Tag: Survey »

148Apps and Android Rundown (both via Steel Media) are holding a 2014 reader survey for the week, and taking a couple of minuted to answer some basic questions will give you a shot at winning an iPad Mini! Just go here and fill out the necessary info.

You can also check out the terms and conditions here if you're so inclined. If you're interested in entering I'd suggest hopping to it sooner rather than later as the survey will only be going until March 4, 2014. Telling us we're awesome isn't a requirement of course, but we love compliments all the same.

PBS Kids recently ran a survey on parents and posted results that show that 54% of them plan on purchasing a tech item for their child this holiday season. And that number increases to 59% for the more tech-savvy parents ages 18-34. Tablets are listed as the hot item at the top of the list and they beat-out video game consoles 28% to 18%. The study of over 1,000 surveyed parents with kids between the ages of 2 and 10 also lists that 36% of parents plan to purchase either a tablet or smartphone.

The survey also shows that 77% of parents plan to purchase educational apps for their children as 90% of them stat that educational apps will play an important role in their child's education.

“There’s a vast and ever-growing population of young children who have ready access to mobile media and, as many parents recognize, that presents an important opportunity to utilize tablets and smartphones to advance children’s learning,” said Lesli Rotenberg, GM of Children’s Programming at PBS, in a press release. “It’s essential that parents think through what kind of apps, online games and video content they make available to their kids. This is one important reason why PBS KIDS has been so innovative in making sure our high-quality, research-based educational content is available across digital platforms to provide a deeper learning experience for today’s learners.”

Other Key PBS KIDS Parent Survey Findings
•Six in 10 parents collaborate with their child to select apps, while a third of parents say they make the choice themselves.
•When selecting games and apps for their children, over half of parents (56%) base their decisions on age recommendations.
•In addition to educational content, 56% of parents pointed to price and 45% cited characters their kids know and love as important factors when choosing apps.

This week at 148Apps.com, writer Carter Dotson reviewed one of the most anticipated iOS games in recent memory - Infinity Blade II. Dotson writes, "Most of what is new here is a modified and extended progression structure. Instead of one path leading to a final boss, where failure means starting over, there are now several of them, with more branching paths to explore. There are 3 different weapon types now: the traditional swords, slow and heavy axes that deal more damage, and speedy dual swords that deal less base damage, but can do double damage once combos are started. The story is more fleshed out, with actual speaking dialogue from characters besides the God King."

Read the full review at 148Apps.com.

Meanwhile, our attention was turned to more artistic matters at GiggleApps, as Amy Solomon reviewed Auryn – Van Gogh and the Sunflowers. Solomon says, "The look of this app is terrific, with illustrations evoking the style that Van Gogh is known for, complete with bold color choices and noticeable use of brush strokes, but maintains a childlike quality that fits well within this storybook. The jazzy music used is also wonderful, relaxing as well as engaging and very enjoyable to listen to even for long periods of time. The narration used here is also quite good. Parents will also like that each spoken word is highlighted red to aid the young children new to the world of reading."

Read more about our take on Auryn – Van Gogh and the Sunflowers at GiggleApps.

Finally, 148Apps.biz site editor Rob Lefebvre reported on tablet users and their media consumption. LeFebvre writes, "In a study put out by comScore and reported by Fierce Mobile Content and the appside, interested parties can see that the number one use of tablet devices is games, with 67% of surveyed tablet users saying they’ve played a game at least once in the past month, as compared to 49% of smartphone users surveyed. 23% of those surveyed said they’d played a game on their tablet EVERY DAY. That’s a good number."

Dig deeper into this study and read the full report on 148Apps.biz.

That's our wrap-up for this week. While you're out getting all of your holiday shopping done, don't forget to check us out on our Facebook and Twitter feeds to find out the latest and greatest news, reviews and contests. Feliz Navidad!

Congrats to Annalise Rose, winner of the $100 iTunes Gift Card. Look for an email for details on how to redeem your iTunes Gift Card.

The iPhone 5 should be coming along fairly soon, and we wanted to take a moment to gauge where our readers were at with their current service and their plans for their future service. Because, of course you're gonna get an iPhone 5, right? We hope to use this data to make some recommendations on what the best provider for the iPhone 5 will be for you, in your area.

To get this data, we need your help. We need you to spread the word about this survey -- the more responses we get, the better the results will be. Please take a second and tweet or post on your Facebook wall about this survey. All you need to do is hit those convenient tweet or like buttons at the top of the page for a quick post, or feel free to put the mention in your own words.

In the United States, AT&T has had exclusive iPhone rights up until January of this year, but now the Verizon is in on the game. And T-Mobile too, if you buy the unlocked iPhone 4 from Apple. There have been tons of complaints about service quality on the AT&T network in large cities like New York and San Francisco (and Las Vegas during CES). Switching providers to one that has better coverage for a user's specific location may make sense. Of course, AT&T customers who have been with the telecom giant for a while might lose those grandfathered unlimited data plans, as only Sprint has unlimited data plans at this point. Of course, many of us use less data than we think, so we've included a spot for survey takers to measure that and report as well.

So tell us, 148Apps readers (and all your friends), what is your phone service like now? What will you choose to do once the iPhone 5 is released? Each completed surve will get a chance to be randomly selected for a $100 iTunes Gift card, on us. Make sense? Open to US iTunes accounts, only, please.

Hit the jump for the form and your chance for a free $100 iTunes Gift Card.

By now you’ve probably spent a decent amount of money on iPhone apps, so wouldn’t it be nice if you could make some of that money back?

Well the Field Agent app might be able to help you do just that, claiming to be the first app that actually pays you, the user. By signing up to become an “Agent” you fit into a very simple ecosystem: A “Client” creates a job, the “Agent” (you) completes the job, the client and agent are happy.

What does this mean in the real word? Well, a client is a company or service that has signed up at FieldAgent.net and needs information on competitors, consumers or wants to check whether its products are being correctly sold. The agent is someone who has download the Field Agent app and receives notification that a client needs a job done, carries it out and is paid a small fee for their troubles.

While it sounds very James Bond meets Foursquare, the app and its assignments are for real as far as we can tell and actually do pay. While no explicit information is given as to the purpose or beneficiaries of these “assignments”, it’s a safe bet that most of them are market research for the Fortune 50 clients who back the app.

Fortunately, the agent jobs required by the clients don’t involve horses heads in beds or extortion either. Most of the assignments involve checking prices at stores or filling out surveys and pay between $3 and $12 if completed properly and within a set time limit. Jobs often require a verifiable GPS location and a photograph in order to keep the clients happy so an iPhone 3G or 3GS is recommend.

Once an agent has made their money it can be transferred to a PayPal account within 48 hours.

Agents also develop a Rep Score that shows how good a job you’re doing for your clients. Starting with 85 points, agents gain points up to a maximum of 100 for successful, accurate jobs with higher rep leading to more frequent jobs. Of course, if you fail at your task or submit inaccurate results you lose points and aren’t at the top of the pile when the next assignment comes in.

It seems that agent jobs are somewhat scarce at the moment with a number of iTunes reviewers giving some pretty harsh feedback that has prompted a response from the company. Apparently the number of agents has increased by 500% in a week and they are waiting for the client growth to catch up. This does sound like a cleverly worded way of saying “companies aren’t quite as interested in the service as consumers who stand to make money” but apparently more jobs are coming soon.

We’re keeping a close eye on this intriguing service that has the potential to be groundbreaking but could also end up wasting a lot of people’s time.