ReadWriteWeb

In this continuing series here on ReadWriteWeb, we round up some of our favorite new applications for smartphones each month, specifically for iPhone and Android devices. This spring edition includes some major new launches on Android, like Netflix and Google Music, as well as some incredible technology leaps on iPhone, like the app which identifies trees by their leaves! As a bonus for this month, we've added a section with notable app updates and another featuring new tablet apps.

95,000 of the roughly 300,000 mobile applications that have ever appeared on the Android Market are no longer available - an app attrition rate of 32%. In comparison, 80,000 apps out of approximately 500,000 (or 16%) created for iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch have similarly disappeared. This is a notable difference between the two marketplaces, especially given the Android Market's shorter existence.

Why do these numbers matter? For one thing, the app attrition rate is often a factor in calculating store sizes. More broadly, the differences also speak to the opposing cultures of the stores themselves. Many Android developers appear to approach app publishing as an experimental effort, not a business, and publishing and pulling apps far more often than those on the App Store do.

For users of Apple's iOS mobile operating system, there was much to be excited about in yesterday's keynote unveiling iOS 5, the next version of the OS for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Deeper Twitter integration, wireless syncing across devices, and the ability to untether your iOS devices from the desktop have rightly got users anticipating the next OS upgrade.

One feature that is sure to please productivity geeks is Reminders, a new native task management app for iOS that works across devices.

Of all the new features announced yesterday at WWDC as a part of iOS 5, one of the more interesting options now available to developers is access to iCloud. Much more than just a MobileMe replacement service, the new iCloud will store and sync music, photos, apps, calendars and documents to all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and even Mac and PC.

But the service isn't being limited to Apple's own products, as it turns out - developers can use iCloud with their own mobile applications, too.

At WWDC this morning, Apple announced that its iOS mobile operating system, which powers iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices, is now at #1 in terms of market share. iOS has 44% of the total mobile OS market, compared to Android at 28%.

According to Scott Forstall, SVP of iOS software at Apple, 200 million iOS devices have been sold, 25 million of which were iPads, Apple's tablet computer released just 14 months ago.

The most believable of the iCloud rumors is that Apple's upcoming service is a "Cloud iTunes" - meaning a way to access all your music, movies, podcasts and more from any Internet-connected Apple mobile device like the iPhone or iPad. Some think it may be much more than that - imagining iCloud also as the successor to Apple's MobileMe, an uncharacteristically underperforming product that provides email, contacts, calendar and online storage to paying customers. This combination of rumors makes the most sense because it would allow Apple to directly compete with Google's Android operating system, or, perhaps, offer something even better.

One of the mostly unrealized applications of Web technology is to allow small businesses to kick the tires of products they want to purchase, by putting up live product demos. Given the proliferation of Web interfaces on many products, you would think this would be a no-brainer; and while lots of companies have put up canned video screencaptures showing one or two products, no one has taken the time and effort to let customers test drive their complete product line to the extent that Sonicwall has with its Live Demo site.

I wouldn't call the American military "early adopters" but I'm not surprised that they have turned to social media for recruiting, as the New York Times reports.

Back in 2006, when I spoke at a State Department-sponsored conference on social media and democracy, the only group of governmental participants open to social media, and already using it, were the military. They were subscribing to RSS feeds, including search feeds, reading and commenting on blogs and participating on forums. So there is precedence for reaching out on social media sites.

Seesmic, a third party client for Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, updated its iPhone app today. One the biggest additions is support for Salesforce.com's Chatter service. Seesmic has offered Chatter support in its desktop application since September, and beta support for Chatter is already available on Android. Seesmic also added support for in-line previewing of Instagram photos.

Salesforce.com launched its own Chatter iPhone app in September. But for individuals or teams that need support for multiple social networks, this new app could be a boon.

A team of developers from a garage in France launched a location-based question and answer site today called Gootip. The service uses Google Places API tied with its own algorithm to specify where a question is being asked and tries to increase the relevance of the answer with users IP location from Foursquare and the Facebook Graph.

Gootip emerged in beta today without having any buzz ahead of time and no funding from any venture capitalists. It has been bootstrapped by three founders who worked at e-merchant Price Minister - Mathieu Bidart, Eric Gagnaire and Thierry Sebba - who claim to have shut themselves in a garage with bottles of wine for the last six months to push out the product.