Mark this up as one more crucial chapter in the much-thumbed book called “The Consumerization of IT”: a new app has launched from a Y Combinator-backed startup that offers builders the ability to store, manage and view blueprints on and iPad tablet.

The unique selling point for PlanGrid, as the app is called, is that it promises to present building blueprints in a far more efficient way than they have been presented before.

But on a more general level, PlanGrid is a sign of how the iOS platform is maturing and attracting a new wave of developers who target specific enterprise verticals with solutions tailored to their business needs.

When I was in Barcelona this week, I met up with Dennis Crowley, the CEO of Foursquare, just after he had gotten off stage from a keynote presentation with the CEOs of Nokia and HTC at the Mobile World Congress event.

The check-in app that was once little known outside of the world of tech early-adopters may only have around 15 million users, but that number has actually made it a leader in its field, and that has amplified the company (and Crowley).

At the start of 2012 BranchOut had just 1 million monthly active users. Then the professional networking app hired a dedicated growth team, launched a mobile web app, and hit the network effect tipping point. According to AppData, by February it had 2.7 million MAU. Now the Facebook-based BranchOut is blowing up, riding the employment needs of blue-collar workers past the 10 million registration mark to reach 5.5 million MAU, half from overseas.

Take heed entrepreneurs, this is how you concoct a startup growth formula…

DealBoard, a recently launched iPhone app from Seattle and London-based nFluence Media, has just emerged as a new player in the crowded “daily deals” space. But this app isn’t yet another Groupon clone, it’s a daily deal aggregator. However, what makes dealBoard unique – and why the company has $3 million in funding – is how the app goes about aggregating those deals for you. Instead of just rounding up a list of all the deals in the area, dealBoard personalizes the experience based on your interests.

My friend once told me his favorite season that wasn’t actually a season (spring, fall, etc.) or a sports season (NFL, NBA, etc.) was Girl Scout Cookies Season. I laughed in front of his face until I re…

iOS has been getting hammered because it leaves its users’ photos, and other information, open to apps. Turns out, Android has the same problem. The New York Times Bits Blog got confirmation from Lookou…

Flipboard is rolling out the first major update to its social magazine tonight since its December launch on the iPhone. The new release brings the iPhone app’s most popular feature, “Cover Stories,” to the iPad’s bigger screen. Now, iPad users will see a large, double-tiled pane on the first page of their Flipboard app. There, you’ll find a mix of stories popular among your friends, those that are popular across Flipboard’s network, as well as those that are uniquely relevant to you.

Also new in tonight’s release are a number of design tweaks, meant to give Flipboard a print magazine-like appeal, as well as a much-requested third page in Flipboard’s Table of Contents. And for international users, there’s even more big news: Flipboard just launched its first standalone European edition with the arrival of Flipboard in France, and is promising more localized editions to come.

Spending an afternoon drinking in the alley with your favorite neighbors is all well and good, but around the 8th bottle of Alamo things might get hazy. The Intoxicase for iPhone not only tracks how ma…

With increasing smartphone adoption and with users in turn becoming more and more comfortable using their mobile devices to do things traditionally reserved for the Web or desktops, every industry is going mobile. But, when you consider the affect mobile technology has still yet to make on transactions — ye olde exchange of money/goods — there is a huge opportunity for disruption. Carriers, OEMs, startups — everyone knows this. Three, five years from now, mobile payment solutions has the potential to be a massive business. Yet, as things stand right now, carriers and mobile OSes are still finding it hard to come to terms, with users suffering as a result.

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This week, we greet a new version of BlackBerry Bridge, and we’ve also come across an interesting n…