September 9, 2011

Mobile Development Jobs Growing Fast

As of September 1, online job board Dice.com has 82,836 tech job postings, and a growing number of those are for mobile app developers. However, Dice’s Alice Hill said that just 17 percent of tech professionals have published a mobile app, and just a quarter of those work on apps

Developing Web Apps for Changing Screen Sizes

Recent years have seen three big changes in the typical screen size used to view Web apps. First, more laptop and desktop displays are widescreen — shorter and wider than their predecessors. Second, most desktop displays these days are gigantic — between 1680×1050 and 2560×1600. Third, the increasingly-popular mobile devices

Android Downloads Could Top iOS Downloads for the Year

Market research firm Ovum is predicting that Android users will download 8.1 billion apps this year, while iOS users will download 6 billion apps. That’s a huge increase for both platforms, as Android had 1.4 billion downloads last year and Apple had 2.7 billion. “Consumers’ seemingly insatiable demand for mobile

Older Users More Likely to Spend Money on Freemium Apps

A new report from mobile analytics firm shows that while younger app users will spend more time with apps, older users are more likely to pay money for freemium apps. Those in the 18-24 age group spent the most time with free apps and accounted for 32 percent of the

Developers Can Try HP’s Public Cloud

As of September 7, interested developers are invited to sign up for a beta trial of HP’s first two public cloud services: HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage. HP Cloud Compute offers on-demand compute instances, and as you might expect, Cloud Object Storage offers cloud-based storage. The beta

Applying Good Design Principles to Code

In the design world, German designer Dieter Rams is a legend. Not only did has he created many beautiful products for Braun and other companies, he is well-known for his 10 principles of good design. Interestingly, these principles also apply to well-designed code: Good code is innovative. Good code makes

Developers Protest Google App Engine Price Increases

In May, Google announced some changes to the pricing structure for the Google App Engine. At that time, few developers complained because it was difficult to tell how the changes would affect them. However, now that a new tool makes it easier to compare the before and after pricing, developers

Intel Discontinuing MeeGo Development

Unnamed sources tell DigiTimes that Intel will no longer be developing its MeeGo mobile operating system — at least temporarily. The chipset-maker failed to interest smartphone and tablet manufacturers in the OS, so it will turn its attention back to hardware development. Intel had been working on MeeGo with Nokia,