A mobile app is a computer program designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. Apps are usually available through application distribution platforms, which began appearing in 2008 and are typically operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, and BlackBerry App World. Some apps are free, while others must be bought. Mobile apps were originally offered for general productivity and information retrieval, including email, calendar, contacts, and stock market and weather information. However, public demand and the availability of developer tools drove rapid expansion into other categories, such as mobile games, factory automation, GPS and location-based services, banking, order-tracking, ticket purchases and recently mobile medical apps.
Fast-moving IT departments are opening a mobile gap between themselves and the average company on internal social networks and enterprise applications, as well as on task management and even productivity software. Read more »
Wandering around wearing Google Glass with no place to stay? The SPG for Glass can solve that problem, helping you search for a room or manage your Starwood Preferred account on… Read more »
Amazon will reportedly is preparing to introduce a smartphone that presumably will run a forked version of Android, just as its tablets do. But the online retailer would face a huge… Read more »
Chromecast owners just got a few more ways to beam audio to the big screen: Player FM, a podcast app and cloud service that we previously covered on Gigaom, added Chromecast… Read more »
Amidst a somewhat spurious debate on whether native apps will kill the open web, Netbiscuits – a long-time proponent of HTML5 and responsive design – has taken its mobile analytics and… Read more »
Native apps have come to dominate the time we spend on our mobile devices as opposed to the broader “mobile web,” and some industry insiders are concerned that trend will stifle… Read more »
A $4 security app for Android saw more than 10,000 downloads in Google Play but actually does nothing to protect users, according to a report from Android Police. Google has since… Read more »
GrubHub raises $200 million as it debuts on the New York Stock Exchange. The Chicago company is the largest portal for online food takeout and delivery orders in the U.S. Read more »