1）据insidemobileapps报道，苹果日前公布了2012年App Store最佳免费、付费iPhone/iPad应用名单，主要情况如下：

最佳iPhone免费应用

•1. YouTube

•2. Instagram

•3. Draw Something Free

•4. Flashlight

•5. Facebook

•6. Pandora

•7. Temple Run

•8. Pinterest

•9. Twitter

•10. Skype

最佳iPhone付费应用

•1. Angry Birds Space

•2. WhatsApp Messenger

•3. Draw Something

•4. Camera+

•5. Where’s My Water?

•6. Angry Birds Star Wars

•7. Fruit Ninja

•8. Angry Birds

•9. Bejeweled

•10. Tetris

iPhone应用营收榜单

•1. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North

•2. Slotmania

•3. Pokey by Zynga

•4. DragonVale

•5. Pandora

•6. Rage of Bahamut

•7. Bejeweled Blitz

•8. Clash of Clans

•9. CSR Racing

•10. The Simpsons: Tapped Out

最佳iPad免费应用

•1. Skype

•2. Temple Run

•3. Facebook

•4. Netflix

•5. The Weather Channel for iPad

•6. Draw Something Free

•7. Kindle

•8. Pandora

•9. Angry Birds HD Free

•10. Calculator Pro for iPad Free

最佳iPad付费应用

•1. Angry Birds Space HD、

•2. Where’s My Water?

•3. Pages

•4. Draw Something

•5. Notability

•6. Angry Birds Star Wars HD

•7. iPhoto

•8. Minecraft — Pocket Edition

•9. Where’s My Perry?

•10. Words With Friends HD

iPad应用营收榜单

•1. DragonVale

•2. Slotmania HD

•3. Comics

•4. Pages

•5. Quickoffice Pro HD

•6. Slotmania

•7. Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North

•8. Modern War

•9. Mystery Manor: Hidden Adventure HD

•10. Clash of Clans

值得注意的是，在iPhone和iPad应用营收榜单的20个名额中，游戏产品占据了16个席位。

2）ABI Research最新报告显示，全球智能手机及平板电脑应用下载量已达810亿次，其中来自原生应用商店（例如Google Play）的下载量占比89%。

3）NPD最新报告显示，由于iPad产品的热销，苹果在2012年第二季度移动PC设备出货量所占比例高达84%。

预计到2012年底，笔记本电脑市场发展同比上年增幅仅为2%，迷你笔记本则面临28%的降幅。但平板电脑同比上年增幅将达75%左右。NPD还预测2013年笔记本电脑出货量将同比上年增长16%，平板电脑虽然增幅不算明显，但仍将保持强劲势头。

4）据Techcrunch报道，Disney Mobile日前宣布将在下周推出三款新游戏，以便趁圣诞假期将公司产品重新推向苹果免费与付费应用榜单前20名（游戏邦注：据其高管Bart Decrem所称，去年公司从12月20日至1月3日的下载量比之前两周提升了421%。）

这些新项目包括《Monster’s Inc. Run》这款迪士尼与Get Set合作开发的横向卷轴游戏，配合3D电影《海底总动员》而发布的礁石建造游戏《Nemo’s Reef》，以及《Where’s My Holiday？》。

迪士尼旗下已经有5款位居App Store榜单前列的热门游戏，分别是《Where’s My Water?》、《Where’s My Perry?》、《Temple Run Brave》、《Tap Tap Revenge: Tour》以及《Wreck-It Ralph》。其中《Where’s My Water?》下载量就已达到1亿次，这5款游戏在11月份的最高日活跃用户为610万（2011年6月份的这一数据仅为100万）。

5）据insidesocialgames报道，Crowdstar前首席执行官及OpenFeint联合创始人Peter Relan日前宣布将于1月份推出OpenKit这个开放API服务，该平台还包括积分排行榜和成就管理系统等功能。

与OpenFeint有所不同的是，OpenKit并非一个用户网络，它支持开发者利用该平台源代码来部署用户数据以便托管自己的游戏。OpenKit还包含类似Facebook、Twitter、Google+和苹果Game Center这种用户网络的授权服务。

6）据insidesocialgames报道，Flurry首席执行官Simon Khalaf在最近的Appnation IV大会上指出，Flurry最新报告发现手机应用使用率在2012年增长了35%，对电视和电脑上网等其他媒体活动造成了冲击，并预言在4年之内，移动内容将蚕食问世五六十年的电视媒体市场。

除此之外，他还驳斥了网络平台的每次访问成本是0.63美元，而手机应用的这一成本仅为0.22美元的说法，并称Canalys最近报告所述的“前25家开发商占据了美国应用市场50%的收益”是一种“完全错误”的结论。

在网络平台上，Facebook、谷歌和雅虎等五家大公司控制了多数收益，而在手机应用领域却有248家公司在相互竞争。Khalaf还指出，那些寻找下一个Facebook或谷歌的风险投资者并不愿意接受这样一个事实，即移动领域尚未出现霸主，其现状是一群中间层次的公司在夺取最大的应用市场份额；现在就是向手机应用领域投资的最佳时机。

7）智游汇最近推出的《移动游戏交叉推广实战分析》报告指出，交叉推广在大型游戏发行商的推广策略中一直占据重要地位 ，无论是游戏初期的市场测试，还是拉低用户获取成本，开发者都应该正视交叉推广服务的作用，该报告还列举并比较了几个主要交叉推广模式的优劣：

（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）Apple lists top apps of 2012

Scott Reyburn

Apple released its annual “Best of” App Store feature which lists the top free, paid and grossing iPhone and iPad apps of 2012 as well as its picks for best game and non-game app of the year for both iOS devices.

Apple chose Action Movie FX (our review), an app by JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Interactive studio that allows users to add “Hollywood FX” to their videos, as the non-game iPhone app of the year. Paper, a drawing and notebook app by FiftyThree, was selected as the non-game iPad app of 2012. The best iPhone game of the year was Ubisoft’s Rayman Jungle Run (you can read our review here). Fireproof Games developed The Room was the best iPad game of the year, a puzzler with a mystery twist. Despite all four of these apps being selected by Apple as the best apps of the year, none of them appeared in the iPhone or iPad top 20 free, paid or grossing apps charts.

To no one’s surprise, 15 of the 20 apps on both the top grossing charts for iPhone and iPad were game apps, a trend that has been reflected in our weekly AppData charts for the top grossing iOS apps.（source：insidemobileapps）

2）More than 81bn apps have been downloaded from mobile app stores

by Zen Terrelonge

And 89 per cent of them come from native app stores.

Networks were successful in distributing mobile entertainment to their customers though their own stores several years ago, but we’re living in a different world today.

Native stores built into operating systems, like Android’s Google Play, account for 89 per cent of the 81 billion downloaded smartphone and tablet apps, according to ABI Research, and that’s only likely to grow as the trend of operator billing picks up.

Indeed, BlackBerry and Google have both recently integrated Bango’s mobile payments solution into their respective app stores to allow shoppers to pay for their content on monthly bills instead of making an immediate payment.

Aapo Markkanen, senior analyst, said: “The current status quo is based on storefronts that the operating system vendors provide as part of the OS experience, and there is no evidence that this would change in the future.

“A year ago it still looked like that, for example, mobile operators could find a viable business case in the curation of Android apps, but that opportunity evaporated once Google got its storefront act together. Today, it makes sense for operators to distribute apps only under special circumstances, such as the ones that we’re seeing in China.

“Running a user-friendly app distribution channel is expensive. Besides the adequate hosting and billing systems it takes quite a lot of human labor, since successful app discovery requires some form of editorial approach. The opportunity for smaller storefronts built around selected categories is therefore limited.”

There are exceptions to the rule though, demonstrated with B2B apps and selected consumer categories that bigger stores don’t want to be associated with, such as adult. Mikandi is a prime example; a mobile porn store that has built a business out of the distribution of explicit content.（source：mobile-ent）

3）Apple Grabs 84% Of Mobile PC Shipments For Q2 2012, Tablet Market Predicted To Remain Strong In 2013

Darrell Etherington

Apple was responsible for an impressive 84 percent of total mobile PC shipments in Q2 2012, owing primarily to the success of its iPad line, according to a new report from supply chain analysis firm NPD DisplaySearch. LG Display reaped the benefit of that market domination, leading the industry in mobile PC panel shipments in 2012 thanks to its supplier relationship with Apple.

The success of Apple’s mobile PC shipments relative to the rest of the market, as measured by OEM shipments to customers, is likely accounted for by the ramp-up of iPad 3 and iPad 2 production. The iPad 3, or new iPad, was just hitting its stride in terms of reaching production levels to keep up with demand following its introduction in Q1 of 2012, and the iPad 2 was enjoying a boost owing to its reduction in price. We’ve seen recently that the iPad 2 remains a very popular option with consumers, and likely made up a significant portion of Apple’s iPad sales in 2012, though the company doesn’t break out sales by individual device models when reporting its quarterly earnings.

NPD says that in 2013, other manufacturers competing with Apple will be looking to build stronger supply chain relationships with touch-capable notebooks (most likely based on Windows 8), and ultra-slim PCs, and that those competitors are working hard on locking down sufficient mobile display volumes from supplier partners. On the supplier side, Samsung specifically is said to be looking into reducing its share of Apple’s display manufacturing and focusing on adding other customers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble to the mix to diversify its efforts, according to NPD DisplaySearch analyst Jeff Lin, which could be related to growing tensions between the two companies.

Through the end of 2012, NPD predicts that year over year growth for notebook PCs will only be at around 2 percent, with a 28 percent drop for the mini-notebook category. But tablet growth is expected to be up around 75 percent year over year. NPD also predicts a 16 percent year over year uptick in notebook PC shipments for 2013 on average, with tablet PCs retaining strong growth, though perhaps at a less impressive rate than they experienced in 2013. Apple will likely still remain a key component of that growth, but we’ll have to see whether diversified offerings by other OEMs, including Asus, which makes the Nexus 7 line of tablets for Google, has any effect on ultimate shipment volume.（source：techcrunch）

4）Disney Mobile Plans Big Holiday Push With Three New Games: Monster’s Inc. Run, Nemo’s Reef, And Where’s My Holiday?

Anthony Ha View

Disney Mobile, the maker of Where’s My Water? (plus a bunch of games tied to Disney films), has some big plans for the next couple of weeks, with four updates to existing games and the launch of three new games scheduled for the next week or so.

Bart Decrem, who runs Disney’s mobile division, told me that he’s hoping the mix of updates and new titles will move his team back into Apple’s charts for the top 20 free and paid apps.

Thanks to the purchase of new mobile hardware and gift cards, the holidays have always been a period of rapid growth for Disney (and for other app developers). For example, last year the company saw a 421 percent increase in downloads during the peak holiday period from December 20 to January 3, compared to the two weeks prior. But Decrem said this is the first time his team has coordinated such a big holiday push between all of its titles — in previous years, he said, “We just didn’t have the network.”

Here’s what Disney is planning for tomorrow:

The launch of 40 new levels featuring the character Dr. Doofenschmirtz in Where’s My Perry?, which will cost 99 cents, plus 20 new free levels

The addition of a new character, King Fergus, to Temple Run Brave, which will cost 500,000 coins

The addition of a new mini-game, Turbo Time, to Wreck-It-Ralph

The launch of the second episode of Avengers Initiative, featuring Captain America (the first episode focused on the Hulk)

The launch of a new game called Monster’s Inc. Run, a side-scrolling game made in partnership with Get Set, the developers of Mega Run (Disney used a similar partnership to create Temple Run Brave)

And here’s what Disney is planning for December 20:

The launch of a reef-building game called Nemo’s Reef, tying in to the 3D rerelease of Finding Nemo

The launch of Where’s My Holiday?, a holiday-themed variant on Where’s My Water? and Where’s My Perry?

Decrem also talked shared some stats about the success that Disney has already seen this year. It had five number one games in the App Store: Where’s My Water?, Where’s My Perry?, Temple Run Brave, Tap Tap Revenge: Tour, and Wreck-It Ralph. Where’s My Water? alone has been downloaded 100 million times, and total daily active users across all the games peaked at 6.1 million in November (compared to 1 million in June 2011).

Since I was talking to Decrem, I couldn’t help asking about Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm. After all, Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that the company will be focusing on building mobile and social Star Wars games. However, Decrem said that the acquisition hasn’t closed yet, so there’s no news to discuss, except that he’s excited about working with the Lucasfilm/Lucasarts team.（source：techcrunch）

5）Openfeint co-founder announces OpenKit, new open platform for mobile developers

Mike Thompson

Former Crowdstar CEO and OpenFeint Co-Founder Peter Relan today announced OpenKit, a new open API service designed for mobile developers that guarantees no lock-in of developer data. The platform will also include cloud-based features like leaderboards and achievements.

As opposed to OpenFeint, OpenKit isn’t designed to be a user network. Instead, developers can implement user data with the platform’s source code in order to host their own service.

OpenKit will also allow include authorization services for user networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Apple’s GameCenter. Should a developer decide to host the service as a convenience, there is also a freemium pricing model with basic services offered for free; Relan says this is modeled more like GitHub instead of OpenFeint.

In a statement, Relan said he created OpenKit to appeal to independent developers because of the “extreme uncertainty” they face in regards to what happens to their data and users when platforms are acquired (as is what happened with OpenFeint) and terms of service see dramatic changes (á la Twitter). As a result, Relan maintains there needs to be an open source cloud service for developers that lets them take both code and user data with them should they ever move off the cloud service.

Relan’s reveal of OpenKit is perfectly timed because many developers are now looking for a new alternative API, now that GREE is shutting down its OpenFeint network. However, he is adamant that OpenKit isn’t a statement about GREE’s decision to force developers away from OpenFeint and onto the GREE platform. Instead, he says OpenKit is meant to help developers “control their destiny.”

The launch day version will include the aforementioned features, as well as a cloud service account for developers, data export utility for developers to download and instructions about how one can host their own back-end services on any cloud provider.

OpenKit will be available soon — provided enough groups sign up for the program within the first week or so — as early as sometime in January. Developers interested in signing up can do so at the official site, starting today.（source：insidesocialgames）

6）Appnation: mobile is “cannibalizing” TV, ngmoco builds its user base via a “platform effect”

Scott Reyburn

Flurry CEO Simon Khalaf and mobile industry executives spoke at The CXO Roundtable: The State of Appantion session yesterday at the Appnation IV conference in San Francisco, where Khalaf reiterated the mobile industry boom and ngomoco revealed its method for user acquisition.

This was a two-part session beginning with Khalaf and then a panel discussion moderated by TechCrunch writer Kim-Mai Cutler and joined by mobile industry leaders discussing topics such as user acquisition, advertising and leadership changes.

Khalaf began his 10-minute presentation showing a chart of Flurry’s worldwide events tracked to date on iOS and Android. The chart displayed a massive uptick in events measured by Flurry.

He added that Flurry has tracked one trillion events in total.

“The market is booming,” he says. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life.”

Khalaf backed up his statement that the market is booming by referencing Flurry’s recent report where the company said that mobile app usage grew 35 percent in 2012, challenging other media formats such as TV and web browsing on desktops and laptops.

“In under four years, mobile is cannibalizing a 50 to 60-year-old past time in TV,” he says.

Khalaf also debunked three concerns investors may have about investing in mobile including the difficulty with making money in mobile and apps, the high cost to scale an app business and that only a minority of developers are capturing the majority of the revenue. Khalaf refuted the first investor myth by showing a chart displaying the revenue growth in mobile compared to web from 1996 to 2012. In a matter of four years, mobile revenue has caught up to the web (note: the web data doesn’t include Google AdWords revenue).

He debunked the second myth by showing that the cost per visit on web is $0.63 while on mobile apps its $0.22. For the third myth, Khalaf compared the number of companies controlling the majority of revenue on web versus apps. He brought up a recent report by analyst firm Canalys which estimated that 25 developers account for 50 percent of app revenue in the U.S. on iOS and Android by saying that it was “completely wrong.” On the web, five companies control a majority of the revenue which include the likes of Google, Facebook, and Yahoo, while there are 248 companies in the mobile apps space. Khalaf added that venture capitalists want the next Facebook or Google and don’t accept the fact that there isn’t a big player on mobile yet, but rather a bunch of mid-market companies capturing the largest portion of the app economy.

He concluded that “there has not been a better time to invest in this economy.”

In the roundtable portion of the session, Cutler was joined by these four panelists: Tapjoy vice president of sales Geoff Hamm, Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton, ngmoco CEO Clive Downie and Velti chief marketing officer Krishna Subramanian. The first topic of note was about acquiring users.

Downie chimed in first, explaining how mobile game developer ngmoco wanted to build a user base big enough with its mobile-social gaming network Mobage to generate what he called a “platform effect.” So now that ngmoco has built a user base that comes to its network, current users are now the ones who are bringing new users to the platform by inviting their friends.

“[The 'platform effect'] is cutting cost of user acquisition drastically,” he adds.

Another topic of note was ngmoco’s and Tapjoy’s recent change in leadership. Downie, the new CEO of ngmoco, said co-founder and previous CEO Neil Young was honest with the team and Young said team leadership needed to change hands. Hamm cleared up any confusion with the departure of Mihir Shah, mobile advertising and publishing platform Tapjoy’s previous CEO, by saying that Steve Wadsworth is not the interim CEO, but the permanent one.

Stay tuned to Inside Mobile Apps in the next couple of days for more Appnation IV coverage.（source：insidemobileapps）