1）据pocketgamer报道，为避免App Store出现垃圾应用，苹果最近取消了开发者更改或上传（已通过审核）应用程序新截图的权限。这意味着，开发者发布的应用如果已通过审核，其截图信息就会被iTunes Connect锁定，若要更改图片，唯一的方法就是针对更新版本提交二进制码。

苹果希望借此回避某些开发者提交只是更换了截图的更新版应用，这类应用通常会以《Temple Run》或《Minecraft》等热作的截图误导用户的购买行为，结果用户启动应用时才会发现实物与截图内容不符。

app screenshot(from iphonehacks.com)

有些开发者通过Twitter抱怨称，这项苹果新政虽然有利于用户，但也可能给正当开发者更新应用截图造成很大的不便。他们认为苹果应该致力于加强其应用审核团队的作用，或者为开发者和用户创造更多举报垃圾应用的渠道。

2）据The Next Web报道，芬兰开发商Supercell旗下两款游戏《Hay Day》和《Clash of Clans》日均收益达100万美元。2012年10月份，纽约时报曾报道该公司日常收益为50万美元，月收益达1500万美元；

PandoDaily则在同年11月份报道，该公司日收益为75万美元，若扣除苹果30%的抽成，其日收益为70万美元左右。Supercell在iPad和iPhone两个平台的收益分布相当均衡，该公司日常运营成本仅为6万美元左右。

App Annie在11月份数据显示，Supercell在iOS平台的月收益位居榜首，超过了EA、GREE和Rovio等大型发行商；值得注意的是，EA旗下拥有969款iOS应用，Supercell仅有两款游戏。

Clash of Clans-Hay Day(from insidemobileapps)

据AppData数据显示，《Clash of Clans》目前位居iPhone和iPad应用营收榜单第一名，而《Hay Day》在iPad应用营收榜单位居第二，在iPhone榜单位居第五。

3）据venturebeat报道，苹果高级副总裁Phil Schiller日前驳斥了公司将于2013年末推出低端iPhone的传闻，并指出尽管平价智能手机极受欢迎，但这绝不会是苹果产品的未来路线，虽然苹果智能手机市场份额仅占20%，但所占利润比例高达75%。

Apple-logo(from articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com)

不过观察者分析指出，乔布斯也曾表示苹果永远不会推出7英寸的平板电脑，但最后还是出现了iPad Mini；另外，苹果在中国并未与拥有7亿用户的中国移动合作，但仍有15%收益来自中国，再加上亚洲和非洲庞大的用户市场，在巨大的利润面前苹果不会完全无动于衷。

4）据Techcrunch报道，诺基亚最近宣布Lumia在去年第四季度销量达440万，而Symbian设备销量则是220万。

值得注意的是，在第三季度诺基亚Symbian设备销量为440万，基于Windows Phone的Lumia设备销量则是290万，这两者的市场表现在第四季度发生了逆转。

Lumia-Nokia(from symbian-developers.net)

早在一年前就有传闻称诺基亚准备关闭Symbian手机的生产线，并取消与之相关的合同，但诺基亚从未公开确认或否认这些报道。从当前的情势来看，诺基亚有可能让市场来决定Symbian的命运。

5）据insidemobileapps报道，社交手机游戏工作室Pocket Gems日前宣布向iOS平台推出开发商Twyngo处女作《Amazing Ants》。

Amazing Ants(from insidemobileapps)

这是一款物理平台益智游戏，要求玩家引导蚂蚁在为自己的移民队收集果实的过程中，穿过多个不同关卡。

Twyngo是Pocket Gems首批合作开发商之一，在此之前Pocket Gems已于12月份为另一家开发商Dreamfab发行《Chasing Yello》，并将在今年为we.R.play发行机器人动作游戏《RoboQuest》。（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 starts ‘locking’ app screenshots to thwart App Store scams

by James Nouch

In a bid to prevent App Store scams, Apple has removed the ability for developers to change or upload new screenshots once their app has been approved.

Apple’s new policy will see screenshots locked in iTunes Connect once an app is approved.

As a result, it’s now only possible to upload new screenshots to an existing app when submitting a binary for an update.

Swapping out

In this way, Apple hopes to prevent a popular scamming tactic, whereby unscrupulous developers submit an app for approval, only to swap out its App Store screenshots before going live.

The replacement screenshots would often show gameplay from popular titles such as Temple Run or Minecraft in an attempt to mislead consumers into a purchase.

Upon booting up the application, buyers would find themselves with a completely different app, as in the example below highlighted by MacRumours.

Some developers have already taken to Twitter to complain about the move, however, suggesting that the technique will penalise legitimate apps and make updating screenshots a labourious process.

The suggestion is, Apple’s efforts would be better focused on strengthening its app review team, or giving developers and consumers better tools to report rogue apps.（source：pocketgamer）

2）Supercell generating $1M a day

Scott Reyburn

One of the world’s hottest gaming companies, Finnish startup Supercell, is reportedly generating $1 million in gross revenue a day from just Hay Day and Clash of Clans, the company’s only two active iOS games, according to recent reports from PandoDaily and The Next Web.

No more than three months ago, Supercell told the New York Times in October 2012 that it saw sales in upward of $500,000 a day and $15 million in gross revenue a month, with only two games in its stable. PandoDaily later reported in November 2012 $750,000 in gross revenue. Minus Apple’s standard 30 percent cut of transactions from the Apple App Store, Supercell would be currently pulling in $700,000 a day. The revenue is also nearly split evenly between iPad and iPhone. Costs to run the company each day are said to be as low as $60,000, says PandoDaily.

“It’s weird for us, even internally, seeing all this speculation about how much money we’re making per day,” Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen told PandoDaily.

November data from App store analytics company App Annie showed Supercell in first place in terms of monthly iOS revenue, topping big publishers such as Electronic Arts, GREE and Rovio. To put it into perspective, EA has 969 iOS apps in its portfolio compared to Supercell’s two. Clash of Clans and Hay Day nabbed the No. 1 and No. 2 spots (read our reviews for both titles here and here), respectively, on App Annie’s top iOS games by monthly revenue chart. In app tracking company Distimo’s 2012 year in review report, the company put together a top 10 chart of the highest grossing cross-platform publishers, with Supercell as the single app store exception. Distimo’s analytics product ApplQ showed us in Sept. 2012 that Clash of Clans was earning as much as $103,763 a day in U.S.

Apple confirmed the Helsinki-based developer’s success on Monday, stating that Supercell, although clumped together with developer Backflip Studios of DragonVale fame, pulled in $100 million in 2012.

Supercell isn’t without fault. The Finish developer axed three games including its first title Gunshine, a beta release of Battle Buddies, and an unannounced combat strategy game that was pulled in its early stage of development, says PandoDaily.

It’s also important to note that the gaming industry is a hit-driven business. OMGPOP’s Pictionary-like drawing game Draw Something bled users shortly after getting acquired by Zynga. The same fate could be dealt to Hay Day, which released in June 2012, and Clash of Clans, which released in July 2012.

The 70-person social gaming startup is known for their “tablet first” approach, which differentiates the Finnish developer from competitors such as Zynga, EA and GREE. Supercell makes money through in-app purchases from casual farm game Hay Day and village-building game Clash of Clans. Both titles have been at the top on the top grossing iOS apps charts for months.

According to our traffic tracking service app data, Clash of Clans is currently the No. 1 grossing app for both iPhone and iPad, while Hay Day is the No. 2 grossing app on iPad and No. 5 on iPhone.（source：insidemobileapps）

3）Apple SVP Phil Schiller kills the cheap iPhone rumor … or does he?

John Koetsier

Apple’s Phil Schiller has categorically denied that the Cupertino company is working on a cheap iPhone, putting to rest speculation that we covered skeptically a few days ago and the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg also published.

As The Next Web translated, Schiller said this:

“Despite the popularity of cheap smartphones, this will never be the future of Apple’s products. In fact, although Apple’s market share of smartphones is just about 20 percent, we own the 75 percent of the profit.”

Of course, Steve Jobs — who probably taught Phil Schiller everything he knows about marketing — also said Apple would never made a 7-inch tablet. And frankly, we should wonder how truthful Schiller is being when that tired old 75-percent-of-the-profit line comes out of Apple’s back pocket, because it’s only true in a very narrow, specific, and nuanced sense, even if you’re very, very generous about your terms and conditions.

In other words, it’s kind of a lie.

Which doesn’t mean that Schiller is lying about cheap smartphones. But it could mean that while “cheap” smartphones are out — and no one who follows this company realistically thought that it would make something cheap, flimsy, or in any way substandard — significantly less expensive is not.

Point of reference: iPad Mini.

Realistically, as the original Shanghai Evening News story references (awful Chinglish from Google Translate here), Apple made 15 percent of its revenues from China and blessed little from China’s single biggest carrier, the 700-million subscriber China Mobile, which Schiller’s boss Tim Cook was visiting today. You can bet Apple wants that 15 percent to grow significantly.

And with 75 percent of new phones being activated in either Asia or Africa, an $800 handset isn’t going to do it.

A less expensive iPhone may seem crazy, but it is something that can help Apple compete in emerging markets. And it’s just what we humbly suggested in December.（source：venturebeat）

4）See Ya, Symbian: Q4 Was The “Last Meaningful Quarter For Symbian Sales” Says Nokia

Ingrid Lunden

Nokia is slowly turning around its ailing mobile handset business and today that effort had a nice fillip, by way of some revised figures in which it “exceeded expectations” for Q4 sales. Within that, Nokia says that in Q4 it sold 4.4 million Lumia devices — exactly twice as many units as those of its once-mighty Symbian platform, which sold 2.2 million.

But in case you missed the writing on the wall, the decline was underscored once more in a conference call today discussing the revised figures. There, Nokia’s CFO Timo Ihamuotila said that Q4 would be the “last meaningful quarter for Symbian” sales and handsets for the company, as its business increasingly becomes a mix of Windows Phone devices, smartphones based on Series 40, and more lower end devices.

The gradual disappearance of the platform, now running as an unmanned, licensing operation, is nearly complete — with its progression strangely also conveyed through its logo, which once looked a bit different to the disintegrating, current one illustrated above:

Nokia about a year ago was rumored to be preparing to shut down Symbian phone production altogether by cancelling contracts for upcoming devices. Nokia never publicly confirmed or denied the accuracy of those reports. But in reality it looks like it’s letting the market do the shutting down for them.

That has been played out in global market shares as well as actual unit sales. Gartner’s most recent figures for global handset shipments, covering Q3, indicate that Symbian lost nearly all of its worldwide market share in the last year. In Q3 the platform accounted for 16.9% of all handset shipments worldwide — still enough to put it in second place to Android. By Q3 2012, that share had dwindled down to 2.6%.

Since Nokia’s Windows Phone-based Lumia devices sold 2.9 million units and Symbian sold 4.4 million units in Q3 2012, in effect, Q4 2012 was the quarter in which Windows Phone and Symbian swapped places.（source：techcrunch）

5）Pocket Gems publishing Amazing Ants on iOS

Mike Thompson

Social mobile studio Pocket Gems today announced it’s launching developer Twyngo‘s debut game, Amazing Ants for iOS.

Amazing Ants is a physics platformer that has players helping guide ants through various levels as they collect fruit for their colony. From what we’ve gotten to see, no two levels play the same; one level has players firing ants through a pinball environment while another shows manipulable setups like metal platforms that can be moved via magnets.

This follows last month’s announcement about how Pocket Gems would publish third party developers’ games. Twyngo was one of the first announced partners, as were dreamfab and we.R.play. Dreamfab’s Chasing Yello was released in December, while we.R.play’s robot action game RoboQuest is due out later this year.

Aside from publishing third party games, Pocket Gems has been increasing its mobile presence by expanding its Android monetization partnership with W3i, which was revealed last week.（source：insidesocialgames）