Scandit has announced the release of its new Scanalytics feature for its cross-platform mobile bar code scanner. Scanalytics will provide iPhone developers with easy access to real-time analytics. The analytics will provide information on the products the app users scan and frequency and location where they scan products. The first of its kind analytics intends to provide exclusive insights to Android and iPhone developers, retailers and brand owners into how users are interacting with the app.

Scanalytics is available for free to all Android and iPhone developers using its barcode scanner. With mobile shopping getting increasingly popular, Scanalytics will enable iPhone developers to collect real-time data to optimize their mobile apps, optimize user retention, and identify revenue opportunities.

“Scanalytics provides unique information for the developer about mobile user scan behavior.” said Scandit CEO, Samuel Mueller.

“With the fastest and most reliable barcode scanner and the new Scanalytics feature, Scandit offers the most complete mobile product interaction solution on the market.”

A latest forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) reveals that mobile app downloads are predicted to rise from 10.7 billion in 2010 to 182.7 billion in 2015. The study also reveals an impending shift in app monetization from the present app download purchases to in-app purchasing to fund business models. It says that mobile app developers are emulating the success of game developers and are incorporating in-app purchases in their applications. This shift dovetails with Appcelerator/IDC 1Q11 Mobile App Developer Survey Report of January, in which mobile developers reported significantly increased plans to add in in-app purchasing, advertising, and commerce in their apps.

“App developers are not only focusing on ways to ‘appify’ just about every interaction you can think of in your physical and digital worlds, they are now focusing on longer term sustainability issues,” noted Scott Ellison, vice president, Mobile and Connected Consumer Platforms.

“The user sustainability trifecta of social networking, location, and the cloud are now increasingly being supported by the business model financial trifecta of application store purchases, in-app purchasing, and in-app advertising.”

The predicted soar in app downloads and the shift to in-app purchasing model will surely boost iPhone developers.

Typing on credit card details is time consuming and at times troublesome. And most users don’t have a separate hardware wherein they can swipe their card. And that’s probably why credit card purchases on apps is not peaking the way it should be. iphone developers looking for a payment solution to enable credit card payments in their app can use a SDK from card.io and can effortlessly accept credit cards in their apps. Customer just has to hold his credit card up to the mobile phone, and the payment will be processed.

Card.io claims its software to be fully secure with 256-bit SSL encryption, and servers hosted in secure facilities.

iOS 5: Wi-Fi Sync Exposed from Jeff on Vimeo.

Cupertino based iPhone maker Apple has rolled out a new beta version of its latest operating system iOS 5. In the new version, Apple seems to have fixed a few bugs in addition to enabling wireless sync for Mac. Registered iPad and iPhone developers of Apple’s developer program can download the iOS 5 beta 2 version.

iOS 5 is expected to be released in the fall concurrently with the release of Apple’s next generation iPhone 5.

If you couldn’t attend WWDC 2011 due to unavailability of tickets of for any other reason and feel like you missed something important there then you can now watch WWDC 2011 videos at Apple’s developer website. Apple has published in its developer website over 100 session videos taken during its annual worldwide developer conference.

In total, there are 109 session videos featuring Apple’s future software enhancements. The videos are available in both SD and HD formats for the the Mac, iPhone iPad, iPod touch,  and Apple TV.

Mac, iPad and iPhone developers who wish to view the videos must be a registered member of  Apple Developer Connection.

The 2011 European Mobile User Study by Yankee Group brings good news for iPhone developers as it finds that 40 percent of consumers in Europe intending to buy a smartphone will choose an iPhone as their next mobile device. Android-based smartphones came in second with 19 percent followed by BlackBerry and Nokia with 17 and 15 percent respectively. The latest study covered five European countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K and polled 5,000 consumers and 2,250 employees and IT decision-makers.

Declan Lonergan, research VP at Yankee Group  said“These findings highlight the continued strength of Apple in the European smartphone market and, in particular, it’s phenomenal brand appeal.”

“The data also highlights the enormous challenges faced by Nokia and RIM to retain mind share and market share in this increasingly dynamic and competitive marketplace,” he added

Other major findings of the study that would be of interest to iPhone developers include:

• In enterprises, use of consumer tools for work purposes has increased with four times more employees using it with IT’s explicit approval.
• Tablets are improving productivity of the organization with 58 percent employees saying they are more productive during long-distance travel when they have a tablet.
• Most consumers have more than one device and use it depending on the screen best suited for the time and place.

The recent study, once again, shows iPhones popularity in the market and offer great hope for iPhone developers.

In what could give a big boost to iPad and iPhone development for enterprise applications, a latest study by ABI Research predicts that users of enterprise smartphone and media tablet mobile apps to grow to exceed 830 million active users by 2016. Apple’s App Store has over 400,000 applications and leads the app market.

The report cites smartphone and media tablet adoption at enterprises as the reason behind the surge in enterprise app development and deployment. However, Enterprise Practice Director Dan Shey says, “Mobile suppliers are providing the critical enablers boosting app adoption.”

Two important supply-side drivers, mobile suppliers and cloud services in mobile apps are fuelling the adoption of apps in enterprises. The supplier market offering app platforms has grown. These platforms enable an app to be developed once and deployed across multiple devices in the highly fragmented market. Many platforms also provide highly cost-effective capabilities like management and system integration. Secondly, many mobile app developers also offer cloud services as a component of the app thereby reducing the investment for organizations.

The higher adoption of mobility solutions and mobile applications in organizations would surely boost enterprise level app development as app usage in organization goes increasing.

Adyen, an international payment processing technologies and mobile payment solutions provder, has announced the release of a single-click mobile payment solution for Android and iPhone developers. The new solution will provide Android and iPhone developers the facility to employ an alternative payment system for iTunes that also accepts popular payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal and a range within mobile applications and websites.

The platform allows Android and iPhone developers to gain from a fully integrated service that takes away the trouble of security and PCI compliance. The platform’s novel skin technology allows developers to fine-tune everything related to the look and feel of the mobile payment and checkout process.

The platform makes payments easier for users by processing mobile payments with a single click without the need to provide their complete credit card details every time they make a purchase.

“A growing number of our customers have been asking for an alternative payment solution to iTunes on the iPhone, in addition to supporting payments on Android devices … and this is exactly what we have developed,” said Roelant Prins, CCO of Adyen.

“We have had tremendous success with retailers launching mobile apps and mobile websites to sell non-digital products like clothing, tickets and daily-deal offerings. The mobile channel is a serious and significant sales channel with enormous potential for growth the coming years,” he added.

A study by Market Intelligence Company Asymco will surely bring cheers for iOS developers as it reveals app income to exceed revenues from music in three years. It says Apple by now has paid out $16.6 billion to content owners, $2.5 billion to iOS developers and about $14 billion to music companies. Payment figures for iOS developers have been gathered from data published by Apple, the music revenues are projected based on total downloads. Some of the findings from the study are-

• Music is still a far bigger ecosystem than applications. The combined “sales rate” of music and apps is a astonishing $665 million per month. However, music now generates only twice the income of apps. And, if we see how quickly the app business is growing, it predicts app income to surpass music income within three years.

• 6 apps are downloaded per device per month.

• Each iTunes account has “consumed” about 67 songs and 62 apps.

iOS developers can read the complete story here.

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced an update to Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 software which will make possible for developers to build apps for iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry PlayBook using a single platform.  Flash Builder 4.5 will be offered standalone or as part of Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium and Master Collection.

“The reaction from developers to the new mobile capabilities in Flash Builder 4.5 and the Flex 4.5 framework has been absolutely fantastic,” said Ed Rowe, vice president of developer tooling, Adobe.

“They are amazed by how easy it is to create great mobile apps for Android devices, BlackBerry PlayBook, iPhone and iPad. Companies can now effectively reach their customers no matter what type of device they have,” he added.

Flex 4.5 also includes major productivity enhancements that will allow iPhone developers and others to swiftly build apps.  Developers can now speed up the creation of Flex and ActionScript appls using best practice code templates, code completion and code generation features in Flash Builder 4.5, and deploy them using Adobe AIR software.

iPhone developers can get more information on Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 here.