Orange have launched a new store in Milton Keynes, UK.
The first Orange UK Multimedia Store opens today in thecentre:mk, Milton Keynes
The world’s first Motorola DEXT™ with MOTOBLUR™* will be exclusively on sale at the new Milton Keynes store on opening day, before anywhere else in the world**
It is also the first Orange store to feature a giant 70-inch cinema style screen and seating area, bringing multimedia to life
The first ever augmented reality app has appeared in the Apple App store for the iPhone. I know – what the hell is Augmented Reality or AR as it’s often called? Basically, it’s a layer of digital information displayed over real information.
The app is called ‘Metro Paris Subway’ and what it does is use the iPhone’s GPS, compass and camera all together to give you information about your surroundings when in the city. Basically, you point your camera at a certain location and details of local shops, restaurants and tourist locations will pop up as you can see in the screenshot. It gives you direction and distance also.
This kind of technology wasn’t expected until Apple released an updated version of the iPhone OS in a few months.
It’s cool and everything, but for some reason I can’t see it catching on in this form. People like their GPS and it suits them fine. As soon as the novelty wears off they will retreat back to GPS. You don’t need AR to tell you where to go – GPS does a better job at twice the speed with half the effort. However, if you do get this app (which bear in mind will only work in Paris) then don’t worry about discarding it after purchase as it costs a reasonable 99c – I was expecting it to cost $30!
Today represents a significant milestone for Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and more importantly, the first big opportunity for developers. Microsoft are now accepting application submissions from all 29 supported countries and have launched a Race to Market Challenge to kick things off. It’s time to show us what you’ve got!
Registered developers and ISVs can now upload their application, game or widget to the Windows Marketplace platform and we’ll begin certifying those apps according to the process,policies and guidelines we’ve published. Microsoft will certify apps on a First In, First Out (FIFO) basis. Certification should normally take about 10 business days initially and you can always check on your application during the process through our Developer Dashboard. To better market your app, you can provide us with all the product information and promotional materials you’d like us to use to describe and showcase your application for the more than 30 million Windows Mobile devices out there.
Microsoft are aiming to create a global marketplace for Windows Phones where developers and users meet to sell and buy high quality and high value applications, so in other words an iTunes app store competitor
But it all starts today with the applications, and as I mentioned earlier we’re kicking this process off with a little contest we’re calling the Race to Market Challenge.
The Race to Market Challenge is just another reason for developers to get in on the ground floor of the new Windows Marketplace. While we do sincerely believe that everyone who submits an app will benefit from being among the first available when Windows Marketplace opens for business, we’re offering a few other prizes as well.
Amazon.fr has today launched Amazon Mp3 (www.amazon.fr/mp3). The French Amazon download store will look and function in exactly the same way as the USA version. The simple to use digital music store is launching with over 5.5 million DRM-free tracks in their catalogue, in which work on any mp3 player including the iPod and iPhone.
Pricing will be similar to the UK store in which top selling albums from just €2.99 and popular individual tracks from €0.49.
Amazon MP3 has all the things that Amazon customers have come to expect from Amazon.fr – a broad selection of albums and tracks across many genres, with a simplified user interface and all at the lowest possible prices. In addition, customers can find exclusive videos from artists such as Pep’s, Phoenix, Amandine Bourgeois, Dream Theater and more on www.amazon.fr/mp3.
“Amazon is excited to provide customers in France with more ways to find, discover and buy music,” said Greg Greeley, Vice-President, Amazon EU Retail. “With the launch of Amazon MP3 in France, customers can find a vast selection of digital music along with millions of lowpriced CDs available on Amazon.fr.”
Nokia’s much avaited application showcase the Ovi Store was launched today. The store contains both free and paid applications – “a mountain of mobile content” according to the the Nokia Conversations blog. The Ovi store is compatible with more than 50 Nokia devices, which the company believes gives them access to 50 million people.
Given the dominance of Nokia the Ovi store would be expected to have many more eyeballs than the iPhone App store, but at the moment their app section doesnt really seem upto scratch. I tried to download a new application but unfortunately the application was unavailable. The Ovi app section might not be fully operational with old Nokia handsets and thus they are waiting for replacement of handsets.
There are 1236 apps in all at the Ovi store, and navigation is, quite frankly, painful. The site is taking too long to load, perhaps unable to handle the first day traffic. Im quite surprised that Nokia released something that was this bad, but I kind of understand that they need to be in this market sooner rather than later even if they do have an inferior product.
A majority of the content available at the App store is paid, with one a few free applications. Paid content includes ringtones, mobile apps, games etc.
Overall the Ovi Store is very disappointing and I was expecting a lot more from Nokia. Im sure however with their resources and popularity over time they will get this right and will really challenge apple in terms of customers usability.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) today launched a Kindle Store optimized for the Safari Web browser on iPhone. Now when users of the Kindle for iPhone app click on “Get Books,” the new Kindle Store tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens automatically opens in Safari. This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store’s 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers andmost New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less.
Apple hits 1 Billion downloads from their App Store! Since launching the App store on the 27 th June last year, Apple has been making big waves with their iPhone and iPod Touch products. Apple currently pays 70% of all revenues from the App store to developers. Thus, if there was an average of $0.50 per download, then Apple would be $150m richer and App developers $350m richer.
No I know what most of you are thinking, why the hell isn’t this an iPhone app or why hasn’t Apple done this already, well they should have! The Next Web is reporting on a new app that is really going to help.
It’s an awesome app in Cydia called “Categories” which lets you organise your apps into folders. The app provides an array of different icons you can use, you can easily rename folders via the app and adding/removing apps is relatively easy. However, this is not available in the app store and you need to have your iPhone jailbroken.
Currently, on my iPod touch I have over 5 pages worth of applications that I use on a monthly basis. At the moment I’m having so much trouble keep track of the apps and actually arranging them so they can be easily used and organised. Apple needs to come up with an app like this, either that or they need to be able to arrange your apps directly in iTunes.
One limitation: the app doesn’t recognise iPhone web apps only genuinely local apps.
As I noted above, this is only for Jailbroken iPhones. Other features which Cydia (jailbroken app database) brings is copy & paste, 5 apps in the dock amongst hundreds of others.
The sequel to the iPhone’s most popular ever game is here, Tap Tap Revenge 2. The latest version has hit the app store today. The previous version of the game had more than six million downloads and featured licensed music from some of the worlds largest bands including Weezer and Nine Inch Nails. You can Download the app here.
Have you ever had a hard time falling asleep? Well Ambiance is for you! Ambiance is a new iphone or ipod touch app that plays relaxing sounds.
Ambiance is designed to help you create the perfect ambient atmosphere to focus and relax. You can choose from hundreds of free sounds, exclusive to Ambiance, to download and listen to, create customised sound mixes, cycle through playlists and more.
Currently, the app is only $2.99 in the app stores so check it out.
Over at RouteNote (a free digital music distribution service) they have started to offer some of their artists live session videos via bittorrent sites. RouteNote has partned with Mininova to provide their content on the Mininova platform for all users to download for free.
At RouteNote the belief is that bittorrent clients provide a great access to millions of viewers every month. With major labels currently fighting sites like The Pirate Bay over copyright issues, it is good to see that RouteNote is adopting this technology and trying to find ways for it to help spread the word of their artists and music.
My belief is that bittorrent trackers arent going to go away any time soon, and that the technology has great benefits and sometimes you just have to think outside the box to find revenues streams. Music on the internet is currently quite a complex market and in the future I think that download sales arent going to be a key revenue stream, and more sites will appear that have advertising models such as Spotify and Imeem. The era of CDs and albums are over, artists will have to produce great tracks not albums and then promote these either as paid downloads or for mass adoption which makes money in other forms.
Dell has finally launched their new download store. Dell has partnered with French company Nexway to release the download store which offers music, games and software. The Dell download store allows all worldwide users to purchase games and software, but there currently is a restriction on music because of “publishing and licencing agreements with [Dell's] digital music partners.”
The music files will be available from major labels and will include leading artists, all without digital right managements solutions as MP3 files.
The store currently sells the Brit Awards 2009 for £9.99; both Play.com and Amazon did not have the album available for digital download.
Single tracks are available for 79 pence but the user interface lacks the intuitiveness of other available solutions like 7digital.
Orange have launched a new store in Milton Keynes, UK.
The first ever augmented reality app has appeared in the
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