Nowadays, app markets are saturated, making it hard to accumulate high amounts of downloads.  Only 1 in 6 smartphone apps exceed 500 total downloads.  We looked at top developers on the Google Play Store to find out what sets their apps apart from the rest.  Check out the infographic to find out.  Click the infographic to read the small print

Analysts and technology bloggers have been wondering for a while now, what Facebook‘s next move in the mobile field will be, especially given that most smartphones users spend a third of their “mobile time” using Facebook and playing games. Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly denied any intentions by Facebook to change its focus from the social network and develop a device or even a mobile operating system. But apparently he had no intention of letting the mobile market develop without taking a yummy piece of cake’s profits for himself.

On a press conference held last Thursday, Facebook introduced its new innovations in mobile including an app called Facebook Home for Android devices.

Today, Google has two reasons to celebrate. First, Google is celebrating its 14^th birthday. Though, the truth is that Google wasn’t “born” on September 27. The Web domain www.google.com was

registered in 1997, but Google officially opened it for business in September 1998. The legend says that the true date was September 7th (the day when the company was incorporated), but Google has changed the date “depending on when people feel like having cake.”
Secondly, and most important, Google’s app store, Google Play, hit 25 billion app downloads since it first launched under the name Android Market in 2008. The store currently has over 675,000 apps and games for Android-powered devices.

Being great business owners, Google decided to celebrate this amazing milestone with a little treat for the devoted Android users and are offering discounts on a number of apps. The discounts, available for 75+% off, will be available over the next five days.

Among the discounted apps users will find options from the most popular developers, such as EA and GameLoft as well as, top apps such as Angry Birds Space premium, OfficeSuite pro 6 and Draw Something.

The store is also offering special collections, such as “25 movies You Must Own,” “25 Banned Books;” “25 Albums that Changed the World” and “Our 25 Top Selling Magazines.” Each is available to users at special prices.

In the official Android blog, Google’s Jamie Rosenberg wrote: “Twenty-five billion is more than twice the distance, in miles, that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled since its launch 35 years ago. It’s the amount of time, in minutes, that have passed since some of our earliest ancestors began to set foot in Europe. And now, thanks to all of you, it’s …

What is the best way to monetize your apps?
Our new infographic shows you five awesome ways to build profitable applications


© 2012 StartApp

There is nothing more frustrating than having to carry around a long chord with you when you need to charge your phone.  You could wrestle your charging chord from the tangled mess inside your bag.   If you don’t use a bag, having a huge bulge coming from your pants pocket is not the most attractive or convenient thing.

This is where the ChargeCard comes in to save the day.  ChargeCard is the same shape as a business card and is only three times the thickness of a credit card.  It can be put inside your wallet or pocket and be used easily at a moment’s notice.  It can be used wherever there is a USB port.

This is a creative way to solve the problem of carrying around too many chords.  I know that everytime I open my bag, I have to untangle at least 3 different chords that I’ve shoved into my bag.  As other bloggers have pointed out, you can’t really use your device while it’s being charged, because of the limited range of motion.

 I’m sure you would like to know where you can buy this product.  Unfortunately, it’s not in stores yet.  The product is currently a project on Kickstarter, a site that entrepreneurs use to raise money for their ventures.  As of publishing time, creators Noah Dentzel and Adam Miller almost tripled their goal of $50,000, raising $145,467.  It’s safe to say that we should be seeing the ChargeCard in stores soon.

As reported today, Google Play updated their content policy for developers. The policy includes stricter guidelines about privacy and ad behavior within apps. Luckily, we anticipated such changes and our latest SDK, released today, is 100% compliant with all of the changes made by Google.

StartApp cares about your apps, your users, and your privacy. Here are the six ways that we work to protect all three.

1. Lookout   

Our SDK was reviewed by Lookout Security, the leading mobile anti-virus software in Google Play. In their recently published Ad Guidelines Report, they stated:

“StartApp provides one of the best examples of transparent and clear notice to users about their practices to properly set user expectations.”

You and your users can feel protected knowing that the leading anti-virus software in the mobile industry uses StartApp as a positive example for other ad networks to follow.

2. TRUSTe  

TRUSTe is the leading online privacy solutions provider with a broad suite of privacy services to help businesses build trust and increase engagement across all of their online channels.

Over 5,000 web properties including those from top companies like Apple, AT&T, Disney, eBay, HP, Microsoft, Nationwide and StartApp rely on TRUSTe to ensure compliance with evolving and complex privacy requirements.

StartApp had a long and productive process with TRUSTe so that in the end of this process we became the First mobile ad network to have TrustE certification.

3. EULA

In our latest SDK, we have opted to use a EULA screen which appears at app launch and enables your end users to read, understand and accept the additional StartApp product.

This gives the end user freedom to choose if they want to use the …

As mentioned in previous posts, Android is an open source platform and therefore allows you to do whatever you want. Another advantage of this is the ability to customize your home screen using the Android application home screen launchers. What we like about these launchers is that they are simple to use, with only three steps: Download, install and customize. So what launchers are out there? How much do they cost, if anything? And what are their pros and cons? Read on, these are our top three!

Launcher Pro

Probably the most popular launcher out there, and not just because it’s free. This Launcher is very smooth to scroll through and has many features, including: The ability to have up to seven different home screens, a scrollable shortcut dock, an animated screen preview and many more. It seems as if Federico Carnales, the Launcher Pro developer, has gone through all the things that bothered him about the default Android launcher and came up with a launcher that has all the answers.

The Launcher Pro has some locked features as well, such as the ability to re-size widgets, which you can unlock by paying $2.99. This would make your launcher a Launcher Pro Plus.