JetLib News

It has just been over two years since the Apple App Store was launched and it is just amazing how fast it has grown. The App Store has crossed yet another milestone.

According to 148Apps, the App Store has passed the quarter million milestone on Friday.

Here are some interesting details about the App Store, which we like to take a look at when it crosses a major milestone:

• There are 252,227 active apps on the App Store from 50,545 developers.

• There are 24,334 apps that have been developed for the iPad, which was launched in April.

• Books is the Top Category of apps on the App Store, accounting for 17.35% of the apps on the App Store followed by Games with 14.53% and Entertainment with 11.40%.

• According to Pingdom, 70% of the apps on the App Store are paid apps.

• The average price of an app is $2.91 while that for a game is $1.27. The average overall price is $2.67.

With more than 250,000 apps available on the App Store, Apple holds an advantage over its competition.  Android Market for example, has around 95,000 apps while BlackBerry App World is estimated to have about 9,000 apps.

It is amazing how fast the App Store has grown. But with the growing number of apps on the App Store, Apple faces a stiff challenge of making the discovery process easier.

As Dean Takahashi of Mobile Beat points out:

The App Store economy is going strong, but the abundance of apps highlights the problem of discovery. How can you find what you want in the App Store? You can look at the top 100 lists by categories. You can look for familiar brands among the apps. You can also click on the ads that recommend an app. Or you can ask your friends for recommendations. But other than that, finding a new app you like can be a pretty time-consuming endurance test. The problem is only getting worse as more app stores come online, from Google’s Android Market to Intel’s AppUp Center.

What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

[via 148Apps, Pingdom]

Source: Apple’s App Store Crosses Quarter Million Apps Milestone

Folks at 9to5Mac have managed to the port Pages from Apple's iWork suite of apps for the iPad by hacking the app's info.plist file.

This is not the first time it has been hacked to work on the iPhone but it is the first time we’ve seen a video of Pages working on the iPhone.

Source: Video: iWork Pages Working On The iPhone

Several readers noted Google’s announcement yesterday of Google Apps for Government: “The new version is a variant of Google Apps Premier edition, and includes the same core apps: Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sites, Groups, Video, and Postini. Pricing is the same as for Google Apps Premier: $50 per user per year. The certification says that Google Apps qualifies for is called a FISMA-Moderate rating, which means that it’s authorized for use with data that’s sensitive but unclassified. In addition, Google says that it’s storing government Gmail and Google Calendar on servers that are isolated from those used for non-government customers, and which are located in the continental US.” This service might be just what the city of Los Angeles needs (though the price may not be right). LA started migrating months ago to Google Apps, and the process is experiencing some delays, as pointed out by reader theodp. “In December, Google tooted its own horn as it celebrated edging out rival Microsoft to win a high-profile, ironically Microsoft-funded contract to supply email and collaboration software to the City of Los Angeles. Now comes word that the search giant has missed a June deadline for full implementation due to lingering security concerns. Google downplayed reports of the delay, saying it was ‘very pleased with the progress to date’ which has allowed 10,000+ of the City’s 34,000 employees to use Google Apps.”

Source: LA’s Move To Google Apps Slows As “Apps For Gov’t.” Announced

theodp writes “Put the Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Madden away, kids! Over at Apps for Healthy Kids, First Lady Michelle Obama has a whole new slate of games for you to play with! Voting on entries in the White House-backed game development competition has begun, and you’ll find exciting titles like Balanced Meal (6 votes), Blubber Blaster (9 votes), Calorie Quest (10 votes), and Count Peas (7 votes) — and that’s just for starters.”

Source: Apps For Healthy Kids — Where PC Meets PCs

tekgoblin noted joyous rumors for anyone forced to use multiple Google accounts “Wouldn’t it be great if you could log into all of your Google accounts at the same time if you have multiple? Well it seems that Google may be implementing a way to do this in the near future. Right now it can be done with scripts such as a Greasemonkey script, but that isn’t as easy as
Google doing it for us.

The people over at Google Operating System have had users submit a screenshot of what looks like a beta test for multiple account login. It appears that it will be available for Calendar, Code, Docs, Gmail, Reader, and Sites for the test but surely it will be across all Google apps when its released.”

Source: Google Tests Multiple Account Login

necro81 writes “Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab have developed a smartphone app that allows users to measure how poor their vision is (myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism) and receive a corrective prescription. The user peers through a $2 optical adapter at the screen of a smartphone. The app displays lighted bars, and prompts the user to adjust the display until the bars line up. Repeating this with bars in different locations and orientations allows the vision distortion to be determined to within about 0.4 diopters using a Nexus One. The iPhone 4, with its higher-resolution display, should be able to improve that to 0.28 diopters. This could have broad application in the developing world, where experienced opticians and diagnostic equipment are hard to come by.”

Source: Poor Vision? There’s an App For That

theodp writes “In 2008, Washington, DC, launched one of the hotter trends in public-sector technology: the ‘apps contest’. But even as more jurisdictions jump on the bandwagon, the contests are reportedly producing uneven results, and the city that started it all is jumping off the bandwagon. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be running any more Apps for Democracy competitions quite in that way,’ says Bryan Sivak, who became the District’s CTO in 2009. Sivak calls Apps for Democracy a ‘great idea’ for getting citizen software developers involved with government, but he also hints that the applications spun up by these contests tend to be more ‘cool’ than useful to the average city resident. ‘If you look at the applications developed in both of the contests we ran, and actually in many of the contests being run in other states and localities,’ Sivak says, ‘you get a lot of applications that are designed for smartphones, that are designed for devices that aren’t necessarily used by the large populations that might need to interact with these services on a regular basis.’ Sivak also cited maintenance of the new apps over the long term as a concern.”

Source: Gov’t App Contests Are Cool, But Are They Useful?

hazmat2k writes “Palm’s App Catalog appears to have suffered a meltdown of sorts, with users of Palm Pre, Pixi, Pre Plus and Pixi Plus handsets reporting that after having downloaded a new title – whether paid or free – no aftermarket software would run properly. The issue remained even after fully erasing and restarting the phone; in fact, the apps were still installed even after that process was completed. Core functionality – calls, messaging and data – were all unaffected. Palm acknowledged the issue on their blog, and later said that it had been fixed.”

Source: Palm App Catalog Glitch Locks Out WebOS Users

CWmike notes a review by Preston Gralla of the soon-to-be-released MS Office 2010. “I review plenty of software packages throughout the course of a year, and it’s rare that I come across one that I believe will truly make a difference in the way that I work or use my computer. With Office 2010, which recently hit RTM status, it is one of those times. The main attraction, as far as I’m concerned, is the Outlook makeover that makes it far easier to cut through e-mail overload and keep up with your ever-expanding group of contacts on social networking sites. There’s also an improved Ribbon that now works across all Office applications, and some very useful new PowerPoint tools for giving Internet-based presentations and handling video. Question is: Is Office 2010 good enough to stop the defection to Google Apps? Some large enterprises are seriously considering jumping from Exchange to Gmail, or already have, reports Robert Mitchell. The final version of Microsoft Office Web Apps, the Web-based version of Office, isn’t yet available but is expected before summer.”

Source: Microsoft Office 2010, Dissected

teh31337one writes “Steve Jobs just posted an open letter of sorts explaining Apple’s position on Flash, going back to his company’s long history with Adobe and expounding upon six main points of why he thinks Flash is wrong for mobile devices. HTML5 naturally comes up, along with a few reasons you might not expect. He concludes in saying that ‘Flash was created during the PC era — for PCs and mice.’”
Tacky that his first point is that Flash is proprietary, when Apple restricts the apps that can be installed on the phone. Pot, meet kettle.

Source: Steve Jobs Publishes Some ‘Thoughts On Flash’