For this release of the iPhone app, our team was focused on introducing a few new features and enhancing the speed and fluid-ness within the application.  Go grab the new version now, in iTunes!

User interface changes

• Flick through your saved sites. Now, if you have sites that you’ve saved (kind of like bookmarks), you can flick through them rather than viewing as a list.  Check your favorites every day!
• Autosuggestion.  As you start typing a search, the App will learn from your searching and suggest things automatically.  This means less pecking on the keyboard.
• Easier to share items. Want to share something out to email/Twitter/Facebook?  Just click the ‘i’ in the lower right hand corner.  Click, share, done!

Performance/Backend items

• Faster with lower memory usage. We’ve tweaked the memory usage, so your search result cards come in fast and furious now.
• New sources. We’ve increased the amount of information sources for images and wallpapers.  More selection, sweet!
• Bug fixes. There are loads of miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.

Feedback
Please let us know if you find areas we need to improve.  Leave a comment on this post or email me at jason@taptu.com with all your feedback items.

South By Southwest (aka SXSW) is fast approaching!  Taptu will be in full force at the annual gathering in Austin, Texas starting next weekend.  That’s right, Chris Moisan and myself (Jason Harris) will be in Austin to meet new folks, learn a bunch, and show off the latest stuff from Taptu as well.

Along with our friends at OneRiot (our real-time search partner) and Loopt (the social mapping service), we bring you:

Dining with Dino

On the days of March 14, 15, and 16, our team will be placing 30 inflatable and very scary dinosaurs around SXSW hot spots including the conference halls, get-togethers and other key spots.  To accompany their terrifying looks, the dinos will be wearing nametags and a set of instructions.

So, if you are lucky enough to find a Dino around the panels, parties, and other gatherings in downtown Austin, keep ahold of him and you can unlock free meals at select destinations.

Keep an eye on @Taptu and @OneRiot on Twitter to learn when and where the dinosaurs will be placed and for your chance to win free drinks and grub for you and a handful of friends!

First, some statistics: we estimate there are approximately 83,000 mobile touch websites devoted to shopping and services. Why is this significant?  This type of content is over-represented on the mobile touch web accounting for about 26 per cent of all sites. Compare this to app stores where the largest category is Games and Shopping and Services accounts for fewer than 4 per cent of all apps in the App store (approximately 6,000- see Taptu’s January report for more details). This finding supports our view that the Mobile Touch Web  is going to play an extremely important role in the future development of mobile commerce.

In today’s report we breakdown the Shopping and Services category into it’s sub categories and highlight some of the very best sites. We also suggest some of the factors which we think contribute to making a best in class mobile touch web site.

You can download today’s report as well as sign up to receive future reports hot-off-the-press by visiting  http://taptu.com/metrics.  And for those of you who are new to the Mobile Touch Web we posted an overview on Slide share which provides a great introduction and context to this new mobile ecosystem.

From the App Store

“It really gnarly”

“Let me just say it plain & simple, I LOVE IT!! The best search app for the iPhone & iPod touch EVER!!”

“I’m amzed”

“Bonerlicious!!!!!!”

“It nice get it if if u don’t got it I’m just say”

“This app us freaking awesome I love it I use it all the time fir everything I do. It gives me great and vivid results and pics for whatever I need or want. U MUST GET THIS APP. . A billion gazillion fafillion.”

“Best freaking app ever!!! Plus it’s free!!!!”

“I have only had the app for 3 hours and it is already a game-changer. I love that the search engine is tailored to iPhone apps and Internet material.”

“It is sick nasty”

“Nicely”

and I think this is our favorite ever review. Thanks again to everyone that supports what we do.

“well taptu as I think it is called is one o the most resourceful apps!
=) it’s everything I need!! it’s pretty much one of my favorite apps!
it’s sooo awesome<3 there’s not an app tht can reach the level of
awesomeness that taptu is at!!:) thank you to whom ever created this
app!!!:3
forever and always, yarethecreamchesse ^________^”

• Mexican Spanish
• Korean
• Dutch
• Traditional Chinese
• Turkish
• Finnish
• Norwegian
• Greek
• Indonesian

The people going for this gig should know it’s not a full time job.  Rather this is a project with a limited duration, however other work may follow as time marches on.

Here are some more essentials to those who want to apply:

• You are a native speaker of the language you’re applying for and you’re fluent in English
• You are familiar with using the internet and you know “internet terms”.
• You are used to working independently but you are a team player as well
• You have a computer at home to work from and access to the internet

If you think you’re up for the challenge, email your CV/resume and let us know why you’re special.  Please send your mail to translations@taptu.com.

Note: Absolutely No Agencies, please.

This release is aimed at expanding the international reach of Wapedia by adding 5 new languages.  Also, we have aimed at improving several user interface elements.

So, what exactly is new in this release?

• We have added the following languages: Portuguese,  Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Swedish and Simplified Chinese.
• You can now select alternate Wikis right from the home page…no more going through menus to switch.
• Ads are now displayed in a more user-friendly manner.

So, as you can see, we have tried to make Wapedia more accessible to those in different parts of the world.  In future releases coming soon, expect more UI enhancements and additional languages.

The most important new feature with the new release is the introduction of LiveFolders.  As written about on ReadWriteWeb, LiveFolders is an amazing new feature introduced into Android recently which makes it possible for web sites to embed real-time content that updates in the background to enable the user to have tailored content on the Android device’s home screen.

Therefore, with version 1.6.1 of Wapedia, you can access two types of LiveFolders from the desktop.  First, you can get easy access to the recent history of your Wapedia searches right from the desktop and your Bookmarks that you’ve set inside Wapedia.

To get the new version of Wapedia on Android, simply go to the Android Market and search for Wapedia.

Check out the screenshots below for more more context as to what’s available in the new Wapedia:

Also, for more of a look into what LiveFolders can do, check out the following YouTube Video:

Here is what you expect from the 1.7x version:

• Thousands of new touch friendly sites to search and discover!
• Brand new image and wallpaper sources
• Backend engine tuning: new speed for your searches!
• Bug fixes and enhancements (please let us know if you find others)

As you can see, this release is aimed at making sure your search results are richer and more valuable.  With new images to choose from, you have a whole slew of options for saving images for your background on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Also, our backend enhancements should quicken your searches and improve your overall experience inside the application.

As always, if you find new bugs or have any positive or negative feedback, please connect with us on Twitter or via email at jason@taptu.com, your choice!

Hello there! As if we haven’t all had enough excitement today we’ve got a little something to announce. For quite a while, the Taptu Blog has had the same look and feel so we decided recently it was time to give the blog a coat of paint and we embarked on a re-design project.

Since our corporate branding and color scheme has changed a bit , our blog now is complimented by the new color palette. Aside from the visual refresh, we have integrated some of our other channels of social media we have including YouTube, Flickr, and Delicious and these appear in the sidebars on the right hand side.  Also, we have a special place for ‘Stuff We Like’ which will be full of…..well, stuff we like.

Introducing Charles

I also want to take this chance to introduce Charles into the Taptu family.  Charles has been doing work with us since last November, so many of you are already familiar with him.  He’s helping us reach out to the community and is an amazing talent to have on the team.

You’ve already seen Charles on this blog and on our Twitter stream, and Charles and I will be tag-teaming events as they come up as well.

Thanks To The Team

The main project team for Taptu on the blog re-fresh is Charles Olive, Chris Moisan, and Jason Harris (me).  Additionally, we also want to give big props to the awesome designer we collaborated with, Vin Thomas.

Vin works out of Oregon (along with me) and specializes in Web Design, especially working with WordPress.  He was awesome to work with and we would definitely recommend him for other organizations looking to do any type of work with WordPress and web design.  Vin was timely, reliable, and put up with our demanding team with grace.  Thanks Vin!

This is why we have taken Wapedia from the mobile web to the iPhone platform, onto Android, and today we’re announcing the availability of Wapedia on our newest platform, WebOS!

We’re very excited about the new version that is available immediately in the Palm Catalog for the Palm Pre and the newly released Palm Pixi.  Using Wapedia on WebOS, you can browse articles and search for the articles you’re interested in with predictive search (very cool!).

So, Palm Pre and Pixi users, welcome to the world of Wapedia – we believe using it is the best way to browse and experience Wikipedia (and other wikis, too!) on your mobile handset.

Since we started looking at the Palm community around WebOS…we found this really cool site we wanted to share.  It’s called House of Palm and it is a great site to discover and find new apps for your beloved Palm device.  The page for our Wapedia app is brand new (as our app is) and has fantastic info including ratings, screenshots, and other goodies for discovering new apps to trial.

As always, we’re always looking for feedback.  Please email comments to jason@taptu.com and connect with us on Twitter.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday at around 8:00AM, we just learned that we already surpassed 10,000 downloads of the Wapedia app for WebOS!  Thanks to everyone who has checked out the app!

More screenshots below: