According to the Mika team, it’s the broad span of Android variants and different hardware types that cause the biggest headaches. Each iteration requires a different test handset – something that adds up to thousands of dollars, they claim – and time-consuming tweaks to make sure graphics chips are supported among other things.

“We spent about 20% of our total man-hours last year dealing with Android in one way or another – porting, platform specific bug fixes, customer service, etc. I would have preferred spending that time on more content for you, but instead I was thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn’t go through. We spent thousands on various test hardware. These are the unsung necessities of offering our apps on Android. Meanwhile, Android sales amounted to around 5% of our revenue for the year, and continues to shrink. Needless to say, this ratio is unsustainable” Mika Mobile

Google’s recent changes to Android app file size also come in for some criticism, with the shift from 50MB to 4GB being billed as somewhat misleading. Apps themselves must still come in at under 50MB for the initial .apk file downloaded, but Google now offers developers up to 4GB of space integrated with the Market for subsequent app-related download content.

Unfortunately, as Mika Mobile points out, that would require some significant rewriting of the games to actually take advantage of, an investment that revenue from Android apps doesn’t really warrant. ”From a purely economic perspective, I can no longer legitimize spending time on Android apps, and the new features of the market do nothing to change this” the developer concludes.

Nonetheless, it’s the software flipside of the hardware fragmentation issue that Google has been battling for several years now. Back at his Mobile World Congress keynote, Google chairman Eric Schmidt argued that the search company was content with manufacturers taking Android in different directions, pointing out that, unlike Apple, Google didn’t sue over modifications.

[via ZDNet]

Reuters was first to blow the whistle, based on developer feedback including one supposedly threatening email sent to the coders behind social gaming app Papaya. “They told people that if they used other payment services they would be breaking the terms of use,” Si Shen, founder and chief executive of Papaya, said. “Whether it’s right or wrong, we have to follow the rules.”

Google’s warning, so it was claimed, was that Papaya needed to ditch PayPal and Zong and instead adopt Play In-app Billing, giving the developers thirty days to make the changes.

However, a Google spokesperson told both TechCrunch and The Verge that in fact its policies on in-app payments were unchanged from the original rules of March 2011. Those mandate that in-app purchasing be done through Google’s own system, with the spokesperson saying that it was likely just serendipitous timing that saw Papaya get a warning. “If [a developer] had been in breach of that, and we had only just noticed, that’s when we would send out a letter.”

If purchases within apps are for non-app-related goods or content – such as a hotel booking, or some sort of online shopping order – then developers are free to use their payment provider of choice, the spokesperson explained. However, if they are offering new app content, then they must use Play In-app Billing, complete with its 30-percent tithe to Google.

We’ve got Google Play Books, Google Play Movies, Google Play Music, and more. This store is set to work on both the mobile platform and in-browser for all devices able to run a web browser. This new market will be sent out to Android devices running Android 2.2 FroYo over the next few days and will be replacing the Android Market name in the Google sandbar soon as well. The biggest difference for most people here seems to be the logo and the name, with the actual store and stores looking and feeling essentially the same.

You’ll be syncing like a madman with your music, your videos, and books, your ability to stop working with one of these bits of media in one place and start again on a different device now yours to wield. Your Apps will of course work the same way they have before, with you able to purchase them online and sent them automatically to the devices of your choice.

With Google Play you can:
• Store up to 20,000 songs for free and buy millions of new tracks
• Download more than 450,000 Android apps and games
• Browse the world’s largest selection of eBooks
• Rent thousands of your favorite movies, including new releases and HD titles

Beyond the cloud capabilities of this re-imagined portal then, The only thing that’s really changed therefor, truly, is the branding scheme. The lovely new Google Play logo with the multicolored arrow akin to a Play symbol is up, the store is rolling out now, and Google is once again getting stronger with a simplification of terms. Tighten it up, Google!

This release date appears to be set in stone more or less, with the co-founder of Imangi Studios letting loose the information complete with excited comments abound. This announcement is sure to thrill not only Android fans, but those iPad and iPhone fans that have been waiting to prove themselves against the whole mobile world, not just their Apple compatriots. As Keith Shepherd notes:

“We are excited to finally share the Android release date with our fans who have been so enthusiastic and supportive of Temple Run. By expanding to more mobile devices, we hope to provide the same addictive and fast-paced gameplay to an entirely new group of players.” – Shepherd

The original iOS version of this app has currently broken the 40 million downloads mark, this after its debut in August of 2011. This game is so popular we saw people playing it in Barcelona while we were there for Mobile World Congress – and Apple wasn’t even at the event. It’s time to expand!

The way many large-capacity apps work now is that the Android Market download is really just a shell. After users complete the download, they have to go into the app to get the full file. By the time that happens, the window to request a refund for the app has already passed. Ah, how we miss Google’s old 24-hour refund policy. So, with this reality in its face, the Android team has increased the file size limit for developers.

The size of mobile apps has increased rapidly, perhaps even more so than many analysts expected. With 4G LTE now becoming the norm, especially for Android smartphones, high-capacity content is increasingly commonplace. That being said, it doesn’t seem likely that the limit will increase beyond 4 GB any time soon. That’s probably going to stick for quite a while.

[via AndroidCommunity]

If you want to be able to take advantage of the increased resolution, you’ll need an Android phone running 2.2 and up, and your hardware will need to support the stream – that limits the number of phones that can get in on the action, though.

It’s not entirely clear whether you need a 720p display to get this update, or just hardware capable of decoding the stream. We can only suggest heading over to the Market and seeing if there’s an update waiting for you. If the former is true, then that severely limits the number of devices that can take advantage of the new feature. Hopefully you have an HTC Rezound or Samsung Galaxy Nexus to hand.

If the latter is true, you can expect mid to high end devices to see the update, but budget devices that don’t have the horsepower will be left out in the cold. There isn’t a list available stating which devices are supported either, so we can only suggest that you head over to the Market and see if there’s an update waiting for you.

[via Android Central]

We hope to announce a release date soon, but want to be 100% sure first. We promise that as soon as we know, we’ll post here and give you at least a week’s notice before it comes out.

The developers also took the opportunity to warn fans of fake and possibly malicious apps claiming to be Temple Run. Since even basic users can download Android apps outside of the official Market (albeit by disabling a security check) there’s a real danger of downloading malware masquerading as the extremely popular game. According to Imangi, the only way to get the game will be their official Android Market listing, and they’ll post about it at least a week in advance.

So, iPhone users, feel free to gloat over your Android friends for the time being – of course, gadget hounds will have a lot more than games to talk about starting tomorrow. In about twelve hours the pre-show conferences will begin for Mobile World Congress, and by all accounts, it’ll be Android’s time to shine. Nvidia in particular seems to have at least one smartphone from every major manufacturer running on its Tegra 3  platform. Android fans, make sure to keep an eye on out Mobile World Congress portal; it’ll help make the wait go faster, we promise.

[via Android Community]

The process you must go through to get an application uploaded to any official app market today does not include an extensive copyright infringement search, so it is left up to the companies who hold the rights to said games to find them and file a complaint. Much in the same way we spoke recently about how YouTube would not be able to function if it had to check each video for its legitimacy before it allowed it to go public, essentially the same seems to be true here with app stores. What they’re relying on instead is the public to act as police while they remain the judge.

If you find any sort of PokeMon app or essentially any Nintendo-related game on any app market and you suspect that it may have been uploaded illegally, first check to see what the name of the developer is. If it’s not the same as the group that developed the game before it was brought over to the mobile world, you’ve got yourself a scammer – and you should report them to the app store you’re in as soon as you can.

If you see something, say something folks. This is not the same as developers getting their name out there with demos, it’s nothing like testing games when their creators want them to be sent out for free for that purpose. It’s scammers profiting from the hard work of others, plain and simple.

Also meanwhile we’ll just have to continue to wait for Nintendo to break down and start in on the mobile world with apps – the world needs its PokeMon on iPhone, and it needs it now!

[via Ars Technica]

This game Temple Run has been a smash hit for some weeks now, especially so since the developers changed it from a pay to download game to an entirely free release. This game has been downloaded for the iPhone an undeniably awesome 36 million times and it does not look to be losing steam any time soon. For Android we do have word from the developer that the game is coming soon, possibly by the end of the month, but nothing entirely solid.

The developers at Imangi have been hard at work for some weeks but have not produced the game for Android as of yet, and will be pushing the game hopefully to every OS including Ice Cream Sandwich inside the first quarter of 2012. Will you jump on board when the time comes? How about if the game isn’t free at release time?

It is California that leads the states with app-related jobs, it holding a whopping 25% of all App Economy jobs in the United States. New York is the top metropolitan area for app-related jobs, but the combined efforts of San Jose and San Francisco California trump New York in numbers. The study held no reservations about how burgeoning the market is in this sector, calling it nothing short of a phenomenon:

“The incredibly rapid rise of smartphones, tablets, and social media, and the applications — apps — that run on them, is perhaps the biggest economic and technological phenomenon today. Almost a million apps have been created for the iPhone, iPad and Android alone. On an economic level, each app represents jobs — for programmers, for user interface designers, for marketers, for managers, for support staff.” – TechNet

Rey Ramsey, president and chief executive of TechNet, decidedly pinned the success on how quickly these developers and the manufacturers behind the hardware they develop for can innovate. Hundreds of thousands of workers here in the United States work in the App Economy, and TechNet pins the start of this economy on the year Apple introduced the iPhone. The iTunes-based App Store now has over 500,000 applications for the iPhone and the iPad combined, and no small amount of workers in the App Economy work for iDevices completely exclusively.

Then there’s Facebook which the study noted contains at least 182,000 app related jobs. Another study done by University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is noted as racking up as many as 235,644 jobs counted working in or around Facebook for the App Economy – these are “more aggressive estimates” of course. Let’s keep this crazy ship sailing forward! Jobs for everyone!

[via AFP]

What we’ve got running here is an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4S to show you the differences between interfaces here in tablet and smartphone. They aren’t many, but they are there, and you can see instantly that this app really works better on the bigger display. That said, it works just as fast to use it on your phone whatever that phone may be. You get access to all of the pages you’d normally get in your newspaper, including advertisements and the funnies, all in this new digital format.

If you’re really feeling like you want to dip into the future, you could refrain from cutting your newspaper up each time you see an article your relation has been named in and simply take a screenshot here instead – save the earth! Trees will be thanking you, thanking you around the earth. The application here itself is free on iOS for iPad and iPhone as well as free on Android for smartphones and tablets – and will work fine in the future for Ice Cream Sandwich without and differentiation between the two.

Once you’re in, you’ll get seven issues of a few popular newspapers for free, and subscriptions will cost you $9.99 a month. You can also pick up individual titles for $0.99 a copy – a deal you cannot possibly pass up – right? Think about that one.

It’s just as basic as that, when it comes down to it: if you’ve picked up a tablet for the first time, or a smartphone for the first time, and you want to grab some apps, you just head to the market and start downloading like a maniac. The step that exists between here and there that, unfortunately, is the only real level of security that exists for Android today is this: reviews by people like your humble narrator. And I don’t do that many reviews of applications. Consumers must trust in well-known publications to tell them if applications are safe to use or not if they’re on Android, giving them the links they need to find apps that don’t cause havoc on their devices – but they don’t, and therein lies the problem with Google’s system.

Google has provided an awesome system in which developers do not need their permission to publish an application, allowing the open market to thrive and grow rampantly. The bad thing about this is that the warning that are embedded in every download, the gates that Google has actually put up to defend against malicious software, are not working. When a consumer downloads an app, there’s a warning that comes up when they’re about to install which tells them what the app is capable of. Have you seen it? Likely if you’re an average citizen, you’ve pushed right past it and installed with fury.

There’s a South Park episode about this situation, in a way, though it uses Apple and their iTunes user agreement as an example instead. The lesson they teach the character Stan in that episode is that you should always, always read the user agreement before agreeing to it. What the agreement amounts to though, instead of it being there for the consumer to know their rights, is a safeguard for the company that placed it – in this case, Google is not to blame as the text they’ve freely given consumers which says things like “Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your Browser’s data” has rid them of all legal blame.

NOTE also that this newest attack titled Android.Counterclank has been classified as several things: the first as a malware attack, but the most recent, listed by Lookout Mobile Security, as “an aggressive form of an ad network.” Attaching to your device after it explicitly warned you that it was going to do so – fair deal!

[via Lookout]

That list only refers to apps that were available for the iPhone and iPad. The former search leader also took down a handful of apps for Android. It’s a quick glance at Yahoo’s previous “kitchen sink” strategy when it came to mobile apps, and it clearly did not work. In the rare chance you happened to download any of these apps already, it’s unclear if they will continue to work. The complete list of discontinued apps, which totals 10, is as follows:

• Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Mim (iPad)
• Yahoo! Answers (Android)
• Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)
• Yahoo! Movies (Android)
• Yahoo! News (Android)
• Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)

This trimming process comes as Yahoo is trying to rebrand its mobile image. Before the smartphone age really took off, Yahoo had really started to cement mobile as its new forte. But just like everything else in Yahoo’s history, it failed to keep up with the changing environment and now it barely has a voice in the Android and iPhone world. The company says to expect new mobile products in 2012, “especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!’s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr.”

[via Yahoo Search Blog]

Symantec urges users to take a look at the list they’ve got of applications which hold the infected files on them. If you see an application that you’ve downloaded recently on the list, uninstall it and/or reboot your device entirely back to stock. The trojan in this attack is but a minor modification of what’s been know up until now as Android.Tonclank, an application which can receive commands without your knowledge and carry out commands as well as steal sensitive information from your device. Smartphone users are urged to take action on this bit of malware immediately.

If you believe you have an infected application that is not on the list, you can check by seeing if there appears to be two instances of said app running at once when you open it. Another way is to notice a Search icon above your home screen when there should be no such icon. Have a peek at the list of infected applications here and report to Symantec if you believe you’ve detected any additional apps with this same trojan aboard.

[via Symantec]

For there is a large population of modification-loving Android citizens out there today, Koush right there in the midst of them, working to bring the most complicated situations down to a couple of taps and the doors open to the public. What you’ll be able to do with this new app store, you hackers you, is download software the same way you’ve been able to thus far from the official app market, but the content will be closer to that which you’ve been downloading from the forums. In this way, the whole situation will be made that much easier for all on-the-go developers.

This app store will appear, if it works out, in future builds of CyanogenMod, and will be pulling tiny bits of profit out of apps that are sold on the new market. All the funds will then go to the CyanongenMod project. Koush has spoken specifically about “one click root apps, emulators, tether apps, Visual Voicemail apps, and more” and we expect the project to move to a real live product somewhere inside 2012, but not anytime soon!

[via Koush]

As this trend continues, it’ll be quickly apparent to app developers that giving away a free application with a choice to upgrade inside that app will be the only way they’ll be able to cash in. The only way, that is, unless they can turn things around with a new way of selling, the same way these current kings of in-app purchases did over the last year. This in-app purchase model is called “freemium,” just so you know.

This freemium model is the fastest growing segment of the global mobile apps business at the moment and will, again, very soon dominate the market. At the end of 2011, again according to research done by IHS, 45 percent of the top-grossing US iPhone apps and 31 percent of the highest-earning US-base Android Market apps were free-to-download. A whopping 68 percent of the top-grossing US-based applications then features some form or another of in-app purchase.

So get in on the party, app creators, of forever hold your insta-pay-once apps in the market with no profit! At least that’s what IHS says.

[via iHS]

This application has several sections: one called My Games, this being the place where your applications are stored, it working as a sort of alternate apps drawer for you for all the GameCommand games you love so well. Next there’s Featured, this section having the Snapdragon logo because here is where you find all the most fantastic games you’ll want to download through the app. What the application does is tell you all the info you need to see if you want the app, then there’s a link that leads you into the Android Market. You then download your app in the same way you would normally from the market as you always do.

The third section in GameCommand is News, this being a feed of several news sources speaking on various bits of news that’ll inform you on the mobile world, hopefully in the Qualcomm environment. You’ve got settings in the upper left, this allowing you to arrange things just a bit different, then the “i” button in the upper right lets you know how to use the app if you can’t figure it out. This is Qualcomm’s current attempt at reinforcing their chips in a way that shows developers that they’re worth working with. This weekend we’re going to have a couple of features on Qualcomm noting how their approach is superior to the competition, built from the ground up.

You can grab the Snapdragon GameCommand from the Android Market today, and it’s completely free for all.

You’ll be knocking the heck out of your Brisk-laden enemies as you seek to guzzle your own in the Star Wars universe with, of course, your very own lightsaber. It’s not the app though that’s the most important and noteworthy bit of this equation, believe it or not, it’s the first commercial. In this ad spot you’ll find Darth Maul, the tattooed horn-headed dark Jedi who barely has a word spoken in the first Star Wars episode doing nothing more than bumbling around repeatedly, popping various oddities out of the sides of his weapon until he eventually drinks a Brisk – through his back.

Also tune in to 0:16 for an Afro-ninja treat. Then of course there’s Brisksaber, a video game you play with your finger, lightsabering your way to victory. You can see the advertisement for that here, plus the app on the iTunes App Store OR the Android Market right this moment as well – the idea then is that you purchase Brisk to get additional levels when you beat the basic version of the game. Brisk, Jedi!

Where before this point each game and application would have either had to adopt the theme that was included on the smartphone it ran on with Android, now they’ll only have to work with one: Holo. The name Holo is one that identifies the look you see when you view, for example, the review we’ve got for Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) has a cyan color scheme to it, simple sans-serif font stylings, and a modern aesthetic all around. Where manufacturers like Samsung and HTC before had what they called TouchWiz and Sense running on the devices they released, this will remain true – but for applications, no adoption is necessary.

An email application is the simplest place to explain this: where before any email application would have to design on top of Samsung or HTC’s custom user interface to get the look they wanted, this is no longer true. The text boxes, buttons, and keyboard, just to name a few, will by default be the Ice Cream Sandwich standard. Developers have only now to develop for one theme: Holo.

This is the start of a whole new age for Android, developers now essentially able to make apps as simply as they would for the iPhone. Hopefully the torrential downpour of apps and games can begin.

Android’s tally is impacted because ABI Research doesn’t take into account titles intended for smartphones. The research firm also takes the time to dole out a little criticism to tablet manufacturers. “Many Android tablets in the market are still using older versions of Android,” research associate Lim Shiyang highlights, ”which disadvantages users from enjoying the better effects of apps produced from more advanced software development kits.”

That may well change when Ice Cream Sandwich hits tablets in general, it’s suggested, with yearly downloads for Android smartphones reaching 58bn by 2016, more than double predictions for iPhone.

iPad owners, meanwhile, seem to have proved more voracious downloaders than their iPhone brethren, at least in terms of speed. It took around 18 months to pass the 3bn download point, whereas iPhone took around two years.

While it took Google longer to reach 200,000 active apps than Apple – 31 months versus 22 – the Android Market’s growth accelerated after that. It took the search giant just four more months to hit 300,000, and a further four to reach 400,000, whereas Apple took eight and seven months for each milestone respectively.

Back in October, Google was said to have had 500,000 app submissions, though only 315,000 actually sat in the Android Market itself. The total number is continuously being pared back as rogue apps, malware and copyright-infringing titles are removed.

Google has made efforts to change the apparent reluctance of users to buy paid apps in recent months, most notably with the Android Market 10 Billion Promo that ran in December. There, numerous titles were offered at just $0.10, in the hope of encouraging Android device owners to register a credit card and get into the habit of shelling out for software. As it stands, setup of an Android device does not require any payment details by default, whereas an iTunes account – needed for an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch – does.

Between 1,000 and 5,000 people have already downloaded this application, it just added this week in an effort to educate the masses on what Android has been capable of doing for over a year now. This app was not produced by Google (as far as we can tell,) but it’s certainly a good tool to inform those without knowledge of this basic function that it is, indeed, there for the picking. For those of you still trying to find that perfect Siri alternative on your Android complete with any form of speaking you wish. Meanwhile you’ll be using such gems as these to make everything happen:

Send email
Say “send email to [recipient] [subject]* [body]*”
e.g. “send email to Mike LeBeau How’s life in New York treating you? The weather’s beautiful here!”
_____

View a map
Say “map of [address/city]”
e.g. “map of San Francisco”
_____

Go to websites
Say “go to [website]
e.g. “go to Wikipedia”

Those of you wishing to get a whole lot closer to Siri on Android should check out some of the following alternatives: Iris which is of course Siri in reverse, Vlingo Virtual Assistant which is just about as close as you’re going to get to Siri at the moment, Skyvi (Siri for Android) whose title makes no qualms about which audience it’s going for, Speaktoit Assistant complete with strange cartoon companions, and Andy – Siri for Android which has a giant amount of good reviews for its ease in use and developing awesomeness. Let us know what you use, Android lovers, and if you’ve got a Siri alternative out there, tell it!

The sale will begin on Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 10:00am PST and continue until the following Thursday, January 5, 2012 10:00am PST. Some of the popular titles to go on sale include Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Modern Combat 2: Black Pegasus, N.O.V.A. 2 HD, Order & Chaos Online, and The Adventures of TinTin.

All titles will be priced at $0.99 throughout the sale period with the only exception being Modern Combat 3. This latest release will go on sale for just one day.

[via DroidGamers]

First, get Google Music working with your tablet. Google has a situation going on right now where you can upload 300,000 of your favorite tracks to their cloud connected to your Google account. When you do, they’re streamable to any Android device or computer-based web browser through your device’s web connection. This can even work over a wi-fi connection which is likely what you’ve got going on with a low-end Android tablet. It’s simple and it works. Get started here with the app, then head to music.gooogle.com to upload : [Google Music on Android Market] FREE

Next, download Google Currents. It’s an online news reader that works to take all of the blogs and online publications you usually read and put them in an easy-to-read, easy-to-work with format. You can get this application for Android tablet and Android handsets and it can instantly import your Google Reader feeds. And you can add SlashGear to it simply by heading to the Tech section – we’re there! [Google Currents on Android Market] FREE

Of course you need Android Community and SlashGear in app form, right? Yes indeed! Both are made to work on any kind of Android tablet, be it big or small, powerful or just downright terrible, without a hitch! Follow your two favorite tech blogs in style: [SlashGear on Android Market] and [Android Community on Android Market] both FREE

Finally, download Minecraft. While on other Android devices I’d suggest more high-powered applications and games, in Minecraft you’ve got the most impressive looking application for such low requirements in your hardware, and it’s fun. You go around blowing up bits of your environment and have the ability to build a new one. What else could you possibly want in this world? [Minecraft - Pocket Edition / Pocket Edition DEMO on Android Market] FREE (or $6.99 for the full edition)

And of course, if there’s anyone out there with an app they’d like to promote because it requires little to no processing power and would love for the crappypad owners to try it out, comment away!

In fact, the Windows Phone Marketplace grew by 400-percent in 2011, as Microsoft ramped up its developer outreach and pushed the new platform. The Android Market remains the place for free apps, though freemium titles – where in-app purchases are used to make money off of a free download – now account for almost 50-percent of iPhone titles in the App Store.

iPhone app sales remain the biggest source of income from total revenue, including both one-off and in-app purchases, followed by those for the iPad. Distimo looks at iPhone and iPad performance separately, finding that iPhone app sales generate total revenues almost four times the revenue of the Android Market, and iPad app sales generate over twice those of Google’s store.

As for the most successful apps, Angry Birds took the top spot in Distimo’s findings, followed by Facebook and Skype. Google Maps took fifth spot, impressive since it’s only available to download on Android devices, though it does have an advantage what with being pushed on each handset and tablet.

This review is supplemented by the rest of the ChatON articles we’ve got here on SlashGear (in the timeline at the bottom of this post) as we use the app to show what a manufacturer is capable of when they put their minds to it. Where many apps created by manufacturers (OEMs that shall not be named) are not the most desirable for one to have on their mobile device unless they love aesthetic pain, Samsung has created this group chat app to both look nice and work simply.

The video here shows how a group chat works, complete with animated message – the coolest feature of the whole application when it comes down to it. What you’re able to do, and what this application does best, is create chats that contain just you and another person or you and several people, whatever you like. Inside your conversation you’ve got the ability to share any number of items from text to audio to anything you can capture with your camera, and sharing is more than just easy. Once you’ve shared your message, the media contained within shows up in the room with all your pals as well as in the room’s Trunk.

Inside the Trunk you’ll find all of the media shared inside the Chat, each of these units of fun able to be re-shared and downloaded by you at will. Inside the Chat where you’re sharing you’ve also got the ability to change how the Chat looks to you, this ability given to everyone else in the Chat as well, just affecting their view of the Chat. Change the color of the chat bubbles, their shape, the appearance of the background, and the text’s font. Quite simply fun and entertaining.

Download the app on the Android Market right this moment completely for free. You can also download this application for free from Samsung Apps and on other platforms (such as in your web browser through chaton.com) soon!

According to Lookout, the original batch of apps appeared as horoscope apps “with a fairly hidden ToS indicating charges”. This batch, however, only affected those in European countries because the SMS code was gated to a user’s country. As a result, North American SIM cards were spared.

More recently, Lookout notified Google of nine more fraudulent applications that were made to look more appealing to users. Three appeared as downloaders for popular games such as Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. Others were disguised to be wallpaper applications with popular movies, including Twilight, as well as other genres. Luckily, these apps were pulled before reaching many users.

But wait, there’s more! Once again disguised as free versions of popular games, thirteen new downloaders hit the Android Market. This time the apps were downloaded an upwards of 14,000 times, according to Lookout. Although the Android Market applications can use SMS, Ars Technica speculates the apps could have been pulled due to piracy concerns since they were disguised as legitimate software.

[via Ars Technica]

The remaining titles are Asphalt 6, Minecraft, Endomondo Sport, Great Little War Game, Fieldrunners HD, Color & Draw for kids and Paper Camera. Google hasn’t detailed the promotion yet, but we’re assuming the line-up is likely to change daily as the celebration goes on for the next week and a half.

Although this is obviously a useful way for Android users to pick up some cheap apps, it’s also a handy way for Google to encourage people to register credit cards with the Android Market. Previous stats have seemingly confirmed anecdotal evidence that Android users buy fewer paid apps than their iPhone counterparts, despite Google’s best efforts otherwise. The search giant’s hope is likely to be that, with a few cheap apps to lure them in, users will continue to spend once the 10 Billion Promo is over.

Now that the South Korean policy has changed, Google is reassuring developers to check the “South Korea” box when submitting games as well as localize their apps for the particular region as necessary. Google claims that “Korea is now the second-largest consumer of apps worldwide,” and that “Korea has quickly become one of the top countries in Android device activations”, so there’s plenty of incentive for developers to do just both. Developers, rev your engines, as you have a whole new country now to please with hordes of mobile games.

Google also stated that “with the huge popularity of games on Android and the convenience of direct carrier billing in Korea, we expect to see a jump in game purchases and downloads in the weeks ahead.” This is especially true of Korea, who seems to thrive on video games in general (see Starcraft, Warcraft, and basically every online multiplayer game made by companies like Blizzard and others). Google’s made a smart decision to open up once again the Korea market. Now that the floodgates are once open, all they have to do is sit and wait for the developers to introduce a huge supply, and the Korean consumers, a huge demand for Android games.

[via Android Developers Blog]

The digital layouts of the catalogs are essentially identical to the print editions, but offer users the ability to purchase straight from the app that will direct to an online store. Google says that “With rich product images, videos, and the ability to curate your own personal collages to share with friends, Google Catalogs makes browsing your favorite mail order catalogs easy, fun and interactive.” The app currently has over 400 digital catalog issues to browse across various categories such as mens & women’s apparel, jewelry, gifts, gourmet, toys, kids, gadgets, sports & athletics and outdoor adventure.

Christmas holiday is just rolling around the block, so it’s nice for Google to finally launch the Catalogs app for its own tablets. To learn more about Google Catalogs, check out . Also, to download the app from the Android Market, click here. Have any iPad owners used the Google Catalogs app? And Android tablet owners, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments sections below on the app.

[via Google Mobile Blog]

Once you download the Vscreen app, you point the browser on your larger screen to the vscreens.com page and scan the on-screen QR code with your smaller Android device from which you would like to share content. This then forms a link between your device and the browser on the larger screen allowing you to easily toss up photos and videos.

However, the Vscreen app will only be able to sync your device with a larger screen that’s sharing the same local WiFi network. The app is free and available now at the Android Market and requires Android 2.1 and above.

[via TechCrunch]

The Google Music for Google TV app syncs in the cloud with your Google Music account, removing the need to stream from a computer or download tunes to the TV. In a few easy steps, simply download the Google Music app for Google TV from the Android Market, log in to your Google account, and start enjoying your entire music collection through the system of your choice. These are the instructions: go to music.google.com on your computer, sign up for the free service, upload your music to the cloud or buy music on the Android Market. Once done, you can play all of your songs on Google TV as easily as you can do on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

Google also promises that they’ll continue to improve your Google TV experience by way of future updates to the Google Music app along with other new apps coming to Google TV. With this move. Google seems like they’re finally trying to step up to the music game, which they’ve really kind of late to, with all the popular music services that are out at the moment. And for all you musicians out there, don’t forget that you can get in on the action from the other end with Google’s new Music Artist Hub.

[via Google TV]

Our unit comes ready for HSPA+ on both AT&T and T-Mobile USA, pentaband HSPA/WCDMA support being a most welcome change from the previous Nexus S. Samsung is also preparing an LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus, set to launch on Verizon in the US sometime before the end of the year. It’s not a small device, the curvy form-factor having grown to 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94 mm and 135g, but Samsung takes advantage of that scale to fit a sizable 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display.

It’s not just inches that the new screen offers, but pixels too: at 1280 x 720 this is one of the rare 720p HD-capable smartphones. The curved display looks incredible, despite the concerns pre-launch about Samsung using a PenTile display. For those unaware, PenTile Matrix panels have sub-pixels that share colors, which can lead to a slight blue tint and underwhelming greens. However, eyes-on it’s hard to be disappointed with the Galaxy Nexus’ screen: colors are punchy, viewing angles broad and ICS’ clever on-screen controls – which automatically hide when appropriate to give you more room for video and other apps – are a great example of the refined UI.

Samsung’s casing materials aren’t as instantly premium in their feel as, say, the Rezound’s unibody chassis, but nor do they feel cheap or brittle. There’s thankfully little in the way of glossy plastic, and the various textures feel good in the hand. Google says the Contour Display makes for a phone that’s easier to hold and use one-handed, though reaching across the screen with a thumb can still be a stretch. We’re more impressed by the minimal bezel around the display. Sound from the rear speaker seems surprisingly muffled, however, particularly noticeable during turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps Navigation.

Galaxy Nexus Unboxing & Hands-on:

A volume rocker is on the left edge, the power key on the right; no dedicated camera shortcut, though Android 4.0 adds one to the lock-screen. The camera itself is a 5-megapixel autofocus snapper with 1080p HD video capture support, the relatively low resolution still another source of concern after Google’s official announcement. Google is hoping the Galaxy Nexus is the device that finally convinces the majority that good photos are about more than just raw megapixels, and we’re looking forward to testing that out for the review. It certainly loads fast and snaps off images in quick succession, this more recent software version proving considerably faster than the already-quick firmware running on Google’s original launch demo units; there are sample shots in the gallery below. A 1.3-megapixel camera can be used for video calls or Google+ Hangouts.

Galaxy Nexus 1080p camcorder sample (rear camera):

Galaxy Nexus front facing camcorder sample:

Power is courtesy of a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and – in our unit – 16GB of non-expandable storage. In addition to the HSPA+ there’s quadband GSM/EDGE, WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz), Bluetooth 3.0, a microUSB port with MHL HDMI output and GPS/A-GPS, together with NFC for scanning tags and making mobile payments with Google Wallet. Performance is slick out of the box, though we’re yet to run actual benchmarks: this may not be a 1.5GHz dual-core, as we’ve seen Samsung put inside its other recent phones, but Android 4.0 has no apparent issues with multitasking, opening apps and rendering/zooming/panning webpages. Of course, the Galaxy Nexus is box-fresh now, so we’ll have to see how it shapes up after we’ve loaded some third-party apps and put it through its paces.

That’s not the only magic we’re looking forward to testing. Face Unlock, Voice Typing and – if we can find someone else to rub smartphones with – Android Beam for NFC transfers all promise to be stand-out features that, until Ice Cream Sandwich updates start rolling out, will be Galaxy Nexus exclusives for the moment. It’s a big step in Android development, so stay tuned for the full Galaxy Nexus SlashGear review, and until then enjoy our hands-on video and unboxing gallery!

Don’t forget to check out our Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on for more details!

What you, the independent artist does, is head over to music.google.com/artists and you’ll be right on your way. This experience is very similar to how app developers work with Android. For those of you who are unaware of how well developers can do selling apps, note this: Rovio, for example, was barely a business a few years ago, and is now a multi-million dollar group making more Angry Birds games all the time. As your music will share the same space as the major label bands you know and love, there’s certainly more of a chance then EVER BEFORE that you’ll blow up on a global scale (or on a United States scale, for now, that is.)

The question now is what the labels will do if everyone goes independent – why not, right? Several major artist are releasing some exclusive tracks to the Google Music platform soon including Busta Rhyme and the Rolling Stones to show support – there’s basically no room for error! Let us know what you plan on doing, garage bands and coffee shop minstrels, make it happen at music.google.com/artists right this very moment, and see how this may well change everything.

Also included in the announcements were the rather important features of sharing and discovery. You’ll be able to share the tracks you’ve purchased on Google+ where everyone will be able to listen to tracks once for free. You’ll be able to share the tracks you buy with friends also on the Google Android Market. You’ll be able to discover new music based on the library you’ve got right now and the music you’re purchasing soon on the Android Market.

Independent labels as well as gigantic major labels will be working with Google Music from here on out, and with such a reach on each of these levels, Google may well have found a combination that has a chance to take a piece of the pie so long dominated by iTunes.

Director of Digital Content for Android at Google mister Jamie Rosenberg started the set by mentioning how Google Music Beta was initiated this summer and has been a great success thus far, complete with free tracks from an assortment of artists as they went. The beta program, Rosenberg mentioned, ends today and continues to be free for everybody. Rosenberg took a shot at Apple by saying something that some people thing you should have to pay to listen to the music you already own – ouch!

Once you’ve loaded all of your music to the cloud, you can pin it to any device. If you pin it to the device you’ve got, you can access it offline. No internet connection needed.

In addition to these features with Google Music, there’s the Google Music on the Android Market. There’s 320 kbs downloads for each track, and 90 second previews for each song. You’ve got recommendations based on the music you’ve already purchased as well as all the music you’ve got in your Music library. Your music is stored in the cloud and is downloadable for offline listening on whatever device you like. Check out the shots of the store and the interface for Google Music as it looks today, then stick around as we continue to cover this event!

However, following this leak, Logitech clarified that the new packaging is not meant to hit store shelves until the update is released, adding that if any retail stores are selling these newly packaged boxes that they are doing so prematurely. Furthermore, Logitech revealed that the product remains unchanged and that the new packaging is merely a sticker added to existing boxes.

Google announced back at I/O 2011 that Google TV would be getting a major update that would bring Android 3.1 Honeycomb along with Android Market, making apps available to Google TV as well as allowing developers to create apps specifically for the TV interface. The update was set to hit this summer, but that has come and gone. Google has since released the add-on SDK for developers but has yet to roll out the update.

[via Android Community]

To get this app, you’ll first have to download the Amazon Appstore. All this consists of is dropping your email in the box in the upper left of Amazon’s Online Appstore, waiting for a confirmation email in your inbox, and clicking the link inside that email. Your download then will contain the appstore itself, and inside you’ll find not only a full-range of lovely applications including the only ad-free Android versions of Angry Birds, but OfficeSuite Pro 5, an app that’ll normally cost your three $5 bills, completely free today.

The Amazon Appstore is set to gain some vast popularity this holiday season as the Kindle Fire will rely solely on it for app purchases. In that Amazon used its own appstore instead of working with Google to gain their favor for the Android Market, Amazon freed themselves from adding the rest of the Google suite of apps as well, creating a whole new monster based on the Android system architecture. Have a look at the Kindle Fire, download the Amazon Appstore, and see for yourself why Amazon is set to make bank this coming holiday season.

These numbers add up, according to research conducted by Appfire, to be more than 1 million apps created thus far and submitted to the app stores combined, with under 800,000 available for download inside September. Appfire collected numbers adding up to 1 million and 800,000 independently of research2guidance, so we can expect the REAL numbers to perhaps fall somewhere right down the middle of the two findings. Why is there no perfectly clear number? Quite simply because apps come and go every day. With regulations in both app stores different on how app submissions are made, accepted, and eventually pulled from the market due to a variety of circumstances, there is no exact number outside what Apple and Google have behind the scenes.

On the other hand, research2guidance looked at Microsoft’s Marketplace for Mobile in the same timeframe and found them to have something like 35,000 applications with an approximately 13% deactivation rate (per month.) Of course these numbers are subject to time as well, as Windows Phone 7 is still a young mobile OS compared to either Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android. And of course you’ve got to consider the fact that Apple’s application and acceptance rate at which they bring apps into (and usher apps out of) their app store is much more strict than that of Google’s Android Marketplace, and that many apps a fine app store do not make. Quality over quantity!

[via InformationWeek]

Google TV hasn’t fared very well so far, but that may change soon with this new update, which will unify the development platform for Google TV and Android tablets by using Android 3.1 Honeycomb. This way developers can create apps that work on both tablets and TVs as well as apps specific to Google TV. Users will have access to these apps through an integrated Android Market.

A developer preview SDK for the new Google TV was released back in August with the final add-on SDK released two weeks ago. The screenshots look promising, but it’s still not clear when the update will be rolled out or what caused the delay. Perhaps Google was too focused on releasing Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich? And since we’re on the topic, you ought to check out our complete guide on ICS.

[via ZatzNotFunny]