Hotel Mogul, the best selling PC game and now best selling iPhone and iPod Touch game reached the #1 paid app position in Russia and to celebrate, is giving away 5 copies of the full PC version of the game through a twitter Re-Tweet contest!

HOW TO ENTER

1. Follow @AlawarGames on Twitter

2. Tweet this Message:  ” Hotel Mogul #1 #iPhone App in Russia, Giving Away PC Version to Celebrate (RT 2 WIN) – http://shar.es/aO0I1”

(You can also do this using the “Share This” icon at the bottom of this page!)

Thats it! Of course we would love for you to purchase the game and try it yourself! The game is also currently:

• #8 Family Game in Hong Kong and Malta
• #9 Family Game in Thailand
• #11 Family Game in Malaysia and China
• #12 Family Game in Estonia
• #15 Family Game in the Philippines and Singapore
• #16 Family Game Luxembourg, Switzerland and Germany
• #18 Family Game in Taiwan and Guatemala
• #21 Family Game in Austria and Vietnam
• #22 Family Game in Japan
• #24 Family Game in Belgium
• #25 Family Game in Ireland and the UK
• #26 Family Game in New Zealand
• #27 Family Game in Australia
• #29 Family Game in Norway and the Netherlands
• #31 Family Game in Canada and France
• #32 Family Game in Macau
• #33 Simulation Game in the United States (and #34 in Family Games)

the list goes on… but I’m tired of typing…

Up to 10 entries per day, per Twitter account. No purchase necessary to enter. Winners will be given an unlock code to Hotel Mogul for the PC which can be downloaded at http://www.alawar.com/game/hotel-mogul/ (download the free version and use the unlock code). Winners will be drawn Monday, December 28th, 2009 at 5pm PST and notified that they have won via Twitter (Which is why you have to follow @AlawarGames to participate!). Void where prohibited. Must be of legal age in your country to participate. For questions or more information email info@appency.com. Employees and family of Alawar Entertainment and Appency are ineligible to participate.
Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

The full color ‘Children’s Bible’ app tells the stories of the Old and New Testament in seven different languages and is the first comic book style Bible to be made available to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain – BCNmultimedia today announced the release of the ‘Children’s Bible’ iPhone and iPod Touch application, a full color comic book rendition of bible stories from the Old and New Testaments of the World English Bible. “While it has become a common occurrence to see worshipers attending their churches with digital versions of the bible on their iPhone’s, up until now that was solely for the adults” said Toni Matas, publishing manager of BCNmultimedia, creators of the app. “We wanted to give the children something that was just as accessible while being entertaining as well.”

Just in time for Christmas, we are offering the story of the First Christmas free with download! The “Birth of Jesus” comic is 24 scenes and tells the story of the angel appearing to Mary, the search for a room at an inn, the birth in a manger and the shepherds visit in stunning full color comics. (Part of the “Land of Nazareth” full comic). Readers can purchase additional packs containing stories and activities from within the application for only $2.99

The first story pack available is “The Land of Nazareth” and contains Over 10 full length bible stories in 144 scenes, rendered in brilliant colors with an easy to navigate interface including:

• Annunciation of the Birth (Included Free with Download)
• Birth of Jesus (Included Free with Download)
• Visit of the Wise Men of the East
• Childhood of Jesus
• Baptism of Jesus
• Temptations of Jesus
• Call of the disciples
• Wedding at Cana
• Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes
• Sermon on the Mount: Love the Enemies
• Sermon on the Mount: the Prayer

The iPhone is only the latest media channel to be explored by the 16 year old company, which began producing education and religious text in 1994. Since then they have produced over 75 full length animated features, 50 interactive CD-ROMs  and countless educational comics and text which have been distributed globally.

‘Children’s Bible’ is available as a free download in the iTunes App Store for both iPhone’s and iPod Touch devices using operating system 3.0 or higher.  The application is available in seven languages including  English, Spanish, French, Italian, Deutsch, Portuguese, and Catalan.

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

Alexandria, VA – Alawar Entertainment today continued their expansion into the iTunes app store with Hotel Mogul – their 13^th game by the global developer. Hotel Mogul is a fast paced business and economic simulation game based off of their PC game of the same name. This solidifies a major expansion for the highly successful developer of PC games, who plans on bringing more than twenty new gaming titles to the iTunes app store in the next year.

In Hotel Mogul, the player takes the role of the business savvy Lynette, who sets out to reclaim her families hotel empire after her ex- husband underhandedly snatches it out from under her. With only a few plots of land to her name and a small amount of cash in her pocket, Lynette must buy, sell and trade her way through the high stakes world of real estate management and fast paced economics. To win back her fortune she will need to amass a vast global empire of hotels, restaurants and amusement parks. Experience comes gradually as the player masters the basics of management.  Later levels build on these essential skills with challenging missions involving the raising and repairing of structures and the buying and selling of real estate.  The player has a limited amount of time to complete each task, so it’s important for him or her to learn to multitask and react quickly to a constantly changing environment.

The premium version of the application contains

• Over 35 different levels in five global regions
• Four mini “find-it” games to continue the story line
• More than 15 building types with upgradeable features
• 12 special awards to work towards throughout the game
• Vibrant graphics and soundtrack

A lite version of the game is also being released to give players new to the Alawar gaming portfolio a chance to experience the game before purchase. This lite version will include ten of the games levels in two of the global regions, and a limited number of building types.

Alawar’s game repertoire is vast, with over 200 high quality games played all over the world though major portals such as RealArcade, Yahoo! Games, BigFish Games, AOL and others. “We received multiple emails asking for more of our games to be ported for iPhones and the iPod Touch,” said Krill Plotnikov, Alawar’s vice president of publishing. “The iPhone is a natural extension to our gaming catalog and makes it easy for our players to take their favorite casual games with them wherever they go.  The company’s iPhone catalog currently consists of such games as Farm Frenzy, The Treasures of Montezuma 1 and 2, Gourmania and more. Hotel Mogul is destined to become a stellar addition to this winning lineup!

Hotel Mogul is available for the iPhone or iPod touch for $1.99 and can be found listed in the iTunes app store under “Simulation Games” at http://appsto.re/hotelmogul . The light version is available at http://appsto.re/hotelmogullite . The app is rated “4+” and is compatible with OS version 2.2.1 and higher.

Blogger Reviews:

AppShouter : “The graphics and the sounds are great. I love how bright and colorful everything is. The levels are interesting and challenging enough that they kept my attention and I did not get bored very quickly.”

UnderTheRadar: “Rich, original and satisfying, Hotel Mogul is simply addictive. I have been playing Hotel Mogul practically nonstop since I downloaded it – warning to everyone, just make sure you don’t drain your battery from playing the game so much. Wheeling and dealing has never been this fun!”

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

Nominate
Hotel Mogul
for
Best Casual Game

About Alawar Entertainment

Alawar Entertainment has specialized in the development, publication and distribution of casual games since 1999. The company has published more than 200 titles worldwide and is the largest provider of casual games in Eastern Europe. Today, Alawar works with five internal studios and more than 30 external developers, providing a full range of services that includes game production, distribution and marketing, distributing its releases via its broad network of Web sites. The company’s offerings can also be found on popular download portals, including RealArcade, BigFish Games, Yahoo! Games, AOL, iWIN and others. In addition to distributing games online, Alawar works with CD publishers in more than 20 countries. In 2008, the company significantly increased its presence in Eastern Europe and became the leading distributor of casual games in that region. Visit www.alawar.com for more information.

Gorilla Monkey Crunch App Being Found at Holiday Tables Around the Globe

London, UK- Gorillas everywhere are up in arms after word got out that Apple approves of Gorilla Monkey Crunch for Thanksgiving. “I’m British!” said Günter, the highly persecuted Gorilla in mention. “We don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving!”. While the local Monkey delegation could not be reached, officials reported small primate riots breaking out all over America and angry monkeys throwing coconuts at anything that moved.  Apple had no comment on the matter.

No one is sure exactly what the recipe for Gorilla Monkey Crunch actually is, but rumors abound that it can be found exclusively in the iTunes App Store games category. “I’m outraged,” Günter continued. “This is not a game to me! I was simply minding my own business this morning, crossing the river on the way to the farmers market when BAM! I was wacked on the noggin by a flying banana!” Lawyers for the Great Ape were quick to photograph the resulting trauma and have implied litigation may be pending. Against who we do not know.

Feet on the street reporters managed to capture a video of the assault and quickly posted it to YouTube. Mountain Gorillas are an endangered species, and only an estimated 720 mountain gorillas remain in the world according to the African Wildlife Federation.  Penalty for pelting one on the noggin with random fruit ranges from public humiliation to being forced to listen to a Jimmy Buffet cover band for five hours straight.

Gorilla Monkey Crunch is available for the iPhone or iPod touch for $0.99 in the Arcade Games section of Apple’s iTunes App Store.  The app can be downloaded here.

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

Adamcode releases “Christmas Gifts List” App to iTunes and Shoppers Quickly Snap It Up, Pushing it to the Top 25 Productivity Apps

Amherst, MA - While economists have (unofficially) declared the US to be slowly creeping out of a recession, many consumers are heading into the holiday shopping season more acutely aware of their personal budgets. In this age of technology however, you’ll find a new tool in the pockets and purses of many shoppers this season – the popular iPhone or iPod Touch.

“Money management is extremely important to consumers right now” said Adam Williams, President of Adamcode.com and creator of the “Christmas Gifts List” application – a unique holiday shopping list application with a built in budgeting feature. “The iPhone, when used with the right applications is the ultimate personal organizer, and can help keep shoppers from spending more than they intended”.

The iPhone, when used with the right applications is the ultimate personal organizer, and can help keep shoppers from spending more than they intended

Come January, as the credit card statements come rolling in, there is probably not one among us who has not felt the pain of Christmas overspending. It starts so innocently, $10 here, $15 there but just like everything else, it adds up quickly. Still, there’s no need to go the way of the Grinch. “I’ll be out early on Black Friday” said Shannon Kiehn, a mother of two and state worker in Sacramento, California. “The tight economy means that sales are that much more important. I’ve got a set amount of money I need to stretch into gifts for quite a few people.”

The Gifts app allows consumers to input the wish lists for everyone on their holiday shopping list, (so that you can remember that your cousin Frank wants Ninja Warrior IV not III) avoiding another painful trip to the mall but each person can be assigned a target budget amount as well. As gifts are purchased and prices stored in the application, the easy to use interface lets you see how much money is left in the budget for each individual. Worried that the wife and kids are going to see what you listed under their names? Turn on the locking feature and your lists are kept secure behind a unique PIN number.

The Gifts app can take some of the stress out of Black Friday and the holiday season, so that the consumer can concentrate on what’s really important, figuring out how to avoid your great aunt Mildred’s fruit cake for the fifth year in a row.
Christmas Gifts List is available for the iPhone or iPod touch for $0.99 and is currently in the top 25 of the productivity section of the iTunes App Store. Christmas Gifts List can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/2WAi81

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

About AdamCode

Adamcode.com was founded in 2008 in Amherst, Massachusetts with the goal of creating beautiful, easy-to-use mobile applications. Spend, a personal budget manager for the iPhone and iPod Touch, was Adamcode.com’s first app and one of the 500 applications available in the iTunes App Store on its opening day. After several months in the Top 100 Paid Apps list and a constant spot in the Top 20 Finance apps, Spend has achieved over 80,000 downloads to date. Adamcode.com’s founder Adam Williams holds a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, specializing in artificial intelligence and computer vision applications. www.adamcode.com

Charlottesville, VA (PRWEB) November 17, 2009 — The newest high-end accessory on campus this year isn’t a fancy backpack or designer shoes, it’s the stylish and app-filled iPhone or iPod Touch, and it’s not just being used to play games and make phone calls. Apps like Charlottesville software developer Niles Technology Group’s line of Essay Writing tools are becoming increasingly popular as student vie for a leg up on their peers.

“The iPhone is a full functioning mobile computing platform,” says Michael Niles, company president and long-time educator. “Most education programs in the App Store simply don’t take advantage of it. Most of what you see available for students only uses the iPhone as a display device for flashcards, rote memorization language apps, online textbooks, and viewing of videos.” The Essay Writing Wizard line of apps help students understand how to write everything from a book report to a summary essay, as well as being fully interactive and allowing students to organize and input notes, ideas, research and even writing samples directly into the phone.

The response from students has been overwhelming. “I was a little reluctant at first,” said Shawn Klein, a High School sophomore at the Natomas Charter School in Sacramento, California. “The thought of writing more than just short messages on my iPod Touch seemed a bit weird, but I needed some help with a personal essay in my English class and just sort of stumbled upon it. I love that I can pull it out and work on my essay when I’m waiting for the bus or sitting at lunch.”

The Essay Writing Wizard tools take it one step further, beyond just the mobile device. With the purchase of one of the value-pac apps which combine many types of essays into one program, the company provides a free essay editing and review service online.

With more than 200 Essay Writing Wizard apps available for both the native English speaker and the ESL student, choosing the right app can be daunting. In order to find the best application for a student’s assignment, Niles Technology Group has setup a quick app selection tool where students can email their assignments in and receive a list of app tools that meet their particular needs in less than a day.

The full line of Essay Writing Wizard apps is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch in the iTunes App Store and can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/2gW3p7

About Niles Technology Group:
Niles Technology Group was founded in 2007 to develop software for emerging technologies and is developing a series of mobile computing applications dedicated to teaching superior writing and logical thinking skills. With its experience in the technology and content required to develop a full-featured product for students, Niles Technology Group is already in the top 25 of all iPhone app publishers and the Essay Writing Wizard apps have sold successfully in all countries that carry the iPhone and iPod touch. The key to Niles Technology Group's success is specificity. Each app is specific to the writing task at hand. Michael A. Niles, the founder, was formerly, for eight years, the President and CEO of The Right Education, Inc. (TRE), a web-based educational technology company that developed The Learning Accelerator. He looks forward to continuing to bring top-line education products to the mobile computing marketplace. For more information, visit www.essaywritingwizard.com.

According to AppFigures, a company specializing in metrics and tracking the ranking of iPhone applications, the iTunes App Store is officially frozen – that is, there has been no change in rankings for any applications in the last 24 hours.

The problem may be older then that however. Over the last week, many of our clients and various posts on message boards have pointed to strange app ranking issues including sudden unexplained jumps or drops in ratings, applications appearing out of nowhere, and other anomalies. Release dates seem to be one of the more effected aspects, with the release date option appearing and disappearing from the developer console.

Personally…. with it happening just after Halloween, we believe that iTunes has been possessed by the ghosts off rejected applications and the issues will continue until a full exorcism of Apple has occurred. That aside, we expect Apples engineers are frantically plugging away on the back end, trying to resolve the problem.

Please comment on any additional issues you notice, and we will continue to monitor and report if we hear of a change.

***RUMOR MILL UPDATE***

According to the founder of Cramzy, who claims to have inside information, one of the problems is because a major change is being made to the system. The gist of the change is this – updating your app will no longer place you at the top of the “Recently Released Apps” queue. If this is true, we believe this is an extremely poor decision by Apple. The marketing uplift given to an app by performing an update can be significant, and this feature as it currently is keeps developers involved in their apps, refreshing them with new content and bug fixes. Removing this will lead to more apps going stale, cluttering up the app store and making it harder for anyone to sell anything.

**RUMOR CONFIRMATION**

One of our clients, Memorize Words, Spanish Edition , had their app update approved today. Its app description only lists it as “Last Updated Nov 6th”, however it does not appear on the recently released apps section in its category. All apps in the recently released are listed as version 1.0′s. No official word from Apple, but all evidance points to this as a new major change in the app store.

If there was any city in Europe that an international iPhone conference should be held at – its Amsterdam. No, not because it has an infamous red-light district and liberal policies towards the recreational use of cannabis, but because Amsteram represents some of the same values of free expression that makes the iPhone what it is today. Before the iPhone – mobile development was considered by many too difficult or cumbersome to deal with. Technology was limited, access to carriers for distribution was limited, and most of the deals were done behind closed doors.

While we may still have a ways to go before we reach mobile utopia (many would say that the Android platform is the next step in the right direction), the coming together of developers and thought leaders from around the world in a global conference is a step in the right direction.

Later this month (November 25th – 27th), the iCE Amsterdam conference will open its doors to those same developers and thought leaders to come together and share their knowledge and insights into the most exciting mobile platform on the planet. Some of those people include:

• Jonathan Wight, Chief Technology Office of Small Society, most notably on app projects like myStarbucks, WholeFoods and Obama 08.
  
• Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova co-founders of Imangi Studios, the team that bought us the popular “Harbor Master”
  
• Paran Johar, JumpTap’s head of global marketing activities
• Dom Sagolla of San Francisco who helped create Twitter in 2006, He is also the founder of DollarApp, and the co-founder and host of iPhoneDevCamp
• Mike Lee, known by some as “the World’s Toughest Programmer”, has worked on some of the best known titles on the App Store, including Obama ’08 and Tap Tap Revenge.

Just to name a few.

During the Pre-Conference day on Wednesday 25 November the iPhoneDevCamp will part of the program. iPhoneDevCamp is a not-for-profit gathering to develop applications for iPhone and iPod Touch using both the native SDK and web standards. Previous iPhoneDevCamp events have been held at Adobe Systems in San Francisco, July 2007 and August 2008. The last iPhoneDevCamp was at Yahoo in Sunnyvale, August 2009.

The event is actually sponsored by the city of Amsterdam itself, and if my “Convert” app from Polar Bear Farm is correct, cost ranges from $732.45 for one person to $294.46 per person if talk four of your closest friends into going with you.You can register for the conference here.

At 8 o’clock in the morning on October 30th, 2009 (read: 5pm tonight, Pacific Apple Time) , the doors of China Unicom’s retail stores opened to the Chinese populate and offered 5 Million new iPhones into the global marketplace. While the launch got mixed reviews, amongst concerns of the disabled Wi-Fi features, a hefty price tag and the fact that rabid iPhone fans already were probably using one of the two million gray market iPhone in the country, the fact remains – the largest wireless market in the world now has open access to the iPhone.

So what does this mean for app developers? While many developers have always traditionally focused on the US as the only major iPhone market that matters, and with that English as the only major language – a major non-English speaking country poses an entirely new set of challenges.

I’ve already seen a number of sites  pop up that would be happy to do a direct translation of your app. I’m sure many of them are quality sites with quality native translators. Make sure you do your homework however – a second rate translation can be spotted by a native speaker of any language a mile away. (Anyone else remember the English to Spanish translation of “Got Milk” that led to billboards that screamed out “Are You Lactating?”). Never try to use a free online translation program to perform your app translations. While they may work for single words, they are not designed to be able to properly navigate grammatical structure.

Translation of your app however, is only the first step. You must also translate your app description page (often providing it in two languages can be benifical) and app name. A potential client last week contacted me from Russia with a checkers based game app that use the Russian work for checkers as part of its title. I see where they are going with this – but the reality is, I would never be able to spell it if I was searching for it.

Oh yes – let us not forget search.

Search is one of the most important functions to getting your application found. Your keywords are of utmost importance to how your app fares in any of the app stores around the world. Unfortunately, doing well in search in other countries is not as easy as taking your English keywords and translating them to another language. Search is about understanding how someone in that country will think – and in understanding how they think, also understanding how they navigate to find a product. What makes a perfectly logical search string for you may not make any sense when translated, and as we know – the app store only recognizes direct keyword matches.

Every market is different, and every country has different needs. Did you know that in China there will be not one, but two app stores? Yup – the one from Apple and the one operated by China Unicom. Did you know that writing in red lettering indicates the writer will die soon? That three (and multiples of three) are considered lucky numbers, but four signifies death? (4! sorry… had to do it). Oh yeah, and white, blue, black, storks, cranes, clocks and handkerchiefs also are associated with death. (Are you dizzy yet?)

Promotion in China will be its own hurdle. PR is handled differently, as are blogs. There are new forums to reach out to as well. Are you ready?

All this to say that Appency is happy to announce we have a partnership on the ground in China and will be happy to assist in your localization into this new market with all of the above. The time is ripe – before the app store gets too crowded – to make your mark in the Far East!

We've had a lot of people lately coming to us and asking how to get their iPhone app reviewed by the various iPhone blog sites around the net. While there is no guaranteed method, ( 148apps told us they get over 400 requests to review per week – there is simply no way they can get to all of them) we sat down with SlapApp.com's Co-Founder  Ryan Johnson this weekend and he gave us a few pointers. 

1. Read and understand the blogs preferred method of communication. Each blog has a different process, some bloggers have an email address to send submissions to, while others use a web form on their site. Just because you were able to track down the email address of every writer that contributes to their site, doesn't mean they would all welcome an out-of-the-blue email that goes outside their normal submission process and clogs up their professional email boxes.

2. Don't force them to do time wasting research. Simply submitting and saying "hey, can you review app X" is a sure fire way to not get reviewed. At the very least you need to provide:

• App Name
• Company Name
• App Category
• A brief overview of your app including highlights (what makes it special?)
• Direct link to app

3. Spice it up with some media. You will hardly ever see an app reviewed without an image, video, etc. to catch the readers eye. Pulling those images and making those videos for those that do it themselves is a time consuming process. Make it easy for them! Include your screen shots, videos, promo art, icons, etc with your submission. Do NOT however send them as attached files unless specifically requested. Host your images on photobucket or one of the various other image hosting sites (Photoshop has an interesting new one) and send the link to the image. This goes for videos as well.  

4. This one may be obvious – but if its a paid app, provide a promotional code. On the same note – if you are a blogger yourself and are reading this – when a developer provides you with a promotional code, if you do not think you are going to review the app, be so kind as to send the code back to the developer unused.

5. Stick to the theme of the site. Some sites like Touch Arcade have very specific focuses (Touch Arcade is specifically for games). It is a waste of your time as well as the bloggers time to et submissions that do not fit with the site in question.

6. Additional information that may help getting your app reviewed:

• Current Rank / Highest Rank Achieved (Most bloggers generate revenue as a iTunes affiliate, they want to promote apps that sell)
• Date of Release
• Notable mentions in other media (and links to them – bloggers love to cross link, it helps their SEO)

7. Getting close to launching a brand new app that has never been seen before? Offer a blogger an exclusive "first look" at the application. Bloggers are like other news reporters in that they like to be the first to a story. Dangling the "exclusive" carrot can catch a writers eye like nothing else can.

SO YOU GOT REVIEWED: NOW WHAT?

Congratulations! You got your app reviewed! What to do now? A couple basic things:

1. Mention the review in your app description. It's good for you (assuming it was a positive review), and its good for the review site.

2. Share the review link as much as possible. If your apps direct a lot of traffic to a blogger, the blogger may remember this in the future and be more inclined to blog about your next release.

3. Thank the reviewer. Common courtesy goes a long way these days. A good review can take 30 minutes to an hour of the writers time, if not more. Time spent on your application. Show them you appreciate it.

SO YOU DIDN'T GET REVIEWED: NOW WHAT?

Not every app will get reviewed by every site. Often times the blog wont even contact you to let you know, they simply wont do anything with it. Don't get disheartened, but ask yourself why. Is your app a purple cow? That is – is your app remarkable in any way, shape or form, or is it one of a dozen apps just like it that are already littering up the app store. As I mentioned before – blog reviews are a type of news… so make apps that are newsworthy.

A Special Thanks:

A special thanks to Ryan and the rest of the SlapApp.com team for providing this interview. For help getting your app reviewed by bloggers, mentioned in the press, or just talked about in general… drop us an email, we would be glad to help!