The digest of news from the world of mobile development for the last week No. 1 (February 2 - 9, 2013)

    Transferring payments to Google developers, Litres’s war with readers, Amazon’s own virtual money and NARR8, Nokia’s transition to Windows Phone, Dropbox’s new Sync API - the week was full of interesting events, news and articles. Looking at our colleagues from the Zfort Group, we made our first digest of news from the mobile world in a week.


    Developer earned $ 30,000 a month on Windows 8 applications

    Android


    Google Postponed Payments to Developers by 15
    Eng | Rus
    Google has changed the policy of paying money to developers of applications for Android - instead of the very beginning of the month (by default, all earnings for the last month were sent within two days at the beginning of the new month), the money will be transferred on the 15th.

    More than half of Android devices are still 2.2 and 2.3
    Eng
    New Google statistics show that the Jelly Bean version now uses a total of 13.6% of devices - 12.2% of Android 4.1 and 1.4% of Android 4.2. At the same time, almost half (45.6%) are still working on Gingerbread, and the share of Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich has even declined over the past month - from 29.1% to 29%. The sad thing is that 8.1% is still sitting on Android 2.2 (Froyo). Thus, more than half of Android devices are obsolete models with Android 2.2 or Android 2.3.


    Software Development on Nexus 7
    Rus
    At the moment I wrote only one application using the Nexus 7 tablet. However, its sales on the Play Market have already paid for the price of the tablet. In the process of writing, a laptop at home was also used to bring the application to mind. However, the first version was entirely written on the tablet. The only serious problem at the moment is that AIDE does not know how to build projects with reference dependencies (ADT feature in Eclipse). Therefore, building an application using libraries like ActionBarSherlock is very problematic. I can imagine a solution to the problem, but so far I have not delved into it. If you do not use references, then there will be no problems.

    Wine for Android
    Eng | Rus
    At a Free and Open Source Software Developers European Meeting conference this weekend in Brussels, Alexander Dzhulliard, leader of the Wine project, announced that Wine will be ported to Android.


    Android leads ad impressions
    Eng | Rus
    A new report by Millennial Media Mobile Mix shows that smartphones in general and Android in particular occupy the majority of impressions in the company's advertising network. Millennial Media tracks ad impressions in gaming applications by operating system — Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows. Android is the leader in this field, occupying 64% of gaming impressions on the platform, in total 52% of all impressions come from Android devices. iOS is in second place with 30% of impressions on the network.

    dot42 - C # compiler for Dalvik Runtime
    Rus
    The main drawback of Mono for Android is that applications require a separate runtime other than Dalvik. Although full access to the CLR looks very attractive, proxying and marshalling calls from one runtime to another can greatly affect performance. So why not remove intermediate compilation into IL-code and get working Dex-code right away? This is what the dot42 project does.

    iOS


    Apple will provide developers with the ability to receive short links to
    Eng applications
    During the Super Bowl, Apple briefly introduced a new product for App Store developers - short links to AppStore.com. At the end of the trailer for the new movie about the Star Trek universe, there is a link that directs viewers to Appstore.com/StarTrekApp instead of, for example, Facebook.com/StarTrekMovie or the official movie website, as is usually done during television commercials.

    How to use the Instruments utility in Xcode
    Rus
    At the moment, your iOS developer career is in a state where you wrote one application or two, and you are of course wondering what you can do to make your applications even better. In addition to improving your application by adding all sorts of “curls” to it, there is one thing that all good developers should do with their code is to process it with the Instruments utility!

    Garbage collector on iOS? Not! Efficient memory management with ARC. Part 1.
    Rus
    Apple introduced automatic link counting technology in 2011 and recommended ARC for use in new projects, as well as the translation of existing code under ARC control. However, not all developers rushed to change the already familiar patterns of manual memory management with the advent of new technology. One of the reasons is that ARC not only frees the programmer from the need to explicitly send retain and release messages, but also requires more understanding and attention to the relationships and relationships between objects, the correct approach to writing code, as well as knowledge and understanding of some features, which will be noted in the following sections.

    Windows phone


    Nokia
    Nokia, the Elop Effect and the burning platform - Once again about statistics, Nokia, Elop and the burning memo
    Two articles covering the recent past at once are Nokia's transition to Windows Phone. One, as always, is for, the other, as always, is against.


    Development of the Sheremetyevo application for Windows Phone through the eyes of the
    Rus developer
    I received requests from friends and colleagues about the development of the Sheremetyevo application and now that Aplana has allowed me to talk about the development of this application, I decided to publish an article with answers to the most frequently asked questions.

    Windows Phone first overtook BlackBerry in US market
    Eng | Rus
    One of the most interesting stories on the mobile market in 2013 will be the battle for third place between Windows Phone and BlackBerry - the positions of the two leaders seem clear and unshakable, but a serious struggle will unfold for third place. And it does not start too well for a Canadian company.

    AppClub {build, monetize} # 4 will be held on February 21 in Kiev
    Rus.

    The developer earned $ 30,000 a month on Windows 8 applications.
    Rus
    Kevin Ashley, developer of Windows Phone and Windows 8 applications, as well as a Microsoft employee and author of Professional Windows 8 Programming: Application Development with C # and XAML, for a month earned about $ 30,000 on his Card Games Chest app (using in-app purchase and app sales).

    Blackberry


    BlackBerry 10 will update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
    Eng | Rus
    The BlackBerry company (known to us earlier as RIM) announced that runtime will be updated to a more modern version - Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. When this happens is unknown, but when it happens, then the work of Android applications inside BB10 should significantly improve.

    Applications


    The "fight" against piracy in Russian
    Google and Apple blocked the application Moon + Reader and several other readers regarding the complaint LitRes.
    Habr | Exler | Exler: what to do | Reader Return | Moon + Reader restored to Google Play

    Devices


    Berners-Lee: No root? Your device serves the other
    Eng
    “The Right to Have Root on Your Machine,” full administrative privileges to access a device, such as a smartphone, “a key issue,” Tim Berners-Lee told the audience at the Linux.conf.au 2013 conference in Canberra. “The right to have a root on your machine is the right to own a thing that you can dispose of at your discretion,” he said.

    Money


    Kongregate Invests $ 10 Million in Support for Mobile Developers
    Eng | Rus
    Kongregate (a division of GameStop, one of the largest sites with online games) announced its intention to invest $ 10 million in mobile developers.

    GREE expands its investment program by $ 10 million
    Eng The
    Japanese company intends to increase its Partners Fund, a program for investing in social and mobile developers, by $ 10 million.

    Amazon presents its own money Amazon Coin
    Eng | Rus
    Amazon launches Amazon Coin, a virtual currency for in-app purchases and in-app purchases. Amazon’s money will start operating in May, initially only in America.


    NARR8 presents its own money
    Rus
    February 6, the interactive content library for mobile devices NARR8 introduces the virtual currency NARRs, which are automatically credited to the user's "account", as a bonus for daily activity in the application. Currently, exclusive collectibles from each series can be purchased for NARRs coins, which will appear in the special section of the NARR8 menu - "My Collections".

    FarmVille buys $ 1 billion worth of goods
    Eng | Rus
    In general, in the fourth quarter, Zynga exceeded analysts' expectations for revenue. However, CityVille 2, Party Friends and The Friend Game will be closed. Perhaps the biggest loss is CityVille 2, the sequel to the company's most successful game. Zynga previously closed 11 games and held a number of layoffs.

    Other


    JavaScript will be central to GNOME
    Eng
    Developers have announced that JavaScript will be the only “first class” language for developing applications for the platform.

    Dropbox introduced Sync API, which greatly simplified the work with the cloud
    Eng | The Eng
    Sync API greatly simplifies Dropbox integration into applications and file management. It by itself solves all the issues and problems that are associated with cloud storage of files, and at the same time integrates into the application two times easier than the previous version.


    Facebook opened the video channel Developers Live
    Eng | Rus
    Starting today, the new channel will provide "the latest news, training videos, seminars, and more." According to Facebook, the channel will host both pre-recorded videos and interactive broadcasts, "giving developers the opportunity to learn about the latest tools and how to contact the managers and engineers who created them."

    Version 2.1 released Play Framework
    Eng
    High-performance Java and Scala framework for web applications that supports mobile devices.

    February 11, Moscow will host a meeting with the creator of Angry Birds
    Rus
    On February 11, 2013, within the framework of the Prodexpo exhibition at the Expocenter, a special briefing by Peter Westerback, the creator of the game Angry Birds and marketing director of Rovio, will be held. The meeting with Westerbuck will be devoted to the development of the Angry Birds brand, the game itself, the emergence of new projects under this brand (drinks, snacks, amusement parks) around the world and, in particular, in Russia.

    GetUpps! - application store for MegaFon
    Rus subscribers
    Our store is based on the development of Yandex.Store, which, in addition to performing the main functions (application store), has additional advantages for MegaFon subscribers.

    PS All the same, this is our first digest - do not swear much, but we are always happy to receive fair criticism!

    Also popular now: