Android Will Account For 58 Percent Of App Downloads In 2013

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Android Will Account For 58 Percent Of Smartphone App Downloads In 2013 (ABI Research)
The annual volume of smartphone app downloads will reach 56 billion this year, according to ABI Research’s updated market forecasts. Of different OS platforms, Google’s Android will account for 58 percent of the total, with Apple’s iOS commanding an annual share of 33 percent. Microsoft’s Windows Phone will finish the year with a slice slightly smaller than 4 percent, with BlackBerry trailing it with 3 percent. In the meantime, mobile users will download around 14 billion tablet apps during the year. In the tablet segment, iPad’s lead as a development platform remains formidable, as 75 percent of the amount will be apps running on iOS. Read >>

Is iWatch A Risk To Google Mobile Search? (Seeking Alpha)
How will mobile wearables impact the serving of mobile ads and mobile search? Google investors need to be aware of the potential risks involved and plan on monitoring company mobile revenue growth against any growth in wearables. Mobile computing exists in another evolutionary time dimension.

The chart above shows the 2008 global market share for smartphones and provides a striking example of the speed at how things can change. A company's competitive advantage might disappear seemingly overnight, and product cycles are being compressed to months. Read >>

What People Are Paying For Through Apps (Venmo)
Venmo, a mobile payment platform, decided to take a look at what people where paying for through their platform:

• The larger the word, the more it was used in payments notes to describe payments for household bills and social activities.
• The smaller, less frequent, words tend to describe payments at a greater level of detail, including Internet, cable and electricity.
• Food is an overarching, popular category.
• People often use words that describe when the event related to a payment took place including months, holidays and special events.
• The emotive words used in payment notes tend to be very positive like love, sweet, delicious and best.

Check out the word cloud above for the most popular terms. Read >>

Facebook Is One Step Closer To Killing The Carriers (TechCrunch)
Facebook will wage its war against your phone’s "phone" application on a new front with an update to Messenger For Android that adds VoIP calling for Canadians. It’s also improving group messaging. By combining voice-over-data calling with unified instant, asynchronous, and email messaging, Facebook could dominate communication in the developing world. Here’s why this war is worth it. Facebook’s mission to connect the world breaks down into two channels:

1. Public and semi-public posting to your profile and the news feed
2. Private communication.

It already hosts a lot of both of those stacks. The big parts that remain out of its grasp are serious email and short-form public publishing like Twitter, SMS and voice. Read >>

In The Security World, Android Is The New Windows (TNW)
With the transition to the mobile era, Windows is no longer at the center of the computing universe — for users or for hackers. That role is now occupied by Android. According to Stephen Cobb, a security researcher for the IT security company ESET, "Android is like early Windows." It's now the locus for security attacks and prevention, even if it's not getting as much attention in this regard as Windows used to. Just as on computers, which mobile platform you use really does make a difference on security. And ironically, as Android's security issues grow, Windows is actually getting better. Read >>

New Amazon API Takes Google For Ad Dollars (The Verge)
Amazon is taking the next obvious step by offering developers a mobile ads API that will allow them to put Amazon-based ads in their apps in lieu of (or in addition to) ads from other networks. Google, for example. To participate, developers will need to include their apps in Amazon's Android app store, but the ads can appear on any app on any Android device, not just Kindle Fire devices. The ads will come both from Amazon and from "brand advertisers," which implies that the company is hoping to build a full-fledged mobile ad network. Although for now the ads will only work in the U.S. Read >>

Analyst Expects Fingerprint Sensor For iPhone 5S (9to5Mac)
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects Apple to release both an iPhone 5S and a lower-cost iPhone later this year. Kuo adds that the launch is expected to occur this July after an announcement in June alongside iOS 7. The iPhone 5S is expected to retain the new design of the iPhone 5, but it will add a smaller, faster processor, an improved LED "SmartFlash" sensor on the back, and a tweaked camera sensor. Kuo also adds that a China Mobile-compatible version of the 5S will be released by September. Most interestingly, the reported highlight feature of the device is said to be a fingerprint sensor. Read >>

Over 40 Percent Of Email Is Now Opened On Mobile Devices (Knotice via Econsultancy)
The proportion of email opened on mobile devices reached 41 percent in the second half of 2012 and is on course to surpass the desktop and laptop PC by the end of this year. The findings, which come from a report by Knotice, show that smartphones now make up 29 percent of the total while tablets account for 12 percent of email opens. This increased from 26 percent and 11 percent respectively in the first half of 2012.

And despite the increasing dominance of Google’s Android operating system, iOS devices account for the vast majority of mobile email opens. Of the 29 percent of email viewed on smartphones, iPhones account for 22 percent compared to 6 percent on Android, while iPads account for a massive 11.4 percent of the 12.1 percent opened on tablets. Read >>

Is Your Website Optimized For Mobile? (Right Mix Marketing via Business 2 Community)
Our sites are being increasingly accessed via mobile devices, primarily smartphones and tablets. What the users get when they arrive at different sites via one of these devices varies greatly and often the experience and usability is terrible. Read >>

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.