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On the heels of the Xiam study that showed search as the top sites on mobile today, it looks like money will be tops in 2012. The top 10 consumer mobile apps in 2012 will include mobile money transfer, LBS,  search,  browsing, health monitoring, payments, NFC, ads, IM, and music reprots Gartner Inc.'s latest study.

No. 1: Money Transfer
This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year. However, challenges do exist in both regulatory and operational risks. Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering. On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory.

No. 2: Location-Based Services
Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years. Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 million in 2009 to more than 526 million in 2012. LBS is ranked No. 2 in Gartner's top 10 because of its perceived high user value and its influence on user loyalty. Its high user value is the result of its ability to meet a range of needs, ranging from productivity and goal fulfillment to social networking and entertainment.

No. 3: Mobile Search
The ultimate purpose of mobile search is to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. To achieve this, the industry first needs to improve the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again. Mobile search is ranked No. 3 because of its high impact on technology innovation and industry revenue. Consumers will stay loyal to some search services, but instead of sticking to one or two search providers on the Internet, Gartner expects loyalty on the mobile phone to be shared between a few search providers that have unique technologies for mobile search.

No. 4: Mobile Browsing
Mobile browsing is a widely available technology present on more than 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009, a percentage Gartner expects to rise to approximately 80 percent in 2013. Gartner has ranked mobile browsing No. 4 because of its broad appeal to all businesses. Mobile Web systems have the potential to offer a good return on investment. They involve much lower development costs than native code, reuse many existing skills and tools, and can be agile -- both delivered and updated quickly. Therefore, the mobile Web will be a key part of most corporate business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile strategies.

No. 5: Mobile Health Monitoring
Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients. In developing markets, the mobility aspect is key as mobile network coverage is superior to fixed network in the majority of developing countries. Currently, mobile health monitoring is at an early stage of market maturity and implementation, and project rollouts have so far been limited to pilot projects. In the future, the industry will be able to monetize the service by offering mobile healthcare monitoring products, services and solutions to CDOs.

Verizon is now offering Social Beat, a free social media application that allows Verizon Wireless customers  to easily interact with  their mobile social networking with a single app on their LG enV , LG Chocolate or feature phones.

Social Beat makes it easy for Verizon Wireless customers to connect to popular social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.  Social Beat also displays more than 50 customer-selected feeds from the hottest names in news, sports and entertainment sources, which can be viewed in one central location. Customers can easily view and manage their social networks through live feeds and real-time notifications.

When customers sign in to Social Beat, they can easily view friends' activity, news feeds, status updates and new photos. Customers can even post new status messages and tweets, send comments and messages, and receive updates from their personalized news section through a single stream on their mobile phone in real time.

Social Beat is available now to Verizon Wireless customers as a free download on more than 20 feature phones, including the LG enV, enV2, enV3, the LG Chocolate, and Chocolate 3, as well as many other popular Verizon Wireless handsets. Customers can download Social Beat from their wireless phones by selecting Get Going in the Media Center/Get It Now®, by texting SOCIAL to APPS (2777) or by visiting the online media store at http://www.mediastore.verizonwireless.com or http://bit.ly/socialbeat.

Attention football fans, before you head out for Thanksgiving you must be sure that your can get the latest football news on your BlackBerry (Pearl, Curve, Storm, Bold), iPhone, or Android/Droid. National Football Post (NFP) will drop-kick you through the holidays with their new free NFP Mobile app for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. NFP Mobile that delivers instant, real-time access to NFP sports content, news and information.

NFP Mobile for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone features all of NFP's popular online content with easy-to-navigate tabs, including:

• Hot News and Rumors.
• Columns from NFP Experts (Matt Bowen, Jack Bechta, Robert Boland and Andrew Brandt).
• Notes from Lombardi.
• Fantasy Football News.
• Scouting Department.
• Daily Jolt.
• Team News - featuring a customizable tab that lets users get up-to-the-minute news on all their favorite teams.

At the BlackBerry Developer Conference, in the “Final 16” awards event,  judges awarded 7digital Music Store (by DevelopIQ) as the winner of the US$100,000 grand prize in the 2009 BlackBerry Partners Fund Developer Challenge. The free app lets users browse and buy DRM-free music.

Here are the top 3 BlackBerry App  winners.

• 7digital Music Store - (FREE) lets users browse the latest music charts, preview the latest tracks and discover, purchase and download high quality, DRM-free MP3 music directly to a BlackBerry smartphone. The software also comes with an integrated advanced media player that imports your existing playlists and music files.
• Fierce Towers ($4.99) is the first tower defense game for the BlackBerry smartphone. Control the field to stop the waves of attacking enemies as you place upgradeable towers around the field as you try your best strategies to stop wave after wave of invading enemies.
• Kik (FREE not available yet) lets users find, manage and play music files stored on BlackBerry devices.

The runner up in this year’s Challenge, Fierce Towers (by Nickel Buddy), receives a prize package valued at more than US$25,000. An on-the-spot honorable mention and US$5,000 prize was also awarded to Kik (by Unsynced). 

There are many free apps available for the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Tour  our readers love the top free best app articles.

Droid from Verizon comes loaded with a 5 megapixel camera.  Once you take the photos, wouldn’t be nice to share them and edit them?

Adobe launched Photoshop.com Mobile for Android software. The Android application equips consumers with quick and easy image-editing tools, color adjustments and instant photo-sharing capabilities. Photoshop.com Mobile optimizes the camera-phone experience by allowing users to browse for their photos online and on their phone, directly from the application. The application is free and available at the Android Market.

Photoshop.com Mobile for Android offers essential, user-friendly photo-editing tools like crop, rotate and flip. The Soft Focus filter can be used to create a subtle blur effect, and for performing color adjustments such as exposure, saturation, tint changes and classic black-and-white.

Disney announced a new free Disney iPhone appp with Disney content including areas dedicated to Characters, Music, Video and Games. Content in the app will be updated regularly, providing kids and families with instant access to the latest Disney news and entertainment.  

Features off the new Disney App include:

• Disney at your fingertips - instant access to the latest Disney news and entertainment.
• Characters - interact with hundreds of Disney's most popular characters through customizable photo frames and audio greetings that can be customized by users.
• Music - listen to Radio Disney live, play "Name that Song," watch music videos and purchase the latest Disney music from the iTunes Store.
• Videos - watch new featured and original videos each week including Disney.com's "Backstage Pass" and "Spotlight" segments.
• Games and My Disney Apps- download and manage free and paid Disney games and other apps.

There is now free social-network sourced address book for Andriod from Asurion Mobile AddressBook. The app marries a user's mobile address book with social content and services. It offers easy customization to cut through the social media chatter and improve communications. Users can add content from leading social sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, directly into their address book and tailor the types of updates they want from the contacts they want.

Features:

• MixIns - gives users a choice of the content and services they want to build to get a complete view of their relationships and drive their personal communications. Social networking feeds, photos, videos, games and more can be added directly into the contact views of the address book.
• Smart Contacts - allows contacts in the address book to be turned into mini-applications, giving users quick access to the services and information they need when on the go, such as directory assistance, local search, reservations and customer service.
• Instant Notifications - enables users to view updates from all of their social networks even before they open their address book via the Android notification screen. Users can customize the frequency and content of alerts to include different types of updates, from new photos on Facebook to new followers on Twitter.
• Simple interface - allows users to communicate with the contacts in their mobile phone from one place, with one touch, any way they choose. Users can tap to call, comment, text, tweet, post, email, IM or update their status, for example.

"Asurion Mobile AddressBook is a huge time saver," said Michelle Johnson, beta user. "I can get social media updates really quickly from my most important personal and business contacts without having to launch a dozen applications and weed through lots of data. It's a one stop shop for all my interactions. Best of all, with the new and constantly updated MixIn features, the application will grow with my social media needs."

Availability
Asurion Mobile AddressBook is available now and free of charge for any Android-powered phone. To download the application, go to: http://www.getaddressbook.com. AddressBook is also available for download at the Android Market. A video demo follows.

The LG Vu, and LG Shine are very popular feature phones but not much has been written about the best free apps for these fun phones. The LG Vu has 3G and great TV capabilities, now you can enhance your LG Vu with these free apps. We rounded-up reviews of LG VU, and LG Shine apps and found these free apps for your enjoyment.

Best Browser
BOLT Browser - This PC-like browser has proprietary compression, navigation and rendering technologies. BOLT enables users to find and read information quickly and easily. Built in J2ME and able to operate on phones of all types, BOLT can work on an estimated 3 billion phones already in the market.

Fun Goodies/Lifestyle
Feel-Goodies - this free feel-good app can really made your day. Filled with inspirational uplifting sayings, Feel-Goodies, can give you a quick lift in the bank line or the "bored room." This app has been featured as one of our J2ME Apps 2Day.

Social Networking, News & Photo Sharing Apps
Snaptu - is free service filled with apps that work on the LG Vu and LG Shine that requires internet access.  Snaptu provides iPhone-like applications to almost every mobile phone.  Although the service is geared toward people in the U.K. and Europe it has many free ad-supported apps for facebook, Picasa, Flikr, Twitter and Soduko.

Due to pressure from offended women, Pepsi has taken the "Amped" score with more women app off the iTunes shelves.

The "AMP UP Before You Score" a free application promoting PepsiCo's Amp Energy drink and was dubbed a "road map to success with your favorite kinds of women." The portrayal of women was sexist and included stereotypes.

In a statement, the Pepsi said removing the iPhone app was the "most appropriate course of action" after listening to "a variety of audiences."

It divided women into 24 categories. When the user identified the kind of woman he was trying to score, the app provided "a cheatsheet on the stuff she's into, with lists, links and some surefire opening lines."

What's even worse if the user got lucky, the app let him keep a "Brag List," with names, dates and other details and then suggested users to "flaunt it," by sharing the lucky women list with friends via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter.

This shouldn't be confused with another Score Mobile app sponsored by Budweiser, that show sports scores.

Pearl Jam is offering a bootleg app for the BlackBerry Tour.  We wonder why it wasn't for the BlackBerry Pearl then users could say my "Pearl is jammin'."

This is the start of of Pearl Jam's bootleg program for mobile devices. They're starting out small, with the new Pearl Jam mobile bootleg app available Verizon BlackBerry Tour customers, only.

Is life getting you down and you need a quick lift? Get this free BlackBerry app from Aproprose, Feel-Goodies. Launch the Feel-Goodies app and you will be reminded how wonderful you really are. One of our readers pointed out, “it’s a simple app for complicated people.”

A satisfied user is quoted on the Feel-Goodies website as saying, “The Feel-Goodies app demonstrates why the word “app” is in h-app-y.” 

There’s something endearing about this cellular caffeine for self esteem. Click through to get compliments that negate the negatives and position yourself in the positive. This app is not only a game shifter for mobile apps but an attitude shifter too.

Currently, there is only the free version of Feel-Goodies, while a paid version with a year’s supply of Feel-Goodies is in works. You can send a link or SMS, your BFF for her to get a free Feel-Goodies app right from within the application. Wireless and Mobile News was fortunate to get a first look at an app that can’t go wrong.

In the free BlackBerry App department in BlackBerry App World the top apps include messaging, social networking, music, utilities, games,

1.BlackBerry Messenger - The new BlackBerry Messenger 5.0 is so popular ,it reportedly crashed RIM's servers. It's been called one of the greatest updates so far. This new version of BlackBerry Messenger includes barcode scanning for PIN exchange, BlackBerry Messenger chat via SMS, the ability to create groups, back-up and restore of your contact list (on our servers - no more desktop backup required!) and the ability to customize your display picture.

2.  Facebook - this ever-so-popular social networking app has been updated with updates New features include status updates on the home page;wall access from within Facebook for BlackBerr, and photo viewing in a simple, easy-to-use slideshow format. .

3. Pandora Internet Radio - we named this our BlackBerrry Storm free app of the day way back and it's still a great way to listen to music on your BlackBerry.  Pandora creates radio stations based on songs and artists that you like based on algorithms from the Music Genome Project. Pandora Radio streams the songs to your BlackBerry.

4. BuzzMe - this app lets your BlackBerry smartphone Buzz and ring you at the same time. It allows you to control the color of the LED lights as well as pick a disco beat/style.

5. Dictionary.com - this newly released dictionary, spells success.  You can look up over 500,000 words with a special Dictionary Thesaurus App form Dictionary.com either from the app or writing or reading emails. Features include the "Word of the Day" and pronunciations.

Epocrates Essentials is now avaialble for BlackBerry smartphone. BlackBerry smartphones are one of Epocrates' fastest growing platforms with more than 20 percent growth among U.S. physicians in the past quarter. For a $159 annual fee, medical professional can get easy access to reference information.

Epocrates' top-ranked software is used at the point of care to support clinical decisions from diagnosis to treatment. Beyond the free drug prescribing and safety information, the enhanced Epocrates Essentials suite introduces new content and features to the platform including:

• Thousands of in-depth, peer-reviewed disease topics developed in conjunction with the BMJ Group, publisher of the British Medical Journal
• Hundreds of diagnostic and laboratory tests for interpretation and diagnostic support
• Hundreds of brand name OTC drug products with drug interactions
• More than 600 alternative (herbal) medicines
• Infectious disease treatment guide with empiric and specific treatment recommendations.
  

DataViz announced that their Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync client, RoadSync, is now available for purchase in Android Market.

RoadSync provides secure, wireless and direct push synchronization with Microsoft Exchange Server and supports corporate e-mail, calendar, contacts and attachments. The application has been in public beta for the past six months and accumulated nearly 20,000 customers who helped solidify the messaging solution on a variety of server configurations and Android-based devices running 1.5 Cupcake and 1.6 Donut.

There is now CBS News application for the iPhone and iPod touch. The free application delivers breaking news, video, and instant access to Twitter feeds on hot topics from CBS reporters, as well as users from around the globe. The new app also offers dedicated sections for each of CBS News' award-winning shows, featuring full-length episodes on-demand and access to CBSNews.com original programming. The application is available now from the App Store.

Five lucky Jonas Brothers fans and their friends and family members had a lot more to cheer about this weekend. That's because they submitted the winning videos in a Green Screen Community video contest during the Jonas Brothers' recent world tour.

The winners were hosted this past weekend by Verizon Wireless and LG Mobile Phones, compliments of Connecticut's Mohegan Sun, for a fun-filled weekend, which included a Saturday night concert at Mohegan Sun Arena. The following day the lucky winners played kickball with Kevin, Nick and Joe at the Kick for Change event held at Dodd Stadium in Norwich, Conn., home of the Connecticut Defenders baseball team.

The Weather Channel Mobile is offering a fre new ad-supported version of its popular weather appor BlackBerry smartphones. The Weather Channel for BlackBerry includes features such as GPS-based Location Tracker and interactive radar maps.  The expandable banner advertisements support the free app.

BlackBerry Weather Channel app offers current conditions, hourly, 36-hour and 10-day forecasts to help customers plan their daily and upcoming activities. Customers can share severe weather alerts, current conditions and forecasts with friends and contacts via e-mail or text message directly from the application.  Integration with the BlackBerry calendar and address book allows customers to check weather for daily appointments as well as stored contacts.

Known for its precise weather data, The Weather Channel for BlackBerry application continues to offer consumers accurate, localized weather data through enhanced features such as the proprietary TruPoint technology that provides detailed conditions within two kilometers of a customer's location, a convenient home screen temperature indicator that turns red when severe weather threatens, and the option to save and nickname favorite locations.

If you are an app developer and are confused about all the app stores out there, there is now a wiki that helps you find information about the app stores from Wireless Industry Partnership(WIP).

The WIP App Store Wiki www.wipwiki.com/appstores provides information to help developers and marketers make informed decisions and figure out what technology, platforms and markets are the most profitable and reachable.

Using a wiki format, WIP enables the community to soure information so the data is up to date and relevant.

There are now more than 30 mobile App stores in the market and their numbers are growing - a boon for developers in increasing and easing their channels to market. But this array of App stores can also lead to poverty for developers and disarray for marketers. App store placement and management is becoming a full time job.

BlackBerry Tour, Bold, Pearl, Curve and 8800 BlackBerry users can now look up words

with a special Dictionary Thesaurus App form Dictionary.com either from the app or writing or reading emails. Also included in the announcement is the news that people with extensive vocabulary are  las⋅civ⋅i⋅ous . This article has been titivated by the thesaurus.

They claim that the Dictionary.com application is the only free gratuitous  dictionary and thesaurus app currently available for BlackBerry smartphones. It provides users with more than 500,000 words, definitions and synonyms interchangeableness, audio pronunciations, spelling suggestions and Dictionary.com's popular Word of the Day for both English and Spanish.

The new BlackBerry dictionary app also allows users to instantly access a definition or synonym while reading or drafting email electronic mail, a feature unique to the Dictionary.com experience on BlackBerry smartphones.

Several of the features included in the Dictionary.com app were designed to meet the specific professional needs of BlackBerry smartphone users, helping them get essential information on the go. The relevance of the application is underscored by a recent study that revealed 54 percent of people believe a person's vocabulary is crucial to being successful in business. Not to mention, a mastery of language can have after-hours benefits. More than 12 percent of those surveyed said they find a person with an extensive vocabulary sexy.

BlackBerry Storm users who like to connect the dots can now get a free game to play on BlackBerry Storm touchscreen smartphones. The free app of the day from Tafasa is called "Dots."

The way the Dots game app works is that you start with an empty grid of dots, players take turns, adding a single horizontal or vertical line between two unjoined adjacent dots. The player who completes the fourth side of a box earns one point and takes another turn.

The game ends when no more lines can be placed. The winner of the game is the player with the most points. All you have to do is click on the space between adjacent dots to add a line connecting them. Enjoy the fun graphics and unlimited number of move undos while you improve your skills against the computer or defeat your friend!

Features of the Free Dots App for BlackBerry Storm

Play against Computer or another Person.

Undo moves an unlimited number of times.

Fun graphics.