Crosswa.lk, a mobile application discovery which just over a year ago arrived on the iPhone as an improved version of Apple’s “Genius,” has been quietly building a new product over the past several months, as tides have turned against apps which serve to recommend or promote other apps. The new Crosswa.lk, instead of being a consumer-facing service, now offers tools to push apps… → Read More
A/B testing has long been a fundamental part of developing applications and products for the web, and, with the explosion of smartphones, developers are naturally eager to use the process to test new designs and updates for mobile apps. The problem is that, traditionally, this has been tricky to manage, especially on iOS given Apple’s approval process, requiring app developers to wait weeks to… → Read More
Exadel’s Tiggzi online mobile app development service for iOS, Android and Windows Phone launched almost exactly a year ago and today, the company is officially rebranding it as Appery.io. The reason for this change, the company told me, is to “reflect the evolution of Appery.io as well as to support where [the] platform is headed. ” The service always stood out from its… → Read More
Xamarin, the company behind the cross-platform mobile development platform with the same name, today announced that it has recently acquired the Danish mobile testing startup LessPainful. LessPainful is the company behind the popular open source cross-platform functional test platform for Android and iOS, and Xamarin has already put this acquisition to use. The Xamarin Test Cloud, the automated… → Read More
Twitter is making a move to become the jumping off point for discovering, browsing and accessing the mobile app ecosystem, the company announced yesterday, in a somewhat understated event only developers were invited to attend. The event, due to its nature, was filled with geekier terminology like “footer tags,” “deep linking,” and “URL schemes,” making summaries of its announcements hard to parse… → Read More
Jumio, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed mobile payments and ID-scanning startup, is today releasing a new version of its Netverify product designed specifically for mobile devices, both smartphones and tablets. Netverify Mobile, as it’s called, will allow app publishers to authenticate their customers’ identities via their driver’s license, passport or other ID card. → Read More
Mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS) platform StackMob is expanding upon its earlier launch of a marketplace for third-party services, with the debut of a marketplace targeted towards enterprise customers. Through a series of partnerships, the marketplace allows StackMob to promote its integrations with other software and platforms-as-a-service companies, API infrastructure providers and more… → Read More
Findables, a specialty case maker for smartphones and tablets, has just scored some significant distribution deals for its QR-coded, “connected” cases. Previously, the company was selling online and in 550 “The Source” locations in Canada, but will now be on the shelves in all 1,100 Office Depot stores in the U.S. next month, as well as made available on BestBuy.com, Amazon, and Gamestop.com. → Read More
TapCanvas, a startup that helps people build mobile applications without programming knowledge, is exiting beta today and announcing a partnership with Eventbrite for the creation of event apps. Although there are a ton of DIY mobile app builders out there (for example, here’s a spreadsheet from a while back listing over 50), TapCanvas is different because its focus is primarily on building… → Read More
Editor’s note: Robert Weber is co-founder and senior vice president of new products at W3i.
In the mobile world, companies often live and die by metrics: “How are your monthly active users doing? What’s going on with your user retention? How many total downloads do you have?” These kinds of metrics, which can have widely different implications, can make or break developers. → Read More
App store analytics firm Distimo released a new report today which examines the effect that price changes, and specifically price drops, have on iOS app sales. When the price drops for iPhone apps, on average, cumulative downloads grow by 1,665 percent for five days following the decrease. Not surprisingly, a price drop is more effective on the iPhone App Store than it is on the iPad App Store, as… → Read More
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but the mobile app economy continues to grow like gangbusters — like it stole something. Research2Guidance found that revenue from the top five app stores hit $8 billion in 2012 (up 27 percent from the year prior), while about 26,000 applications are submitted to iOS’ App Store each week. As a result, AdEven expects Apple to add at least 435K apps to its… → Read More
By default, the in-store scans are time sensitive, offering customers 30 minutes to redeem their prize, like a free or discounted appetizer, drink, dessert, etc. The drive-thru codes, meanwhile, give users around four days to redeem their code. Sean tells us that the company is now working to bring its QR codes to Facebook as well, where they can be used directly on businesses’ Facebook timelines… → Read More
Photo and personal publishing company Shutterfly is continuing to refresh its mobile products with today’s relaunch of its Treat application for iOS, which follows the December overhaul of the company’s flagship app for photo gifts and prints. Treat, which originally launched in April of last year, then came to mobile in October, is a competitor to Apple’s Cards app, Sincerely Ink, Red Stamp… → Read More
ChoreMonster launched an update to their app a few days ago which includes: a parents section, a redesign of the kids section, a new Monster Carnival and yes…even a new character named TeeCee exclusively for all the TechCrunch readers out there. We never asked for this, but I have to say… “Damn it feels good to be a Monster.” → Read More
The good news keeps rolling in for BlueStacks, the startup best known for making technology that enables one and all to download and use Android applications on their desktop PCs — and more recently, their Macs. In anticipation of CES, the company announced today that it has secured a global distribution deal with Chinese PC maker, Lenovo.
Lenovo, which some say recently surpassed HP as the… → Read More
UberConference, the online, visual conference calling solution (and TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012 winner), is today expanding its service to mobile with the introduction of applications for both iOS and Android. The new apps will primarily offer users a way to start a conference directly from their phone. → 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
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
How much money have mobile apps made? By the end of the year the cumulative revenues of the global mobile app market will have exceeded $30 billion, says analyst ABI Research. This figure includes money from pay-per-download apps, in-app purchases, subscriptions and in-app advertisements — the whole app kit-and-caboodle if you will. → 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
Walgreens is today updating its mobile applications to include the Aviary mobile SDK, which will offer photo-editing capabilities to all Walgreens’ mobile app users. In June, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions) and others invested $6 million in photo-editing startup Aviary, and we outed Walgreens as the unnamed strategic investor in the matter. The retailer’s involvement was fairly… → 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
Mobile app analytics firm Flurry has released an updated version of one of its most popular research reports, first published three years ago. In the prior report, Mobile Apps: Money, Models and Loyalty, the company took an in-depth look into customer loyalty by app category. Today, Flurry does so again, focusing specifically on the 700,000+ applications that run on iPhone, iPad and maybe soon… → Read More
Italian startup and cross-platform development solution AppsBuilder today announced a €1.5 million (just shy of $2 million U.S.) venture funding round, led by Italian angel investors Massimiliano Magrini and Mario Mariani, with participation from Vertis Venture and Zernike Meta Ventures. The company, founded in 2010, wants to use the funding to help expand further internationally → Read More
Boston and Israel-based Perfecto Mobile, the makers of a testing and monitoring platform for mobile apps and websites, is today announcing it has secured $15 million in a Series C round of financing. The new funding was led by Globespan Capital Partners, and saw participation from existing investors Carmel, Vertex and the Waisbein Fund. → Read More
Editor’s note: Oliver Lo is vice president of marketing for App Annie.
Developers the world over are looking to cash in on the Google Play gold mine, and with 137 percent revenue growth in the first seven months of this year, we really can’t blame you for getting a bit excited. It’s easy to get starry-eyed when you see Rovio’s Angry Birds franchise making $100 million a year, not to… → Read More
The service operates in a crowded space, where dozens upon dozens of apps offer ways to stream, record, broadcast, and/or share video recorded on mobile, but Cloudee’s niche was in the emerging “private sharing” space. That trend has more recently taken root as companies try to find new ways to engage in a social networking arena dominated by the likes of Facebook. Cloudee, then, put its focus on… → Read More
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