Mobsoup, which is either a bizarre name for a mobster or an appetizer that tastes like cement shoes, has just released their “HUMANalytics” (mobile analytics) platform to developers. While it isn’t the first mobile analytics engine on the web (and probably won’t be the last), it offers at least one option that the others do not: the ability to download raw statistics so developers and software houses can perform their own analysis. Trends for the mobile market space show nothing but Everest-like upward sweeps for the next 5 years and the general consensus is that any venture involved in the mobile experience has room for even more competition.
Verizon Wireless on Friday started to roll out Android 2.2, also known as “Froyo,” to HTC Droid Incredible phones.
The 93.7 MB update adds a ton of new features: it improves browser speed, adds Flash Player 10.1 to the browser, enables 720p high-definition video recording, turns on faster 802.11n Wi-Fi, and lets you use your phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot (for $20 extra per month), among other features.
The update makes the Incredible the fourth U.S. phone to get upgraded after the Google Nexus One, HTC EVO 4G for Sprint, and the Motorola Droid for Verizon Wireless. Verizon’s Motorola Droid X and Samsung’s Galaxy S phones, among others, are still waiting for Android 2.2 upgrades.
To download the update, go to Settings, About Phone, System Updates. The update may not appear to all users on Friday, because Verizon has a policy of pushing out updates to different groups of phones over several days’ time.
Mozilla today released an alpha version of its mobile browser for smartphones running Google’s Android operating system.
Fennec 2.0, which is built on the same Gecko engine that powers the better-known Firefox 4, adds integrated synchronization and boosts performance by separating user interface and rendering processes, said Stuart Parmenter, Mozilla’s mobile team technical lead.
Read more…
Back in June, several sites covered the Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup Libox that aimed to let you play your media on any device, and easily share media with friends. Now Libox has released a free iPhone app, and after playing around with it for a few hours, it’s clear that the company has created something that practically every iPhone owner would find invaluable.
The company already has a very capable mobile web version of its service available (accessible by heading to Libox.com on your smartphone), but its new iPhone app offers an even more refined user experience. Menus are more responsive, media loads faster, and the app also allows you to add media directly from your iPhone to your Libox library (making it accessible on any computer that can access the web, and other mobile devices).
Read more…
Actually that’s not true. But it doesn’t stop Joe Hewitt, the outspoken developer responsible for Facebook’s iPhone app, from being hard to please and shredding Android on Twitter, lately.
Last night he tweeted, “Android tools are horrendous, OS is hideous, but the absence of big brother telling me what to do gives it a slight edge.” Hewitt stopped working on the iPhone application because he is, “philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process.”
While he likes the openness of Android, he hates just about everything else about it.
Here’s some of his tweets:
Read more…
Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle are effectively two sides of the same coin. They are highly portable in their own right, and they are well-connected, meaning the information they need to make them useful is highly portable as well. Of course e-readers and tablets are different devices – they are aimed at different markets, have differing capabilities and perform different, but related, functions.
It should be no surprise that the sales of both are similar. Apple has sold about 3.5 million iPads. Amazon has sold about 3 million Kindles if analyst reports are correct. And, of course, there are other e-readers including many based on the Google Android mobile platform, also selling well. The iPad costs quite a bit more than the Kindle, but it does more, so again, no surprise. But in reality the story of tablet computing goes beyond the iPad or the e-readers.
Read more…
