New bans from Apple, free Marmalade and new gadgets from Samsung and Amazon - the main mobile news of the week

New phones from Samsung and Amazon

The summer season promises to be hot in terms of releases of new phones. Apple during WWDC did not say a word about the new iPhones, as if teasing competitors who are struggling to fight the hegemony of the company from Cupertino.

Authoritative The Wall Street Journal reports that on June 18, Amazon is organizing an event in Seattle, within which, supposedly, the “same” new phone will be shown with a 3D management interface. Actually, this is directly stated in the invitation, which is sent to journalists. But representatives of the company have not yet commented on the nearest announcement. Obviously, Amazon is trying to expand its ecosystem to distribute digital content. There is no doubt about the deep integration of the device with the bookstore, but how applications will live there will be an open question.
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Samsung is also trying to expand its ecosystem. And if for Amazon, the fact of the release of the device is an innovative step, then for Koreans, the emphasis is on the release of the first phone with a proprietary OS. The company actively supports Android, but leaves no hope for the development of its platform Tizen.

We at KamaGames Studio are actively exploring the possibilities of the new platform and, of course, we are waiting for the release of the first phone at Tizen. Wait is not long. Samsung Z is officially announced , and its sales will begin in the third quarter of this year. Begin, which is remarkable, with Russia!

Apple no longer allows users to reward for sharing and viewing ads

Tonight came the news that now in the App Store under the ban get applications in which users are paid for sharing in social networks and watching video ads.

A blow for those game developers whose main income is not built on internal purchases, but on the monetization of non-paying players. While we were writing this post, our friends from App2Top.ru have already dealt with the problem. Read their detailed analysis.

Marmalade becomes free!

This news should please many developers who are considering cross-platform strategies for the development of their projects! Marmalade's free license allows you to create applications and games for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows Store, BlackBerry and Tizen using a single code base. And most importantly, according to the creators, the resultant produces good performance for all devices. Marmalade also boasts a wide range of additional features: advertising, social, services for working with graphics, analytical capabilities and functionality for working with databases.

In one of the latest Cross Platform Tool Benchmarking-2013 research, Research2Guidance called Marmalade the best in performance among all cross-platform solutions, indicating that 88% of Marmalade users rated the performance of applications created using the Marmalade SDK as equal to or better than their native design! This is a serious blow to such a competitive struggle with "you-know-how".

Apple is slowly losing ground in the Japanese tablet market

According to the MM Research Institute, Apple in 2013 weakened its position in the Japanese tablet market. The total number of tablets sold in Japan in 2013 was 7.48 million units, while Apple accounted for 43.8%. For comparison, in 2012 this indicator was equal to 52.5%.

Obviously, Apple is under pressure from Android tablets, which for the first time in 2013 surpassed iOS tablets for sales, the total share of Android tablets was 45.7%.



The trend persists. In the first quarter of 2014, shipments of iOS-based tablets have decreased by 16% compared with the previous year. According to rumors, in 2014, the expected appearance of new tablet models from Apple - iPad Pro oversized. Let's see if this helps Apple spur sales.

Co-founder of Playfish is preparing to launch a new MOBA game

Super Evil Megacorp (a great name for a company, don’t you?), A company that is still in the shadows, has recently received an investment of $ 15 million. The funds are likely to go to the flagship MOBA-product Vainglory. By some surprising coincidence, the desire of investors to invest heavily in the company coincided with the arrival of COO and the executive director of Kristian Segerstrale, co-founder of Playfish and one of the early Supercell investors (sic! And he also worked at Electronic Arts).



The project did not glow much, but with its release (the date has not yet been announced) Super Evil wants to prove that MOBA games can live, work and earn money on mobile tablets. Especially since so many fans of the genre play on the PC. Do you need them to pile up?

Dragon Quest VIII: access to mobile for the anniversary

The notorious Japanese company Square Enix decided to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the launch of Dragon Quest VIII in Japan by launching the iOS and Android ports of this console game. Yes, the control is adapted for touch control, yes, the combat system is adapted for mobile players, yes, it will cost some $ 19.99 to play nostalgia. Is it worth the game? .. Mm, you decide. It seems that this is becoming the standard policy for ported games from Japan - to set prices that are not very familiar to mobile apps.

Capcom transfers game from PSP to mobile

Following Square Enix, another company, also well known to many, Capcom decided to port its game from another (mobile!) PSP console. In the Japanese App Store, the port of the game , known in the West as Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (the Japanese name for iOS is MONSTER HUNTER PORTABLE 2nd G for iOS, is out, are we embarrassed about cool names?).

Improved graphics - done, sharpened under iOS management - also done ... Although it looks quite complicated. Nevertheless, on the PSP the game involved many control points, and transferring it so simply to fully touch control, without changing the game, is not the easiest task. Joint campaigns of monsters are available in groups of up to 4 people, but only through Wi-Fi, network interaction is not supported. On the release for players from the West so far nothing is known. Oh yeah, the price - the Japanese are not turning away from their particular way: 1600 yen (this is tier 14, $ 13.99 for the USA).