Anthony Ha is a writer at TechCrunch, where he covers media, advertising, and startups. Previously, he was a staff technology writer at Adweek, worked as a senior editor at the tech blog VentureBeat, and was also a reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing.... → Learn More Just a week after winning Best Tablet Application at the Crunchies, Fotopedia is launching its latest iPad and iPhone app. The app lives up to its title Women of the World, showcasing photos of women in more than 75 countries. It was developed in partnership with the World Bank. All of Fotopedia’s apps employ a similar design, creating a beautiful, color-rich interface for browsing high-quality photos from around the world. This isn’t the first time Fotopedia has partnered with an international organization — its first app, Heritage, was developed with UNESCO and displays photos from UNESCO World Heritage sites. In this case, founder Jean-Marie Hullot (an Apple veteran who was also the CTO at Steve Jobs’ company NeXT) said the goal was to promote gender equality, in particular the World Bank’s Think Equal campaign, while packaging the information in a compelling way. To do that, Hullot settled on the photographs of Olivier Martel, which are paired with text about the situation of women in different countries (written by Fotopedia with data from the World Bank and elsewhere), as well as more general information from Wikipedia. The Women of the World app also reflects Fotopedia’s new direction. Its initial apps were essentially photo libraries with enormous amounts of content. Now, it’s taking a more magazine-style approach — the photo library is still there, but each week the app highlights different pieces of content. That’s led to a dramatic increase in engagement, Hullot Read More
Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... → Learn More I used to scowl when I saw people walking down the street with eyes locked on their phones, but necessity has gotten me in the habit of doing it too. Thanks to a new app called Transparent Screen though, now I can do it free from the fear of falling into an open manhole or into a large fountain. No, that’s not a hastily Photoshopped image you see here, that’s more or less exactly what you’ll see when the app is running. I say “more or less” because while all of the Android UI goes translucent upon launch, you’re afforded with quite a bit of a control over how dramatic the effect is. It’s in your best interest to get familiar with the settings if you plan on using Transparent Screen for a while too, because you’ll soon have some choices to make. If you’re a fan of texting while sprinting for example (which I don’t condone, for the record), crank the camera resolution down to keep that forward view going as smoothly possible. Alternately, crank it up you’re more a fan of slow, meandering walks while you tweet about the wonders of nature. The big issue, as Android Police points out, is that you’d be hard-pressed to find a configuration that works well while bouncing between your favorite apps. Still, that’s a pretty minor concern — Transparent Screen seems like an app best used occasionally, when you absolutely Read More
Temple Jump, Tiny Birds, Numbers With Friends. These are not the apps you love. They’re fakes designed to scam you out of $1.99 when you go to buy Temple Run, Tiny Wings, or Words With Friends. Today Apple took a stand against plagiarism, kicking these rip-offs out of the US App Store. Good riddance, but how can platform owners stop these developers before they rob users of thousands or even millions of dollars? This morning, The Guardian wrote about how Anton Sinelnikov who made the fakes listed above and other scam developers are essentially stealing money from hardworking independent studios like Imangi and Andreas Illiger, as well as industry giants like Zynga. Temple Jump even reached the top of the paid app chart. Apparently that was the last straw, and since then Apple has removed Anton’s apps so they’re no longer available for download. In the past, Apple has gone after developers who cheated the review system, booting 1000 apps by one developer back in 2009. The problem has continued, though, with scam developers relying on curiosity stemming from outraged tweets and Facebook messages to drive sales, as seen in this off-hand graph submitted by developer Kode80. The App Store and Android Marketplace are too big to be entirely policed without the help of users. That’s why Apple needs a new predefined option in its “Report A Problem” button shown on App Store apps. Right now there’s only “This application has a bug”, “This application is offensive”, “My concern is not listed here”, and an open comment field. “This app is a fake version of another app” should be added. Android, Facebook, and other platform owners should ensure they have similar ways to specifically report fakes. But where is the line drawn between copying another app’s gameplay and releasing an out-right fake? Read More
You know what’s funny? If you Google “how do you get kids to learn” (sans quotes, even), the first result goes to this TechCrunch blog post about an app that lets kids draw butts on the iPad. Really! The post details the company called Madbrook (aka Everything Butt Art), which launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in May. It’s the brand behind a series of printed books, all of which are meant to teach creativity and step-by-step drawing while using humor and silliness to appeal to the young demographic. Now, the iPad app promised at Disrupt has finally arrived. The company’s first digital creation, Butt Art -Kids Learn to Draw Zoo Animals Step-by-Step, has gone live in the App Store. OK, seriously. Butts? Yes, butts. The interactive app teaches drawing by starting everything with a butt shape (a rounded, lowercase w). The end result is not actually a picture of a butt, mind you, but a fairly cute animal drawing instead. In the printed books, Everything Butt Art at the Zoo and Everything Butt Art on the Farm, the results are zoo animals and farm animals, respectively. In the new iPad app, however, kids don’t just draw and trace shapes, they can also decorate the drawings with stamps, play a hidden shape game (Butt Hunt!), and read a full-color e-book, too. While parents may roll their eyes at this sort of thing (is this really a blog post about drawing butts?!), the key takeaway here is that Everything Butt Art is a company that has managed to tap into how kids think. They’re making learning fun, by making it silly and giggly and yeah, kind of stupid…but it works. (Butt it works?) Don’t believe us, though, just ask your iPad-happy kids to try it out. The new app is available as a free download Read More
If you’re anything like me (and hopefully for your sake, you’re not), then you tend to do things –scheduling, booking, and so on — at the last minute. For we Last Minute Scramblers, some highly usable services have popped up that not only allow us to book at the last minute, but receive deals while doing so. Here’s to rewarding bad behavior. You may be familiar with HotelTonight, for example, an app for Android and iOS that takes last-minute deals (discounts up to 70 percent) offered by hotels on their unsold rooms — and serves them to you via your smartphone. Well, another San Francisco-based startup thinks that there’s more to this whole last minute booking thing. Yes, from 500 Startups’ summer batch comes a new app, called WillCall, which wants to be the HotelTonight for … live events. (WillCall was one of Alexia’s seven favorite startups at 500 Startups Demo Day, which you can check out here.) Debuting today on the App Store and on the Web for Android and Windows Phone 7 users, WillCall’s free apps offer users a short list of high quality shows each and every night of the week. The startup partners with promoters and venues to curate this list, enabling its users to purchase tickets directly from its app. A la Uber, WillCall is starting with San Francisco before it rolls out it service in other cities, but roll out its service domestically it will, as the team plans to be in Los Angeles and New York City shortly after SXSW (in March). So, to begin with, it really is a short list of events in San Francisco for which WillCall will be offering last-minute tickets, mostly for smaller venues and independent artists. But WillCall doesn’t just want to be for concerts, says founder Donnie Read More
The big promise of location-based mobile apps is that they can help you find something great in real life without you meaning to look for it. But that hasn’t usually been my experience. Instead, whether because of the friction of having to check in, the lack of adoption by friends outside of tech, or whatever else, I simply forget to use them. That has changed with Highlight, a new passive location app for iOS that shows you when Facebook users with friends and interests in common are nearby. Since it launched last week, I’ve gotten in touch with an old friend/source who’s now at a big new company, discovered a couple previous acquaintances who happen to live or work near me, and got the heads up about a fellow blogger creeping behind me at work. My experience is more or less on track with what founder Paul Davison is hearing from other users so far. But before I get into that, what’s different about Highlight from the million other location apps out there? At first, it doesn’t seem like much: you install it on your phone, sign in with Facebook, and continue your life as normal. But there is no check-in. Instead, you get notifications showing up whenever Facebook friends, friends-of-friends or just people with shared interests (that is, Liked Facebook pages) are close. If you click through any of the notifications, you can see their Facebook profile photos, the specific shared friends and interests you have, and the option to message with them or leave a comment. The combination of the Facebook social graph and the frictionless sharing experience makes discovery uniquely automatic. The closest app I’ve seen to it is Sonar, which lets you find Foursquare users with things in common, but still requires a check-in. Maybe everyone else doing location will evolve Read More
Eric Eldon is a writer at TechCrunch. He was previously the cofounder and editor of Inside Network, where he managed publications including Inside Facebook, Inside Social Games and Inside Mobile Apps. Before that, he spent a couple years covering technology and finance at VentureBeat, a leading Silicon Valley publication where he was the first employee. While Inside Network sold... → Learn More Sincerely, the maker of mobile apps that let you send your photos as print postcards, is pushing out a new version of its Sincerely Ink app today. The main change is that the theme now features Valentine’s Day cards, as well as other themes like Birthdays or New Year’s. Not huge news in and of itself, but get ready for many more updates like this — the Christmas season went so well for the company that it’s doubling down on holiday editions Its largest mobile app, Postagram (a regular top app in the iTunes photo app category) saw 39% of its users also install and send a card using the Sincerely Ink app, founder Matt Brezina tells me. Postagram also lets you mail high-quality print versions of phone photos, and it could theoretically also be used during the holidays. So, the cross-promotion number means that lots of users are serious about themed cards for special occasions, and that Sincerely’s theme changes are hitting home with them. The Ink app includes 20 Valentine’s Day-themed cards, although there are also new Thank You and Birthday cards available now. Brezina says they’re adding more designs all the time without the app itself needing to be updated. Customization options include photo filters and a section for including a personalized message. Cards cost $1.99 for a glossy 5×7 inch photo print, including postage in the US, Canada and the UK. Photos ship within 3 to 7 Read More
Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. → Learn More Photo organization service (and TechCrunch Disrupt finalist) Everpix just launched its first iPhone application. The app does two key things: it offers you a way to access your entire photo collection from your phone, plus it automatically uploads all your iPhone photos to the Everpix cloud. The app is a crucial part of the overall Everpix experience, which, for those of you unfamiliar, works primarily as a Mac application at present (Windows coming) to automatically organize and combine all your photos, whether they’re stored on your computer or in the cloud. The service supports photo uploads from iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom, plus photos from your online collections on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Picasa. With Everpix for iPhone, your on-device photos can now be more easily uploaded to the Everpix cloud. Instead of having to first sync your phone to your Mac, download the photos into the software program of your choice, then wait for Everpix to upload them, you can now just use the new app to have those uploads happen automatically. In some ways, it’s similar to Google+’s “Instant Upload” feature in its Android app, but unlike Google+, when you delete an app from your iPhone’s camera roll, it’s also deleted from the cloud. Nifty! Of course, the magic will only happen when Everpix is running in the background. For obvious reasons, while Everpix can’t perform uploads offline, it does allow you to browse your photos when offline. And, like the Everpix cloud service, the photos are organized in thoughtfully created collections after they’re online. You can even quickly re-share photos to Facebook and Twitter Read More
Zlango, a goofy but fun icon-based text messaging app, just hit one million U.S. users on the Android platform only four months after launching. Backed by Accel and Benchmark Capital, the app originally arrived in the U.S. market in October 2011, following the opening of its San Francisco-based offices. In total, Zlango now boasts over 5 million users worldwide, the company reports. The fact that Zlango is achieving this level of popularity on Android in such a short timeframe, is indicative of the type of apps Android users still seem to prefer – apps that replace Android’s core components. In Zlango’s case, the app offers an admittedly silly take on the concept of text messaging, offering packs of icons that let you replace words with emoticons and pictograms. It clearly seems aimed at a younger audience, because, let’s face it – no self-respecting 30-year old is going to send out picture messages like this. But that fact, too, is interesting. Many of Android’s success stories to date have been ports of popular iPhone apps, general purposes apps (like Any.DO) or utilities – not those aimed at such a specific, younger demographic. For comparison purposes, Any.DO reached half a million downloads in just 30 days. Meanwhile, Evernote’s Skitch app for Android, an arguably more well-known brand, saw 3.5 million downloads in just 3 and half months post-launch. So hitting a million in four months, while not quite on those levels, is still indicative of some relatively decent traction. Even more so given its limited appeal to older users. Zlango now supports over 25 languages, is available in over 20 countries, and has delivered more than 9 billion Zlango icons worldwide. It’s currently seeing the most traction in Europe, Asia and the U.S. The app, which is also available for BlackBerry, Nokia and Read More
Like how there are all sorts of companies offering tools to let you build your own web site today, a new wave of them is doing the same thing for mobile apps. Appafolio stands out among the various options because it lets you create a polished native presentation for iOS without having to do any coding. Instead, you either download the Appafolio app (here) or use its web site to select the text, icon and images you’d like to feature. The interface reminds me of setting up a Powerpoint presentation (in a good way), in that you can create pages within your app for specific types of media that you want to showcase, including slideshows and videos. Once you’ve created the product, you can direct anyone to view it who has the Appafolio app installed by sending them a shortlink or a pass phrase. The download-and-pass-phrase process creates some friction — or at least it seemed that way to me when I tested it. But, using the Appafolio native app as a portal for presentations also means that the slideshows and videos can be cached and played later even if the user is offline. If you’re an artist trying to show off your latest painting, Appafolio will let veiwers pinch and zoom to see your work close up. The overall goal, cofounder Brent Brookler tells me, is to cover the main use cases for creative professionals and small businesses — people who need a quick presentation or brochure to show off what they do, that they can easily share in a way that looks great on a mobile device. The company behind the app, called Treemo Labs, has the right experience for what it’s trying to do, having spent the last several years making professional mobile apps for a variety of Read More
Want To Buy Last-Minute Tickets To Local Events (At A Discount)? WillCall Is For You. - MobileCrunch
Coming Off Big Holiday Season, Sincerely Ink’s Mobile Postcards Now Ready For Valentine’s Day - MobileCrunch
