Tag: iphone

How does a gaming company avoid being a one-hit game wonder? Rovio and Halfbrick Studios have managed to leap that hurdle. What is the Halfbrick secret after the amazing success of Fruit Ninja? The company adopted the Google’s 80-20 method of work.

So, you have a great a great idea for an iPhone application. All you want to do then is get on with it and ace your rivals. Not that fast. You might be better off thinking through the entire gamut of consequences — most of all the legal ones that could haunt you for years.

Ruslan Kogan is seen as a big disrupter in Australia’s consumer electronics industry. He talks down entrenched brick-and-mortar rivals, and talks up his own nascent brands. But there's one thing you gotta concede. Kogan, an immigrant from Belarus, puts his money where his mouth is.

Depending on which side of the Apple vs. PC / iPhone vs. Android rivalry you're on, this video will either delight or dismay. The folks at Samsung decided to promote their latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S II, by happily skewering Apple fandom. Can Samsung beat Apple at its own game?

Developed by Cathryn Curtin, the aptly named Midwife Cath gives parents advice on an array of infant care topics such as breastfeeding, bathing, mastitis, reflux and skin condition. While the app is itself no substitute for changing nappies, says Curtin, "At 2am when you’re holding a screaming baby, a one-click app is a lot easier to use than Google."

We've seen countless pre-teens pound eye-melting video games into submission and treat laptops and mobile phones like the devices are extensions of their bodies. So we can't be completely floored by Thomas Suarez, a seasoned iPhone app developer who's about five years away from qualifying for a driver's license.

As a native English speaker, Matthew Ho was once frustrated by his attempts to learn Mandarin. This week, he's in Beijing showing off just how fun and addictive the language can be. Ho and his startup, Native Tongue, have been promoting Mandarin Madness, an educational gaming application, at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing.

Its promoters call Eric the Circle "the next generation of tweeting." And maybe it will be someday. For now, we can say with confidence that this website and iPhone app, with which you draw and share simple cartoons, can be a colossal devourer of time. And we say that with a smile.

Hey, you runners out there (or would-be or should-be runners) -- if you're looking for motivation, perhaps what you need is a big helping of zombie apocalypse. Saving your hide while piling up the distance is one facet of Zombies, Run! -- a smartphone game app that has attracted a horde of attention on Kickstarter.

The Parramatta Eels are all over this daily deals malarkey like footie shorts that have just gone through a very hot wash. In an NRL first, the team will offer fans “unprecedented access” to discounted local business services and activities via the brand-spanking new EelsDeals, a dedicated daily deals platform. Accessible via Facebook, email, Twitter, the Eels iPhone App and word of mouth, each day will see a local business deal promoted to Parramatta club fans.

Australian businesses are haemorrhaging moola thanks to the seemingly innocent SMS, according to The Full Circle Group. The telco expense management experts examined business SMS usage and costs over three years, including more than 250 business clients and a whopping two million SMS messages. The outcomes are likely to surprise you.

VisitVineyards.com has launched an iPhone app that brings its rich content to travellers. The online wine and food travel guide was once called “Australia’s most comprehensive guide to regional wine, food and travel guide” by the Mornington Peninsula and received several other encomiums for blazing a new trail in this realm. So, the development of the app is in keeping with its reputation as a new media pioneer.

Unless you’re a nerdy boffin whose speciality is mid-noughties mobile companies, you may not have heard of Javaground. Back in the day (well, mid-last decade, which is the mobile equivalent of BC times) Javaground was *the* leading provider of mobile app development tools. The company’s client list included Sony Online Entertainment, Capcom, Namco and Indiagames. It's now Australia bound, following its acquisition by Codengo.

It’s not for nothing that goCatch last month won the $50,000 top prize at Tech23, a program sponsored in part by the New South Wales government and run by Slattery IT Consulting. Its iPhone app – which allows passengers to directly find and hire cabs in their vicinity – has been disruptive of the market. The app, launched in June, enables a cabbie to become a free agent, posing an evident threat to cabbie networks. The Taxi Council of Queensland has hit back, saying goCatch passengers could be compromising on their safety, and perhaps service as well, by hiring cabbies directly.

There's this new phone app called Nosh that allows users to upload and share images and reviews of restaurant food. The next killer app? Not likely. But the smart, low-budget video that promotes Nosh is the best app ad we've seen in the long time.

e-channel ran two sets of tests on users of the two different phones. In one, it delivered group buying deals offering discounts at grocery stores, restaurants and, health and beauty stores; in the other, it beamed information on the male-centric Australian Football League (AFL).

Thinking of creating a mobile app? Don’t just think black-belt design and interface. Think value, think business model. App development is serious business. Apple already...

Not all of us have dexterous eye-thumb coordination when it comes to texting. So, anything that promises to ease our sore fingers is worth a shot, or two. Something that allows group text recipients speak to each other, is even better. gText, or group text, falls snugly in this category of must-try innovations, especially for those of us who send out SMS-es to a bunch of people, and, maybe, several times a day -- like, say, business owners who have discovered the joys of SMS martketing.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has released an iPhone app aimed at classical music's most under-served demographic: kids. The app includes profiles of each of the instrument sections and Q&A's with some of its members. While the app makes for a solid educational tool, we also find it to be effective publicity for the often under-appreciated arts. What good is a symphony without an audience? And as those audiences grow ever older, who will replace them?

The iPhone truly sets us apart. You're an iPhone user or... well... you're just *not*. It is something many of us have known for some...