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App Store stays ahead of rapidly growing Google Play in Distimo’s year-end app analytics report

Distimo-2012-Year in Review-02Analytics firm Distimo is out today with the full results of its year-end 2012 app analytics report (via Fortune). While Apple is still the clear winner in terms of revenue, Google Play showed significant growth in the last four months. Its daily revenue grew 43 percent in 20 major markets. Apple's growth was smaller, increasing daily revenue by 21 percent, but Distimo's numbers show Google still has a long way to go:

On a typical day in November 2012, the revenues in the Apple App Store exceeded $15M USD, while in Google Play the revenues are just below $3.5M USD in 20 of the largest countries in both app stores… Even though the growth in revenues in Google Play in the last four months is close to that of the Apple App Store in 2012, the growth in daily revenues in the Apple App Store was higher than the total daily revenues in Google Play when comparing absolute daily revenue values.

As for the most popular apps of 2012, Distimo said Asian publisher Naver was able to beat Draw Something's record of 1 million users in nine day. Its app, Line Pop, got 1.75 million downloads in the first 72 hours. That's something that took Facebook nine months to accomplish. The app also brought over 1 million in revenue for the developer in 12 days.

Distimo-2012-Year in Review-03

To round out the year in review, Distmo breaks down revenue by category in the charts below: the top 10 most grossing cross-store publishers, the top 10 publishers and apps by downloads on the App Store, and the top five highest growing countries by revenue. There aren't many surprises:

Top publisher cross-store = EA

Top publisher in App Store = Apple

Top app = Instagram

Distimo-2012-Year in Review-03 Distimo-2012-Year in Review-04 Distimo-2012-Year in Review-05 Distimo-2012-Year in Review-06

Distimo also shared some stats on the top five highest growing countries in terms of daily revenue on the App Store (and Google Play). Some of these countries just received the iPhone 5 in 2012, such as Russia, which saw App Store revenues grow significantly because of it. The chart below breaks down the countries separately for iPhone and iPad apps:

Distimo-2012-Year in Review-01

You can view the full Distimo report here.


 






Apple Releases iOS 6.0.2 Software Update for iPhone 5 and iPad Mini, Fixes Wi-Fi Bug

Apple has released an iOS update for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, bringing the iOS version for those devices up to 6.0.2. The release notes for the iPhone note only that an unnamed Wi-Fi bug has been fixed.

There have been a number of complaints related to malfunctioning Wi-Fi connections on the iPhone 5, so this could be a welcome update for many users.

Iphone602
iOS 6.0.2 Software Update

This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Fixes a bug that could impact Wi-Fi

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
iOS 6.0.1 was released on November 1, with the fourth beta of iOS 6.1 released just yesterday.

Update: Many users are reporting difficulties downloading iOS 6.0.2, with attempts at over-the-air updates simply yielding errors. Users updating through iTunes appear to be having more success, although even then it may take several attempts.




Math App MyScript Calculator Available for iOS, Accepts Handwritten Input [iOS Blog]

MyScript Calculator from Vision Objects has been available on Android devices for several months now, but as of today, the math app that lets users handwrite mathematical expressions is available for iPhone and iPad as well (via Mac4Ever).

Instead of typing equations into the app, MyScript Calculator accepts written input. Write out an equation with a finger or stylus and the app reads the handwriting. It will translate written work into numbers and digital text, and then solve the problem.

The whole process is quick, intuitive, and easy. It's perfect for small calculations or more complex mathematical equations, supporting the following operations:
-Basic operations: +, -, x, ÷, +/‒, 1/x
-Misc. Operations: %, √, x!, |x|
-Powers/Exponentials: ℯx, xy , x2
-Brackets: ( )
-Trigonometry: cos, sin, tan
-Inverse trigonometry: acos, asin, atan
-Logarithms: ln , log
-Constants: π, ℯ.

MyScript Calculator works with both the iPhone and the iPad, and it is a free download from the App Store. [Direct Link]




Nielsen Releases Top 10 iPhone Apps of 2012

Nielsen yesterday released its digital "Tops of 2012" statistics, which included the top 10 iOS apps of 2012, based on average unique users. The study took place from Q1 2012 to Q3 2012 and also happened to find that this was the first year where smartphone owners became the majority of mobile phone users with 56% by the end of Q3.

Four of the top 10 iPhone apps are stock iOS apps, as YouTube and Maps are likely referring to the versions of the app bundled in with iOS 5 and earlier rather than the newer versions that launched in the past couple of months, as the new versions likely wouldn't have had the time to make a significant impact on the statistics. Nielsen notes that Facebook Messenger was the fastest growing iPhone app.

In fact, Facebook controlled three of the top 10 in Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram while Google, at this point, controlled none of the top 10.

Maps averaged 32 million unique users a month while YouTube averaged 22 million, Stocks averaged 21 million and Weather averaged 20 million uniques a month.


The study also found that Android sits atop smartphone marketshare with 52% with iOS in second at 35%. Blackberry OS came in third at 7%, Windows Phone with 2% and the rest made up the remaining 5% of the marketshare pie. The statistics come from Nielsen's Smartphone Panel, which uses on-device meters at the aggregate level to find out mobile web and app activity level.




Facebook Launches its Own Version of Snapchat, Called Poke [iOS Blog]

When Snapchat launched a video update last week, AllThingsD reported that Facebook was planning on releasing its own photo and video sharing app to compete with Snapchat. Facebook's new standalone app, Facebook Poke, was released today, expanding on Facebook's original "poke" concept.

After connecting to Facebook Poke with a Facebook account, users can take a video or photo, write a message, or send a standard poke notification to friends who are also Facebook users. Each message lasts only a few seconds before expiring, after which time it is no longer visible.

If a screenshot is taken, users are notified with a bright orange icon on the feed, which is the same functionality found in Snapchat. Users can browse through sent messages in Poke by tapping and holding on a message.



Media sent via Facebook Poke is not visible in the standard Facebook app, but people will get a Facebook notification to download Facebook Poke to see Poke messages. Like the rest of Facebook's apps, Poke has a menu for reporting inappropriate content.

Facebook Poke is a free download on Apple's App Store. [Direct Link]




How To Automatically Pause Your Music When You Unplug Your Headphones [Mac]

Set iTunes (or any Mac music player) to pause every time you unplug your headphones and play when you plug them back in. BreakAway is a simple app for Mac that prevents you from filling a room with your music when you unplug your headphones.

If this sounds familiar, it should: my iPod shuffle used to automatically pause when I unplugged my headphones. It's a subtle thing, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it: why should you miss any of your music or podcasts when your headphones aren't plugged in?

Most computers don't work this way, however: when you unplug your headphones, your music keeps playing from your speakers. This is perfect most of the time, but terrible at others. For example: you might accidentally unplug your headphones at work and reveal your embarrassing K-Pop habit to co-workers, who currently think you listen exclusively to Slayer. Or you might actually be listening to Slayer in the library when you accidentally unplug your headphones and annoy every single patron at once. It happens.

Whether you want to avoid such accidents or just want a quick way to pause your music while unplugging, Breakaway is probably right for you. Here's how it works.

Using Breakaway

Breakaway lives in the system tray; it's symbol is a "+" when your headphones are plugged in and a square when they are not. If you have music playing in iTunes, that music will pause when you remove your headphones from the jack on your Mac.

It's simple, and hard to demonstrate in screenshots, but I think you get the idea. There aren't a lot of preferences: starting the program at boot and whether or not the program shows up in the menubar.

By default Breakaway fades back in when you plug in your headphone jack. Don't like this, or want to tweak the fade? Head to the "Plugins" page of the preferences window and click the "iTunes" plugin. You'll find the fade settings here:

You can also, in theory, add plugins for other media players here. I couldn't find any plugins, personally, but that's okay because of AppleScript.

AppleScript!

So the seeming Internet-wide lack of plugins for non-iTunes media players is annoying, but don't panic: a built-in AppleScript plugin means you can easily add support for your various other music players. It just takes a little effort. Here's how.

First things first: you're going to need to write – or find – a pause/play script for your music player of choice. This isn't as complex as it sounds – the command itself looks something like this:

tell application "Spotify" to playpause

You might want more code then this – code that checks whether a given program is open before sending out the command, for example – but the above is the gist of what code you need.

You don't need to guess, though: there are plenty of great scripts for controlling various media players out there on the wider Internet, so Google away! I quickly found AppleScripts for controlling Spotify and AppleScripts for controlling VLC; I'm sure you can find others.

Once you have the code you want it's time to open AppleScript Editor. Paste what you've found here.

Not sure if it will work? Open your media player of choice, then test your script by pressing the "run" button at top.

Did your media player play/pause? Good! Go ahead and save the script wherever convenient, then open Breakaway's preferences and head back to the "Plugins" page. Turn on the AppleScripts plugin and add a new trigger. Drag the script you just saved from Finder to the "Run Script" box:

Check the boxes to set when the script will run (ie, when you unplug your headphones) and everything should start working immediately. Congratulations: you can now set your favorite programs to pause/play when you remove your headphone jack.

Conclusion

Breakaway is a simple app that does one thing: pause your music when you unplug your headphones. If you don't want to miss a moment of your music when you want to talk to someone – or risk blasting the library with your music every time you accidentally unplug your headphones – it's worth looking into.

Here are some more creative ways to control iTunes, if you're interested:

What are you using Breakaway for? Let me know in the comments below, along with links to any AppleScripts you're using the plugin with.