applications

Hmm. Is Research In Motion (RIM) getting ready to dip its toes into Apple's swimming pool?

RIM posted a LinkedIn job listing seeking a "Senior iOS Mobile Developer." According to the listing, the person will "create exciting enterprise applications for distribution on the iOS platform," and must know how to build and deploy "complex applications for iPhone and iPad devices." The candidate must also come with a few apps they've developed and brought to the App Store.

There was a time when RIM wouldn't even consider bringing applications to another operating … Read more

Well, this is an odd one.

Green Dot, a company that provides prepaid debit cards to consumers, has acquired mobile location-based application developer Loopt for $43.4 million, the companies announced today. The deal is an all-cash transaction, and will include Green Dot setting aside $9.8 million as a "retention pool" to ensure key Loopt employees stay put.

Though Green Dot's Loopt acquisition might not make sense at first glance, considering how different the companies are, it appears Green Dot has bought the firm for its mobile-development expertise. In a statement celebrating the acquisition, Loopt co-founder … Read more

Would you buy a Windows tablet that doesn't run older Windows applications?

That's the question that keeps dogging me when I see Microsoft demonstrating tablets based on ARM processors from Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Nvidia. Tablets with those processors will not run so-called Intel "x86" legacy software (though they will run a full version of Office 15).

Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky wrote about this on February 9. "If you need to run existing x86/64 (Intel-based) software, then you will be best served with Windows 8 on x86/64."

And he reiterated this at … Read more

According to a patent application filed by Apple (found by AppleInsider), the Find My Friends app for iOS devices may soon be getting new features that allow users to create custom settings for the amount of information friends can find about their location by adjusting the precision of the GPS locator.

Find My Friends was launched alongside the iPhone 4S in October and features the ability for users to share their location with friends and family who they approve. While the feature is a great solution for many, some prefer a little more privacy control.

Enter the "Variable Precision … Read more

Windows XP lost more users to Windows 7 last month, but the decade-old platform continues to hold on as the most popular operating system

Looking at OS stats for February, NetApplications found that XP's share of the market dipped to 45 percent from 47 percent in January. At the same time, Windows 7 grabbed 38 percent of all users, up from 36 percent the prior month.

The latest numbers show a trend in which XP has gradually lost share over time, while Windows 7 has picked up more customers. In February 2011, XP owned more than half of the … Read more

For Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, stasis is bliss.

In February's worldwide usage statistics, IE largely held at bay its top challengers, Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome, according to Net Applications' latest measurements. IE has done so for a few months now, a big improvement for Microsoft compared to years of losing share.

IE dipped from 53.0 percent of global usage in January to 52.8 percent in February among desktop browsers; Firefox and Chrome stayed level at 20.9 percent and 18.9 percent, respectively. Safari popped up a notch from 4.9 percent to … Read more

A future Apple keyboard could be made from technology that's out of this world. Literally.

A newly published patent application, picked up by Apple Insider this week, details a new type of keyboard, made specifically for "thin-profile" computers, and designed to allow for any type of key cap--that's the part of the keyboard your fingers touch.

The core of the invention is a "single support lever" design, that's as opposed to a "scissor-switch" style that makes use of two, interconnected levers. The benefit, the patent says, is that the key can … Read more

In the future, your Google-powered computer could run the same apps you have on your Google-powered smartphone in a way that works with the hardware you have right now.

At least that's the vision laid out in a newly unearthed patent application picked up earlier today by Patently Apple.

The patent filing, titled "Mapping trackpad operations to touch-screen events," describes a system for turning something like a trackpad on a notebook computer into an analog for the touch screen used in conjunction with touch-based applications.

If you've ever seen a software-based mobile phone simulator on a … Read more

It's no secret SMS is wildly popular, but according to a new report from research firm Ovum, carriers around the world lost quite a bit of revenue last year after mobile phone owners turned to other services to chat with friends.

The research firm revealed yesterday that carriers lost $13.9 billion in SMS revenue in 2011 because of consumers chatting with friends on social-messaging applications. Those applications range from everything from Facebook's mobile app, which features chatting, to instant-messaging apps. Apple's iMessage is also included in that list.

It was a similarly disappointing year for carriers … Read more