Developing smartphone apps is a tough business to break into. Seventy-five percent of apps earn the developer less than 500 dollars per month. Because app markets are saturated, very few apps are able to accumulate many downloads. In fact, only one in six smartphone apps exceed 500 total downloads. Every once in a while, an app is able to break out and find success, gaining high numbers of downloads in a matter of days. For the most successful apps, user numbers lie in the millions and gameplay takes billions of hours from users. What is it that makes these apps, such as Blood Brothers, Minecraft,…

Laugh synth for iOS has just been released, compatible with both iPhone and iPad. Laugh Synth makes it possible create laughing sounds with a simple touch of the screen to control different characteristics of the laugh. Users can even sample their own sounds to create custom laughs. This is as easy as recording any sound you want (laugh, scream, burp, meow, whatever) and trimming to only use the portion of the waveform you want. Touch the screen to control the pitch and the level of effects present in the sound. Add reverb or other effects to further enhance the laugh. Have a look at the app by watching…

After downplaying the importance of having an iPad app, images of Facebook’s upcoming iPad app have finally been exposed via TechCrunch. The HTML5-rich app looks nearly complete and could to be ready to launch shortly. For iPad users, this new application promises to be a far easier way to enjoy the social network in lieu of using the full Facebook website. Unlike the Facebook’s iPhone app, the design of the iPad app features a left-side menu system and extensive use of overlay menus, which are commonly found in other apps for Apple’s popular tablet. News of the iPad app’s existence is nothing…

Skype has become a popular app for the iPhone, bringing video calling to millions of mobile users. Now the service appears to be heading to Apple’s iPad very soon. After accidentally leaking a video of the new product, Skype confirmed that it’s preparing an iPad app, but has yet to provide a release date. The leaked video shows a very polished product which looks just about ready for release. The app will benefit from the iPad 2’s large screen size and camera, but it will feature much of the same functionality of mobile and desktop clients. One item that’s missing is file sharing, and that’s…

GoodReader, the iPad PDF viewer gets an important update today. The app now supports annotations, including notes and sketches. The app is considered by many to be a must-have for viewing documents on the go, and this addition will help users do more with their iPad besides consume content. The great news is that the notes and highlights are visible in the PDF document when you reopen it or when you transfer it to your computer. The bad news is that it does this by adding the information to the PDF file, meaning that if you forward the PDF to someone else, they have no way of viewing the document without…

If you are a web designer then Apple’s mobile devices can help you work better, smarter — and out of the office. Here’s six apps you really should take time to get to know. 1. Ego $1.99 This is a splendid app (image above) not just for a developer but for anyone who has ever run a Google search on their name, which is everybody (but me) obviously. Ego watches the social web: Ember, Feedburner, Google Analytics, Mint, Squarespace, Tumblr, Twitter and Vimeo. It lets you track the number of visits to your website (including daily, hourly and monthly numbers), feed subscription totals and changes,…

If you’re one of the millions who downloaded and used the notorious I Am T-Pain iPhone app then hit your upgrade buttons today, as you’ve got an upgrade you just might like. The latest version is wrapped up in lovely iOS4 improvements, but also offers a fab feature for the iPhone 4 — you can use that front-facing video camera to film yourself singing along to something or other while using the Auto-tune feature. Then, assuming friends, family or concerned neighbors haven’t made some kind of intervention to save you from future workplace embarrassment. You can even send those clips right…

Hey, y’know iStockPhoto? Well, hold onto your MOTHERLOVING hat, because this business just came to your iPhone. Just now. Yes, it did. I swear. Right now. “Inspiration and ideas often strike when we least expect,” claims iStockphoto’s COO, Kelly Thompson. It’s totally cool that I can save images for later and share them with my colleagues and stuff – the usefulness for quick collaboration is apparent. I have to point out that this app is pretty useful if you’re a contributing artist. iStockphoto Al fresco lets you track your downloads and sales, which rules if you’re the kind of person who likes…

Got a world class newspaper you want to keep publishing as tastes go digital? The LA Times has, and so it has introduced its rather marvelous and all brand new Los Angeles Times News Reader iPhone app. A $1.99 app which delivers a nice and easy route into all the influential newspaper’s editorial content. There’s no half measures here, no attempt to give readers a tiny morsel of the content to hook them into expensive monthly subscription fees. Not from the LA Times — instead you get news, commentary and photography. Oh, and it has an offline mode so you can read it on the subway. Better yet, the…

It could just be me, but I really like these two incredibly rock-tastic apps that recently appeared on the App Store, they come from rock acts, Kiss and Slayer. Kiss Your Face lets you plaster ‘digital makeup stickers’ on your photos, including a layer of white base on faces for the full Kiss effect — can we look forward a viral tidal wave of Kiss-like Facebook profiles? No? Ah well, if this sounds like fun to you then let me tell you it costs $1.99. Features: Over a dozen high-resolution digital makeup stickers to dress up your face — or your friends’ faces! Special digital makeup process applies a…