"The device, known as a Joint Battle Command-Platform, or JBC-P Handheld, is the first developed under an Army effort to devise an Android-based smartphone framework and suite of applications for tactical operations. The government-owned framework, known as Mobile /Handheld Computing Environment, or CE, ensures that regardless of who develops them, applications will be secure and interoperable with existing mission command systems so information flows seamlessly across all echelons of the force."

The Army is inviting outside developers to create apps for the phone. The "Mobile /Handheld CE development kit" will be released to devs in July. The device's baseline app suite includes "mapping, blue force tracking, Tactical Ground Reporting, or TIGR tactical graphics and critical messaging (such as SPOT reports, Medevac and Mayday)."

Given the system being developed for is profoundly unlikely to make its way onto the marketplace for some time, if ever, it may not be as appealing as developing for the Android Market. Of course, designing an app that saves lives or prosecutes a war may be rewarding in itself to some developers.

The fact that the system is based on a technology many soldiers will come into service knowing, that the framework allows extensive, relatively quick adaptation through app creation and was created to interact with different outside structures, such as various radio networks, may insure its rapid adoption.

Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1St Armored Division will test the devices during the "Network Integration Rehearsal" at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range in October.

A4A

Last year, the Army also sponsored the Apps 4 the Army challenge. Over 75 days, the Army evaluated 53 submissions, choosing 15 winners and honorable mentions.

Gen. Chiarelli photo by Ashley Blumenfeld

The announcement should bring news of the phone's price, carrier partnership(s) and launch date.

In January, business news site Bloomberg confirmed the phone's existence and launch plans after a continuous series of leaks, photos and videos made their way around gadget blogs all across the Web. Despite Sony's silence on the matter, the phone was clearly in development for a 2011 launch. In fact, Engadget even went so far as to call the phone one of the "worst kept secrets" in the industry. Thanks to a number of hands-on reviews, tear downs, and extensive photos, there's already a lot that's known about this new, gaming-centric smartphone powered by Google's Android mobile operating system.

The phone will run Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") and will include a slide-out game controller instead of a slide-out keyboard, as would normally ship on phones using this particular form factor. It also has a 5-megapixel camera,  microSD card slot, single-core processor that clocks from 122.88 MHz to 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM and an Adreno 205 GPU.

Android is Ready for Gaming, Says Sony

Most importantly, the Xperia Play will run Sony Playstation games. And it won't be the only phone that can, either -  Sony recently announced that it will offer a program to port the original PlayStation One (PS One Classic) games to other Android devices, as well as newer games developed using the toolkit Sony will provide. These games will be sold through Sony's app store on the phone - the PlayStation Store - where they can be directly downloaded to any supported Android device.

The new Facebook teaser for the phone is live now on Sony Ericsson's page, asking you to like the page in order to read the official announcement.

As for the commercial, it's a decidedly creepy shot of a back alley, black market  surgery where the lovable Android robot guy gets thumbs grafted onto his nubby arms. "Android is ready to play," says the ad. That may be true, but still...ick.

Two Holiday Inn hotels have begun using iPhone, Android and Blackberry smartphones as room keys, meaning guests don't even need to stop at the front desk on their way in the door.

The program began earlier this month at Holiday Inns in Chicago and Houston. According to USA Today, hotel patrons can sign up for the pilot program by making online reservations and enrolling through an email that receive prior to the check-in date. It is also careful to mention that smartphones "will always be an option for guests rather than a replacement for all keycards"

If you're wondering how the engineers are claiming "first" when video conferencing solutions, most notably Apple's FaceTime and mobile video applications like Fring, already provide face-to-face communications ideal for signing, the difference is in the technology behind mobileASL itself.

The UW team, led by Eve Riskin, a professor of electrical engineering, claim that Apple's FaceTime uses 10 times the bandwidth of MobileASL. FaceTime is also currently limited to Wi-Fi, although Apple may eventually open it up to run over 3G, assuming network operators could manage the overhead. Fring works over both Wi-Fi and 3G, but is limited to various smartphones like the iPhone, phones built with Google's Android mobile OS and certain Nokia devices.

MobileASL, on the other hand, could be integrated into any device that has a video camera on the same side of the phone as the screen.

It also increases the video quality around the face and hands while optimizing the compressed video signals specifically for sign language. The software even detects whether a person is signing or not in order to extend the phone's battery life during use.

Jessica Tran, a doctoral student in electrical engineering who is running the field study, is experimenting with different compression systems to further extend the battery life of phones under heavy video use. Another researcher, engineering doctoral student Jaehong Chon, made MobileASL compatible with H.264, an industry standard for video compression.

The field test underway now, with students in the UW Summer Academy for Advancing Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Computing, is the first of its kind. "This is the first study of how deaf people in the United States use mobile video phones," Riskin said.

Most of the study participants say that email or texting are currently their preferred methods of communication. This MobileASL technology may eventually change that.

FaceTime Still a Good Alternative for Now

However, it's not alone in its goal of making smartphones more useful to people with disabilities. Video Relay Services company ZVRS recently announced its launch of a mobile video relay service that works with Apple's FaceTime to enable single-tap, face-to-face video interpreting. The service was released to the public on July 26, the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The iPhone-only FaceTime-enabled service works by connecting those in need to a video interpreter by way of a special phone number.

But while ZVRS's service only works on the iPhone 4, mobileASL technology could potentially work on any phone. And that, in many ways, makes it a first.

According to the report, certain factors such as components shortages restricted smartphone sales, but overall sales increased by 50%, with Android making the biggest gains among smartphone platforms.

Gartner's numbers confirm reports from earlier this month, when we reported that shipments of Android phones has increased by nearly 900% to become the largest smartphone platform in the country. Indeed, just a year ago Android accounted for under 2% of the smartphone market worldwide, with just 755,000 units. Today, Gartner says that Android accounts for 17% of the market with more than 10 million units.

Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, explains that a number of factors account for Android's explosive growth over the past year.

"A non-exclusive strategy that produces products selling across many communication service providers (CSPs), and the backing of so many device manufacturers, which are bringing more attractive devices to market at several different price points, were among the factors that yielded its growth this quarter," said Milanesi.

The report also explains that "a wider global rollout of iPhone 4 will sustain Apple's sales momentum throughout the second half of 2010," and "Apple's sales would have been higher if it had not had to face tight inventory management."

The absolute best thing about the phone, and the single-most influential reason for which I bought it, is the high-resolution screen. Upon turning on the phone for the first time and looking at the icons and text of the home screen, the quadrupling of pixels is immediately noticeable. Videos, photos, apps, and text all look absolutely amazing on this screen and I am very excited to see more devices, like the iPad, include the technology.

The second best feature, in my opinion, are the major improvements made to the phone's outward-facing camera. The camera takes surprisingly great shots in poorly-lit conditions, and the flash works great as well at capturing crisp images with a short exposure. The camera also takes great close-up photos, and can focus on objects roughly three inches away. With the excellent assortment of apps to edit photos, some great shots are sure to come from the device, like the one on the right of my TV remote.

The Bad: Battery Life & The Antenna

There are several bad things about the phone as well, and its hard to pick which is the worst. The first big negative I noticed, and was surprised by, is the battery life. Other media outlets with pre-release devices reported using the phone for over 30 hours with normal everyday use, but personally I have not seen this myself. I have found the battery life to be equal to, if not a little worse, than that of its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

The other issue that falls in the bad category is the antenna and the problems caused by holding the phone. From my own tests, I can submit that, yes, holding the phone in the most normal of fashions is likely to have some effect on signal. While holding my phone, I steadily watched the bars tick down from 5 to 1, and at times to an entire loss of signal. To make sure this was an accurate representation of the signal, I tried sending a text message, which hung on about 90% on its progress bar. Upon releasing my grip and letting the phone rest in my palm, the message sent almost immediately.

I have not found myself lacking a strong enough signal to send and receive calls or text messages when holding the phone during normal use, however. The only time holding the phone has been a problem was during my tests when I held it for a prolonged period of time and with more pressure than one would normally apply.

The antenna issue does, however, have an influence on the behavior of users. While the antenna problems are not likely to have a direct effect on signal in normal use, it exists enough to make you aware of how you hold the device when you are trying to assure you have enough signal to complete various tasks. I have found myself resting the device in my palm as a form of early troubleshooting if I can't seem to load a webpage or update my Twitter app. The fact that the problem exists is enough to make users of the device think twice about how they hold device, whether it is the real solution to their signal problems at that time or not.

The Meh: FaceTime

I tried FaceTime on a few occasions from various WiFi connections. It seems the most important factor in the quality of video calls is the WiFi connection. Attempting to FaceTime with a friend using public WiFi at a Starbucks was a terrible experience, but it was far better when both of us were on secured private networks in our homes. Even then, however, the call failed once and we had to redial each other. Hopefully this will get better in time, but for now, once the novelty of video calling on a mobile device wears off, FaceTime may not be that exciting.

The Huh? Strange Bugs and Quirks

The iPhone 4 is buggy. Very buggy. One of the most annoying ones, especially for a user like me who takes a lot of photos, involves the deletion of photos from the camera roll. Almost every time I delete a photo while viewing the camera roll, some error occurs where the photo is replaced by an immovable black box.

I have noticed, however, that deleting items while viewing them (by tapping the trash can icon while viewing a photo, for example) does not produce the same problem. It only seems to occur when marking one or more items with the red deletion check mark that it happens. Usually, syncing the device in iTunes will fix the issue, but sometimes that will even make things worse. I have had several photos disappear and deleted videos reappear unplayable in my camera roll, which was only fixed with another iTunes sync.

The mail app is also very bug-prone. I noticed some strange things happening with mail back on my 3GS before switching, and now they are better, but still odd. Before, emails would appear and quickly disappear in my inbox, only to be re-downloaded, or sometimes not. Now, the mail app seems intent on peppering my inbox with emails from the distant past (or future depending on how you look at it). An email with no sender, no subject and no content, sent on 12/31/69 has appeared on more than one occasion, though it has been less frequent in the last day or two.

The Multitasker's Dilemma

The other source of bugs comes from apps that do not support or properly implement the phone's multitasking capabilities. I have had some apps break or become unusable, and the only solution was to delete them from the multitasking menu and "relaunch" them. While this is not really Apple's fault, it does, however, create a new level of thinking for users when it comes to their apps and troubleshooting.

Previously, apps started from scratch whenever you clicked their icons. Now, for better or for worse, some apps resume from their last active state. In the case of messaging apps, this can be useful. In the case of apps like Settings, it can be annoying when you last closed the app after digging several levels deep into various sub-menus.

To truly "relaunch" an application, users must now click the home button, then double tap the home button again to launch the multitasking menu, then hold down their finger on an app until it begins to wiggle, and finally click a red minus sign icon to remove it. In most cases this isn't really necessary, but when an app is not responding correctly, I find myself using this tactic as a crude form of "ctrl+alt+del." Here's an example of when this problem occurred.

One Hot Phone. No Really, I Mean Hot!

When out doing errands, a strange thing happened with my iPhone. I found myself with 5 bars of signal and 3G service but unable to refresh my stream of messages on my Twitter application. It couldn't be the reception, I had 5 bars, so I clicked the home button and then re-entered the app, but it still didn't work. That is when I deleted the app from the multitask menu, effectively force quitting it, but another attempt still didn't work.

Then I tried other apps, and I quickly discovered nothing was working. I made sure the phone wasn't trying to use some random WiFi, so I turned WiFi off. Still nothing. I flipped airplane mode on and off to reset the connection to AT&T, but that still didn't work. Then I noticed how the phone felt in my hand - it was hot. Very hot. And not just because I was in 100 degree Arizona weather. It still felt hot in my cool air conditioned car.

The phone had overheated, and while I could navigate to apps and menus, sending or receiving any data was impossible. I turned the phone off and immediately noticed the temperature of the device drop significantly. I turned it back on and all was back to normal, but as you can see from this example, the complexity added by multitasking changes the way users will approach troubleshooting problems on their device. The entire time I was trying to no avail, the phone was resting in my palm, a testament to the paranoia also caused by the antenna.

Final Nitpickingly Annoying Thoughts

I remember when I first heard of the very first iPhone, the biggest thing that excited me was the ability to combine my phone with my iPod. No longer would I have to keep carrying both items, and I would never miss a call while listening to music ever again. Needless to say, I am an avid listener of music. I am disappointed not only in the fact that the newest iPhone didn't get the standard 64 GB storage bump many had assumed was coming, but also that iOS 4.0 changes some behaviors for the iPod app.

Now that double-clicking the home button brings up the multitasking menu, the way controlling music and podcasts works is slightly different. Previously, I used the double-click to launch music controls from wherever I was on the phone. I don't mind having to the side the multitasking menu to the right to view the controls, but the behavior of the double-click in another situation is causing me grief.

When the phone is sleeping and the screen is off, a double-click of the home button always brought up the music controls, whether anything was playing or not. Now, it seems hit or miss on when this function works the way I expect it to. When music is playing, double-clicking usually works to bring up the controls. When nothing is playing, a double-click will only bring up the regular lock screen without controls, unless the iPod app was active when I hit the sleep button. Sometimes. The reason for this strange behavior is elusive, and annoying.

So between the great added features and the upsetting disappointments, things are kinda so-so with the new iPhone. I'm still glad I bought it, and the good outweighs most of the bad. But I still find it odd how many bugs and quirks the phone has, and I guess I will have to master the the triple click if I want the music controls to work my way. Other than that, it's a great device.

There are four distinct mobile bots now available as a bundled download here from Nokia Labs, the community site featuring beta, non-commercialized programs for Nokia handsets.

Currently, the collection includes the following:

• Profile Bot: This bot automates switching between mobile profiles - like switching to "silent" mode when you're in a meeting and switching back to normal mode when the meeting is over. The bot can be configured to suggest profile changes that can be activated with a single click or it can be set to full automation.
• Alarm Bot: The alarm bot learns when you go to bed and when you wake up. At night, the bot suggests alarms and profile changes via your homescreen. With a single click, you can set the phone to silent mode and create a new alarm to wake you in the morning. 
• Shortcut Bot: The shortcut bot learns what mobile applications you use the most and updates your homescreen accordingly. The bot reconfigures your phone's homescreen to feature shortcuts to your most frequently used applications. As your habits change, the bot updates these links.
• Battery Bot: This bot keeps an eye on your battery's status. If your battery needs a recharge before bedtime, you're reminded to plug it in.

In combination, what these bots deliver is a more adaptive UI and mobile phone experience. As your behaviors change, the bots learn and their suggestions change. More importantly, you don't have to configure these bots - they figure everything out on their own.

Currently, the bots work on Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 Mini handsets only.

Smarter Smartphones: The Future of Mobile?

Although these bots are still in beta, they represent the course mobile smartphones should be taking - and not just Nokia smartphones, either. With over 160,000 iPhone applications now available, 20,000 some Android apps and thousands more in the app stores for Palm, Windows and Blackberry, we're getting overwhelmed by our mobile options. How brilliant an idea is it that your phone should learn your behaviors then organize your apps for you? That would be a major improvement over, say, the iPhone's DIY app organization tools.

And while Android's AudioManager widget is a handy way to get one-touch access to your phone's volume settings, how much better would it be if your phone automatically knew when to go silent?

That being said, we have seen some interesting patents receive approval for iPhone - like its location-aware homescreen or location-based social networking for example. However, we actually haven't seen any improvements to the OS that would result in an adaptive phone that learns from our behaviors. (Of course, who knows what Apple has in store for the future?)

Smartphone makers should take a cue from Nokia's innovation and expand the meaning of the word "smartphone." It's time for manufactures to build devices that don't just run apps but that run apps that make the phone itself smarter. Why not take advantage of geo-location's power, learn from user behaviors and enable one-click features that take the place of manual configurations? That's what a true "smartphone" would do. And maybe one day, all will. Until then, Nokia users, prepare to be envied - get your new bots here.

Don't miss the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7th in Mountain View, California! We're at a key point in the history of mobile computing right now - we hope you'll join us, and a group of the most innovative leaders in the mobile industry, to discuss it.

Interestingly, though, while about a third of smartphone owners use their devices for travel-related activities, only one-fifth of all smartphone owners have installed travel apps on their devices yet. Those who haven't installed travel apps yet are looking for comprehensive services that can notify their users of unplanned schedule changes (52%), notify users of rate changes (48%) and consolidate all travel reservations into one itinerary. While there are already numerous apps like WorldMate and TripIt that solve these problems, there is clearly an opportunity for these companies to market their apps to a wider audience that isn't aware of them yet.

A study out of the University of Georgia took a look at whether or not the Kindle would be a viable substitute for the traditional newspaper and it found the device lacking in a few key areas.

Smartphones, on the other hand, while containing all of these features, are not designed for reading as a primary activity. They are made for portability and interactivity. So the size and continued portability of a tablet would allow for increased readability, while retaining the functionality of a smartphone. With the Kindle, users lamented the loss of the crossword and the comics, features we certainly could not do without, either.

We do wonder, however, if the issue of screen glare when being used outside will be addressed with this new tablet. Sunny or cloudy, we can see a newspaper just the same, but an LCD display can very much depend on the lighting. At least we know a breezy day won't be an issue, like with a newspaper, and reading on the subway should be, well, a breeze.

Just on these simple facts alone, Apple's yet-to-be-announced tablet stands out as a much more viable option as a news reader, but even then, we wonder if it can make a difference.

Editors Note: Headline was altered to include "iPad" as it was announced live at Apple's conference today.

The promise of improved clinical information systems, based on real-time information updates across patient touchpoints could be a workflow game changer. If the tablet becomes the tool that is carried with a nurse or doctor on their travels from patient to patient, it will save time, money and lives by enabling the first "always updated" system.

Considering the massive expense of implementing an electronic health record (EHR) system - for example the $4 billion spent by Kaiser Permanente - data synchronization is a huge investment for the healthcare system. At the national level, the Office of National Coordinator (ONC) is administering billions of dollars of stimulus dollars to help systems move forward into the electronic realm.

But early today, the ONC's Charles Friedman told a FDA interoperability meeting that in 2008, a mere 4% of systems in the United States qualify as "fully functional" electronic health record systems. With all the fantastic and innovative work that has gone into creating a healthcare specific devices, such as Panasonic's series of tablet PCs, it's not the mainstream yet.

A big part of this reason is usability of the software. Clearly, vendors have been building creative and durable machines. But in a similar way that earlier smartphones now seem clumsy compared to the iPhone, we haven't yet seen a product that is amazing. Something like what we think the Apple tablet could be would change this landscape overnight and may be priced at a point that's much less than other medical devices on the market.

Mobile Health Momentum

The iPhone has already changed the face of healthcare. Apple shared this fact at last year's iPhone OS 3.0 release and within the keynote at WWDC. The momentum that started with consumer applications has moved to forward-looking doctors and health providers. We know that it is becoming common practice for some doctors and nurses to carry both their company-issued Blackberry and their personally purchased iPhone.

There are already amazing applications in the market. AirStrip allows doctors to monitor patient vital signs and receive alerts from afar. There are now personal health records that can be carried and updated from anywhere.

Additionally, there are information-rich applications that allow nurses, doctors and patients to look up health information in real time. Last week during the Haiti tragedy, an injured individual was able to use an iPhone to treat himself using an first aid application on the iPhone.

Clinician Ready

Apple and EPIC systems have been collaborating to release the first version of MyChartManager on the iPhone. EPIC is a leading provider of EHR in the United States, and powers systems such as Kaiser Permanente and Palo Alto Medical Foundation in the Bay Area, to name a few. The application, named Haiku was released on Jan. 13, 2010, and several health systems are in the process of testing it. It's a clear contender for the "killer app" in the hospital setting. Looking at the screenshots, it's clear that more screen real estate would be ideal - which means it may be just the right time for an iTablet-like device to emerge on the market.

It's the Apps

It is nearly certain that iPhone OS 4.0 will create a path for existing applications to "upsize" to a tablet device, and this includes size. The medical category today is already the highest-aggregate-priced category on the App Store today, and with the promise of applications inside the clinical walls, the opportunity gets much larger.

The iPhone-to-tablet combination may be the biggest reason that a tablet is successful in the market, since the entire iPhone developer community will be able to deliver on this new platform. With Apple's success in having an integrated OS that shares core libraries across both the Mac and iPhone, it is likely that a table device will also connect with apps from both the iPhone and the Mac.

Workflow Wish List

Having had the opportunity to observe clinical workflow and talk with several healthcare providers - including Kaiser Permanente and the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital - we've compiled a list of device capabilities that would change healthcare. Our wishlist includes:

• Real-time observations, including vitals signs: It is amazing that many systems still require doctors or nurses to take down vitals on pencil and paper, even when an EHR is in place.


• Shift changes: Shift transitions between nurses can be greatly improved by having a device that is mobile and moves freely with each part of the staff, so that the shift exchange is a workflow generated process that isn't tied to a physical location. Nurses move, the system should too.


• Rich content delivery: The ability to share with a patient what is going to happen in rich detail, including video, can be a major force in improving readiness of the patient.


• Video: Bringing remote feeds right into the emergency room, outpatient setting or other environment should be easier than ever before.


• Family and friends: Offering a feature for family and friends to directly communicate with the patient is a huge opportunity. A tablet may be the perfect device to enable more personal discussion and check-ins with family members in the hospital, near or far.

Prediction

If Apple does in fact show a tablet device at the Jan. 27 event, hospitals around the country will react with pilot programs, and we will see tablets and Macs join the iPhone in helping deliver healthcare with a new era of style and grace. It is also true that Apple will have an uphill battle getting past corporate IT; getting support in the enterprise as a new class of device is a daunting challenge. But the "iTablet" will give visionary IT leaders more opportunity to change the status quo and look to the future.

We can hear the doctor already: "Take two moments to fire up your iTablet, and teleconference me in the morning."

What do you think, could a tablet be the product that brings Apple inside the hospital walls and improve the system?

Photo credit: Balazs Gal.

Flurry details the methods used to arrive at these numbers in its blog post and is certain to call the data an estimate. But if they are even close to correct, the Droid, myTouch 3G and iPhone 3GS outsold the Nexus One by a factor, respectively, of 12, three and 80.

Whether it was Google's lack of marketing, the fact that the phone was only available for purchase online, or its $500-plus sticker price without a service contract, Flurry identifies a number of reasons for the slow start. The company also points to the post-holiday release date and the fact that Google did little compared to Verizon's $100 million marketing of the Droid.

We see a few other points that could have contributed to the slow start. For those using AT&T, the Nexus One works in slower EDGE mode, not 3G. And for the contract weary, news about Google charging additional early termination fees certainly holds some scare factor.

We'll have to keep an eye on these numbers as time goes on, but we're curious - what, if anything, has kept you from taking the leap?

Later today, Google plans to unveil its own smartphone, the Nexus One. According to new data from research firm Forrerster's new U.S. Omnibus Survey, Google is launching this phone at just the right time. Today, 17% of U.S. adult who subscribe to a cell phone plan use smartphones. This number is up from 11% in 2008 and 7% in 2007. Thanks to the growing importance of Android, Forrester thinks that 2010 will be "the year of the smartphone."

While Android and Apple's iPhone are clearly driving the adoption of smartphones - and the Nexus One will surely play its part in this in 2010 - it's important to note that BlackBerry still maintains its two-to-one advantage over the iPhone.

The Google Phone

It'll be interesting to see how Google will market the Nexus One. Thanks to numerous early reviews, there is very little that we don't know about the phone itself at this point. Chances are that Google has a few surprises up its sleeve for today's announcement. After all, the company must have known that today's press briefing would come long after all the details about the actual hardware of the phone had leaked already.

With all the news from the event, one thing was clear: RIM desperately wants developers to build for Blackberry and is now actively enticing them with a slew of new offerings designed to win them over.

One of the biggest announcements made yesterday involved the launch of new APIs (application programming interfaces) for third-party developers. The APIs offered include a new advertising service, a payments service, location services, and the general availability of Blackberry's own Push service, which had never before been made available to outside developers. What this means is that developers now have the tools to build applications that rival those already available on many other smartphones today, most notably, the iPhone. In some cases, the Blackberry APIs even offer something the iPhone doesn't such as is the case with the payments service which allows you to pay for apps on your next mobile phone bill.

The location services include a geo-location API that will use cell tower triangulation as a backup for when GPS fails, making location-based applications more reliable. There are also services for determining your phone's location on a map and another that helps estimate travel time for driving directions. It's obvious to see how these types of services could help build new and useful mobile applications for the Blackberry.

Also revealed was the new Blackberry Advertising Service, an offering designed to help developers generate revenue from their mobile applications. Through partnerships with ad networks, developers can easily integrate mobile advertising within their apps and track the ad's effectiveness with an included analytics package. It's even possible for these ads to access the phone's core features. For example, you'll be able to initiate a phone call from an ad or add a calendar entry from an ad. That's an innovation that many other mobile handhelds are not yet offering. These types of interactions should have a clear appeal to the many business-minded corporate Blackberry users who are often more interested in getting things done than they are with playing mindless games.

That being said, the game-playing crowd isn't being ignored either. Also announced was support for OpenGL ES, a graphics API for 3D games. While this doesn't quite put the Blackberry on par with what's available for iPhone, it's a move that's designed to keep Blackberry at least somewhat competitive in the field of mobile gaming.

Other announcements included new support for mobile developers looking to build applications with the languages and tools they already know and use. Java developers will get a new GUI builder that lets them create mobile interfaces using a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor with drag-and-drop capabilities. Adobe developers will be able to use the company's Flash Platform technology and Adobe Creative Suite tools to build rich, mobile apps as well. This is another area where Apple falls short - Flash still doesn't work on the iPhone. Instead Flash developers have to use special Adobe software to convert apps written in Flash to a format that's iPhone-compatible. Also, designers can now use Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver to build both themes and widgets using the new Blackberry Theme Studio 5.0.

Apps, Apps, Apps!

In addition to the RIM-specific announcements, a number of companies also used the Developer Conference as the launching pad for new Blackberry applications and related announcements.

Ebay, for example, unveiled a brand-new mobile app that lets you search for items, view descriptions and photos, bid, watch items, and more. It will also tap into Blackberry's now open Push services API to deliver real-time alerts as to when you're outbid on an auction. Considering that the company has already generated $400 million this year using eBay's iPhone application, this new Blackberry app should be a big hit among mobile users when it launches next month.

The popular location-based social networking service called Loopt also revealed a major update for Blackberry which includes something the iPhone can't offer due to the nature of the device: it runs in the background to continually update your location in real-time. This is one of the iPhone's biggest flaws according to critics, since so many mobile applications take advantage of always-on connectivity to track your location for the benefit of specific mobile apps. In Loopt's case, the app knows where you are in order to show you nearby friends and local businesses which you can rate. It even offers mobile coupons for the retailers and restaurants in your vicinity.

Finally, Xobni, the Outlook email search plugin that discovers social connections in your inbox, revealed their new Blackberry application, too. As with the desktop software, Xobni for Blackberry will let you find contacts in your address book quickly using Xobni Rank technology which returns results ranked based on frequency and freshness of your communication. The application will be made available sometime early next year.

The Blackberry Developer Conference continues until Thursday, so stay tuned for even more news over the coming days.

You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapup by RSS or by email (form below).

RWW Weekly Wrap-up Email Subscription form:

Follow ReadWriteWeb on Twitter

Web Trends

The State of the Smartphone: iPhone is Way, Way Ahead

A new industry report from mobile analytics firm Flurry reveals some unique insights into the smartphone industry as of right now. Because their firm focuses not just on iPhone, but also on Android, RIM Blackberry, and JavaME, they have the ability to see platform-spanning trends, instead of just those tied to Apple. So what can we learn from their deep dive into their company's data? Anything surprising? Actually, what the report confirms is what we've been hearing for some time now: the iPhone is king, smartphones are the new laptops, and iPhone applications can and do make money.

Facebook Goes International: Sees Impressive Growth Rates in Africa and Asia

According to data compiled by O'Reilly's Ben Lorica, Facebook is currently seeing some very impressive growth outside of the United States. In Africa and Asia, for example, Facebook's active user base grew over 70% in the last 12 weeks, and in Indonesia, Facebook has finally displaced Friendster as the most popular social network. With regards to the basic demographics on Facebook, women still represent the majority of users (51% vs. 45%), and while younger users still represent the majority of active users on the service, users over 55 are driving most of Facebook's current growth.

Nobody is Making Money Online from Susan Boyle Video (Yet)

Unless you lived in an exceptionally dark cave in the last two weeks, you probably weren't able to escape the Susan Boyle phenomenon. According to some metrics, over 100 million people have watched the immaculately edited video of the 'frumpy' 47-year-old's performance on Britain's Got Talent (BGT) by now. While this is most definitely an interesting cultural phenomenon, the Times this week also reports that neither ITV, the network that shows BGT, nor YouTube have really been able to directly profit from this huge hit because the network and YouTube have been arguing about the terms of their advertising agreement.

Jimmy Wales: Social Web Marketing - Good for Some, Not for All

According to Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, there are too many Indians and not enough Chiefs in the world of Web 2.0 marketing. "There is a lot of advice about how brands should be interacting [online]," he said in a keynote presentation at Ad:Tech San Francisco this week. "But, unless your brand is information dense, this highly interactive marketing is both expensive and useless." The good news however, is that communities offer the best bang for your buck in this miserable economy and Wales sees return on investment (ROI) as an "incredible steal right now," when it comes to consumer generated media.

Make Your Home Tweet Its Energy Use (Earth Day Project!)

Peter Troast, founder of Energy Circle, a company that sells energy-saving products, has created a new energy-monitoring system that sends his home's energy usage stats to Twitter. Inspired by the open source power monitoring kit from Tweet-a-Watt, Troast's system also sends his home's energy data to the web, but it's not in the form of once-a-day tweets like Tweet-a-Watt provides. Instead, his system uses a monitoring device called TED (The Energy Dectective) to create charts which are annotated by family members then tweeted for everyone to see. If you want to do the same for your home, we've got the info.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

• Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
• Expensd, tracks your expenses for free.
• Web 3.0 Conference, semantic web and linked data, May 19-20 NYC
• Semantic Technology Conference, the future of the Web, IT, search, business.
• Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
• TaxACT lets you file your taxes online.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• Socialtext brings you 5 Best Practices for Enterprise Collaboration Success
• Calais brings semantic functionality into your website or app.
• Aplus provides web hosting services for small business hosting needs.
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• Eurekster is a custom social search portal.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

ReadWriteHire

Who's Getting Hired in Tech? Q1 Numbers from ReadWriteHire

Rapleaf's Auren Hoffman says that hiring is harder in a downturn because the noise goes up but the quality stays the same. That's a pretty strong statement to make, but if it's true then it's all the more remarkable to see which companies are making hires now.

Our site ReadWriteHire covers new hires in tech and new media. We've just published our aggregate numbers for the first 3 months of 2009. Who's hiring? Software and IT companies, social media and social networking companies and marketing and advertising firms.

SUBSCRIBE TO READWRITEHIRE FOR THE LATEST NEWS ON JOB HIRES IN TECH

Web Products

Now You Can Change What Google Says About You

Google me? I'll Google you! Google has become the de facto public record these days but most people remain in relative obscurity there and/or fear of what past indiscretions Google will expose to people who search for them. This week Google released a product, called Google Me, that aims to change all of that. For a price - though not a monetary one.

GeoCities Closure Signals End of an Era - Will Others Survive on Freemium Model?

Yahoo has announced that its website creation service GeoCities, which it acquired for $4.5 billion in 1999, will close later this year. Existing customers are being encouraged to "upgrade" to Yahoo! Web Hosting, which offers a site-building service and a personalized web address. The closing of GeoCities is the end of an era. Last June, we profiled the rise of "GeoCities 2.0" services, i.e. website creation tools for the Social Web. Many of them will attempt to pick up GeoCities' customers. Although, as Yahoo! itself indicated in its closure message, website building is mostly a 'feature' nowadays rather than a separate product. So, is this a viable business now for the likes of Weebly and Yola?

No Doubt About It - Oprah Brought Lots of New Users to Twitter

Oprah's well publicized first tweet last Friday was definitely a boon for Twitter. According to Hitwise, 37% of all visits to Twitter last Friday were from new visitors, and Twitter's overall share of U.S. Internet visits increased 24% on Friday. It is important to note, though, that Twitter, being the new and growing service that it is, usually gets about 32% new visitors every day, which definitely puts these numbers into perspective. Hitwise, however, also notes that Facebook's ratio of new visitors was only 8% in March.

Sunlight Foundation Funds Six "Apps for America"

Chips, dip and government data are everyone's three favorite things to take to a party, right? Ok, so government data is actually quite boring on its own, but in these exciting times of democratized programming, government data can be turned into some pretty exciting mashups. That's just what the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation is aiming to make more possible with its work to make government and related data more available with its new Apps for America contest. More than 40 open source applications and websites making use of that data entered the contest and this week the six fabulous winners were announced. We've got a five minute screencast tour of the winners below.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

Enterprise

IT Consolidation Blues: CHOI Does Not Spell Choice

Oracle is buying Sun, and bankers are looking forward to the next wave of consolidation. To somebody who remembers the innovation and excitement of earlier enterprise hardware and software start-ups, this is a bit gloomy. CHOI (Cisco, HP, Oracle, IBM) does not spell "choice" for buyers, employees, or investors. Choose your behemoth. If consolidation means lower prices -- and it will -- buyers will be happy. But, it all sounds like cost-cutting, layoffs, and less innovation to me.

Email us if you're interested in writing for ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise Channel, which will soon be getting a re-design.

SEE MORE ENTERPRISE COVERAGE IN OUR ENTERPRISE CHANNEL

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Perhaps what's most surprising about Flurry's report isn't simply how prevalent and popular the iPhone and iPhone applications are today, but how far ahead they are of the nearest competitors. From an application perspective, the iPhone is killing on all fronts: number of developers, number of applications, and number of consumers using these applications.

Keep in mind when viewing these numbers, we're looking at data from Flurry, a snapshot sample computed from 100 applications, 8 million consumers, and 4 platforms (Apple iPhone, Google Android, RIM Blackberry, and JavaME). While these charts can give you insight into the mobile trends, they can't necessarily be extrapolated to the entire mobile smartphone industry. For example, because Flurry only deals with a small number of Blackberry developers, they can't provide any statistically relevant numbers relating to Blackberry apps. But then again, notes Flurry VP of Marketing Peter Farago, "why haven't Blackberry developers signed up for analytics?"

What you can glean from the info they've gathered, however, is that iPhone has a commanding lead over Android and the others right now. Unless Google has some big tricks up their sleeve, catching up with Apple's iPhone is going to be tough.

Smartphones are the New Laptops

Smartphones are the new laptops - we sort of knew this one already, didn't we? Although historically, only 10% of the installed-base used mobile applications on a daily basis, today, that number is changing... and changing fast. Smartphone applications are now heavily used and many are even used daily. Among those used daily, the frequency of use is also high, with some applications being used as much as 20 times per day.

Are smartphones really replacing laptops and are applications really replacing web sites? Maybe "replace" isn't exactly the right word to use, but there is definitely a shift in user behavior occurring right now where people are using their smartphones more than ever.

Yes, iPhone Apps Make Money

According to Flurry, iPhone applications can and do make money. Not all apps make it, of course, but those that do can actually make good money. A strong publisher with two titles a month can expect $10 million to $15 million in sales through the iPhone channel, if the titles are well-marketed, says the report.

But "well-marketed" is the key word here. The iPhone app industry is beginning to resemble the music industry with its "hit-driven" nature. One "hit" gets a developer on the map and gives them the chance to sell more apps. Successful apps often resemble successful songs: you need a good artist, a good producer, a strong distributor, and plenty of promotion.

Boosting Sales in a "Hit-Driven" Economy

It's also worth noting that you can't live forever off one "hit" alone. With iPhone games especially, users tend to get bored rather quickly. Flurry estimates that the average lifetime for a game is about 3 months. Publishers should keep that in mind when planning for their refresh cycles and updates.

But even still, refreshes provided by updates may not be enough. Flurry is seeing a trend that, to be honest, was surprising: only 10% of users are updating their applications after download. That means new features pushed out via an update aren't being seen by a large group of the app's users.

Instead of trying to drive engagement of your current user base through updates, it seems you may be better off going after new users. Cross-promotion of applications - that is, advertising one app within your other app - is very effective. Giving away a free trial can boost sales of your paid application, too.

About Flurry

Flurry is a mobile analytics firm with a "freemium" offering. Right now their core product is free, but in the future some additional optional services including development support and monetization opportunities will be added. Their company offers some unique measurements for developers of multiple smartphone platforms. One such measurement is user path tracking which is a feature much beloved by user experience designers as it lets them see the path a user took to get through a game or application.

Another feature of Flurry's platform is the ability to track dynamic parameters, which are completely custom parameters designated by the developer. Flurry also sets themselves apart from some of their competitors by what they don't do. They don't do advertising and don't want to be an advertising network.

You can check out a demo of Flurry's full service with live reporting data here: flurry.com/demo or you can view this slideshow of Flurry's analytics platform instead.