Weekly Mobile Mash-up #13

All privacy and mobile news spotted by the ON team last week.

Google Android’s dirty little secret.

When Android was launched, Google had the great intentions in mind – freedom, openness, and good quality of software. As always with freedom comes a price and often unavoidable consequences. Remember Apple trying their very best to get AT&T to relinquish device control for their iPhone deal and all the great lengths Google had gone to get the FCC and U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700MHz auction. However Android has taken most of the gains and handed the power back to the telecoms. So whatever happened to all the freedom they initially promised?

Android’s next update to be called ‘Honeycomb’?

A new rumour came up from TechRadar and their ‘multiple sources’ that confirmed the next version of Google’s Android following the 3.0 update (Gingerbread) would be called ‘Honeycomb’. Following Google’s previous naming conventions for the OS, it’s easy for one to assume that a snack starting with the letter ‘H’ would be the next update. The previous named versions are as following: 1.5 (‘Cupcake’), 1.6 (‘Donut’), 2.0/1 (‘Eclair’), 2.2 (‘Froyo’). Well, the biggest question we’ve got regarding this name is: Who’s Android’s sweet tooth?

The Blackberry Android… coming soon?

RIM’s brand new updated Blackberry 6 operating system is still miles behind its arch rivals, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. Dan Frommer of Business Insider believes the time has come for RIM to make a difficult but important move to secure their future. He thinks it’s time for them to stop wasting developing their own OS and application platform, and switch to the Android which is the only real competitor for Apple’s iOS platform. The company is still selling plenty of its iconic Blackberry devices – much thanks to new international expansion and carrier sales but it’s no longer a software leader. Potentially risking the decline into a low-end, low-margin player…

More than 100 million use Google Maps for mobile.

It’s been almost 5 years since Google launched the Google Maps for mobile application to help you get where you need to go from your phone rather than using an A-Z map. Today in 2010, more than 100 million of us use Google Maps on a monthly basis to get from A to B, find nearby places, find our way home after long nights, and more. Not good news for TomTom and Garmin!

Nokia shuts the doors to its Social Networks Beta Trial.

The Finish mobile phone manufacturer announced that they are now closing the Nokia Messaging for Social Networks beta program. Alongside this announcement, they also mentioned that the feedback forums at Nokia Beta Labs won’t be actively monitored anymore and that Nokia Messaging for Social Networks will be taken out of the list of active trials. In practice this also means all beta users will no longer have access to the service anymore.

Nokia Messaging for Social Network’s teams are now focusing on delivering a similar experience on Symbian^3 and its star new handset, the N8. Read the full story here: Nokia Messaging for Social Networks Beta trial closed.

Facebook’s iPhone app now has 102 million users.

Plus another 57 million on BlackBerry and 12 million on Android. It’s crazy how fast the smartphone market has grown in the past few years. Facebook’s recent announced that it has over 150 million active users is considerably wrong by judging the published application statistics. Each applications respective pages on Facebook reveals that iPhone app has in fact over 102.2 million monthly active users, another 57 on RIM’s Blackberry and 11.9 million on Android. Let’s not forget the 5 million or so users on the other handsets such as Palm, Sidekick and INQ. Those of you using Facebook on your iPhone will know of the new Places update. Places is a FourSquare like feature for Facebook which allows users to tag each other in places, and is already raising concerns over privacy in the US. we suggest you follow this guide and update your privacy settings.

157 Mobile App Stats You Should Know About.

Stuart Dredge from Mobile Entertainment published a really interesting presentation on slideshare, sharing 157 mobile applications statistics that we all should know about. Make sure you take 5 minutes to have a look at it!

Send us to SXSW.

In case you missed it yesterday we just want to remind you that we’d really like to present ON at  SXSW and we therefore need your vote here. Voting ends on Friday (yes this Friday) so thumbs up for ON everyone! :-)

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