According to report, there is 60 percentage of increase in downloads, compared to previous week of Christmas.
“Flurry estimated that a record-breaking 6.8 million iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day, along with an equally record-breaking 242 million application downloads. Studying the data from December 25 – December 31, additional records were set, now for the highest number of device activations and app downloads of any week in history. Over the holiday “power week,” Flurry estimates that over 20 million iOS and Android devices were activated, and 1.2 billion applications were downloaded. “

The United States contributes highest number of 509 million downloads, representing 42.3 percentage global application downloads. China takes second position with 99 million downloads, followed by U.K., Canada, France and many more. Below is the Holiday week downloads graph by Flurry, showing top 20 countries.

The company also said that the new version can now generate test scripts in Objective-C for use with OCUnit, or in JavaScript for use with UI Automation tools from Apple. Testing in development phase has always been considered a monotonous process and time taking one by iPhone developers. The automation of the testing process will make application development more fun and even more agile. All these and Gorilla Logic doesn’t even charge a penny for it. Download the free tool here.

The new set of features has been used on over 800 video games and now it is being optimized for mobile devices. Some of the key features include-

• Multiple threads that will allow iPhone developers to create fast, graphically-rich mobile applications.
• The Analyzer for Memory and Performance (AMP) tool will provide information on CPU usage, memory allocation and rendering stats to the iPhone app developer.
• Mobile UI Kit to aid quick app development.
• Flash 10.1’s multi-touch API support for multi-touch functionality in applications.
• Stereoscopic 3D for providing Flash UIs and games on auto-stereo 3D mobile gaming devices, smart phones and tablets.

In a press release from the company, Brendan Iribe, president and CEO of Scaleform says “The inclusion of advanced features like the new multi-threaded rendering engine to accelerate mobile content brings Scaleform’s power and extensibility to a completely new market.”

“Not only can game developers familiar with Scaleform use it to create immersive mobile games and interfaces; any application developer can now use Scaleform to power graphically rich apps and custom user interfaces for many of the most popular mobile devices available today” he adds.

Beta 1 of iOS 4.3 offered Personal Hotspot, a new feature that would allow iPhone owners to share their 3G Internet connection and tether devices over Wi-Fi. It also introduced a new feature for third-party application development in which iPhone app developers can draw on AirPlay to stream videos into apps. Beta 1 also offered a choice of hardware switch to users.

With iOS 4.3 beta 2, Apple confirmed to the market that multiple touch gestures will not be available on its devices for customers and it was a preview only aimed to gauge reactions of iPhone application developers.

The recently released beta 3 has a new feature that will allow iPhone owners to cancel App downloads anytime. This feature will be particularly useful in situations where users have accidentally initiated app downloads.

A lot of people want to learn Mac OS X and iPhone app development these days and there are various ways to do so . One of them is Books which have always formed the base of learning system and come in various languages and from different authors . ” Learning Objective-C 2.0 – A hands on Guide to Objective-C for Mac and iOS Developers ” is a handy guide for newbies who have some working knowledge of C even if your C is rusty you can have a quick look at the basics and essential parts of C in the first few chapter , this will brush up your basics and prepare you to get started with Objective-C 2.0 .

The books cover some really interesting and essential aspects of Objective C and C programming language . Have a look at them below :

• The books takes care of basic concepts of C programming language for beginners while it also explains with examples how to deal with advance issues .
• The level of explanation is a perfect fit for both , a beginner and an advanced programmer .
• The is a helpful reference guide for experts who are more into advanced programming .
• Developers really don’t need to think about Mac Development in a different way. It shows how close Mac Development is with iOS or vise versa.
• The book covers every little feature of Objective-C 2.0 right from class instances till the recently introduced (in Objective-C 2.0) “Blocks programming”. It also explains newbies what is Cocoa Framework & what are its components.
• It actually explains complex concepts in very easy language with great examples.

New concepts introduced in Objective-C 2.0 :

• Garbage collection – adds automatic memory management to Objective-C
• Blocks – let you define function like objects that carry their context
• Declared properties – provide an easy way to specify an object’s instance variable and to have the compiler create methods to access those variables for you.
• Fast Enumeration – provide a simple and fast way to iterate over a collection of objects .

This is by far the best book which explains ‘Memory Management’ so well, with in depth of Retain count, etc. If one ever had a problem understanding memory management even in C++ or another language, we suggest them going through this book once and read how Garbage Collection works on Mac and how it’s done in iOS , which has been explained in detail. We completely admire this chapter of the book. Another thing we like about the book is the explanation on ‘Block programming’ , which has been recently introduced in Objective-C 2.0 and will be a great asset to developers .

If you plan to learn iPhone(iOS) app development or Mac OS X development this book is worth its price of $20.94 . You can get it from Amazon as a kindle edition or a paperback format . Whats inside the book ? Have a look here .

We’re inching ever closer to the public release of iOS 4.2 for iPad, people! Apple’s developer center just posted build 8C148, listed as iOS 4.2.1 GM (gold master). Does this mean we’re getting iOS 4.2 tomorrow? We’ll keep refreshing our iTunes update screens and running our shell scripts — as soon as we see the new version drop, we will let iPhone app developers know about it .

And just as we expected , Apple is here with the iOS 4.2 beta 2 for iPad , iPod touch and iPhone application developers .

IPhone application developers may check out this new update from Apple here ( you will need to be a part of the iPhone developer program to access this update ) .

Most of the iPhone developers are already running iOS 4.2 beta 2 , so go and grab it soon and do let us know how you find this update and how different is it from the iOS 4.2 beta 1 .

Features of iOS 4.2 Software Update

Features like wireless printing, AirPlay and Airtunes will also be available.In Wireless printing, Print Center appears with the number of print jobs in the multitasking tray. With AirPlay [previously AirTunes] you can listen to music from all over your house from your mobile device. Apart from it, you can even stream all kinds of media anywhere in your house. Amazing feature! Isn’t?

According to Apple’s press release, AirPrint automatically locate printers on local networks and can print text, photos and graphics to them wirelessly over Wi-Fi without the need to install drivers or download software. The printer manufacturers need to build AirPrint support into their printers as available with HP’s ePrint enabled printers – such as the HP Photosmart, Officejet, Officejet Pro and LaserJet Pro series.

Here is the list of compatible printers with which you can test the AirPrint function:

• HP Photosmart Premium e-Fax All-in-One Printer – C410
• HP Photosmart Premium-All-in-One Printer series – C310
• HP Photosmart All-in-Plus-One Printer series – B210

iOS 4.2 software update works with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G and it is important to note that all features are not compatible with all iDevices. For example, multitasking is available only with iPhone 4, iPad and iPhone 3GS. If you want to install iOS 4.1 on your iPhone then use the following link to download and install iPhone OS 4.1 firmware.

Download iOS 4.2 Beta and SDK for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

iOS 4.2 and SDK or http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EV79Z6MF

Marcus Ryle, Senior Vice President of New Business Development at Line 6, has recently said, “With Apple’s new iOS 4 it is now possible for any developer to create MIDI-enabled applications that work with MIDI Mobilizer. As an open invitation to developers, we are now providing the SDK at no charge, and are not charging any license fee or royalty.”

MIDI Mobilizer is a small hardware device which fits into the standard 30-pin connector of the Apple devices, like – iPhone, iPod touch & iPad. The device can connect your Apple products to millions of classic and modern MIDI gears, e.g. digital pianos, synthesizers, effects processors etc. The list can also include virtually any device that has a standard MIDI 5-pin DIN connectors. For example you can say, Line 6 guitar amps and POD products.

Line 6 also provides a free MIDI Mobilizer SDK. The benefit of this is future applications will also be supported.
The trend in third party iPhone application development for MIDI Mobilizer has raised the standard to a new height. Now you have MIDI Live, which provides the playback & real-time modification option for any Standard MIDI File song. There is MIDI Surface, that can transform an iPhone, iPod touch or even an iPad into a all-purpose MIDI controller. MIDI Memo Recorder is also available. It offers the MIDI musicians with a bunch of solutions relating performance, recording and data backup. The list goes on and on. All these apps are well available in the App Store.

You can request for the free SDK (Software Development Kit) from Line 6 sending a mail to MMdeveloper@line6.com.

About two weeks ago, iPhone application developers TapTapTap pushed an update for their Camera+ photography app to the App Store, and all seemed well. But recently , they revealed in a tweet that this latest build had a hidden feature: by visiting the URL camplus://enablevolumesnap in Mobile Safari, one could make the volume buttons on the side of the iPhone instead act as a camera shutter button — something which Apple was always against and the message was pulled out withing 30 minutes .

Apple doesn’t like hidden features bypass its terms and such Apps dont stay in air for long , the Camera+ app has been pulled from the App Store.

We were able to get the App’s product page to come up once, but attempting to purchase it spit back the standard “The item you tried to buy is no longer available” error that shows whenever anyone’s wrists are being slapped.

TapTapTap is well know iPhone development team and Camera+ was even featured as ‘App of the week ‘ a while back . Such tricks have earned many iPhone developers a year-long ban from the app store , lets see if TapTapTap’s positive history and contribution to App store keeps them safe on App store .