I recently walked out of a post deployment brief with stacks of flyers and brochures from government support organizations tucked in my purse.  My husband was due home from a six-month deployment and my fellow military spouses and I were bombarded with information on reintegration. Less than an hour later, I dug out the colorful handouts and gave them to my daughter who was desperate for collage project fodder. Needless to say, the brochures were never read.

With explosive popularity around the world, Anime has captured the heart and souls of millions of fans. Viewed on video and television series, video games, commericals, and all over the internet, Anime has now grabbed the attention of mobile developers looking to reach an even a larger audience.

In 2010, Queensland was hit with a 3-day flood that caused $30 billion worth of damages to the state and directly damaged the lives of more than 200,000 people. In times of disaster, people are more than willing to lend a helping hand. Nearly 120,000 volunteers helped throughout the month of January 2011 through Volunteering Queensland. However, the organization felt that the limited channels to recruit volunteers were insufficient to meet the needs created by such a disaster. Through collaboration with University of Queensland and Acclario, they produced the ReadyQLD application for the iPhone and Android to help the people of Queensland prepare for the worst.

A little over a week ago we tweeted at Titanium mobile app developers to send links of their Titanium apps to our @AppcShowcase account and be automatically entered to win $100 iTunes card in addition to some fresh AppC Swag.  Titanium developers blew us away with nearly 50 awesome apps that were incredibly diverse and creative.  After downloading the apps and testing each of them ourselves, we’ve declared the app contest winner to be MyPrice, an app that provides tools for freelancers to calculate exactly how much to charge for their independent professional services.  We found MyPrice’s innovative mobile-use case, implementation of cloud services and multi-form factor support, as well as the positive reviews it has garnered from its worldwide distribution all compelling reasons to announce it as our first Titanium App Contest Winner.

Over the weekend Appcelerator celebrated a warm Sunday afternoon of fitness and health with mobile app developer David Murray for the beta launch of his built-on-Titanium app GoalSponsors, available now for free download through TestFlight. The event was held in Palo Alto, California at the Oshman Family JCC and featured several high-energy exercise demos and a variety of food and wellness vendors, including Whole Foods Market, Coco Libre Coconut Water, and NoXcuses Fitness. 

The iTunes App Store premiered with just over 500 apps the summer of 2008, just days before the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies.  This marked the first time third-party apps were available for the then year-old iPhone. Four years later, as the world prepares for the London Games, we find ourselves in the midst of an exploding mobile app market with over 650,000 apps available in the App Store and over 30 billion downloaded.  Mobile has certainly made tremendous strides, and recurrent global events like the Olympics give us a chance to reflect on just how much our lives have changed in such a short amount of time.  But the Olympics don’t just mark time for mobile.  The two-week sprint of events with 26 sports, 17,000 athletes, and 200 participating countries makes for the perfect mobile-use case. A prime example of such a case is the London 2012 app.  Built on Titanium, London 2012 provides a simple, comprehensive way to stay on top of every Olympic event without the threat of information overload.

Alright UI/UX Designers, Guru’s and Mobile Mavens. Here is a quick list of the top five DON’Ts when designing a mobile app. While we all hear about what we MUST do to create the perfect app, we rarely hear the common pitfalls that ALL of us make from time to time. As a reminder to myself, I created the top five mistakes I try to avoid when designing apps for our clients.  As I have been told, this list is GOLD and should be bookmarked. [hint, hint]…. Come back, enjoy and certainly add to the conversation in the comments section.

With the Presidential race heating up and Election Day now clear on the horizon, it is practically guaranteed that the candidates will appear in news headlines everyday from now until November.  And today’s 24-hour news cycle, with constant polling and countless “breaking” stories, threatens information overload.  But a new app, built on Titanium, allows iPhone users to follow the 2012 election in the way that best suits them.  With Presidential Election Race 2012, developed by Grand Parade Ltd, you can check on how the overall race is shaping up, select individual states you need updates on, and get essential campaign news from a wide variety of media sources, all on-the-go.  This app provides a realistic way to follow the country’s biggest event in today’s mobile environment.

Mobile app developers from Murcia, Spain have provided a servicio necesario for public transportation passengers throughout the city.  The app, EPT, takes the Public Transport Authority of the Region of Murcia website and creates an easy-to-use mobile version, for both iPhone and Android users. Passengers have the ability to view nearby bus stops, plan routes, see current advisories, and favorite certain bus stops, routes or schedules using a sleek interface and Google Maps for location and route services.  Bus stops may even be accessed using augmented reality modules, similar to features offered on the mobile Yelp! App, and suggested by the buzzworthy Google Project Glass.

In a world where privacy is quickly becoming a thing of the past, a way to keep secrets safe can be invaluable. Whether you’re having an intimate conversation in a public channel or you’re sharing secrets of a larger scale, it’s sometimes not enough just to send it in a private e-mail; when there’s a secret you just can’t have surface there’s Secret4You for the iPhone. The Secret4You app, created on Appcelerator Titanium, allows you to encode your secrets so that only those you want can see your secrets.