1）据网易科技报道，苹果App Store最近调整应用排名算法导致其中国市场的不少应用程序排名大起大落，有些应用甚至狂跌300个名次。

china app store(from iTunes)

与此同时，包括工商银行、建设银行、京东商城等在内的非游戏应用排名至少晋升了100位，社交网站豆瓣旗下的豆瓣FM社交音乐应用从202名上升至126名。由此可看出，这种排名算法更加倚重日常活跃度，以免App Store被用户评价贿赂、花钱操纵应用排名等行为所劫持。

2）IDC Japan最新报告预测，2012年日本智能手机出货量将达3110万部，比2011年增长55%。

japanese-iphone-users(from cultofmac.com)

2011年日本智能手机出货量增长至2010万部，占据所有手机出货量的53%。预计2016年日本智能手机出货量将达3700万部，而该市场平板电脑出货量则将从2012年的330万部增长至2016年的580万部，增幅达48%。

3）据AllThinsD报道，苹果副总裁Michael Tchao近日针对用户投诉新iPad电池性能不佳的问题回应称，新iPad电池在充电达100%之前就已经完全充电，但在到达100%时如果仍未拔掉电源，该设备就会轻微排电以保证设备发挥最佳性能。

New-iPad-battery(from appleprogs.com)

他还表示，无论新iPad是否处于充电状态，其电池续航能力都可以达到10个小时。

4）据福布斯报道，Baird Equity Research最近调查报告显示有29%的“科技达人”计划在未来三个月内购买新iPad，但也有22%表示有意购买打折后的iPad 2。

iPad buyers(from csmonitor)

24%美国人打算购买新iPad，15%欲购买iPad 2。48%原iPad用户也打算购买新iPad，其中有35%用户已经持有iPad 2。

这些用户称Retina Display屏幕是他们选择新iPad的首要原因，有26%认为四核处理器才是关键，还有17%用户是看中LTE技术支持。但是问及何为LTE（游戏邦注：下一代移动通信技术“长期演进”的缩写）时，有59%受访者一无所知。

5）Zynga英国工作室总经理Matthew Wiggins在最近的伦敦Free2Play峰会上表示，有时候意外的成功所带来的害处可能与彻底失败无异（游戏邦注：Zynga在2011年4月收购了Wonderland，并将其重新命名为Zynga Mobile UK）。

GodFinger(from appolicious.com)

他以自己之前的工作室Wonderland旗下iOS游戏《GodFinger》为例，表示当时Wonderland考虑到了该游戏可能失败的多种情况，但却从来没有想过它可能成为热门大作，也就是说，他们没有做好成功的准备。

该游戏开发周期与掌机游戏无异，历时数年之久，他们做了多种最坏的打算，但游戏突然在App Store排行榜登顶时，他们却完全没有新内容可呈现给用户。

6）移动广告网站inneractive最近发布的信息图表显示，由于应用商店竞争激烈，常规手机应用实现5万次下载量的机率已明显下降（游戏邦注：该图表数据取自AppGeyser所观察的10万款Android应用）。2011年4月份应用实现5万次下载量的概率为4.35%，而12月份这一数据则降为0.52%。

与此同时，应用实现500次下载量的概率，却已从2011年4月份的12.83%上升至2012年2月份的23.62%，这一点或与用户对手机应用的兴趣，以及应用商店检索能力获得提升有关。

至少绑定7款产品的应用网络更容易实现10万次下载量，这种策略有助于开发者交叉推广应用，并增加产品的曝光度。|

infographic_march(from inneractive)

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Chinese App Store rankings see major shifts following algorithm tweaks

by Tom Worthington

In a bid to curb app ranking scams, Apple appear to have tweaked the App Store’s ranking algorithm causing some chart favourites to plummet as many as 300 places.

Chinese news site Netease Tech spotted that a number of Chinese-made apps had seen major shifts around the App Store charts over the past week.

Many companies have been affected by the alleged alterations including Renren, Buding Movie Tickets, Yi Xia and Dangdang.

Particularly impacted has been Chinese studio KoramGame, whose title Feng Wan Three Kingdoms dropped from fourth place to 335th.

Win some, lose some

In light of these changes, a number of non-gaming apps including those from Chinese banks ICBC and CCB, 360Buy, Huofar, Pulse Business Cards, Youdao Cloud Notes, and Tencent’s QQ Mailbox have all jumped up at least 100 spots.

Social network Douban saw its own apps shift places dramatically up and down the charts. Its Dujiao LBS app sunk whereas its Douban FM social music app jumped from 202nd to 126th place.

This would chime with a move to make daily activity a more important part of the ranking algorithm; something that Google has long stressed for its Play app store charts.

Stricter policing

Competition to rank highly on the App Stores charts has seen some developers resort to third party services including paid-for-five-star reviews and even negative ones aimed at competitors.

Combined with bot farms and other hacking activity, it’s rumoured that as much as ten percent of the apps in the Chinese App Store’s top 100 are cheating the system in some way – something many legitimate developers have been asking Apple to fix for many months. （source:pocketgamer）

2）Japan smartphone shipments to rise 55 per cent in 2012

by Zen Terrelonge

Resulting in sales of over 31m devices.

IDC Japan claims smartphone shipments in the country will hit 31.1 million this year, a 55 per cent increase on 2011, according to Tokyo Times.

Last year, Japanese smartphone shipments rose more than threefold to 20.1 million, securing 53 per cent of all mobile phone shipments.

The Japanese mobile economy can thank Apple for the smartphone increase as the iPhone 4S has been highlighted as the key market driver.

Additionally, smartphone shipments are set to rise to reach 37 million in 2016, a steady growth, but one that’s clearly not as drastic as the 2011 to 2012 rise. Perhaps that could change with the launch of a new iPhone.

Meanwhile, tablet shipments are set to rise from 3.3 million in 2012 to 5.8 million in 2016, a 48 per cent increase.（source:mobile-ent）

3）Apple: There are no problems with new iPad battery

by Zen Terrelonge

Tablet leader dismisses customer power complaints.

One week ago, Apple customers complained about the new iPad – or FriPad – overheating so much they that could cook their breakfast on it.

Now, they have also started grumbling about the way the tablet holds its battery charge, claiming it isn’t fully charged when it says it is.

However, Apple has bitten back to assure that the new iPad is completely charged before it reaches 100 per cent, though it will discharge slightly at 100 per cent if it remains plugged in, in order to offer optimum power.

Speaking to AllThingsD, Michael Tchao, VP, Apple, says: “That circuitry is designed so you can keep your device plugged in as long as you would like. It’s a great feature that’s always been in iOS.”

Tchao goes on to confirm that new iPad users can expect to receive ten hours worth of battery power no matter where  the tablet is in the charged/discharge cycle.（source:mobile-ent）

4）Almost a third of the world’s tech-savvy consumers want a new iPad

by Zen Terrelonge

While nearly a quarter will go for a reduced iPad 2.

According to Fortune, Baird Equity Research claims 29 per cent of ‘tech savvy’ consumers around the world plan to buy a new iPad within the next three months, while 22 per cent will favour a discounted iPad 2.

Additionally, 24 per cent of Americans plan to acquire the new Apple tablet, and 15 per cent will go for its predecessor.

48 per cent of existing iPad owners also plan to buy a new iPad, while 35 per cent of that number already possess an iPad 2, which was released just one year ago.

Retina Display was the top reason consumers plan to upgrade with 28 per cent, followed by the quad-core processor at 26 per cent and LTE with 17 per cent.

Interestingly, when the ‘tech savvy’ bunch were asked whether they understood what LTE – next generation mobile broadband that stands for Long Term Evolution – is, 59 per cent said no, with some answers including 3G tech, Long Telecom Exposure and operator-owned tech.（source:mobile-ent）

5）F2P 2012: Studios need to plan for success as well as failure, says Zynga’s Matthew Wiggins

by Keith Andrew

You might expect a panel on big mistakes within the games industry to be littered with stories of botched releases or games canned during development.

Speaking during the Free2Play Summit in London, however, Zynga UK general manager Matthew Wiggins said titles that manages to be a surprise success (scoring millions of downloads in the process) can prove to be just as damaging as an outright failure.

Panel beater

Wiggins’ tale of his former studio Wonderland’s struggle to cope with the wealth of interest in iOS smash GodFinger dominated the four man panel talk, which also featured Relentless Software co-founder Andrew Eades, PapayaMobile evangelist Oscar Clarke and Jami Laes, VP of global studios as Playfish.

According to Wiggins, Wonderland had put in place plenty of strategies should GodFinger fail to take off. It hadn’t considered what it would do if it proved to be a big hit, however.

“We didn’t plan for success. That was our mistake,” said Wiggins, claiming GodFinger had been in development for years pre-release, like a console title.

“I had loads of plans ready to go if the game failed, but we had absolutely no content to deliver to our eager users when the game hit #1 on the App Store.”

A real Wonderland

Such additional content, Wiggins contested, is crucial for free-to-play releases, but it’s arguably even trickier to get right than actually handling the development and launch of the game in question in the first place.

“If you can’t deliver new content, you break the faith players have in your ability to run the game,” he concluded.

Zynga went on to acquire Wonderland in April 2011, rebranding the outift Zynga Mobile UK in the process.

It was a transition labelled as “smooth” by Wiggins, who said the deal had been a “dream” for a studio with the respective limited resources Wonderland boasted at the time. （source:pocketgamer）

6）Apps: it’s getting easier to sell a few, harder to sell loads

by Tim Green

4.35 per cent of them sold 50k or more in April 2011; 0.52 per cent in December.

A new infographic from inneractive looks at the chances of scoring a hit on Android. It examined stats from AppGeyser collected from 100,000 Android apps.

And it found that the chances of scoring a 50,000 selling hit are dwindling.

Equally, the chances of a network (selling seven or more apps) shifting 100,000 downloads is also declining – from 14.4 per cent in April 2011 to 11.4 in Feb 2012. But at least those numbers are higher than the individual app totals.

Conversely, if your ambition is to sell 500 downloads, things are looking up. 23.6 per cent of all releases hit the 500 mark as of Feb 2012.

Which means 76.4 per cent sold fewer than 500…（source:mobile-ent）