Tapulous Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Disney reports 40% jump in iOS downloads from holiday 2010

by Mike Schramm (Jan 7th, 2012)

Disney is the latest company to announce some crazy numbers from last year's holiday season (with Rovio having announced big numbers earlier this week, and the App Store overall seeing a big boost in sales over the holiday). The biggest title in the company's catalog was Where's My Water, which ...

Daily iPhone App: Tap Tap Glee

by Mike Schramm (Aug 16th, 2011)

I don't purport to be a fan of Glee at all -- honestly, when it comes to musicals and dancing, I just don't get it. But I can't deny that the most recent Tap Tap app, based on the Glee TV show and its songs, is shooting up the charts on the App Store. So if you happen to be a Glee fan and want ...

Appsterdam: building a haven for app developers in Amsterdam

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 28th, 2011)

Mike Lee, formerly of Apple and Tapulous, has moved to Amsterdam and is looking to set up a new application development community. Lee left the US after he became disillusioned with how the country and the development community was headed. He was frustrated with not being able to afford heath ...

TUAW's Daily App: ClubWorld

by Mike Schramm (Apr 8th, 2011)

ClubWorld may not exactly be your kind of game. It's sort of a mashup of popular freemium gameplay elements. ClubWorld includes Farmville-style time sinks as you build your club up, social environments to customize and share with friends, and even some music-based mini-games. The look and the ...

GDC 2011: The latest from Disney Mobile

by Mike Schramm (Mar 4th, 2011)

Disney's mobile gaming division had a table claimed in the company's hotel suit during GDC 2011, and I stopped by to see Disney's Jeff Nuzzi and check out the company's latest offerings. There were a few titles on display to be revealed later this year, but the current focus was on JellyCar 3, ...

Facebook for iOS, Tapulous see big iOS downloads over the holiday

by Mike Schramm (Dec 27th, 2010)

As expected, we're starting to see huge download numbers for iOS from over the weekend. As people unwrapped their new iOS devices, they also took to the App Store to pick up new games and apps as soon as they could. Facebook for iOS saw a gigantic jump in users -- as you can see in the chart above, ...

Bart Decrem on Tap Tap Revenge 4 and the Disney acquisition of Tapulous

by Mike Schramm (Dec 22nd, 2010)

Tapulous (purchased by Disney earlier this year) has released Tap Tap Revenge 4, the fourth iteration of the extremely popular iOS music game, and the new version brings a whole lot of new features to the series. The game is now compatible with the Retina Display, includes Game Center integration, ...

Billboard nominates music app awards

by Mike Schramm (Sep 2nd, 2010)

Billboard has announced that it will be giving awards out for iOS music apps (of all things). At the Music App Summit on October 5th, Billboard will choose winning iOS apps in six different categories, from Best Artist App and Best Music Creation App to Best Branded Music App. You can find the full ...

Tapulous integrated into Disney Mobile, releases Katy Perry Revenge

by Mike Schramm (Aug 24th, 2010)

Disney buying Tapulous was one of the most high-profile App Store acquisitions so far, and here are the first fruits of that partnership. First up, Disney reports that Tapulous has been integrated into the rest of the company -- the studio is now fully part of the "Disney Mobile" division, so all ...

Disney acquires social game firm Playdom

by Mike Schramm (Jul 28th, 2010)

Stick with me on this one -- it's not strictly Apple-related, but I think it will have a big effect on the App Store in the future. Last week at Comic-Con, I saw the head of Disney's mobile gaming division, and I had to congratulate him; the company's Toy Story 3 app nabbed over 1.7 million ...

Tapulous acquired by Disney

by Mike Schramm (Jul 1st, 2010)

Disney has bought Tapulous outright, according to Techcrunch. The iPhone gaming company was one of the first on the App Store, and has been extremely successful with its Tap Tap Radiation and Tap Tap Revenge music titles. There's no word yet on how much money was involved in the deal, but Disney ...

360iDev: Game Jam creations

by Mike Schramm (Apr 15th, 2010)

Tuesday night at the 360iDev conference in San Jose, around 60 developers gathered in a room on the eBay campus around 8pm as security locked them in for the night (one developer joined the group via Skype -- that's him on the big screen above). Their goal? A game jam. Before 8am the next day, they ...

360iDev: Mike Lee on changing the world with engineering

by Mike Schramm (Apr 15th, 2010)

Former Delicious Monster and Tapulous developer Mike Lee (who now works for the mothership at Apple) took the stage to start off the last day of 360iDev in San Jose. He gave a wildly rambling speech about what it means to be an engineer and why programmers should not only make the best programs ...

Tapulous making a million a month off the App Store

by Mike Schramm (Dec 21st, 2009)

Well, even with rampant piracy, review craziness, and that funky approval process, it's good to hear that someone can still make a truckload of cash on the App Store. According to Reuters, that someone is Tapulous, who is apparently making almost a million dollars a month thanks to twenty million ...

Devs quickly move to new models after in-app purchase change

by Mike Schramm (Oct 17th, 2009)

It was just yesterday that Apple announced they would allow free apps to enable in-app purchases, and developers are already jumping on the "get the app for free, buy the content later" business model as quickly as they can. ngmoco came out swinging, as Touch Arcade reports, with both a free intro ...