Many iPhone developers are trying their best to estimate of how the rank in the App Store translates in sales. Apparently, a few developers already released some of their data, which is interesting to read.

This article will detail two apps - iFart and Oz Weather - which published real data, and will try to draw a picture of how the App Store rank and sales affect each other.

As an appetizer, seems #1 app is downloaded more than 10K times a day, and if sold for $0.99 makes more than $9,900 a day. Now that we know this, we can estimate the #2 app in the US - EA’s SimCity selling for $9.99 - is making around $100,000 a day ($70,000 after Apple takes it’s commission). Quite a number!
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Vallywag reports Google shipped specially branded G1s to their employees as an holiday gift - and instead of the traditional cash bonus. Some employees were disappointed as Google’s bonuses sometimes reach as high as $20K, and some of the workers were actually counting on it.

In a letter sent to all employees it is stated that 85% of all employees will get the G1, except in several countries where legal issues could not have been solved. In those countries employees will get $400 cash bonus, the value of the device.

Here is some of the letter. You can read all of it on this VallyWag post.
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Every week we have more people requesting to join our Linked-In group. Today we have reached 333 members, which must be some kind of a milestone. So hello to all the new members!

Remember, if you haven’t joined yet - it’s just a click away…

Happy XMas / Noel / Hanuka everybody!

Jason Rohrer’s excellent game Passage is now also available on the iPhone for the price of 99 cents.

The iPhone version added yesterday is th mobile version of the game that was released last year and generated much attention with game designers. The PC version and source code of the game still remains free on Jason’s game page.

In case you don’t know the game, Passage is an excellent example of an innovative game design packaged in a very little game. It’s actually a game that beautifully allows you to experience how choosing different choices results in different life, and is very interesting to game designers. Read more »

Another doze of charts for you guys. As usual, brands rule the charts and no new players makes it to the top - even the games are ones we have seen before. Glu is hardly present, as well as I-Play. We hope to soon publish new iPhone charts which will probably spice up this monthly report! Stay tuned!

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Symbian published a 4rd installment of it’s Multi-Language Programming series. Notice Part 3 was written by no other than Filipe Andrade. (:

Multi-Language Programming - Part 4

This is the fourth and final paper in a series examining the possibilities of building Symbian OS applications by mixing multiple languages and runtime environments. In this paper we focus on Widgets, applications that use the Web Runtime (WRT). The Web Runtime is new to mobile but provides an environment similar to that of Apple OS X Dashboard Widgets or Windows Vista Gadgets. Widgets essentially use the web technologies of XHTML, CSS and JavaScript to provide a familiar environment for web designers and programmers. Widgets can be used to their full potential as thin clients for Web Services on the Internet. Download PDF

Previous articles in the series are:
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mGBL (mobile Game-Based Learning) is an academic open source project that offer a system for quickly building decision-based games in j2me. The project site is full with academic information and it’s clear the researchers are taking this project very seriously.

The project homepage describe it in these words:

Within the mobile Game-Based Learning project (mGBL) eleven partner organisations from Austria, Croatia, Great Britain, Italy, and Slovenia have joined forces to work on the development of a platform for the presentation of educational content in a playful and emotional way on mobile devices.

The biggest challenge within this project is to engage a diversity of audiences in the fields of career guidance, e-Health and e-Commerce in to the development of decision-making skills for use in critical situations. Building on the latest innovations in the field of m-learning (mobile learning) and on the latest research results from the field of didactics, new approaches to game-based learning are developed for use on mobile phones.

In addition you could also download progress reports and sample games.

(hat tip: Arjan from MGB)

LG released a new document on it’s developers site entitled “Flash Lite Developer Guides for LG Phones”:

This Guide is intended to make it easier for developers to create Adobe® Flash® Lite™ applications for LG mobile phones equipped with Flash Lite. The Guide provides Flash Lite 2.0 and 3.0 supported LG phone features, and tips on how to optimize Flash Lite applications.

Following are a few images showing how LG made the LG Prada UI using Flash Lite 2.1:

The only question I have is Why so BLOATED? 17 pages where 3-4 would have been enough. The real text begins at page 10 and even that is just a brief introduction to Flash Lite. Anyway, they published some nicely organized information on Flash Lite supporting devices:
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(Press Release) Smartphone users now have access to more popular games than ever as Handango Inc. (Handango), the leading retailer of smartphone apps globally, announced partnerships with top mobile game publishers Digital Chocolate and I-play. Through these deals, Handango added a vast array of top entertainment content for Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

Digital Chocolate titles include 3D Brick Breaker Revolution, Mini Golf 99-Holes and Shopping Madness and games from I-play include Deal or No Deal, Million Dollar Mission, Jenga, Jewel Quest 2, Mercenaries 2, and Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift and more.

“With the‘Games’ category now coming in at second place behind‘Entertainment’ for the first time in Handango’s history, we are excited to expand our content offerings through partnerships with some of the leading mobile game publishers in the industry,” states Alex Bloom, VP of Content, Handango.”Digital Chocolate and I-play have created an incredible array of games for the exploding smartphone marketplace.”

“Digital Chocolate is well known for award-winning, high-quality games, and we are excited to be partnering with Handango to bring our content to smartphone users,” states Jason Loia, COO, Digital Chocolate.

“At I-play, we pride ourselves on our portfolio of award-winning and top-selling casual games”, says Anders Evju, General Manager, Americas, I-play.”Partnering with Handango is a great way to reach a new generation of gamers. This deal not only continues our commitment to distribute our games on every screen, but also provides us with the opportunity to work with the world’s leading retailer of smartphone applications.”

Previously this year, Handango announced distribution deals with EA Mobile and Capcom as part of its ongoing effort to increase entertainment and gaming options for smartphone users.

About Handango

Handango is the leading provider of smartphone applications globally for the BlackBerry®, Palm®, Windows Mobile®, Symbian OS®, and AndroidTM platforms. Leveraging its 140,000+ apps, network of 23,000+ content partners, and vast distribution network, Handango delivers top-selling mobile applications including games, business and entertainment apps and productivity tools to millions of consumers. Applications can be downloaded via www.handango.com, partner Web sites, SD cards and Handango’s proprietary on-device catalog, Handango® InHandTM, the industry’s leading content delivery platform that allows consumers to purchase mobile apps directly from their smartphone and download them over the air. Handango’s unparalleled content expertise has attracted numerous mobile industry partners including Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Alltel, Nokia, Research In Motion, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, AOL and The Carphone Warehouse. For more information, visit http://corp.handango.com.
Handango is a registered trademark of Handango, Inc. All other tradenames, trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved. Subject to change without prior notice.

About Digital Chocolate

Digital Chocolate is the world’s most efficient producer of high quality, original games across mass-market casual platforms. With offices in San Mateo, Helsinki, Bangalore, and Barcelona, the company offers more than 60 award-winning games, including Tower Bloxx and AvaPeeps, with a focus on casual, social, and mobile play that is offered globally over both wired and wireless networks. Digital Chocolate was founded in 2003 by CEO Trip Hawkins, who was also the founder and CEO of Electronic Arts. In addition to leading the industry in awards for its mobile games, the company known as “DChoc” has itself won more than 10 awards in the last two years including Best Game Developer of the Year awards from both IGN.com and Mobile Entertainment and inclusion in The Red Herring Global 100. For more information, please visit www.digitalchocolate.com.

About I-play

I-play, the publishing division of Oberon Media, Inc., is the world’s leading multi-platform casual games publisher. With powerful franchises and massive distribution across the three most popular entertainment screens-online, mobile, and interactive television-I-play content reaches global consumers, and delivers fun, entertaining, accessible content to casual gamers of all ages. I-play’s PC publishing division, formerly Oberon Games, is based in Seattle and created the hit Dream Day Series, as well as the first casual games for bestselling author James Patterson and legendary mystery author Agatha Christie, including the Causal Connect 2008 Game of the Year, Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile. I-play’s mobile division has delivered some of the biggest selling franchises in the mobile space, including the world’s #1 best-selling racing franchise, The Fast&the Furious, based on the blockbuster movies. I-play’s interactive television group, formerly PixelPlay, creates and distributes games featuring top brands including CentipedeTM, Missile Command®, AsteroidsTM, Monopoly®, Scrabble®, Boggle®, and YahtzeeTM. I-play is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Seattle, San Mateo, London, and Dunfermline, Scotland.

Hands-On Mobile laid off an undisclosed number of employees. The company claims it has nothing to do with the financial situation but from internal restructuring.

CEO David White said the economy has not affected Hands-On directly yet, and they are seeing strong revenues from smartphones, like the iPhone, he’s cautious given the dire reports from companies, like EA, Vivendi  and Glu Mobile. White: “We are feeling cautiously optimistic about how things are going. We hear competitors, like Glu and EA talk about how dismal things are, and we would be foolish not to pay attention and not to prepare for a coming storm that may or may not happen to us.”

Grab the full post on MocoNews.