UPDATED 05:13 EST / NOVEMBER 03 2011

From AmazonFresh to BBM Music, Branded Apps Prevail

AmazonFresh, the popular online grocery shopping services provided by Amazon.com, is finally getting its own iPhone app, powered by Metia/Seattle.  The offering is available throughout Seattle and surrounding suburbs, it will join Windows and Android platforms in providing convenient mobile grocery shopping experience.

The new app will be a nifty tool for shopping, bearing convenient advantages that aren’t possible in traditional grocery shopping.  With its simple and clean interface, speedy search and fast image loads, AmazonFresh customers can conveniently order groceries and other Amazon items and schedule the deliveries anytime, anywhere.

“We faced a common challenge while developing multiple mobile applications for AmazonFresh –capturing the spirit of the AmazonFresh brand for mobile and integrating that brand into the feel for the respective platforms, all the while incorporating the functionality that customers depend on.

Windows Phone is all about Metro, so we created a user experience that takes advantage of this to deliver the best customer experience. Along the same lines, iPhone users expect certain types of interactions from their iPhone applications. We took the functionality that AmazonFresh users have come to expect from the website, and translated it to iPhone using interaction models that are familiar to iPhone users.
Trying to design a single app interface that is exactly the same for all phones doesn’t always work. Most customers only have one phone which they use every day and get used to how apps work on it. The trick to designing a successful app is to know the design cue’s for each OS and use them to deliver  the best possible customer experience.”

It’s another iOS expansion step for Amazon, which is looking to mobile as another frontier for its market services.  The app has been available on the Android for some time now, and Amazon’s been known to center its app-based efforts on Google’s mobile platform before heading to iOS devices.  As part of a larger collection of mobile apps and services, AmazonFresh harps on a small but lucrative trend around semi-automated shopping and delivery services, stretching its distribution to more consumers.

BBM Music officially launches

Meanwhile, BlackBerry is struggling to catch up with rest of the players in the mobile scene and ploughed on with BBM Music. Like iTunes, it’s supposed to be a viral music service. It’s got a 60-day free trial, and will cost $5 a month from then onwards. First, you pick 50 songs for your music library. If you have friends who have subscribed, their 50 songs will automatically sync to your library. You can cache the songs should you want to listen to them offline, and you can swap out 25 songs for another 25 every month.

Google+ sees a major update

We also have Google+ getting a makeover for Ice Cream Sandwich (available on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus). It aims to provide seamless and intuitive social interaction experience to make communication and sharing with friends easier.  The navigation will be simplified, the notifications improved, and there will be support for instant uploads and messaging.  Android 4.0 Ice Cream will be released in Europe next week, and later this month in the US.

Square’d payments prevail

Square’s also got a new app, which makes mobile payment hands-free. It’s called Card Case. Merchants who accept Square are bound by geofence or virtual boundaries set in certain geographical points. When a user enters geofences, the iPhone is triggered with a notification. With Card Case, the iPhone automatically opens a tab to check you into a business, and have your name and payment information displayed on the merchant’s register application.

Not-so-angry birds

And let’s not forget the classic the Angry Birds, who’s celebrating a new milestone today. It surpassed the 500-million download mark, making it the most downloaded game in history. Its users play the game for an accumulated 300,000 minutes a day, which is worth 200 years of non-stop playing.


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