In an economic forum in Tokyo, Android-co-founder Andy Rubin said, “The exact same platform, the exact same operating system we built for cameras, that became Android for cellphones.” So, I guess products like the Nikon Coolpix S800c and Samsung Galaxy Camera aren’t that far-fetched after all.

The original intention for Android was to provide a platform for a smart camera that would sync easily with computers. Rubin described a 2004 marketing pitch for Android where he spoke of a camera that hooked up to a computer connected to an “Android Datacenter.” However, they decided that the digital camera market “wasn’t actually a big enough market,” but the smartphone market was growing. In either case, Android was designed to be a mass market platform from the get-go.

“We wanted as many cellphones to use Android as possible,” said Rubin. “So instead of charging $99, or $59, or $69 [like how other companies license their software], to Android, we gave it away for free, because we knew the industry was price sensitive.”

[Source]

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Acer was set to launch a new Acer CloudMobile A800 in Shanghai today, but it seems they’ve canceled the plans last moment. The A800 was quite unique not just because of its cloud-focus but because it was changing up the OS by making use of the Chinese Aliyun OS by Alibaba.

Why cancel so close to the announcement? Supposedly it is because Acer has just been the victim of some pretty serious bullying on Google’s part. According to Alibaba, Acer received notification from Google that if they went ahead with the launch, Google would cut them off from Android. This would mean no direct product cooperation or related technical authorization with Acer.

For the moment we’ve heard no comments from Google or Acer about the claim. Could the Chinese company just be using this an accuse to cover another reason for the cancellation? Possibly. Could Google really be resorting to back-alley techniques like bullying? It’s certainly possible.

There are two reasons why I’m not so sure what to believe, though. The first is that Android is essentially open-source.

Acer could likely keep doing Android stuff with or without Google. Maybe its more about them losing Google application support for things like Google Play? If so, that’s understandable. Google Play has over 500,000 apps, while alternatives like Amazon Market would mean that Acer Android devices would only have access to about 50,000 apps.

The second reason why I’m not so sure has to do with Windows 8. Samsung and HTC both WP and Android devices, and they aren’t being threatened by Google. Samsung even has its own Bada OS, as well.

What’s your take on the situation? Do you think Google would resort to such bullying to keep out the competition or is it more likely that Acer withdrew for some un-named reason that Alibaba doesn’t want to mention?

[ source ]

The post Acer Aliyun OS smartphone canceled, Alibaba says Google threatened Acer appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

However, this does not mean that Grooveshark is now free and in the clear. It’s still in plenty of hot water with its legal battles, so the actual library of songs available through the music streaming service may get more or less limited as time goes on. That said, at least the app is back and that helps Grooveshark maintain a certain level of mindshare among consumers.

“We’re delighted that the official Grooveshark app has been reinstated,” said Grooveshark in an official statement. “We look forward to continuing to build a relationship with Android and leverage this fantastic platform for our partners.”

This should build on the victory Grooveshark had in a New York court about two months ago. Universal argued that the safe harbor provisions in the DMCA didn’t apply to recordings before 1972. The judge disagreed and said that it wasn’t Grooveshark’s responsibility to determine the copyright status of pre-1972 recordings.

[Source via Google Play

]

The post Grooveshark Is Back to Play Store for Google Android appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

So what can make Google Drive stand out? I’d wager that the leverage of its existing online applications, like Google Docs, could certainly help. Docs is now built right in to the Drive, letting users work easily with other people for collaboration on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. The search by keyword options in Google Drive also seem to be fairly robust. The biggest piece of leverage it probably has going for it is Android. More than likely we will see deep integration with the drive in future revisions of Android that make Drive more appealing than current alternatives, such as DropBox.

What do you think of Google’s new “Drive”, any chance it will really give is competition a run for its money, or instead, will it fall flat? We recommend taking a look at the Verge’s comparison of existing solutions next to the Google’s service to get an even better idea of whether or not the “Drive” is the right option for you.

You can also check out Google’s own promotional video, below.

The post Google’s new “Drive” Service Launches appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Voice Actions in Android currently do more than just do searches on Google. It can be used to make phone calls and such, but Google wants to beef it up to do even more, challenging Siri for the throne of most useful voice assistant. The service that previously went by the codename “Majel” will have three main goals, all of which are designed to “go beyond Siri’s functionality.”

First, they want Assistant “to put the world’s knowledge into a format a computer can understand, to create a personalization layer and to build a mobile, voice-controlled “do engine” that will help users accomplishing real-life goals.” It’s like taking IBM’s Watson, making him cater to the individual user, and getting him to understand what we’re saying, acting on those instructions to really achieve something.

Chalk this up to rumor for now, but it looks like Google Assistant could be ready for deployment by the end of this year. Better still, Google will likely have an API that will open up the service to developers. Who knows what cool functions this could yield?

[ source]

The post Google Assistant for Android to Challenge iPhone’s Siri appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

That’s why Google has come forward to announce a new service called “Bouncer” just days after Symantec’s announcement of a major malware infection found in some Android apps.  Yeah, Android Market is the hippest night club in town and it’s not going to put up with belligerant drunks and would-be thieves. Get out, buddy. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

In a nutshell, Bouncer will scan developer accounts automatically and look for “potentially malicious software without disrupting the user experience.” It also “looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags.” If it finds some bad stuff, it gives that app (and presumably the developer) the boot out of the door, thereby protecting us Android users from the bad guys.

Let’s just hope that Google’s Bouncer isn’t like its Goliath-sized non-digital counterparts where you can just slip them some green to get in the club.

[ source ]

The post Google Ups Security with Bouncer for Android Market appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The regular old Twitter client on your Android phone is fine for basic updates, but what if you’re using social networks for a small business and you need more features? What if you need to handle multiple accounts and manage different teams of workers? Thankfully, there are more than a few alternatives out there.

Sprout Social has been around as a web-based desktop client for some time now, they’ve also offered an iOS app. Now, they’ve updated us with an Android application to let you better “manage your social media on the go.” This is a companion app for users of Sprout Social, so you’ll need to start with an account there first.

A Sprout Social Overview

It’s clear right from the beginning that Sprout Social is catering itself to business owners, particularly those where there are multiple team members working on the same social media accounts. The core service is designed to give you more information for sales, marketing, and support, as well as that collaborative experience for everyone on your social media team.

You can manage mutliple social media accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, complete with analytics, monitoring, top performing posts, publishing options, discovery features, task assignment, CRM, and location information. That last bit is interesting, because you can keep tabs on Foursquare locations for check-in data and trends, which is great for brick and mortar businesses.

Navigating the Mobile App

But what about the new Android app?

Everything is laid out in a relatively easy to understand manner, allowing you group together different Twitter accounts into workgroups. From there, you can see the main home feed as well as access your sent updates, look at tasks, and so on. Everything that you’ve come to expect from a Twitter client is here, though I would have liked the ability to “swipe” from column to column rather than simply tapping on the icons near the top.

When composing a new message you can choose which social media accounts you’d like to use (that’s the left column). There are also options to attach images (it defaults to a low-res image to yfrog) and schedule your tweets into the future. Unfortunately, just like HootSuite, there does not appear to be a way to check your scheduled tweets from within the mobile app; you have to go to the web-based desktop client to see that.

The tasks and statistics are available to you, though, so you can see how many clicks and retweets you are getting from your sent messages, for instance. The team management function is great too, since you can assign tasks to team members for following up.

The Smart Inbox

The primary column in the Sprout Social Android app is the Smart Inbox. Again, clearly designed with businesses in mind, this allows you to monitor everything that has to do with your company and your brand from one convenient location. The criteria can be customized, but it effectively lets you see all the mentions and activity related to you across mutliple services.

For instance, I named the workgroup “Mobile Magazine” and linked up my @dotcompho Twitter account. As you can see in the screenshot, it picked up the tweets that mentioned “Mobile Magazine,” as well as the mention directed at @dotcompho. This one inbox gives you an “at a glance” survey of how the social web is responding to your brand(s).

How Much Does It Cost?

Ah, there’s the rub. While the Android app is free, using Sprout Social is not.

Each of these comes with a free 30 day trial with no credit card required, but there is no “free” plan that can be used with Sprout Social. The plans range from $9/month to $899/month, offering anywhere from 10 social profiles to unlimited profiles. The cheapest plan supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Reader, while the higher end includes Foursquare and Google Analytics, as well as local search, task assignments, Facebook tabs, branded reports, and more.

I’m not sure that Sprout Social is quite the right fit for the regular old consumer, but its robust feature set — particularly with monitoring and analytics — and could prove invaluable to businesses of all sizes.

The post Sprout Social for Android Review appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Android is on the rise. In fact, when you look at the sales numbers for Q3 2011 and compare them to the sales numbers for the same period one year prior, you’ll see that Google’s mobile operating system has effectively doubled its market share. This means that Google Android now has an impressive 52.5 percent market share. Compare that to the 25.3 percent it had in Q3 2010.

The recent report comes by way of Gartner, revealing that a total of 60.5 million Android-based smartphones were sold in the third quarter fo this year. The next closest competitor is Nokia with its 19.5 million smartphones sold, but the Finnish company lost more than half its market share compared to 2010 (16.9% vs. 36.3%). Nokia was also the overall leader in mobile sales, but again, its market share shrank from 28.2% to 23.9%.

Apple more or less held steady at 15.0% (compared to 16.6% last year), selling 17.3 million iPhones in Q3. The assumption is that people held off for a while there, waiting to get their hands on the iPhone 4S. When looking at all mobile phones, Apple only accounts for 3.9 percent, compared to the 17.8% enjoyed by Samsung and the 4.8% earned by LG.

The post Android Accounts For More Than Half Of Smartphones Sold In Q3 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

According to the latest financial figures of the company, over 190 million Android devices have sold around the world, with CEO Larry Page at the ship’s wheel. While 190 million is quite a large number, more importantly is the other one; 2.25 billion dollars, which sums up Android’s success and Google’s alike.

Larry Page also declared he was excited about another thing than aside from the billions of dollars their products have brought the company, and that is the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich launch.

“You won’t believe what we manage to get done in this release,” Page said excitedly… about the “Ice Cream Sandwich”.  Can Ice Cream Sandwich be a worthy counterattack against the somewhat troubled, yet advanced iOS 5 with Siri?

The post 190 Million Android Devices Shipped: Thats $2.25 Billion For Google appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It might be revealed as Android 2.4 or maybe Android 4.0, but whatever the case, Ice Cream Sandwich looks like they took Honeycomb and shrunk it down to smartphone proportions. You get the same kind of launcher for seeing your most recent apps, for example, as well as a similar interface for going through the settings and thumbing through your list of apps.

While these are just still screenshots, you can tell that there are going to be some animations in place for page swipes and similar transitions. You’ll also notice that, like Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich has “soft” on-screen buttons for back, home, and recent apps, which will likely lend itself to smartphones that start abandoning the physical buttons (or touch-sensitive buttons) for those functions. This could lead ot bigger slates and thinner bezels.

I think it looks great and hopefully it’ll help with some of that Android fragmentation that’s going on.

The post Leaked: Sneak peek at Android Ice Cream Sandwich appeared first on Mobile Magazine.