Apps Unwired » Windows

Google+ Now Available

Justin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:27:45 +0000

It wasn’t that long ago millions of social addicts were craving for an invite to the new Google+. Flash forward to today and already Google’s social network has lost some of its steam. Today Google+ jumps out of private beta and is now available to everyone. The question now is will users continue to lose interest or will it one day take over Facebook?

Google+ includes several exciting features including social circles, hangouts and a handy search feature. With this release comes some new hangout features for Android users. Google already has mobile apps available for iPhone, Android, Windows and BlackBerry. There will no doubt be a large influx of Google+ users following today’s news, time will tell if its just another fad or here to stay.

PoketGear Becomes World’s Largest Mobile App Store

Justin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:31:10 +0000

PocketGear now claims to be the world’s largest cross-platform app store because of its recent acquisition of Handango. The super app store will carry 140,000+ paid and free applications for over 2,000 mobile devices. The store supplies apps for the BlackBerry, Windows, Palm, Android and Symbian platforms. It’s a somewhat surprising move considering Handango was one of the largest independent app stores on the market.

From the press release:

“Our vision is to facilitate an open app store ecosystem that supports every mobile device, every application, and every carrier network globally,” said Jud Bowman, President and CEO of PocketGear. “By combining the two largest independent app store companies, we’re creating significantly more scale and value for all of the stakeholders in the open app store ecosystem.”

It will be interesting to see just how this plays out. Clearly Mobihand and their huge presence in the smartphone community had to have some kind of effect on this deal. Independent app stores will definitely have their work cut out for them but as long as smartphone sales continue to rise so will app sales.

Microsoft Looks to Recruit App Devs for Windows Phone 7

Justin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:49:35 +0000

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Microsoft is how to get app developers to believe in the new Windows Phone 7 experience. We already know that the new Windows Mobile OS will come with Zune and Xbox Live integration but the key to its success will be third party applications. It’s no secret that the previous Windows Mobile OS had little to no app community. This was due in large part to a hard to use platform that made it a challenge for developers to build and sell applications. If Microsoft wants to be a player again they are going to need to convince developers that things have changed.

This won’t be easy but the new Windows phone 7 OS does look appealing. Still app developers will want to see significant advancements to their platform. It appears they are headed in the right direction as recent leaked documents suggest Silverlight and XNA integration. Although this does sound promising Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want to play with the big boys.