All signs point to Apple having had a blockbuster Q4 2013. Its smartphone share in the U.S. is impressive, despite Android's global dominance. But the next battleground is shaping up to be in the living room and among an Internet of things -- how the personal device interacts with other devices.

Apps and mobile payments enmesh more retail brands in worries over personal information security. In fact, the most popular m-payment tool of all -- the Starbucks app -- was just shown to make sensitive user information accessible to enterprising crooks.

Yahoo's latest run of mobile apps shows real thought about the possible ways we want to consume media on mobile devices. They may not work, but it's good to see a digital media company think about, well, digital media.

Flurry says it saw some app categories more than double the number of user sessions in the last year. But messaging and social apps have reached such a scale that they may be poised to become platforms unto themselves... if consumers really want them to.

Just when I was wishing I had watched "Downton Abbey" instead of the cringe-inducing Golden Globes, The Muppets make it all worthwhile with a pitch-perfect send-up of second-screen Twitter chatter.

A new and robust fitness app from Johnson & Johnson underscores the amazing opportunity that fitness apps and wearable media open up to marketers. The value is unambiguous.

Not surprisingly, people with retailer apps on their phones were the most frequent shoppers this holiday. But they also demonstrate high revisit rates and hang time in-store. In other words, having a retail app is a signal marketers should not miss.

When it comes to grocery shopping, moms armed with smartphones are much more likely to reference deal and coupon aggregators or the retail brand than the product's brand site.

The mobile shopping app developer inMarket will connect to consumers in-store with a new implementation of iBeacon sensors that will roll out in 150 grocery stores in coming weeks.

The movie trailer trivia app Trailerpop has landed its first syndication deal with the USA Today iPad app. Considering the popularity of gaming on tablets, it is surprising that we are not seeing more traditional content providers "gamify" their apps more aggressively.