WildTangent makes mobile gaming debut with Polar Bowler

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WildTangent is going mobile. The Redmond-based company today officially announced its first mobile game, Polar Bowler 1st Frame. It’s the mobile version of the classic PC game that debuted in 2004 and features a polar bear wearing sunglasses with a Hawaiian shirt soaring through an icy bowling alley. WildTangent, ranked 16th in our GeekWire 200 Startup List, released the free… Read More…

Android vs. iOS: 136 million to 27 million shipments in Q3

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Android continued to gain market share during the third quarter, accounting for 75 percent of all smartphone shipments. That compared to 15 percent for Apple’s iOS and 4.3 percent for BlackBerry, according to a report out from IDC. Windows Phone, while showing gains from the third quarter of 2011, still remains far behind at just… Read More…

Inside story: How Facebook decided to go native on iOS

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Facebook’s new app for iPhone and iPad has made an impression on users with a significant improvement in speed and performance. In the world of software development, the project has also gotten lots of attention because of the company’s decision to shift key components of the app to native iOS code, moving away from HTML5. But the… Read More…

Podcast: iOS 6, iPhone 5, and more from the week in tech

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We had a lot of fun putting together this week’s GeekWire radio show and podcast, talking at length about Apple’s new iOS 6 and iPhone 5. To start, John tells the unbelievable story of what happened after he updated his iPhone 4 to the new iOS 6 — a story that involves an encounter with a… Read More…

Sword of Fargoal 2 wants to add to retro dungeon-crawling with Kickstarter

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Jeff McCord is a well-known name within the retro gaming crowd. Over 25 years ago, he created one of the most challenging “Roguelike” dungeon-crawlers for the Commodore 64, called Sword of Fargoal. Since then, he’s managed to remake the original title for iOS-based devices, as well as obtain “Best Retro Game (iPad division)” within the 2010… Read More…

Apple’s Siri turns one: Do iPhone users care?

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One year ago today, Apple introduced Siri to the world. For some, Siri represented the future of how we might interact with our devices. But for a great many, reality has not exactly lived up to the hype (especially as advertised by Samuel L. Jackson and Zoey Deschanel).  According to a survey conducted by the… Read More…

Z2Live’s hit Battle Nations expands from iOS to Mac

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The phrase “cross-platform game” might conjure up images of Xbox Live and PC gaming, or turn-based games that work across Android and iPhone. But what about Mac and iOS? That’s the big news for Battle Nations fans this week. They can play now the popular game across both Apple mobile devices and Macs, after Seattle-based… Read More…

Amazon brings Instant Video service to iPad with new app

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Amazon.com, looking to expand its presence in digital video, debuted a new iPad app this morning that brings its Instant Video service to the Apple tablet. It’s good news for iPad owners who subscribe to the $79/year Amazon Prime service, who get access at no extra charge to a subset of the Amazon video catalog.  About… Read More…

Survey: iOS beating Android for business apps, creating opportunity for Windows 8

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App developers see the tide turning in Apple’s favor inside many companies, with iOS outpacing Android as the preferred mobile platform for the enterprise, according to a new survey from mobile platform company Appcelerator and the IDC research firm. “The big news is that Apple’s iOS took a dramatic lead over Google’s Android in the… Read More…

Android vs. iOS: Which one should app makers bet on?

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If you could bet on just one mobile platform as an app developer, which would it be? That was my opening question last week when I moderated a panel discussion hosted by University of Washington Professional & Continuing Education, featuring tech veterans from Cisco, Starbucks, Amazon and PopCap Games who teach and advise some of… Read More…

GeekWire Radio: Microsoft’s tablet, Apple’s upgrades, and more from the week in tech

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I’m headed to Los Angeles on Monday for Microsoft’s mystery announcement, and we kick off this week’s GeekWire radio show and podcast by examining the possibility that the company will be coming out with its own branded tablet to rival Apple’s iPad and possibly even Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Then we round up the highlights of… Read More…

Microsoft stuck behind Samsung Bada in smartphone sales

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Microsoft is aiming to make Windows Phone a strong No. 3 in the smartphone market, behind Android and iPhone, but first it has a different rival to overcome: Samsung’s Bada smartphone operating system. Not to mention RIM and Symbian. The Redmond company remained in sixth place in smartphone operating system sales in the first quarter,… Read More…

Ask Andru: How can I make my iPad louder?

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In today’s Ask Andru column, we get a question about an issue with the iPad that we’ve actually experienced ourselves for years. Ever since the release of the original iPad, it’s been painfully obvious that the speaker on the Apple tablet isn’t exactly up to snuff. It’s fine if you’re somewhere quiet, but go somewhere that… Read More…

Mobile vets: Windows Phone is great, but it has a long way to go to catch Apple and Android

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We brought together some of the top thinkers in the mobile industry Wednesday afternoon for the GeekWire Summit in Seattle. And while much of the chatter on the panel had to do with the newly-released iPad and the dominance of Android, the panelists nearly all agreed that Microsoft finally has developed a mobile operating system… Read More…

Study: Personal devices now used for work in 88% of businesses

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Nearly nine out of 10 companies are seeing employees use personal phones, tablets and computers at work — marking a sharp rise in the trend known as the “consumerization of IT,” according to a study released this morning by Avanade, the Seattle-based technology consulting company. The study debunks the myth that companies are resisting personal… Read More…

Microsoft Hotmail soars on iPhone and Android, now available on Kindle Fire

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Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail has surpassed 12 million active users on Apple iOS devices — a dramatic climb resulting from the simplified process for setting up the Microsoft webmail service in Apple’s iOS5. Hotmail has also seen a sharp increase in Android usage, now topping 3 million active users, since releasing an app for the… Read More…

Microsoft’s latest iPhone app: Kinectimals game now on iOS

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Microsoft this morning took another step to expand the world of Xbox 360 games to Apple iOS devices, releasing a version of its Kinectimals mobile game for iPhone and iPad. As with the Windows Phone version, the mobile game for iOS is a companion to Kinectimals on Xbox 360, allowing players to interact with their… Read More…

Ask Andru: Apple iMessage Follow-Up

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The first ever Ask Andru column featured a question about Apple’s iMessage, a proprietary method the company uses to allow owners of iOS devices to send text messages, pictures, and videos to each other through Apple’s servers, bypassing the traditional wireless carrier. This allows users to send as many messages as they want without having… Read More…

Zipline releases WolfToss on iOS, Android and Chrome

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The significance of WolfToss isn’t necessarily the game itself — though Zipline Games co-founder Todd Hooper admits that he spent an inordinate amount of time over the Thanksgiving holiday slinging the Big Bad Wolf at pigs and boars. The real significance of the title, the first for Zipline using the open source Moai platform, is… Read More…