According to research firm Fiksu, Top 200 free app downloads for the iPhone have fallen to 4.45 million per day in March compared to 6.35 million per day in February, a 30% decrease in one month. The last time app downloads were at similarly low levels was in October 2011, when app downloads were 4.91 million per day.

Another factor contributing towards lower downloads could be the recent change in developer policy implemented by Apple in March, whereby developers were warned that anybody caught using bots to their apps (to boost the chart ratings for their apps) will be disqualified from the official Apple developer program.

“With the novelty factor of the iPhone 4S launch and the holidays well behind us, and no other events in March to spark discovery, March’s download dip was expected,” Micah Adler, Fiksu CEO, said in a statement.

It’s always fascinating talking to someone who has created something massive but had no idea on how big their product would become when creating it. At The Mobile Show 2012, one of the keynote speaker was Igor Pušenjak from LimaSky, creators of the massively popular Doodle Jump game.

After his session, Igor was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me where we talked about how his company expanded and is coping up with the success that Doodle Jump brought them as well as advice for someone looking into developing apps. Igor makes no excuses for repeatedly stating his fondness for Apple and the platform they have developed. It’s certainly a very interesting conversation.

I would like to thank Igor for taking the time to speak to us and wish him continued success.

The Internet Show and The Mobile show is currently going on in Dubai, UAE and RIM has a big presence there in the form of a booth as well as a lounge where users can come in and charge their devices. One of the things that RIM is doing is upgrading their batch of OS7 devices to OS7.1 and you can bring in your Bold or Curve or Torch to get the latest OS version.

While OS 7.1 is available on the web for pretty much all new BlackBerry Smartphones, owners of Porsche Design P’9981 were left in the dark. However, starting next week, they will also be able to upgrade their super-expensive device to the latest OS7.1. I took my particular unit and got it upgraded as the following video shows.

You get all the goodness associated with OS 7.1 in this upgrade including the Battery Saver mode, Device Analyzer and Wi-Fi hot Spot capabilities.

Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family. Snap a picture, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, then post to Instagram. Share to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr too – it’s as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.

The Android Instagram app supports Android 2.2 and above and can be downloaded through the the Google Play store. Aside from letting you add a number of filter effects to your pictures, it lets you share them to a number of different social networks as well.

Let’s see what the acquisition by Facebook means for Instagram and how it’s shaped in the future.

SAE Institute, that is locally a part twofour54 since late last year is going to be running an iPhone Application Development course from 28th of April to 16th of June this year. The course lasts 8 weeks and has classes every Saturday that last the duration of the entire day- from 10AM to 5PM.

The course focuses on the fundamentals of Objective-C Programming and iPhone/ iPod/ iPad application programming along with the business model of the Apple App Store. Participants will be introduced to the programming environment for application development and will have a hands-on approach to programming using the Objective-C language.

Coupled with the introduction of Apple’s app review process, they will also learn the submission process to Apple for appraisal. Participants will be able to produce functional applications at the end of the course.

On completion of this course, participants will be able to:

L1 Demonstrate the understanding of the fundamentals of Objective C Programming
L2 Demonstrate the ability to code and fix Objective-C applications
L3 Demonstrate the ability to create a simple iPhone/ iPad application.
L4 Demonstrate the understanding of the iPhone/ iPad SDK
L5 Demonstrate the ability to prepare the application for submission
L6 Demonstrate the understanding of the Apple App Store review process

This course is targetted towards the novice user- someone wanting to learn programming and thus background in programming is not compulsory as sessions include fundamentals of Objective-C programming.

The course is priced at AED 8,000 and instructed by Amir Jahanlou who is a pretty cool fellow. Click here to register for it.

One of the first things that I wanted to test out on my new iPad’s Retina Display was how good movies looked and for that, the first app that came to mind was Apple’s Movie Trailers app. Apple has finally updated that app and you will now be able to watch movie trailers at a higher resolution than on iPad 2. Details on the extact resolution of trailers on the new iPad are not available for the moment and it would be nice if Apple updated the aspect ratio of trailers to utilize larger, possibly complete screen real estate.

During the second day of Tbreak Developer’s Conference, the Windows Phone classroom session was headed by Ahmed Adel from Microsoft. Adel talked about the ins and outs of developing for Windows Phone in the region, how Yalla Apps is currently being used as a stopgap for local developer, Adel also confirmed that Windows Phone Marketplace will be launching this month for our region.

The session then mostly consisted of a live coding session in .Net, all of which you can catch in the video below.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi has recently launched an updated version of the their mobile app which has some very intuitive, and some remarkable features.

First off you can do an account inquiry on your current accounts and credit cards, donate money and transfer funds as well as make payments towards utility bills  like Etisalat, DEWA, etc.

What makes transferring funds interesting, though, is that you can send money locally and internationally with incredible ease. If you’re trying to send money to someone who doesn’t have an NBAD Arrow account setup, i.e. the NBAD app, you can still send them up to AED 1.5K that they can withdraw from any NBAD ATM. They’ll simply get a pin code via SMS to their mobile phones which will enable them to withdraw the funds up till 24 hours of receiving the code.

Similarly money can be transferred internationally and beneficiatires can withdraw funds from any of the 277,000 branches of MoneyGram in 190 countries. All within 10 minutes of making the transaction on the app.

NBAD customers can download the app from the App Store and Android Marketplace respectively. Blackberry users can go the link provided and download the app directly.

The long awaited Tbreak Developers Conference starts off today at 10am.  The agenda for Day 1 of TDC is as follows:

- 9am: Welcome and on-site registrations
- 10am – 10:05am: “Introducing the Tbreak Developer Awards”, Abbas Jaffar Ali, Publisher, Tbreak Media
- 10.05am – 10.15am: “Opportunities with Nokia Store and business models”, Praveen Prabhakaran, Head of EDX, Middle East, Nokia
- 10.15am – 10.25am: Blackberry Keynote
- 10.25am – 10.35am: Google Keynote
- 10.35am – 10.45am: Qualcomm Keynote
- 11am – 12pm: Discussion Panels
- 12pm – 12:30pm: Developers Choice Awards
- 12.30pm – 1.15pm: Lunch Break
- 1.15pm – 5pm: Classroom Sessions

The whole day is jam packed with interesting panels and informative classes from some of the leading experts in the industry. In case you haven’t registered and think you can make it down to the Knowledge Village Auditorium, head on down there as we’re also accepting on-site registrations. Today’s highlights, apart from the Developer Awards, will include the keynotes from Nokia, RIM, Qualcomm and Google.

After two weeks of being open, the nominations for the Tbreak Developers Awards finally came to a close yesterday with almost 600 entries. Certain categories have had an overwhelming response with lots of fans nominating their favorite website, game or app. Below is the final list of nominations under each category.

Best Charity App

CareZone

Nokia Ramadan App

Best Government App

DEWA

RTA

Best Mobile Game

Scratch (BlackBerry)

Dewan of Kout (Nokia)

Tareq’s Treasure (Java)

Kalimat (iOS)

Best Entertainment App

Arab Idol

Grand Cinemas

Channel 4 FM

joyFit – Social Fitness Entertainment

Best Mobile App

Carbon

Dubai Mall App

Grand Cinemas

Best PC Game

Point Blank

Runes of Might

Arabian Lords

Best PSN/XBLA

Best Web Based Game

Travian.com.sa

Jawaker.com

Operation Arabia

Best Website Design

Definitelydubai.com

Emirates.com

Xpansecgi.com

ae.playstation.com

Best eCommerce Website

Souq.com

Jadopado.com

Trolley.ae

Logta.com

Best Community Website

Youtharabia.com

Gradberry.com

Dubizzle.com

Best Tech/Gaming Blog

DvLZGaME

At7addak.com

True-Gaming.net

Best Social Media Personality

Alexander McNabb

Ashraf Ghori

Dr. Baher

Sultan Al Qassemi

Ask Ali

Best Website Overall

Dubizzle.com

Emirates.com

GulfNews.com

A special panel of judges from Nokia, RIM and Tbreak will be selecting the winners from all of the above categories. The award ceremony will take place on 14th March, Wednesday, at 12pm in the Dubai Knowledge Village Auditorium. Good luck to all the contestants!