Friday Mobile Roundup: WildChords, Pulse, AppRedeem & More

Pulse Raises $9 Million in Series A Funding -- Mobile news-reading app developer Pulse has raised $9 million in a Series A round. Investors included New Enterprise Associates, Greycroft Partners, and Lerer Ventures. WildChords Uses iPad to Teach Guitar -- TechCrunch has come across an interesting application. A Finnish startup called Ovelin is working on an interesting new guitar-teaching iPad app dubbed WildChords. The app uses the tablet's microphone to listen for chords played from a real guitar as players attempt to play specific notes in order to hypnotize wild, escaped zoo animals. Burn the Rope Comes to Android Market -- Popular iPhone puzzle game, Burn the Rope has finally made its way over to the Android Market. Additionally, the game from Canadian developer Big Blue Bubble is free. Apple Seeks to Ban iPhone Live Event Recording -- According to a post from The Times of India, Apple is working on some new software that will prevent iPhone owners from recording live events with their handset. Infra-red sensors at the event would be picked up by the iPhone and disable the camera function. Whether or not this refers to merely video recording or all camera functionality is unclear. Gameloft Offers Father's Day Sale -- Father's Day is coming about this weekend, and as with past holidays, another company is hosting a major sale. Mobile game maker Gameloft is cutting the prices of several of its iPhone and iPad games (such as Eternal Legacy, NFL 2011, Order & Chaos, and more) this weekend to $0.99. Yahoo Moves Into App Discovery -- Yahoo! is attempting to get into the app discover game via it's Yahoo search engine and its AppSpot app, says VentureBeat. Through the former, users can search for apps and find reviews, star ratings, screenshots, price, and profiles about the apps found which can then be texted to one's phone as a link to download. With the app, users are provided with daily recommendations based on what they have downloaded in the past. RIM Q1 Performance -- Research In Motion has reported $695 million in profits for Q1 this year out of $4.9 billion in revenue. Though these numbers are down 12 percent from last quarter ($5.6 billion), but it is up 16 percent year-over-year. Nevertheless, BlackBerry phone sales have slowed, with the shipping of about 13.2 million handsets (as a comparison Apple shipped 18.6 million iPhones). Additionally, 500,000 shipped PlayBook tablets have been confirmed. AppRedeem Raises $700,000 -- According to TechCrunch, startup AppRedeem -- a company that focuses on helping mobile app developers increase installs and engagement -- has announced the raising of $700,000 in seed funding from SV Angel and Blue Run Ventures. Additionally, the company has launched an application, of the same name, that will reward users with real world rewards for reviewing mobile titles highlighted within the app. U.S. Mobile Commerce to Reach $31 Billion -- A new report from Forrester Research was released today predicting the growth of mobile commerce in the United States. According to the report, mobile commerce is growing at a 39 percent compound rate, and is expected to reach $31 billion by 2016. That said, this number is still expected to equate to around 7 percent of all eCommerce and 1 percent for general retail sales. Android Tablet App Makers Move Back to Smartphones -- Due to tablet sales of Android tablets being weak as compared to iPad, DigiTimes is reporting that many developers are shifting their focus back to four and five inch-sized smartphones. Companies such as Motorola Mobility, RIM, LG Electronics, and HTC have evidently reduced their investments in the larger screened counterparts. Apple & Google Involvement in Lodsys Lawsuit -- Late last month, Lodsys filed patent infringement lawsuits against several small iOS and Android app developers. Since then, Apple has become marginally involved, while Google has done nothing. However, in a post from FOSS Patents, both Apple and Google may be contractually precluded from challenging the patents of Lodsys as license agreements usually hold a clause that will result in the lose of a license should one attempt to invalidate related patents.

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Friday Mobile Roundup: WildChords, Pulse, AppRedeem & More

Christopher Mack

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