Mobile App Roundup: EA, Investments, Android & More
Electronic Arts Expands Partners Program to Social & Mobile Games — Electronic Arts has announced the expansion of its EA Partners program to the social-mobile space this week. Through Chillingo the company will support iOS and Android titles, and through Playfish, it will support Facebook.
Motorola Invests in Moblyng — Motorola Mobility has invested HTML5 games developer and publisher Moblyng this week. Though the amount is not disclosed, TechCrunch notes a filing indicating that Moblyng raised $7.5 million out of a $10.9 million round. Moblyng develops titles for Android, iOS, Facebook, and WebOS platforms.
Android Tops US Smartphone Share — Nielen has released a new report on U.S. smartphone share this week. Based on the data, the Android OS leads the pack with 29%, followed by BlackBerry at 27%, and iOS at 27%.
[image via Nielsenwire]
CyberAgent Announces GameWave Social Game Platform — In a post from Dr. Serkan Toto, CyberAgent has announced it’s new social game platform, GameWave, for the iPhone. The platform is noted to be available this spring.
BlackBerry Messenger Coming to Android & iOS — According to BGR, Research In Motion is bring its BlackBerry Messenger app and service to first Android and later iOS. However, this has not been officially confirmed, thus details regarding pricing or a release date are unclear.
PayPal Developer Challenge to Focus on Android — PayPal announced its new developer challenge this week, the PayPal X Developer Challenge for Android. The grand prize is $25,000 via a PayPal account and marketing and public relations support. The deadline for submission is May 3rd.
Disney Acquires Rocket Pack — Disney is also looking at HTML5 with its acquisition of Rocket Pack, who specializes in such games. According to VentureBeat, this move is in-line with Disney’s corporate strategy to distribute across as many platforms as possible, including iOS and Android.
Angry Birds’ Physics Engine Creator Not Given Credit — During the Game Developers Conference this week, Angry Birds developer, Rovio Mobile was called out for not giving credit to its physics engine creator (Box 2D) Erin Catto. The engine is open-source, thus there is no obligation to do so. Whether or not they should, is a different topic of debate.
Angry Birds Also Gets 30 Million Downloads on Android: Apologies for the second Angry Birds-related link, but the game has seen 30 million downloads since its launch in October on the platform. The company said last year that it expected to make $1 million a month in advertising from the app on Android.
Google AdSense Adds a Mobile Interface: For AdSense publishers who want to check their earnings, get alerts and view non-Flash-based reports, Google just released a mobile-optimized website for the ad network.
Foursquare Scores a Partnership with American Express: More than half a year after Facebook launched Places, Foursquare seems to be holding its momentum. The location-sharing startup signed a deal with American Express Co. to offer discounts to shoppers when users check into places.
Google Takes Down Android Apps Riddled With Malware: Google took down around two dozen Android apps after it was founded they contained malicious code that could root a device and send sensitive information to a remote server.
Opinionaided Raises $1 Million for Question-and-Answer App: New York-based Opinionaided raised nearly $1 million to build a mobile, real-time feedback service from investors including General Catalyst, SoftBank Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Gameloft Will Be Using Unreal Engine 3 In Its Next Android, iOS Titles: Gameloft, the studio behind Shadow Guardian, Zombie Infection, and Starfront: Collision, said it will use Epic Games’ powerful Unreal Engine 3 in four new iPhone and Android titles.
China Unicom Plans to Build Its Own Mobile Operating System: The parent company of China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. said it will create a “Wophone” operating system, that would place it in competition with Apple’s iPhone and Google Android, not to mention rival China Mobile’s platform Ophone.
About One-Third of Americans, British Adults Play Mobile Games About one-third of adults in the U.S. and U.K. regularly play mobile games and about half have played a game at least once, according to a survey from Bejeweled Blitz-maker PopCap Games.
