Distimo had a closer look at two things known to boost app sales (and ideally app revenue): discounting your app and being featured in the Apple App Store or the Android Market. The study found that this is generally true, but not to the same degree for all stores and categories. Sometimes, it even leads to loss.

Are you interested in doing WP7 development? Do you need a testing device? We've got three HTC Surround you can borrow. If you successfully program two new apps and publish them in the Marketplace, you can even keep it!

27 million tablets were shipped in the fourth quarter of last year. Out of those, 15.4 million - and thus the largest part - were iPads. More newsworthy: 10.5 million were Android tablets, which means Android is on iOS heels with 39% to 58% of the market.

The Google App Inventor allows creating Android apps without the need for coding knowledge. Set free by Google, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took over - and plans to release the MIT Public App Inventor Service by April. If you want to use it now already, you can set up your own server using JAR files provided by MIT.

iOS and Android are the two big mobile operating systems - and most developers support both. However, while there is currently a slight advantage for iOS, this will reverse within the next 12 months, according to the analyst company Ovum.

The Windows Phone Marketplace has grown by 10,000 items in the last 25 days, reaching a total of over 60,000. These are numbers published by All About Windows Phone, indicating that the growth of WP apps has accelerated compared to the months before.

App developers working in or for Austria can submit their apps to two different contests now: the Apps4Linz Prize of the Open Commons Region Linz and the Mobile Award Austria (MAwA) by the Economic Chamber of Austria (WKO). One of them even offer cash prizes of up to € 3,000.

Our member Martin Suchan has recently been developing an application for automatic photo shooting in Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. He shared with us an article describing the most interesting challenges one will most likely encounter when creating apps for WP7 and how to solve them successfully.

The U.S. government's National Security Agency (NSA) has released a first version of their SE (Security Enhanced) Android. The modified version of the Google mobile OS is designed to offer more security in critical areas. The project is based on SELinux, a similar initiative for the desktop.

Our latest Live Chat is over. Senior BlackBerry development representatives shared links to development resources and talked about how to get started with BB development. The Android Player for Android was a topic as well as special monetisation arrangements for BlackBerry developers. Interesting: They also let slip a 50% discount code for BB DevCon Europe!

Chupa Mobile is a new market for mobile components such as utilities, libraries, UI elements and more. It offers components for different operating systems. Developers can sell their own components on Chupa Mobile. To attract them, the company started a contest, giving away $10,000 (€7,900) - in cash and as vouchers.

Attention BlackBerry devs! Our next Live Chat is kicking off today, January 17th at 4pm CET. We have managed to get Sanyu Kiruluta (Team Lead, Developer Relations, RIM) and Kamel Lajili (Senior BlackBerry Application Development Consultant, RIM) to join us in a live chat about BlackBerry development. The two experts will be available for all your BlackBerry development related questions, so don't miss the chance to get the best insights straight from the source. Anyone registered on Creating Apps can join in and chat with two of BlackBerry's most knowledgeable.

Samsung is looking to merge its bada OS with the newly taken over Tizen. This came to public attention through an interview with Samsungs Tae-Jin Kiang, as Forbes reports. The two Linux based operating systems will share a common SDK and shared APIs, guaranteeing backwards compatibility for bada apps.

Our Wiki has got a new tutorial today, explaining you how to get the Android phone's location - either via GPS or via WiFi. Read on to learn about LocationManager, LocationListener and more.

Android has just published design guidelines for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It is the first Android version ever to get some. A positive step, mobile app designers probably have waited for quite a while.