Browse by Tags

Version 2.2 for the iPhone snuck out last night and offers up a slew of updates. Here’s a quick rundown: Google Maps: - google street view - public transit and walking directions - display address of dropped pins - share location via email Mail: - resolved issues with scheduled fetching of email - improved formatting of wide HTML email - improved stability and performance [...]

The highly anticipated update to the Google Mobile app for iPhone is now available, albeit only for iPhone users for now. As promised, users will now be able to do searches on Google through voice, or just by speaking into the iPhone’s mouthpiece. While the voice-enabled Google Mobile app for iPhone may have been delayed in [...]

Now after watching the above video, it seems as if Google has made one heck of a voice recognition app. But where the heck has it gone?! It’s pretty clear Google loves the iPhone, that is something we all know. Now why would Apple go ahead and delay their latest App Store app, Advanced [...]

Not content on having what is quite possibly the best (or is it because it’s the only?) mobile web search application for the iPhone, Google is said to be working on a new feature that will be added to the Google Mobile app for iPhone as early as Friday. According to a report from the New [...]

The T-Mobile G1, the first phone running on Google's Android platform, has a Bill of Materials (BOM) cost of $149.83, according to the research group iSuppli. The company did a virtual inventory of the G1 components and found that the device's baseband costs $24.49 to make, or 19.8 percent of the total cost of the phone. The bill of materials does not include other expenses, including software, research and development, manufacturing costs and accessories. T-Mobile USA is selling the G1, which is manufactured by HTC, for $179.99 with a two-year service contract. The next most costly piece of the G1 is its display, at $19.67, or 13. 7 percent of the BOM, and then the 3 megapixel camera at $12.13, or 8.4 percent of total cost. As a basis for comparison, when the iPhone was first released in 2007, iSuppli pegged the 8GB model with a cost of $264.85. That model was then being sold for $599. For more: - see this release Related Articles: Report: Apple iPhone has 50% margins Smartphones and the consumer market. Editor's Corner

Google's Android Market hasn't been open a full week, but already some application download patterns are suggesting how the OS will compare--and contrast--with Apple's rival App Store. In its first 24 hours of business, Android Market (which went live in tandem with the commercial release of T-Mobile USA's G1, the first Android-based device) offered consumers their choice of 62 applications, roughly 10 percent the number available when the App Store launched; according to data released by mobile ad firm Medialets, the average app tallied more than 7,800 downloads on the first day, with nine applications cracking the 10,000 download barrier. Among the nine, only three-- Pac-Man , Brain Genius Deluxe and Bonsai Blast --are games, the largest single category of Android apps; price-comparison tool ShopSavvy (one of the 10 apps awarded $275,000 as part of Google's Android Developer Challenge competition ) led all downloads, followed by The Weather Channel and music discovery service Shazam. Granted, 24 hours isn't enough time to accurately judge anything (except maybe a primetime action series starring Kiefer Sutherland) but it's interesting to note that Android Market's opening day unfolded a lot like the App Store's first day of business. Medialets contends that either Android users are generally interested in the same types of application functionality as iPhone owners, or else Android coders are pursuing the same creative avenues as iPhone developers before them--no matter what, the distribution of different categories of applications is strikingly similar across the two storefronts. Both Android Market and the App Store boast more games than anything else, followed by multimedia applications, lifestyle apps, travel apps and productivity tools. Of course, the App Store launched with 552 applications, only about a quarter of them free--by comparison, all of the Android Market apps are free, and will remain so through early 2009 . And while the number of applications available in the App Store grew to more than 800 within three days, third-party developers had to wait until Monday to upload their applications to Android Market. Google's laissez-faire approach to application registration and publication still promises to radically expand the scope of what Android is and what it does, but at least for now, Android Market and the App Store are more alike than different. The similarities between iPhone and Android do end there...