Facebook Messenger Launches In-App Games to Take on Apple

It sometimes seems like Facebook gets a cut of virtually every market these days, from media to communication. One market they’ve had trouble breaking into, however, is the mobile gaming industry — particularly ironic, for anybody that’s tired of getting Farmville requests from vague acquaintances. With the launch of “Instant Games” within the Messenger app, the […]
Tech Company IPOs Are Rising to the Top Again

The recent Twilio IPO, on the eve of Brexit, has seemingly defined a bright new future for the tech IPO. While analysts continue to discuss whether it’ll steadily rise like Facebook or steadily descend like GoPro, the message to the mobile app development community is loud and clear: tech IPOs are hot again. Twilio doubled […]
Twilio Defies Brexit to Blaze Trail for Tech IPOs

Communication software startup Twilio’s decision to launch their IPO the day before Brexit was one of the more mysterious financial moves in tech this quarter. Depending on your perspective, it was either brilliant or deranged — particularly given the pressure on the company to perform after last season’s disappointing crop of tech IPOs. On the […]
Even YouTube Wants in on the Messaging App Revolution

It’s no secret among Chicago iPhone app developers that messaging apps like Telegram and WeChat represent the future of the mobile experience. Even social networks have been becoming increasingly private (Snapchat’s rapid domination among young users stands as living proof), while chat apps like Line and WhatsApp are now used for the sake of their […]
3 Design Challenges Faced by UI-free Chat App Developers

For many mobile app developers, designing simple chat bots is just a step on the path to mastering your programming language of choice. Base-level “artificial intelligence” in the form of task-oriented bots has been a feature of computer science since the beginning. (Just take a look at Twitter, where over 23 million user accounts are […]
IPhone App Developers at Poncho Launch Mobile Weather App

Techies, NYC iPhone app developers, and animated GIF aficionados have been using email alerts from the innovative weather service Poncho for several months now. As of last week that service is expanding to a full-fledged native iPhone app including coverage for 48 states and a host of fun new features, positioning the quirky startup to […]