Mobile Technology News

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

The App Store may have an increasing scam problem thanks to shady developers, but so far Apple has yet to provide any official response on the issue. First reported on by The Next Web Sunday, several developers appear to be using methods to hack into user accounts and make more purchases of a particular developer’s apps.

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Firefox may be coming to your iPhone soon, however not in the form you might expect. Mozilla on Wednesday said that it submitted an app called “Firefox Home” to Apple for iTunes App Store approval, an application which would sync browser activity between the user’s iPhone and desktop.

It is not a separate browser, as Mozilla knows that Apple would likely reject it if it was. Instead, Firefox uses the WebKit API provided by Apple and intended for use in web browsing applications.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Google has announced the upcoming availability of the Chrome Web Store, an open marketplace similar to the Android Market or iTunes App Store that deals exclusively in Web Apps.

This store doesn’t exist yet, but will open both to developers and to users “later this year.”

The store will deal in the “installable Web apps,” that are expected to populate both the Google Chrome browser and the forthcoming Chrome OS. They can be run currently, but require a Windows Dev channel release of Google Chrome with a special command line flag.

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

Sorry, Apple, but your decision to delay introducing iPads internationally doesn’t wash. Your excuse — that US demand was unexpectedly high and, as a result, you had to prioritize customers stateside until production could catch up — is about as shallow and transparent as a Petri Dish full of Joost’s good ideas.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Way back in 2008, Opera Software’s CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner said the company’s popular Opera Mini mobile browser was ported to the iPhone, but it could not be released because it competed with the iPhone’s built-in Safari browser.

Then, last February, Opera Software actually started showing off its version the popular browser for iPhone OS as a run-up to its submission to Apple for App store review in March.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In a message sent to developers today, Apple announced that it is now accepting iPad apps for the iTunes app store.

To have apps approved (or rejected) in time for the iPad launch, they must be submitted to Apple by 5:00 pm PDT on Saturday, March 27. Only apps built with the iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 are going to be accepted in this round of reviews.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

I don’t keep my personal preference for mobile devices with physical keyboards a secret; the sensation of hitting real keys is an indivisible part of the text entry experience for me, and it’s not likely to change any time soon.

But there is one area where physical keyboards are woefully inferior to virtual ones: adaptability. A virtual keyboard can represent any alphabet or be arranged in any configuration the user or software needs, and a physical keyboard simply can’t keep up with that.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, the first major carrier of phones with Android support, T-Mobile, announced that doubleTwist media manager is now available across all of its Android smartphones, and that the music, video, and photo sync software can now be downloaded directly from T-Mobile for Windows XP and above and OS X 10.5 and above.

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Yesterday, Microsoft launched Windows Marketplace for Mobile’s Web component, a version of the store fully accessible through any browser.

I lamented that Apple had not yet created a similar face for the iTunes App store, even though it is the most popular download shop among the smartphone competitors. Users who want to browse the contents of the iTunes store, be it music, videos, or applications, must have the iTunes desktop software installed or otherwise browse it on their iPod Touch or iPhone (in which case they’re almost guaranteed to have iTunes installed on their PC anyway.)

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Sure, Apple created the most popular and well-stocked mobile app store in the market, but does Apple provide a Web-based interface to it? No. Through Apple’s official channels, you can only browse the store’s contents in iTunes or on your iPhone/iPod Touch.

There is an unofficial site hosted on Google App Engine which provides roughly the same experience Apple provides in iTunes, but it lacks search functionality, and if you try to download something, it launches the iTunes installer.