app
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5581997/social-gaming-network-openfeint-coming-to-android
Good news for Android users who are miserable due to the limited game selection on their devices: Social gaming network OpenFeint is coming to Android and it’ll hopefully encourage development of more games for the mobile operating system.
OpenFeint To Bring World’s Largest Mobile Gaming Developer Community To Google’s Android Platform
Mobile Social Games Network’s Expansion to Android will Accompany Titles from Glu Mobile, Digital Chocolate, And Hudson Entertainment.
Burlingame, CA – July 8, 2010 – OpenFeint, the leading mobile social gaming ecosystem for iOS devices, today announced that its 9,200 member game developer community with thousands of published games will soon have a complete solution to thrive in the Android apps economy. Launching later this summer, the company’s complete solution will include its de facto standard SDK, a game discovery store and mobile payment options. It will also include high quality content from leading publishers Astraware, Digital Chocolate, Glu Mobile, Hudson Soft and independent studios like Distinct Dev (Moron Test), ustwo (Dot Dot Dot), Pik Pok (Flick Kick Football) and RocketCat Games (Hook Champ).
With a strong set of partners at launch, OpenFeint’s ecosystem provides Android users the most compelling way to discover and buy high quality online games. In addition to incorporating Google Checkout and leading community features into its developer SDK, OpenFeint will extend its wildly successful Game Spotlight discovery app to Android. Interested parties can register at www.openfeint.com/developers/android for details as they emerge.
At the same time, OpenFeint continues to invest in and expand its efforts on Apple’s iOS devices and maintains the largest mobile social gaming ecosystem on that platform with over 28 million users and a presence in over 2,200 live games.
“Android is an evolving gaming platform that will greatly benefit from OpenFeint’s industry leading online gaming and community technologies,” said Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile. “OpenFeint is leading the charge for game developers on Android, helping simplify and improve the game discovery and purchase process for players on the platform.”
OpenFeint also announced that its expansion to Android is backed by a recent strategic investment by leading Chinese online gaming company, The9. This marks the path for a significant expansion for the company as it rolls out its cross platform strategy. As always, OpenFeint will remain open source and free for both developers and players.
“OpenFeint continues to demonstrate leadership and innovation in building community technologies which drive considerable discovery and monetization for publishers,” said Jason Loia, COO of Digital Chocolate, one of the industry’s most highly-rated publishers of mobile and social games. “We are excited about their entry into the Android ecosystem and we look forward to partnering with them to bring the best gaming experience to the Android platform.”
With over 160,000 Android powered devices shipping daily, Google’s mobile platform is growing rapidly and leading game developers recognize the tremendous opportunity to bring quality content to the platform.
“This is a big step for OpenFeint and an even bigger step for Android as it becomes a serious mobile gaming platform,” said Jonathan Goldberg, Analyst at Deutsche Bank Equity Research. “OpenFeint ushered in mobile online gaming for iOS devices and we think they’ll lead the revolution on Android.”
OpenFeint also re-affirmed its continued commitment to the Apple iOS device community where thousands of games are in development and several games are approved in the App Store daily with OpenFeint enablement.
Tags: Accompany, android, app, Apple iOS, Astraware, Bring, Burlingame, burlingame ca, chocolate, community, company, content, Developer, developer community, developer sdk, development, digital, discovery, discovery store, Distinct, Dot, dot dot dot, due, economy, Ecosystem, expansion, Flick Kick, game, game developer, game discovery, game selection, game spotlight, games network, gaming, gaming network, Glu, google, Hudson Entertainment, Hudson Soft, independent studios, industry, Jason Loia, Jonathan Goldberg, July, Largest, Launching, leading publishers, live games, member, Mobile, mobile payment, moron test, network, news, Niccolo de Masi, online, OpenFeint, operating, payment, Platform, quality, quality online games, SDK, selection, Social, social games, social gaming, solution, Source, step, store, summer, system, Titles, today, World
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5582559/osmos-for-ipad-ambient-gaming-tailor+made-for-the-tablet
When the iPad was unveiled and I started to imagine the types of games a 9″ touch screen might engender, I envisioned gorgeous, intuitive and, above all, immersive experiences. Osmos for iPad is one of the best I’ve found yet.
The game, which is adapted from a well-regarded PC version and costs $5 in the App Store, puts you in control of a tiny blue organism, a mote, which you direct around the screen, growing in size as you absorb the smaller blobs around you. Of course, all sorts of challenges, including bigger motes trying to absorb you, complicate that mission.
But what’s really special about Osmos is the experience of controlling that game play. Tapping behind your mote scoots him around the screen, predictably, but at any time you can pinch to zoom in or out, allowing you to navigate a tight passage or survey the level at a distance. Additionally, you can swipe with one finger to alter time—drag left and all the motes slow to a crawl, drag right and they shoot around like bouncy balls. Different speeds and levels of zoom have situations in which they’re uniquely useful, and these elegant controls are the perfect complement to the game’s polished visuals.
Osmos teaches you these gestures in early levels, but after that there’s little instruction. You’re given a basic goal and left to your own devices to go about achieving it. Depending on your style, the game play can be rambunctious or meditative, and often it’s both in the course of one level.
There’s not a huge variation in the game play, admittedly, and it’s so engrossing that I imagine most players will zip through the Odyssey track pretty quickly (there’s an arcade mode that lets you play levels one at a time, too). But in some ways this simplicity is the game’s biggest asset, because it allows for a remarkable cohesiveness between all of its elements, from game play and visual style down to the soundtrack and menus. It’s not only a “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” type thing; here, the whole is so dazzlingly packaged that you don’t really think of the “parts” as parts at all.
For me, Osmos on the iPad is an experience first and a game second, and it uses the iPad to achieve game play that would be impossible—or, at least, not nearly as compelling—on any other platform. At its best, the iPad isn’t just an app machine or a gaming device but a portal into some other environment all together, and I hope that developers will follow Osmos’ lead and strive not just to adapt familiar gaming experiences to the tablet but to create new ones for it entirely. [iTunes]
Tags: all sorts, app, arcade, arcade mode, asset, blobs, bouncy, bouncy balls, cohesiveness, complement, control, course, crawl, device, distance, engender, environment, experience, finger, game, game play, gaming, gestures, goal, instruction, iPad, level, machine, mdash, mission, mode, mote, motes, Odyssey, organism, Osmos, passage, Platform, play, Portal, right, screen, simplicity, size, soundtrack, Source, store, style, sum, swipe, Tapping, thing, time, Touch, touch screen, track, type, types of games, variation, version, visual style, visuals, whole
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5581704/more-kin-dirt-surfaces
If people had talked this much about Kin while it was still alive, it might have stood a chance. Oh well! The battle continues to rage over who gets the write the final chapter in Kin’s history.
Mini-Microsoft has been a prime staging ground for these kinds of comments, with accusations aplenty being flung back and forth by current and former Microsoft employees. A sampling from today’s batch shows that Andy Lees is again a popular target:
All I can say as a former Windows Mobile employee who is now working for a competitor in the phone space is that this is good news for the rest of us. [...] Personally I quit because of the frustrating management and autocratic decision style of Terry Myerson and Andrew Lees. The only exec in the team myself and other folks respcted was Tom Gibbons who is now sidelined. Lees and Myerson don’t know consumer products or phones. Gibbons at least knows consumer product development. We often talk about how Andrew Lees still has a job but Microsoft’s loss is a gain for the rest of us.
And that the folks at Danger, acquired by Microsoft to help bring Kin to life, were confounded by the sudden perceived incompetence around them:
You are correct, the remaining Danger team was not professional nor did we show off the amazing stuff we had that made Danger such a great place. But the reason for that was our collective disbelief that we were working in such a screwed up place. Yes, we took long lunches and we sat in conference rooms and went on coffee breaks and the conversations always went something like this…”Can you believe that want us to do this?” Or “Did you hear that IM was cut, YouTube was cut? The App store was cut?” “Can you believe how mismanaged this place is?” “Why is this place to dysfunctional??”
Please understand that we went from being a high functioning, extremely passionate and driven organization to a dysfunctional organization where decisions were made by politics rather than logic.
So: we get it. All is not right with Microsoft’s corporate culture, which may spell trouble for Windows Phone 7. But in the meantime, can’t we just let sleeping Kins lie? [Mini Microsoft]
Tags: accusations, amazing stuff, Andrew Lees, Andy Lees, app, batch, battle, being, chance, chapter, coffee, coffee breaks, competitor, conference, consumer, conversations, Danger, decision, development, dirt surfaces, disbelief, driven organization, dysfunctional, employee, exec, flung, functioning, Gain, gibbons, ground, history, history mini, incompetence, job, Kin, life, LOSS, management, microsoft, microsoft employees, mini, Mobile, mobile employee, myerson, news, organization, phone, place, Product, reason, rest, sampling, something, Source, space, staging, store, stuff, style, target, team, Terry Myerson, today, Tom Gibbons, Windows, YouTube
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/04/inexplicable-rise-in-iphone-devs-app-store-sales-connected-to-i/
We’ve received a handful of tips this morning claiming something’s rotten in the state of the iTunes App Store, namely via the Book category. As of this writing, 42 of the top 50 books by revenue are from the seller Thuat Nguyen, whose company website (“mycompany”) leads to parked site www.home.com. A vast majority of these book apps were released in April, have little to no customer ratings or reviews, appear to be in Vietnamese (despite claims in the side bar that the supported languages are English and Japanese), and may or may not be infringing on copyrighted work — we’re noticing a lot of Dragon Ball art here. To give sales a sense of scope, Twilight series conclusion Breaking Dawn is hovering only at 34 right now.
So, how did these books hit the top of the charts? The other half of this story has to do with a claimed rise in iTunes account hacking, with a number of people reporting up to hundreds of dollars being spent unwillingly from their account to these specific books. Coincidence? Let’s not mince words here, something is definitely amiss, and it’s not looking good. Just to be safe, might wanna check your purchase history under Apple Account information. We’ve reached out to Apple and will let you know as soon as we hear back.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: account, app, Apple Account, apps, April, Art, ball, bar, Book, book category, breaking dawn, category, check, Coincidence, com, company, conclusion, customer, customer ratings, dawn, devs, Dragon, dragon ball, dragon ball art, Engadget, English, hacks, half, handful, history, home, information, iPhone, itunes, lot, Mac Stories, majority, morning, mycompany, nbsp, Nguyen, number, purchase, purchase history, revenue, rise, scope, seller, sense, series, side, site, something, Source, specific books, State, store, story, Thuat, top, top of the charts, Twilight, twilight series, vietnamese, Wanna, website, Work, writing, www
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5578544/facebooks-oversized-economy-visualized
What if Facebook were a country, and all its apps and fan pages were its fiefdoms? It would look a little something like this. Oh, and it would be filthy, filthy rich.
Because Facebook’s a private company, it’s impossible to know how much the site itself makes. But the value of fan pages alone is staggering, to say nothing of app giants like Zynga and CrowdStar.
Me? I’ll just take some oceanfront property in Causes. I hear the winters are incredibly mild. [Visual Economics via The High Definite]
Tags: app, apps, Causes, company, country, CrowdStar, Definite, economics, economy, Facebook, facebook economy, fan, fan pages, fiefdoms, filthy, giants, High, nothing, oceanfront, oceanfront property, private company, property, site, something, Source, value, Visual, Zynga
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/01/apple-turns-on-iads-for-ios-4-devices-right-on-schedule/
Steve himself noted at WWDC that iAds would go live for “all iOS 4 devices” on Canada Day, and sure enough, they look to be popping up today. One eagle-eyed tipster has already found one within the ‘Mirror: for iPod and iPhone’ app, shown above. It’s certainly quite a bit more visually soothing than some other ads we’ve seen, but we aren’t here to judge — instead, we’d love to hear your take on it. Have you seen any iAds creep into your apps today? Whatcha think of ‘em? Let us know in comments below.
Update: Looks like a Nissan Leaf iAd has debuted as well; the vid’s after the break of that one.
Update 2: Oh, and this is just for North America for now. Everyone else will have to wait. Crushing, we know.
[Thanks, Spencer]
Continue reading Apple turns on iAds for iOS 4 devices in North America, right on schedule
Apple turns on iAds for iOS 4 devices in North America, right on schedule originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: america right, app, apple, bit, break, Canada, canada day, Continue, creep, Crushing, day, EDT, email, Engadget, everyone, iAd, iads, iOS, iPhone, iPod, Jul, Leaf iAd, Looks, love, Mirror, nbsp, Nissan, North America, Permalink, reading, right, schedule, scheduleApple, Source, Spencer, Steve, take, the, Thu, tipster, today, update, use, vid, whatcha, WWDC
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5576191/android-app-tells-you-if-your-fruit-loops-are-safe-to-eat
Kellog’s [sic] Recalled Products is a new Android app. It lets you scan the barcodes on Kellogg’s items, with the results compared against a recalled products database—so you know what’s edible and what may contain traces of glass/metal/human skin.
It exists because Kellogg’s recently released a product recall for a wide range of its cereal products, thanks to buyers reporting an “uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner”—this app will help you avoid such instances of breakfast unease. App developers think of everything. [Android Pit]
Tags: android, app, barcodes, breakfast, cereal, cereal products, database, developers, everything, fruit loops, glass, human skin, instances, Kellog, Kellogg, liner, mdash, metal, Pit, Product, product recall, products database, range, recall, Recalled, skin, smell, Source, traces, unease
As more and more users adopt tools to de-clutter web pages and remove all distractions (such as ads) the effectiveness of display ads will continue to decline, despite innovations and advancements in targeting technologies.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5568752/add-safari-reader+like-powers-to-firefox-and-chrome
The Safari 5 feature that’s caught the web’s attention is the Reader button, which strips down articles and blog posts into an ad-free, highly readable format. Two add-ons for Firefox and Chrome do a good job of recreating that convenience.
If you missed our round-up of what’s new in Safari 5, the short explanation of Reader is that, while many bookmarklets have come along to offer a simplified, less-cluttered reading experience, Safari is the first major browser to go ahead and offer that kind of feature by default, as an address bar button. If you’re a fan of bookmarklets, and your bookmarks aren’t too cluttered to lose them in, we recommend the tools from arc90′s Readability, the Instapaper Text bookmarklet, and the Readable app for highly customized formatting.
But maybe you want your Firefox or Chrome rig to offer that kind of button-click functionality. You’re in luck. First off, here’s the Top 10 feature we’ll try our reading tools out on—click the image for a larger view:

Now here are two add-ons for Firefox and Chrome, and a look at how they do at getting all minimalist with the text and pics. Click any of the images below, too, for a larger view
Readability (Firefox)

Baris Derin rolled the Readability bookmarklet into a full-fledged add-on for Firefox, but also added in a pretty neat auto-scrolling feature for the true lean-back-and-read experience. Readability tends to keep more of the text and formatting in and around the page, but strips out all the marketing and navigation material. It places an “R” button in the lower-right status area of Firefox, which isn’t the most convenient spot for our use, but some may prefer having it hidden away until needed. Notice the transparent icons, too, that provide printing, email, and refresh functions for live-updating posts.
iReader (Chrome)
Mhd Hejazi’s iReader is directly inspired by Safari’s Reader function, offering the same kind of pop-out white box that darkens the rest of the page, a button right in the address bar, and very, very minimal decoration—as you can see, it pared down our Top 10 feature quite a bit. There are also keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac to activate iReader, and options to change the background opacity, font and formatting, and add a “Send with Gmail” link to your articles. Neat stuff.
Both add-ons are free downloads. Know of another reading/simplifying extension that gets the job done? Tell us about it in the comments.
Thanks to emmikkelsen for the inspiration!
Tags: address, app, arc, area, attention, bar, Baris, blog, bookmarklet, bookmarklets, browser, button, Chrome, click, clutter, convenience, default, Derin, display, distractions, effectiveness, email, experience, explanation, extension, fan, feature, Firefox, format, functionality, good job, hejazi, Image, images, innovations, Instapaper, iReader, job, kind, lean back, look, luck, Mac, marketing, material, mdash, minimalist, navigation, offer, page, Readability, Readable, readable format, Reader, reader button, reading, reading experience, rig, Safari, Source, Spot, status, text, tmpPost, transparent icons, view, Web, web pages
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5559357/iphone-vs-android-showdown-which-phone-is-best-for-power-users
The newest iPhone comes out in two weeks; the Android OS continues to deploy on better and better hardware; and both operating systems roll out exciting new features and innovations with each release. So which deserves your hard-earned cash?
A Starting Point
You can evaluate iPhone and Android devices from countless angles,[1] so rather than pretend that we’ve got the One True Comparison, it only seems appropriate to highlight that we’re not necessarily your average user. For more specifics on how we judge these devices, read this footnote.
For our purposes, we’re measuring each phone OS against 20 features we care about most, declaring a winner (or a tie) for each category, and adding it all up. The extent to which our measurements match up with what you most care about may vary, but we suspect that many of you share similar values when it comes to your smartphone.
Note: The table below indicates the device we think “wins” each category. A happy Android means we think Android is better in that category; an Apple means iPhone outperforms Android; categories with both an Android and Apple are ties.
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] iPhone vs. Android Showdown: Which Phone Is Best for Power Users?](http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/17/2010/06/500x_iPhone-versus-Android.jpg)
Artwork by Adam Dachis
Below, we’ve broken down the categories above and explained whey we chose the winners as we did.
Ease of Use; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Android has come a long way in a short time, but from an ease-of-use perspective, the iPhone wins out. You can pick up any iPhone and quickly, easily understand what’s going on. It’s got one main button on the front of the device, and everything you do consists of tapping app icons from the home screen. Android devices have several buttons on the front of the device that perform a variety of functions, and once you unlock the screen (and depending on which Android device you have), you’re confronted with many different possible home screens and ways of doing things from those home screens.
Openness; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
We really like that the Android operating system open source, but what’s more important to most end users is openness in terms of what you can run on these devices. The operating systems themselves are clearly important, but one thing’s abundantly clear: the applications make the phone. And while Google has yet to get in hot water for rejecting apps based on anti-competitive fear or censorship, Apple’s has. A lot.
Battery Life; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Apple has taken battery life extremely seriously in their careful development of the iPhone, and it’s shown. While Android devices get a kitchen-sink’s worth of features that you may consider to be a fair tradeoff for battery life, there’s little question that the iPhone’s battery life outlasts that of most Android devices. Battery performance definitely varies from Android handset to Android handset (the recently released EVO is taking big hits for its poor battery performance), but the iPhone’s battery performance—particularly the new iPhone’s performance—generally outlasts Android’s.
Multitasking; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
It’s a big deal that the iPhone is finally getting some multitasking support in iOS4, and while it’s still not as true of multitasking as Android users enjoy, the tradeoff in terms off battery life improvements is important enough that, overall, we’d consider multitasking to be a wash.
Software Keyboard; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
If you talk to anyone who’s used both the iPhone and Android with some frequency, the general consensus is that the iPhone’s software keyboard is a good deal better than Android’s default keyboard. That’s unfortunate for Android users, but the consolation is that you can install any custom keyboard as your default keyboard on Android, and we’ve seen some solid keyboard alternatives. Still, the advantage, if only by virtue of being better out of the box, goes to the iPhone.
System-Wide Search; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
Apple’s implementation of Spotlight on the iPhone searches contacts, media, email, applications, notes, and calendar. Android searches most of that (but notably not email), but also integrates with auto-suggest web searches; it also lets other applications plug into it, so the more supported apps you install, the more robust the universal search becomes.
Notification system; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
This may seem like a silly thing to care too much about, but the iPhone’s modal notification system is particularly user un-friendly, especially for a device as friendly as the iPhone. You have to act on a notification, and you can only see one notification at a time before the next one dismisses the previous one entirely. Android’s brilliant pull-down window shade notification tray, on the other hand, is a beautiful thing that could make any iPhone owner jealous.
Voice-to-Text; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
Nearly every text field on an Android device can be filled with a few words from your mouth, and it works surprisingly well. You can respond to emails by voice, send long text messages by voice while you’re walking around Target, respond to your editor’s IMs while you’re at a graduation ceremony, and so on, as long as you’re comfortable talking to your phone (it is a phone, so you should be). Apart from voice-to-text in third party apps, iOS doesn’t support voice-to-text at all.
Syncing; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
iPhones can be incredible standalone devices, but they’re surprisingly old-fashioned when it comes to syncing, requiring users to plug into their computers and connect to iTunes to do all sorts of syncing and activating that could be more conveniently done wirelessly. Android phones support pretty great over-the-air syncing with your Google account, so much so that if you were to lose your previous Android phone, simply entering your Google account into a new one can get you up and running with a usable phone in a jiffy.
Non-Google Sync; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Android’s great at syncing seamlessly with Google’s servers, but it’s not so keen on syncing with other popular sources of data—like, say, Outlook, Address Book, or iTunes. If you’re a heavy user of any of those applications, the iPhone is the easiest option.
Tethering; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
The cost of tethering on Android devices varies depending on the provider, but so far the Android tethering situation is better off than what AT&T is offering on the iPhone. In the States, AT&T will charge you $20/month just for the privilege of tethering your iPhone’s data connection to a computer—despite the fact that you’re already paying for a metered data plan. The situation isn’t necessarily much better across the Android-sphere (Sprint is also planning to charge for tethering on the EVO, for example), but currently most Android carriers are sticking with “unlimited” plans, versus AT&T/iPhone’s 2GB limit. It’s still a close race on this point, but Android edges ahead with the ability to turn your handset into a Wi-Fi hotspot that can deliver wireless to you and seven of your closest friends.
Release and Update Consistency; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
These days, your mobile OS is just as important (if not more) than mobile hardware, and Apple has set the consumer expectation to expect that their device will receive new feature updates even if it isn’t the latest phone. To that end, it’s extremely easy to keep track of what’s going on in the iPhone ecosystem. Apple releases one new phone a year, and one major update each year. When an update rolls out, every phone receives the update at the same time (unless it’s particularly old; the original iPhone won’t upgrade to iOS4, for example). In contrast, Android runs on a lot of different devices, and when Google pushes out a new update, there’s no telling when or if it’s going to make its way to your phone. In the future Google is planning to change to yearly Android updates similar to iPhone OS updates, which will likely help this situation, but in the meantime, it’s a source of frustration for Android users.
Apps; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
A lot of people may disagree on this assessment, given that Apple’s App Store has around four times the number of applications the Android Market does, but there’s also a lot of crap in the App Store, and at this point, most popular, mission-critical applications have been developed for both the iPhone and Android. What’s more, some potentially very popular applications end up locked out of the App Store for, if we’re being generous, arbitrary reasons. At the end of the day, it may be a big deal that your must-have application X is missing from the Android Market/App Store, and those may end up to be dealbreakers for you, but overall we’d call them pretty even.
Web browsing; Tie
![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
The iPhone’s Mobile Safari browser, while not without its faults, is a very nice, very usable mobile browser. Android’s browser, while not as smooth an operator as Safari, supports (or can support) Flash. The extent to which that matters to you may vary, but it’s big enough that we’re considering it a tie.
Gaming; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
We’re frugal productivity nerds at Lifehacker, so we don’t really care all that much about gaming. And while the number of solid gaming options available in the Android Market continue to grow, it’s still not on par with what’s available for the iPhone.
Music Player; Winner: iPhone ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AppleLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AppleLogoIcon1.png)
Android may do a lot of things well, but one arena where its users regularly voice complaint is with its default media player. Where the iPhone comes with a very solid iPod app, most Android users quickly go looking for alternative players. Google is hyping over-the-internet streaming of all your music from your desktop computer eventually, but until we see something great there, the iPhone still wins out.
Free Turn-by-Turn Navigation; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
After the Google Voice debacle from last year, it’s looking less and less likely that Google will ever develop another new app for the iPhone. Unfortunately, that means that extremely cool applications like Google Maps Navigation, Google’s free turn-by-turn GPS application, will never make it to the iPhone, and so far there isn’t anything as good for the iPhone that’s also free. The iPhone does have its share of solid for-a-price GPS utilities in the App Store (and some decent inexpensive-to-free options), but Maps Navigation is built into Android and outshines the iPhone’s free alternatives.
Integration with Google Apps; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
If you rely on Google tools like Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and the like, Android just does it better. The iPhone’s still no slouch, and can sync over-the-air with Contacts, Calendar, and even does Gmail push for instant new message notifications, but if you’re a serious Google or even just Gmail user, the iPhone doesn’t stack up to Android.
Google Voice; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
It may seem absurd to make this a separate point of comparison from Google Apps, but Voice is a very phone-centric app with potentially huge influence over how you use your phone. Apple had the option to approve a Google Voice app for the iPhone and completely blew it. And since we really love Google Voice, it only makes Android look that much more attractive.
Customizable; Winner: Android ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
You may be able to add a wallpaper to your iPhone desktop when iOS4 rolls out, but beyond that, there’s not much you can do to tweak your iPhone to exactly how you like it—without jailbreaking, that is. In comparison, Android devices are Mr. Potato Heads of customizability.
Overall Score: Android: 13; iPhone: 11 ![Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown] AndroidLogoIcon1 Which Phone Is Best for Power Users? [Showdown]](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2010/06/AndroidLogoIcon1.png)
Clearly our scorecard is extremely subjective, so take this evaluation with a grain of salt, and consider how important the features we listed (and maybe those we didn’t list) are to you and come up with your own assessment. If your priorities are similar to ours, you’re likely looking at an Android for your next purchase. Frankly, it feels a little like a draw overall. (My ideal would be Android running on the iPhone 4, which is actually possible, eventually.)
In fact, in our recent poll on the subject, 66 percent of Lifehacker readers said they prefer Android; 30 percent prefer the iPhone, and 4 percent preferred neither. Whichever end of the spectrum you fall on, we’d love to hear more about what’s driving your decision in the comments.
Why just Android and iPhone? The iPhone and Android operating systems are not the only mobile OSes on the block, but they’re what we’re focusing on in this post. It’s cool if you’re really into Windows Mobile/Phone 7 or webOS. For the purpose of this post, we’re focusing on what we consider to be the most popular options among our readers. [
go back up]
How we judge: We consider ourselves power users who care about things like openness, user control, and customizability; we also care about ease of use, high quality design, and quality hardware. For better or worse (usually worse), these qualities often end up at odds with one another in the current smartphone market, but they make up the measuring stick against which we’re evaluating these devices.
It’s also probably worth noting that, Android OS and hardware aside, we’re big fans of several of Google’s services, and so some of those play an important role in some of the categories above. It may not seem fair to Apple and the iPhone to do so, but in most instances (like Google Voice), Apple had the opportunity to accept Google-focused applications to the App Store.
Finally, the state of Android devices can be somewhat confusing because they’re released by different carriers and on lots of different hardware. We tried to strike a balance between acknowledging faults on some of the worst incarnations of Android hardware while also keeping in mind the best. To the extent that older iPhones aren’t up to snuff compared to the new iPhone, we’ve done the same thing in discussing the iPhone. [go back up]
Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker; you can read more of his stuff here at Lifehacker and follow him on Twitter.
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Source: http://gizmodo.com/5556346/iphone-os-triples-androids-market-share-for-now
Nielsen’s new “iPhone vs. Android” report offers up the latest numbers in the big mobile battle: Both platforms have loyal users, but Apple’s still on top by a long shot.
They don’t come as much of a surprise, but with all the talk of Android’s surging popularity and explosive app growth, Nielsen’s numbers do serve as a reminder that Apple still has a comfortable lead. Versus Android, that is—nationally, the iPhone’s still in second place, with a 28% market share compared to RIM’s 35% (Android has 9%; Windows Mobile has 19%).
But it will be interesting to see how things shake out over the course of the year. With the new iPhone dropping in a matter of weeks, prospective smart phone buyers (23% of U.S. mobile customers now have them) will be faced with the choice of hopping on the Apple wagon or exploring the multitude of Android options. As Matt noted in his Froyo review, Android is as polished as it’s ever been and is likely to improve even more in coming months. And while it’s hard to top the iPhone hype machine, reception to early versions of iPhone OS 4 hasn’t exactly been rapturous.

Another Nielsen graph shows that both platforms enjoy loyal users—80% of iPhone users want another iPhone; 70% of Android users want another Android phone—with Android’s group slightly more curious about the iPhone than the other way around. But in my experience, it seems like things are trending to the opposite. With Android’s app offerings increasingly matching up with the iPhone’s, I’m seeing more and more people considering Android a viable option for themselves, as well as one they can recommend to others.
Though still on top, Blackberry’s loyalty is only 47%, and as current Bold owner, I’m definitely of the 53% that’s planning on jumping ship when it comes time to buy my next phone. I’m just not sure what ship I want to jump into. [Nielsen via CNET]
Tags: android, app, apple, battle, BlackBerry, Bold, choice, CNet, course, experience, Froyo, graph, Group, growth, hype, hype machine, iPhone, lead, loyal users, loyalty, machine, market, market share, matt, matter, mdash, Mobile, mobile customers, multitude, Nielsen, offerings, opposite, option, owner, phone, place, planning, platforms, popularity, reception, reminder, report, review, RIM, share, ship, shot, smart phone, Source, surprise, talk, time, tmpPost, U.S., Versus, viable option, wagon, way, Windows, windows mobile, year