There were over 50 news stories posted about the Star Trek PADD app (see the list below) and tremendous buzz on Facebook and Twitter. In the first day alone, tweets about the app were sent to over 1 million people and the app was mentioned on “The Big Bang Theory” TV show’s Facebook page, which has 15 million fans, and was “liked” by over 6000 people.

#1 Top Selling iPad App

The exciting news is that the app rocketed up the charts and within 24 hours of being available it was the #1 top selling iPad app (even ahead of Fruit Ninja, Pages & Keynote, and 3 different versions of Angry Birds). After being out for almost a week, it remains in the top 10 grossing iPad apps, and continues to be the #1 top selling iPad app in the Entertainment category in the United States and across 11 other countries worldwide.

Not a bad week!

News & Reviews Of The Star Trek PADD App

• The Los Angeles Times: ‘Star Trek’ app: Does your iPad need an Enterprising spirit?
• San Francisco Chronicle: Transforms Your iPad into a PADD
• Collider: Awesome STAR TREK App Turns iPad into PADD
• StarTrek.com: Star Trek PADD App Available Today
• IGN Wireless: CBS Interactive Launches the Official “Star Trek Padd App” For iPad
• TrekMovie.com: CBS Releases Official Star Trek PADD for iPad
• The Next Web: Want to turn your iPad into a PADD from Star Trek? I thought so.
• Cult of Mac: Engage! Official Star Trek PADD app for iPad Released
• Wired: Make It So: Hands-On With Official Star Trek iPad App
• Electronista: iPad meets Star Trek dreams with official PADD app
• iLounge: CBS releases official Star Trek PADD app
• The iPad Guide: Star Trek App Beams Onto the iPad
• TrekNews: CBS Mobile Releases Official LCARs iPad App
• LoopInsight: Turn your iPad into a Star Trek PADD
• Older Macs: iOS App of the Day: Star Trek PADD
• Ain’t it Cool: Check Out This Nifty iPad App That Turns Your iPad Into A STAR TREK PADD
• Business Insider: Hey Trekkies! You’ll Want This iPad App
• Worldscreen: Star Trek App Launches Today
• Xydo: Hey Trekkies! You’ll Want This iPad App
• Subspace Communique: CBS Interactive Launches Official Star Trek LCARS iPad App
• Nothing but tables: CBS launches official Star Trek PADD app for iPad, a Trekkie’s wet dream
• CNET: The 404 podcast
• Guardian.co.uk: Apps rush: Star Trek
• Engadget: Star Trek PADD App is a LCARS-sporting Trekkie’s reference bible for the iPad
• Mobile Marketer: CBS interacts with Star Trek fans via iPad app
• Trek Today: Official Star Trek PADD App for iPad
• 148Apps: Get A Star Trek Style Experience With Star Trek PADD
• The Flickcast: The Future Is Here With New ‘Star Trek’ iPad App
• CNET: Let your Trekkie flag fly with Star Trek PADD for iPad
• InteractiveTV Today: Interactive TV News Round-Up (II): CBS Interactive, “Star Trek”
• tuaw.com: Star Trek PADD official app creates iPad fact from science fiction
• Tapscape: Top 5: This Week’s Best iPad Apps
• Geeky Gadgets: Star Trek Official PADD iPad App
• 148Apps: App Detail » Star Trek PADD
• Stun Media Blog: Star Trek PADD App … The Final iPad Frontier
• License! Global: CBS Launches ‘Star Trek’ App
• Cynopsis  Digital:Daily Round Up
• Cynopsis Kids: Daily Round Up
• Licensing.biz: Official Star Trek app hits iPad
• Dallas News: Star Trek’ app turns iPad into a Starfleet PADD
• Art of the iPhone: Star Trekkies Finally Get Their Official iPad PADD App
• Gadgets and Gizmos: CBS Interactive launches the Star Trek PADD app for the iPad
• Gadget Helpline: Star Trek PADD app for iPad sees sci-fi tech come full circle
• Redmond Pie: Official Star Trek iPad App Turns iPad Into PADD (video)
• Pocket Lint: Forget iOS – Star Trek PADD puts LCARS on your iPad
• Joseph Dickerson Blog: Video Review of the Star Trek PADD app for the iPad (video)
• Home Technology Montreal: The 24th Century is now..Official Star Trek PADD app launched
• GeekSugar.com Download of the Day: Star Trek PADD
• Sync: Star Trek gets its first official app
• Total Licensing Report: CBS Interactive Launches the Official Star Trek PADD App for iPad
• International Business Times – CBS Launches Star Trek PADD
• Chip Chick – Engage The Ultimate Trekkie App
• Padvance – App of the Week
• NewsOK – On Board The Enterprise
• SeenIt – Star Trek PADD for iPad
• Mobile Marketer – CBS Interacts With Star Trek Fans
• TrekMovie.com – Video Demo & Review (video)

Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco – Stardate 2011.07.11

Engineers from Starfleet and United Federation of Planets have announced the immediate availability of the Starfleet PADD app for iPad devices.  After 45 years of continuous development and enhancement, most of which took place in a future timeline, the PADD, or Personal Access Display Device, has become a standard piece of equipment for all members of Starfleet. The PADD app is now available for Apple’s iPad.

An App Where No App Has Gone Before

The resulting app gives Starfleet personnel and regular civilians direct access to a universe of Star Trek information, including aliens, ships, places, technologies, and episode guide.  The app provides a rich, immersive LCARS interface, and includes recognizable sound signals and voice prompts, making it enjoyable to anyone.  The app also includes the latest terrestrial Star Trek news from Facebook and Twitter.

The app is available today for just under five bars of gold-pressed latinum ($4.99) via subspace radio from the iTunes App Store.

Star Trek PADD App Developers

All kidding aside, we’re honored CBS chose us to develop the official Star Trek PADD app. We’re true Star Trek fans and were intensely focused on making this app both useful and fun, while maintaining authenticity and reproducing the LCARS design faithfully. ArcTouch’s app developers handled all the UI and visual design, database development, and app programming and testing.

The app includes the following features:

Read the official STAR TREK PADD app press release from CBS, view the STAR TREK PADD app promotional video, or download the app from the App Store.

A new mobile app platform called WiO is set to revolutionize the TV watching experience by allowing customers to immediately get information about the products and services they see advertised on screen, both in TV commercials and within the shows themselves.

The WiO iOS app developed by ArcTouch “listens” to the audio in a commercial and identifies the appropriate “offer” to provide to users.

Read the rest of the article.

Tomorrow begins WWDC 2011, the annual Worldwide Developer Conference for iOS developers and Mac OS developers. ArcTouch’s San Francisco based app development team will be there for the entire 5 days. There’s been alot of speculation about what is going to be announced at the WWDC keynote address, but here’s two things that ArcTouch would like to see.

AppleTV Apps

AppleTV makes it simple to enjoy your music, photos, and video through your TV/home theater system in the comfort of your living room. ArcTouch believes that what’s coming next is AppleTV apps. Imagine the possibilities if you could install any of the hundreds of thousand of iOS games on your AppleTV? It would put Apple on equal footing in the living room with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, and open up a whole new world of possibilities for iOS app development companies like ArcTouch.

We hope that at WWDC Apple opens up the AppleTV platform, much like they opened up the iPhone platform 3 years ago, and allow 3rd party developers to create apps for the AppleTV. We would be excited to see an updated version of Xcode and iOS software development tools that help you reformat your apps to take advantage of the AppleTV UI with minimal effort. We would also expect that AppleTV apps could be developed that allow the AppleTV and other iDevices (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad) to work together. We believe you’ll use your iPhone/iPod/iPad devices as external controls to your AppleTV – like game controllers. The screen on your iDevice will be a companion display to the app running on the AppleTV, and your touch gestures or shake/tilt movement on the iDevice will control the app on the AppleTV (think like a Wii controller). Imagine of a sporting game app, such as multi-player football, where each player controls their team and can set their plays on their own iDevice, but the rest of the game runs on the AppleTV. Now THAT would be fun!

iCloud For App Developers

Apple announced they will be unveiling something called iCloud at WWDC. There is wide speculation that iCloud is a cloud service offering for streaming music to consumers’ iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac/PC and AppleTV. Although this is a likely component of it, ArcTouch feels that there must be more to the iCloud announcement, since the unveiling is during WWDC – a developer-oriented event and not a consumer-oriented event.

We’re hoping that iCloud is also for app developers, and provides a suite of cloud-based services that helps iOS developers create better apps in a shorter amount of time. We can imagine something very similar to the cloud services provided by Amazon’s Web Services or Google’s App Engine. Xcode and the iOS SDK can be updated to provide developers with the building blocks that allow their apps to easily connect to and use cloud services for user storage, synchronization and playback. Cloud services would allow developers to minimize much of the heavy lifting of setting up and managing IT infrastructure. They are cost-effective, reliable, scalable, and secure. This would fit nicely with AppleTV apps, since the AppleTV is more of a streaming device and has little local storage, so it could rely on the iCloud services for access to app specific content.

We’re sure that it’s going to be an exciting week at WWDC and we look forward to whatever is announced, but AppleTV apps and iCloud services for app developers would cross off two items on our wish list. We’ll be waiting on line for the keynote at 7:30 AM tomorrow at the Moscone Center with our fingers crossed!

The keynote address was full of exciting news:

• iPhone 4 with a high resolution screen and video conferencing
• iAds interactive app-based advertisements
• iPhone OS 4, now known as iOS 4

The last item is perhaps the most significant in our mind, since it always seemed clear to ArcTouch that the future of Apple is devices based on the iPhone/iPod/iPad platform and not the Mac OS X platform. This simple name change, combined with no mention of Mac OS X in the keynote address, now publicly suggests the phase out of the Mac OS, and a rise of touch-based devices that look and function more similar to the iPad in the future.

For most people, this may be a welcome direction. The iPad has proven to be simpler device for most people to use than their traditional desktop and notebook computers. The instant-on behavior and the instant-access to a wealth of music, video, books and app content has changed the consumption model and usage of these devices. We see this as a tremendous opportunity. The app ecosystem will continue to grow and we are excited to help our customers be part of it.

Yes, there will be a Mac OS 10.7 some day, but we say that will likely be the very last in the long proud line of Mac OS X.

Thanks Mac OS X!

You set the bar for a modern gorgeous operating system, and made it possible for the iOS to exist. Now go and enjoy your retirement.

Today was the first day of Google I/O, the annual developer event for all things Google, including the Android platform. We’ve got our San Francisco based Android app developers on-site and they’re excited about today’s announcements.

What a difference a year makes! Last year, there were just a few devices available from a limited number of carriers. Now there are over 60 compatible Android devices from 21 manufacturers in 48 countries. The devices are spread across 59 carriers worldwide. In the United States every wireless carrier offers Android based phones.

There are dozens of models to choose from at various price points, as well as additional form factors, such as tablets and e-book readers. And Google announced today that Intel, Sony and Logitech are going to bring Android onto TV sets. Can you imagine the app possibilities? We can!

Android Market Share

The Android platform has made some major market share strides in the last 12 months, driven largely by the full court push by Verizon to bring ‘Droid into the mainstream. As a result, there are now 100,000 Android phones being activated each day (over 35 million a year). In the first quarter of 2010 in North America, Android sales grew 707% compared to the same period last year. The Android Marketplace now has over 50,000 applications available for download and is growing at a rate of 10,000 more applications each month.

This momentum has some analysts predicting that by 2012 Android will overtake the iPhone and become the most popular smart phone platform in the United States, ahead of the iPhone and the BlackBerry. Be ahead of the curve and develop your Android app now!

Android App Developers

With all this excitement behind the Android platform we strongly recommend that you “Don’t Avoid The ‘Droid”. We offer a broad range of Android application developer services. ArcTouch can design and develop a custom Android application for you, or help you port an existing iPhone app over to Android. Our Android app developers have broad mobile development experience and a world-class Java background.

Contact us today and let us show you how.

ArcTouch was invited to present in the App Exchange showcase on 4/20 and 4/21 during AdTech San Francisco 2010.

Download our AdTech presentation for an overview of the ArcTouch app development studio and our iPhone & iPad app developer services.

You can also try out the featured apps from the App Exchange that we developed for Maxim Magazine and CityMint.

ArcTouch has been invited by Adobe to be part of a special pre-release program for the “iPhone packager for Flash“.

This allows iPhone developers like ArcTouch to design apps in Flash, but develop and deploy them using standard native iPhone code. ArcTouch’s creative teams are able work in an environment they are completely familiar with during design, but still produce true native iPhone apps. ArcTouch can also use Flash for the illustration, the animations, the interaction, and for showing it during design reviews to customers over the web. Then, when we are ready to build it, we convert it into native iPhone code.

We’re one of a small number of iPhone application developers chosen by Adobe and given access to this technology, and we’re thrilled.

iGevalt Dreidel App Featured On Adobe Site

To get started, we built iGevalt, a dreidel simulator for the iPhone. This app features realistic 3D graphics, motion and sound, and was recently featured on Adobe’s site to showcase the Packager for iPhone. iGevalt is available now in the app store.

Flash Apps To iPhone App Conversion

Do you have an existing Flash game or Flash application?

We can take your existing Flash based applications and convert them into a new native iPhone apps. You’ll benefit by being able to repurpose your existing investment and gain a faster time to market than if you were going to work with other iPhone programmers to rebuild your app from scratch. Plus, you’ll know how your application is going to look and work in advance of the programming phase.

ArcTouch is a full-service app development studio and we offer complete custom app design and programming services.

Contact us today to get started!

Tip ‘em! – the best tip calculator for the BlackBerry Storm – is now available for the entire BlackBerry platform, including the BlackBerry Curve, the BlackBerry Bold and the BlackBerry Pearl. Tip ‘em! helps you quickly and accurately calculate the tip on a check and split the bill between multiple diners. It makes it easy to exclude items from the tip calculation, such as drinks and tax, and includes built-in tip suggestions for over 20 countries.

Tip ‘em! is available now from BlackBerry App World.

BlackBerry App Developers

Tip ‘em! raises the bar on both application development functionality and design, showing that BlackBerry apps can look just as good as any iPhone app. ArcTouch’s San Francisco BlackBerry app developers combined a custom background graphic (a retro “diner” check complete with a coffee stain) with a built-in handwriting font and seamlessly blended in the native user interface controls of the BlackBerry for the numeric  entry and lists for tip amount, rounding and split amount.

Key Features Of Tip ‘em! Tip Calculator For BlackBerry

• Easily enter the total bill using the numeric keypad
• Select a tip amount between 0% and 30%
• Split the check between 2 and 10 people (optional)
• Exclude tax and drinks from the tip calculation (optional)
• Round the tip or the total to make splitting the bill easier (optional)
• Includes recommended “Tip Suggestions” for over 20 countries
• Rich graphical interface and easy to use touch controls, or track pad, or track ball
• Designed, developed and programmed for the BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Pearl, and BlackBerry Storm

Have an app idea? ArcTouch offers complete custom mobile app development and programming services.

Contact us today to see how we can help you with your BlackBerry development needs.

The CityMint application provides the fastest and most convenient way to order food from local restaurants on your mobile phone. CityMint was developed by ArcTouch and is available now for the iPhone and iPod touch in the app store.

Fast And Convenient Way To Order Food

Whenever you’re hungry – at home or at work – CityMint makes it easy to order food:

• Search by current location, address, cuisine, or available menu items.
• Choose what you want, make special requests, and complete the order for pick-up or delivery.
• Save favorite restaurants for one-touch ordering.
• Store frequently used cards and pay for your order without digging out your wallet.

ArcTouch iPhone App Developers

CityMint selected ArcTouch as the iPhone developer for the second version of their app, after realizing that the original iPhone programmer they hired was not able to create an application that was stable or scalable enough for their growing business needs. ArcTouch’s expert iPhone programmers redesigned and rewrote the application and the web services to support it. We used our proven agile development processes and other best-practices such as test-driven development, to ensure robust error free software that CityMint can grow with.

Featured ArcTouch iPhone Development Services:

• REST web services to access restaurant data and Yelp reviews
• GPS, MapKit & location services
• Ruby On Rails
• Core Data and SQLite
• In-app analytics to measure usage patterns

Have an app idea? ArcTouch offers complete custom mobile app development and programming services.

Contact us today to see how we can help you with your iPhone development needs.