Microsoft has announced that on February 29 it will release a beta version of Visual Studio 11, the next update for its integrated developer environment (IDE). According to Microsoft’s Soma Somasegar, “If you are working in a team environment, [Visual Studio 11] will provide you with a set of tools
The White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce have announced a new application development competition aimed at creating apps that will spur business growth. Developers could win up to $10,000 for creating an innovative Web, PC, or mobile app that uses at least one dataset supplied by the Commerce
An agreement between California Attorney General Kamala Harris and all of the major mobile platforms will soon mandate mobile developers to create privacy policies for their apps. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, RIM and HP will require all apps that access users’ personal information to have a privacy policy, and they
Somewhat unexpectedly, Apple has made the code for the next version of OS X, codenamed Mountain Lion, available to registered Mac developers. The update makes Apple’s desktop operating system even more like iOS, its mobile operating system. For example, Macs will now have the same chat client as iPhones —
Industry watchers expect several manufacturers to debut quad-core phones at the Mobile World Congress to be held later this month. These smartphones generally perform faster than dual- or single-core phones in benchmark tests, but in the real world, users will probably only notice a difference if the apps they use
Asymco analyst Horace Dediu has used the download and sales figures provided by Apple to calculate some interesting numbers. Because iPhone and iPad users have downloaded nearly 25 billion apps and Apple has paid developers $4 billion, that means each app downloaded earns iOS developers an average of $0.16. In
A new Symantec survey of 6,275 enterprises in 43 countries reveals that enterprise application development increasingly means mobile development. Among those surveyed, 71 percent said that they were at least discussing the possibility of developing custom mobile applications. In addition, 73 percent said that adopting mobile technology has had a
While the Amazon Appstore is less than a year old, many developers are finding that listing their apps with Amazon has been very lucrative. According to a new report from Disitmo, of the 110 top apps in both the Amazon Appstore and the Android Market, 42 earn more money through
Responding to pressure from lawmakers, Apple says that it will now require iPhone and iPad apps to obtain explicit permission from users before accessing their address books. The announcement comes in the wake of revelations that several apps, including Path and Twitter, had been uploading users’ contact data to their