Modern mobile devices

In the XXI century it’s impossible to imagine a person without a mobile phone. We have become accustomed to these devices so much that sometimes we feel awkward if left the phone at home. A mobile device is not simply a plastic case with buttons which can make calls, send SMS, take pictures, reproduce video and audio and work as a calculator. Modern mobile devices have all possible functions which we couldn’t even imagine before.

The technical development of mobile devices has led to the improved video chips, developing mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile), new updated mobile applications and so on. With the development of mobile technologies more and more software development companies are trying to develop modern, useful applications for mobile devices.

There are many different applications for entertainment, learning, or just for using in life. Before when mobile phones were not able to use and reproduce advanced graphics, applications were not very accurate. Now, users of mobile devices became more selective in this way because modern technologies let mobile app developers create applications at any taste.

Google starts fighting against piracy on the Android platform

Google has developed a new way of fighting against piracy in the mobile application market. Now Android apps developers will be able to suppress illegal copying of their products.

The developers who want to protect their software from illegal copying will be able to install a special module into their applications which will occasionally connect to Google servers for checking the license of each separate copy of the product (in accordance with the statistics of downloading at the Android Market store).

If the application was bought illegally, the Google module will perform the action preplanned by the authors, for example, the application can be moved to a trial mode, blocked or even deleted from the device.

The application with the built-in system of verification from Google can be installed only at official Google phones. Thus, those  who use Android modified versions won’t be able to try protected mobile applications in mobile application development.

.

Android is leading at the free apps segment, Windows Mobile is dragging behind

According to analytics, more than half of Android applications at online apps stores are free, however, paid ones cost more than those for iPhone.

There are about 70,000 applications at the online store Android Market, about 57% of them are free. According to the analytical company Distimo, neither similar store can boast of the same share of free applications. That’s definitely good news for those who own an Android-based device or are going to buy new one.

In analytics’ opinion, it’s due to the technical limitations of the Android Market. Thus, only Android apps developers from 9 countries can add paid products and only the users from 13 countries can buy them whereas the sore operates in 46 countries. The additional restriction is the necessity to register at the Google Checkout service – only after this one can effect a purchase. At the biggest online apps store – Apple App Store – your account must be also linked to the iTunes Store that’s why in terms of convenience they are similar.

Intel optimizes ОS Google Android under the х86 architecture

The Intel Corporation is working on the optimization of the operation system Google Android for using it at the devices with х86 compatible processors.
The Android platform was originally developed for smartphones and ARM chips are usually used in such devices. However, the operation system is compatible with other architectures, in particular, with MIPS and x86. By the way, last year Acer presented a netbook with the processor Atom and Android OS.
It should be noted that the modification of Android optimized especially for x86 compatible chips will be based on Version 2.2 (Froyo) of the platform. This innovation will enable Android application development not only for smartphones, but also for netbooks and smart books. This version of the operation system is planned to be released by the end of the summer; third-party developers will be able to get acquainted with the source code of the product if they want.
The Intel version of Android is expected to be used in netbooks, tablet computers and other gadgets with the х86 processors. First of all, it refers to the Atom chips with little energy consumption.
Let’s remind that moving Android to the х86 platform is also done by the participants of the Android-x86 project.

Motorola will present a new Droid on June 23

Motorola will present its new smartphone Droid of the next generation on June 23, wrote Engadget.

The smartphone based on the Android OS will be announced a day before the official launch of iPhone 4 sales. At the same time it isn’t reported which smartphone will be advertised. At present it is known that Motorola is developing two new models – Droid 2 and Droid X.

The directors of Motorola and the mobile operator Verizon Wireless as well as one of Vice Presidents of Google Andy Rubin and the Head of Adobe Shantanu Narayen will take part in the press-conference.

Engadget also published a brief review of the smartphone Droid X. The smartphone will be equipped with a 4.4-inch screen and a resolution of 854×480 pixels. Droid X also has a 8- megapixel camera with the option of video recording with high definition in the 720p format. The given set of functions opens new possibilities for Android mobile app developers as the smartphone will work on the Android 2.1 OS.

The date of this smartphone coming into the market is not announced. At the same time the first model Droid Motorola was announced at the end of October 2009. On the territory of the USA this model came into the market in November.

Android beats iPhone in China

According to the AdMob Company, working in the sphere of mobile advertisement, there are 10.7 mln iPhones and 8.7 mln devices based on Android in the USA. If other gadgets using iPhone OS are taken into account, the number of devices will increase up to 18.3 mln.

In some countries especially in Western Europe the Apple platform is still far ahead (and iPhone apps development is still in its prime), sometimes at the ration 10:1. China is the only country with the opposite situation.

Most devices working on iPhone OS are in North America (49%) and Western Europe (28%). Among countries the leaders are the USA (44%), Great Britain (9%), France (6%), Canada (5%) and Japan (4%).

What concerns ‘googlephones’, in April 75% of them were concentrated in North America, followed by Asia (12%) and Western Europe (11%).

It should be noted that AdMob counts only the devices connected to its advertising network. Apple states that it has sold 85 mln iPhone communicators and iPod touch players for the last three years and Google claims it activates one hundred thousand Android-based gadgets daily (and it provokes increase in the number of Android apps developers), but that’s quite difficult to find out how many phones are actually in use.

A month ago AdMob reported that for the first time the Android traffic of its network exceeded the traffic of iPhone devices in the USA.

Android 2.2: five times faster than 2.1!

Guys from androidpolice.com have been using Nexus One with installed Android 2.2 for about a week. And every day they were more and more admired. And, of course, they wanted to compare the performance characteristics of two android versions (2.2 and 2.1). So, they did it with the Linkpac benchmark, testing speed of the Dalvik virtual machine (which in fact can be considered as the heart of Android OS).

First there was recorded test result for the “old man”, 2.1. It was about 7 Mflops. But when it came to the testing of 2.2 researchers probably didn’t believe their eyes. It was 37.6 Mflops! We sure that those results surprised many Android application developers.

As it turned out, this increased productivity was possible thanks to the Just-In-Time Compilation. But … who cares? It works! And it works FAST!

Android has defeated Apple in the fight for the U.S. market

According to NPD Group iPhone OS was bypassed by Android OS in the United States in the first quarter of 2010. So, Google has 28% of the market, it puts them on the second place behind Research in Motion (36%), Apple is on third place with 21%.

According to the same research agency, this success of Android is connected with its close cooperation with mobile operators. For example, Verizon offers phones based on Android, as well as Blackberry offers its program “buy one get one free.” But in any case the only operator offering Apple phones, AT&T, is still the leader, owning 32% of the market. It followed by Verizon, actively gaining momentum and managing 30% of the U.S. market.

It is quite possible that Apple will regain its position after the release of the next-generation iPhone, which is expected this summer. But remember the fundamental difference between Android and iPhone, the latter don’t share its OS with third companies, establishing its rules for iPhone apps developers and alone collecting the cream from sales. By contrast Google is on a completely different way, giving its OS to everyone and allowing others make flourishing business from Android apps developments. Besides the exclusive contract between Apple and AT&T was signed for 5 years, which means that all this time Google will make a profit not only on the devices manufacturers, but also on active ads of mobile operators.

The other side of the coin is that Apple has never aspired to be the first. We don’t think that Steve Jobs cannot sleep because his company is somewhere on the third place.

Creating mobile applications with jQuery

We have already written about web development for iPhone using html and js only. And today we want to tell you about jQTouch, a plug-in for well known Javascript-framework jQuery. It allows to create web applications for touch phones very easy – for all the phones with a touch screen and with finger-oriented interface. Such as iPhone, for example, and as based on Android HTC Hero, Dream, Magic, and a lot of different WM-communicators with different shells.

Let’s enumerate some features of jQTouch:

•    It is very easy to control behavior of all the components.
•    It is possible to create themes.
•    There is some interaction with a phone (for example, you can determine its orientation).
•    It supports animation and various interface features of iPhone.
•    This is jQuery, and this says it all!

The plug-in is very nice, but still we do not have a full application at the output. Why? As we do not have access to such things as the accelerometer, vibration, sound and so on.

And, by the way, using such frameworks as PhoneGap you can transfer your mobile apps written with html and js to any other platform. For example, PhoneGap, supports iPhone, Android, Blackberry (OS 4.5), Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and Maemo. But remember that developing iPhone applications you need MacBook, license and all that other stuff.

Mobile OS Racing: BlackBerry, Android and iPhone. Who Wins and Who Loses?

comScore, a well known web statistics provider, released the results of its regular research. It conducted a study of the American mobile market, analyzing platforms of the most popular phones and smartphones.
So, BlackBerry smartphones kept their leadership in the USA. The comScore study covered the period from November, 2009 to February, 2010. And at this time BlackBerry occupied 43% of the market. This is 1.7% more than in August-October, 2009.

Nevertheless, positions of BlackBerry were threatened by the Android platform. This OS from Google, that took the fancy of mobile apps developers all over the world, demonstrated the highest growth rates. Android needed just a quarter to increase its presence in the United States from 2.8% to 7.1%. At the same time, the market share of mobile operating system from Microsoft declined from 19.7% to 15.7% during the analyzed period. On the other hand, there were no changes in the rates of iPhone: Apple smartphones stably occupied 25.1% of the U.S. market.

So, mobile application development for Android and iPhone platforms can be estimated as good investment in your future development.