We’ve been writing about HTML5 for quite a while, but, until today, the actual HTML5 specs and standards were still moving targets. Now, however, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced that the specifications for HTML5 and Canvas 2D are finally feature complete. This, the W3C notes, means that developers now have a stable target “for implementation and planning.” → Read More
To go along with its brand-new, built-from-scratch iOS Maps app, Google has released a new SDK that will allow developers to utilize its service within their own apps. The key is that the SDK allows access to a URL scheme that lets you call up the app from anywhere you like within your own. Say you have a contact management app. If you surface a person’s address, you could choose to launch… → Read More
Singly, a startup aimed at simplifying the integration of third-party services in both web and mobile applications, is today launching its platform into open beta. Until now, the company has been in private beta testing with around 3,000 developers who are using Singly in some 250 applications, including TimeHop and Geekli.st, as well as Mural.ly, SalesLoft, Cloudmine, Farmstand, AdoptTogether… → Read More
Imgur, the popular photo-sharing site among users of Reddit, Digg and Facebook, is today announcing an overhaul of its API in an effort to make it easier for developers to build applications using Imgur’s infrastructure. The company had already issued over 10,000 API keys prior to today’s API update, reaching developers who have built everything from desktop image uploaders to mobile applications. → Read More
Kickfolio, a 500 Startups-backed company bringing iOS app testing to the browser, is today opening up its service to all developers. Similar in some respects to recent Facebook acquisition Pieceable or the Android-focused AppSurfer, Kickfolio also offers a way for developers to upload builds of their mobile applications to its platform, allowing others to then interact with the apps on the web… → Read More
Amazon today announced a feature meant to entice more Android developers into bringing their applications to Amazon’s Appstore platform: A/B testing for Android applications. What this means is that developers can now upload apps with different variables in order to experiment with features and changes, then iterate quickly after gathering learnings from their customer base. → Read More
Heroku announced a new version of its Add-Ons Marketplace to give developers a “program in a box,” so they can focus on the apps they’re developing instead of spending time on such issues as marketing and billing. → Read More
The 500 Startups-backed app analytics firm SearchMan is debuting a new tool for mobile developers looking to quickly get a sense of how discoverable their application is inside App Store Search. This metric is more important than ever, following the changes to the iOS 6 App Store in September which have impacted developer rankings by removing or moving sections around and introducing a… → Read More
Cisimple is a new development platform, launching today, which automates the build, testing and deployment process for mobile applications. The company is offering hosted Continuous Integration for both the iOS and Android platforms to start, with other platforms planned for the future. → Read More
Black Friday is best known as the day that consumers are bombarded with deals to kick off the holiday sales rush. Now Sourcebits, a mobile app development company, is hoping to use some of that mojo to drum up sales in its B2B business, too. From tomorrow, the Sequoia and IDG-backed startup will offer companies a 50-50 deal on new apps: Sourcebits asks for 50% of the cost of the app design and… → Read More
Just about a year ago, SkyDrive launched a new set of APIs and, over the course of the last year, Microsoft’s cloud strorage service also rolled out SDKs for virtually every major platform. Today, Microsoft is launching a set of new SDKs for .NET and Windows Phone 8 developers. → Read More
StackMob, an end-to-end development platform for mobile applications, is today announcing the launch of the StackMob Marketplace for third-party services, as well as changes to its pricing structure for API calls. StackMob is now making API calls free. This latter news will impact the competitive landscape, which includes startups like Parse, Kinvey and others, all of which have traditionally… → Read More
Corona Labs (formerly Ansca Mobile), the makers of the cross-platform mobile app development framework known as the Corona SDK, has raised an additional $2 million in funding from existing investor Merus Capital and new investor Western Technology Investment (WTI). The funding, a Series A-1 round, is a combination of both equity and venture debt, with WTI’s $1 million consisting of a $250,000… → Read More
Twilio was founded four years ago with the goal of creating a scalable API that would provide developers with an easy way to add SMS and calling tools to their applications. The company has grown quickly over the last two years and is now servicing 40 countries and has signed on over 250K developers. Its international development took another step forward last month, when it broke into Japan with… → Read More
You may know GetJar as the largest independent, cross-platform app store, and one of the largest distributors of Android apps outside of the Android Market. With more than 2 billion downloads and some 150K+ applications, the company continues to grow. This is thanks in part to its “open” model, which allows third-party app makers to distribute apps for most of the major mobile platforms. Getting… → Read More
Despite the efforts of many different organizers over the years software developers have resisted unionization. The relatively high pay and good working conditions of developers, the stereotype of geeks as loners and the general decline of unions in the U.S. are all commonly cited reasons. But maybe unions are failing in tech because they’re not addressing the real issue: giving developers more… → Read More
Microsoft’s heavy schedule of launches and events this month, including the Windows 8 and Surface events in New York last week and its Windows Phone 8 event in San Francisco on Monday, is set to reach its end with the Build developer conference on the company’s huge Redmond, WA campus starting on Tuesday. In some way, this is almost symbolic, given that the future of the Windows 8 platform is now… → Read More
Last month we wrote about DevelopersAuction, a company that lets startups “bid” on developers who are looking for work. During the first two-week long auction companies made $30 million worth of offers from companies like Quora and Dropbox. Our first story on the company garnered plenty of skepticism in the comments, but the most recent auction hit $78 million worth of bids according… → Read More
Mozilla just launched the latest Aurora version of Firefox for Android and with this, the organization is also opening the Firefox Marketplace to early adopters and testers. The Firefox Marketplace is similar to the Google’s Web Store for Chrome. Users can browse the store to find mobile web apps and developers can showcase their web apps. These apps run in full-screen mode and can also be pinned… → Read More
Windows 8 is almost here, but despite Microsoft’s best efforts, there just aren’t that many Windows 8-style apps available yet. To kick-start the Windows 8 development community, Microsoft today announced that it is hosting a global hackathon in over 60 cities from November 9 to 11. Registration for the event is now open. → Read More
Google today launched two new APIs for Google Maps that are specifically geared toward tracking the location of vehicles, mobile resources and employees. By announcing these new APIs on its enterprise blog and by asking developers to go through its sales team to purchase access, the company is clearly signaling that these features aren’t so much meant for casual apps, though it’s easy to see how… → Read More
Last month as part of our TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield Coverage, we wrote about Famo.us, the company behind a forthcoming HTML5 framework that its developers claim will make it easier to build HTML5 apps that perform as well as native apps. Now the company is revealing more information about how it works and what it can be used for. → Read More
Google previewed the new version of the developer console for its Google Play app and media store at its annual I/O conference in June. The new version has been in private beta ever since, but as of today all developers can opt-in to the new console. → Read More
After a few months of private beta testing, the product design company ZURB is officially launching Solidify today, a tool that aims to help designers and developers to quickly create and test clickable prototypes of their websites and mobile applications. With Solidify, users can create these prototypes by linking together their existing sketches, wireframes or mockups. That’s just the first… → Read More
Amazon’s Appstore for Android has long allowed consumers to test apps in the browser before purchase, but a new startup debuting now wants to offer an alternative. AppSurfer, as the company is called, has a bigger vision: it wants to become the “YouTube of Android apps.” Whether or not the company can get there is still an unknown, but there’s something interesting about this idea of making apps… → Read More
Neemware is a newly launched marketing platform for mobile developers which allows the integration of messaging, feedback forms, questions, alerts, promotions, and more, into mobile applications. You can think of it as something like an Urban Airship for marketing. The platform, now available as a beta SDK, gives app developers a more personal connection to their apps’ users, but it also lets them… → Read More
Google’s Nexus 7 tablet has been quite a hit, but there can be little doubt that the average quality of Android tablet apps still ranks behind iOS. Google is clearly aware of this and today, the company is making a new push to get developers to ensure that their apps run well on tablets. To do this, Google just launched a Tablet App Quality Checklist that walks developers through the process of… → Read More
It’s been exactly one month since Twitter announced the 1.1 version of its APIs and the fact that some things were going to change for third-party developers. A lot of folks, including me, took that to mean that the stuff was about to hit the fan for anyone who has spent time building something cool on top of Twitter → Read More
Some interesting new stats from a study shared with us by Russian consulting firm Empatika provide a picture of how some of the most popular apps in Apple’s App Store are reviewed, and what strategies seem to work best in securing positive feedback. App reviewers rating the top apps seem to want to share only positive things, and often, a review’s words don’t match its star rating. → Read More
Is the new iOS App Store a step forward or step back for mobile app developers, users, and the app economy overall? Some developers are complaining that since the introduction of the Chomp-inspired App Store redesign in iOS 6, sales have noticeably dropped. Others say the changes are good for indie developers.
Whichever side of the coin you’re on, there are a number of reasons why developers… → Read More
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