Tag: app store
New Year’s Eve at Times Square Gets Its Own Mobile Apps
by Ranju Chaudhary on Dec.21, 2010, under Gadgets, Latest Web Technologies
Can’t be in Times Square for New Year’s Eve? The Times Square Ball App for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android could be the next best thing.
The free app features a live video feed of the New Year’s Eve festivities from Times Square, offering six-and-a-half hours of bands, frolic and festivities without any commercials in between. There’s also a customizable countdown clock to 2011, situated front and center on the main screen of the app and adjustable for the time zone of the user.
Users can check in to Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter through the app, which will show them precisely how far they are away from Times Square. The app also invites users to submit photos of their revelry and debauchery, and then vote on photos submitted by other users. The photos with the most votes will be shown on the huge video screen atop One Times Square, just underneath the Waterford Crystal ball that makes its annual descent at midnight.
Produced by Monday Sessions Media, developed by HAAS/créa, and streaming components developed by Livestream LLC., it’s available now on the Android Market and App Store for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and it requires iOS 3.0 or later.
Apple Launches “Try Before You Buy” Apps
by Ranju Chaudhary on Aug.06, 2010, under Trends
Apple’s just opened up a new section of the App Store. Called “Try Before You Buy,” it lets users test drive a limited selection of apps before purchasing them.
Unfortunately, this trial period doesn’t apply to all the paid apps in the store — not yet, at least. For now, the section only contains the freemium, “lite” or ad-supported versions of apps whose full versions are in the pay-to-play section of the store. If the app doesn’t have a free version already in the App Store
, it won’t appear in Try Before You Buy.
You’ll still have to download and pay for the full versions of these apps if you want to test or try the real thing; most of the free or lite apps are pared-down versions with less extensive feature sets.
You can find this new section under the “Free on the App Store” heading. The section currently holds 98 apps, including the “lite” renditions games such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown, Metal Gear Solid Touch andLabyrinth
2 and free adaptations of apps such as Moodagent and AccuTerra.
We’re not sure yet whether other paid apps will be added to this section for limited-time trials. But we’re fairly certain that a “try before you buy” policy might be an effective deterrent for would-be app pirates, the actions of whom have apparently cost the App Store around half a billion dollars. Many of the cracked or illegally shared apps were reportedly downloaded because the user didn’t have the option of making a truly informed purchase decision. They couldn’t use the apps, even for a brief test drive.
In addition to taking a bite out of piracy, we’re thinking the section was added to allow Apple’s smartphones to remain competitive (or at least to present the appearance of competition) with Android OS devices. The Android Market has a liberal returns policy; apps can be purchased and returned for a full and automatic refund for up to a day following purchase. And as we know, that competition is much needed as Apple moves into Q3 and Q4 this year.
What do you think of Try It Before You Buy It? Shameless ploy, or interesting opportunity? We welcome your opinions and thoughts in the comments section.
