G5 Entertainment bringing their games to Android starting June 30th - DroidGamers

G5 Entertainment have been making casual games for quite a few platforms over the last little while including PC, Mac, and iOS devices. Well they are gearing up to start their casual game invasion onto Android now with a total of 5 titles that will start making it onto the android Market beginning June 30th, 2011.

Two of their upcoming titles are puzzle games called Mahjongg Artifacts and Mahjong Artifacts: Chapter 2 while the remaining three are more casual time management games called Stand O'Food, Supermarket Mania and Success Story. All three time management games are themed around food. Android gamers who really like casual games will be drawn towards the last three for sure. Here is the official rundown of each game:

Mahjongg Artifacts: Escape from the rush of modern life into immersive ancient atmosphere of Mahjong Artifacts! Three game play modes will take you through five exotic cultures as you enjoy music tracks inspired by ancient melodies.

Mahjongg Artifacts - Chapter 2: Takes tile-matching games in an exciting new direction! Pair up tiles to dismantle hundreds of layouts. Gather pearls for purchasing special powers, utilize a selection of ground-breaking powerups, earn trophies, and enjoy the game's beautiful graphics and rich audio.

Supermarket Mania: Is a highly addictive casual time management game with millions of players on iOS, PC and other platforms. Running a grocery store can be a lot of fun! Help Nikki keep five stores stocked to the rafters with the provisions customers want, and show your adversary what a little hometown pluck can do!

Stand O'Food: Is an original, fast-paced restaurant challenge. Feed a host of hungry patrons before they leave in a huff! Slap together burgers and cook up some bacon as quickly as you can!

Success Story: Slap together burgers for hungry customers, serve French fries and desserts, and keep the line moving in this arcade time management game!

Every one of these games has seen some decent level of success on each platform they have been released on so far so their Android versions should be equally popular. However, all of these games won't be available June 30th, that is just the date that we should see them start rolling out onto the Android Market. All games will be Freemium based games which means you will get the actual game for free with content and items that can be unlocked through in-game purchases. You can check out the trailer for all 5 games below as well as see some more video footage of Supermarket Mania over on our YouTube Channel.

Developer Website: G5 Entertainment

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Andrew Huff, otherwise known as ExtremeT on this site, is the Founder and Chief Editor here at DroidGamers. When not writing and editing articles on DG, testing games and new Android devices, geeking out on general mobile gadget news, and writing for AndroidPolice.com as well you can find him spending time with his wife and 1yr old son.

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Kids also grossed out by Epic Meal Time - msnbc.com

This week's installment of the Fine Brothers' series of the darndest things kids say, or "Kids React to YouTube Stars," features the wee ones' honest evaluations of "Epic Meal Time," a YouTube show that defies all expectations of eating in moderation.

It's a show where 50-pound burgers seem normal, as does frying up whole packages of bacon (for a start), and combining those with a few other things to make some impossibly intimidating concoction.

"What happens when you show kids one of the biggest internet sensations in recent memory that also happen to show over the top, gross out mega food? You get a lot of disgusted, yet hungry kids," wrote Benny and Rafi Fine (who may not be brothers, they tell us. Uh huh.). "Our show tackles the biggest YouTube stars of the year 'Epic Meal Time' — stay tuned later this summer, as the EMT guys loved the video and will be bringing some of our cast to eat with them in a future episode of their show."

Until we see the kids on that show, this will do. The first boy on the screen is SUPER excited about the Epic Meal Time and looks like he's ready to devour on the spot. Just let 10-year-old William at it! He even subscribes to the EMT channel!

Another exclaims, "I don't even think Man Vs. Food does things like this!"

He may be right. Check out this burger that blows their minds. And ours.

"What types of ingredients were they using?" the Fine Brothers asked. "Meat, meat, meat" replied the young one.

So if you're veggie, you'd probably be super grossed out.

One smiles her sweet smile and says, "That's really sad because I don't eat meat. You just make veggie burgers." Only if they're GIANT, little girl, and only if they're also stacked with onion rings, ranch dip, a few Subway veggie subs and maybe a strawberry shortcake on top. (To keep it veggie, mind you.)

(She's the one who also wants "Epic Farm Time." Ok, then, Little Miss Granola!)

One little girl, six-year-old Morgan, admits, in a little voice: "Makes me hungry." Awww, yeah, you know it's true. She later looks at a guy trying to fit a double Dagwood sandwich in his mouth: "Oh my gosh, I don't even think he can finish that thing."

And yet, they always try.

The 10-year-old twins Megan and Shannon also admire the bacon. (Everything IS better with bacon, yo.) "Bacon looks good."

Of course, the girls, who hopefully won't rush out and speed up any eating disorders, are justifiably grossed out, and say so. As in, "Ewwww, gross."

But they also bring it on with their own imagined epic meals, including this doozy from Amir on what to put on top of his favorite food, spaghetti: pizza, ice cream, chocolate, octopus (Whoa there, fella! Talk about exotic!) and squid.

More stories on the Fine Brothers:

Check out Technolog on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who wavers between repulsion and hunger after watching "Epic Meal Time" too.

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Particle Debris (wk. ending 7/8) Fairly Legal - The Mac Observer

I was on vacation last week, so here’s my slightly delayed edition of Particle Debris. It was a relaxing vacation that included the Georgetown Loop Railroad and the Renaissance Festival in Larkspur.

Georgetown, Colorado Loop Railroad

Microsoft has a new source of cash flow, and it’s called Android. That’s because Microsoft has a strategy of going after technologies in Android that Microsoft thinks violate its patents. The goal is to keep Android from being free. And because Google is relatively patent poor, Google doesn’t have the patent protection other companies like Microsoft have. Here’s the article: “Microsoft patent division taking cash from at least 5 Android vendors.” Now you know why Apple and its partners went after the 6,000 Nortel telecommunication patents and collectively spent US$4.5B.

From a business perspective, I think Google launched into Android rather naively, and is now suffering the business savvy wrath of its competitors.

So how did Apple and its partners manage the coup? Here’s some fascinating background by MG Siegler. “How Apple Led The High-Stakes Patent Poker Win Against Google, Sealing Ballmer’s Promise.”

One of our steadfast readers, Nemo, pointed out to me this morning that it is also a bit naive for Google to believe that they’ll end up being able to obtain licenses for those patents on a favorable basis.

I think that Apple can negotiate this and still keep useful ownership of the Nortel patents. That Google started putting in silly bids doesn’t help its argument that Apple, Microsoft, et al. teamed up to anticompetitively attack Android with Nortel’s patents. If Google was serious, why didn’t it make serious bids? Google certainly could have afforded a US$5 billion, which might have won.

The antitrust laws are not for the purpose of protecting those who won’t compete or who don’t wish to pay fair value for the right to license someone else’s IP. But if push comes to shove, Apple and its consortium can agree to license any essential patents to Google for a royalty that reflects the economic value of those patents. In that event, Google still loses and the Apple-Microsoft consortium still wins, because choosing Android over Windows Phone 7 and/or Web OS doesn’t make sense if Android OEMs must pay significant licensing fees.

And Google and its Android OEMs can’t object to paying a fair price for Nortel’s patents, hoping that the DOJ and the FTC will require that the Apple-Microsoft consortium give it, Google, the Nortel patents for free or for less than they are worth, at least at the value reflected in the price, $4.5 billion, paid for those patents at auction. To simply void the Apple-Microsoft consortium’s winning bid not only does great harms to Nortel’s creditors but would itself be anticompetitive in that Google would be awarded the patents without having to compete for them and would get them for less than they are worth. The DOJ and FTC can’t go further than fair and reasonable licensing terms for the Nortel patents, and, once again, that means Android loses and the Apple-Microsoft consortium wins.”

For all you Apple and Nikon fans, you can bow attach Nikon lenses to your iPhone with this US$200 attachment. It seems like an odd thing to do if you already have a Nikon camera body, but on the other hand, what if you’re on an outing and want to exploit a second or third lens you have laying around. Besides, it’s just one of those things you may just have to have.

Social media is a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s a lot of fun, and sometimes it seems that there are just too many social media forms and some are pointless. You can get lost in all of them and lose you’re sense of personal balance. Here’s some food for thought on all that, even if the title is intended to be a bit lurid and arresting: “Stop using social media.”

Read My Patent!

There are differing opinions about the new Hewlett Packard TouchPad. In the last P.D., I pointed to some of the major reviews, all of which expressed a degree of disappointment. On the other hand, viewed in isolation, the TouchPad, had there never been an iPad, looks like a pretty good first try. And that’s the key: first try. The upshot is that technology development is like a flowing river, a time line. At any given time in your product development, you’re constrained by the state of the art plus your own corporate learning curve. (And parts availability.)

When you’re late to the game, you have to work incredibly hard to catch up, and it’s almost a super human effort. So as HP comes out with what is essentially an iPad 1, Apple is moving to the iPad 3. Closing the gap means pushing the technology beyond what you’re accustomed to, stressing your company talent, and accelerating the necessary infrastructure to the point of high strain. It’s almost more than any company can achieve, even one with HP’s engineering talent. So the inevitable occurs: you’re graded in comparison to the competition, and the appearance is that “HP fiddles while Apple innovates.”

That’s why Apple’s competitors have to be on the ball and be no more than 6 months behind with competing technology and prompt patent applications. Being 15 or more months behind Apple is the kiss of death.

Finally, flaws in server software that led to security breaches, in the past, were just considered a fact of life. You couldn’t sue the developer or the host. Nowadays, however the stakes a much higher. And when that happens, the rules can change. As Tim Lee points out at ars technica, “That’s changing rapidly. Recently, Sony faced a class action lawsuit for losing the private information of millions of users. And this week, it was reported that Dropbox is already being sued for a recent security breach of its own.” As the pain gets greater, the lawyers get more involved and figure out new ways to compensate victims. Here’s some background with an ominous title: “So sue me: are lawyers really the key to computer security?”

Technical Word of the Week

Buggage (n.) Emotional baggage. Example, “I hope my visitors don’t bring their buggage.” Thanks to Andrew Stone of Stone Design, via Twitter.

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Most branded apps are a flop says Deloitte. But why? - The Guardian (blog)

A new report from Deloitte has confirmed what many app developers know already: the majority of mobile apps commissioned by brands are failing to take smartphones by storm.

The report was based on analysis of apps published on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry by big healthcare and consumer brands. Deloitte says that less than 1% of these apps have been downloaded more than one million times, and that only 20% had been downloaded enough to be considered for its survey.

Or, to put that latter stat another way: 80% of branded apps analysed by Deloitte had been downloaded less than 1,000 times. This, despite the fact that every month, the three stores in the study generate 1.6bn downloads – 1bn for Apple's App Store, 500m for Google's Android Market and 90m for Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World.

"Brands view apps as a golden opportunity to communicate directly with consumers and in a more meaningful, long term manner," says Howard Davies, media partner at Deloitte. "When brands get it right, the returns can be huge." The problem appears to be that most are getting it wrong.

It is easy to forget that one of the first big hits on the App Store – fuelled by word of mouth – was a branded app: Carling's iPint, which racked up several million downloads in the first few months after Apple's store launched. There have been other brand-app success stories too, like the Barclaycard-branded Waterslide Extreme iPhone game, which had been downloaded more than 12.5 million times at the last count.

Some branded apps have been successful, then, so why are the majority flopping so badly? A few reasons suggest themselves:

First, the majority of these apps are low in quality, and/or are pure marketing. iPint's success as a novelty branded app turned out to be one of the exceptions, rather than the rule. Actually, the way forward for brands is more likely to release apps that have real functionality, solving a problem for users or providing features that are genuinely meaningful.

Pizza Express' iPhone app, which enables people to book tables and pay for their food, falls into that category. Tesco Groceries is another: in fact, most of the large retailers' apps have majored on functionality rather than pure brand messages. Lynx Stream, meanwhile, was an ambitious attempt to wrap social location features – sharing photos of nights out – around a deodorant brand.

The second reason many branded apps have struggled, though, is that they have been eclipsed by apps and games that have come from nowhere to become brands in their own right.

To name three specific examples: Rovio Mobile's Angry Birds is now well past the 200m downloads mark on all platforms, and when the company launched a spin-off game for blockbuster animated movie Rio, it was clear that the former was the lead brand, rather than the latter.

Mobile gaming firm Storm8 has passed 210m downloads for its free iPhone and Android games, while Outfit7 just passed the 150m mark for its talking character apps for iPhone and Android. In an ecosystem where three new (or in Rovio's case, unknown outside the Java game industry) developers can total 560m downloads in three years, the news that most branded apps are struggling is not a surprise.

But the third reason is more of a shock: branded apps simply are not being promoted very well. Whisper it, but it is not actually that hard to pass one million downloads even on one platform, if you have money behind you.

Strategic use of promotional services like Free App a Day, along with some intelligently-targeted advertising within other apps or mobile websites, mean the seven-figure milestone is far from insurmountable even for an average app. The fact that few branded apps are promoted in this way suggests a belief that the brand itself is sufficient to cut through the app store clutter.

It is not. Deloitte's report suggests that the answer is to make more use of smartphone hardware, including the accelerometer, touchscreen, camera and GPS. That will help – albeit with caveats in the latter case as smartphone owners get more savvy about sharing their location – but brands must ask themselves two basic questions too. What is their app for, and how do they plan to promote it?

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Distimo: China Now The Second Largest iPhone App Market After The U.S. - TechCrunch

After reporting the Android Market’s increasing rate of growth in April’s research, app store analytics company Distimo is releasing a new study that focuses on Apple’s App Store development in Asia. The company took a look at iOS app data in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

One of the key findings from the report is that while some Western countries witnesses a decrease in download volume (France and Germany), iPhone app download volume in Asian countries has grown significantly in the past six months in the Apple App Store. In fact, Distimo says that China recently became the second largest market after the United States. That’s pretty fast growth considering Apple only opened a tailored App Store for China last Fall.

Compared to the relatively small size of the population, South Korea is seeing increased traction in iPhone app download volume. In fact, download volume is higher than in Germany and France. Interestingly, the Games category is absent in the Apple App Store for iPhone in South Korea, so all downloads are allocated to non-Games. In other countries, the Games category is without exception, the largest.

However, the proportion of paid downloads and the overall revenue still lag behind that of the United States and Europe. Distimo reports that customers in Asian markets are more inclined to download a free version of an app vs. pay for an ad-free version. The average download volume of the 300 most popular applications (free and paid) in all Asian countries combined is about equal to the average volume in the United States.

But for paid applications only, this ratio drops to one-third, showing that iPhone users in the United States are more eager to pay for applications. Excluding Japan, this figure even drops to one-sixth.

Distimo says that Japan actually generates the majority of the revenue in Asia regarding iPhone apps. The total revenue in Asia is about two-thirds of the revenue in the United States. This figure is higher than one-third due to the higher average selling prices of the 300 most popular applications in Asia ($2.62) compared to the United States ($1.48).

Moreover, in-app purchases have not yet taken off in Asia. For example, in China only 34% of the revenue from the 200 top grossing applications originates from applications that feature in-app purchase. But that doesn’t mean that in-app purchases could quickly scale in Asian markets in the coming year. In the U.S., in-app payments nearly doubled in a year. Distimo says in June 2010, revenue from applications that feature in-app purchase in the United States was only 39%, however by May 2011 it increased to 68%.

Distimo reports that the majority of the most popular iPhone applications in Asia are only popular in Asia, but in some Asian countries worldwide popular applications prevail. Popular regional only content are KungFu Food-Panda, and Birzzle.

It also appears that these localized apps are more popular in Asia. In Asian countries, an average of 34% of the most popular applications are only popular within the region. In the United States and Europe, only 20% of the applications are aimed specifically at North America and Europe, respectively.

And in Asia, localization is also segmented by country. iPhone users in China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have a preference for applications aimed at the region. In China for example, 65% of the 300 most popular free applications are regionally popular only. In South Korea, 87% of free and 78% of paid applications are regionally aimed, respectively.

But, Distimo says in general, localization appears to be key to becoming popular especially when considering countries like China, South Korea, and Japan. In countries like India and Indonesia, localization appears to be less popular.

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Now your favorite brew is only a click away - Portland Monthly (blog)

Beer Tech Now your favorite brew is only a click away

Posted by: Griffin Funk

Looking for a pint of Heater Allen Shwarz in your neighborhood? There’s an app for that, In fact there are a couple apps for that! Intern Griffin Funk has compiled a list of indispensable iPhone and Android applications that put beer information and nearby locations on tap. (all free, of course)

Six Pack Equivalent Calculator (Android and iPhone): Got a six-pack and nothin’ to do? Why not calculate the actual price of the Das Boot or that Yard of Ale you expertly finished last weekend. No mental math here. Just enter the cost of your beer and the size (growler, pint, imperial pint, etc.) and the app will tell you the price of that brew if you were to purchase it in six pack form.

Happy Houred (iPhone): Finding the best place to spend the happiest hours of the day is now a three-step process.
1: Pick your drink (beer, wine, shots, mixed drinks or food).
2: Select the day and time.
3: Pick your city.
The app then displays all the deals in your area.

BeerWhere (Android): Next time you and you’re buddies are planning a pub-crawl look no further than BeerWhere. This app displays all beer stores, pubs and breweries residing a set distance (chosen by the user) away from your current location. The map features clickable pins that link you to the establishments website so you can check out the beer selection and food menu.

Timely information from Taplister.

Taplister (iPhone): No longer struggle to find that Ridgeway IPA from Gilgamesh Brewing, Taplister will help you find it. The app allows you to search for a specific beer or view the entire tap list of a particular bar.

Beer Cloud (Android and iPhone): Never question what to dine on whilst drinking again. This app has an ever-growing list of 3,000 beers and suggestions for what foods (things more substantial than peanuts, overly salted popcorn and Chex mix) to pair them with. Also, find your favorite beers in your neighborhood and learn a little bit more about the world of beer styles with the beer & brewery description section.

Beerby (Android and iPhone): “What was that pilsner we drank the other night?” We’ve all received or sent that text message, and this app will help you answer it correctly.
Keep track of the delicious, the gross and the strange beers (hemp beer anybody?) that you have put down by utilizing . Also features a 30,000-beer database and a map that displays nearby watering holes and what people have drank there recently.

Keep track of your consumption with Beerby.

Grab Another Beer (iPhone): Never mistakenly order an O’Doul’s again! This app lets you keep a personal beer journal of all the suds that you have tried. Now that may be a journal that someone else wants to read! Also search through 7, 000 beers to give you an idea of what to try, and what to skip.

Beer Brands (iPhone): Stuck in a rut? Find yourself drinking the same beer every weekend? This app features over 7,800 beer brands with information about food pairings, the brewery itself, and much more. Cheers!

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G5 Entertainment bringing their games to Android starting June 30th - DroidGamers

G5 Entertainment have been making casual games for quite a few platforms over the last little while including PC, Mac, and iOS devices. Well they are gearing up to start their casual game invasion onto Android now with a total of 5 titles that will start making it onto the android Market beginning June 30th, 2011.

Two of their upcoming titles are puzzle games called Mahjongg Artifacts and Mahjong Artifacts: Chapter 2 while the remaining three are more casual time management games called Stand O'Food, Supermarket Mania and Success Story. All three time management games are themed around food. Android gamers who really like casual games will be drawn towards the last three for sure. Here is the official rundown of each game:

Mahjongg Artifacts: Escape from the rush of modern life into immersive ancient atmosphere of Mahjong Artifacts! Three game play modes will take you through five exotic cultures as you enjoy music tracks inspired by ancient melodies.

Mahjongg Artifacts - Chapter 2: Takes tile-matching games in an exciting new direction! Pair up tiles to dismantle hundreds of layouts. Gather pearls for purchasing special powers, utilize a selection of ground-breaking powerups, earn trophies, and enjoy the game's beautiful graphics and rich audio.

Supermarket Mania: Is a highly addictive casual time management game with millions of players on iOS, PC and other platforms. Running a grocery store can be a lot of fun! Help Nikki keep five stores stocked to the rafters with the provisions customers want, and show your adversary what a little hometown pluck can do!

Stand O'Food: Is an original, fast-paced restaurant challenge. Feed a host of hungry patrons before they leave in a huff! Slap together burgers and cook up some bacon as quickly as you can!

Success Story: Slap together burgers for hungry customers, serve French fries and desserts, and keep the line moving in this arcade time management game!

Every one of these games has seen some decent level of success on each platform they have been released on so far so their Android versions should be equally popular. However, all of these games won't be available June 30th, that is just the date that we should see them start rolling out onto the Android Market. All games will be Freemium based games which means you will get the actual game for free with content and items that can be unlocked through in-game purchases. You can check out the trailer for all 5 games below as well as see some more video footage of Supermarket Mania over on our YouTube Channel.

Developer Website: G5 Entertainment

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Andrew Huff, otherwise known as ExtremeT on this site, is the Founder and Chief Editor here at DroidGamers. When not writing and editing articles on DG, testing games and new Android devices, geeking out on general mobile gadget news, and writing for AndroidPolice.com as well you can find him spending time with his wife and 1yr old son.

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Top 100 apps - the definitive guide - Stock and Land

GOOD WEEKEND'S EXPERT PANEL PICKS THE DIGITAL HELPERS YOU JUST CAN'T DO WITHOUT

Searching for a happening wine bar, or a cafe with Wi-Fi? Want to read a good book or learn how to cook? Need to check your pulse or balance your budget? Look no further than your smartphone ... and our selection of 100 apps you soon won't be able to do without.

Oh, what a brave new world we live in. Who knew that one day we'd be using our mobile phones to do everything from scanning barcodes to checking our heart rates?

Apple currently has more than 350,000 applications available, with more than 10 billion downloads to date. Then there are the apps compatible with Android, Blackberry, Windows and Nokia devices.

To help you sort the gold from the dross, we have created a list of the best 100 apps to enhance the life of the modern phone, iPod touch or tablet user. We brought together a panel of five experts from around the country - researchers, developers, editors and commentators - all of whom are not only in the business, but use apps every day. They've each listed their five personal favourites, and helped select the remaining 75.

Because we wanted to focus on utility - apps that make life easier, not just more fun - the panel omitted most games, apart from the juggernauts Words With Friends and Angry Birds. As for sport, most of the major sporting associations (such as the AFL, English Premier League and Cricket Australia) have good official apps, so, for the sake of space, we've omitted those but pointed you to some others that also do it well.

We've also made no mention of the many excellent magazine and newspaper apps out there (such as The Age and Sydney Morning Herald's new iPad apps) as they're relatively self-explanatory and easily found through the various app platforms.

We'd love to hear of any apps we've ignored that you think should be in the best 100. Email us at goodweekend@fairfaxmedia.com.au and we'll include the most interesting in a subsequent issue.

- Caitlin Chang and Nina Karnikowski OUR PANELLISTS CHRISTINE SATCHELL

A research fellow with the Interaction Design Group at the University of Melbourne and the Urban Informatics lab at the Queensland University of Technology, Satchell has been working on the development of social-networking app The Swarm, to be released later this year. STEPHEN HUTCHEON

The Sydney Morning Herald's tablet editor, Hutcheon has developed and launched the Herald's new iPad app. KATIE CINCOTTA

A freelance writer and copywriter for the past eight years, Cinotta specialises in technology and lifestyle, and is a self-confessed iPhone and iPad addict. She says, "Apps have changed the way I work, eat, travel, shop, exercise and party. It's hard to remember how we ever functioned without the entertainment vortex at hand!" CHARLIE BROWN

A commenttor on lifestyle technology, Brown is technology editor of ninemsn's Today show and runs consumer technology website cybershack.com. ANDREW FERGUSSON

A senior creative at independent advertising agency Droga5, Fergusson has experience across all things digital, and has won awards for his work both locally and internationally. NEWS, INFORMATION and BOOKS FLUENT NEWS iPad/iPhone, FREE "Late-breaking news headlines from a diversity of sources, from Fox News to Al Jazeera and everything in between. In-depth opinion pieces and analysis by publications such as The Economist make great reading and you can download the content when you are online and read it offline at your leisure." - Christine Satchell MAKE USE OF Android/iPad/iPhone, FREE "The best place to find out anything to do with technology, and the many ways in which we attempt to engage with it. A quick visit is almost impossible, though, as one is instantly distracted by the 'cool websites' and how-to features." CS POCKET WEATHER AU iPad/iPhone, $2.49 Yes, the iPhone does come with an inbuilt weather app, but it fails miserably in the detail stakes. This sources weather info directly from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and includes the latest synoptic charts, rain radars and national satellite pictures. One for all those weather geeks out there, with an ultra-slick design, too. STANZA iPad/iPhone, FREE A good-looking, easy-to-use e-reader much like Amazon's Kindle app, except that Stanza isn't affiliated with a dedicated e-book store. It's the most customisable e-reader app out there, and offers both free (Dickens, Freud or Fitzgerald, anyone?) and paid books from a variety of different stores. iBOOKS iPad/iPhone, FREE Like Stanza, this allows you to download books to your iPhone or iPad. Titles are stored on a bookshelf, so you can peruse your very own virtual library. ABC IVIEW iPad/iPhone, FREE "Owners of iPads have learnt to put up with the inconvenience of not being able to view videos made in the Flash format. Thankfully, that's changing as more publishers deliver their offerings in iPad-friendly formats. ABC iView was one of the first and is still one of the best, with a range of catch-up TV and other back-catalogue shows all up for grabs." Stephen Hutcheon FLUD iPad/iPhone, FREE A sophisticated news reader, Flud is able to learn what you regularly read online and provide customised content whenever you log on. Just select an article from one of the many personalised news feeds on offer. IMDB Android/iPad/iPhone, FREE You know the score: IMDb is a behemoth collection of film, TV and celeb info. But the app also lets you search show times near you, watch trailers, browse photo galleries and share movie info. We especially love the Best Picture winners list. EVERPAPER Android, FREE It's the Instapaper client for Android phones and works in the same way, allowing you to cut and curate all the stories you find online. TRAVEL AND LOCAL KNOWLEDGE THE THOUSANDS CITY GUIDE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Hipsters rejoice! You can seek out the cool crowd across the country with these guides to the trendiest places in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. ART GUIDE AUSTRALIA iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Pick a location and this app tells you what exhibitions are on near you, as well as giving an alphabetical list of artists exhibiting each month and galleries in your state. NAVFREE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE

"You can't complain about a free GPS navigation app. It's not perfect, but it has a lot of the same features that the paid apps have and is easy to use." - Andrew Fergusson TRAPSTER Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch/Nokia, FREE Users submit speed traps, cameras and hazards to the app, alerting Trapster users in the area. A bit more high tech than flashing your headlights at oncoming cars. GOOGLE PLACES Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE

"This map-based app lets you check out restaurants, shops and pubs with review snippets. Nice way to explore a new city, or get supplies in a hurry." - Katie Cincotta GOOGLE EARTH Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE

"This is a product I've enjoyed from its very first days when it was just a free PC download. That so much geospatial detail can be at your fingertips blows me away. Google have done a great job 'app-ifying' the desktop program." -Stephen Hutcheon WIKIHOOD iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Just like a tour guide, only far less irritating, this app pinpoints your geographic location and combines it with Wikipedia facts to show you important sites, historic events that took place nearby, famous folk linked to the area and other bits of fascinating trivia. AROUNDME Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Like Google Places, with this you discover the points of interests around you, from museums to the nearest post office. Useful for both out-of-towners and busy locals. KAYAK Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch/Nokia, FREE "Useful for booking last-minute travel on the run. Just watch out for the horrendous global-roaming charges." CS TRiPadVISOR Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE "The pocket version of travel bible TriPadvisor, with access to user reviews of hotels, restaurants and tours. Like a recommendation from a friend on steroids." KC GOOGLE TRANSLATE Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Translate words and phrases from more than 50 languages, most allowing you to speak the phrase for the translation. Que fácil! FOURSQUARE Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch/ Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE The ultimate way to keep up to date with what's going on around you. Stalk your friends, get insider tips and earn points and rewards for discovering new places. MOTIONX GPS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $3.99 GPS for outdoorsy types, this offers four elements of navigation from street, topography, marine and cycle maps. One person, Martin Edström, has used it to log his journey through the Himalayas as part of the Saving Mount Everest Project, but it's also useful in far less ambitious endeavours. HEALTH and FITNESS CALORIE COUNTER PRO Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch, $4.999 Key in your target weight and get a daily calorie limit, which users can monitor using a database of more than 300,000 foods and an inbuilt barcode scanner for unknown foods. Also includes a pedometer and daily analysis of your food diary. NIKE+ GPS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "A great app for the serious runner. There are a stack of cool screens and visuals, all driven by the data you create when you go out for a run. You can map your runs, brag to your friends and family and set goals and targets." SH INSTANT HEART RATE Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.19 Get an accurate heart-rate reading by putting the tip of your index finger on the smartphone's camera. If you don't have a phone with a flash, you need to be somewhere well lit for it to work. COUCH TO 5K iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $3.99 "I have to admit that I'm the non-runner in the family, but I'm hearing lots of good things about this app. The perfect plan to get someone who is exercise-averse off their butt, out of the house and onto the mean streets. The settings, social-networking links and the integration with your music collection are all designed to swing even the most recalcitrant jogger into action." SH COMMUNICATION POSTINO Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE "This app is the perfect blend of analogue meets digital. You can take a photo from your smartphone, then send a physical postcard of that photo straight to your grandma in England." AF VIBER iPhone, FREE An iPhone app that lets you make free phone calls to other iPhone users who have Viber installed. "A good alternative to Skype that seems to integrate better with the way people use their phones. It utilises your contacts list to tell you who else is using it and also receives calls when the app isn't active." AF DRAGON DICTATION iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE A surprisingly accurate talk-to-type tool that records your spoken words as text, then sends them via email or text, or copies them to your clipboard. Leaves you with no excuse for texting while driving. BUMP Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "Bump two phones together and you can pass on contact details, photos, music and apps. Great if you've run out of business cards." - KC WI-FI FINDERiPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Whether in the nearest Macca's, cafe or bookstore, this searches and finds public free and paid Wi-Fi hot spots near you, anywhere in the world. Can filter by venue types and providers. AIR SHARING iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $3.99 Turns your iPhone into a wireless, external hard drive that you can connect to your email, website or home computer. If you're greedy for even more space, you can pay $8.99 for the Pro version. TOUCH MOUSEiPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Lets you use your iPhone as a wireless touch pad, mouse or keyboard with your computer, so you don't have to get up from the couch to write that pesky email. It does require you to download and install the app on your PC as well, but that's relatively simple. TUNEIN RADIO PRO Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch, $1.19 Uses live streaming to bring you more than 40,000 radio stations from all around the world, which can be recorded, paused and rewound. Search station by genre, language or location. PHOTOGRAPHY SILENT FILM DIRECTOR iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.19 Channelling your inner Charlie Chaplin has never been so much fun, or so easy. Choose effects including sepia, '60s home video and '20s movie to shoot footage that you can then edit, slow down, and add soundtracks and title cards to. CROSS PROCESS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $2.49 "Provides glorious filters to your images by emulating the look of cross-processed film, turning out photographs with a luxurious, retro or black-and-white effect." CS HIPSTAMATIC iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $2.49 "As great as phone cameras are, they are still phone cameras. So photo-effects apps have taken off in a big way, and I reckon this is still one of the best. It has a nice analogue touch of choosing the film and flash types you want to use." -AF FOTOPEDIA HERITAGE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Explore the world without leaving your bedroom. Pick a location on Fotopedia's map and browse a selection of pics from the app's database of more than 25,000 photos of UNESCO World Heritage sites, as well as links to information about each destination. Users can also upload their own photos. PHOTOGENE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $3.99/$2.49 There are so many reasons to love the iPhone, but the inbuilt camera just isn't one of them. PhotoGene lets you crop, adjust and add fun effects to less-than-snazzy snaps, either ones from your library or taken using the app's inbuilt camera. 360 PANORAMA iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.19 "Microsoft's Photosynth app was the first one to market with its free 360-degree photo app, but 360 Panorama does a better job of it. The photos are like for like, but 360's capture-and-display method is far superior. All you have to do is rotate your iPhone in a circle and the software stitches the images together for you." -SH PHOTO BOOTH CLASSIC PLUS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $2.49 Lets you re-create vintage black-and-white or colour photo-booth strips. All you have to do is push the shoot button and decide which silly faces to pull. LIFESTYLE JOTNOT iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $0.99 A document scanner that is far superior to taking a photo. It allows you to process images in batches to create a black-and-white PDF and send back-up scans to your computer from iTunes. It can be used for anything from keeping a copy of a magazine recipe to committing corporate espionage (not that we're advocating that, of course). WIKI HOW iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/Nokia, FREE "Provides information about a cross-section of situations that will be more relevant to some users than others. If you are concerned with knowing what to do when 'you are about to collide with a moose or deer', 'need to control a spooked camel', or 'deal with police at a party', this app is for you." -CS iCOOKING LITTLE CHEFS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.99 "They already know how to use your iPhone better than you do; now teach them to cook." -CS EPICURIOUS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "My one big beef with this beautiful recipe/cooking app is that it all comes in non-metric measurements. The addition of a setting to turn pounds into kilos and pints into millilitres would make what is already a great app into an awesome one. Beautiful photos, easy-to-follow instructions and intuitive navigation. All you need is a spatter-proof cover for your iPad." -SH EYETV iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $5.99 "There is one big catch to this app - you also have to have the tuner stick that is made by the same company, Elgato. Once that's in place you can turn your iPad or iPhone into a second (or third, or fourth) TV screen. The app can literally channel free-to-air TV from your Mac to your i-device. It even works over 3G." -SH WIKIPEDIA MOBILE Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/IP OD TOUCH/Nokia, FREE There are different versions of this app depending on the device, but one thing remains the same across all platforms: users can settle arguments faster than ever. SHOP STYLE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Saves so much time by aggregating shopping content into one portal. Tailors searches to your sizing and nabs you the best bargains by comparing prices from loads of websites. YOOX.COM iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "A gorgeous app for browsing and buying the coolest international fashion brands right from your mobile. The app itself is as luxurious as the brands it sells and the front-and-back garment perspective gives you a good idea of what your item of clothing will look like on you, once you have bought it." -CS RED LASER Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "Quite a nifty little app that allows you to scan the barcode of items and tell you the price of them. Useful for when you come across something in store and you want to see if it's cheaper online." -AF iTUNES REMOTE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "I'm sure some people use this app to control their music. A much more fun way to use it, however, is to mess with your work colleagues' volume when their headphones are on." -AF DISCOVR MUSIC iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.19 "This Australian-made music app gives beautiful interactive visualisations of musicians and their connections. It presents users with a wealth of information about artists and bands, and links through to their songs on YouTube. You can spend hours dragging, poking and playing with the bubbles - all of it driven by some smart-alec algorithm quietly crunching data in the background." -SH CRACKLE Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "Just launched by Sony, this free app features ad-supported movies, TV series and made-for-web 'mobisodes'. It's a promising start but it's not [online US video service] Hulu. If you missed Mo, Larry and Curly in The Three Stooges the first time around, here's your chance to catch up. And the movie catalogue seems to be mostly drawn from offerings from the '70s." -SH THE SMH GOOD FOOD GUIDE 2011 iPad/iPhone/ iPod touch, $4.99 Carrying The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food Guide in your iPhone is pretty convenient and it allows you to book straight from the review. TED Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE Organisation TED (Technology, Education and Design) have made it their mission to spread innovative ideas with inspiring talks from some of the world's greatest thinkers. The TED app lets users watch the talks in any location. Now that's innovative. SPORT FOOTY LITE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE If you can't get to the game or sneak out to the nearest TV, keep up with the latest AFL round with regular hits of the latest news, statistics and live score updates. It has great player profiles, too - if you are at the game, you can compare the relative heights and weights of the battling full-forwards. NRL LIVE SCORES LEAGUE NOW Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE The NRL footy tipster's friend. Find out the latest injuries, weather conditions and betting odds, not to mention up-to-the-minute score updates. LIVESCORE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE When you're in the wrong hemisphere, this app is vital for score updates from overseas football games. Also includes tennis, hockey and basketball live-score updates. RUGBY HEAVEN SUPER RUGBY iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE It's hard to keep up with how many teams are in the Super Rugby competition these days, let alone everything else. Rugby Heaven's Super Rugby app keeps rugby fans organised with their team's latest statistics, news, player profiles, fixtures and results. iCRICKET iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE One of the most popular cricket apps for the iPhone. Not only do you get score updates, news and statistics, users can play Fantasy Cricket on the latest version. UTILITIES iHANDY LEVEL Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Don't you hate it when you can't find your spirit level? It's one of five tools in the iHandy Carpenter Toolkit, so now you can deal with those annoying, crooked paintings any time. COMPASS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/Nokia, $1.19 "A nifty geo-app that displays and moves like a real compass. Comes in handy for real-estate copywriting when I need to list orientation for a house like 'north-facing natural light on the deck'." -KC CONSUME iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "Initially, it's a pain to plug in all your account numbers and PINs, but then you can keep track of your usage and spending on everything from your mobile and home phone bills, to your broadband data usage and frequent flyer points via the graphs." -KC BUDGET iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.19 A way of mending those darned holes in your pockets. Key in income and expenses - via categories including entertainment, clothing, gas and rent - and graphs show where you're forking out most. SOUNDHOUND Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/Nokia, FREE Identify songs in as little as four seconds or simply say or type in the name of an artist to get instant access to their catalogue. Compared to Shazam, SoundHound really goes that extra mile in finding lyrics and YouTube videos of songs. Users can pay $6.99 for the advertisement-free version. FIND MY iPhone iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Left your phone at the pub? Write it a "please return to owner" message remotely and it will pop up on the display screen. Know it's in the house somewhere but just can't find it? Access the online map from your home computer to see exactly where it is, then command it to play a sound. Know it's been stolen? Set PINs and wipe the phone remotely. Dropped it in the toilet? Sorry, can't help you there. SNARL TRAFFIC Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE Locates you on a map (provided you're in Victoria, NSW or Queensland), then marks nearby traffic incidents, helping you to avoid gridlock and road rage. Tap camera icons to view of-the-moment traffic photos of selected streets. JUST FOR FUN TYPE WHILE WALKING iPhone, $1.19 This is the app that every busy city worker needs. Users can SMS and send emails while their device's camera keeps an eye on what's coming up - walk and text, accident-free. SLEEP MACHINE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $2.49 "Who needs sleeping pills when you can drift off to sleep to sounds such as 'Beach: waves lapping on the shore', or 'Waterfall: Hawaii'? 'Rain with distant thunder' is very effective at muffling the sound of someone snoring." -CS SOUNDS OF ACTION iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE As the name suggests, this creates the best sounds from action movies - from bar fights to kung fu fighting. Pointless, but wild. HANDWRITING MAIL FREE iPad, FREE When a text message just isn't enough, HandWriting Mail Free lets you use your finger to quickly jot down personal handwritten notes or pretty pictures, before shooting them off to friends (or, indeed, foes) via email, Facebook or Twitter. HEYTELL iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE A walkie talkie for adults. Just press the "speak" button and send an instant voice message to any contacts who also have the app. For $2.49, you can buy a voice changer that makes you sound like a creepy robot, or a pitch-perfect singer. ANGRY BIRDS Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch/Nokia, $1.19 (the only game we are including, just because.) "It is just a really easy way to kill a few minutes here and there (usually while waiting for the train). Yes, it is addictive and mindless, but that is why it appeals to me." -CB EMOJI FREE! iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "Gives you a range of symbols and icons to add to your text messages, for example: happy, smiley faces, skiers, hot dogs and cocktails. Once you install this app there is pretty much an icon for every situation." -CS GOOGLE SKY MAP Android, FREE Stargazing for the 21st century. Point your camera to the night sky and this app will identify the stars, planets and constellations. PANELLISTS' TOP FIVE PICKS CHRISTINE SATCHELL SHOP ETHICAL! iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $3.99 "This gives background information on the parent companies of more than 2800 products. I can make an ethically informed decision about what I buy based on a wide range of criteria from animal cruelty to the support of oppressive military regimes." SLEEP CYCLE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $1.19 "This monitors sleep movement to wake you up in the morning when you're in a light (rather than a deep) sleep phase. It can also produce a data stream of your sleep patterns during the night." TOMTOM iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $89.99 "Google Maps always took great delight in proposing a roundabout way to my destination. In the end, the allure of an app that would get me where I wanted to go as seamlessly as possible was enough to convince me to fork out for the TomTom." TRIPCASE Android/ Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "One for frequent flyers, this keeps you up to date on delayed departure times, and you can email your e-ticket to the app and it will populate your TripCase database with all the relevant information about your journey. You can share your itinerary through your phone or social media." XTCASSETTE iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $2.49 "By Melbourne designer Smurfo. Create playlists on the run from your iTunes music library and customise the aesthetics of the cassette case to reflect the style of your mega-mix! Gorgeous graphics and seamless integration of music content." STEPHEN HUTCHEON INSTAPAPER iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $5.99 "Allows you to time-shift your reading by letting you clip and store articles you find on the web. You can share this list with others, sub-categorise and pick your favourites. Now all it needs to do is find you the time to read them all." DROPBOX iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "Gives you access to your files on the fly. Pop it onto your home or work PC/laptop and download it for the iPad and, voilà, you can access your bits and pieces from any device. Eliminates the need to carry around a USB drive or email yourself your files." GOODREADER iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $5.99 "Another really useful utility that can store documents in their native format (PDFs, etc) in one central place for future reference rather than leave them as attachments, dangling from an email. Comes with an excellent file-management interface." PAGES iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $12.99 "While there are many alternatives to Apple's own word-processing app for the iPad, Pages is still my favourite. While the iPad is not ideal for typing - especially on the virtual keyboard - you almost certainly need at least one word-processing app. This one has many extras for formatting, etc, and complements the full Mac version nicely." INSTAGRAM iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "A photo-sharing app that's become quite the rage in recent months because (a) it's free, and (b) it comes with a suite of filters that allow you to remake your photo with a retro finish from the '50s, '60s or '70s, then share it with the world either through the app's own social network or through Twitter and Facebook." KATIE CINCOTTA KINDLE Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP OD TOUCH/Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE "Let's me read on the run. Syncs with my Kindle to bring me to exactly the page I'm up to in my book. Great if you're stuck in a doctor's waiting room." WORDS WITH FRIENDS Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $3.99 "A mobile version of Scrabble. Highly addictive. There's a free version if you're happy to put up with ads after each move." URBANSPOON Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch, FREE "User-based restaurant reviews, which you can search by location, cuisine, price or a pokies-style mystery 'shake'. I recently discovered a great new gourmet pizza spot after they made one of the app's "Top 5" lists for Melbourne." SHAZAM Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP OD TOUCH/Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE "Genius app that names a tune and artist, using an inbuilt tagging system. Give it a five-second grab of the music and it'll deliver the goods (well, most of the time)." DICTIONARY.COM Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP OD TOUCH/Nokia, FREE "Beats lugging around the 1392-page Macquarie. Also gives you a 'word of the day' when you load up." CHARLIE BROWN SKYPE Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch/Nokia, FREE "This allows me to get cheap communication to everywhere, from the office to a camera crew filming a tech event on the other side of the world. It is cheap, fast communication and, now that it works easily on 3G networks on most platforms, it is getting easier to use as a primary- connection platform." TWITTER Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP OD TOUCH/Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE "I can't research without Twitter any more. The app is fast and easy to use in my downtime." MAPS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "I know a maps app is on every smartphone, but the live traffic feature on this is used before I plan every trip in the car. Slow traffic shows as a yellow line and "stop/start" traffic as a red line. I have on occasion parked the car and caught the train after seeing a number of red lines around my destination." XE CURRENCY Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP od touch, FREE "As I have a young family, I can no longer justify jumping on a plane and flying across the world to attend the launch of a new gadget, so I pay freelance camera crews in those locations to film the launch for me. I use XE's app to check the currency-exchange rate, which seems to change daily." SPEEDTEST.NET Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "All mobile providers tell me they have a fantastic network, with fast download speeds and strong coverage. With this little app I run frequent tests around Sydney (and the rest of Australia), which tells me which network is best." ANDREW FERGUSSON TWEETDECK Android/iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE A useful app for checking your Twitter and Facebook updates from one place. It's great being able to segment different groups into columns, so you don't have to mix business with pleasure." FACEBOOK Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP OD TOUCH/Nokia/WINDOWS PHONE, FREE "I like this app because they've managed to make it feel really simple, while still including all the Facebook features I want to use." WHATSAPP MESSENGER Android/Blackberry/iPad/iPhone/iP OD TOUCH/Nokia, $1.19 "A great, simple instant-message program that works with your existing contacts list to show you who's using it. It's a quick, free way to keep in touch with mates overseas." ABC AT THE MOVIES iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, FREE "I'm a big fan of David and Margaret, so I got this app for the reviews, but found it was jam-packed full of useful stuff like session times and movie news as well. It's great content, but not as user-friendly as it could be." ZENBE LISTS iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, $5.99 "There isn't a built-in to-do list on the iPhone, so I use Zenbe Lists to keep my life in check. You can sort and prioritise all your lists, as well as share important ones."

This article first appeared in Good Weekend.

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Study: Mobile Apps Have Overtaken Web Usage; People Consume Apps Like Tapas - paidContent.org

Looks like we might be at a tipping point in the market for mobile apps and how they are becoming the go-to place for digital content. A new bit of number-crunching from the app analytics company Flurry claims that for the first time, this month in the U.S. mobile app consumption overtook web surfing—on mobile and PC—in terms of minutes of use.

In a blog post, Flurry notes that so far for the month of June, mobile apps in the U.S. averaged out at 81 minutes per day of use, while web use averaged out at 74 minutes. Games were the most popular category at 47 percent; followed by social networking at 32 percent.

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Flurry’s figures are based on its own U.S. data, which it says covers 500 million “aggregated, anonymous use sessions per day across more than 85,000 applications,” on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and J2ME platforms. The web stats, meanwhile, are taken from Alexa and comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) and take account of minutes spent on the “open web,” “mobile web” and Facebook.

Putting aside the fact that Flurry may be a tad biased in its position here—it’s an app analytics company, so bigging-up the rise of apps benefits it greatly—and that it’s not quite clear what exactly is being covered on the other side of the fence—where do web apps fit in? where do sites requiring subscriptions go (are they “open”)? and does this include time spent on work computers or just those in people’s homes?—taken alone the sheer rise of app usage over time speaks to how fast apps have grown as a medium. Flurry notes that app usage has grown by 91 percent over the last year.

It also underscores how much people (well, people in the U.S., at least) like to have their content targeted and served directly, rather than as an all-you-can eat buffet, so to speak.

Drawing out that food metaphor a bit more, it looks like people like to consume content like tapas: “growth has come primarily from more sessions per user, per day rather than a large growth in average session lengths,” writes Flurry’s product marketing manager Charles Newark-French.

Apps are still in their early days, compared to the now-mature web, which grew by only 16 percent in the last year.

What will be interesting to watch is how the balance will change in the year ahead. We are only now starting to see an earnest rise of “web apps” like the FT’s and Facebook’s that create app-like experiences but with less client-side storage of content.

And there are still more innovations to be made in native mobile web browsers: apparently Apple’s new iOS 5 build is outperforming Windows Phone Mango, which looked pretty fast when it was previewed earlier this year. All this could go some way to swinging minutes away from apps and back to the web again.

Photo: Flickr

Posted In: Apps, Entertainment, Games, Mobile, Research & Metrics, Research, Technologies / Formats, Browsers, Companies, Apple, Facebook, Google, Android, Microsoft, Windows Phone, RIM, BlackBerry, alexa, comscore, flurry

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HP's TouchPad: Dead on Arrival - ZDNet (blog)

At $499, HP’s highly-anticipated TouchPad isn’t going to get many takers.

My Mobile News colleague James Kendrick reports that the HP TouchPad, which is going on sale next month with several major retail partners, is the “Last Stand” for iPad competitors.

I’m right there with James’ excellent analysis, but unfortunately I have to disagree with the “Last Stand” part. To have a Last Stand, you have to be packing heat. By pricing the entry-level TouchPad at $499, HP is just walking out into the gunfight buck-naked with “Shoot me now” painted on its chest.

Also Read: HP TouchPad, Last Stand for iPad Competitors?

The only way the iOS tablet ecosystem can be disrupted by a competitor is to come in substantially cheaper. I’ve said this as well about Android tablets — without a comparable ecosystem, you have to come in as more value-priced.

With nearly identical on-paper specifications as the iPad 2, and launching at the same price, HP isn’t doing itself any favors. There is absolutely nothing this product has that could be considered an advantage — not its display, its CPU, nor its front-facing video conferencing camera (which, by the way, is one less than the iPad 2, which also includes a rear camera).

Oh and by the way, it’s heavier and thicker than the iPad 2. It also appears to have a bigger battery. Does that mean that the TouchPad has longer battery life or its design is more inefficient? That remains to be seen.

Look, I’m not saying WebOS doesn’t appear to be extremely nice from a pure user experience perspective. It’s a gorgeous-looking OS that has a great multitasking UI. It also appears to have some advantages in that in utilizing existing web standards for its APIs, developers might be able to get some apps off the ground fairly rapidly.

The problem is, HP is about 65,000 tablet apps short of its largest competitor (300,000 if you count the entire iOS ecosystem) and it’s got the chutzpah to sell their product without any key differentiators for the same amount of money.

What does that spell? Dead on Arrival.

Here’s what I would do if I was HP. Ready for it? Sell it cheaper. A LOT cheaper.

There are a bunch of folks — a large amount of folks — that have not jumped into the tablet world yet because they just don’t have $450+ to burn on a tablet, whether it’s an iPad 2 or a half-assed Android Honeycomb 3.x-based competitor.

These folks want something cheaper. It’s a huge untapped market that Apple and even its Taiwanese, Korean and Chinese frenemies are going to find difficulty reaching, at least for the time being.

Here’s the problem — The BOM on something like the iPad 2 is estimated to be around $325, according to research firm iSuppli.

That’s a conservative estimate, since Apple is known to be very adept at managing supply chain costs and purchases a lot of its own inventory up front, so it’s probably getting better discounts on consumer electronics components than most if not all of its competitors.

However, let’s just say for the sake of argument that the HP TouchPad costs somewhere between $280 and $310 to produce.

I’m reducing manufacturing costs because I’m assuming it’s a less difficult device to manufacture than iPad 2, and HP won’t have a problem getting components out of Asia that Apple hasn’t otherwise cornered the market on.

If the BOM is around $300, then HP doesn’t have a lot of leeway on pricing. Getting it out into the channel at $350 would allow HP to get its name out there, and secure a decent amount of market share, but they wouldn’t make a ton of money on the devices.

They’d have to get it on the back-end with their app ecosystem, or have some value-added integration with other HP products or compelling Cloud service to go with it.

Honestly, what I’d be really thinking about doing now is getting a 7? version of the device out, and quickly. And pricing it so that it would be a knockout blow to RIM’s PlayBook and a large portion of the Android tablet wannabes: $299.

A 7?, cheaper TouchPad would do a number of things. First, it would add a key market differentiator to iPad and the Honeycombs, which are larger devices.

Second, it would take away any of the perceived advantages with RIM’s PlayBook, as it would have comparable performance, it would cost less, and HP would be able to truly market it as the “Executive” iPad, which the PlayBook was supposed to be.

And unlike RIM’s tablet, it wouldn’t have the PlayBook’s BlackBerry handset co-dependency issues.

In addition to releasing a cheaper TouchPad, I would also corner the market on productivity apps for Tablets. This week, I learned that QuickOffice will be releasing a port to WebOS around the TouchPad’s launch time.

If HP purchased QuickOffice, it could kill the iOS and Android versions (a product which has been preloaded on over 30 million Android handsets) and keep the technology to itself, much like RIM did with DataViz’s Docs to Go.

[Note: Docs to Go still ships on other platforms besides PlayBook, but it's my guess that all of the development is currently being poured into QNX right now.]

Of course, HP won’t do any of these things, because it makes too much sense. I expect that the TouchPad to hit the market like a lead balloon. The “Last Stand” for iPad competitors is more likely to be a Last Whimper.

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Jason Perlow, Sr. Technology Editor at ZDNet, is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies.

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The Best Diet Apps: Our Top Smartphone Weight-Loss Picks - Epicurious (blog)

Here's a diet secret: You could eat nothing but grapefruit or nothing but chocolate or nothing but pulled pork, and as long as you end up with a net deficit of calories (by eating less or exercising more), you will lose weight.

"All diets are about calories, no matter what they're called--they all reduce calories, otherwise you wouldn't lose weight," is how the wise and blunt Dr. Marion Nestle put it when I interviewed her several years ago for another article on Epicurious, The Smart Way to Lose Weight.

But the actual cutting and counting of those calories is where it gets tough (it's so easy to fudge your estimates of how big a piece of...fudge...you ate). Enter a slew of smartphone diet apps that promise to help you keep on track with your diet by offering calorie- and exercise-tracking, motivation, meal plans, group support, and much more (like the one that beeps when it's time to eat, which could have you salivating like Pavlov's dog every time any electronic device beeps).

After sifting through the most-downloaded diet apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry, we found five apps we'd recommend to any food lover, albeit with a few and downsides for each. Check out Weight Loss Apps for Food Lovers to find out which apps made the final cut. Is your favorite on our list?

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