Top Apps and Games 2011 for iPhone | iPad | iPod Touch

Apple's annual year-end retrospective for apps and games revealed that Instagram made it to the top and be heralded as defenitive 'top iPhone application of 2011' while Tiny Tower is this year's 'Top iPhone Game of 2011'. For iPad, Snapseed held the 'top iPad application for 2011' while Angry Birds HD earned both this year's 'top paid selling and top grossing' tablet app.

Instagram is a free photo-sharing application that allow users apply different effects and filters to captured photos and share it on different social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, Flickr, Foursquare and Posterous. Its major update included more features like instant tilt shift, four new filters, high resolution photos, optional borders, one click rotation, an updated icon and use of hashtags for user and photo discoverability, The app has already reached an outstanding 14 million+ users who posted about 400 million photos online.

This year's apple game of the year Tiny Tower is a freemium, highly engaging and addictive game. It was released to iTunes on June 22, 2011 and the game was well-received by users and was even featured as game of the week. The goal of game is to upgrade a small building into a skyscraper, brimming with both residential and commercial establishments. The game requires a sense of strategic thinking, cost and time efficiency and a decent amount of commitment which made this game a winsome.

Snapseed has some similarities to Instagram that let's you add flavors to your photographs but more features to offer. Snapseed enhances your photos with one tap, tweak photos to perfection with Tune Image or selectively adjust only a part of your photo with revolutionary Control Points. User can also add incredible effects with innovative filters like Drama, Vintage, and Grunge and share photos with friends and family with social network support, or print photos directly in Snapseed.

Other categories in the 'iTunes Rewind 2011' include 'Artist of the year' which was took by Adele with her song 'Rolling in the deep' also as the top-selling song and her '21' as the best selling album.

The top-selling movie of 2011 was the Oscar winner 'The Social Network.' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 was also awarded 'Best Blockbuster', while 'Bridesmaids' was named best comedy. Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris' was best indie, and 'Beginners' took best romance. 

"Steve Jobs", an authorized biography by Walter Isaacson was this year's best-selling nonfiction title of 2011 while other books that also made it in the market include 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht (best novel), 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett (best-selling fiction novel) and 'Boomerang' by Michael Lewis (best nonfiction).

Twitter Sign-Ups Triple with Apple iOS 5 Launch!

Twitter Times are Here!

Last week, Apple launched its latest operating system which Twitter had a deep integration with. Thanks to the popularity of the operating system, it has been nothing else but just beneficial for the micro-blogging site. Twitter reported three-times the sign-ups it normally reports everyday!

But here is the awesome part! This news piece just covered the first day of the launch which was reported by Costolo. With 4 million Apple 4S phones sold on the first weekend and with around 20 million users already upgrading the operating system, you can only imagine the number of first time users. Users have an option to sign-up to the site and there is not a single reason why they wouldn't!

Have you upgraded to iOS 5 yet?

With Twitter and Apple going the full distance in ensuring a deep relationship, small business owners need to stand up and make sense of their Twitter strategy. With 200 million users (half of them active round the clock) and a rapidly growing base, Twitter can change the shape of your business for sure! 

Facebook tries to save face with Beacon apology

Seems like it finally dawned on Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, that he needed to join the Beacon conversation! He posted an official apology on the Facebook blog today, acknowledging that his company was wrong in the way it handled the Beacon problem. Note that he directly addressed one of the hot-button issues in his post - his choice to make Beacon an opt-out instead of an opt-in program - thereby showing that his company is listening to user concerns.

Zuckerberg's blog post is structured like a textbook example of a crisis PR response:

• Paragraph 1: Apologize for the specific problem


• Paragraph 2 & 3: Explain what happened/what let to the mistake


• End of paragraph 3: Condemn the mistake


• Paragraph 4: Explain what needs to be done to fix the problem. In my opinion he would have been better off addressing Facebook users directly here instead of referring to them as "people" (not very personal)


• Paragraph 5: Explain what has been done to fix the problem and tell users about it


• Paragraph 6: Thank users for sharing their concerns, thereby validating them. The only thing he didn't do at the end was discuss how Facebook plans to "make up" for their mistake (such as Apple offering in-store credit to early iPhone adopters, or JetBlue issuing vouchers after the Valentine's Day disaster). But then again, Facebook is a free service which sets it apart from those examples.

Zuckerberg's apology is similar to Steve Jobs' open letter to iPhone users after Apple upset its fan base by dropping the price of the iPhone after only a few months on the market. The apology is not the only similarity though. Facebook and Apple both managed to anger an otherwise ultra-loyal public - the people who love their service/product. Apple's iPhone faux-pas and Facebook's Beacon dilemma also act as a good reminder to companies not to underestimate the power of their key publics to organize online and pressure for change.

Not a great day for Apple, according to my contact John Biggs over at CrunchGear.

I've worked with Ryan Block, the blogger who broke the story, a number of times and he has always reported fairly. I may not have been in love with his review of my clients, but it's always been fair. And the guy busts a move everyday to cover a million and one tech briefings and then file them all immediately.

Clearly, there's a new case study coming about all of this, documenting the very real power of email and social media for Corporate America today. I just hope whomever writes it comes to BlogPhiladelphia to present it.

Ryan, I already you sent the invite to you, but SERIOUSLY, you have to come speak.