Saturday 13 July 2013

Adam Gilchrist's funny stumping

Adam Gilchrist's funny stumping
LOL WTF he's doing with stumps


Friday 12 July 2013

NSA docs boast: Now we can wiretap Skype video calls

In 2008, Skype told CNET the service could not be wiretapped. Microsoft no longer stands by that claim, and a National Security Agency document shows analysts can eavesdrop on video calls.
Skype viewed via Outlook.com
Skype now has a backdoor that permits government surveillance of users' video and audio calls, according to a new report in the Guardian.
The report, based on leaked slides from the National Security Agency, appears to confirm growing suspicions about the popular video chat service -- and indicates calls may be monitored as easily as an old-fashioned phone call.
One document quoted by the newspaper says intelligence analysts began to be able to monitor Skype video calls in July 2012: "The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete 'picture.'"
This is a dramatic change from Skype's previous apparent resistance to eavesdropping.

In 2008, when the company was owned by eBay instead of Microsoft, a Skype spokeswoman told CNET: "We have not received any subpoenas or court orders asking us to perform a live interception or wiretap of Skype-to-Skype communications. In any event, because of Skype's peer-to-peer architecture and encryption techniques, Skype would not be able to comply with such a request."
CNET asked Microsoft Wednesday morning whether that statement was still correct. Microsoft did not respond.
It's possible for companies to create communications systems using strong end-to-end encryption believed to be proof against government snoops. Silent Circle, Off-the-Record Messaging for instant messages, and e-mail messages encrypted with PGP do precisely that.
But few companies take that step, which can be a significant engineering expense and complicated for customers to use. Another classified document, citing collaboration between NSA and FBI, said: "Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete. Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the PRISM system."
After buying Skype, Microsoft dramatically overhauled its architecture, replacing peer-to-peer "super nodes" with thousands of servers run by Microsoft -- a more centralized approach that may have made it easier for government eavesdroppers. Around the same time, Microsoft would no longer stand by Skype's earlier claim to be wiretap-unfriendly.
Matthew Kaufman, Skype's principal architect, said in a message on an e-mail list last month that the server change was due to the increasing use of mobile apps, which interact with Skype differently than desktop machines and often run in the background or get evicted from memory:
How do we solve that for our users? Servers. Lots of them, and more and more often in the Windows Azure cloud infrastructure. In the case of instant messaging, we have merged the Skype and Windows Messenger message delivery backend services, and this now gets you delivery of messages even when the recipient is offline, and other nice features like spam filtering and malicious URL removal. For calling, we have the dedicated supernodes already, and additional services to help calls succeed when the receiving client is asleep and needs a push notification to wake up. And over time you will see more and more services move to the Skype cloud, offloading memory and CPU requirements from the mobile devices everyone wants to enjoy to their fullest and with maximum battery life.
There is no evidence that encrypted Skype calls can be passively monitored by the NSA or FBI without the assistance of Microsoft. In other words, the intelligence agency's vast eavesdropping apparatus can't vacuum up and use Skype calls in the same way it reportedly can intercept unencrypted e-mail or Web traffic by using fiber taps.
Instead, the federal government would serve an order on Microsoft, using a Title III wiretap order or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act order, requiring it to divulge the contents of a Skype call.
Microsoft's most recent transparency report says the company did not divulge any Skype audio or video content to police in 2012. But the report refers only to "law enforcement requests," and does not appear to include requests made under FISA's separate procedures.

Thursday 11 July 2013

Highest Paying Google AdSense Keywords of 2013

We see that there are so many peoples and students thats only come for bloging to fill thier pockets by google adsense. They Want to earn huge Payment but generally they fail and not be able to earn huge payment.Have you ever noticed that why google are paying you less?

On First hand you get to read many success stories based on Google AdSense payments and on other hand Google AdSense disappoints you by paying you pennies. There are just two factors behind  AdSense pay-outs, the big traffic and the highest paying Google AdSense keywords.

Don’t worry Here i tell you that how you can increase your AdSense Income. You have just need to focus on keywords that you use in your article. The Google AdSense revenue is also depend on your blog/website niche. 
There are many people who takes months even years to get their first AdSense cheque of $100. I am sure if you target your keywords by the keywords mentioned below, you will get first AdSense cheque in just a month. 
Check out the 50 highest paying Google AdSense keywords of 2013 given below.


Highest Paying Google AdSense Keywords of 2013





  • Insurance




  • Taxes


  • Loans


  • Donate


  • Hosting


  • Advertising


  • Attorney


  • Rehab


  • Classes


  • Transfer


  • Software


  • Investing


  • Recovery


  • Claim


  • Trading


  • Lawyer


  • Credit


  • Credit Card


  • Conference  Call


  • Degree


  • Gas


  • Electricity


  • Treatment


  • Bonds


  • Cell Phone Plans


  • Cord Blood


  • Weight Loss


  • Anti Virus Protection


  • Online Banking


  • Internet Broker


  • Register Domain


  • Money


  • Marketing


  • Pay-per-click


  • Laptop Computer


  • Spyware


  • Depression


  • Vioxx


  • Refinance


  • Pharmacy


  • Consolidation


  • Big label


  • Cards


  • Internet


  • Printer


  • Settlements


  • Annuity


  • e-loan


  • Web Host


  • Union

  • Hope you like this article and It helps you in increasing AdSense revenue

    List of top paying Google adsense keywords

    List of top paying Google adsense keywords

     

    List of top paying Google adsense keywords. How to make the maximum out of Google adsense?
    Most people serving as affiliates under the Google adsense PPC affiliate program would like to know which are the top keywords which provide the highest CPC(cost-per-click) revenue for their sites. CPC is the amount which the advertiser pays Adsense for displaying their ads on adsense affiliate web sites. I have listed some of the top paying adsense keywords in this hub. However, the CPC amounts may not exactly be the same and sometime vary towards each keyword
    Many webmasters constantly research as to how keywords work, and to find out how websites can be optimized by creating them with the targeted top-paying keywords. By optimizing your website based on these top paying keywords, you can make the maximum out of Adsense revenue.

    Maximum CPC Average CPC Keyword
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    159.00 27.11 google affiliate
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    172.60 26.31 100 home equity loan
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    102.69 23.03 att prepaid wireless
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    103.19 22.47 malignant mesothelioma
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    169.05 22.34 primary pulmonary hypertension
    37.77 22.27 miami personal injury attorney
    53.88 22.24 anti spam lotus notes
    31.56 22.23 life insurance quotes
    105.05 21.91 egg credit
    39.25 21.80 anti spam exchange server
    65.98 21.77 lemon law
    193.39 21.67 google adsense
    33.09 21.67 best consolidation loan student
    34.22 21.63 refinance with poor credit
    77.44 21.49 employee leasing
    34.61 21.36 student loan consolidation center
    40.45 21.35 buyer mortgage note
    57.49 21.34 federal student loan consolidation
    55.24 21.33 symptoms of mesothelioma
    30.51 21.31 city hair laser new removal york
    133.02 21.20 att wireless com
    30.03 21.15 san diego dui lawyer
    66.79 21.14 indiana law lemon
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    70.76 20.80 angeles criminal defense los
    27.42 20.80 refinancing with poor credit
    106.26 20.64 home equity loan
    41.31 20.64 action class lawsuit vioxx
    32.65 20.49 term life assurance
    42.74 20.47 e loan
    63.54 20.46 celebrex lawyer
    71.38 20.37 vasectomy reversal
    56.24 20.36 mortgage rates refinancing
    47.61 20.28 attorney law lemon
    36.13 20.28 consolidate student loans
    36.88 20.17 home equity loans
    50.75 20.11 mesothilioma
    43.02 19.99 new york personal injury lawyer
    27.42 19.98 home equity loan rates
    32.22 19.97 auto insurance quotes
    64.02 19.93 georgia law lemon
    37.31 19.90 homeowner loans
    27.03 19.73 equity loan rates
    61.52 19.68 administration lease software
    100.26 19.63 egg credit card
    31.75 19.58 student consolidation loans
    65.83 19.55 microsoft anti spam
    Max CPC ($) Avg CPC ($) Keyword
    46.34 19.41 mesothelioma prognosis
    53.36 19.29 second mortgages
    31.54 19.26 21 auto century insurance
    64.73 19.25 employee florida leasing
    52.18 19.21 federal consolidation loan
    101.30 19.17 equity loan
    27.88 19.14 personal injury attorney colorado
    52.56 19.03 accident lawyer michigan
    30.22 19.02 refinancing with bad credit
    28.78 19.02 home equity line of credit rates
    45.11 19.01 federal consolidation
    62.95 18.96 non profit debt consolidation
    61.58 18.95 pay per click affiliate
    47.84 18.86 city hair new removal york
    107.72 18.85 acid reflux disease diet
    52.63 18.77 refinance poor credit
    36.45 18.75 equity loans
    36.00 18.73 student loan consolidate
    32.77 18.60 consolidate loans
    33.40 18.51 secured loans
    30.78 18.49 criminal lawyer new york
    51.00 18.43 affiliate per click
    33.06 18.29 chicago personal injury lawyer
    25.19 18.29 los angeles dui lawyer
    110.73 18.19 att prepaid
    63.95 18.10 angeles criminal defense lawyer los
    27.37 18.04 critical illness insurance life
    40.00 18.03 irs lawyer tax
    33.77 18.03 laser hair removal new york
    66.00 18.02 comcast high speed
    240.78 17.98 personal yahoo
    57.77 17.78 san diego dui attorney
    60.49 17.77 michigan personal injury
    36.93 17.73 automobile law lemon
    33.22 17.66 cheap insurance life term
    45.38 17.52 home loans refinancing
    30.44 17.51 consolidate college loans
    39.22 17.45 cheap life insurance
    32.06 17.38 vioxx law suit
    38.36 17.32 student loan refinance
    62.47 17.30 car hire alicante spain
    57.56 17.28 tax attorney
    31.37 17.28 refinancing my home
    51.18 17.24 criminal dallas lawyer
    31.46 17.24 line of credit home equity
    26.44 17.23 litigation vioxx
    56.43 17.20 at and t phones
    44.22 17.15 criminal defense attorney los angeles
    25.86 17.14 commodity online trading
    26.48 17.13 home equity rates
    190.41 17.12 adsense
    36.81 17.12 law lemon mass
    65.76 17.11 equity home
    39.70 17.10 arizona law lemon
    40.84 17.09 child molestation attorney
    31.40 17.09 home line of credit
    54.56 17.06 alicante car rental spain
    70.37 17.03 attorney defense federal
    53.29 17.02 san diego criminal attorney
    42.50 16.79 injury lawyer new york
    37.52 16.78 attorney injury new personal york
    89.97 16.77 at and t mobile
    104.55 16.72 pleural mesothelioma
    80.62 16.61 augmentation breast diego san
    56.20 16.61 home equity poor credit
    83.55 16.60 health insurance temporary
    62.43 16.60 compensation mesothelioma
    33.00 16.60 21st century insurance
    47.65 16.52 cheap insurance medical
    53.95 16.51 angeles criminal lawyer los
    31.65 16.49 low cost term life insurance
    37.43 16.48 home refinance loans
    48.20 16.45 eloan
    33.93 16.44 life insurance quote
    25.06 16.39 cheap life assurance
    46.13 16.33 125 equity loan
    32.22 16.32 anti spam exchange
    32.09 16.31 credit equity home line
    103.44 16.30 att go phone
    46.72 16.30 dui florida lawyer
    37.97 16.27 hair removal new york
    20.14 16.22 vioxx class action suit
    31.32 16.14 merchant account international
    25.98 16.11 vioxx class action
    48.31 16.10 125 home equity loan
    44.40 16.10 life insurance quote online
    47.36 16.09 consolidation loan
    32.15 16.04 equity line of credit
    26.31 16.02 carolina law lemon north
    25.97 16.02 equity rates
    52.70 15.87 direct home insurance line
    30.84 15.86 angeles attorney los tax
    35.29 15.85 credit home line
    35.04 15.81 term insurance
    34.93 15.81 auto insurances
    61.54 15.80 debtfreedirect
    27.77 15.80 refinance comparison
    49.97 15.77 acid reflux treatment
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    42.56 15.73 college loan refinance
    136.53 15.66 mesothelioma lawsuits
    50.97 15.66 criminal diego lawyer san
    35.86 15.58 equity line
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    44.22 15.53 attorney criminal miami
    35.93 15.52 equity home line
    35.31 15.51 florida medical malpractice lawyer
    26.04 15.51 california car cheap insurance
    103.88 15.49 law lemon virginia
    36.36 15.46 injury law new personal york
    34.45 15.46 auto law lemon
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    32.72 15.43 cheap insurance term
    61.61 15.40 houston criminal attorney
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    27.14 15.40 mortgage life assurance
    23.32 15.36 online help desk software
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    44.13 15.33 student loan refinancing
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    38.50 15.32 level term life insurance
    60.04 15.31 criminal lawyer phoenix
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    18.90 15.13 hair island laser long removal
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    Shouldn't Apple just call it a day and admit defeat?

    Evidence submitted during the Apple e-book trial paints a picture of a scheming company clearly on the wrong side of the law.
     
     Let's stipulate from the outset that Apple is not going to suffer any damage after losing big to the government in the e-book price-fixing case. Yes, a few codgers may decide on principle not to buy iPads as a personal statement of protest, but those are the same cranks who picket at the slightest smell of bacon from a bacon restaurant.
    But just because Apple may get off without paying a steep price in the public's eyes, the evidence submitted at trial paints a picture of a scheming company clearly on the wrong side of the law. The court has not yet scheduled a hearing to address proposed remedies.
    The decision handed down Wednesday by Federal Judge Denise L. Cote found Apple guilty of orchestrating a conspiracy to cut out e-book competition and raise prices. (Here's a link to the full text of Cote's decision if you want to read along. It's worth spending the time.) Her reading of the evidence showed Apple demanding, as a precondition of its entry into the market, that it would not have to compete with Amazon on price.
    "Thus, from the consumer's perspective -- a not unimportant perspective in the field of antitrust -- the arrival of the iBookstore brought less price competition and higher prices," Cote wrote.
    Apple, which said it plans to file an appeal, did not budge from its repeated assertions of innocence since the Justice Department filed a lawsuit last spring over e-book pricing.
    "Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations," said Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr. "When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We've done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge's decision."
    Good luck with that. Given the detail Cote produced chronicling how Apple colluded with five big publishers on e-book pricing, even Clarence Darrow would be at a disadvantage getting this verdict overturned. The publishers, who examined the same evidence, settled with the government before the case went to trial. Not Apple, which maintained all along that it was just trying to do the right thing by customers.
    If this case does wind up getting reheard, Apple will make that same pitch. But any appeals court still will have to accept the facts submitted into evidence. And they paint an unflattering picture. According to Cote:
    Some consumers had to pay more for e-books; others bought a cheaper e-book rather than the one they preferred to purchase; and it can be assumed that still others deferred a purchase altogether rather than pay the higher price. Now that the [publishers] were in control of pricing, they were also less willing to authorize retailers to give consumers the benefit of promotions.
    Also, consider how e-book prices rose after the opening of the iBookstore. Apple tried to argue that prices actually dropped over the following couple of years. That argument failed to persuade. Again, from Cote's decision:
    Apple's experts did not present any analysis that attempted to control for the many changes that the e-book market was experiencing during these early years of its growth, including the phenomenon of disintermediation and the extent to which other publishers decided to remain on the wholesale model. The analysis presented by the Plaintiffs' experts as well as common sense lead invariably to a finding that the actions taken by Apple and the Publisher Defendants led to an increase in the price of e-books.
    Steve Jobs wasn't around to defend himself but the document trail he left behind helped clinch Apple's guilt in Cote's eyes. She noted that Jobs told News Corp.'s James Murdoch that he understood the publishers' concerns that "Amazon's $9.99 price for new releases is eroding the value perception of their products . . . and they do not want this practice to continue," and that Apple was thus "willing to try at the [$12.99 and $14.99] prices we've proposed." That was yet another sign of Apple's determination to collude with the publishers as they schemed on how to jack up e-book prices, according to Cote.
    Jobs's purchase of an e-book for $14.99 at the Launch, and his explanation to a reporter that day that Amazon's $9.99 price for the same book would be irrelevant because soon all prices will "be the same" is further evidence that Apple understood and intended that Amazon's ability to set retail prices would soon be eliminated.
    Also, Jobs subsequently told biographer Walter Isaacson how the publishers "went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books.'" Jobs was referring to Macmillan CEO John Sargent's trip to Seattle to deliver "an ultimatum to Amazon," she wrote.
    In the end, Apple's lawyers couldn't talk away the statements by its former leader. Today's storyline points to Apple as the ringleader, both facilitating and encouraging what was a collective and illegal restraint of trade. Hardly the sort of description that we've come to associate with Silicon Valley's most iconic company.
    (Credit: U.S. Dept. of Justice)

    T-Mobile CEO: Next shake-up will convert non-believers

    T-Mobile CEO John Legere offers CNET a few more clues to its next move as it continues to upend the industry.
    ,,
    T-Mobile aims to shake up the industry again, and sooner than you think.
    At the end of T-Mobile's press conference on Wednesday, CEO John Legere teased another big change to come. In an interview with CNET, he offered a few more clues.

    Legere called it "Phase 3," with "Phase 1" being the elimination of contracts and "Phase 2" the new upgrade program that the company unveiled today. He said Phase 3 would debut this year as the company looks quick to capitalize on its challenger image.
    He said the move would address another frustration that "drive people nuts" about the industry, adding that it would convert "any non-believers left."
    "This one will be more fun than the last two," he said. "I can't wait for them to get comfortable and spring this."
    More so than the other moves, Phase 3 would involve something that the other carriers can't match he said. He added that it was easier for the challenger to cannibalize its own business, something incumbents rarely do.
    "What they do is throw you a little share," he said. "What happens is they create a monster."

    Wednesday 10 July 2013

    Pakistan Vs west indies 2013 watch online every match


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    Pakistan tour of West Indies 2013 schedule

    Thu Jul 11
    13:30 GMT | 09:30 local | 18:30 PKT
    TBC v Pakistanis
    Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana
    N/A
    Sun Jul 14
    13:30 GMT | 09:30 local | 18:30 PKT
    1st ODI - West Indies v Pakistan
    Providence Stadium, Guyana
    N/A
    Tue Jul 16
    13:30 GMT | 09:30 local | 18:30 PKT
    2nd ODI - West Indies v Pakistan
    Providence Stadium, Guyana
    N/A
    Fri Jul 19
    13:30 GMT | 09:30 local | 18:30 PKT
    3rd ODI - West Indies v Pakistan
    Beausejour Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia
    N/A
    Sun Jul 21
    13:30 GMT | 09:30 local | 18:30 PKT
    4th ODI - West Indies v Pakistan
    Beausejour Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia
    N/A
    Wed Jul 24
    13:30 GMT | 09:30 local | 18:30 PKT
    5th ODI - West Indies v Pakistan
    Beausejour Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia
    N/A
    Sat Jul 27 1st T20I - West Indies v Pakistan
    Arnos Vale Ground, Kingstown, St Vincent
    N/A
    Sat Jul 28 2nd T20I - West Indies v Pakistan
    Arnos Vale Ground, Kingstown, St Vincent
    N/A

    New Google Maps for Android moves in on Yelp, Foursquare

    Google Maps for Android updates with a refreshed interface for phones, a new tablet design, and enhanced features -- but no Waze.
    Following the public unveiling of a major Google Maps overhaul at May's Google I/O, and subsequent reports of Google Maps for Android landing on the Google Play Store late Tuesday night, the company made an official announcement for the improved app early Wednesday morning.
    The new Google Maps for Android includes features big and small that combine geolocation with more real-world information than just longitude and latitude. Restaurant reviews from Zagat target Yelp, and are available directly from within Maps when you look up a restaurant. You now can add your own score and comments from within Maps.
    The new Explore feature sounds similar to one available in Foursquare. It provides an entirely touch-based way to explore a location without typing or speaking. It focuses on five categories: eat, shop, drink, sleep, and play, allowing people to learn more about urban locations in relationship to their restaurants, retail, bars, hotels, and activities.
    What Google has built with Maps is good, Graf said, adding that it's made more useful when its users contribute to make it "even better."
    While the more realistic Map view made big news at Google I/O this year, the mobile version exposes search results at the bottom of the screen in a format not unlike the Google Now cards. Swiping through the cards will show you other nearby results.
    Traffic information in Maps now includes real-time traffic incident details with an notification to re-route you with one tap. While that sounds like Waze, the social maps app that Google recently purchased, Graf said that it was too soon to include features from Waze.
    Google Maps on Android now offers real-time traffic re-routing.
    (Credit: Google)
    Street View has been improved on Android with "business photos," so that you can follow the street-level map directly into places of interest. Google Maps now offers a slightly different interface for Android tablets, as well.
    Google Maps' offline mode in Android has been replaced. Now, if you speak or enter "OK Maps" into the search box when viewing a map you wish to save for offline use, it will automatically save that map and the surrounding area. Graf said that it covers enough ground so that if you're looking at a map of the Mission District in San Francisco, Maps will cache a map large enough to cover most of the Bay Area.
    Google also announced that Latitude and check-ins will be removed from older versions of Google Maps on August 9, and are no longer part of the new Google Maps app for Android and the anticipated update for iOS.
    Graf wouldn't reveal a launch date for the updated Google Maps for iOS, saying only that it was "coming soon" for Apple's phones and tablets

    Apple's App Store turns five: You're great, now change

    Apple's App Store redefined how we all downloaded programs on our smartphones. But with Google Play outstripping its number of apps, the challenge of the next five years isn't volume -- it's getting the right app in the right hands.
    What a difference five years makes.
    Apple's App Store has a lot to brag about as it celebrates its fifth birthday on Wednesday. Over the last half decade, it helped fully realize the Swiss army-capabilities of the smartphone, which could do far more than make phone calls and browse the Internet. While not the first, it set the standard for mobile application marketplaces to come. The best part: it made apps accessible to everyone.
    "Nothing like the App Store existed before and it has fundamentally changed the world," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said last month, describing the store's launch at the company's yearly developer conference ahead of today's anniversary.
    But things have changed since the App Store was first introduced by the late Steve Jobs, and Google Play has surpassed the App Store when it comes to sheer number of available apps. While Apple's App Store has always been home to the hottest big-name apps, its success over the next five years may be shaped by how well it can foster apps both big and small.
    "It winds up being a popularity contest rather than people finding the content that they want," said Brian Blau, Gartner's research director of consumer technology. Users are exposed to the top few thousand most popular apps, he added, so apps must compete for rankings or to get promoted as, say, a staff favorite. That disenfranchises all the apps without brand recognition or marketing firepower.
    For now, Apple has a lot of impressive numbers to tout. Its App Store has surpassed 50 billion apps downloaded, with 900,000 programs available. Apple brags it's paid out $10 billion to developers, testament that it pays to work with the company even as it takes a 30 percent cut of sales.
    Apple has done a great job attracting the developers, Blau points out, by being the leader for developer revenues.
    As a result, the iPhone franchise remains the envy of the smartphone industry, even as rival Samsung Electronics has made significant headway with its own flagship Galaxy S family of phones. In the U.S., iPhone sales still dominate, fueled at least in part by the breadth of apps.
    What Apple did differently
    It's easy to forget that Apple wasn't the first app marketplace. The App Store had precursors from the likes of Palm, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com's AppExchange. Jobs was friendly with Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff, who had already taken over the "appstore" domain and trademark. When the time came for Apple to launch its App Store, Benioff gifted them to Jobs in a gesture of gratitude for Jobs advice to his team years before.
    But Apple did something different with its App Store: it made it accessible to everyone. By offering the apps in a single, simple store, and making it easy to download and run programs, Apple sparked a new market. Sure, BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile phones could download their own apps, but users had to dig for them at different Web sites, and there was no real guarantee they would work well.
    Apple, however, kept a tight rein on the kind of apps it would approve, and even offered its recommendations. It was a safe and convenient place for smartphone users who didn't want to deal with the headaches of downloading programs on other mobile platforms.
    The App Store's featured apps.
    (Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)
    Analyst Al Hilwa, director of Applications Development Software at IDC, called Apple's idea of integrating a store into iTunes, which was already providing a tracking content and handling transactions for music, one of the strokes of genius that contributed to the success of the iPhone. Opening the platform up for app developers was another brilliant move, he said. iOS remains popular with developers not just because it's lucrative but also because of the simplicity of building for one line of smartphones.
    While older smartphone marketplaces had an array of rudimentary games and business apps, Apple's App Store opened the door to all kinds of different programs. All of a sudden, fart apps were making a small fortune as users were eager to find new and innovative ways to use their smartphones. Games such as Rovio's Angry Birds became a phenomenon, with the franchise marked as a must-have for any mobile platform.
    "The app store is a real reason for Shazam's success," said Rich Riley, CEO of the music-recognition app maker. "A lot of that is because the app store makes it so easy to find it, download it, and update it."
    Pandora, the second most downloaded free app on the App Store behind Facebook, credits Apple for greatly changing the trajectory of the company. For three years before the App Store, Pandora was confined to the desktop and was "a shadow of the bigger vision," said Chief Technology Officer Tom Conrad. From day one of the App Store, Conrad said, the company realized this is the way Pandora is meant to be consumed.
    The App Store's success spawned imitators, some successful (Google Play), while others quietly faded away (Palm and WebOS). Windows Phone has its Marketplace, while BlackBerry has its App World.
    Competition heats up
    Apple has long touted the number of apps available to its iOS devices, but it can no longer claim the title of largest app store. Google Play boasts 975,000 apps, edging out the App Store. It too has seen more than 50 billion app downloads.
    (Credit: Apple)
    It's no surprise the Google Play has exploded, thanks to the aggressive adoption and promotion of Google's Android platform, which was widely embraced by the carriers that didn't have exclusive deals to sell the iPhone. In the U.S., while AT&T dominated smartphone sales with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint rallied behind Android and Google Play's predecessor, the Android Marketplace.
    Android is the top smartphone operating system in the world, far outstripping Apple's iOS, according to market data.
    Android's runaway expansion and its open-ended adaptability for multiple smartphone makers come at a price. The fragmented nature of the platform can make it more complicated and costly to build for, which is one reason most apps launch on App Store first with Android to follow.
    IDC analyst Hilwa noted where Android apps must span multiple versions of the platform, Apple apps have one; where the number of Android apps shops is in the triple digits, App Store is Apple's only game in town. That's why Apple customers spend the most on content and apps, he said
    Help for the little guy
    But with the number of apps in App Store's inventory approaching a billion, that leaves a giant swath fighting for -- and seldom winning -- the spotlight.
    Derek Lamberton's apps, and those like his, "just get sort of lost underneath the pile," he said. The independent app creator's company Blue Crow Media specializes in city guide apps. His best-selling one is London's Best Coffee, which is consistently in the top 10 for the food and drink category.
    "All my apps at this stage will hit the top ten when they launch, but unless there is a serious social media effort...it's really really hard to get new users," he said.
    Even with top-tier exposure, the halo effect is brief. The New York Times twice highlighted a Lamberton's Craft Beer New York app, and it would give him a big spike in sales the day immediately following. But after the one-off jump to 250 or so downloads, the norm of five to 10 a day quickly returned.
    "I see it again and again, developers don't want to release their download numbers because I think because they're ashamed," he said. "Outside of super games, there isn't a lot of money to be made."
    "I see it again and again, developers don't want to release their download numbers because I think because they're ashamed,"
    --Derek Lamberton, independent app developer
    The future
    Lamberton's challenges show how Apple can be a victim of its own success as it embarks on its next five years of App Store.
    As big as App Store has become, the "wander the aisles" method of app discovery doesn't work anymore, Pandora's Conrad said. "Looking forward, the big opportunities in the App Store are to move beyond this merchandised, best-seller based browsing model" to search relevance.
    Last year, Apple purchased app search and discovery company Chomp only to quietly close it down within months. On its own, Chomp was an alternate search website for Apple's App Store and, later, Google's Android platform, that retrieved results based on app function, not name. Despite the takeover stoking expectations of app discovery improvement to come, Apple never integrated Chomp's search tools in the App Store.
    The upshot is users have a hard time finding the exact app they're looking for. And unless they're blessed with a name like Facebook or a big marketing warchest, developers struggle to find their audience.
    While Apple wouldn't provide anyone to talk for this story, Apple iTunes chief Eddy Cue said at WWDC last month that Apple is working on making app discovery better. The company has added a feature that finds apps based on age range so parents can find apps for kids, and it has launched Apps Near Me, which finds most popular apps in a smartphone's location.
    But even that improvement relies on the same thing Apple always has for app discovery: popularity.
    Gartner's Blau, noting that Apple hasn't done much to help the apps in its universe that are hobbled simply by obscurity, said the change will have to come from within.
    "This is something only Apple can fix."