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Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, and education. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More It’s no secret that the mobile app landscape has become extremely competitive. Over the last few years, this has led to an incredible amount of innovation and progress, but the cost of visibility — of acquiring new users — is also on the rise. In fact, Fiksu found that the cost of acquiring users hit a record high in December. While December is a critical month for app discovery, it remained to be seen whether or not this trend would continue. Today, W3i, the monetization and distribution network for app developers, released new user acquisition figures for the first half of 2012, and the results tell the same story and are worrying for developers. Assessing hundreds of millions of mobile users from January to June 2012, W3i found that the average cost-per-install (of CPI) of mobile apps increased by 70 p...

Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. ? Learn More This morning, enterprise solutions provider Good Technology released the results of its latest activation report which offers a snapshot of mobile device trends in the enterprise. The company found that, despite the fact that Android smartphone usage in the enterprise nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter, iOS continues to be dominant platform there, currently led by the iPhone 4S. The results further back up a report arriving earlier this week from mobile platform development company Appcelerator. It released data from a large survey of its developer community, finding that iOS has been surging ahead of Android, at least in terms of developer interest (53% said Apple was better positioned to win the enterprise, compared with 38%...

The Apple iOS is surging ahead of the Google Android platform for enterprise development, according to survey results from Appcelerator, the mobile platform development company. In the largest survey of its kind, Appcelerator developers were asked what operating system is best positioned to win the enterprise market. Developers said iOS over Android by a 53% to 38% margin. Last year, in its second quarter survey, the two companies were in a dead heat for the enterprise market, tied at 44%. In a surprise of sorts, Windows showed some life as 33% said they would be interested in developing apps on the Windows 8 tablet. Each quarter, in conjunction with IDC Research, Appcelerator surveys its community of 340,000 developers. It is the largest survey of mobile developers. This quarter, more than 3,600 developers participated in the survey. Apple’s dramatic push ahead is in part attributed to developers perception about Android. When asked what interests them, developers said the size of t...

Ingrid is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining February 2012, based out of London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer, and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where these intersect. When it comes to work, she feels most... ? Learn More A big development today for iZettle, the “Square of Europe” that wants to become the biggest mobile payment platform in the region. It is now extending its dongle-based service Android devices, to add to a service that already works with the iOS-based iPhone and iPad. The company tells me that the first step is a test phase on select Samsung devices in its home market of Sweden, “but our ambition is to make iZettle available to Android users across all markets where iZettle operates.” iZettle says that in launching on Android, it will become the first company to provide a mini chip-card dongle for Andr...

While the OUYA — the Android-based, hackable video game console — is still raking in funds on its multi-million dollar Kickstarter project, the secretive nature of the project is raising questions for game developers. “How can the OUYA convince developers who are sitting on the sidelines to jump in?” asks Gree Vice President of Studio Operations Anil Dharni. “I am very interested, but where are the users? Where are the gamers?” Until three months ago, Dharni was the Chief Operating Officer of Funzio, which released three well-received titles on iOS and one on Android. He and CEO Ken Chui sold Funzio to Gree for $210 million, giving Gree, a Japanese social network that has been expanding aggressively into America, its own development team. Dharni says OUYA has two distinct advantages: it is using Android as its platform, and its focus is on the television market. He said the biggest challenge its makers face will be luring developers to create games that will have to be programmed diff...