Some people embrace the most romantic day of the year while others struggle under the pressure of trying to pull out all the stops to make Valentine’s Day memorable. If you’re one of the latter always scrambling around to come up with a big romantic gesture then you should check out the three apps below to give you some last minute ideas.

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With only two days until the most romantic day of the year everyone should be getting in the mood for a little romancing. At MagicSolver, we got the love bug early, taking an arrow from Eros on the 7^th Feb when we released our app Valentine’s Day 2014: 7 free gifts to fall in love with.  Free on iOS and Android this app offers a new app surprise, for gratis, every day from 7^th February until the big day.

Users have already been enjoying the daily gifts and even if you’re late to our app you can still retrospectively download the apps our crack editorial team have chosen for Valentine’s week. So far iOS users have enjoyed the likes of addictive match-three game Jelly Splash, Pokemon-inspired game Battle Camp and the Postcard app that lets you send a physical postcard to your favourite Valentine from your phone.

Those using Android have been falling in love with the Cupid-style scroller Daemon Amor, retro playground love game MASH Valentine and the platform adventure game Amy in Love. So make sure you don’t miss out on the free app countdown to Valentine’s Day. XX

It’s nearly time for the arrival of the most romantic day of the year and what better way is there to count down than with MagicSolver’s newest app: Valentine’s Day 2014: 7 free gifts to fall in love with.

Counting down to Valentine’s Day from the 8th February, users of the app will receive a number of free surprises every day they return to the app.

With a free mini-game to play, a romantic free gift to discover and some exclusive romantic wallpapers to unlock, Valentine’s Day 2014 is packed full of content that you’re bound to love at first sight.

Download the app now on iOS and Android and see how quickly you fall in love with this app!

App analytic and market intelligence specialist, App Annie released its 2013 retrospective report on the key trends from last year and it reveals some major shifts in terms of download market share and emerging app markets. Definitely take time to download the free report and read it. You can get it here.

In the meantime, here are the potted highlights: Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time there was only one mobile eco-system worth developing apps for: iOS.  Why?  Because that was where the money was.  It was generally accepted that the only place that people would pay for apps was the Apple App Store.

Not any more.  A recent article in the Financial Times (free subscription required) suggests that, whilst the revenue generated from the top 200 apps on the Apple App store has risen from $15 million per month to $18 million, the Google Play store has seen an astonishing growth from $3.5 million to $12 million.  And this does not include regions where the Google Play store is unavailable and where third party app stores might bolster this number even more. Read the rest of this entry »

We can officially start getting excited about Christmas! Well we can from this Saturday, 30^th November, when our annual Advent 2013, 25 Christmas Apps app launches. This year’s iOS and Android app is even bigger and better. Users still get to discover and download a new, free, top quality app everyday until 25^th December but this time we’ve cranked up the production values and fun quota on the mini games.

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Christmas is a busy time for MagicSolver, not least because we are readying our Advent 2013 calendar app. While we are poised to launch our festive app next week, around the same time shoppers in the U.S will be gearing up for the post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza known as ‘Black Friday’. For those unaware of this special day, it is where retail outlets slash the prices on their goods and wares and American citizens go crazy trying to pick up amazing bargains to put under the Christmas tree.

Shopping via mobile is already on the rise but this year the smartphone will play a big role in the way people buy gifts for Xmas, according to a survey conducted by technology protection specialist Asurion. 58% of smartphone owners said their device will be very important to them on ‘Black Friday’, with 49% claiming they will make purchases via the device.

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We know that Apple and its trusty iPhone transformed the smartphone landscape and created an unrivalled app ecosystem but have you ever wondered what goes behind making one of the most popular phones in the world? The sprawling infographic below, commissioned by FinancesOnline.com,  goes into some detail about the iPhone’s supply chain, the cost of making one of the iconic gadgets on the planet and the widgets and electronics fitted under the bonnet to make it purr. It makes for a very interesting and occasionally eye-opening read.

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For app developers choosing the right pricing/revenue model is a key factor in the success of their app. We have rigourously debated the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different models – paid for free with ad support and freemium – in previous blogs but the newest debate centres on the end of paid for apps.

Tech Crunch’s insightful article on this subject shows this isn’t a clear cut argument as you may expect. The stats from Flurry research shows the move toward free is getting larger: from 2010 to 2012 the proportion of free apps on the Apple App Store grew from 80% to 84%. In 2013 this had reached 90%. The interesting discovery from this research was that app developers shifted towards the free pricing model not through peer pressure but by experimenting with different streams to find the model that suited their app.

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