The Apple Beat: 6 years on, the App Store remains the standard in curated ecosystems

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

It's hard to believe that the original iPhone didn't ship with any 'real' apps and that it took over a year for Apple to consider opening its device to developers and third-party applications. Six years on, the App Store has evolved into the best example of a tightly curated app ecosystem.

Apple's success with the iOS App Store owes a lot to Apple's experience with iTunes although apps and music and movies are fundamentally different, the way these were presented was familiar enough to users who were buying apps to enhance their mobile devices. The App Store was a quick success, it inspired the Mac App store and made it possible to buy applications directly from a Mac and, even better, application updates are now handled automatically in the background.

More importantly, the App Store has become a storefront for thousands of developers and their mobile apps. It is by far the most profitable platform for mobile developers. 75 billion app downloads have been made in the past six years. 

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Read 5000 newspapers from all over the world on your iPhone/iPad with Ynews

Following the success of myTuner Radio, AppGeneration has just released a brand new media app for iOS, named Ynews. With this new app you can browse more than 5000 online newspapers in 80 countries. It also allows you to read the news on your native language without needing to leave the app. Since it auto translates newspaper websites, it enables you to read a Chinese newspaper in Russian, an English tech magazine in Spanish or a Thai economic newspaper in French!

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Google+ lets you re-edit your edited photos

Confused? Well, it’s much simpler than the title of this entry. Google+ Photos is giving users the ability to return to the previous edits you’ve done on your photos. It also keeps the original image intact so you don’t have to worry about your image getting “destroyed.” For example, you can keep the frame choice you selected for a previously edited image and adjust brightness and contrast. You just need to open “Edits” on the Chrome editor to adjust the edits you have previously made.

According to Engadget, it currently only works on Chrome. But iOS, Android, and Chrome will be getting the new Auto Awesome Effects that stylizes your image when you upload it. Of course, you can remove this edit, too, if you don’t like it.

MakerBot Mobile places the power of 3D printing on your iPhone

MakerBot Mobile has been released. This iOS app places the MakerBot 3D Ecosystem right in the palm of your hand – on your smartphone! MakerBot Mobile is the first mobile app that gives you the power to monitor and control a MakerBot Replicator® Desktop 3D Printer and access all things MakerBot from a mobile device.

The free MakerBot Mobile app uses the power of cloud computing to access your personal 3D printing library and Thingiverse, and to print files on Fifth Generation MakerBot Replicator® 3D Printers, which include the MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printer, the MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D Printer and the soon to be released MakerBot Replicator Z18 3D Printer. To download MakerBot Mobile, visit the app store on iTunes.

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