Distimo said that of the top 110 apps that appear in both the  Android Market and Amazon Appstore, 42 of them make more money on Amazon than on Android Market. Overall, 28 percent of the revenue in those top apps came from the Appstore. That’s a big showing for an Appstore that is less than one year old and has 26,826 available applications, compared to more than 400,000 worldwide for Android Market, according to Distimo.

Amazon Appstore is turning out to be a great place for paid app downloads, compared to Android Market which monetizes better through in-app purchase. Distimo said paid apps in Appstore made up 65 percent of all apps, while the percentage of paid apps in Android Market has slipped from 38 percent to 32 percent over the last seven months. Of the top 200 grossing Android Market apps, 66 percent of the revenue comes from in-app purchases.

The rise of Amazon Appstore is due in large part to the emergence of the Kindle Fire, which has been a major accelerant for Appstore and is now used more than any other Android tablet. In December, the total number of downloads generated by the top 100 apps in the Appstore increased fourteen-fold compared to two months earlier. While Android Market generated 22 times more new apps than the Appstore in September last year, by December and January, the number of new apps on Amazon had surged, cutting the Market’s advantage for new apps to about 5-1.

The fact that paid app downloads are bigger proportionately on Amazon than on Android Market may be due in part to Amazon’s pricing controls. One of the key differences between the two stores is that Amazon can change the price of apps, a provision that concerned some app makers. That control has apparently resulted in the average price of the top 100 paid applications in Amazon Appstore being 40 percent lower than in the Market. The average price of the top 100 applications is $3.76 in Google’s Android Market and $2.24 in Amazon Appstore. The game Monopoly, for example, was available for 99 cents in Appstore for a limited time last month, compared to a fixed price of $4.99 for the whole month in the Market. Amazon’s simple one-click check-out process and its overall reputation for commerce may also be driving paid downloads.

One interesting fact that emerged is that about 50 percent of Amazon’s apps don’t appear in Android Market, said Distimo. That suggests that, while many app makers are simply porting over their apps from Android Market to Amazon Appstore, a big number of apps are bypassing the Market and going straight to Amazon. It’s unclear if this is just Kindle-versions of established Android apps, but it still suggests that developers are making specific investments in Amazon apps.

The strong showing by Amazon Appstore appears to back up early anecdotal evidence I gathered in December, in which a number of Android developers reported seeing a big boost for paid app downloads on Appstore. It’s pretty amazing considering that a big proportion of these downloads is coming from just one device: the Kindle Fire. Appstore also provides apps for other Android devices, but it’s really shining because it’s the app store for Fire owners. Appstore benefits in some ways from its smaller base of apps, which makes discovery easier for users, who don’t have to wade through as many options. It will be interesting to see if Amazon can still remain as lucrative if its appstore attracts a lot more apps.

Overall, what this means for Android developers is that, if they’re looking to make money from paid downloads, they really need to think about Amazon Appstore. The work to submit an app to Amazon increasingly looks like a solid bet. And it may make sense for developers to look at the Fire as its own distinct platform. Android Market still has the largest reach compared to Appstore, which is still limited to the U.S. But more and more, we’re seeing how the Kindle Fire is providing an outsized impact on the Android ecosystem, which has gained a pretty potent way to make money from Android apps.

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Article source: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/gigaom/articles/2012_02_21_amazon_appstore_more_lucrative_for_many_devs_than_android_market.html

Article source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chrome-for-Android-Will-Get-Desktop-Site-Viewing-and-Fullscreen-Mode-in-Future-Update-253999.shtml

The snow-less winter central North Carolina has experienced has come to an end tonight as snow started falling after 4 p.m. in Roxboro, Person County, North Carolina. 

This snow comes after temperatures were well into the 60s on Saturday.  Despite that warm weather, rain and colder temperatures moved in Sunday and the National Weather Service issued a Winter Weather Advisory for the Triangle northward until 9 a.m. Monday.

Wake County Public Schools also delayed classes by two hours Monday morning due to possible poor driving conditions on area roads. 

Click here for the lastest closings and delays.

The way the system set up is classic for North Carolina, in that rain moved in from the south as cold air arrived from the north.  Snow totals could amount to as much as three inches north of Raleigh along the Virginia border.  Most of the Triangle should only see anywhere from a dusting up to one inch.

The entire system will start to move out of central North Carolina after midnight early Monday morning.  As rain and snow end and clouds start to depart, temperatures will continue to drop.

One problem travelers may encounter late Sunday night and early Monday morning is black ice.  Temperatures will dip below freezing early Monday morning and this could result in some slick spots on area roads.  The rest of Presidents’ Day will be sunny with afternoon highs struggling to reach the 50s.

So far this winter season, central North Carolina and the Raleigh-Durham Airport have yet to officially record any snowfall.  The last winter central North Carolina had no snow was in 2005-2006.

Article source: http://www2.nbc17.com/weather/2012/feb/17/18/much-needed-rain-coming-sunday-ar-1940321/?referer=http://www.facebook.com/&shorturl=http://bit.ly/wWivmH

The result is a lot of choice, but also a lot of fragmentation. There is no one Android phone. Some models can be updated to new Android software, some can’t. A certain app might or might not run on your particular version.

That master plan differs quite a bit from the iPhone’s.

Apple designs “the whole widget,” as Steve Jobs used to say: both the software and the phone. The result is clean, reliable and consistent – but you’re limited to the features Apple wants to give you. For example, if you want a 4G phone (one that runs on the new, very fast Internet networks in big cities), you’re out of luck.

And a new iPhone, accompanied by a major software release, comes out only once a year, or less often. In any case, there’s a lot of news in Androidland. The three biggest players are Samsung, Motorola and HTC, and all three are offering beautiful marquee Android phones. All three are Verizon 4G phones.

These phones are whopping big; that’s the trend these days. You can almost fit an entire iPhone in just the screen area of these Android monsters. Big is great for maps, movies, photos and websites — less so for holding up to your ear on a call.

All three phones have front and back cameras, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. Each can serve as a portable Wi-Fi hot spot for your laptop, for an added monthly fee. On the other hand, they come preinstalled with Verizon promotional apps that you can hide, but can’t remove.

The HTC Rezound ($200 with two-year contract) comes with a pair of Dr. Dre Beats in-ear headphones. Those, plus matching software, give music playback extra clarity and bass.

This thickish phone was the first in the United States with a true high-definition screen (1280 by 720 pixels, 4.3 inches) – sharper than even the iPhone’s Retina screen. Even the front-facing camera can film 720p high-def video, which is a rarity. The rest of the specs are the usual on high-end phones these days: 8-megapixel rear camera, 10 gigabytes of built-in storage for your apps and a memory-card slot if you need more room (a 16-gigabyte card comes with the phone).

Then there’s the expansive Motorola Droid Razr Maxx ($300), whose claim to fame is its beefy battery. This may be the first 4G phone that gets you through a full day, or even longer, on a single charge. Yet it’s still as thin as an iPhone. The non-Maxx Droid Razr is nearly identical – but it’s even thinner and its battery doesn’t last nearly as long. The screen isn’t hi-def (960 by 540 pixels), but the storage is ample: 11.5 gigabytes inside, plus a 16-gig memory card.

Motorola continues to think outside the hardware and software boxes: You can buy a 10- or 14-inch laptop to accompany this phone, which becomes the brain and the storage when you connect it. And the Smart Actions app is pure brilliance: It lets you set up battery-saving rules like “dim the screen when the battery gets low” or “turn off GPS if I forget to plug you in at nighttime.” You can also set up convenience rules like “set the ringer to vibrate after 10 p.m.,” or “display my kids’ photo as the wallpaper whenever I’m at home.” It’s pretty wonderful.

But the Samsung Galaxy Nexus ($300) might be the most interesting phone. Not because of the phone itself, though it’s fine: 32 gigabytes of storage (no card slot), fast processor, removable battery, 1280 x 720-pixel hi-def screen, so-so 5-megapixel camera.

(Confusion alert: Google sells a different phone also called the Nexus. Apparently, any phone can be called Nexus if it offers “the pure Google experience”— no tweaks or overlays like the ones that Motorola and HTC have put onto Android. How bizarre, then, that the Nexus doesn’t work with Google Wallet, Google’s own swipe-to-pay app.)

No, the Nexus is significant because it’s the first phone to come with Android 4.0, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich, or ICS (Google names its Android versions after sugary treats.) There’s a lot of excitement in this new software.

ICS phones don’t have a row of physical navigation buttons anymore (like Home, Back and Menu); instead, they’re images on the screen. That eats away at the screen space, of course, but they disappear when you need the room — say, when watching movies or taking photos. And they rotate with the phone now, too, so they are always upright.

The Motorola and HTC phones reviewed here will get upgrades to ICS later this year.

Plenty of ICS features play iPhone catch-up. Now, for example, you can fire up the camera directly from the Lock screen. There’s a Dock at the bottom of the screen for your most-used apps. You can edit photos and videos right on the phone. The email apps show the first few words of the message. A spelling checker underlines questionable words. You can create folders by dragging one app atop another.

The new address-book app collects your friends’ information from Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus (though not Facebook). All of their photos and news blurbs rest in one handy place, just as on Windows Phone and Palm/HP phones.

The Web browser lets you save Web pages for reading later when you’re offline; offers a stealth mode that leaves no History list; and lets you request the full version of a site if a subpar cellphone version is being forced on you.

Android’s speech recognition isn’t as accurate as Siri on iPhone, and it’s still just for dictation – it doesn’t take Siri commands like “What does my schedule look like a week from tomorrow?” But now the words fly onto the screen as you’re saying them; you no longer have to wait until you stop talking for the transcription to appear.

The Camera app is a marvel. It offers zero shutter lag, face recognition and special effects like buggy eyes and background replacement. You can take a still photo while you’re recording video. Best of all, there’s a Panorama mode like the one on Sony cameras. You slowly swing the phone in an arc around you, and the phone creates a seamless superwide photo.

Then there’s Face Unlock, which instantly unlocks the phone when the front camera recognizes you. It’s cool, but it will thwart only the laziest bad guys.

The Beam feature lets you share an app, a video, an address-book card, map directions or a Web address, just by holding your phone back-to-back with another ICS phone and tapping OK. If it catches on, Beam will be a real hero. That’s really only the tip of the ice cream sandwich. When the new software arrives on superphones like the Motorola Razr Maxx, it will be a truly delicious combination.

Article source: http://www.theledger.com/article/20120219/NEWS/120219276/1178?Title=Android-Phones-Coming-On-Strong-

Digitimes, a Taiwanese publication known best in America for its hit-and-miss Apple rumors and gossip from the Asian supply chain, has a report that Google is readying Android 5.0, codenamed “Jelly Bean”, for a release as soon as Q2 2012, or April 2012.

Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) became available in November 2011 and is hardly four months old, but Digitimes says that Google may be rushing Jelly Bean because, first, “the adoption of Android 4.0 has fallen short of original expectations,” and, second, because Google wants to beat Microsoft’s Windows 8 to market in order “to earn another chance to enter the notebook and netbook markets.”

Adoption of Ice Cream Sandwich has indeed been slower than expected. Four months in, only one percent of Android devices are running Android 4.0, and many of the most popular phones from manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, and Samsung are not even eligible for their updates. The Motorola Droid Razr, for example, was first released in November 2011 as a premium Motorola smartphone, yet Motorola does not even have a timetable for when the Droid Razr might receive Ice Cream Sandwich.

By launching another, even more improved version of Android, Google could motivate both developers and users to quickly and fully unite behind a single Android operating system; or it could, in the words of Boy Genius Report’s Zach Epstein, “push fragmentation to new heights.”

Google doesn’t want more fragmentation; with Ice Cream Sandwich, an operating system optimized for both tablets and smartphones, the company was hoping for a unification of Android devices that has yet to occur.

As for beating Windows 8 to market, the Digitimes article mentions that Google wants to more highly optimize Android Jelly Bean for tablet computers, possibly to compete with the more touch-friendly Windows 8 that Microsoft has planned for 2012. From Digitimes:

Android 5.0 will be further optimized for tablet PCs, while Google will also integrate its Chrome system functions to push dual-operating system designs. Brand vendors can either choose to adopt only Android 5.0 or add Android 5.0 to Windows 8 devices with the ability to switch between the two OSes without the need to shut down the computer.

Through Android 5.0, Google also wishes to earn another chance to enter the notebook and netbook markets.

Windows 8 does not have a definite release date attached, though most pundits expect it to become available this fall (A developer’s preview is already available) . Microsoft has shown off Windows 8 and its touchable, swipe-able interface several times; the new operating system has been optimized for tablets and touchscreen devices and takes many cues from Microsoft’s critically hailed but commercially stalled Windows Phone OS.

If Google does announce Android Jelly Bean sooner than expected, Dan Rowinski of ReadWriteWeb points out that it would probably do so at its Google I/O Developer’s Conference, where Ice Cream Sandwich was announced in 2011. Google I/O 2012 is currently scheduled for late June 2012 — whether Andy Rubin and company actually unveil Jelly Bean in San Francisco remains to be seen.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on this article.

Check out the slideshow (below) for an overview of Google’s Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system.

READ WHOLE POST

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Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/android-jelly-bean-release-fall-2012-rumor_n_1285539.html

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Published: 06:22 PM EST (03:22 PM PST)

Fresh data released on Tuesday suggests that the number of new apps entering the Apple App Store outpace those from the competing Google Market three to one, with developers leaning toward iOS partly because of Android’s platform fragmentation.

Citing a study by Flurry analytics, Business Week reports that despite taking a modest lead in worldwide smartphone marketshare, the Android operating system’s app selection is being outnumbered by offerings designed for iOS, and the gap is only widening.

The Flurry study, which tracks app developers using the firm’s tools, discovered that Google’s push to match or outperform Apple’s App Store is slowing down, possibly due to the difficulty developers face in programming for the fragmented Android mobile OS.

We saw a greater migration to iOS, says Flurry Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago.

As of January, iOS held a total of more than 550,000 apps in its arsenal, while Android’s blitz to the top has introduced over 400,000 since the platform’s launch in 2008.

More than 65,000 new projects were started by the over 55,000 developers tracked by the 2011 study, and the growth of new apps for iOS during the year roughly doubled efforts from Android app makers.

The trend away from Android could be industry-wide, as a 2,000-person survey conducted by Appcelerator and IDC showed that in November fewer developers were “very interested” in writing code for handsets running Google’s OS than in June. Interest in iOS remained constant during the same period.

The number of new apps hitting the Android Market slowed down in 2011. | Source: Google

According to the app coders, the fragmentation of Android’s ecosystem is to blame for the lackluster interest. Some note that Apple’s iTunes system allows for a comparatively streamlined process that can quickly move an idea to a finished product, thus allowing companies to generate revenue with less overhead.

For example GameHouse, makers of the games ‘Doodle Jump’ and ‘NCIS the Game,’ claims that it makes three or four times the revenue on an iOS game when compared to its Android counterpart. This is in part due to the Google OS version taking two months more to complete because of the various optimizations needed to accommodate the litany of Android handsets available as well as constantly-changing OS versions.

Apart from platform fragmentation, the Android Market has multiple app stores whereas Apple relies on iTunes, which stores users’ credit card data to make purchasing a simple and fast experience.

Developers can make more money on iOS, Farago says.

Apple’s App Store within iTunes offers a seamless purchasing solution. | Source: iTunes

The mobile app industry sees iOS as the reigning champion of app distribution, however the sheer number of Android devices in the market make a compelling argument for the platform.

If and when Google can consolidate its partner handset makers and create a unified store that is as simple and monetarily integrated as iTunes, Android may well be the new industry leader.

Article source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/14/android_losing_ground_to_apple_in_app_development.html

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MediaTek’s MT6575

MediaTek unveiled the MT6575 system-on-a-chip (SOC) platform, which runs on a single-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 design from ARM Holdings, and supports an HSPA modem and version 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich, of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform. The third-generation platform, which also sports a graphics engine and a four-in-one combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and FM radio, is not aimed at premium smartphones, which are trending toward quad-core processors. Instead, MediaTek aims to expand its presence in the sub-$200 smartphone market, targeting emerging markets primarily. 

In 2011, MediaTek recorded $2.95 billion in annual revenue and shipped 550 chipset million units for mobile phones, making the company the world’s biggest mobile phone silicon vendor by volume. But only 10 million of the company’s shipments were for smartphones–which is where the growth is in the phone industry. MediaTek’s second-generation platform, the MT6573, started chipping via a Lenovo smartphone with China Unicom late last year.

In an interview with FierceWireless, Finbarr Moynihan, director of MediaTek’s North America and Western Europe business development unit, said the company could ship up to 50 million smartphone units in 2012, based on the momentum it saw at the end of 2011. “We’re trying to deliver a platform that allows customers that deliver products for the mid and entry part of the market,” Moynihan explained, noting that the MT6575 will give customers an experience a step between Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 in terms of performance.

The platform’s support for dual-SIM also means it is likely to be targeted at China and India, where dual-SIM phones are most popular. However, Moynihan said MediaTek is also focused on Latin America, which he said is an “aspirational” market in terms of customers’ desire to adopt smartphones.

For right now though, Moynihan said the company is not focused on pushing the platform into the U.S. market and he acknowledged that there are “certainly some challenges for MediaTek there.” However, he said the company is working with U.S. carriers to get validation for its modems, and that a number of MediaTek’s OEM partners are pushing to get their smartphones in the low end of the U.S. market, adding that the MT6575 is “quite attractive” on price and performance.

And when will MediaTek shift to a focus on LTE? Moynihan noted that in July 2010 the company licensed LTE modem intellectual property from NTT DoCoMo and that Media is “in the process of internalizing that,” but the firm is not ready to announce any timeline for launching LTE products. However, he said the company’s goal is to develop an integrated platform that will support LTE and HSPA+ as well.

For more:
- see this release
- see this IDG News Service article
- see this PC Magazine article

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Google to optimize Android for Intel chips

Article source: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/mediatek-takes-aim-low-end-android-market-new-chip/2012-02-13

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By Amir Efrati

Followers of Google in recent years have wondered why the company was developing two separate computer operating systems—Android and Chrome—and whether the technologies behind them would converge.

Google Inc.
Owners of devices powered by Google’s Android software can now use Chrome to surf the Web.

On Tuesday they did. Google announced that people who own devices powered by the latest version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, can now use Chrome to surf the Web. Previously, people who owned such Android devices had to use the Android Web browser to do so.

Android, which powers mobile devices such as smartphones and some tablets, was launched in 2008 and now rivals Apple’s iPhone. Chrome was launched the same year as a Web browser for PCs that competes with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Chrome also has quickly gained market share, thanks in part to its reputation for fast page loads.

Last year Google unveiled ChromeOS, an operating system derived from its browser technology and designed to run only Web-based software. The company is offering “chromebooks,” or laptops powered by ChromeOS, to businesses and students.

“Like the desktop version” of Chrome, the version for Android devices “is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices,” wrote Sundar Pichai, who leads Google’s Chrome team, in a post on the company’s blog on Tuesday.

Google had given hints about such moves. Chairman Eric Schmidt said last year that “we’re working over time to get those technologies merged in the right way.”

Chrome is now available through the Android Market for mobile apps but only on newer devices such as the Galaxy Nexus or Xoom tablet. The vast majority of Android devices won’t have access to Chrome.

Lily Lin, a spokeswoman for Google, said the company was “evaluating bringing Chrome to all platforms,” including Apple and Microsoft mobile devices.

Article source: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/07/googles-android-and-chrome-together-at-last/