App store Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Daily Update for May 17, 2013

by Steven Sande (May 17th, 2013)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...

Apple's 50 billionth app contest winner saved up five app purchases

by Steven Sande (May 17th, 2013)

Brandon Ashmore, a 21-year-old from Mentor, Ohio, has a lot to smile about as the winner of a US$10,000 gift card from Apple for being the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app from the App Store. Ashmore told NewsChannel5 in Cleveland that he had saved up five apps to download onto his ...

Daily iPhone App: Mosaique is an original and inventive puzzle game

by Mike Schramm (May 16th, 2013)

Mosiaque is a very original puzzle game that I haven't quite figured out yet. It appeared on the App Store a little while ago from a company called Winning Blimp, and the core idea of the app is that you need to clear the screen of colored squares by firing them in from the sides. The issue, ...

Daily Update for May 16, 2013

by Steven Sande (May 16th, 2013)

Apple announces 50 billionth app download, contest winner

by Dave Caolo (May 16th, 2013)

Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio hit the App Store lottery yesterday by downloading the 50 billionth app to be served by Apple's App Store. Namely, it was Say The Same Thing by Space Inch that allowed Brandon to collect his prize, and what a prize it is: an App Store gift card with US$10,000 on ...

App Store hits 50 billion apps downloaded

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (May 15th, 2013)

Shortly before 5 PM ET, Apple officially hit the 50 billion-app mark on the App Store. The grand prize for achieving this is a US$10,000 gift card redeemable on the App Store and $500 App Store gift cards to the next 50 customers following that. We'll let you know the winners as soon as they're ...

BlackBerry bringing BBM to iOS and Android this summer

by Steven Sande (May 14th, 2013)

Miracles do happen. BlackBerry today announced that BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) will be available on iOS and Android this summer as a free download. On the BlackBerry blog, BlackBerry employee Donny Halliwell stated that availability is dependent on approval by the Apple App Store and Google Play. ...

Apple ups the promotion for its 50 billion app download contest

by Yoni Heisler (May 9th, 2013)

Apple last week announced a new contest leading up to the 50 billionth downloaded app. The lucky person who downloads the 50 billionth app will receive a US$10,000 gift card redeemable on the App Store. What's more, Apple will also be awarding $500 App Store gift cards to the folks who download ...

Apple discloses top iPhone and iPad apps of all time

by Yoni Heisler (May 6th, 2013)

In conjunction with Apple's recently announced countdown to 50 billion app downloads, the company last week issued an updated list charting the most popular iPhone and iPad apps of all-time. Per usual, the listing is broken up between free and paid apps. As one might expect, the list is extremely ...

Daily iPad App: Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy is a great board game adaptation

by Mike Schramm (May 3rd, 2013)

Eclipse is one of the most popular board games around right now -- it's a vast, involving epic "4X" game, where those four Xs stand for eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation (as in mining crops and resources from various planets) and eXtermination (as in finishing off your alien opponents). ...

Wonderputt creator Reece Millidge talks about the upcoming, beautiful Icycle: On Thin Ice

by Mike Schramm (May 2nd, 2013)

I saw the upcoming iOS game Icycle: On Thin Ice back at GDC, and I think it was the best game (out of maybe fifty or more) that I saw that week. Reece Millidge is an animator and game developer based in Britain, and I first came across his work while playing the Flash version of an abstract ...

Blockbuster on Demand app now available

by John-Michael Bond (May 2nd, 2013)

Blockbuster's been going through a bit of a reinvention over the last few years. It's retail stores are closing in staggering numbers as the company refocuses on becoming a streaming rental service with Blockbuster on Demand. Today that quest becomes a little easier with the service's debut on iOS ...

Big Nerd Ranch Clash of the Coders: How BNR smote the NDA

by Erica Sadun (May 2nd, 2013)

The Big Nerd Ranch has conducted iPhone development courses all the way back to the very beginning, when the App Store first launched in 2008. Doing so had its challenges. At that time, Apple had imposed a nondisclosure agreement on all developers, with little indication if and when it would ever ...

Apple posts 50 billion app countdown

by Yoni Heisler (May 2nd, 2013)

The race to 50 billion is on. Just about a week after Apple announced that the App Store had crossed 45 billion downloads, Apple has decided it's high time to launch an official countdown towards the 50 billionth downloaded app. The lucky winner will receive a $10,000 gift card redeemable on the ...

McDonald's releases McPlay app: 'Hey kids, this is advertising'

by Mike Schramm (May 1st, 2013)

McDonald's has awkwardly tried to enter the App Store marketplace with an app it calls "McPlay," available for free on the App Store right now. I wouldn't recommend a download (personally, I've boycotted the golden arches for almost a decade now), but it is fascinating to see the fast-food giant ...