Attendance of Apps World Europe is set to double this October

There are many reasons why you should register for Apps World Europe now but the fact that the show, which will be held in London’s Earls Court 2, from 22-23 October, promises to be bigger and better than ever is perhaps the biggest reason.

The Apps World Europe show, which this year celebrates its fourth birthday, has doubled in size and will see more than 8,000 delegates visit more than 250 exhibitors for two days of top level networking, meetings, workshop streams and awards. It is THE place to see and be seen for anyone in the apps industry – from developers to mobile marketers. Here are 7 more reasons why Apps World Europe should be top of your agenda and why you really must book your place now:

1) 12 workshop streams

Apps World Europe will offer key note speakers in all the current hottest topics from some of the world’s biggest brands, including McDonalds, Carlsberg and BBC, and covering everything from gaming to mobile marketing and TV and second screen apps

2) More free access to content

There are now five free workshop streams including the developer zone and the return of the Droid World at Apps World Europe. For the first time visitors can also access the enterprise and gaming zones for free

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We can’t believe Apps World North America 2013 is  over!  Thank you to everyone who visited/spoke/exhibited and helped to make it a great two days showcasing the most innovative and exciting developments in the mobile app industry. We’re already looking forward to next year’s show, but here’s our photo highlights of 2013 – with special thanks to our photographer May Suen:

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Interoute’s CTO Matthew Finnie gives his insight into how app developers can get their apps into the enterprise following last week’s Apps World show.

At this years’ AppsWorld the focus for developers was clear: Show me the money!

Many of the developers I met were trying to figure out how to get into the enterprise. The real benefit of the new model is that there is at least a route in, whereas for the past 10 years that door was firmly shut, either due to incumbents giving your product away or simply the decision making process in the world of IT being too slow.

Here are my 5 tips for accessing the enterprise:

1) Design your app for the consumer and they will bring it in to the business for you. Don’t try to sell to the IT establishment straight out. Focus on the employees who are already inside.
2) Innovate for their needs and they will seek you out. Ask yourself what is the most frequent, most annoying task someone in your target enterprise has to do. Make that easier and you’re on to a winner.
3) Anticipate their concerns about “being in the cloud” by making the cloud a little more real. Show them where there data will be, explain to them that your provider has a long track record of securing data, etc.
4) Enterprises are just like you: It’s easier for them to pay for what they use rather than invest up front. Aim for a utility payment model and structure your supply chain accordingly, by making sure the services you rely on have no long contracts or obligations.
5) Seek out the best cloud computing scalability you can afford. That way, your IT infrastructure will never limit your success.

Find out more about Interoute and their cloud services platform here

So that’s the Apps World London live show for another year, thanks to everyone who came down, took part, got involved or even followed the event remotely.

Many thanks to all our exhibitors and sponsors for enabling us to put on our biggest ever show. The numbers are in and we’ve had almost 6000 visitors through the door this year, and you’ve helped Apps World cement its place as one of the foremost European apps industry events. Special thanks to our Diamond sponsor Samsung, and our Platinum sponsors BlackBerry, Yandex, Microsoft, SAP and Brightcove.

We’ve heard some fascinating talks, presentations and workshops across ten conference tracks, covering everything from TV apps, mobile marketing and game development, to enterprise mobility, mobile payment and operator app strategies. The free-to-attend developer tracks were packed on both days, with the HTML5 track proving particularly popular.

In previous years you would’ve had to wait a full twelve months before your next slice of Apps World action, but this year we’re making the majority of sessions available to paid delegates as downloadable podcasts, enabling you to enjoy first class industry advice and insight all year round. There will be additional streamed content to come via our partners.

There was another awesome first this year, as we held the inaugural Appsters Awards, complete with TV comedian host and vodka ice luge, at the sumptuous Kensington Roof Gardens on Tuesday night. Judged by a crack team of industry experts, the Appsters whittled down over 250 nominees to a shortlist of 70, and finally winners in 12 categories.

Congratulations to all the winners, and particularly to Bristol-based developer Mubaloo, who scooped both Best Developer and the overall Appsters Champion 2012 award. The after party was a cracker, the dancing was borderline illegal and we suspect there may have been some sore heads on the conference floor this morning. Well done you troopers! Click here for a list of all the Appsters winners.

That’s it for this year. It’s been emotional. More content to follow when we get back to the office!

Britain was famously described by Napoleon as ‘a nation of shopkeepers’. The epithet stuck, and in time was reclaimed as a badge of honour by merchants up and down the country – especially those which formed part of its nascent–and then thriving–highstreets. But today those highstreets are in trouble. As anyone who reads the newspapers or watches the television news will know, they have been in trouble for some time. So long, in fact, that there is even political consensus that something needs to be done. Most recently, the Conservatives tasked retail expert and celebrity Mary Portas with reviewing the situation and making recommendations which were widely covered in the press once released. Despite this, small merchants (whether they work out of a shop, a vehicle, or a backpack) are still facing incredibly tough conditions, and the decline of the UK’s highstreets continues unabated. But what does all this have to do with apps? Well, I’m going to use my post here to ask the question, ‘can an app/app technology save small merchants and thereby our highstreets?’ Read on to find out. (more…)

The winners have been announced in the first ever Appsters Awards, celebrating excellence and achievement in the apps industry.

The glitzy Awards ceremony at Kensington Roof Gardens, hosted by TV comedian Miles Jupp, was a who’s who of the apps industry. It was a good night for British talent, with the BBC’s 2012 Olympics app, Bristol-based developer Mubaloo and the interactive Tube Map app from mxData all taking the top prizes in their category.

With a shortlist of over 70 nominees, Awards were handed out across 12 categories, including Best Consumer App [London 2012], Best Entertainment App [BBC Olympics app], Best Use of Geo-Location [Tube Map] and App Developer 2012 [Mubaloo].

A panel of expert industry judges scored each nominee individually to determine the winners. However, two special categories were decided differently from the others.
Start-up app 2012 finalists had to pitch their ideas to a live audience and a panel of judges at the Apps World conference at Earls Court on Tuesday, with the winner decided by live audience voting as well as judges scoring.

Appsters Champion 2012 was awarded to the finalist with the largest cumulative score from all competition judges.

Mark Mason, CEO of Appsters Champion Mubaloo, said: “It’s been fantastic. Three and a half years ago, there were four of us in the show. We just had an inkling that the B2B and enterprise market was going to be huge.

“These awards are the confirmation of all our hard work over the last three and a half years.”

CreditCall’s Commercial Director Sian Bosley on winning the Best Payment App Award said: “We strive to offer the most secure and forward thinking solutions. It has taken us over two years to navigate the complexities of EMV and UK payment regulations to ensure that it has the required certification to fulfil all card scheme needs.

“We are honoured and delighted to have won this professional recognition and to have been cited for our innovations in this booming industry.”

Appsters Awards 2012 Winners
Best entertainment app – BBC Olympics app
Best enterprise app – SwiftKey Healthcare
Best consumer app – London 2012
Best payment app – CardEase Mobile by CreditCall
Best TV app – PlayJam
Best use of geo-location – Tube Map by mxData
Best visual design – Shutterstock by Xtreme Labs
Most innovative app – Speech Pathology by Gravitywell
Start-up app 2012 – Soundrop
Mobile Marketing Agency 2012 – bolser
App Developer 2012 – Mubaloo – creator of the MET Office Weather app
Appster Champion 2012 – Mubaloo

We’re very excited to be launching the official Apps World app for this year’s event. Our friends at Conduit have been hard at work putting it together for us and we’re very pleased with the results!

The app is the perfect companion for next week’s show; it’s the best way to stay informed about all the happenings as they happen during the event. Get in on all the discussions, parties, and workshops with a full agenda with real-time updates, general event info, speaker info and bios, map and directions, a floor plan, Facebook and Twitter updates, a photo and video gallery, and much more!

Download the app on Android here

Download the app on iOS here

Download the web app here

Good morning developers, marketers, enterprise mobility experts and apps industry professionals everywhere! The waiting is over, today at Earls Court 2, Apps World begins!

With 280 expert speakers delivering ten in-depth conference tracks, 180 exhibitors and over 6000 pre-registered delegates, this is the biggest one yet.

The conference action is kicking off this morning at 9am with top-class keynotes across the eight conference theatres, for a map of the conference click here.

For a full breakdown of what’s happening where and when, download the official Apps World app, available for both iOS and Android.

We’ve got a packed exhibitor floor with around 180 companies on hand to discuss how the latest apps industry trends and technologies can benefit your business; there are also four specialist expo villages covering ‘content and commerce’, ‘mobile marketing’, ‘TV apps’, and ‘enterprise apps’. For a rundown of who you can meet on the exhibition floor have a look at our exhibitor list.

There’s more free-to-attend content at Apps world this year than ever before, with the traditional ‘developer zone’ and ‘droid world’, supplemented by an html5 track, a technical briefing zone and specialised theatres and workshops from Microsoft, Blackberry, Samsung and Twilio.

If you got a ticket to The Appsters Awards earlier this evening, congratulations, you’re one of the lucky ones, these were in high demand and the event is now at capacity. We’ll be handing out awards in 12 industry categories to winners from a shortlist of over 70 nominees.

Following on from The Appsters this evening, we’ve also got the official Apps World party to look forward to, in the sumptuous surroundings of the Kensington Roof Gardens.

For people looking to meet that special someone, the Apps World connect live speed networking sessions will be taking place on both days  near the delegate lounge. Bring your business cards and come ready to connect.

Don’t be afraid to get involved today. This is your show, designed to provide advice and knowledge that’ll make you a more effective industry practitioner; so make sure you get your money’s worth, ask questions, meet people and get stuck in. The event hashtag is #AppsWorld

With the launch of Windows 8 imminent, the MS team will be at Apps World to discuss how the revolutionary new Windows UX opens up new possibilities for app development and user engagement.

Grant Skinner, one of the foremost names in the field of interactive development, will be delivering a session in the Microsoft Theatre. Following lot of cutting edge work on projects spanning multiple screens, Grant’s expertise covers experimental interaction, applications, games, websites, installations, embedded devices and mobile.

His session, “Building the Atari Arcade in HTML5 & CreateJS”, will explore the process and challenges of building the Atari Arcade site and games using CreateJS and HTML5. He’ll cover a wide range of topics spanning concept and design through to technical implementation and performance optimization.

The Microsoft Theatre will run workshops and presentations across both days of the conference, covering a myriad of opportunities around the new Windows phones; showcasing new Windows 8 apps, introducing the Nokia Lumia Range, app monetisation with Windows 8 and much more.

Click here to view the full Microsoft Theatre agenda.

These sessions are part of the free-to-attend developer content programme at Apps World this year, for more information on what Apps world has to offer, see the event website: http://www.apps-world.net/europe

Web designers are doing amazing things with responsive design techniques thanks largely to CSS Media Queries, but when creating intelligent, cross-platform, device-independent app displays, CSS can only get you so far.

That’s according to Brightcove Inc. Developer Advocate Adam Mark.

Brightcove is a Platinum Sponsor at Apps World, on 2-3 October, and Mark candidly highlights below how the powerful API on the App Cloud platform does things CSS can’t. Here he discusses and gives code examples in terms of responsive web design with orientation, device and operating system based functionality:

“When building hybrid mobile apps with Brightcove App Cloud, I use media queries all the time to create different layouts for landscape and portrait; for instance, whether a list should flow from top to bottom or left to right. (more…)