Otaku Gadgets

Apps have become very popular in the last years, and especially with the release of Apple’s iPhone and the Android operating system. Developers have options to create free or paid applications. A report published last week by Distimo outlined some interesting differences between iPhone, Android and other app marketplaces.

apps

The company researched the proportion of free vs paid apps in the following marketplaces: Apple Store iPad, iPhone and Universal, Blackberry App World, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace.

The Google Android Market is the only app marketplace with a higher proportion of free applications, 57% versus 43% paid applications followed by the Palm App Catalog with 34% and all other marketplaces between 22% and 28%.

Now, this does not say anything about the absolute numbers of free applications in each marketplace. A marketplace with lots of applications might still offer more apps than a marketplace with a higher proportion but a lower selection of total apps.

What’s the main reason for this large proportion of free apps on Android marketplace? Probably the fact that it is an open platform:

Since Android is an open platform, which anyone can develop for, you see a lot more open source apps, which in general are free. So since you don’t have to pay to develop apps, developers are more willing to give away their apps with Android than with Apple.

The researchers have analysed average app prices as well. Blackberry apps lead that chart with $6.97 on average followed by Windows Marketplace with an average price of $5.96 per app. Android apps average at $3.29, iPhone at $4.01 and iPad at $4.65.

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Samsung has been busy at work with Android. They have released a multitude of smartphones and a tablet too. But now it has been revealed that they are also working on another MID tablet device for their Yepp line of PMP’s. It is described as an MID and was discovered on the Bluetooth SIG database.

Continue reading “Samsung To Bring Out (Another) New Android-Based Yepp Tablet” »

Yes, Motorola has been bitten by a form-factor bug and hence they have started making handsets of all kinds of form factors possible. They were possibly the first to make the really thin (and often useless) form factor popular with their RAZR series. Then they fizzles out. And then Android happened and they sizzled back for good with Motorola Droid. Then they had that BackFlip phone to to start off with this form-factor play. Now they have a corner rotating phone called the Flipout.

Continue reading “Motorola Releases Flipout” »

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Yes it is a run for the acquisition these days for the two big Giants of the tech world — Google and Apple. Both of a lot of great ideas and they both lack the patience and the opportunity to  sit down and develop on those ideas. So what they lack in time and resources, they make up in strategic acquisitions. This is not really a new practice in the business world but it is exciting to see how these two companies are thinking regarding their own and the industry’s future through these acquisitions, some of which can be very telling. This time, we talk about Google and their acquisition of ‘BumpTop Computers’.

Continue reading “Google Acquires BumpTop” »

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It looks like Samsung has built a great mobile gaming machine and then forgotten to talk about it’s outstanding graphics performance during the launch. Well, the good folks over at the Android Community have been quick to point it out with a post about the Galaxy S’ Hummingbird graphics processor.

Continue reading “Samsung’s Galaxy S’ Hummingbird Graphics Will Likely Be The Strongest In Class`” »

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There’s this really interesting porting attempt going on at that XDA Dev forum. A dev there is trying to port the X10 to the HTC Magic. Since the two Android implementations are almost as different as can be, it is surely proving to be hard work for the dev. He himself confesses that nothing works but this 1.6 Donut port that he is doing is extremely fast and he even posted a video.

Continue reading “Porting X10 Android To (HTC) Magic” »

Yes, there’s actually a product on its way to the market that is called the WePad. Looks like they have misunderstood the whole ‘competing’ thing — you are supposed to compete to be better at the good things. No one wants you to come up with a name as bad or worse than the iPad. Let’s not compete there, shall we? On that note though, the iPad jokes are fading (because they are getting old really fast) and people are finally using the word without flinching twice at the thought of it and saying it out loud.

Continue reading “iPad, Meet the WePad” »

HTC said that the Hero would be updated to Android 2.1 by February-March. Well, that time has come and is on its way out. Still no Android 2.1 update for all the HTC Heroes out there. Now there’s new evidence courtesy XDA-developers, that HTC will not update the Hero till April.

Continue reading “HTC Hero To Get Android Update In April? [Smartphones] [Android]” »

ARM is a company that is in a very good position to know and guess exactly how many tablet devices are coming out globally. Since most of these devices use ARM-designed low-power, high performance chips, it is easy for ARM to keep a track of these things. Even Apple’s iPad uses what is suspected to be a modified ARM Cortex A8/A9 chip (we are actually quite sure about it being an ARM chip, we’re just waiting for the tear down reports). So ARM has spilled the beans — it expects over 50 different tablet devices to come out globally by the end of this year.

Continue reading “ARM Expects Apple’s iPad To Face Over 50 Competitors Globally This Very Year [Tablets]” »

HTC’s Legend has got to be the most coveted Android phone ever since it was first shown off at the MWC 2010 event. It’s premium aluminum unibody build, the rich AMOLED display, the premium finish — everything makes you want it, bad. Those lusting after it in the US will have to wait a while loger before they get any specific dates but their UK counterparts have already received their release date — 23rd March.

Continue reading “HTC Legend Gets UK Release Date Of March 23rd” »