Opera Mobile Store launches, has lots of apps for lots of phones

Amazon is set to be launching its own little Market for Android sometime this month, but Opera just flinched first, flipping the switch on the Opera Mobile Store. It's an online clearinghouse for apps available for "virtually any mobile platform and device" -- which right now covers Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and good 'ol Java. (iOS is notably absent, but supposedly coming with links back to the App Store.) Apps are provided by Appia with the vast majority costing nothing. The vast majority are also junk, but such is the case in most app stores. It's online now, featured in the Speed Dial on the many and various mobile flavors of the Opera browser, meaning you're just a tap or two away from getting MySpace profile pics on all your contacts. It honestly doesn't get much more compelling than that.

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Opera launches the Opera Mobile Store, available in over 200 Countries

Oslo, Norway – March 8, 2011

Opera Software, the leading provider of mobile browsers around the world, today announced that the Opera Mobile Store is now open and available at mobilestore.opera.com. This storefront is a featured Speed Dial link in the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers, which makes the storefront immediately accessible by more than 100 million people who use an Opera browser on their mobile phones. The Opera Mobile Store has been built and delivered through a strategic partnership with Appia, the leading provider of open application marketplace technology. The Opera Mobile Store offers both free and paid applications for virtually any mobile platform and device. The Opera Mobile Store is available to Opera users and users of other mobile browsers, on all popular mobile phone platforms in more than 200 countries. The Opera Mobile Store uses Appia's storefront commerce technology and leverages a wide catalog of applications for phones with Java, Symbian, BlackBerry and Android operating systems. The storefront experience is customized to each user's phone, providing a tailored catalog based on the phone's operating system, local language and currency.

"The launch of the Opera Mobile Store supports Opera's core belief in an open, cross-platform mobile Internet experience by providing Opera users with an integrated storefront of mobile applications," said Mahi de Silva, EVP, Consumer Mobile, Opera Software. "Our partnership with Appia delivers to all Opera Mobile and Opera Mini users easy access to a wide variety of great content, on any device, all over the world."

To support the Opera Mobile Store, Opera Software has also launched the Opera Publisher Portal, providing developers with an easy way to get their applications onto the Opera Mobile Store and in front of millions of Opera users every month. In its pre-launch state, the Opera Mobile Store attracted more than 15 million users in February, from 200 countries, achieving more than 700,000 downloads per day. These metrics establish the Opera Mobile Store as a top 10 mobile application store around the world.

"The Opera Mobile Store presents a remarkable opportunity for mobile application developers to distribute localized content through a single, far-reaching marketplace," said Jud Bowman, CEO of Appia. "Appia is thrilled to partner with Opera to deliver an incredible storefront of applications to Opera users and beyond."

About Appia

Appia is the world's largest open app marketplace and white label storefront platform, supporting all operating systems and handsets. Today, Appia powers app storefronts for more than 40 partners reaching more than 200 million mobile subscribers in 200 countries and counting. Customers include four of the world's top five handset manufacturers, three of the top four mobile operators in the US and three of the top ten mobile operators globally including Samsung, Opera, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless. The Appia Developer Program provides partners with a ready to launch catalog of over 140,000 paid and free apps from more than 30,000 global application developers. Appia is headquartered in Durham, NC with offices in Dallas, TX, and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.appia.com, or follow @Appia.

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software ASA has redefined web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform web-browser technology is renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.

Apple FaceTime for Mac finally out of beta, available on the Mac App Store for $0.99

After a lengthy four-month beta trial, Apple's decided that it's about time to make FaceTime for Mac available to the masses, meaning any Mac user can finally do video chat with other Mac or iOS users. Unlike the app's free iOS counterpart, though, you'll have to chip in $0.99 on the Mac App Store for some enlarged video chat sessions. But hey, it's totally worth it, especially if you have a 27-inch screen to play with.

[Thanks, kariminal]

Apple pushes out Mac OS X Lion developer preview via Mac App Store

While we're still a good few months away from OS X Lion's official debut, Apple's just released a developer preview for those itching to get their hands dirty on this forthcoming major OS release. Alas, you have to be a Mac Developer Program member in order to obtain this goodie from the Mac App Store, so this isn't a bad time to get friendly with your Mac developer pals. Press release after the break.

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Apple Releases Developer Preview of Mac OS X Lion

CUPERTINO, California-February 24, 2011-Apple® today released a developer preview of Mac OS® X Lion, which takes some of the best ideas from iPad™ and brings them back to the Mac® for the eighth major release of the world's most advanced operating system. Lion features Mission Control, an innovative new view of everything running on your Mac; Launchpad, a new home for all your Mac apps; full screen apps that use the entire Mac display; and new Multi-Touch™ gestures. Lion also includes the Mac App Storeâ? , the best place to discover, install and automatically update Mac apps. The Lion preview is available to Mac Developer Program members through the Mac App Store today, and the final version of Lion will ship to customers this summer.

"The iPad has inspired a new generation of innovative features in Lion," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Developers are going to love Mission Control and Launchpad, and can now start adding great new Lion features like full screen, gestures, Versions and Auto Save to their own apps."

Mission Control is a powerful, entirely new feature that unifies Exposé®, Dashboard, Spaces®, and full screen apps to give you a bird's eye view of every app and window running on your Mac. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps as well as your Dashboard, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere with a click.

Launchpad makes it easier than ever to find and launch any app. With a single click, Launchpad displays all your Mac apps in a stunning full screen layout where you can launch, re-order or organize apps into folders. You can also arrange apps into multiple pages and swipe between them.

Lion brings the full screen experience that iPad users love to the Mac. With one click, your application window goes full screen, taking advantage of your Mac's brilliant display. You can swipe from one full screen window to another and even back to your Desktop or Dashboard.

New Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations give you a natural and intuitive way to interact with your Mac. New gestures include pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps and swiping up to enter Mission Control.

Lion also includes the Mac App Store, where you can find great new apps, buy them with your iTunes® account, and download and install them in just one step. Apps purchased from the Mac App Store are installed directly into Launchpad.

Additional features in Lion include:

* a new version of Mail, with an elegant, widescreen layout inspired by the iPad; Conversations, which automatically groups related messages into one easy to read timeline; more powerful search; and support for Microsoft Exchange 2010;
* AirDrop, a remarkably simple way to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup;
* Versions, which automatically saves successive versions of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, edit and even revert to previous versions;
* Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
* Auto Save, which automatically saves your documents as you work;
* the all new FileVault, that provides high performance full disk encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously; and
* Mac OS X Lion Server, which makes setting up a server easier than ever and adds support for managing Mac OS X Lion, iPhone®, iPad and iPod touch® devices.