Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Meanwhile, with Apple now having thousands of apps available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, Google has hit the 200 app mark in its Android Marketplace.
A PC World article quotes a Google executive claiming that gPhone owners had, on average, 14 apps on their phones, and saying its online store was a hit, while HTC and Google championed the amount of data traffic the G1 was generating, without being specific.
Clearly there are plenty more gPhone Android apps to come, despite Ballmer’s doubts about his competitors, and as the gPhone expands with new versions and into more countries, more developers will see how tasty the gPhone juice really is.
Developers have also managed to hack into the G1 Android phone as reported by Macworld, similar to the “jailbreak” achieved on the iPhone, enabling users to install their own software or even a different operating system, if one can be made to work.
However Google says it is now aware of the hack, and will close it in an upcoming software update, no doubt setting off another round of cat and mouse hacking and updates between those that really want complete freedom on their gPhones, and a Google that wants to retain control, even if their platform is vastly more open than the iPhone.
It’s clear that the stakes for smartphone supremacy are higher than ever – and the BlackBerry Storm is still yet to thunder into the marketplace, first in the US and then around the world.
We’re also awaiting the upcoming iPhone OS 2.2 with Street View and features, and in related news it looks like the upcoming Sony Ericsson XPERIA Windows Mobile smartphone will see the debut of Windows Mobile 6.5 long before Windows Mobile 7 is released.
With so much competition from Apple, Nokia, BlackBerry and now Google, Windows Mobile 7 must be at least as impressive as Steve Ballmer suggests.
After all, while there are some impressive WM 6.1 devices from HTC and Samsung with their graphically advanced touch interfaces, along with WM devices from others, a lot of people are waiting to see if Windows Mobile 7 will be an iPhone OS beater and if Microsoft has learned anything from the iPhone, HTC’s Touch interface and that on the Samsung Omnia.
Windows Mobile 7 needs to come sooner rather than later, with Google’s Android, Nokia’s N-Series, Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry all formidable competitors that aren’t cutting Microsoft any slack whatsoever.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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