It’s obvious by now that iOS and Android are the top dogs in mobile, so the battle is on for the third platform player. Windows Phone is looking better to be No. 3 to my eyes, but mobile analytics firm Flurry suggests a different player: Amazon. Read more »
Google has decided to overhaul the way it presents all of its digital content–apps, music, movies, and books–by changing the name of the Android Market to Google Play, in hopes of increasing interest in its content wares and simplifying the experience. Read more »
Facebook is gearing up to take advantage of the mobile web and put itself at the head of a growing web app ecosystem. Today, it announced a set of initiatives that should help standardize mobile web browsers and enable better payments in mobile web apps. Read more »
Finding what you want in a sea of mobile applications can be a frustrating and exhausting process. Facebook wants to remind mobile developers that it has a lot of users and that discovering new things is a huge part of the Facebook experience. Read more »
Though the App Store is still ahead of rival Android Market in discovery features, Apple clearly sees a need to ramp up and improve the way it helps consumers pick through its growing collection of apps. That’s what’s behind the acquisition of app discovery engine Chomp. Read more »
Independent mobile app store GetJar is looking to virtual currency to get users to come and keep downloading and interacting at GetJar’s app marketplace. The company today is introducing GetJar Gold virtual currency which will be awarded to users for downloading Android apps. Read more »
Analytics firm Distimo said that, of the top 110 apps that appear in both Android Market and Amazon Appstore, 42 of them make more money on Amazon than on Android Market. That’s a strong showing for Amazon’s Appstore, which got a boost from the Kindle Fire. Read more »
Google is addressing growing concerns about malware in Android Market with the formal unveiling of a scanning service called Bouncer that will attempt to weed out bad apps in its marketplace. The move should help Google address growing concerns about malware in Android apps. Read more »
Apple’s iOS mobile platform tends to sell more paid software than its rivals, and its biggest advantage might be a head start that Google, Microsoft or any other mobile competitor can’t do much to eliminate: iTunes. It’s also an advantage Apple likely isn’t done profiting by. Read more »
I’m saying goodbye to Android, and it appears I’m not alone. Here is why the platform’s fragmentation and lack of interoperability have driven me away — and why Google should do everything it can to address those ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Android Market has topped the 400,000 app mark, doubling the software available for the smartphone platform in just eight months, according to app analytics firm Distimo. Android Market is still shy of the 500,000-app milestone the App Store hit recently, but it’s catching up. Read more »
Which apps were the best rated and most buzzed about in 2011? That’s a question that app rating analytics firm Mobilewalla tackled, coming up with a list of the top five paid and free apps on four of the biggest mobile platforms. Read more »
App analytics firm Distimo said the iPhone App Store is generating about four times as much revenue for the top 200 apps compared to the top 200 apps in Android Market. The app revenue gap is prompting developers to look for creative ways to make money. Read more »
Amazon’s successful 7-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire, is locked down more than people might think: browser requests to Google’s Android Market are redirected to the Amazon AppStore. Imagine buying a new car and then being told you that it can only be driven on certain roadways. Read more »
After T-Mobile complained, Google pulled the YouMail voicemail app from the Android Market on Thursday. T-Mobile issued a statement saying it contacted YouMail last month to address issues. Aside from the “he said, she said” issue, there’s a bigger underlying problem here with the Android Market. Read more »
YouMail, a mobile voicemail and visual message management app, suddenly disappeared from Google’s Android Market on Thursday. The free app is still available in Apple’s iTunes Store for iOS devices, but Android users looking for the software won’t find it. Why? An apparent complaint from T-Mobile. Read more »
After launching a little over three years ago, Android Market has caught fire with downloads, hitting 10 billion over the weekend. Google’s mobile application store is now up to 1 billion downloads a month, and growth is accelerating as the number of Android devices sold soars. Read more »
Got an Android device and 10 cents in your pocket? That’s the right combination to buy one of 10 Android apps for just a dime over the next 10 days. Minecraft, Asphalt 6 and my highly recommended keyboard app, SwiftKey X, are all on sale. Read more »
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board intends to apply its familiar game-rating stamps to mobile apps, providing a way for parents to monitor and restrict the games and content their kids download. Five mobile operators and Microsoft have signed on but Apple and Google are missing. Read more »
Apple’s market share may be slipping, but its share of app revenue is huge and not looking like it will slide anytime soon, according to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster. Using recent numbers, Munster figures Apple owns about 85 to 90 percent of current mobile app spending. Read more »
Two big mobile app stores aren’t good, says Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation. Citing barriers to consumers, carriers and developers, Gillis is looking for a “service neutral” app ecosystem, but at this point, such an effort is akin to spitting in the wind. Read more »
Google TV apps have started to pop up on the Android market, hinting at an imminent release of the Honeycomb-based next version of the smart TV platform. Wonder what those Google TV-specific apps look like? Then take a first look with our slide show. Read more »
Android app downloads are expected to overtake iPhone apps this year for the first time, according to research firm Ovum, and will nearly double iPhone downloads by 2016. The growth in Android app downloads could have big implications for freemium app developers. Read more »
Android users have about 250,000 apps to choose from but most have little use for any of them outside the top 50. New data from Nielsen found that 61 percent of the time spent on apps by Android users are in the top 50 apps. Read more »
Netflix certified more Android devices for its software, adding support for a number of handsets and tablets powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor. That brings the total number of Netflix-capable smartphones and tablets up to 22. Good, because consumers don’t care whose chip powers their device. Read more »
App ratings have always been a key tool for mobile developers to get their apps noticed. But with the increasing competition in app marketplaces as well as the decline of some distribution tools, there seems to be renewed focus on app reviews and ratings. Read more »
Zinio now supports Google Android handsets, bringing content from 1,000 digital magazine publishers to smartphones and small tablets running Android versions 2.2 and 2.3. A first look at the new software shows a positive experience, but it may be better suited to devices with larger screens. Read more »
Users that search for VLC on the Android Market get to see a whole bunch of apps that kind of look like the popular open-source video player, despite the fact that VLC for Android hasn’t been released yet. The foundation behind VLC wants to change that. Read more »
Apple passed the 15 billion download milestone for the App Store on Thursday, reaching the lofty mark only seven months after it exceeded 10 billion downloads. The App Store took two years to reach its first five billion, so growth is rapidly rising. Read more »
An Android developer is pulling its game app from the Amazon Appstore for Android, calling it a “disaster” because of a number of shortcomings. It’s the complaint of one developer, but it highlights some of the challenges in building a mature market for apps. Read more »
Apple has just passed the 100,000 mark for apps available that are tailored specifically for the iPad. Compare that to under 200 for the Google’s Honeycomb tablet OS. It’s a margin that says the Android/iOS tablet battle isn’t the same as the smartphone war. Read more »
GetJar has beat out budding rival Amazon in snagging the Android exclusive on Cut the Rope, a previous iOS game with Angry Birds–like appeal. The game illustrates the growing competition between the 2 third-party Android app stores as they compete for developers and consumers. Read more »
Google continues to battle its platform fragmentation challenges by adding a software compatibility check on the web-based Android Market. Supporting both smartphones and tablets, this change is good for consumers and developers, even as more devices are brought up to current Android versions. Read more »
While Android Market is growing fast, it has an attrition rate that is twice as high as Apple’s App Store. That explains why, contrary to previous reports, Android Market is not on pace to overtake Apple’s App Store in overall apps. Read more »
While the Android Market is on pace to overtake Apple’s App Store in overall apps later this year in terms of sheer volume, it is trailing far behind as a money-making platform for developers, according to new analysis from app research firm Distimo. Read more »
Today at Google I/O, the company gave its first look at a new user interface developed to highlight apps and search on its Google TV OS. And we got some screenshots to share the new look and feel for Google TV devices. Read more »
Android Market has hit 4.5 billion app downloads, but it’s sometimes been in spite of the store experience not because of it. Today, Google announced a set of improvements to Android Market meant to highlight more apps and developers and help guide consumers to relevant content. Read more »
At the Google I/O keynote this morning, Hugo Barra, Android Product Management director, reminisced about the early days of Android, before his team launched into some ambitious plans for the OS, including movies, music and the connected home. Read more »
AT&T’s new Infuse 4G is the first carrier device that allows direct app installs. That led me to install the Amazon AppStore, which is a great alternative to the Android Market. Yet,folks I ask aren’t using Amazon’s AppStore, and I don’t understand why. Read more »
Amazon is the most noteworthy of a small army of new app distributors that are hoping to compete with Google’s Android Market. Here are a few other companies that should consider joining the field and capitalizing on Android’s runaway success. Read more »
