In our continuing tradition of rounding up new mobile application releases we found interesting and/or exciting over the past month, we present you with this new list of apps for August 2011. Last month there were some interesting iOS apps and updates along with some dynamic Android apps.
The list, as always, is a bit subjective so please let us know in the comments if we missed an app or you have found one that you cannot live without.
The first time I stood in a Major League Baseball clubhouse was a month after the original iPad came out. My editor at the time was standing next to me and joked how Apple products were like a fever in the MLB. Whenever the newest and coolest was released from Cupertino, all the players rushed to buy.
I nodded and shrugged. These are rich men that want their toys. I looked over and saw a starting pitcher sitting on a leather couch, playing Plants vs. Zombies on his iPad (he was not pitching that night). Yet, iPads and other devices permeating baseball are not all about watching YouTube or killing zombies. Combined with an era of abundant data, iPads have revolutionized the game.
Breezy, a mobile printing startup, recently launched a version of its app for the iPhone.
Once installed, the app lets you print documents and other files from your iOS device, whether to a printer at your home, office or a public location. The application comes equipped with a feature that uses GPS to find nearby public printers, many of whom have partnered with Breezy.
Analyst firm Research2Guidance studied download numbers for all the major mobile apps stores and it has some choice words for Apple and Android - they are over hyped.
Research2Guidance says that the results from its second quarter 2011 smartphone application monitoring report indicate that applications published on the "lesser" app stores (Windows Phone Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, OVI Store) generate significantly more downloads compared to the Apple App Store. It is a gutsy statement to call Apple and Android "over-hyped" but Research2Guidance does make an interesting point.
Newspapers and magazines still clinging to hopes that tablets will help revitalize their businesses have something to look forward to this Fall. That's when Apple with launch Newsstand, a marketplace for digital publications that will be rolled out with iOS 5.
Adobe announced today that its Digital Publishing Suite will be ready when iOS 5 and Newsstand go live. Using DPS, media companies will now be able to publish directly into Newsstand, just as they can now publish stand-alone apps for iPads and other tablet devices.
Apple's new subscription rules requiring publishers to fork over 30% of revenue generated from apps in the iTunes Store have claimed their biggest victim to date. As of last night, the iPhone and iPad apps for the Financial Times went missing from the App Store.
The new rules have not thrilled publishers, but reactions have been mixed. Some media companies, like Hulu and the New York Times, have decided to play along with Apple and offer a significant cut of their subscription revenue to the tech giant in exchange for access to millions of iTunes customers. Others, like Amazon, have opted to build HTML5 Web apps as a way to circumvent the new rules.
iTunes Match, the cloud music syncing feature that will be launched with iOS 5 this Fall, is now available to developers. Earlier reports that it would enable streaming of songs turned out to be false, but Match is a significant update to the way iTunes works nonetheless.
Beginning this Fall, users will be able to sync their iTunes-purchased music across devices automatically thanks to iCloud, a larger initiative that does the same for contacts, calendars, documents and apps. Music fans who want to take this syncing to the next level and include content they acquired beyond iTunes can pay $24.99 per year for iTunes Match. This includes independently produced music that isn't available among the iTunes Store's 18 million songs.
If you've ever felt underwhelmed by the Web browsing experience on the iPhone, perhaps MoboTap can help. The company just launched an iOS version of its Dolphin Browser, a third party mobile Web browser popular among Android users.
In addition to touting a very Chrome-esque tabbed browsing interface, Dolphin has re-imagined the way that sites and pages are called up and explored within a mobile browser. Its "Speed Dial" feature allows you to designate a page as a favorite, much like you can do with your phone's contacts. This is in addition to standard bookmarks, which Dolphin also has.
We have long been anticipating the Amazon tablet. Apparently, so has research firm Forrester, which released a report today on the business logistics of an Amazon tablet in a market dominated by Apple's iPad. If Amazon can come in at a price point below $300 and can withstand demand, Forrester sees the company selling 3 to 5 million tablets in the fourth quarter.
If Amazon pull off those sales, consumers and OEMs will flock to it as the legitimate No. 2 tablet behind the iPad, a position as yet unclaimed by the likes of Motorola, Samsung, HTC or Research in Motion. Yet, is that feasible in a market where so many others have failed?
Dominique Leca doesn't know if Apple will approve his iPhone app, but he's building it anyway.
The co-founder of Sparrow, a popular Mac desktop client for Gmail, is working on an iOS version of the app, he told Business Insider recently.
