20
May
amazon-app-store-app

Yesterday, in the Federal Court for the Northern District of California, Apple filed its response to a counterclaim (filed by Amazon) in its ongoing suit over Amazon's use of the word "Appstore" in its new Android... app store (what else am I supposed to call it, Apple? An app acquisition service?)

The counterclaim contained one of the single greatest premises for a trademark lawsuit I have ever seen (not that I've seen that many):

Apple denies that, based on their common meaning, the words “app store” together denote a store for apps.

- Apple, Inc., 2011

Now, from a legal perspective, this makes a bit more sense given what Apple is arguing (not to say that the merits of their case don't look shaky.) From a common sense perspective, this is one of the most hilariously backward things I (and I'm sure you all) have ever read.

06
May
2011-05-06 23h19_01
Last Updated: January 16th, 2012

In case you thought Android's extremely fast-paced growth was being exaggerated, comScore's latest report on mobile market share might just convince you otherwise: From December 2010 to March 2011, Android not only kept its first place position among mobile platforms in the US, but it shot up 6 percentage points - far greater than all other platforms.

In fact, the only other platform that had growth was - predictably - iOS, with a 0.5 point increase. RIM, despite holding second place, dropped a staggering 4.5 points, while Microsoft and Palm both fell by 0.9 points. The gap between Android and second placed RIM is now at over 7 points, and is continuing to grow.

05
May
andriod-market-insights

Analyst Egle Mikalajunaite of research2guidance has modeled the growth of the Android Market and Apple App Store, and based on his predictions, the former will overtake the latter in August of this year. While we're generally pretty weary of these sort of predictions, the short-term nature certainly makes this much more plausible.

andriod-market-insights

The graph largely speaks for itself, but there's a bit more to be said in terms of specific numbers. First, according to their numbers, the Market has been adding more apps per month since October of 2010. Second, it's since continued to pick up the pace (notice that you can see it ramp up quite dramatically beginning in August of 2010).

19
Apr

If you're a frequent reader, you may remember hearing about the Business Insider Smartphone Survey, which we called out for its biased title and questions. As promised, they have posted the results, and much as we expected, Android absolutely dominated.

  • 51.4% of respondents use an Android device (versus 33% for iPhone).
  • 54.4% said their next smartphone purchase would be an Android device, compared to a (still impressive) 33.6% for the iPhone.
  • 55.7% of Android owners "hate Apple" (heh). 31.2% of Android owners would consider an iPhone if it played better with non-Apple devices.
  • Platform was the most important feature when choosing a smartphone with 38.2%, while features came in second at 33.1%.
14
Apr
android_soldier

Over the weekend, we posted about a pant-crappingly stupid (and biased) survey posted by Silicon Alley Insider called "WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER BUY AN ANDROID PHONE? Take Our Smartphone Survey And Tell Us!" A few dozen of you posted in the comments to criticize just how biased SAI was with the survey, and a large number of you followed through to take it.

It looks like they may have realized the faux pas - to an extent, anyway - as they closed that one down (without tabulating the results) and reopened a new one. On the upside, the new survey has a new title: "OUR SMARTPHONE SURVEY: Please Take It!

10
Apr
Android_King_of_World

Silicon Alley Insider - the Tech section of Business Insider - posted a survey this weekend under the headline "WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER BUY AN ANDROID PHONE? Take Our Smartphone Survey And Tell Us!" Eye-catching, to say the least. The survey is 12 questions, and asks what phone (OS) you use, what your next one will use, and so on... it's all fairly standard.

The results of the survey aren't immediately available, but the site promises to publish them in a few days. SAI is generally pretty (*ahem*) Apple-friendly, but then again, they do give Android the credit it's due, so who knows what the results will show.

29
Mar
GettingStarted_TCG._V184037123_

While some companies are content to just talk, talk, talk about what they are doing, Amazon seems to be quietly hard at work. Last week they gave us the Amazon Appstore for Android and last night they dropped another bomb – the Amazon Cloud Player.

WebCloudPlayer

If Grooveshark and Dropbox had a baby, it would be Amazon Cloud Player. It consists of Cloud Drive - 5GB of free cloud storage on Amazon’s servers (upgradable to 20GB with the purchase of one album or for $20/year; $1 per gigabyte after that) - and the Cloud Player, which can be accessed from the web or from an Android device.

21
Mar
image

Amazon's upcoming Android Market competitor, the Amazon Appstore, is in hot water for its namesake. On Monday, Apple filed a lawsuit in a California federal court claiming Amazon had infringed on its trademark of the phrase "App Store." Apple applied for a trademark to this name way back in 2008, but it wasn't approved until January of 2010. Since then, Microsoft has filed a dispute with the trademark office alleging that the grant was improper. That complaint's outcome is still pending.

In the meantime, Amazon may have a difficult time asserting that its use of "Appstore" (as opposed to "App Store") doesn't violate Apple's trademark - it's hard to deny that Apple's App Store is a well-know name in the mobile world.

17
Mar
image

This morning, I got a new app tip in my inbox with an inconspicuous subject "New android app." Not knowing what to expect, I opened it up and read the following, followed by the app's description:

Good news! We just launched a new essential android application: the Wankometer.

At this point, I stopped reading, experiencing conflicting feelings that can only be described as a mix of extreme WTFness, curiosity, and preliminary pride for the Android platform (I had a feeling that Steve Jobs would not let this app into the iOS App Store, and I was right).

I was not let down.

17
Mar
jobs liar

Ah, the arrogance of Cupertino. Does it know no bounds? In Apple's latest attempt to frame their iPhone as being the obviously superior choice over Android, a new series of ads start with "If you don't have an iPhone... ". They then proceed to boast about features that are on both iOS and Android, using their typical clever wordplay to convince the less-knowledgeable that you can only get these features on an iPhone.

The first ad starts with:

If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have the App Store. So you don't have the world's largest selection of apps.

Well no, but you have the Android Market, which is growing at a much faster rate than Apple's and that analysts predict will catch up to the App Store in the number of apps within the next several months.

Page 8 of 14«First...678910...Last»