Archive for the ‘Site News’ Category

New on AppShopper: Mac OS Apps

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

We’re happy to announce that Mac OS applications in the Mac App Store that launched earlier this month are now included on AppShopper. As with iOS apps, you can now browse and track Mac apps on AppShopper, including adding them to your Wish List and receiving email notifications of price drops and updates.

A new toggle in the upper left hand corner lets you switch between iOS and Mac apps, and all Mac apps are clearly labeled “Mac OS” next to the version number.

A toggle to select Mac, iOS, and All apps will be added soon to sort searches and the My Apps and Wish List tabs.

RSS feeds for Mac apps will be added shortly to the sidebar on the right on the What’s New tab though these will only represent some of the RSS feeds available. Any combination of the filters in What’s New can be chosen, and the corresponding RSS feed link is displayed in the upper right corner.

The Mac App Store is still quite new and doesn’t have nearly as many apps as the iOS App Store. As of this post, there are just over 1,300 apps in the Mac App Store compared to more than 300,000 iPhone and iPad apps in the iOS App Store. While we don’t expect the Mac App Store to experience the same kind of massive growth that the iOS App Store has in the past 2 1/2 years, we’re sure there will soon be no shortage of Mac apps to suit a wide range of needs in the Mac App Store.

If you use our official AppShopper iOS app, note that Mac Apps will not be visible within the app. Also, our importer tools for the Mac and Windows will only import iOS app information from your computer to your AppShopper account at this time.

Mac App Store Support Coming Soon

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Apple launched the Mac App Store last week. It seeks to replicate the massive success of the iOS App Store with Apple’s desktop machines. The Mac App Store carries a very similar structure to the iOS App Store, so it should come as no surprise that we are planning on supporting it here on AppShopper.

The Mac App Store is at its infancy right now, so the volume is significantly less. In fact, here’s a list of all new apps launched on the Mac App Store yesterday:

New Mac Apps on 1/11/2011

- Playwatch
- FileMyFiles
- Foodurama
- RightClickMP3
- Vault
- FaceTop – Facebook Photo Downloader
- Clemenza’s Notepad for Mac
- Fireplace (Yule Log) HD
- Witch
- Big Mountain Snowboarding
- Tiles
- Cleopatra: a Queen’s Destiny
- GrowlVoice
- Acupoints Ultimate
- Braid
- Chickens vs. Weasils
- uBoot – submarine game
- Aa Match Preschool Alphabet (Free)
- Postbox
- Ohm’s Law Calculator
- GeekBench 2
- QuickPick
- DocScanner
- Backdrop (Free)
- FolderWatch
- Dracula Series : La Voie du Dragon – Episode 1
- Battle Bears – 1 Mac
- Let’s Golf HD

In contrast, about 600 new apps in the iOS App Store over the same time period. Regardless, even with the lower volume, we still find it hard to discover new apps or app changes through the App Store interface. That’s why we created AppShopper, and we hope Mac support to be implemented very soon.

AppShopper Importer Tools for Mac and Windows Available

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Yesterday we noted some recent changes to the AppShopper site and we wanted to highlight a free tool to help you keep track of your current apps. Importer applications for both Mac and Windows users are available – the Importer will pull the complete list of apps you already own from iTunes on your computer into your AppShopper profile.

You can download the Importer tool from the following links:

- AppShopper Importer 1.0.3 (Mac)
- AppShopper Importer 1.0.3 (Windows)

The Importer will pull only the names of apps from your iTunes library and nothing else. The application will ask you to log in to your AppShopper account to get started. If you don’t already have an account, you can create one here (accounts are free).

As we also mentioned yesterday, you can rate the apps you own in the My Apps tab by clicking on the star that best represents your opinion of the app as shown in the screenshot below:

We’ll be working to aggregate this rating data and make it accessible to all AppShopper users.

Some Changes to AppShopper (Ratings, What’s New)

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

Regular users of the site may have noticed some changes to the site over the past day or so. Unfortunately, we’ve have to remove a couple of features from the site.

- App listings presently have no App Store “rating” associated with them.
- “What’s New” text is no longer available for updates.

The lack of the official App Store rating is due to our effort to stay in compliance with Apple’s policy on pulling data from the App Store. At their request, we will no longer be pulling the official App Store ratings for AppShopper. A side effect has been that we’ve also lost the “What’s New” data for now. That data, however, we still hope will return in the near future.

Readers should note that we do have plans to replace that rating data in useful and interesting ways. AppShopper users have long been able to rate owned apps under the MyApps tab. It’s a feature we’ve had for some time, but one we haven’t promoted. We will be making it easier for you to rate your own apps, and aggregating that data for everyone’s benefit.

As a first step to make that easier, here are links to importer tools that allow you to seed your MyApps list automatically from your home computer:

Download Links for AppShopper Importer

- AppShopper Importer 1.0.3 (Mac)
- AppShopper Importer 1.0.3 (Windows)

Finally, we are also working on integrating 3rd party review site ratings and review links into our listings to provide additional perspectives on Apps.

All in all, there’s a lot of work being done behind the scenes here at AppShopper, and over the next few weeks to months, there should be some nice improvements seen.

Official AppShopper App Updated

Friday, November 19th, 2010

The official AppShopper app has been updated with a several new features, including the ability to remove ads via an in-app purchase, iOS 4.2 compatbility and more. Our official app was first released in September and received its last update adding push notifications just last month.

The universal app allows you to browse all of our current AppShopper filters (Categories, All/Popular, Paid/Free, New/Price Drops/Updates) and also gives you access to your own personal Wish List and Own List. You can choose to receive push notifications when there are updates or price changes in both lists.

The full list of new features and changes in version 1.3 is as follows:

  • In app purchase option to remove ads (iPhone/iPod touch only)
  • Added settings to block specific categories, select a specific country/currency, and block non-Western language apps
  • Popular and What’s New filters are now independent of each other
  • Improved warnings and dialogs when device is in airplane mode
  • iOS 4.2 tested
  • Various bug fixes and improvements

Removing ads via in-app purchase costs $.99. The AppShopper app itself is free to download and use.

In case you missed it, the AppShopper.com Importer is available and will import the complete list of apps you already own from iTunes on your computer to your AppShopper profile. AppShopper Importer is for the Mac only though a Windows version is in beta testing. You can download the Mac version of the application here. The importer will pull only the app names from your iTunes library and nothing else. The application will ask you to log in to your AppShopper account to get started. If you don’t already have an account, you can create one here (accounts are free).

  • Utilities

    AppShopper

    Last Changed:
    9 months ago
    Rating:
    4.00 (138)
    Version:
    1.4.4
    iOS Universal

    The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

Apple Providing Live Video Stream of Today’s ‘Back to the Mac’ Event

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Apple is hosting a media event today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time / 1:00 p.m. Eastern time at its Cupertino, California headquarters. The event is titled “Back to the Mac” and mulitple product announcements are expected, including the introduction of the next version of the Mac OS, a significantly revised MacBook Air, an updated iLife software suite, and possibly an entirely new product.

Apple will be streaming video of the event live over the internet and has posted an Events page here. The company notes the following requirements to view the video:

Streaming video requires Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Safari on iOS 3 or later.

MacRumors.com will be providing coverage of the live event (a spoiler-free page is available here). While we don’t expect any news about iOS or iOS devices, we’ll summarize today’s news for you here at AppShopper as well.

Blocking Non-Western Language Apps on AppShopper

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

The App Store is a massive international phenomenon, and attracts Apps from all different languages. While Apple provides regional App Stores for different countries, the U.S. store still attracts a wide range of languages.

One frequent request we have received is the ability to block specific languages from the AppShopper lists. Language detection can be tricky, but we’ve now included a preference in your user profile that allows you to block Apps in non-western languages. This includes Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian, and a few others.

This feature is only available on the website at the moment, but will trickle into the App in the next major version. We are also working on other features to be more usable in countries outside the U.S.

Official AppShopper App Gets Push Notifications

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Version 1.2 of the official AppShopper app has been approved, adding push notifications for app updates and price changes. Push notifications join a list of updates the app received earlier today in version 1.1:

  • Filtering capabilities for My Apps and Wish List
  • Tell a Friend (email includes a link to the webpage for the app)
  • Settings (app device compatibility filtering, notification options, and log in/out of your account) added
  • Help section added
  • Various optimizations and bug fixes

A minor issue made push notifications unavailable in version 1.1 released earlier today, which has been addressed in version 1.2.

In case you missed it, the AppShopper.com Importer is available and will import the complete list of apps you already own from iTunes on your computer to your AppShopper profile. AppShopper Importer is for the Mac only though a Windows version is in beta testing (if you have a Windows computer and want to help us test it, let us know) . You can download the Mac version of the application here. It will pull only the app names from your iTunes library and nothing else. The application will ask you to log in to your AppShopper account to get started. If you don’t already have an account, you can create one here (accounts are free).

At the the time of this post, the 1.2 update is still propagating through Apple’s servers and may not yet be available for all users. Reminder: Push notifications won’t work in 1.1.

  • Utilities

    AppShopper

    Last Changed:
    9 months ago
    Rating:
    4.00 (138)
    Version:
    1.4.4
    iOS Universal

    The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

AppShopper 1.0.2 Out – Download Now

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

AppShopper 1.0.2 is out. It addresses the crash-on-launch bug that affected users of earlier devices (iPod Touch, iPhone 3G) and iOS 3.x. So if you didn’t have a chance to try out the new features in 1.0.1, give them a shot now. I’ve recapped the 1.0.1 notes here in case you missed them:

The most noticeable features include:

Slide to Reload

Popularized by Tweetie, “Slide to Reload” allows you to easily reload the current view by pulling the list past the first item on the list. Just drag the whole list down and it will reload the view:

Swipe to Delete

A standard feature in many iPhone apps, you can down swipe from left-to-right in your Wishlist and My Apps list to remove an app from that list. Previously, you had to tap on the app, and then unselect the “Want It” or “Own It” buttons.

Other new features and fixes include:

- Remembers your password until you log out
- Passwords with special characters now work
- Links that appear in an app’s description are now tappable
- Tap menu bar to scroll to top of list
- Fixes an issue where the user would get bounced back to page 1 of My Apps or Wish List after navigating down several pages
- Faster linking to the App Store
- Lots of bug fixes and optimizations

Note that Push notifications, in-app purchase to remove ads, and much more is in the works. Push notifications will be the priority to get into the next update.

Note: It may take a few hours for the update to be available in your location. If it doesn’t work or appear, please try again in a couple of hours.

  • Utilities

    AppShopper

    Last Changed:
    9 months ago
    Rating:
    4.00 (138)
    Version:
    1.4.4
    iOS Universal

    The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

AppShopper App Version 1.0.1 Out Now – Big Fixes and More

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Warning: There is an issue in version 1.0.1 that is causing crashes on devices running iOS 3.x and iPhone 3Gs running all iOS versions. iPhone 4s and iPhone 3GSs seem to work fine. Please refrain from updated until 1.0.2 arrives. 1.0.2 has already been submitted.


Our developer team worked hard and quickly to push out the first update for the AppShopper app in under a week. This app is primarily a bug fix and performance tweak update, but we’ve added a couple of nice new features.

The most noticeable features include:

Slide to Reload

Popularized by Tweetie, “Slide to Reload” allows you to easily reload the current view by pulling the list past the first item on the list. Just drag the whole list down and it will reload the view:

Swipe to Delete

A standard feature in many iPhone apps, you can down swipe from left-to-right in your Wishlist and My Apps list to remove an app from that list. Previously, you had to tap on the app, and then unselect the “Want It” or “Own It” buttons.

Other new features and fixes include:

- Remembers your password until you log out
- Passwords with special characters now work
- Links that appear in an app’s description are now tappable
- Tap menu bar to scroll to top of list
- Fixes an issue where the user would get bounced back to page 1 of My Apps or Wish List after navigating down several pages
- Faster linking to the App Store
- Lots of bug fixes and optimizations

Note that Push notifications, in-app purchase to remove ads, and much more is in the works. Push notifications will be the priority to get into the next update.

  • Utilities

    AppShopper

    Last Changed:
    9 months ago
    Rating:
    4.00 (138)
    Version:
    1.4.4
    iOS Universal

    The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...