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Google launched version 1.6 (“Donut”) of Android to developers, which packs a hefty handful of new features and polishes up much of what was already there.

The new features:

• Quick Search Box – a redesigned search framework that provides a quick, effective, and consistent way for users to search across multiple sources—such as browser bookmarks & history, contacts, and the web—directly from the home screen.
• Camera, Camcorder, and Gallery – an integrated camera, camcorder, and gallery experience. Users can quickly toggle between still and video capture modes. Additionally, the gallery enables users to select multiple photos for deletion.
• VPN, 802.1x – a new Virtual Private Network (VPN) control panel in Settings allows users to configure and connect to various types of VPNs.
• Battery usage indicator – a new battery usage screen lets users see which apps and services are consuming battery power.
• Accessibility – users will be able to download new accessibility services built on the new accessibility framework and enable them in Settings.

The latest version improves the overall user experience of the Android Market and makes it easier for users to discover apps:

• At the homescreen, users can choose among Apps, Games, and Downloads.
• Inside a category, users can explore titles that are Top paid, Top free, and Just in.
• For each title, users can now see screenshots submitted by developers in addition to reviews from other users.

In the platform level, Android 1.6 includes telephony support for CDMA, text-to-speech enginge, expanded search framework and new framework APIs.

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LG announced its very first Android phone — the GW620. The new LG GW620 comes to the market with a 3-inch full touchscreen display coupled with a side-sliding QWERTY keypad. According to the phone maker, the new handset comes with support for social networking sites, which have attracted a larger number of mobile users lately, and is also meant to offer the smartphone experience accessible to typical users. The messaging capabilities of the device have also been enhanced, LG notes, and professionals will find the LG GW620 a great option. The new LG Android phone is slated for launch in the fourth quarter of the ongoing year in Europe.

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Motorola announced its first Android-powered device, the Motorola CLIQ (MB200). The CLIQ will be available exclusively in the US from T-Mobile later this fall.

Motorola CLIQ features MOTOBLUR, an innovative solution that manages and integrates communications – from work e-mail to social networking activity. Updates to contacts, posts, messages, photos and more are streamed together and synced from sources including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Gmail, and work and personal e-mail. MOTOBLUR automatically delivers these updates to the home screen in easy-to-view streams so there is no need to open and close different mobile applications to keep up with the latest content.

Additional CLIQ features include a 3.1-inch HVGA touch-screen display, a 5 megapixel auto focus camera with video capture and playback at 24 frames per second, a 3.5mm headset jack, a music player with pre-loaded Amazon MP3 store application, Shazam, iMeem Mobile, and a pre-installed 2GB microSD memory card with support for up to 32 GB of removable memory.

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HTC announced a less expensive Android phone that will be released next month, the HTC Tattoo (formerly known as HTC Click).  HTC Tattoo will use the HTC Sense UI and will feature customizable covers from HTC. Packing an attractive design and relatively low price tag, the Tattoo looks set to introduce the Android platform to a much wider and younger audience.

The compact HTC Tattoo has a QVGA display. It runs on a 528 MHz Qualcomm CPU and comes with 256MB of RAM. The highlight features of the HTC Tattoo include 3G with HSPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera. There is also an FM radio, an accelerometer sensor and a digital compass onboard. A microSD card slot, a 3.5mm audio jack and a miniUSB port complete the specs sheet of the new handset.

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There  are currently at least 10,000 applications and games available on the on the Android Market, according to AndroLib, which provides a useful website where you can browse Android apps. AndroLib’s latest stats show a total of 10,072 apps that were crawled by their system, the majority of which were free (64.2%). The real number of applications in the Market is probably higher, but Google doesn’t provide official statistics.

Source: MobileCrunch

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AdMob recently estimated that there are some $200 million worth of applications sold in Apple’s iPhone store every month, or about $2.4 billion a year, whereas the Android market is worth a paltry $5M. Larva Labs claims that the total is probably much lower.

Matt Hall lists some of the shortcomings currently plaguing the Android Market:

• No screenshots
• 325 character application description maximum
• Google checkout only way to buy
• Hard to find paid apps
• Various intermittent problems like failed or stalled downloads, credit card verification delays that look like stalled downloads, and other problems.

It seems that Android developers are seeing some really pathetic sales figures from the Android Market. Larva Labs, one of the top-selling Android developer saw an average of $62 per day in Android Market sales for August 2009.

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BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile and Symbian/S60 were designed years ago – the traditional strengths of these software platforms are rapidly becoming liabilities in the fast-paced smartphone market. Guest blogger Michael Vakulenko answers a critical question: are user interface face-lifts, application stores or even going open source enough for the legacy smartphone platforms to stand-up to the challenges posed by iPhone and Android?

A blog post by Michael Vakulenko

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A new report by Distimo, a mobile app store analytics firm, compares the pricing of applications in Google’s Android Marketplace and Apple’s App Store. Distimo’s July report concludes that pricing of applications in the Apple App Store and Android Market is quite similar, except for the Reference category which has a much higher average price on Google Android Market.

The report found that while the average price in the “Most Popular Game” category between the two stores is quite similar, the price distribution is not. The number of 99-cent apps in this category at the Apple App store far outweigh the number at Google Android Marketplace.

The most popular games on the Android Marketplace went between 99 cents and $5.99, with most going for $2.99. However, while most popular games on the App Store went for 99 cents, the store also featured a higher-end set, which was priced between $6.99 and $9.99.

As of late, Android has received praise for its growing catalog of applications and faithful following of developers. Recent analyst estimates put the Android catalog at somewhere around 6,000, a distant second behind the Apple App Store, which currently boasts 65,000 applications.

However, many observers say that Apple’s App Store numbers are inflated due to a large number of generally useless applications. Tech Crunch recently reported on the ousting of developer Khalid Shaikh, founder of Perfect Acumen, and the App Store’s third most prolific developer. According to the report, Shaikh had published some 900 applications to the App Store, all of which were removed upon the revocation of his license to develop for Apple’s store. The applications, which saw an average price of $4.99, were simple aggregation apps that consolidated Web content on subjects ranging from Michael Jackson to professional wrestling.

Apple recently has received a lot of criticism surrounding the App Store’s approval process, which is in stark contrast to the “wild west” approach over at Android.

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Google just dropped an early alpha version of the upcoming major Android update, “Donut”, into the code repository. The Donut build is actively being ported to current handsets, and an Android Dev Phone 1 / T-Mobile G1 version is already available. Work is being conducted to extract major elements of Donut (some of the new widgets, for example) and roll them into cooked 1.5 builds, making the best stuff available in a more solid, accessible form without having to wait for 2.0 to become stable.

New features:

• CDMA support
• Text-to-speech
• Many new widgets, including one that allows for WiFi/Bluetooth/GPS/Email toggling and Brightness adjustment right from the homescreen.
• Official support for multitouch
• Universal search
• WPA Enterprise WiFi encryption support
• VPN support
• Automated backups
• Performance improvements

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Motorola launched MOTODEV Studio for Android, a Beta version of Motorola’s IDE that facilitates the development of Android applications.

In addition, Motorola launched the App Accelerator Program, an early access program to give developers a head start in targeting Android apps for Motorola’s newest devices.

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