But last week, game developer Big Fish Games introduced an app with a different model. Gamers would purchase the app, and, for $6.99 a month, they’d have access to “dozens” of games within that application (in other words, each game would not require a separate download).

Such a model could potentially be a big deal for other gaming companies like Zynga, which could establish ‘hub’ apps rather than having to launch a new app for each game.

As it turns out, that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon.

Apple didn’t comment for yesterday’s Bloomberg report, but the article treated the fact that Big Fish’s app was accepted as indicative of a broader policy change — especially because the two companies had apparently been in negotiations over the launch. According to the original article, Big Fish founder Paul Thelen said, “It took longer than usual to be approved… They needed to be convinced there’s a reason to charge customers every month.” And it wouldn’t have been the first time for Apple to enact an App Store policy change without officially announcing it.

Still, the fact that Big Fish was the only app to launch with the feature was a bit strange — you’d think Apple would have wanted other partners onboard as well. So what was going on?

Today, we have our answer: Bloomberg has written a followup story stating that Apple has removed the subscription plan option. Or, more specifically, Big Fish Games’s app has been removed from the App Store, and Apple isn’t commenting. Big Fish is predictably (and understandably) upset:

“We were notified that the app was removed,” said Paul Thelen, founder of Big Fish, a game publisher in Seattle. The app had been available since Nov. 18, he said. “We’re trying to follow up with Apple to try to figure out what happened.”

Thelen said he was surprised by the move because Big Fish had worked with Apple for several weeks to ensure that it met the requirements for recurring monthly charges made through the App Store, a method most commonly used by magazines and newspaper publishers.

“It was officially approved,” Thelen said. Apple had even seen the app’s press release before it went out earlier today, he said.

So what happened? My hunch (and I’m not alone) is that one or more of the reviewers at Apple mistakenly accepted the application, and that there was no intentional policy change. Applications that were in violation of Apple’s terms have slipped through the cracks before. And while Big Fish did obviously interact with someone at Apple during the process, the reviewer may not have realized that accepting the app would have broader repercussions.

Research firm research2guidance this morning published a (free) report, offering key findings from an analysis of mobile applications store Android Market.

According to the firm, the number of active mobile apps in Android Market stood at 319,161 at the end of last month, compared to 459,589 apps that are available in Apple’s App store (the company claims there are 500,000 apps, actually).

Android developers appear to have more appetite for distributing multiple apps than iOS developers, however.

Research2guidance asserts that the average Android Market app publisher has made more than 6 applications available since the launch of the store, compared to just over 4 apps that have been published by iOS developers, on average.

Also worth noting: 37% of the applications that were published on Android Market were later removed – for a variety of reasons – while Apple has kicked off only 24% of published apps, as of the end of September 2011. Here’s how the research firm explains the discrepancy:

Although Apple regularly cleans up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android. It is likely that the more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, demo and malware content.

Over 78% of the apps removed from the Android Market were free, which could mean that publishers put more effort into the applications they place with the pay-per-download business model, thus ensuring that it is kept longer in store.

Still according to research2guidance, the total number of applications that have been published on the Android Market to date surpassed 500,000 in September 2011. Apple’s App Store clocks in at just over 600,000 successful submissions (or 20% more).

Considering Android’s growth rate (190 million Android devices and counting), it’s safe to assume there will be more applications for Android than iOS at some point next year.

Today, third-party mobile application store GetJar is publicly launching its GetJar Gold service, which has been in beta testing for the past month. The new service presents a viable challenge to Amazon’s Appstore and its time-limited “free app of the day” by offering an entire catalog of premium Android applications for free. The apps are high quality, ad-free and are available for download at any time.

At launch, GetJar Gold will feature 50 titles, including Fruit Ninja THD, Age of Zombies, TuneIn Radio Pro, Solo, and Splashtop Remote Desktop. Their combined value is around $60.00. GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs says that new apps will be added daily. In fact, the company has nearly closed a deal with another big “recognizable” name in the mobile app industry, but cannot disclose details at this time. (Please be Angry Birds!)

Only premium (paid) applications without in-app ads are considered for the new store, which operates under a different model than the retail app stores from Apple, Google and Amazon. Elsewhere, developers share a percentage of their premium app’s sales with app store provider, usually in a 70/30 (developer/app store) split.

With GetJar, however, the company pays the developers for the applications on a per install basis, which ensures developers get paid. GetJar, in turn, generates revenue by offering sponsored listings within GetJar Gold to other application developers.

Using a model similar to Google AdSense, developers bid on how much they are willing to pay per install. The bids can be as low as 1 cent or as high as $1.50 to $2.00 per user. The higher the bid, the higher the ranking in the GetJar Gold search results. Also like Google, sponsored apps are clearly labeled and highlighted using a different color (blue).

Says Laurs, this model works because mobile users tend to download more than one application per session. Consumers also happy to try out the sponsored apps when relevant to their interests. But most importantly, this model works because when apps are free, users are more likely to download them – 10 to 20 time more likely, GetJar finds.

GetJar Gold is now available on the GetJar.com website, mobile site and in its standalone Android application here.

“Yeah, each new iOS announcement is very… bittersweet. We love it because it means new APIs for us to build on, bug fixes for things we’ve had to work around, and, ideally, more people buying the platform we build for. But then we spend months getting slammed by bad reviews, all written by people who just don’t understand: until the release goes gold, beta-specific bugs are not our fault.” — A developer who asked to not be named.

Last night, our sister site TUAW (it’s still sort of weird to write that) wrote a PSA of sorts. The message was simple: if you’re not a developer, but you’ve ignored the warning signs and finagled your way into the pre-release iOS 5 betas, you need to stop. Why? Because people are crushing developers with horribly unfair reviews, sinking their oh-so-important ratings because of bugs they couldn’t possibly have prepared for.

The overall message was fair enough, but their proposed solution — telling non-developers to stop downloading iOS 5 — could never work. But there is a solution (a rather simple one, in fact) that would: just don’t let people running iOS betas review things.

You see, telling people not to download the iOS 5 beta is like putting the world’s tastiest cookies in a jar labeled “FOR AWESOME PEOPLE ONLY”, then telling a kid they can’t have one unless they totally promise that they are, in fact, an awesome person. Everyone would put on their awesome shirt and their awesome hat, then walk on over to that cookie jar with hand extended. And why not? No one’s really checking just how awesome the self-proclaimed awesome people are — plus, the definition of “awesome” (read: the definition of “developer”) is somewhat loose.

It’s just the way it works: we are, as a population, rather self-entitled. If something new is made available to one small group and others outside of that group are made aware of it, they’re going to try to find a way to get it (in this case, that usually means buying a developer seat from someone selling their extra spots for profit.) Apple could theoretically kill off this grey market entirely by opening iOS Beta access to anyone willing to jump through some hoops and void some rights — but that’s a post for another day.

It seems there are at least two ways to fix this, one a bit easier than the other:

1) Block people running iOS 5 from reviewing any apps they’ve downloaded on iOS 5 (the tricky route): Apple knows which apps you’ve downloaded — if they didn’t, they couldn’t show you your entire purchase history (as they do in the more recent builds of the App Store). Why not detect what platform version users are running on when the download occurs, store that bit of info in the database, and then block them from reviewing that application until the new OS has officially rolled out to everyone?

They’d have to account for applications that were installed from sync’d backups — but that, while not trivial, seems feasible. Apple already detects installed apps for other reasons (for example, changing the “download” button to be grayed out and read “Installed”)

2) Just block anyone running iOS 5 from reviewing apps altogether (the easier route): Just like above, but once an iTunes account is detected to be running an iOS 5 beta, that account is temporarily blocked from reviewing apps altogether, whether said apps were downloaded on iOS 5 or not.

This route is a bit clunkier — but it’s also a bit simpler to implement and easier on Apples servers, as it doesn’t require an additional database call for each and every user for each and every app. This is also somewhat less complicated from a privacy standpoint, as there’s less communication back to the mothership.

Sound harsh? It is, perhaps. But it comes with the territory: pre-release Betas are not meant for day-to-day use (even for developers, Apple recommends only putting Betas on devices dedicated to testing.) If you’re a non-developer and you want to tinker, hell, I wouldn’t try to stop you: you’d just have to hold your rants until it’s reasonable to do otherwise.

There would probably be some maligned outcries that Apple is somehow blocking freedom of speech — which, of course, doesn’t really apply here. These Beta-hungry reviewers are hopping on their soap boxes without any understanding of why things aren’t working, and are maliciously affecting the livelihoods of developers — many of whom, like most of us, are just some dudes looking to ditch the cubicle and do something cool for a living.

The more mobile apps come out, the bigger the discovery problem gets for users: Apple, for example, recently announced they have 425,000 apps in the App Store. Rankings, recommendations from platform providers or search often bring unsatisfying results – a pain that an app called AppGrooves [version 2.0, free on iTunes] now tries to solve.

There are quite a few recommendation engines out there already (i.e. Chomp or Frenzapp), but AppGrooves goes in a different direction: the idea is to combine a proprietary recommendation algorithm with a “Hot or not”-feature and a social element to discover unknown cool iOS apps.

The way it works is that AppGrooves first detects what kind of apps you have installed on your device. In order to find new ones that fit your taste, AppGrooves then lets you choose between various pairs of apps it pulls from the list of apps you have on your device in “Hot Or Not” style (i.e. “Which do you like better: Pandora or Spotify?”).

What’s interesting is that AppGrooves allows you to let your Facebook friends vote on apps as well: after voting on a pair of apps, you can not only share your decision but ask your Facebook friends which app they would have chosen for in that specific case, too. AppGrooves also collects votes from all your friends using the app and accumulates these social votes in order to produce more personalized recommendations over time (you can access this social hit list from within AppGrooves anytime). And if social isn’t your thing, you can also use the app’s search function to find apps with similar descriptions, from similar users etc.

AppGrooves is one of the companies of the 500 Startups summer 2011 accelerator program. Its co-founder (and Japanese national) Dr. Naoki Shibata has stepped down from positions at Tokyo University, Stanford University and Japan’s biggest e-commerce company Rakuten to relocate to Silicon Valley.

Shibata’s goal was to make his company global from day one, and his plan is apparently working: AppGrooves has just closed $360,000 in an angel round from some big names in the US and Japan, including 500 Startups, Richard Chen (founding partner of AngelPad), Mochio Umeda (president of MUSE Associates), Takao Ozawa and Gen Miyazawa (two Japan-based angel investors).

Not a huge deal for the average user, but Apple has just announced volume sales support for organizations who want to pick up a few dozen copies of a certain iOS app. The new system is fairly simple: you select the app you want, select the number of seats, and pay with a credit card. It’s not clear if you can get bulk discounts yet but Apple then gives you a license for each device.

You can now also create and sell custom B2B apps for iOS devices.

Custom B2B apps are built just for you by third-party developers and business partners to address a specific business process, integrate with a unique back-office environment, or deliver a custom interface for your users. Using the Volume Purchase Program, you can securely and privately purchase custom B2B apps for iPhone and iPad that make your business even more effective.

Previously, volume purchasing was only available for educational institutions. According to Apple, “The Volume Purchase Program for Business is coming soon to businesses in the United States.”

This is actually quite interesting, if you think about it: volume pricing suggests volume deployment of iOS in the enterprise. While I’m sure no one is going to pick up 500 copies of Angry Birds, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like Pages becomes the de-rigeur mobile app in some circles for document editing on the go.

via MacRumors

Most of you will agree when I say that one of the coolest features of Google+ is Circles, which lets you create groups of people to share specific things with, rather than sharing with everyone in your network by default. Today I came across an iOS app that basically has the same system in place, but for voicemail. It’s called On Voicefeed and it lets you build groups (family, friends, work, girlfriend/boyfriend) and set personalized voicemail greetings for each of those groups.

You can record the greeting on your own, and maybe leave a cute message for your sweetheart or a more professional greeting for work associates. You can also type in messages that will be dictated by one of eight different voices. There are three French voices, three English voices, and two Spanish voices, and it actually ended up being a much funnier experience than I thought it would. If you get creative enough, the different automated voices can be pretty hilarious, and greetings are sure to get an interesting response from your friends.

The only problem I have with the voices is that the French and Spanish ones are really hard to understand. It’s almost like the voices are speaking English words based solely on French and Spanish phonetic rules, instead of sounding like English in a French or Spanish accent. Either way, it was a jolly good time, and I recommend that you at least play with the app, if not actually use it on a regular basis.

Here comes the bad news: I have a few complaints about the app, most of which could ultimately be resolved in a software update. The first is the voices, as I’ve already said. Secondly, the app UI isn’t all that smooth. I found myself tapping buttons three or four times before I got a response, and that was over a pretty solid WiFi connection. Luckily, little stuff like that can be fixed in an update, and we hope that the folks at Orange Vallée get that cleaned up soon.

Finally, and most annoyingly, getting set up with On Voicefeed was pretty tedious. You have to enter basic information, just like almost any other app, which is fine. But then you’re asked to enter a security code that is sent to you by text. At this point, I’m thinking, “Alright, but this better be it.” Then, the app asked me to call a number that was automatically added to my contacts in order to activate the account. Fortunately, that was the end of it, but I was still a little peeved at how long it took to get started. I’m sure that some of those steps are necessary to tap into your voicemail, but finding a way to streamline the process would be much appreciated.

On Voicefeed is available as a free download from the Apple App Store for the iPhone, iPod touch, and the iPad, although I can’t really imagine why the app would support iDevices without a phone function. The first three customized greetings are on the house, and past that you have to upgrade to On Voicefeed premium for $9.99.

Remember that whole trademark tiff between Apple and Amazon over the generic or non-generic term “app store?” Despite going quiet for the past month, the case is certainly not over, although statements made by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton suggest that Apple may be losing steam in its fight.

She referred to Apple’s proof as a “stumbling block” when the company argued that the stores’ similar names – Apple App Store and Amazon Appstore for Android – could cause confusion among consumers. Judge Hamilton also indicated that she would “probably” reject Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Amazon’s use of the term “app store.”

Though Apple didn’t receive approval to coin the term “app store” until 2 years after its 2008 filing, the conflict didn’t start until the Microsoft got involved, arguing that the term was just as generic as “shoe store” or “toy store.” Microsoft’s insistence did little to stop Apple, and in March, the company proved just how serious it is about keeping “app store” all to itself by suing Amazon when the Appstore for Android launched.

Apple argued that none of its other competitors such as Google and Microsoft were using the term “app store,” but rather found new ways to describe their software offerings, like Windows Marketplace or Android Market. Since the term isn’t used commonly by similar companies, Apple maintains that Amazon’s use of “app store” is infringing on its trademark.

Today, Judge Hamilton seem less than impressed with Apple’s showing, saying she has yet to see any “real evidence of actual confusion.” Without said evidence, she has no choice but to rule against Apple’s motion. “I’m troubled by the showing that you’ve made so far, but that’s where you’re likely not to prevail at this early junction.”

[via Ars Technica]

Chomp, for example, is trying to become the Google search for apps. Zwapp, Frenzapp, and Appsfire are all bringing social to app discovery, while Heyzap is busy trying to kill game discovery. Today, Discovr adds a dy-no-mite app discovery tool to the crowd, going after the user experience problem in an awesome, though somewhat mathematical way: Interactive graphs.

Back in January, Discovr launched a cool new app for the iPad that displayed an interactive map of the music world that displays, among other things, connections between bands and artists. It also allows the user, with a few quick taps, to view musicians’ videos on YouTube and more. In fact, the sounded appealing enough that it attracted 150K downloads in three days. Holy tamale. Today, Discovr is applying its music discovery and visualization model for iOS to apps, and it’s just as good, if not better. Granted, I’m a sucker for creative design and spatial data-aggregation tools. Nerdy as charged.

Discovr Apps is an interactive map of the 400K+ apps on the App Store. How does it work? Search for your favorite app, or choose one from Discovr’s featured apps, and bing-bang-boom, the app will show your app of choice in an interconnected network of apps that are linked based on their similarities. The similarities, like so many other recommendation services today, is a combo of machine algorithms and human curation.

The networks can be expanded on as you go, and if the page were large enough, you could probably create a massive, mind-melting map of all the apps on the app store. Obviously, in offering an interactive map as a method of app discovery, user experience is critical. If the interface sucks, the app is worthless. Discovr CEO Dave McKinney assures me that UX has been top priority for the startup since day 1. And from my quick demo, the interface is awesome: Smooth and seamless.

McKinney said that part of their secret to offering a good UX, especially if you’re going for a graphical presentation of data, is having a deep understanding of graphical interfaces and graph theory. Their solution? Bring in a guy with a PhD in graph theory. Tamas Nepusz is a doctor of graph theory that used to work at Last.fm as a research engineer, and he works exclusively on the graph code. It seems to be working.

So, when you find an app you like, you can read app descriptions, check out screenshots and ratings, or buy the app directly from the app store — or you can share your favorite apps and maps with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or email.

In addition to Discovr’s human+machine approach, the startup wants people from all over the world to contribute to the data set and plans to add data-tuning from the crowd to make its recommendations even better. Oh, and an Android app is not on the way. It looks like Discovr Apps is purely iOS. Sorry, Google.

For more, check out the video at the below.

Short version: Rosetta Stone launched its iPad app today, which is basically just a lighter version of its core “course” software. The app itself is nothing extraordinary, but the way it teaches languages is pretty awesome. Foreign language has never been my best subject, but I had a blast playing with this app because it feels way more like a puzzle than a language lesson. The worst part is the price: you have to be a Rosetta Stone customer to access the app.

Features:

• All five language levels, with corresponding units and paths
• Swipe-to-scroll through tracks
• A single tap enlarges small contextual images
• Drag-to-zoom offers a little extra zoom
• MSRP: Free with a minimum $179 Rosetta Stone software purchase

Pros:

• Easy-to-use Interface
• Very accurate voice detection

Cons:

• No studio sessions despite the iPad’s video-chat support
• Requires purchase of Rosetta Stone desktop app

If you take learning languages seriously, I would gladly argue that there is no better language-learning app out there. But if you’re looking for something light and fun, the price tag on this app will certainly outweigh your desire for it.

Rosetta Stone has always been kind of like a yoga mat. I love yoga, and I wish I went everyday, but I hesitate to spend the money on a mat for fear it could go to waste. The same has been true of Rosetta Stone. It always sounded pretty cool, and I’ve always wanted to learn different languages, but shelling out the cash is a step I’ve never been willing to take. But after sitting down with the Rosetta Stone team and checking out the brand new iPad app, I’ve been converted. And that’s partially due to the app, itself.

As far as learning languages goes, Rosetta Stone seems to have the process nailed. Instead of learning through simple flash-card style memorization or by-the-book translation, the Rosetta Stone TOTALe Companion app forces you to problem-solve while you learn. For instance, instead of reading a sentence in Spanish, hearing it, and then repeating (parroting), Rosetta Stone gives you a couple of different pictures of whatever phrase or word the lesson focuses on, and turns language learning into a puzzle.

The core idea seems to come from the way children learn languages for the first time. Children hear words they don’t know and use the context around unknown words to fill in the blanks. An example given by Rosetta Stone CTO Mike Fulkerson resonated well with me. “If I am with my five-year-old and say ‘we’re in a hotel suite,’ my son knows all the words in that sentence except ‘suite,’” he said. “If I ask him what the word ‘suite’ means, he can figure out from the rest of the sentence, and his surroundings, that a ‘suite’ is a big hotel room.”

The Rosetta Stone app works the same way. Some pages ask you to choose the picture that best represents the word or phrase being spoken, gradually integrating new words that you haven’t learned yet. Other pages display a pattern of different ideas or sentences, and require the user to complete the pattern. For example, one page showed four different pictures with corresponding sentences: 1. I have red apples. 2. We have green apples. and 3. I have a red bike. Based on the first three sentences and their corresponding photos, the user must then figure out what the fourth sentence will be (We have green bikes.).

The iPad app still integrates the majority of the features found in the desktop app’s “course” offering, which is the main curriculum of the Rosetta Stone software. Studio sessions, where the user talks with a coach fluent in their chosen language in a video chat, aren’t supported within the iPad app. This was pretty shocking to me, since the iPad has a front-facing camera which would be perfect for studio sessions on-the-go. When I asked about it, Fulkerson explained that the company wanted to bring a lighter experience to the tablet, something that falls between its basic “parroting” iPhone app, and the much heavier desktop app.

On a PC, you can really immerse yourself in a lesson, but on the iPad, most people switch back and forth from applications pretty regularly – what Mr. Fulkerson referred to as iPad ADD. For that reason, the Rosetta Stone TOTALe Companion app remains on the page you last visited once you close the application, whereas the desktop app always sends you back to the home page. A few other tweaks were made to the desktop app, as well, to get as much out of the iPad’s functionality as possible. For example, you swipe side to side to access new tracks (mini lessons) and instead of hovering over an image to zoom (like on the desktop app), iPad app users can touch to enlarge, and drag to zoom with smaller images.

Of the 31 Rosetta Stone-supported languages, 20 are available in iPad app format. Right-to-left languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Farci, will be rolled out in an app update, along with Irish, since its font isn’t yet supported by the iPad.

Now for the bad news: Non-Rosetta Stone customers simply don’t have access to the app. In other words, you must buy Rosetta Stone desktop software in order to log in to the iPad application, which is a free download from the Apple App Store. Most Rosetta Stone languages come with five levels, and a few smaller languages come in a three-level set. For a single level, the software costs $179. Two levels cost $279, three levels costs $379, and if you opt for the full five-level set, the software costs $479.

For now, the Rosetta Stone TOTALe Companion app is only available in the Apple App Store, but Mike Fulkerson promised an Android version at some point, he just couldn’t say when.

In my opinion, the content of the app is its biggest selling point. In the few minutes I played with the app, I truly enjoyed learning a little bit of French. And this is coming from an eight-year Spanish student, who hated just about every minute of it. The app itself is nothing extra special. The interface has a clean look and is pretty self-explanatory, lacking any complex multi-touch actions. Moving through lessons was pretty snappy, and I found the app’s voice detection to be incredibly accurate. The most minor pronunciation errors are detected immediately, basically forcing the user to say the word or phrase correctly, which is the whole point of the Rosetta Stone iPad app in the first place.

As The Loop noted after a partial day 1, The Heist saw download numbers just over 25,000. This was already enough to overtake Angry Birds. But what’s really remarkable are the day two numbers. There were 89,798 downloads of The Heist on day two. Again, that’s for a paid app ($0.99).

There are 86,400 seconds in a day so… yeah, the app is selling at a pace better than one a second. Crazy.

In total, that puts downloads now well north of 100,000, and revenues are nearing $100,000 already. In fact, they’re likely well past that number as I write this seeing as the app is also still the top-grossing app in the App Store.

So what is fueling the surge? Well first of all, they had a good launch strategy. The team behind The Heist is the same team behind MacHeist, the popular OS X software bundle. They began hinting about The Heist game earlier this year, and actually hid clues in the initial version of Twitter for Mac (which they had a deal with).

That proved to be enough to push it to number one, past Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, and other insanely popular apps. And getting to number one has its own perks. Because everyone sees you’re number one, they get curious and want to download your app as well, which led to the day two surge.

Well that and the fact that the puzzle game is getting excellent reviews across the board.

The tap tap tap team behind the app is also behind the truly great Camera+ app, which happens to be the number seven paid app in the store. In other words, these guys know how to make good apps — and money.

You can find The Heist here in the App Store.

There’s no doubt Android Market will at some point offer more applications for download and/or purchase than Apple’s App Store, as the latter’s growth has been slowing down of late, while the Android application store’s growth rate has been accelerating.

In a recent report, app store analytics company Distimo forecasted that Android would surpass the App Store in size before the end of July 2011.

Another research firm, Germany-based research2guidance, corroborates Distimo’s findings; the firm forecasts Android to blow past Apple’s App Store by August 2011.

Provided current growth rates for new app uploads are maintained, research2guidance expects Android Market to reach 425,000 apps next August, effectively overtaking App Store in size.

According to the firm, Android Market added 28,000 new apps in April 2011, whereas Apple lagged behind with only 11,000 new apps.

Evidently, there’s always the question whether this matters at all. After all, the bulk of applications that are available for both platforms don’t see much traction anyway, so how relevant it is whether there are 100,000 apps or 200,000 apps that are rarely, if ever, downloaded by anyone? (note that this goes for most if not all mobile application stores)

In fact, notes research2guidance, Android Market’s high growth rate does not necessarily mean that the average mobile app developer will have a better shot at generating revenues from the store. In fact, the firm posits, the opposite may be true:

On the contrary, the success of an app store is negatively correlated to the success of an average developer. All analysis on the early months of an app store including the Android Market shows that average download numbers decrease dramatically after the first months or even weeks after the launch of the store. The long tail gets longer and longer while the top 5% gets richer and richer.

Be that as it may, Android Market’s stunning growth is worth noting, especially because it came out the gates fairly slowly.

Also read:

Smartphone App Market Reached More Than $2.2 Billion In The First Half Of 2010
Nielsen: Consumer Desire For Android Grows, Unlike iOS And Blackberry
Despite 861.5 Percent Growth, Android Market Revenues Remain Puny
Facebook, Android Increasingly Under Attack: AVG Q1 Security Threat Report

App store analytics provider Distimo today published its latest report, once again zooming in on the pricing of mobile applications across a variety of platforms. We got an exclusive early look at the new report.

According to Distimo, Google’s Android Market currently offers 134,342 free applications for download, while Apple’s App Store for iPhone offers 121,845 free applications.

The number of paid applications available in Android Market, in contrast, is about one-third of the total number of paid applications available in the Apple App Store for iPhone.

According to Distimo’s data, the App Store for iPhone remains the largest store in terms of all applications available, although it was among the slowest growing mobile applications stores in terms of relative growth in March 2011.

The Apple App Store for iPad grew by 12 percent last month to 75,755 applications, of which 34,120 are designated for iPad only. The total number of available iOS applications now equals – a whopping – 367,334.

Distimo observes that applications for the iPad have become more expensive over time, while other application stores have trended in the opposite direction. The proportion of applications featuring in-app purchases has apparently decreased over time as well.

Interestingly, Distimo expects Android Market to become the largest store in terms of number of applications in about five months from now, provided current grow rates across all different application stores are somewhat maintained.

When that happens – not if – Android Market will trump the App Store for iPhone and iPad, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, BlackBerry App World and Nokia Ovi Store in size (in that order).

Distimo also forecasts RIM’s BlackBerry App World to double in size over a six-month period and likely surpass Nokia’s Ovi Store in size by the end of May 2011. A couple of months later, even Windows Phone 7 Marketplace will be bigger than the Ovi Store, the company adds.

I see you driving ’round town with an app that measures cellular radiation, and I’m like, “no interest”.

Apple head honcho Steve Jobs has made it abundantly clear that Tawkon‘s phone radiation measurement application is not welcome on its official App Store, pushing the startup to make it available for free (for jailbroken iPhones) through Cydia instead.

Tawkon sent a courteous email to Jobs in the hopes of gaining approval for distribution of the application through Apple’s App Store, only to receive a characteristically curt response back:

No interest.

Sent from my iPhone

The full email thread is below, followed immediately by Cee-Lo Green’s ‘Fuck You’ music video.

Don’t call it an app store. Apple has sued Amazon over the latter’s use of the term “Appstore,” with a spokeswoman saying that it “will confuse and mislead consumers,” tricking them into thinking they’re downloading software from its own App Store. Apple says it’s tried to contact Amazon at least three times, but Amazon hasn’t made any public comment yet.

The question here is, is “app store,” or any of its variants—App Store, Appstore, app store, etc.—generic enough to not warrant a trademark for Apple. No company is going to be launching a music store called iTunez any time soon, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who are looking to make a few dollars off the current app craze, as it were.

Other companies, however, have tried to stay as far away from the term “app store” as possible.

You download Android software from the Android Market. RIM launched its BlackBerry App World, perhaps to some snickers, two years ago. The Plex media center has Plex Online, and Boxee merely has Apps.

Not one thought it was a good idea to connect the words “app” with “store,” despite the fact that Microsoft recently tried to argue that “app store” is a “generic” phrase, like shoe store or toy store.

The truth is that Explor is going after the same problem that both Appalanche and Appsaurus did: app discovery on the iPhone. But they recognize that no one (including them) has nailed it just yet, so they’re going for a new approach this time. Instead of being about search and categories, Explor focuses on a touch-based experience to navigate through the app store. It’s simple: you find an app you like and you touch it to see more apps like it. It’s seamless and a really nice way to browse.

“We found a signal in the community of the app store: the people who review tons of apps. And we designed an interface that lets you effortlessly ‘pivot’ around the store — each time you tap on an app you like, we recalculate our recommendations and show you a new batch of things you’ll likely love,” Hello Chair co-founder Luke Iannini says. “We use a PageRank-like ‘quality’ metric to also make sure we’re only showing you the cream of the crop,” he continues.

Each Explor user also has a profile both in the app and on the web, so app recommendations are easily shareable.

Clearly, there are a number of other players in this space, such as Chomp and AppsFire. But each is coming at the problem from a different way (Chomp is now mainly about search, for example). And there is room right now for multiple players in the space as no one has completely nailed the discovery issue, and the number of apps keeps rising quickly (which is pushing us towards an App Wall)

“There’s this massive tidal wave of apps that’s an awesome signifier that they’ve gone beyond ‘tools’ and entered the realm of ‘culture’. But right now the primary source of finding these new experiences is the App Store itself, which only covers the very crest of that wave. So most people are missing out on this wide sea of incredible and creative apps,” Iannini says.

And Explor has one more element of their service. I noted above that their roots are in an ad voting system: Explor sort of brings that back into play. The service is launching with a “dev promoted” app promotion program that allows developers to bid against one another to get their app in front of all of Explor’s users as they browse. It’s sort of like the Google AdWords model, but for app ads. And the ads are smart — users will only see relevant apps based on what they’re browsing in Explor. Right now, Dropbox, Simplenote, Aweditorium, Justin.tv, DrChrono, Eliss, and Carcassone are testing out the system.

Hello, Chair raised $850,000 last may from Mitch Kapor, Chris Sacca, and others. They’re based in San Francisco.

You can find Explor here in the App Store, it’s a free download.

Atrinsic, the direct and online search marketing agency that acquired the assets of former P2P sharing tool Kazaa a couple of months ago, is trying to drum up some attention for the digital music subscription service this morning. In a press release, the company posits that there’s been a ‘breakthrough’ for iPhone and iPad (and Android) users because its service is now ‘accessible on iOS devices’ simply by visiting Kazaa.com.

Atrinsic is very explicit about why it is not taking the usual route of creating and marketing a dedicated mobile app for the mobile platform(s): it is not pleased with Apple‘s recent announcement that it will keep 30% of revenue generated by new subscriptions and media purchases made within an iPhone or iPad app through its App Store.

In addition, Atrinsic derides Apple’s successful mobile app marketplace by deeming it “just one of many marketing and distribution channels” it already engages in (although there’s never been an official dedicated iOS app for Kazaa to my knowledge).

The company says users can sign up and pay for Kazaa by charging their subscription to a credit card, mobile phone or home telephone bill after visiting Kazaa.com from their mobile phone’s browser, thus bypassing Apple’s rigorous rules.

Well, thanks for making a clear statement on the matter (Apple’s subscription policies are, after all, an enormous issue for music streaming service providers across the board), but how is that move a breakthrough rather than a step to (even more) obscurity?

Needless to say, it’s already quite difficult to compete in the digital music streaming business with dedicated apps for multiple platforms users can easily find through marketplaces like the App Store and Android Market, so having a Web-only solution in my mind only makes it that much harder for Atrinsic to market Kazaa as a solid alternative to the likes of Rdio (which was ironically founded by the co-founders of Kazaa), MOG, Spotify, Rhapsody and many others.

Neverthless, Atrinsic COO Ray Musci proclaims that the company still intends to broaden access for Kazaa with new and dedicated apps, so that the browser is not the only way customers can access the music streaming service.

Which makes me wonder why they’re calling today’s announcement a breakthrough, again.

I read an article on Seeking Alpha this morning that touted Kazaa’s not having dedicated mobile apps as a potential stimulus for a strong comeback, which left me puzzled (even if the author of that article owns shares of publicly-listed Atrinsic).

I simply don’t see how not being available on the various mobile app stores, which are growing more popular every day, can help Kazaa cement itself as a leader or even a serious challenger in the cutthroat music subscription space. It’s tough enough to get discovered by enough users to make the investment in developing and publishing mobile apps viable as it is – going Web-only merely makes it tougher on Kazaa, even if Apple doesn’t touch its margins that way.

You read the headline “Android Market grows a staggering 861.5 per cent”, and you think, “Wow, Android is really on a tear.” But then you look at the fine print, and you realize that Android Market revenues are still barely registering, and that the only reason they grew so much in 2010 was because in 2009 they were nearly non-existent.

According to a chart making the rounds from UK-based research firm IHS, Android Market revenues in 2010 came in at an estimated $102 million, up from $11 million the year before.

And how did that compare to revenues from Apple’s App Store? Apple App Store revenues came in at an estimated $1.7 billion in 2010, almost 20 times bigger than Android. And Apple App Store revenue grew at a not-too-shabby 131.9 percent rate. More importantly, Apple accounts for 83 percent of the total estimated app store revenues.

It’s great that Android app store revenues are growing so fast, but whenever you see such sky-high numbers, be sure to look at what is the base they are growing from. Android will have to keep growing at astounding rates for a few more years simply to catch up to where Apple’s App Store is today.

If you are an app developer trying to make money, you still really don’t have much of a choice about where to put your apps. No wonder Apple feels like it can treat app developers any way it wants, and take an increasing percentage of their revenues.

We wrote about a blatant theft of IP a few weeks back. It was about the company Halfbot and their game Blocks Cometh and how their original flash game was stolen and put on the iTunes App store. After we (and many others) wrote about the theft, Apple took down game. Ars Technica followed up with the two-person development team. They tell their side of the horror story and discuss their options going forward.

According to copyright lawyer Mona A Ibrahim, should Halfbot pursue legal action, they would have two different ways to proceed. They could be entitled to statutory damages if the team registered and included copyright symbols on their work. They could also get actual damages (profits) from EdisonGame, the company that stole the idea. Looks like it was a bad idea for EdisonGame to steal the game. While they aren’t saying whether or not they will file claims, one could only assume they will have legal action brought against them.