The number of new projects started for the App Store nearly tripled in January, as the month was dominated by hype for and the announcement of Apple's iPad.

Flurry Analytics on Friday released its latest edition of the "Smartphone Industry Pulse" for January 2010. The mobile analysis firm, which has tracking data in over 20,000 mobile applications, said developers integrating Flurry analytics into iPhone OS applications in January increased nearly three times over December's total.

More than 1,600 new applications for Flurry started in January, when less than 600 at the beginning of December 2010 represents the largest increase in history, the analysis starts the company's follow-up.

"Thus, we hypothesize that the excitement generated by Apple's iPad event in January to guide the growth,"the company said."For developers who are customizing their applications to skip the iPad, may have the opportunity to stand out early on, and make more money on downloads."

Apple revealed the iPad the event that there is over 140.000 applications available on the mobile App Store. That the software is compatible with the iPad when it first appeared in the end of March.

But developers can also create a new iPad specific applications that take advantage of multi-touch device and its 9.7-inch display

 

 

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The firm's native voice over internet protocol (VoIP) application — Skype for iPhone — will be available for download from Apple's iTunes store on Tuesday. With the Skype iPhone app, users will be able to make free calls using Wi-Fi to other Skype users as well as use their Skype accounts to make reduced price calls to traditional landline phones. Skype announced its iPhone application will be available on Tuesday for free, with a version for the BlackBerry available in May. Mobile versions of Skype are already available for Nokia, Windows Mobile, and Google Android phones.

From what we can tell, the Skype for iPhone looks great; but it has some drawbacks. Iphone users will not be able to make Skype calls, either to Skype contacts or to landlines, over the mobile network, something users of Skype on the UK mobile network 3 can do. Still, for international callers especially, Skype's iPhone app will save callers money by allowing them to avoid AT&T's traditional wireless phone network and adds the convenience of allowing Skype users to use their iPhone handset for Skype calls.

Looking more like a traditional iPhone app rather than the desktop Windows counterpart most of its 400 million users are used to, Skype for iPhone features five tabs at the bottom of the screen, displaying contacts, chats, a calling panel, call history, and your profile (with Facebook-style status).


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Chicago (IL) — The folks at Apple show no signs of slowing. The last two weeks have brought substantial hardware refreshes across the entire Mac desktop line, an unexpected iPod shuffle redesign, but with all of that it appears Apple is just warming us up for even bigger things on the horizon. If the blogosphere can be believed, next Tuesday will usher in a major milestone for the iPhone platform as Apple will offer us a sneak peek at iPhone OS 3.0 and associated SDK.

The new OS should bring a host of new end-user features and frameworks programmers can use to develop better applications. In addition, if the rumors are true, the March introduction of the iPhone OS 3.0 will likely pave the way for the next-generation iPhone — which could arrive three months later, in time for Apple's developers conference early this summer.

According to Engadget, Apple will host a media event in Apple's Town Hall on the Cupertino campus, March 17 at 10am PDT (1pm EDT). The event will unveil the iPhone OS 3.0. The gadget blog claims this with a high degree of certainty, adding that Apple calls this an «advance preview of what we're building.» Apple Insider claims confirmation of this event came yesterday directly from Apple. Ars Technica posted the original invitation teaser, and was among the first publications Apple invited. The cool teasing invitation sent via email reads as follows:

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