AllThingsD » Android Market

Quartz Shoots for Tablet and Mobile Readers, but Doesn't Arm Itself With an App

Peter Kafka — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:00:09 +0000

After a summer of buzz, Quartz, Atlantic Media’s new business news site, lights up today.

Pro Tip 1: If you want to see what the fuss is about, head over to qz.com, not quartz.com.* The latter will only help you if you’re interested in tubing and rod.

Pro Tip 2: Even though Quartz makes a big deal of targeting tablet and smartphone users, don’t bother looking for it at Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android Market. Instead of producing apps for the new publication, Quartz expects you to find its stuff the old-fashioned way — on the Web, via a WordPress-produced site.

Paradoxically, that puts Quartz on the leading edge of digital publishing, or at least in the middle of digital publishing chatter. There’s a lot of talk about “Web apps” instead of “native apps” and “responsive design” right now, and Quartz highlights both concepts.

In English: Instead of asking readers to download an app to get its stuff on tablets or phones, Quartz will work on the mobile Web browsers those machines already have. And it will publish a single Web site, which will configure itself depending on the kind of device and screen size each reader uses.

Duh. Right?

Except that just two years ago, the entire publishing world was consumed with the iPad, and tablets in general, and the notion that device-specific apps would allow them to break free of the tyranny of the free Web’s economics. Instead of giving away their stuff online, publishers argued/hoped, they could sell discrete bundles of programming and content via Apple, and hopefully Google and other platforms.

But, both publicly and privately, many publishers now concede that they’ve been underwhelmed with apps. The road for brand-new titles launched as apps has been even rockier. So the Quartz staff say they decided early on that they would give away their content, and they would do it on the Web.

“It seems very clear that the Web is far more suited for sharing of news and articles, and we want everybody to access our stuff,” says senior editor Zachary Seward.** “It sounds sort of silly to say this, but anyone can navigate directly to any of our stories. You can’t do that in the app store world.”

Seward showed me a preview of the approach over the weekend, but I was looking at it via MacBook, not iPad, so I can’t vouch for the way the site will display on mobile screens. I can note that on a laptop screen the site has a very simple approach that makes it look quite a bit like other publishers’ mobile sites. No flashy graphics or extra “rails” of headlines and other “entry points.”

That’s intentional, Seward says, because Quartz wants to look more or less the same no matter what screen you’re using. And mobile sites have to be utilitarian.

There’s some precedent for reaching high-end business news readers on mobile devices without a bona fide app. Last year, after a dispute with Apple over subscription terms, Pearson’s Financial Times launched its own Web app, which it says has performed quite well.

But the FT already had an established brand, and customers. Quartz will now have to find its own without the help that someone like Apple could have provided via its App Store.

At least as important: By bailing on native apps and the income they can provide, Quartz will have to fight for ad dollars in a brutal climate. Mobile ads may be the future, but right now they’re dirt cheap. People who buy and sell display ads tell me that mobile eyeballs frequently sell at an 80 percent discount to Web prices, which are already under pressure.

Team Quartz says they can solve that problem with a plan that involves selling “sponsorships” instead of conventional Web advertising, along with other tactics, like events. That one we won’t be able to assess for some time.

*And you may have to be patient. The Quartz staff thought the site would be live early this morning, but is apparently still working out some last-minute kinks.

**Both Seward and editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney used to work at The Wall Street Journal, which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp.

Exclusive: Google Commerce Exec Tilenius Departs for Kleiner

Kara Swisher — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:02:45 +0000

Stephanie Tilenius, the eBay exec who Google hired away to jumpstart its commerce and mobile payments efforts, is departing the company to become an executive-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

“The pace of innovation is so unprecedented, especially in social and mobile,” she said in an interview this morning. “I wanted the ability to help scale a few start-ups, instead of building products in a large company.”

Tilenius has much experience in both arenas, having co-founded and led PlanetRx.com in Web 1.0, as well as working at software start-up Firefly, AOL and Intel before that. She holds a BA and MA from Brandeis University and an MBA from Harvard.

Tilenius joined eBay in 2001 and worked across a wide variety of its businesses, including running the merchant service group of its powerful PayPal payments unit and also on its key Marketplace offering.

Tilenius took an even more prominent operating role when she joined Google and ended up shepherding Google Wallet, one of the search giant’s most significant efforts in commerce. Tilenius’s first job at Google was leading its commerce efforts and in product search, but she founded Google Wallet as a kind of skunkworks within the company.

It is now part of an integrated offering, in which users have a one-payment account to cover purchases across Android Market, YouTube, Google+ Games and other of the company’s properties.

“We have built one wallet in the cloud,” she said.

Tilenius was one of the main executives to unveil Google Wallet at an event in New York last year. She also demonstrated the product at our D: All Things Digital conference in 2011.

Tilenius had also been the key player in Google’s unsuccessful attempt to buy Groupon. After that, Google then launched Google Offers to compete with the daily deals site.

The various payments initiatives by Google also attracted controversy, when PayPal filed suit against Tilenius – as well as Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of payments and former PayPal executive. The payments unit of eBay claimed they and Google misappropriated trade secrets and violated contracts involving recruiting agreements.

In January, Tilenius shifted roles to oversee Google’s commerce efforts internationally.

Perhaps by coincidence, since the firm has been talking about bringing her in for months, Tilenius is the second major hire of a woman at the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, in the wake of a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by a woman partner, Ellen Pao. A month ago, Kleiner hired former Square product exec Megan Quinn as a partner to focus on consumer Internet investments.

Kleiner recently filed an answer to Pao’s legal action, maintaining it was her own performance that kept her from advancing at the firm.

Tilenius declined to comment on the case.

At Kleiner, Tilenius will be working closely with a number of partners, although she will be focusing on late-stage companies in its $1 billion Digital Growth Fund. She also might be incubating some ideas of her own, she said.

Kleiner partner Ted Schlein said Tilenius would be a “tremendous resource” for the firm.

“When talent becomes available to focus on different opportunties in portfolio, we jump at that,” he said. “Stephanie has the experience in some of the largest scaling of businesses in the Valley, as well as an entrepreneurial background, so it is ideal for us.”

Tilenius said the move was “less about Google than working on the next generation of companies.”

She said she had some ideas in mobile commerce, especially given her experience at Google and eBay, as well as in the healthcare area.

“I think it is really early days in mobile and retail is going to be transformed,” said Tilenius. “There are a lot of players, but it is a marathon.”

Indeed.

Here’s a video of Tilenius in action, showing off Google Wallet at D9:

[ See post to watch video ]

RIM Will End PlayBook Sideloading to Escape "Android Market Cesspool"

John Paczkowski — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:14:10 +0000

Sideloading is a great way for PlayBook owners to get more Android apps on their tablets while they wait for native versions to be released. But for Research In Motion, it’s becoming a developer-relations problem at a time when maintaining good ties is paramount.

The growing list of paid Android applications being repackaged as free ones that can be run on the PlayBook is causing their creators some dismay. Which is understandable. It doesn’t take much to repackage an Android app for PlayBook, and once it’s repackaged, it’s quite easy to distribute and easily pirated.

For developers, that means lost revenue — and, potentially, bruised reputations — if the repackaged app doesn’t perform as it should. And for RIM, which is hellbent on creating a thriving developer ecosystem around the PlayBook, that’s bad news, indeed.

So the company is doing something about it. It plans to drop app-sideloading support from the PlayBook in a forthcoming update. “We’re removing sideloading for consumers,” said Alec Saunders, RIM’s VP of Developer Relations, adding that the company is very sympathetic to developers’ concerns about app piracy.

“Piracy is a huge problem for Android devs, and we don’t want to duplicate the chaotic cesspool of Android Market [now Google Play],” he said.

Instead, it looks like RIM may follow Apple’s lead, adopting for BlackBerry App World the same sort of closed system that gives Apple such tight control over the iTunes App Store.

So Here's Why You May Have Trouble Finding the Android Market Icon on Your Phone

Ina Fried — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:00:10 +0000

Get ready for some changes to the Android home screen.

Google plans to rename the Android Market as well as its books, movies and music apps, rebranding all of them under the “Google Play” brand. Over the next week or so, the Android Market icon will change to “Google Play Store,” while each of the other apps will get new monikers the next time they are updated.

It’s all part of an effort by Google to unify its fledgling efforts to become a serious player in music and video sales.

Google is also making similar changes on the Web, unifying Google Music, the Web-based Android Market and its e-book store. With music, Google has actually had two separate experiences: one for buying music and another for playing it back.

In an interview, Google’s Chris Yerga said the primary reason for the changes is to give people one-stop shopping for different types of media and to make sure consumers know that the content they buy can be played both on the Web and on Android devices. However, he said Google would also like to see the effort result in more sales of its newer content types.

“We’re actually pretty happy with how the non-apps verticals have been performing,” Yerga said, but added that “it’s always better if those things are climbing at even higher velocities.”

Media companies continue to say that Google remains a challenging company to do business with. For example, Warner Music’s Edgar Bronfman said at D: Dive Into Media that Google Music is “an oxymoron.”

Google didn’t comment specifically on Bronfman’s statement, though a representative did say: “We want to work with everybody and we’ve been able to sign deals with many media companies.”

Other than the name changes, though, Google said it is making no changes to the content of its stores or its business terms or practices.

With each of the content types, Google allows people to play their content either on Android or the Web. With some — but not all — media types, Google has apps for other devices, such as the iPhone.

“You are always going to get the premier experience on your Android device,” Yerga said. “We support other devices where it makes sense but that’s not the core thing.”

Google's "Bouncer" Has Been Quietly Scanning Android Apps for Malware

Ina Fried — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:30:59 +0000

Google is publicly confirming on Thursday the existence of “Bouncer” — a technology that it has been using for months now to scan Android market applications for malware.

While Google doesn’t require the kinds of approvals needed from Apple or Microsoft before an app goes live, the company has been taking some actions to try to keep malicious code out of its virtual storefront.

Bouncer not only looks for known malware and spyware, it also tries to detect behavior that might offer a red flag that a product is malicious. In addition, the company runs every submitted app on its own cloud infrastructure to simulate how the program would run on an Android device. Finally, when the company learns of a new type of exploit, it goes back and rescans all of the apps in the market.

“We have been working on this for a while,” Android Engineering VP Hiroshi Lockheimer said in an interview. “It’s always been a goal of ours to have a secure market.”

Lockheimer said that avoiding a manual approval process is very important to Google, but he said that shouldn’t have to mean giving up security. Bouncer, he said, is Google’s attempt to avoid that trade-off.

“It is the Google way to use technology and automation,” he said.

And, Lockheimer said, it is paying off. While lots of outsiders have said Android malware is on the rise, Google says it has seen a decline in malicious apps in the official Android market. The number of such programs was down 40 percent from the first half of 2011 to the second half of the year, Lockheimer said.

Google's Head of Consumer Payments, Vikas Gupta, Resigns

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:35:15 +0000

Google’s head of consumer payments Vikas Gupta has resigned, AllThingsD has confirmed.

Gupta joined the company 18 months ago after Google acquired Jambool, a virtual goods payment platform where he was a founder and CEO. More recently, he’d been one of the leaders on the payments team, overseeing Google Wallet and reporting to Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of Payments.

“I can confirm that Vikas has left Google and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” a spokesman said.

Jambool’s product, Social Gold, was rolled into Google’s payment products and is being used for in-app purchases on both Android Market and Google+ Games.

According to Gupta’s LinkedIn page, he joined Google in August 2010 and held the title of head of consumer payments. Jambool reportedly was purchased for $55 million before any additional earn-outs. Prior to founding Jambool, Gupta worked at Amazon.

Gupta’s departure is the second management move made in the Google Wallet ranks over the past week.

A spokesperson declined to say if the division was undergoing a wider restructuring, but last week, I reported that Google’s VP of Commerce Stephanie Tilenius was moving into a more global position. And, as part of that, Bedier will be taking on a larger role within Google Wallet, though his title will not be changing.

The Wallet is Google’s mobile payments strategy that allows users to tap their phone at the register to pay using near field communication technology. The company has already successfully formed alliances with both banks and retailers, and is leveraging its vast install base of Android users.

Today, it is live with some merchants, although it does face some challenges.

Currently, it only works on one phone from Sprint, and both consumers and merchants will most likely have to upgrade their hardware for it to work. Additionally, some carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, have decided to disable Google Wallet on phones they are shipping. Other carriers, which are part of a mobile wallet joint venture called ISIS, are expected to follow suit, effectively limiting access for many U.S. consumers.

More than six months after hosting a flashy launch event, the business may be getting a lot harder than it originally looked.

Google's VP of Commerce, Stephanie Tilenius, Moves Into Global Role

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:55:59 +0000

Google’s VP of Commerce, Stephanie Tilenius, who was helping to lead the company’s mobile payments initiative, is changing roles to oversee the company’s commerce efforts internationally.

Asa Mathat | AllThingsD.com

Stephanie Tilenius demonstrates Google Wallet at the D9 conference.

Over the past year, Tilenius has been visible for her role in Google Wallet, one of Google’s biggest bets in commerce to date.

In May, she was one of the main executives to unveil Google Wallet at an event in New York, and a week later, at our D event in California, demonstrated how easy it was to tap an Android phone at the register to check out.

In a statement, Google spokesman Nate Tyler said: “Stephanie is moving to a new role where she will oversee global strategy and work with key partners to expand our commerce efforts internationally.”

Tilenius will continue to report to Jeff Huber, SVP of Commerce & Local.

In her previous role, Tilenius was overseeing Google Checkout, which recently merged with Google Wallet so that users needed only one payment account to cover purchases across Android Market, YouTube, Google+ Games and other Google properties.

The former eBay executive also played a role in Google’s negotiations to buy Groupon, which ultimately failed. Instead, Google launched Google Offers to compete with Groupon head-on.

Presumably, Tilenius will continue to work on all of these products but in an international capacity.

Tilenius was also in the spotlight in May, on the same day as the New York Google Wallet launch, when PayPal filed suit against Google and two of its former executives – Tilenius and Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of payments and former PayPal executive. The lawsuit claimed that Google and the two employees misappropriated trade secrets and violated contracts involving recruiting agreements.

Windows Phone Marketplace Beats Android Market to 50,000 Apps

John Paczkowski — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:36:34 +0000

Though it’s still dwarfed by Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market, Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace has been posting some decent growth lately. In mid-November, it hit the 40,000 app milestone, and now, a little over a month later, it’s hit another.

According to All About Windows Phone, which tracks Windows Phone app submissions, the Marketplace has seen more than 50,000 apps published to it — 50,126, to be exact.

Notably, Windows Phone reached that 50,000 app milestone in 14 months, faster than Android, Symbian, or BlackBerry (but slower than iOS, which hit that mark in about a year).

Clearly, the platform is picking up steam. While it took a little over a year to reach 40,000 apps, it took just 40 days to accumulate the next 10,000.

That bodes well for Windows Phone in 2012. Of course, it needs to drive that growth higher still, if it ever hopes to match its rivals in the space. Though a noteworthy milestone, 50,000 apps is still a paucity, compared to the App Store’s 600,000 and Android Market’s 500,000.

A Gift to Developers: A Quarter of a Billion Apps Downloaded on Christmas

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:07:00 +0000

A record-number of new devices activated on Christmas morning is leading to a tidal wave of new mobile application downloads.

Apple’s App Store is on pace to exceed 10 billion downloads this year alone, which is twice the number it recorded over the three previous years combined.

The Android Market is also setting records. Over the past seven months, it has achieved more than 7 billion downloads, which more than triples its life-to-date downloads of 3 billion reached in May 2011.

At those rates, both operating systems are generating roughly one billion downloads a month, or the equivalent of 33 million a day.

The data was reported by Flurry Analytics, which creates tools that thousands of developers use to track usage of their mobile applications.

Christmas Day was one of the big catalysts for achieving huge end-of-the-year records.

Flurry found that application downloads more than doubled on Christmas compared to the average number of downloads occurring during the first 20 days of December.

On Dec. 25, it registered 242 million app downloads, jumping more than 125 percent over an average day.

In addition, because of its insight into application usage, Flurry is also able to see the number of new devices activated. Phones and tablets are always a hot Christmas item and this year was no exception.

On the average day in December, 1.5 million phones were activated, but on Christmas, 6.8 million were activated, representing a 353 percent spike. Last year, Christmas held the previous single-day record with 2.8 million device activations.

YouMail Headed Back to Android Market After Learning a Thing or Two

Ina Fried — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:51:23 +0000

YouMail, the company whose visual voicemail app was pulled from the Android Market after complaints from T-Mobile, says it is on its way back into the marketplace.

The company complained loudly earlier this week that it was blindsided and hadn’t heard from T-Mobile before having its app summarily yanked. It turns out T-Mobile had reached out to the company, but the issue didn’t make it past the lower layers of customer support.

“As far as we can tell, one of their engineering team sent an e-mail to our free customer support e-mail address in early November, and one of the support team basically replied it’s fixed in next release and treated it as resolved, not reporting it to anyone else,” YouMail said in a blog post.

It turns out that a bug being experienced by some users was consuming a lot of network bandwidth, an issue that the company says is fixed with a new update.

“We’re in contact with YouMail and they are working to resolve these issues,” T-Mobile said in a statement to AllThingsD. “Once they do, we’ll be glad to once again support their application.”

In the blog post, YouMail says it has learned a thing or two. The whole thing is a good cautionary tale and YouMail offers up some good advice for companies big and small.

YouMail Dismayed After Its Voicemail App Is Yanked From Android Market

Ina Fried — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:52:05 +0000

You’ve not got YouMail.

Those looking for the YouMail visual voicemail app in the Android Market on Thursday won’t be able to find it. A visit to the company’s former spot in the Android market turns up a sad-looking “not found” page.

YouMail says it learned yesterday that its app was being pulled by Google for violations of the Android Market’s terms of service, following a complaint from T-Mobile.

“It has come to our attention that this application could be used in a way that is harmful to devices, networks or users,” Google said in an email to YouMail. “Specifically we have received a complaint from T-Mobile that this application is causing adverse network disruption.”

YouMail says it’s perplexed. It says it never heard from T-Mobile and that other Android apps use similar network resources. YouMail notes that some smaller carriers even preload their app.

T-Mobile and Google representatives were not immediately available for comment.

In the meantime, YouMail suggests that those who want to get their app go to Amazon’s app store, where it is still available.

Android Market Now on Pace With Apple at More Than 1 Billion Downloads a Month

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:00:17 +0000

A new and important milestone for Google’s Android mobile operating system. Some 10 billion applications have been downloaded from the Android Market to date. An impressive number and one that’s growing at a rapid pace. It took about 20 months for the Android Market to serve up it first billion apps and just five more for the second billion.

Now it’s delivering more than a billion apps per month. Which, notably, is the same number of apps per month Apple claimed to be serving at its October iPhone 4S launch event.

So, as I said, an important milestone for Android. That said, the Android Market still has a way to go before it passes Apple in app downloads, let alone matches it.

As of October 4, iOS device users have downloaded more than 18 billion apps.

RIM Investigating Release of Tool That Could Make PlayBook Actually Interesting

Ina Fried — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:59:44 +0000

The researchers who said they had come up with a way to jailbreak the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet have now posted details on how others can follow in their footsteps.

By installing the update, users can gain access to the Android Market, one of the researchers, known as Neuralic, said in a posting on Twitter.

RIM said it would look into the matter and potentially update its software in response.

“RIM is aware of reports that a security researcher has released a tool designed to allow BlackBerry PlayBook users to jailbreak their tablet,” the company said in a statement to AllThingsD. “RIM is following its standard security response process to investigate the functionality and impact of this tool and if needed, RIM will develop, test, and release a software update that is designed to minimize the potential adverse impact to our customers.”

That said, RIM might be best off using the jailbreak as a selling point for the tablet, which has lagged expectations and been on an inventory-clearing fire sale since Black Friday.

Galaxy Nexus: An In-Your-Face Android Phone

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:32:58 +0000

Thanksgiving is coming, but techies are salivating over something that doesn’t involve turkey and stuffing: Ice Cream Sandwich—the operating system of the newest Google phone, the Galaxy Nexus.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Galaxy Nexus from Samsung is the first device to run Google’s Android 4.0 operating system, known by its dessert code name. Ice Cream Sandwich is designed to be a blend of the Android phone and tablet operating systems that irons out many geeky wrinkles. Android’s former annoying reliance on menus to perform tasks is reduced with the inclusion of more user-friendly icons, and these dynamically change according to whatever program is opened.

It has familiar swiping gestures across apps, of which there are over 300,000 available in the Android Market, as well as playful new features like facial recognition to unlock the phone. Several existing Android devices from HTC and Motorola will receive free software updates so that they, too, can run this OS.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is stylish, with it’s 4.65 inch display and svelte profile.

There’s much speculation that the Galaxy Nexus will be available in the U.S. in the next two weeks, since its release in the U.K. last week. A Verizon spokeswoman says it will be out sometime before the end of the year and it will run on the carrier’s 4G network. It could cost as much as $300 if it’s treated like some other recent Android phones considered flagship models.

I got my hands on a U.K. version of the Galaxy Nexus and enjoyed using Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the most well-rounded version of Android yet. My phone’s battery lasted nearly a full day under heavy testing.

But some of Android’s inelegant traits remain, like the confusing way it organizes Widgets (icons representing programs) and restricts their placement on home screens according to the icons’ various shapes and sizes. And its folders for apps look cluttered.

The Galaxy Nexus itself is stylishly designed. Its giant 4.65-inch display may be overkill for some people. But its svelte build, which measures just over three-tenths of an inch thick, balances it out. Its rear- and front-facing cameras capture 5- and 1.3-megapixel images, respectively, and it records video in full 1080p HD quality. A built-in barometer helps with more precise GPS detection, and an NFC (near field communication) chip enables swapping data with other NFC-enabled Android phones, a process called Android Beam.

I found the facial-recognition feature to be unreliable. To set this up, I held the Galaxy Nexus up as if I was about to take a photo of myself with the front-facing camera, and a traced image of my face appeared on the screen. I also set up a back-up unlocking option: tracing a pattern on the screen. Whenever I wanted to use the phone, I held it up to my face and if facial recognition worked, it unlocked.

But this only worked half the time, sometimes because of low lighting, whether outside at night, in restaurants or even in my own kitchen. Other times it just didn’t recognize me. When I stood on city streets and held the phone up to my face to unlock it, I looked as if I was taking a photo of the people around me. And it’s impossible to slyly check your phone under the table during meetings or dinners using this unlocking method.

A facial-recognition feature unlocks the phone.

Google warns users this isn’t necessarily the safest method for locking a phone. Case in point: I was able to unlock the phone by holding a photo of my face up to its lock screen. But a Google engineer noted most people who find lost phones don’t know what the phone’s owner looks like.

Like Microsoft’s Windows Phones and the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus can be unlocked just for using its camera, or unlocked fully to access the rest of the phone’s features. When calls come in, a large image representing the caller appears on the screen along with options to drag an on-screen icon to ignore, answer, or send a text reply.

In Ice Cream Sandwich, app folders can be created by dragging app icons on top of one another. These icons seem to stack up in a messy pile; in one folder I made, called “Social,” only the blue beak of Twitter’s bird icon was visible.

In place of the Android Menu button, a small three-dot icon appears in all apps and this opens the menu. More icons at the bottom of each app screen perform actions, such as an envelope with a plus sign beside it in Gmail that opens a screen for composing an email. A Multitasking soft key displays all opened apps in one tap. Small images show the screen last opened on these apps like a webpage or a search term in a box. And the Android Market icon is now easier to find in the top right corner of the App Tray.

The photo gallery feels more lush and magazine-like than the text lists of albums in previous versions of Android. Thumbnail images representing albums appear side-by-side and fill the phone’s screen in a checkerboard fashion. Albums from my Flickr account were automatically pulled in here, and any photos I captured on the phone were automatically sent to my Google+ account using Instant Upload, a feature also available on other iterations of Android.

Ice Cream Sandwich has more options for photo editing and adds silly effects and backgrounds to videos. You can even make a time-lapse video.

Typing on this phone felt more accurate than in the past, and text can be dragged and dropped to different places using a gesture to swipe down and up. Items in the drop-down Notifications menu can be deleted with a swipe right.

If you’ve been curious about Android, the release of Ice Cream Sandwich will mark a good time to jump in.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

Google Says Goodbye to Checkout to Focus on the Wallet

Tricia Duryee — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 03:07:46 +0000

We never knew how many people had signed up for Google Checkout, and now we probably never will. Checkout was used as the primary way to pay for apps in the Android Market, but was largely assumed to lack mass adoption, since it was never required. In a blog post, Google said it is merging Checkout with its newest payment strategy, called Google Wallet, which will be used to pay for things on Android Market, YouTube, Google+ Games and other Google sites.

Adobe Admits It Is Saying Buh-Bye to Flash for Mobile Devices

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:15:30 +0000

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

EMI Music to Developers: Take My Music, Please

Peter Kafka — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:57:26 +0000

It’s easy to beat up the music industry for being intransigent and stupid when it comes to technology. Because the music industry is so often intransigent and stupid when it comes to technology.

So let’s take a minute to praise a big music label for something that — on paper, at least — looks pretty flexible and clever. EMI Music is offering developers a way to leapfrog onerous licensing negotiations and just start building cool stuff with the label’s songs.

The idea: Developers building an application that needs music can sign up for access to a “sandbox” which will let them play with a pool of the label’s songs. And after a minimium of hoop-jumping, the “OpenEMI” plan is supposed to let developers bring their stuff directly to market, without having to track down rights holders, negotiate rates, etc.

EMI has precleared a selection of about 12,000 songs — 2,000 from its general catalog, another 10,000 from its Blue Note jazz label, and a few artist-specific catalogs from bands like Gorillaz and the Pet Shop Boys — and has worked out a standardized fee for all of them, via a revenue split.

The label takes 60 percent of net revenue and uses that to pay rights holders; 40 percent is split between developers and the Echo Nest, a Boston-based music tech company that helped cobble the deal together and which provides developers with tools they might use to build their apps. EMI and Echo Nest say developers should end up with the lion’s share of that 40 percent.

Given that Citigroup, which ended up owning EMI after financing a disastrous private equity deal, may or may not be selling the company any day, it’s always possible that this kind of offer may disappear if and when new management shows up.

And there are a few catches, but they seem doable — for instance, the deal requires EMI to act as the publisher for any apps that eventually make it to venues like Apple’s iTunes or Google’s Android Market. So, at least on paper, it looks like an attractive way for developers to get their hands on music without having to worry about breaking the law or hiring lawyers.

The program won’t do you any good if you want music that EMI doesn’t own. And a pool of 12,000 songs won’t do you any good if you’re trying to create a comprehensive music service like Spotify, which features some 15 million songs. Instead, think of applications that incorporate music, like Disney’s Tapulous, or any other Rock Band-like game. Developers might eventually want to use music that isn’t in EMI’s pool, but it seems plenty deep enough to get going.

DeNA Gains Traction in the U.S. With AT&T Social Games Partnership

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:51:45 +0000

A week after launching its social network on Android, Japan-based DeNA already has some surprises in the works, including its first carrier partnership in the U.S.

The company said its mobile social network, called Mobage (pronounced mo-bah-gay), will serve as a hub for AT&T Android owners to discover and download new games, post scores to leaderboards and play against others around the world.

Mobage has some catching up to do in order to compete against others, such as Apple’s Game Center on iOS devices, or OpenFeint, which is owned by Japan-based Gree and operates on both iOS and Android.

Mobage was developed by San Francisco-based Ngmoco, which is a subsidiary of DeNA. The agreement is the first between Ngmoco and a U.S. wireless carrier.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, so it’s unclear how closely the two will be working together.

In a release, Ted Woodbery, a VP at AT&T Mobility, said its Android customers will gain access to Mobage later this year.

Since the app is currently available in the Android Market, that may mean AT&T will preload it on devices before they ship. Typically, apps that are already loaded on a device end up being used more by subscribers — at least that was the widely held belief back when it was difficult to download apps to feature phones.

The partnership seems to be in contrast with AT&T’s original stance on third-party app stores. For instance, when the Amazon App Store was released, it only allowed users to install programs purchased via the official Android Market.

Since then, it has started to become more lenient, and said it would have to push software updates to the phone to make third-party downloads possible.

Mobage may not have those problems, since it generally refers users to the Android Market to purchase a game before they return to Mobage to play it with others.

Dalton Caldwell's Newest Venture: Giving Apps a Better Home Page

Ina Fried — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:00:53 +0000

The premise of Dalton Caldwell’s latest venture is so simple, it is almost hard to believe there is a business to be had.

The project, App.Net, aims to create a more useful Web landing page for iPhone and Android apps, improving the odds that those browsing on the Web will actually download the program they are researching. Think of it as an About.me for apps.

However, in hearing today how the process works, it is a bit easier to understand why there might indeed be an opportunity. Today, mobile app creators typically point users to their apps’ page in the App Store or Android Market — a page over which they have little control and one that sometimes even lists competitors’ apps. Those that do have their own landing page can have a badge linking to the app store page, but have no way of telling what happens to users once they click on that button.

App.Net aims to improve both of those experiences, offering mobile developers a custom landing page for each app they create. The page consists of a series of optional modules, from screenshots to descriptions to a link to the official app store page. Developers can also offer social media connections such as the ability to follow the developer on Twitter or Facebook as well as the option to tweet, “Like” or “+1″ app pages they like.

“It’s meant to be really really easy,” Caldwell told AllThingsD this week. Caldwell is best known as the former CEO of music service imeem, which was sold to Myspace for a fire-sale price back in 2009.

The service is free for small developers looking to promote a single app, with monthly fees of between $12 and $49 charged to developers who want to promote multiple pages. For that fee, customers get access to App.Net’s landing page creation tools as well as analytics to see what is happening to visitors that show an interest in the app.

Caldwell, at least, is convinced the service will fill a need. Caldwell says he recently spun off his last venture, photo-sharing service picplz, as a separate entity, retaining an ownership stake and a spot on the board, but ceasing day-to-day operational control.

“It was a tough decision but I think focusing is very important,” he said. Caldwell is keeping most of his staff as well, bringing in a handful of new people to run picplz, which faces steep competition against the larger Instagram service.

As for App.Net, Caldwell has signed up a list of several other app makers as launch partners, including Evernote, Bump and Rdio.

(Correction: The original version of this article stated that picplz was spun off last week, based on a misunderstanding in an interview done with Caldwell. Picplz was actually quietly spun off several weeks ago, which was noted in a post last week on TechCrunch.)

Why PayPal Paid $240 Million for Zong

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:29:57 +0000

PayPal has spent the past 13 years making payment easier for anyone who has an email address.

But in today’s world, where cellphones are outnumbering computers, that sounds increasingly archaic.

To bridge that gap, the eBay-owned payments company announced yesterday it was acquiring Zong, a mobile payments provider that allows charges to appear on a consumer’s carrier bill.

One could imagine a future in which PayPal could accept payments from anyone with a 10-digit number, switching its focus after all these years from email to phone numbers.

PayPal needed to buy Zong for $240 million in order to do this quickly — it did not have the time to go and build partnerships with 250 carriers in 45 countries around the world.

“The payments industry has never been more competitive than it is today,” said Dana Stalder, a former PayPal executive who is now a general partner at Matrix Partners, which invested in Zong. “PayPal has never had greater momentum in its business than it does today. It was a smart acquisition, and they pick up some unique capabilities that are good for digital payments.”

As part of the deal, PayPal will gain a team of 70 employees, at a time when hiring people with payments expertise is competitive.

In May, PayPal filed suit against Google and two of its former executives, claiming that the company and employees misappropriated trade secrets and violated contracts involving recruiting agreements.

The two executives named in the lawsuit are Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, who directly oversee Google’s new payments initiative.

Google is one of many companies treading in the broad digital payments space once dominated by PayPal.

Google launched a mobile payments initiative that allows people to use their phones to make payments at the register. Charges appear on a credit card associated with that account.

PayPal is preparing to test similar in-store technology later this year, but it has clashed with Google once before. In the lawsuit, PayPal details that it was close to signing an agreement with Google to handle payments on Android Market when it fell apart.

In the meantime, Google has worked hard to ink deals directly with the carriers. While it still has a long way to go, it is currently working with T-Mobile USA, AT&T, Sprint and Japan’s Softbank, KDDI and NTT DoCoMo.

It’s a painstaking process that PayPal clearly did not want to duplicate.

Other companies are also fiercely competing with Zong, so PayPal won’t be alone there. Others in the space include BilltoMobile, mopay, Boku, Billing Revolution and more.

PayPal estimates the digital goods market to be worth $20 billion today, with dramatic growth prospects ahead. “Digital goods” may include music, movies, news, books and games. It’s important to make payment for these as easy as possible, because any additional required steps may lead to fewer purchases.

Zong’s emphasis is on allowing a consumer to pay for digital purchases on his or her mobile phone or computer using their phone number. Zong first verifies the number and then clears the payment on the mobile phone bill.

While this process is described as easy for the consumer, on the back end it is not.

Carriers are reluctant to allow miscellaneous charges to appear on the bill, fearing additional customer service costs when someone complains that they don’t remember what they bought.

Because of the potential for confusion, companies like Zong have had to share an incredibly high cut of the revenue — between 10 and 40 percent — with the carrier. High rates make it impractical to charge anything of value, like physical goods.

That won’t change overnight for PayPal, which will have to reopen talks with wireless carriers to get things to change.

If it can’t get them to budge, spending $240 million on Zong could be a waste.

However, there are a couple of fairly interesting scenarios that may get the wireless carriers to reconsider.

PayPal could potentially rely on its Bill Me Later division to instantly approve a consumer’s request to borrow money on credit when they submit a payment over the phone. In that situation, the carrier could help to identify users and their credit histories, but would only get a small cut, since it was taking on much less risk.

If that were to happen, the market could grow much faster.

In a blog post, PayPal president Scott Thompson wrote, “When we started meeting with the folks over at Zong, it became immediately clear to us that they share our vision for commerce and payments. We’re all about helping retailers of all sizes compete globally, and helping consumers shop for whatever they want…anytime, anywhere, on any device.”

Qualcomm Bringing Augmented Reality Software Kit to the iPhone

Ina Fried — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:00:30 +0000

Although its chips don’t power the iPhone, Qualcomm has decided to bring its augmented reality software kit to Apple’s phones in an effort to make it more attractive to developers.

Qualcomm released free software tools for Android last year in an effort to get more developers to write processor-hungry apps that combine the virtual realm with the physical one. Starting in July, though, developers will also be able to use Qualcomm tools to write augmented reality apps for the iPhone.

“We realize it is a complex ecosystem with multiple operating systems,” Qualcomm’s Jay Wright said in an interview at the ARE 2011 conference on Wednesday. “Developers need tools and technology that address that challenge.”

It’s an interesting move for Qualcomm, which plans to release the iOS tools for free through an Austrian subsidiary. Wright acknowledged that Android was a more logical operating system, given the fact that its chips are used there.

“Android was a logical starting point because of developer momentum and Snapdragon penetration,” Wright said. “Moving forward we will support additional operating systems.”

In any case, the move thrilled some of the developers that have been writing code using the Qualcomm tools.

“Its fantastic for us because it opens up a market,” said Morgan Jaffit, whose app, Inch High Stunt Guy, allows users to position various ramps and other objects on their screen in an effort to propel a stunt motorcycle rider to make it through a flaming hoop.

With the move, Jaffit and his Australian colleagues now hope to release both the iPhone and Android apps in the coming months.

Also pleased is Paulius Liekis, co-founder of Pixel Punch, the Lithuanian developer of Paparazzi, another augmented reality game built using Qualcomm’s tools. The app was released a week ago for $1 in the Android Market, but he sees the monetization policies as much better on the iPhone, where users are more willing to pay for content.

“They appreciate good content,” he said of those with an iPhone. “On Android, consumers are different. They do not want to pay.”

Paparazzi was the winner of a developer challenge Qualcomm funded last year, earning $125,000 for Pixel Punch, while Inch High Stunt Guy finished second, earning $50,000 for Jaffit’s company, Defiant Development.

The student team from USC that finished third in the contest said they, too, are looking forward to being able to bring their game–Danger Copter–to the iPhone as well as Android.

“Definitely it motivates us so much more to finish it up,” said Kedar Reddy, one of the USC graduate students.

Why It Took ATT So Long To Allow Side-Loading of Android Apps

Ina Fried — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:00:23 +0000

AT&T is in the midst of reversing a policy that has long irked Android enthusiasts.

Until this month, the company generally prohibited users from getting their apps from anywhere other than the official Android Market. With the arrival of Amazon’s App Store in March, AT&T had said it was re-evaluating that policy, paving the way for users to access that store, as well as others, such as GetJar.

Earlier in May, AT&T started selling its first Android device capable of so-called side-loading of apps–the Samsung Infuse 4G. Now, the carrier is also rolling out updates to older devices.

“Over the next few weeks, we will also roll out this capability to existing devices in our base for which an upgrade is possible,” an AT&T representative said on Tuesday. “Users will not need to take any action as their phone will receive the update automatically.”

So why did it take this long?

In an interview last month, AT&T CTO John Donovan said that the challenge is that, although there was a vocal minority clamoring for such access, 99 percent of users are silent, but would prefer the company do everything it can to make sure their devices are safe and secure.

“We take that custodian role really seriously,” Donovan said during a chat with All Things D, following his appearance on stage at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit.

When it comes to Android, AT&T has been something of a slow starter in general. Alone with the iPhone for several years, the company had little incentive to move too quickly into the Android camp. These days, though, the company is looking to bolster its Android bona fides. The company has promised at least a dozen new devices this year and has already launched several new ones, most notably Motorola’s Atrix 4G.

Donovan insists it was not being sluggish in delaying the side-loading of apps. Rather, he said, the company was making a choice to prioritize safety. And if people want to know who to blame, Donovan said he takes full responsibility for the decision.

“The buck stops here,” he said. “I didn’t feel like we had the ability to find nefarious apps and to take them down.”

AT&T won’t be slow to innovate on all fronts, he insists.

“I’m a gigantic new services risk taker,” Donovan said. “I’m not at all a risk taker as it relates to security and privacy.”

There is a push in general to get the carriers moving faster when it comes to Android and many have responded. At last week’s Google I/O conference, Google announced an effort to get carriers and hardware makers to commit to faster Android operating system upgrades and to agree to provide such updates for at least 18 months after a new device is introduced. AT&T, along with other major carriers, was listed as among those agreeing to the pact.

Going forward, AT&T plans to allow users to side-load apps on all future Android devices. In the interview last month, Donovan said the company wouldn’t open up side-loading until the company was confident it could protect users, something he said they were working on.

“We are maintaining the same level of security against malicious apps,” an AT&T representative said on Tuesday. “To protect that security, I can’t comment further.”

Google Offers Glimpse of New Google TV Due This Summer

Ina Fried — Wed, 11 May 2011 23:04:53 +0000

Android developers got a brief peek on Wednesday at the simplified Google TV interface that the company hopes will be more attractive to couch potatoes than the previous iteration.

In the new look, there is a simplified set of app icons at the bottom, an action bar along the right hand side and most of the screen clear for live TV. As Mobilized reported last week, the new look is part of a broad revamp aimed at addressing some of the shortcomings in last year’s inaugural product.

“This is a lot simpler,” Google TV’s Jason Bayer told a packed room of Android developers at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. “We’ve gotten out a lot of the unnecessary features. We really want to get users directly to applications.”

The brief look at the new interface was provided as Google aimed to convince Android developers to tailor their apps so that programs originally designed for a phone or tablet will also run smoothly on a television.

As Google said on Tuesday, the new Google TV will run Honeycomb 3.1, the same version of Android used today on tablets, and programs will show up in a TV version of the Android Market. However, to run on Google TV, there are a few things that developers need to do.

In addition to dealing with a different screen size and set of input devices, Google stressed that users don’t want to have to interact with the same level of intensity.

“You should really think of a TV as not just a big phone,” Google developer advocate Christian Kurzke told the crowd.

Also, there are certain features that are on phones that aren’t supported at all, including telephony, cameras and many other types of sensors. The company said it knows that a camera could be useful for things like video chat and is trying to overcome the technical hurdles needed to add support for additional sensors.

Google confirmed this week that the Google TV update will come this summer for existing devices and then later this year on new products from Samsung, Sony, Logitech and Vizio.

If developers don’t want to wait that long, Google is letting them apply to get one of the “fishtank” development boxes that Google is using for internal testing.

Android Market Changes Aimed to Help Users Cut Through Clutter, Developers Make Money

Ina Fried — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:12:05 +0000

Google said on Wednesday it is making a series of changes to its Android Market in an effort to help developers keep their apps from getting lost and also make more money off those apps that are downloaded.

“Android Market is a marketplace,” Google’s Eric Chu said during a technical session now taking place at Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco. “It is important we do everything we can to help you.”

On the monetization front, Google announced it is expanding the number of countries where Android customers can buy apps via the Market to 131, up from 32.

Also, on Tuesday, Google announced it was giving developers one-click access to set up an advertising campaign using the company’s AdMob mobile ad service. Google is also increasing the amount of sales data and statistics it gives to developers.

The biggest change came earlier this year when the company added in-app payments to Android Market, following the lead of Apple.

At this point, Chu said, nine of the ten top-grossing apps are among the few apps that have in-app billing options and 14 percent of average daily revenue is from those apps that offer in-app purchases.

As for clearing through the clutter, Google is launching new ways that apps can be merchandised in their market. Beyond the “just in” section, the company is adding several other featured categories.

The company is adding an “editor’s choice” section, as well as a category from apps from top developers and the ability for Android Market visitors to get personal recommendations based on the apps that a user has installed or viewed.

In addition, the company is adding Top New Free and Top New Paid apps to highlight apps launched within the past 30 days that have been doing well. Google is adding a new “trending” section that showcases apps that are getting a lot of downloads in a short period of time. These lists will also be regionalized in many top countries around the world, Chu said.

Google officials said the company will keep a close eye on the quality of apps on the trending list and other new categories to make sure that it isn’t filled with apps that have found a way to game the system.

The new categories are live on the Web-based Android Market and coming soon to the Market app that runs on Android devices, Chu said.

Google is under pressure to improve the Android market as competitors from Amazon to GetJar are trying to supplant the company by touting their storefronts as easier to sort through, among other things. Speaking to reporters, Google’s Chris Yerga said that his Android Market team is working to build the best app store it can, but said that the competition is ultimately going to be good for consumers since it will force Google and others to “up their game.”

Another Android Market change is aimed at making it easier for developers that want to support a particular set of Android devices. Starting today, on the Android Market Website, developers can upload an application and see how many–and which–devices their app should run on.

Starting in June, developers will also be able to create multiple versions of their apps for different devices and have them in a single listing in the marketplace with the proper version being delivered automatically.

The market for apps is clearly growing, at least in terms of number of downloads, Chu said. In 2010, the number of apps downloaded was eight times what had been downloaded in 2008 and 2009 combined.

The growth has continued this year, Chu said, noting that 2011 downloads by the end of March exceeded the first three quarters of 2010 and, as of yesterday, there have been more Android apps downloaded so far this year than in all of 2010.

International markets are also rapidly growing with six in ten Android activations now being for devices sold outside the U.S.

The bulk of devices are running on either Android 2.1 or 2.2, despite the fact that Google has released two versions of Android since then.

But, while there are still a lot of users on older versions of Android, Chu noted that Honeycomb and Gingerbread device owners are downloading apps at a far faster rate than those running older versions of the operating system. Chu also shared details on which application categories are doing better in an effort to help developers target their efforts.

Chu noted that developers of popular games like Gun Bros and Angry Birds Rio have targeted certain versions of Android that run on more than 90 percent of devices and can still achieve good performance.

In an interview, Chu noted that the company still has more work ahead of it on making it easier for people to find the apps they want.

“I would be surprised if any company running an app store would say ‘we are done with discoverability,’” Chu said.

Apple Will Take 76 Percent of App Market Revenues This Year

John Paczkowski — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:07:01 +0000

Mobile apps are fast becoming big business, generating a remarkable amount of revenue for something that’s only been around a short while. In 2009, combined revenues for the Big Four app stores–Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry App World–were about $830.6 million, according to IHS iSuppli. By 2010, they’d risen to $2.1 billion. And by the end of 2011, they’re expected to hit $3.8 billion.

If that growth trend continues they’ll balloon to $8.3 billion by 2014.

Great news for all four companies, and one in particular: Apple, whose App Store iSuppli projects will claim a gargantuan 76 percent share of the total market. The research outfit figures revenues for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps will spike to $2.91 billion in 2011, up 63.4 percent from $1.78 billion in 2010.

And they’ll rise even higher in the years that follow, as Apple is expected to retain a 60 percent market share by 2014, despite the best efforts of its rivals. Which is not to say those rivals won’t meet with some success. Google’s Android Market, for example, is expected to post dramatic growth this year, a 295.4 percent spike that will drive its revenues to $425.36 million.

And RIM and Nokia?

Well, they’ll do okay, though not nearly as well as the market leaders. Says iSuppli, “Both the RIM and Nokia app stores will continue over the next few years to be relegated to the two lower positions as Apple and Google remain the dominant players.”