ReadWriteWeb

In a blog post published today, Mozilla user experience designer Ian Barlow previewed the user interface their Mobile Team is in the process of building for a tablet version of Firefox.

Firefox for tablets, which does not yet have a release date, will be optimized to run on Honeycomb Android tablets. The browser will include features from the desktop version of Firefox such as tabs, themes and the Awesomebar, an adaptation of a feature launched with Firefox 3 that enables quick access to bookmarks and browsing history. Items synced from the desktop can also be accessed there.

We all know what the acronym BYOB means, but when it comes to bringing your own mobile devices, there are several implications for enterprise IT managers. Of course, BYOD isn't a new concept: people have been bringing their own PCs and connecting them to corporate networks almost as soon as the PC was invented back in the 1980s. I recall dealing with this issue as a young IT worker, trying to convince my manager that the nascent Compaq (which is now buried inside HP's product lines) wouldn't bring our network to its knees. Fun times.

Mozilla is continuing in its efforts to disrupt proprietary, single-vendor application ecosystems on mobile devices. This time around the Moz is taking up the task of providing a consistent API so developers can write HTML5 applications rather than native apps for iOS, Android, and other mobile devices and operating systems. Called WebAPI, the target is to provide "a basic HTML5 phone experience" within six months and submit the API to the W3C for standardization.

A new add-on for the Android SDK will enable developers to optimize their apps for Google TV or build new ones all together, the company announced on Monday.

The add-on lets developers emulate Google TV devices and build apps optimized for larger screens. It also includes new APIs for TV-specific features and actions.

A study from earlier this summer by wireless vendor Meraki reveals some starting information based on the data collected across their customers' networks. Apple's iPad users are piggy when it comes to their data consumption, averaging close to 200 MB monthly, compared to an average smartphone user of about 40 MB. They now account for four percent of all devices they have observed on enterprise networks.

Regardless of the size of the regulatory hurdle that the Google takeover bid for Motorola Mobility may be for the United States, the hurdle for Europe will be a formidable one. This despite the fact that both are American companies; they do business on a global scale, with global telecommunications partnerships. While the standard that any merger or acquisition must meet for U.S. regulatory approval typically boils down to, "It's good for business," the standard for Europe is, "It increases competitiveness."

That's hard to prove, especially given the fact that mergers typically result in one less company. But for the E.U., prospective merger partners must conclusively demonstrate that the state of the market following their combination would be more competitive than the state of that market if they had merely partnered. If Google was interested in aiding its case, it could decide to postpone many of the Android platform's planned improvements until after the merger. That could be at least 18 months, perhaps longer. We ran this theory past the mobile industry's leading expert, NPD Group Executive Director of Industry Analysis Ross Rubin, to get his reaction and to see whether he agreed that such a lull, were it to occur, could send the wrong signal to Android developers. (Part 1 of our discussion appeared in RWW last Friday.)

Google characterized it as "Supercharging Android." Whether you subscribe to that characterization of Google's takeover bid for Motorola Mobility may depend upon which end of the Android ecosystem you're standing on. One of the factors that made Android such a strong challenger to Apple's iOS is its open and diverse distribution model. Regardless of the outcome of Google's bid, that model will change.

How much more likely are developers and partners to support Android next week than last week, now that they know Google is positioning Motorola to be the system's premium brand? What does Google gain from being a serious (read: "forget the Nexus One") manufacturer of Android over and above what it would have gained just as a promoter? And what does this move mean for Android supporters who had intentions to move the system beyond mere smartphones? ReadWriteWeb posed these and other questions to NPD Group Executive Director for Industry Analysis Ross Rubin on Thursday.

According to new research from analytics firm Nielsen, most Android users spend more time with native mobile applications than they do on the mobile Web. The average Android user spends 56 minutes per day actively interacting with the Web and apps on their devices. Of that, nearly 67% is done through native applications.

The most popular offerings take up the lion's share of time spent. We are not just talking the top 1,000 apps of the more than 250,000 Android apps available. The top 50 apps end up taking 61% of users' time, according to Nielsen. That means that most users are spending most of their time playing Angry Birds and listening to Pandora (for example) than interacting with niche services. The stakes in for developers to create top-end apps that consumers will actually use has never been higher.

Over the past week, there have been stirrings in the Android community about the Linux GNU General Public License (GPLv2) and whether or not original equipment manufacturers have violated the license, thus making them vulnerable to lawsuits from thousands of Linux users. The argument is that OEMs have broken the Linux license terms and so have automatically lost their rights to distribute Linux on their devices. If that were the case, it would be a big problem for Android and the OEMs since Linux is the very foundation that Android is built upon.

But the GPL situation is not so black and white. Can the Linux GPL issue be a problem for the OEMs? Certainly. Is it actually a problem right now? No, and there is no indication that it ever will be. What the argument amounts to is a miniature battle of "he said, she said" between Linux experts against intellectual property attorney and patent experts. While the IP experts make a compelling argument, the Linux and open source community brings reason to the argument.

According to ClickFox, a customer experience analytics company, Android and Blackberry phones require a lot more handholding by wireless companies than iPhones. Based on an analysis of more than 250 million wireless subscribers in the U.S., the costs are about $4 more per subscriber annually.