russian

Phone Search:

RSS

Samsung Galaxy Note. First Look

Today, large companies, especially corporate giants like Samsung, do not surprise users with extraordinary products...

Apple In A Post Jobsian World HTC Sensation In Use iPhone 4S: Part One

Reviews Editorials

Mobile Phones Editorials MP3 Forum

Wednesday 02 February 2011

Android Market Gets Love: In-App Purchases & Web Store (Yay!) [ 02-02-2011 18:52 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: Intomobile Translation by: Paul Smith

Whilst a lot of the attention at today's Google event was given over to Honeycomb there were some more important developments (in my eyes at least) taking place in the Android Market.

For one thing Google are implementing in-app purchases. I can't begin to describe just how great this will be for the Android Market because it has the potential to breathe a whole new lease of life into the system. The Android Market might be the second biggest app store with over 200,000 apps, but it has been the notoriously poor relation to Apple's App Store when it comes to customers buying lots of apps. To put it another way, if devs are earning more from Apple's platform why focus on Android? In-app purchases could help to re-address that imbalance and give devs more reason to pay Android some attention.

Payment options listed include VISA and American Express. Neither PayPal or Google Checkout were listed, but it would seem like sheer madness if they weren't included too.

The other big change coming to the Market is the launch of a web based version of the Market. Huzzah for that! It's not like people haven't been asking for this for ... oh since the dawn of time, well ok maybe not quite that long, but long enough.

Why is this important? Well think about it, browsing through the Market on your device to find apps isn't exactly a satisfying experience, you have hundreds of thousands of apps to get through on a relatively small screen. Sure it works when you know the app you're looking for, but for general browsing it's not ideal. Enter the web based store, which lends itself to more general browsing and app discovery on a nice big desktop display.

It's another avenue for devs to promote their apps through and like in-app purchases makes Android that wee bit more appealing for them. Each app listed on the web store will have a barcode for you to scan with your phone or you can just purchase it straight from the web store if you prefer and the app automatically whizzes along to your phone.

Rating:

Comment
All comments (0)

Video: Hands-On With Honeycomb [ 02-02-2011 18:38 ]

Author: Ivanov Konstantin Source: IntoMobile Translation by: Paul Smith

IntoMobile managed to get some hands on time with the Xoom running Honeycomb at Google's Android event earlier today. I'm not going to say too much here other than to say that the guys at IntoMobile seemed pretty impressed with Honeycomb. The video is a fair length, almost 13 minutes and covers quite a range on the device so go check it out and see for yourself.

Rating:

Comment
All comments (0)

Video: 'Think Beyond' Teaser [ 02-02-2011 18:20 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Palm Blog Translation by: Paul Smith

HP are gearing up for their webOS event next week with a teaser video for whatever it is they'll be showing off having been released.

It's a pretty short video and doesn't really tell us very much other than whatever the device is it will have curved corners, a few buttons and a charging connector. Hardly revelatory stuff. The whole idea around the event is the phrase 'Think Beyond' so predictably the speculation has already begun with some good money being put on the video showing glimpses of a tablet device.

You can hazard your own guess after watching the video for yourself: