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Report Says 26% of Mobile Apps Are Only Run Once

Analyst firm Localytics decided to investigate how many apps are downloaded and then used only once, never to be touched again. What they discovered was that a surprisingly high percentage of 26% of all apps downloaded were only ever used once.

The research Localytics did involved thousands of apps from every major mobile platform and over a period of a year. In fact interestingly throughout 2010 the number of apps that were only run once increased from 22% in the first quarter to 28% by the fourth quarter.

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Apple Possibly Tightening the iOS Walled Garden

Apple seems to be tightening its control over the App Store ecosystem after telling some developers including Sony that the selling of e-books within their app must go through Apple. The move is somewhat contradictory of recent movements by Apple to open up the App Store and gestures of collaboration with publishers.

Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division told the New York Times that Apple rejected Sony’s e-book reader iPhone application on the basis that the app would have let users buy e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store, bypassing Apple and that any purchases made from within an app must go through Apple from now on.  Mr. Haber said; “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”.

[Updated and points clarified in light of responses to the NYT article]

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iPad ‘Real Positive’ for USA Today’s Future

The Telegraph reported yesterday that Gannett, publisher of USA Today has been enthused by the iPad’s impact on their business, despite having to initiate cost-cutting measures in other aspects of their business. Their free iPad App, available worldwide, has been downloaded more than 1.4 million times since launching April last year.

Gannett, like many other Newspaper organizations had to cut 130 jobs in August at USA Today and lost 6% advertising revenue worth $722m in the last quarter. Yet Gannett’s chief operating officer, Gracia Martore said that “The iPad has been a real positive for USA Today, we expect this will translate into much more significant improvement.”

At this stage USA Today remains free and it’s revenue comes from generating ad revenue from within the app. Gannett’s Chief Executive however couldn’t rule out charging users in the future, saying “We’re looking across the board at this.” Gannett and other newspaper publishers will no doubt be watching closely at tomorrow’s announcement of News Corp’s The Daily and this month’s pay-wall that the New York Times is implementing.

[Via The Telegraph]

Apple Job Posting Suggests LTE for iOS Devices

As noted by 9to5mac, a new job listing on Apple’s website suggests support for LTE is being considered at Cupertino as a “specific duty” for iOS cellular protocol engineers. While LTE-related job listings have surfaced before, this is the first time LTE is mentioned among the “specific duties” for an applicant.

Specific Duties

- Implementation, Integration, customization, enhancement and maintenance of L1-3 Protocols for one or more of the following air interface: GSM/UMTS, CDMA (1x/EVDO), LTE etc.
- Carrier specific features implementation

Job listings shouldn’t be considered as the ultimate proof of a new feature Apple is working on, but they provide good indication of things to come sometime in the future, or that are at least being tested. LTE 4G connectivity seems pretty obvious at this point, considering that carriers in the US are updating their networks to support it and several European carriers have confirmed LTE will be launched during 2012 and 2013.

It is unclear whether the next-generation iPhone will feature LTE or not, but the rumors have been intensifying lately with China Mobile making the bold statement that “Apple will support LTE” and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak saying “LTE will come”.

Apple Releases iOS 4.2.6 For Verizon iPhone

It seems like Apple just released a new iOS firmware for the Verizon iPhone. The iOS version is 4.2.6 and it’s available for direct download here. Apple apparently did some subtle tweaks to the operating system for the CDMA iPhone, which was running iOS 4.2.5 at the Verizon media event where the iPhone was officially announced. iOS 4.2.6 is a modification to the original 4.2 OS that can run on Verizon’s CDMA network, and includes the Personal Hotspot feature that allows users to turn their devices into mobile hotspots capable of sharing a 3G connection with nearby phones.

The firmware posted online is for the “iPhone 3,3”, which is the model name of the Verizon unit. It’s a 642 MB download, build number 8E200.

Rumor has it Apple sent out review units to selected journalists and bloggers earlier today, and that’s probably why the firmware has been posted online.

PhotoToMac Is The Fastest Way To Transfer Photos to OS X

I share a lot of screenshots and photos between my iPhone and Mac every day. Up until today, I’ve relied on third-party apps like iFiles to import pictures into its library and get them on my Mac using Cyberduck, which can connect to iFiles’ built-in WebDAV server. PhotoToMac, a $1.99 app by Galarina, improved my workflow with a system that allows me to import photos and videos without using additional Mac apps. Files shared with PhotoToMac, in fact, end up directly in the Finder. Read more

Google’s OS X Software Deployment Solution Now Open Source

As noted by The Register, Google has open sourced its enterprise-class Mac OS X software deployment solution, Simian. The software can distribute applications and software updates across a network of a dozens or thousands of Macs, it can handle security patches and optional installations, it even provides a way to deal with updates issued by Apple. Simian is entirely based on OS X, as Google decided to move to Apple’s operating system after the vulnerabilities found in its previous Windows-based environment that allowed a Chinese hacker to enter Google’s internal secure network in 2009.

The tool uses a client based on Munki, a set of Mac deployment tools previously open sourced under an Apache 2.0 license. Munki lets you install software that uses not only the Apple package format but also Adobe CS3/CS4/CS5 Enterprise Deployment packages, and you can drag and drop disk images as installer sources. What’s more, it can be configured to install Apple Software Updates, either from Apple’s servers or your own.

Last, Simian is built on top of Google’s own App Engine, an infrastructure that allows to deploy and manage online applications. More information about Simian are available here.

Bump for iPhone Updated With App Sharing

Bump, a popular iPhone app to share data like music and contact information between devices, was updated earlier today to include support for app sharing. The app, which is a free download in the App Store and was listed among the most popular apps for iPhone, revolves around the simple concept of “bumping” your iPhone with another person to share various kinds of information, locally and within seconds.

The new app sharing functionality allows you to build a list of your most used iPhone apps and select the ones you want to recommend to a friend. Once the list is created, bump your iPhone and your friend will receive the apps you chose as direct links to the iTunes Store. Bump doesn’t of course share the actual application file, but it comes quite in handy if you have lots of interesting apps to share with someone and you don’t feel like sending him an email with all the apps’ names.

What’s really cool is that, unlike app recommendation services that plug into your Facebook or Twitter accounts, Bump does everything locally with people you really know are interested in what you’re sharing. You don’t have to “like” or “upvote” recommendations, you just share items you know the recipient will be interested in.

As the developers write on the company blog:

This has been our biggest feature request of late, and it makes sense as to why.  With more than 300,000 apps in the iTunes App Store, finding the best apps has become quite difficult.  Who wants to sort through the 100 weather apps just to find WeatherBug?  But what is the most common conversation among a group of iPhone users?  ”Hey, what cool apps do you have?”

You can download Bump for free here.