AppsArabia invests in the best app ideas from throughout the MENA region, helps get them to market and assists in promoting them to maximise revenues for their creators.
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Thanks very much to Dr James Piecowye @ Dubai Eye for having us on the Nightline show.
James has provided a series of podcasts which cover the live-on-air chat with AppsArabia’s David Ashford.
Click here to listen to the podcasts.
James has kindly invited us back on his show – with the entrepreneurs & developers of some of our current projects – so we hope to organise this for early in the new year.
read more 2CommentsOur friends at VisionMobile have published a great new infographic & asked us to share it with you all.
A few months ago, VisionMobile published Developer Economics 2010 & Beyond, a research report that tracked the entire mobile developer journey – from app design & platform selection to market delivery and monetization.
Now they’ve presented the entire Mobile Developer Journey in a single graphic – brilliant!
Click here to get the infographic.
read more respondThe world’s most widely used smartphone platform lives on so there’s every reason to develop for this platform.
Nokia has recently decided to focus on Qt as their sole application development framework to simplify things for developers.
Read the statement from Nokia’s CTO, Rich Green.
read more 1CommentAppsArabia will be speaking at the Dubai World Game Expo 2010 (29-30 November @ Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre).
We’ll be providing a sneak preview to our first investment project & an update on the projects we’re currently working on.
Click here for more details about the event. We hope you can make it to the event & look forward to meeting you there.
read more respondDavid Ashford, GM of AppsArabia, will be on the Dubai Eye Nightline Show with Dr James Piecowye on Sunday 7th November from about 9pm.
Please leave a comment to this post with questions you want us to answer live on air or suggestions for what we should talk about … relevant to apps of course 
PC World Middle East asked AppsArabia to write an article about what it takes to become an app entrepreneur in the middle east and how to succeed.
The 10 steps detailed in the article are:
Click here to read the article.
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Here’s an informal interview with David Ashford, GM @ AppsArabia, recorded live at GITEX 2010 in Dubai. Magnus Nystedt, Group Editor Consumer Technology @ CPI Dubai, asks David what app developers should consider when forming their app idea and what role AppsArabia plays in the apps development ecosystem.
Do you have anything to add? Please join in the dialogue by posting your comments.
UPDATE: Research in Motion have recently announced that BlackBerry App World will be coming to the MENA region. Hooray! So there are now three viable platforms in this region … AppsArabia will consider investing in app projects for Nokia, Apple or BlackBerry.
read more respondWho would have thought that the Prime Minister in the UK has time to get so good at Angry Birds
Click here to read the article.
read more respondSyndiGate is a digital content syndication service provided by Al Bawaba Middle East Limited. SyndiGate licenses multi-lingual content in electronic format from 1,500+ publishers and creators of text, photo, video, audio, games and applications and provides this content to a broad range of global customers.
Right now, SyndiGate is seeking cross platform mobile app entrepreneurs/developers to come up with a bright idea for a revenue generating app, utilizing the huge pool of third party content licensed to SyndiGate. Click here to view the current content catalogue.
SyndiGate is interested in projects that are most commercially attractive for the MENA region (e.g. using Apple and Nokia platforms). However, SyndiGate is also very interested in Android apps, specifically for Google TV (launching at the beginning of 2011), whereby an app could be developed comprising multiple sources of Arabic and English language IPTV and Video on Demand (VoD) content, on or about the MENA region. Another app idea for example could involve any or all of the MENA newspaper content SyndiGate has the rights to.
To contact SyndiGate with your app ideas or with any questions, please send an email to Dubai based Mark Gatty Saunt at mark@syndigate.info or call him on +971 50 8405686.
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InMobi have just sent me some interesting research to share with you all:
Qatar University Wireless Innovations Center (QUWIC) has just launched the first ever annual regional and multi-platform mobile application development contest across the Arab world.
We announced this as a forthcoming contest back in August and we’re pleased to announce that it is now launched.
Click here for the press release.
read more 1CommentCongratulations to ngmoco!
They’ve just agreed to sell their company to DeNA, Japan’s largest and most successful mobile social games platform company, for a whopping $400 million. I’m sure this has provided a healthy return for ngmoco’s founders and investors.
Click here to read the full story.
read more 1CommentGot a start-up or idea you want to showcase at GITEX?
Then you should apply for the TiE GITEX “Start-up Showcase”. You could get a free booth at GITEX and the chance to present your idea to potential customers, investors and partners. The application is open to everyone!
Click here for more information and to apply.
read more 3CommentsNokia are going big this year at GITEX and we’ll be on their stand at the GITEX Mobile Apps & Content World at various times throughout the event. Nokia are also running some workshops: “Touch & Type UI on Java” and “Qt Basic & Qt Intermediate.”
Click here to get a FREE pass to GITEX from Nokia.
Come and see us at stand number S1-M40 in the Sheikh Saeed Hall 1.
Nokia’s new N8 device is getting some rave reviews!
“The Nokia N8 bodes well for things to come with a vastly improved OS and an excellent camera and mapping experience”.
Read the review at MobileChoice.
read more 2CommentsGreat article by Jon Jordan @ PocketGamer.biz about how Nokia shouldn’t be forgotten. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this … I’ve been saying it for a while.
Click here for the full article.
I am keen to invest in an app project for the Nokia platform so get your thinking caps on! And then submit your investment application via the form on this site!
read more 4CommentsDavid George-Cosh’s article in today’s The National quotes some of our local developers who are holding back their BlackBerry app projects because of uncertainty over BlackBerry’s future within the region.
But is this a blessing in disguise? Would the BlackBerry app projects have been commercially successful? Maybe, but only if the apps were *not* targeting BlackBerry users in MENA.
The article says “About 10,000 BlackBerry apps are available on RIM’s App World, a fraction of the 253,000 apps available for the iPhone device. However, there are 41 million BlackBerry users around the world, providing ample potential for developers to make an app that could generate significant sales.”
But how are you supposed to distribute and sell BlackBerry apps *here* in MENA? BlackBerry App World is not available in any of the MENA countries and the only distribution channels currently available (provided by the likes of the telcos) are actually pretty inefficient. So I think it is quite hard to generate significant sales with BlackBerry apps in our region. There’s no denying there is a sizeable market and a considerable demand for apps here but an effective distribution channel is *essential* for commercial success in MENA.
So come on RIM … give us BlackBerry App World in MENA!
What do you think? Please click on RESPOND to leave your comments.
The print edition of this article included this useful bit of data about the number and spread of new handsets in UAE in Q4 2009:
Click here to read the full article on The National web site.
read more respondThis is a very interesting article on ArabCrunch.
Arabic is the fastest growing language and, although English is by far the biggest language on Facebook, it has fallen below 50% for the first time.
Read the full article on ArabCrunch here.
read more respondWonderful post from theoatmeal.com which cleverly demonstrates the irony of people not wanting to pay for apps
Leave a comment to tell us what you think about this.
Check out this blog – I think this guy’s got a great sense of humour!
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With online advertising continuing to challenge traditional media in the Middle East in the last 12 months, it now finds itself in danger of being caught by its latest competitor, mobile advertising. A look at the numbers tells us why. The Middle East market consists of ~300 million people spread across more than 20 countries. While broadband Internet penetration languishes below 15% in most countries, mobile phone penetration is 150% in many markets with increasing mobile handset sophistication and 3G technologies spreading quickly. The result is that phone is far more effective than the fixed Internet for reaching people in the Middle East. Add to this mix more and more mobile websites with local Arabic content and its easy to understand why users are increasingly drawn to the mobile web. On the InMobi mobile advertising network alone, we saw a 33% increase in impressions from June to July of this year, creating a regional network of 500 million impressions. So as an application developer focused on the region, how can you participate and benefit from the explosive growth in the region?
Firstly, what is a mobile advertising network? To put it simply … (be sure to click READ MORE below for the full article!) …
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