store

Update to Google Play Store includes colorful layout

On the evening before the Google I/O keynote address, the Web giant has spruced up its Google Play Store.

Version 4.1.6, which appeared Tuesday night, features colorful home buttons for the store's App, Movies, and Games categories, as well as improved spacing for the "open" and "install" buttons on individual application pages.

The Wishlist feature also sports a card design that displays apps in rows of three from left to right instead of the previous top-to-bottom list view.

Meanwhile, Google Play Services has received new synching options for "App Data" … Read more

Windows 8.1 reportedly updates apps silently

Updating apps in Windows 8.1 will apparently be a simpler process than it is in Windows 8.

Users who installed the latest Windows 8.1 build, known as 9385, discovered that several apps had automatically updated themselves in the background, according to blog site Winbeta. One of the apps that took care of its own update was a new one called Movie Moments, which lets people create and edit short video clips.

The new update process could be an improvement over the one in Windows 8. Currently, people are notified of new app updates but need to venture into … Read more

Traces of malware activity detected in App Store game

MacWorld is reporting that a program on the iOS App Store may be detected as containing malware, but in analysis the program is not considered to be malicious.

After its readers wrote in about the potential of malware in a game called Simply Find It that is available on the iTunes App Store, MacWorld confirmed traces of nonfunctional Trojan horse malware embedded in an MP3 file used by the program, which shows an HTML iframe reference to a potentially malicious (but currently unresponsive) Web page.

This is not the first time that malwarelike activity has been found in programs in … Read more

Apple announces $10,000 prize to mark App Store milestone

It seems like only yesterday that the iTunes App Store hit its 25 billionth download...actually it was only last year. It's incredible that the online marketplace (currently at over 49.2 billion downloads) will soon be doubling that number. To mark the momentous occasion, Apple is holding a contest that app addicts will surely appreciate. Feeling lucky? Then download on.

If you happen to download the 50 billionth app, you will win a $10,000 App Store gift card. Though the odds seem stacked against you, don't despair, as the first 50 users after the 50 billionth … Read more

Apple counting up to 50 billion App Store downloads

Apple once again is counting up to its next digital sales benchmark.

This time it's to 50 billion downloads on the App Store, its digital software store that launched in 2008, and currently has about 793 million downloads to go.

Similar to previous contests, the person who downloads the 50 billionth app gets $10,000 in App Store credit. The company is also doling out $500 gift cards to the 50 people who buy an app immediately afterwards.

Apple's last big contest for the App Store was for the 25 billion benchmark last March. Chunli Fu, a customer … Read more

J.C. Penney apologizes for former Apple exec's moves

J.C. Penney has launched a new ad campaign apologizing for the decisions made under Ron Johnson, its former chief executive and Apple's one-time retail chief.

The new ad, posted to YouTube, focuses people in different locations as a narrator acknowledges the company's recent mistakes that left customers unhappy and pushed revenue down billions of dollars.

"It's no secret, recently J.C. Penney changed," the narrator says over the ad. "Some changes you liked and some you didn't, but what matters from mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing: … Read more

Samsung to block app store access in Iran, AP says

Iranian device users will lose access to Samsung's mobile app store as of May 22, according to a new report.

The Korean electronics giant said, via an e-mail sent to smartphone and tablet users, that it couldn't provide access to the store because of "legal barriers," the Associated Press reported. Many sanctions have been imposed on Iran over its controversial nuclear program, and Samsung's step is viewed as the latest such move.

Samsung declined to comment.

The AP noted that "unlike Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, Samsung has provided localized services to Iranians in their … Read more

Apple's iTunes Store at 10: A visual timeline

Apple's iTunes Store turns 10 years old this weekend. A lot's happened in that time, including a jump from just music to selling nearly every type of content, short of animated GIFs.

We've rounded down some of the key moments from the past 10 years, along with links to CNET News stories that puts them all in context.

You can also take a look at Apple's own timeline, which the company put out yesterday, and requires Apple's iTunes software on computers or an iOS device.

CNET Story links:

January 2001: Apple releases iTunes software for Mac … Read more

The iTunes Store turns 10: It's Apple's empire to lose

THE SPRING OF 2003. Apple was still in the early stages of what became one of the biggest comebacks in the history of business. Steve Jobs, who had returned to the company six years earlier, had already taken bold steps: He had killed off product lines, won Apple great attention with its colorful iMacs, and begun to open retail stores that -- given the lousy, post-tech bubble economy -- seemed like a crazy idea.

Yet sales of personal computers -- and the Mac was Apple's mainstay product -- weren't budging. It was a Windows world, and it sure … Read more