Articles about Mobile App

You know how sometimes it just seem like too much hassle to scroll through your contact list to place a call or send a text to someone? Well, no more! There's no need to update your app, but Google's Search tool for Android has been enhanced with a new voice-dialing feature. The app now lets you use phrases such as "OK, Google, call mom" or "OK, Google, send a text to dad" you can... well... place a call to your mom or compose a text message to send to your dad.

Before you start panicking that Google has started spying on your family and is now aware of the relationships you have with each of your contacts, fret not! This is not an entirely automated feature -- you will need to specify which of your contacts is your mom, your dad, and so on. If you try to call your mother using the vocal command before having set up your relationship, you will be prompted to choose which of your contacts gave birth to you -- on subsequent utterances, the call will be placed straight away.

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IT professionals wanting to perform certain tasks on remote devices from their Windows Phone will be pleased to know they can now take advantage of a Putty client to log in and get the job done. The app just landed in Store, and is currently undergoing private testing. For those who may not be familiar with it, Putty allows users to connect via SSH and Telnet to other devices that have support enabled for the two previously mentioned protocols.

There is a very good chance that your router, which is a common device in Internet-connected households, supports SSH and Telnet connections. When one (or both) is enabled, it is possible to use such an app to, for instance, view stats and modify configurations remotely. But, a more popular use for Putty is remote access to servers, allowing administrators to keep a close eye on what is happening and intervene when needed, like in case of attacks.

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The app market has exploded but only a few apps will survive in the long haul. The ability to monetize will be the defining factor. Fortunately, innovations in mobile technology have emerged to make monetization possible with in-app advertising and in-app purchase models.

There was a lot of hullabaloo around Snapchat recently when its founders declined a US$3 billion buyout offer from Facebook. That raised the question of whether it was being grossly overvalued given its revenue deficit. Other popular apps make revenue but are losing money: music apps Pandora and Spotify are prime examples. Why, then, are the valuations so astronomical? It’s because they have an audience. But is that good enough?

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Sixty-seventh in a series. Microsoft continues its efforts to remove unwanted applications from its Windows 8 store. That's the reason why this week's growth is negative.

The total number of applications dropped by 534 apps to 105,509 thanks to efforts to clean up the store's Entertainment, Photo, Lifestyle and Education categories. The Entertainment category alone lost 659 apps in the past seven days.

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Sixth in a series. I'm a massive fan of the Broken Sword series of games, so this week was a great one for me as I finally got to download and start playing the brand new Broken Sword adventure on iOS. I'm pleased to report it doesn't disappoint. Thanks to mobile devices (and Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns) classic adventure series are getting a whole new lease of life, which is fantastic. Fans of classic games will be thrilled to know there's a "new" Final Fantasy game out this week too.

With the Winter Olympics upon us, Apple has gathered together a collection of official Sochi 2014 apps, including the Athletes’ Hub which is well worth a download.

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Having quality, official apps available, and frequently improving, for popular services is a key part in increasing Windows Phone's chances of breaking into market share double digits and, therefore, getting more developers to consider releasing their offerings in the Store.

While third-party alternatives have already proved to be viable options, it is clear by looking at the Store rankings that Windows Phone users have an undeniable craving for installing the real deal. Official apps lend more credence, after all, and are less likely to be removed without prior notice, unlike their unofficial counterparts. And this brings us to the Flickr app which Yahoo has officially admitted it no longer has any plans to update.

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Mobile development specialist raw engineering saw its built.io backend as a service product come out of beta in November.

It's now announced a partnership with front end developer tool Xamarin to give users a complete development solution whilst making built.io’s functions available to existing Xamarin clients.

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The success of a mobile app is closely related to its performance, including stability, responsiveness and load times. This is one of the key findings of a report released by mobile performance specialist Appurify, alongside the launch of a new performance optimization and testing tool.

According to the report over 90 percent of developers see a direct correlation between the performance of their apps and the reviews they receive in app stores. But it also warns that developers have become too reliant on user reviews to spot quality issues with 60 percent saying they check their reviews daily.

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University researchers have developed an app that can reveal when others are tracking your location amid growing concerns that many people are oblivious to their data being accessed.

More than a third of Android apps can track and record your location yet some are doing so without disclosing it, security company Bitdefender has revealed.

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Sixty-sixth in a series. There are now over 106,000 apps in the US Windows Store. Growth has improved considerably after last week's weak performance, as 773 new apps were published to the store in the last seven days.

83,437 of those are free to download and install, while the remaining 22,606 are either paid apps or desktop applications.

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Imesart S.à.r.l has released Audio Memos Free 4.1.0 and Audio Memos Pro 4.1.0, major updates to its mobile digital voice recording apps. Version 4.1 comes with pinned controls for VoiceOver users to make the app easier to use for those with sight problems.

Other improvements -- restricted to the paid-for versions -- include options for easily erasing sections of memos, new storing options and variable scrubbing speeds for all sliders.

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Two weeks ago my colleague Mihaita Bamburic wrote a piece on how a Facebook news reader app could give users the best tailored content. Today, Facebook announces Paper, a "new app that helps you explore and share stories from friends and the world around you". It's not quite the app Mihaita was hoping for -- not yet, at least -- but it does sound promising.

Paper is essentially a Flipboard alternative for iPhone (and Android eventually, presumably) that displays content from your Facebook friends, well-known publications, and "emerging voices" in a fullscreen, distraction-free layout.

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Through smartphone apps and wearable technology we can monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, gathering information about our habits and tracking behavior to discover patterns and trends.

This so-called "quantified self" movement is seen as a clever and efficient way to enhance our lives -- getting one’s body, mind and behavior in their best possible shape.

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Google has rolled out Chrome for iOS 32, a major new release of its alternative browser for iPhone and iPad users. Version 32 introduces a new translation bar for pages written in foreign languages, plus promises to reduce bandwidth usage by up to 50 percent.

It also sees the first phase of a new feature that will update the New Tab page to speed up future searching, and includes the usual gamut of fixes and improvements.

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If you need a mobile office suite then Kingsoft Office is a good place to start, and of course Google Drive is easy to use on any device. But if you’re looking for something more powerful, for offline editing, then you might be tempted by AndrOpen Office: it’s a complete fork of Apache OpenOffice, available on your Android device.

The suite has all the usual OpenOffice components: Writer (word processor), Calc (a spreadsheet), Impress (presentation graphics), Draw (a drawing tool), Math (equation editor) and Base (database).

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