Archivi mensili: Febbraio 2017

App stores typically take the form of an online store, where users can browse through these different app categories, view information about each app (such as reviews or ratings), and acquire the app (including app purchase, if necessary – many apps are offered at no cost). The selected app is offered as an automatic download, after which the app installs. Some app stores may also include a system to automatically remove an installed program from devices under certain conditions, with the goal of protecting the user against malicious software.

Many app stores are curated by their owners, requiring that submissions of prospective apps go through an approval process. These apps are inspected for compliance with certain guidelines (such as those for quality control and censorship), including the requirement that a commission be collected on each sale of a paid app. With the ease of use apps offer, and their presence on most mobile devices, app stores rose to prominence at the beginning of the 21st century with their adoption by iOS (iOS App Store) and Android (Google Play). Similar systems for the distribution of apps written for other operating systems have also been available for some time (particularly Linux distributions since the early 1990s), through package management systems and their graphical front-ends.

App stores typically take the form of an online store, where users can browse through these different app categories, view information about each app (such as reviews or ratings), and acquire the app (including app purchase, if necessary – many apps are offered at no cost). The selected app is offered as an automatic download, after which the app installs. Some app stores may also include a system to automatically remove an installed program from devices under certain conditions, with the goal of protecting the user against malicious software.

Many app stores are curated by their owners, requiring that submissions of prospective apps go through an approval process. These apps are inspected for compliance with certain guidelines (such as those for quality control and censorship), including the requirement that a commission be collected on each sale of a paid app. With the ease of use apps offer, and their presence on most mobile devices, app stores rose to prominence at the beginning of the 21st century with their adoption by iOS (iOS App Store) and Android (Google Play). Similar systems for the distribution of apps written for other operating systems have also been available for some time (particularly Linux distributions since the early 1990s), through package management systems and their graphical front-ends.

The Electronic AppWrapper  was the first commercial electronic software distribution catalog to collectively manage encryption and provide digital rights for apps and digital media(issue #3 was the app store originally demonstrated to Steve Jobs at NeXTWorld EXPO).[4] While a Senior Editor at NeXTWORLD Magazine, Simson Garfinkel, rated The Electronic AppWrapper 4 3/4 Cubes (out of 5), in his formal review. Paget’s Electronic AppWrapper was named a finalist in the highly competitive InVision Multimedia ’93 awards in January, 1993 and won the Best of Breed award for Content and Information at NeXTWORLD Expo in May, 1993.

The Electronic AppWrapper  was the first commercial electronic software distribution catalog to collectively manage encryption and provide digital rights for apps and digital media(issue #3 was the app store originally demonstrated to Steve Jobs at NeXTWorld EXPO). While a Senior Editor at NeXTWORLD Magazine, Simson Garfinkel, rated The Electronic AppWrapper 4 3/4 Cubes (out of 5), in his formal review. Paget’s Electronic AppWrapper was named a finalist in the highly competitive InVision Multimedia ’93 awards in January, 1993 and won the Best of Breed award for Content and Information at NeXTWORLD Expo in May, 1993.

Many Linux distributions and other Unix-like systems provide a tool known as a package manager, which allows a user to automatically manage the software installed on their systems (including both operating system components and third-party software) using command line tools—new software (and the packages required for its proper operation) can be retrieved from local or remote mirrors and automatically installed in a single process. Notable package managers in Unix-like operating systems have included pkgsrc (1997), Debian’s APT (1998), YUM, and Gentoo’s Portage (which unlike most package managers, distributes packages containing source code that is automatically compiled instead of executables). Some package managers have graphical front-end software which can be used to browse available packages and perform operations, such as Synaptic (which is often used as a front-end for APT).

In 1996, the SUSE Linux distribution has YaST as frontend for its own app repository. Mandriva Linux has urpmi with GUI frontend called Rpmdrake. Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux has YUM in 2003 as a successor of YUP (developed at Duke University for Red Hat Linux).

The term “app” is a shortening of the term “application software”. It has become very popular, and in 2010 was listed as “Word of the Year” by the American Dialect Society. In 2009, technology columnist David Pogue said that newer smartphones could be nicknamed “app phones” to distinguish them from earlier less-sophisticated smartphones.
The official US Army iPhone app presents the service’s technology news, updates and media in a single place

Mobile apps were originally offered for general productivity and information retrieval, including email, calendar, contacts, stock market and weather information. However, public demand and the availability of developer tools drove rapid expansion into other categories, such as those handled by desktop application software packages. As with other software, the explosion in number and variety of apps made discovery a challenge, which in turn led to the creation of a wide range of review, recommendation, and curation sources, including blogs, magazines, and dedicated online app-discovery services. In 2014 government regulatory agencies began trying to regulate and curate apps, particularly medical apps. Some companies offer apps as an alternative method to deliver content with certain advantages over an official website.

Usage of mobile apps has become increasingly prevalent across mobile phone users. A May 2012 comScore study reported that during the previous quarter, more mobile subscribers used apps than browsed the web on their devices: 51.1% vs. 49.8% respectively.Researchers found that usage of mobile apps strongly correlates with user context and depends on user’s location and time of the day. Mobile apps are playing an ever-increasing role within healthcare and when designed and integrated correctly can yield many benefits.

Market research firm Gartner predicted that 102 billion apps would be downloaded in 2013 (91% of them free), which would generate $26 billion in the US, up 44.4% on 2012’s US$18 billion. By Q2 2015, the Google Play and Apple stores alone generated $5 billion. An analyst report estimates that the app economy creates revenues of more than €10 billion per year within the European Union, while over 529,000 jobs have been created in 28 EU states due to the growth of the app market.

App Store is a digital distribution platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on iOS. The store allows users to browse and download applications that are developed with Apple’s iOS SDK. The apps can be downloaded to iOS devices; the iPhone smartphone, the iPod Touch handheld computer, the iPad tablet computer, and to the Apple Watch and 4th generation Apple TV as extensions of iPhone apps.

In 2016, Apple rolled out major changes to App Store, including ads in search results and a new app subscription model. The subscription model saw the firmly established 70/30 revenue split between developers (who have traditionally received 70% of money earned from purchases) and Apple (which has traditionally earned 30%) change into a new 85/15 revenue split between developers and Apple if a user stays subscribed to the developer’s app for a year.

On September 1, 2016, Apple announced that starting September 7, it would be removing old apps that do not function as intended or that don’t follow current review guidelines. Developers will be warned and given 30 days to update their apps, but apps that crash on startup will be removed immediately. Additionally, app names registered by developers cannot exceed 50 characters, in an attempt to stop developers from inserting long descriptions or irrelevant terms in app names to improve the app’s ranking in App Store search results. App intelligence firm Sensor Tower revealed in November 2016 that Apple, as promised from its September announcement of removing old apps, had removed 47,300 apps from App Store in October 2016, a 238 percent increase of its prior number of average monthly app removals.