ESPN Radio is coming to an iDevice near you.

And that will certainly be good for business at the venerable sports institution.

On Tuesday morning, ESPN Radio today unveiled its “single, most definitive ESPN Radio App optimized for iPhone, iPod touch and – for the first time – iPad.”

The app, which ESPN says is sponsored by Lowe’s, creates a personalized sports listening experience (both live and on demand) and includes a new feature that allows fans to build their own sports stations.

Continue Reading

This week, Todd Brix, Senior Director for Windows Marketplace at Microsoft, posted a long declaration on the official Windows Blog. The vow made by Brix and his team involves an ongoing effort by the software and mobile giant to clean up its cluttered Windows Phone Marketplace.

“Today I’ll outline the latest steps we’re taking in our ongoing effort to keep the quality bar high in our rapidly growing Marketplace,” Brix writes. “I know most of you share our goal of a great shopping experience and already go out of your way to follow our policies and guidance. For others, I hope this insight into a few near-term changes we’re putting in place helps save you time and reduces your risk of having apps pulled from the Marketplace.”

Continue Reading

On Tuesday, Rovio announced the latest staggering sales success of its hugely popular Angry Birds game.

“Angry Birds Space hit 50 million downloads within 35 days,” the company confirmed on its blog, “making it the fastest growing mobile game yet and breaking all our previous records. This has been simply amazing, and the whole Rovio team is thrilled to see such a fantastic reception for the game.”

Just days ago, Rovio published its first Angry Birds Space update for iOS and Android, a move that delivered 10 new levels to the game. As of this writing, plans continue to take shape to bring Angry Birds to the Windows Phone operating system.

Continue Reading

Research associate Lim Shiyang of ABI said Tuesday that mobile users will download nearly 36 billion apps in 2012 and Android and iOS will make up for 83% of the app downloads.

As far as the Windows phone is concerned, it will barely register as a wave maker.

A scant 2% of app downloads will be attributed to Windows Phone by the close of 2012. But that’s not reason to lose hope for the future, the report says.

Continue Reading

A new world of opportunities has opened up to Windows Phone developers… literally.

Before the end of March, App Hub will start accepting submissions for the new Windows Phone Marketplaces.

Todd Brix, Senior Director for Windows Marketplace at Microsoft, calls the development a “great opportunity for you to establish an early toehold on top download charts and get your app in front of eager new phone customers.”

Continue Reading

Microsoft has confirmed the upcoming early May closure of its Windows Mobile Marketplace.

Beginning May 9, the software giant is putting all of its eggs in one basket via the newer and richer Windows Phone Marketplace, a storefront tailored to devices powered by the current Windows Phone mobile operating system.

“Applications and games acquired from the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service installed on your Windows Mobile 6.x phone will continue to work after the service is discontinued on May 9, 2012,” an email to customers explains. “However, additional downloads of these applications and games from the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace will no longer be available.”

Continue Reading

Windows phone apps have a long way to go in order to catch up to iOS and Android apps in terms of their numbers and general popularity.

Despite trailing its competitors, the Windows Phone platform is still growing. In December of 2011, for example, the platform grew by a daily average of 265 apps. By January 2012 this number grew to an average of 400 apps per day.

As of this writing, the Marketplace has more than 55,000 apps.

Continue Reading