It looks like a lot of apps were updated in the past week for the new iPad which was available for purchase starting last week Friday. Here’s information about some of the 59 app updates that became available for my iPhone or iPad in the past week.
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Forty-four (44) apps installed one time or another on my iPhone or iPad were updated in the past week. Let’s take a quick look if anything interesting showed up in these updates.
The most I’ve paid for an app is $9.99. I’m hard pressed to name an app I might consider buying that costs more than that. However, if you do, here’s an Android app that might be worth its relatively high $28.99 price:
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Google Play)
A version is also available for the iPhone and is being developed for Windows Phone.
In MobileViews podcast 58 Todd Ogasawara speaks with Senior Director of Product Management at Sencha, Aditya Bansod, about Sencha Touch 2 which launched this week. Sencha is a JavaScript framework optimized for developing mobile HTML5 web apps with rich user interfaces. It supports the native web browsers for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, Chromebook, and more. Bansod said that Windows Phone will be supported in a future release.
The big news about Sencha Touch 2 is that it lets web developers create native apps for Android and iOS that can be distributed through their respective app markets. This also means that developers who use Windows as their development platform can now create iOS apps for iPhone and iPad without buying a Mac, learning Objective C, and using Xcode.
And, what does Sencha Touch 2 cost? It is free with dual licenses available: GPL or Commercial License. Listen to the podcast to learn more details.
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I received email from Smartr that the server powering their iPhone app will shut down on the Ides of March.
Unfortunately, the Smartr team is moving on to new things and is unable to support its continued development. With a heavy heart, we will be pulling the plug on the service on the 15th of March @ 1pm EST.
If you’d like to retrieve your data, such as stacked articles, simply drop me an email at temo(AT)smartr.mobi with your request.
Honestly, I can’t say I’m surprised. Here’s what I wrote about the app on May 23, 2011.
Split Vote on Smartr for iPhone Social News Reader
…I found the app confusing. After giving it access to my Twitter account feed, you can see the display it gave me when I tried to look at the “Smartr feedâ€. I could see links tweeted by people I follow in the Twitter tab of the app. So, what is this Smartr feed? It appears to be a feed created by following people I’ve never heard of and have no reason to trust their curation of links. Commentary about the current 2.0 release in the iTunes App Store notes that the app sends out tweets from users’ accounts. However, you can opt-out of this behavior during the initial setup process. I revoked the app’s access to my Twitter account and deleted the app off of my device.
A somewhat unique circumstance has a poorly rated (2 stars out of a possible 5) iPad app at the top of the free apps list. ABC Digital’s free Oscar app only has a two-star rating for both its current and past versions because it reportedly crashes a lot and does not have interestingn information. However, tonight is the night of the Academy Awards presentatins on ABC TV. So, the app shot up to number 1 on the free iPad app list (it is nowhere to be found on the iPhone list despite the fact it works on the phone too). Comments by frustrated users indicate that problems present last year are still not addressed. Maybe next year?