Android’s Web traffic is growing and we all need to take this into account whether we are retailers, app developers or content providers.

This increase in Android web traffic is simple : more devices and better ones. AdMob’s March traffic report shines some light on the subject.

“This month’s report shows that the Android ecosystem is thriving, due to the launch of new devices and versions of the operating system,” said Nicole Leverich, director of corporate communications at AdMob, San Mateo, CA.

“The Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March 2010 generating 32 percent of worldwide Android traffic while the Google Nexus One only generated 2 percent of Android traffic in March 2010,” she said.

In March 2010, there were 34 Android devices from 12 manufacturers available on the market.

With this growing number of devices available on many networks (unlike the iPhone, which is only available on AT&T in the USA and in many markets on only 1 network) many are predicting that Android may eat Apple’s market share dominance.

According to AdMob, 11 devices that accounted for 96 percent of Android traffic, up from two devices in September. Motorola and HTC were the leading Android device manufacturers with 44 percent and 43 percent of respective traffic.

According to the study, Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March 2010 generating 32 percent of Android traffic, while the Google Nexus One drove only two percent of Android traffic.

In addition, 54 percent of Android traffic came from devices with a QWERTY keyboard.

We all need to get real and stop thinking ONLY iPhone… Android is definitely here to stay. Also we can see from the AdMob report that other OSs such as RIM’s Blackberry are grabbing market share. Developers and marketers need to take this into account.

Palm and HP

In case you didn’t hear, we just announced a merger with a little shop down the street called HP. That little shop happens to be the world’s largest technology company, and certainly one of the most revered companies in all of tech-land. Can you say “webOS acceleration”? We’re pretty excited, and pleased we surprised the world again.

This is on the blog of Palm… it is obvious that they fill a bit giddy. It is true that it is a pretty darn good scenario considering whom they are up against. It will definitely be interesting to see if HP can really do something with this.

This is going to be interesting… Palm the iconic brand and innovator has been snapped up and a fairly good price by HP.

Jon Rubinstein the CEO will remain with the company – but it’s not clear whether Palm as a brand will remain intact just yet – to say nothing of the rest of Palm’s team and infrastructure. For webOS fans, the good news is that this isn’t just a purchase for talent and patents, HP intends to continue on with webOS.

Press release : ALTO and SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 28, 2010

HP and Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”

“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, Palm. ”We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Palm stockholders will receive $5.70 in cash for each share of Palm common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger. The merger consideration takes into account the updated guidance and other financial information being released by Palm this afternoon. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of domestic and foreign regulatory approvals and the approval of Palm’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close during HP’s third fiscal quarter ending July 31, 2010.

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

India has beat it’s government target of 500 million before end of 2010. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said recently that the number of Indian mobile phone users will cross the 650 million mark by 2012.

India is now on a par with China and only the second nation in the world to achieve half a billion mobile phone subscribers – with nearly 15 million new customers being added every month.

Officials say that overall “tele-density” in the country has reached 43.5% – or 509 million subscribers.

But some areas such tiny remote north-eastern Indian state of Mizoram has now more than half the population is now using a mobile telephone.

The Mizoram state economic survey in January 2010 indicated there were 561,917 mobile phone users in the state – which has a population of about one million people – and the figures might have gone up since then. The survey said that Mizoram’s mobile phone users currently pay a total monthly bill of 50 million rupees ($1m).

All Indian mobile networks are doing roaring business in the state, where the government is the biggest employer.

Airtel is the largest network in Mizoram, with 192,000 subscribers in January 2010, followed by BSNL, Aircel, and Vodafone.

Officials say that the figures are remarkable because the state is one of the most remote in India and private industry is practically non-existent.

This seems to be the model that is replicated not only across India but also in Africa.

What does this mean for us in the mobile industry ? Basically that these people who often don’t have internet connections are going to be hungry for content. Not necessarily premium content for sure but they will want the same sort of services as others have world wide namely : search, social and info.

This represents a huge opportunity and also challenge for the present web and mobile players to offer to these new entrants what they want and to monetize all of this.. To be watched therefore.

This is funny.. probably gives shivers to Steve Jobs. This guy has managed to install Android on an iPhone.

Mike Chambers is Adobe’s principal product manager for the Flash platform. After having complained about the aggressive attitude of Apple in refusing to allow Flash on the iPhone and iPad he had this to say about Android :

Fortunately, the iPhone isn’t the only game in town. Android based phones have been doing well behind the success of the Motorola Droid and Nexus One, and there are a number of Android based tablets slated to be released this year. We are working closely with Google to bring both Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 to these devices, and thus far, the results have been very promising.

Because this is Flash, it is rather trivial to port games created with Flash that target the iPhone to target other operating systems, such as Android. At FlashCamp San Francisco on Friday night, David Wadhwani (GM and VP of the Flash Platform) showed off a number of games running on Android that had been created with Flash, many of which had already been deployed as iPhone games. My personal favorites were Chroma Circuit and GridShock created by Josh Tynjala of Bowler Hat Games. Both games were originally developed as browser based games and were then updated to target the iPhone (Chroma Circuit was featured on the iTunes app store). Josh recently updated and optimized them to target Flash Player on Android, and the results have been impressive. There have already been a couple of developers who have moved their Flash based content from the iPhone to Flash on Android (couple of examples below) and I expect that this is a trend we will be seeing more and more of.

Here are some links to developers who originally targeted the iPhone with their Flash content and are now deploying to Android:

* Adobe AIR for Android: Chroma Circuit and Qrossfire Videos
* Jobe Makar : Flash is Speedy on Android
* Jobe Makar’s Fruit Smash Organic (Video)
* Alan Queen’s Star Map Game (Video)

Both Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 for Android are in pre-release testing. If you are interested in being notified when we expand the testing, you can sign up at:

* Flash Player 10.1 for Android Beta
* Adobe AIR 2.0 for Android Beta

Personally, I am going to shift all of my mobile focus from iPhone to Android based devices (I am particularly interested in the Android based tablets coming out this year) and not focus on the iPhone stuff as much anymore. This includes both Flash based, and Objective-C based iPhone development. While I actually enjoy working in Objective-C, I don’t have any current plans to update and / or maintain my existing native iPhone applications (including the AS3 Reference Guide, and Timetrocity). As I wrote previously, I think that the closed system that Apple is trying to create is bad for the industry, developers and ultimately consumers, and that is not something that I want to actively promote. Don’t worry though, I definitely plan to get both Pew Pew and Bacon Unicorn Adventure running on Android and am planning on open sourcing both.

Also Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen said “We have a number of excited partners who are working aggressively with us to bring Flash to their devices, whether they be smartphones as well as handsets, and so companies like Google or RIM or Palm are going to be releasing versions of Flash on smartphones and tablets in the second half of the year.”

A new leak has provided what should be the first known screens and features of BlackBerry OS 6.0.

Research in Motion is reportedly close to releasing a new operating system for its BlackBerry line of smartphones. A new BlackBerry OS 6.0 could correct some user complaints and help RIM catch up with its rivals, including Apple’s iPhone and Android-powered devices. Analysts expect a better BlackBerry browser and home-page tweaks.

Research In Motion may not be ahead of the curve, but it’s taking some bold steps with a new operating system  for its popular BlackBerry smartphones. The Canadian phone maker is close to releasing version 6.0 of its BlackBerry OS, published reports say.

The current OS has drawn complaints from BlackBerry users that RIM hopes to correct. The new OS is also expected to let RIM better compete with rivals, including the Apple iPhone and Google’s Android operating system.

“While the BlackBerry OS has enabled users to do what they want — e-mail, browse, social networking, apps, etc. — the experience has left a stale taste in their mouths,” said Ramon Llamas, an IDC analyst. “Most people don’t like the user interface, navigation and overall feel to it.”

According to ComScore’s latest study, thirteen percent of US based mobile gamers have started to trade in their featurephones for smartphones to boost their gaming experience.

ComScore reported 58.6 million featurephone based mobile gamers in February 2009 versus 50.9 million of them in February 2010. In the same period, the number of smartphone gamers grew 60%. Smartphone owners are also more likely to play mobile games on their phones. 47.1% of the smartphone owners play mobile games versus 15.7% on featurephones.

“Although the number of mobile gamers has declined in the past year, there is reason for significant optimism about the future of this market,” said Mark Donovan, ComScore senior analyst and SVP of mobile. “As the market transitions from feature phones to smartphones, the dynamics of gameplay are also shifting towards a higher quality experience. As a result, we can expect to see a profound increase in adoption of this activity, both in terms of audience size and overall engagement.”

Just a quick update on this article from last week :

Web browser maker Opera topped the iPhone application download chart within 24 hours of releasing its free browser app.

It has been downloaded 1,023,380 times since its launch on 14 April.

It took three weeks for Apple to approve the program, which has already been developed for other mobile phone platforms.

Opera Mini is not the first alternative to Apple’s Safari to be developed for the iPhone.

Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn recently indicated that the company plans to open “a number somewhere between here and 1,000″ new retail outlets that will focus only on mobile phones and mobile services. Best Buy already offers a store-within-a-store mobile shopping experience at its big box retail facilities and claims they have been successful to-date. Best Buy also has a limited number of stand-alone mobile stores. Best Buy was recently named as a potential candidate to acquire RadioShack, which would offer it a quick way to expand its mobile retail presence across the U.S. in shopping plazas and malls where mobile phones are often sold.