apps

Google's App Inventor will lead to an app explosion

The WYSIWYG Android app builder will push Android's numbers past Apple's App Store, and put app development in consumers' hands.

Google announced today a new product called App Inventor that will change the landscape for creating apps for smartphones.  Since Android is moving to TV sets and Netbooks, its reach won't be limited to handheld mobile devices either.

The tool isn't just for consumers. Businesses, large and small can now easily create MORE

The new kings of apps

Their names may be unfamiliar -- Zynga, Fring, SPRXmobile -- but their apps are everywhere. Software is now dominated by a short list of powerhouses and start-ups offering byte-sized, mobile solutions.

Software development has officially gone mobile. If you asked developers 10 years ago where they observed the most innovation, they'd have pointed to companies working on the PC, Mac, or game consoles.

Today, the most innovative programs are being developed exclusively MORE

Google Apps share nicely

Google updates Apps sharing capabilities to allow more, yet simplified sharing options.

As Microsoft unleashes its Office 2010 to consumers, Google continues its almost daily upgrades of its Apps suite.  Today, a biggie for those who share their Docs inside and outside of their domain.

The settings are available from a link next to the doc name and look like the window (right).

Check the video below for the full explanation.

Forrester: Steve Jobs is wrong, GoogleTV will work

In a research paper by Dr. James L. McQuivey, Forrester lays out some interesting claims for Google's TV platform.

GoogleTV wowed the audience at Google I/O this year bringing together some of the consumer industry's heavyweights behind a platform that seemed to offer a new spin on the TV.

A month later at the Wall St. Journal's D8, Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs panned the idea of the GoogleTV as the next set-top MORE

Google punks Microsoft Patch Tuesday

Hoping to woo the IT crowd who spend too much time testing and updating Microsoft's patches, Google pushes comical video.

Announced on the official Google Enterprise Blog, the new video is aimed at IT administrators who spend way too much time patching their computers.  Known as Patch Tuesday, Microsoft releases its patches on a regular cycle once a month, on...wait for it.. a Tuesday.  Google (GOOG), hoping to appeal to their MORE

Google adds apps to mobile search

Google's mobile search engine on iPhone and Android will now also search the platforms' respective stores.

A pretty simple addition to Google's Mobile search was announced today on the Google's Mobile Blog.  When you now do a search (on Google of course), you get links to relevant apps either in the iPhone app store or the Android Market.

Clicking on the application link brings you to the respective stores.  Might MORE

What makes Apple so sticky

There's more to customer loyalty than the love of a brand

"Stickyness" is a term of art usually applied to websites like Facebook that keep visitors coming back for more.

But it can also be applied to a software platform, and in a note to clients issued Friday Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore takes a crack at measuring the stickiness of the iPhone-iPod-iPad platform.

What he's done is analyze the size of the iPhone, MORE

8 million students on Google Apps

60% of U.S. universities with hosted email use Google Apps for Education.

That is quite a startling number, and it's even more impressive if you consider that only two months ago, Google had 7 million student users.  Google has made strong moves into the education sector even as some colleges, like Yale, have put migrations to Google on hold because of faculty concerns.

Google's Apps for Education includes a school-branded MORE

Android finally gets killer Twitter app

One of the most glaring omissions from the Android market has been a high quality, free Twitter client.  Not anymore.

Announced this weekend on Twitter's Blog, the official Android Twitter App goes beyond the scope of traditional third-party apps with hooks into other programs and the AndroidOS.  To do this, Twitter worked directly with the Google Android team to put out this application.  From the post:

Twitter for Android is a fantastic MORE

The end of Microsoft. A door opens to a new cloud.

As apps migrate to the Net, the software giant's old model looks older every day.

By Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO salesforce.com

I have been waiting for something spectacular to happen any day. And it's not the explosion of another volcano in Iceland, but it will be a global event with far reaching ramifications that will be as well known. Apple's market capitalization is about to be worth more than Microsoft's. That MORE