For newcomers: StartupDigest Mobile is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best articles in the mobile technology industry.

You can become a member for free here.

Welcome back to StartupDigest Mobile, the members-only guide to what you need to read in the mobile technology industry every week.Happy Friday to all!

Finally, some exciting news on the iPhone 5 front – looking forward to dissecting all the news here following Apple’s event next Tuesday. But in advance of that, a flurry of mobile news and pieces for the digest this week with the spotlight largely on Amazon.

We kick off with a much-anticipated unveiling of the Kindle Fire, powered by a bevy of Amazon’s digital services. With it, Bezos makes a strong case for a renewed focus on software and software services, and it’ll be interesting to see how other hardware manufactures respond (as the hardware itself becomes commoditized, software becomes the only layer of differentiation, which could be a big boon for app developers as OEMs compete for exclusive content). Renewed fervor just this morning over the fate of webOS and possible new homes for the beleaguered platform, with Amazon rumored to be in the hunt.

And a great post on the “top 6″ things to keep in mind while developing mobile apps. Check out the results of one iOS game developer survey: more than 250 responses and some great stats here to consider.

StartupDigest Mobile is curated by:
TJ Nahigian – Associate at Accel Partners - @tjnahigian
Vas Natarajan – Associate at Accel Partners - @natarjv

StartupDigest Mobile is supported exclusively by:
BlackBerry- No matter what your individual needs, a BlackBerry® solution will enable you to accomplish more by keeping you in touch with information, colleagues and friends.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is powered by the cloud

By Ryan Kim, GigaOM

Amazon finally unveils its much anticipated Amazon Kindle Fire.

Bezos: “In The Modern Era Of Consumer Electronics Devices, If You Are Just Building A Device You Are Unlikely To Succeed.”

By Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch

Jeff Bezos makes the strong case for differentiation at the software layer. Are hardware manufacturers paying enough attention to the software they are bundling with their device?

Amazon Buying webOS Makes a Certain Kind of Sense

By Damon Poeter, PCMag.com

Just in: Amazon And WebOS? Rumors of the beleaguered platform finding a new home.

Building a mobile app? Here are 6 tips for you

By Erica Ogg, GigaOM

A great post on the top 6 things to keep in mind while developing an app.

Results: iOS Game Revenue Survey

From Streaming Colour

Some interesting stats from one man’s survey of 250+ iOS game developers.

Finally, the Tablet to Make HP and RIM Feel Better About Themselves

By Ina Fried, AllThingsD

Is this potentially the Newest Player in the Tablet Wars?

Below is an archived version of the Lexington StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in Lexington. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

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Lexington StartupDigest is curated by:
Sean O’Leary – Director of Venture Finance, KSTC

Lexington StartupDigest is made possible exclusively by:
U.S. college graduates with innovative new business ideas can apply to the Kauffman Foundation’s Global Scholars Program, newly expanded to include U.S. scholars. Participants learn and network with an international group of fellow aspiring entrepreneurs from January through June 2012. Apply here by Oct. 17, 2011.

What’s Going on in the Lexington Community

Game Developer’s Meetup
When: Tuesday, Sept. 27, 7.00pm
Where: Collexion, 109 E. Loudon, Lexington

Lexington meetup for anyone interested in game development.

Top Upcoming Events

Oct 4 – Shift Design Group
Oct 5 – Startup Advantage: First Money, Lexington Public Library (Central Branch)

Below is an archived version of the Lexington StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in Lexington. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Lexington StartupDigest is curated by:
Sean O’Leary – Director of Venture Finance, KSTC

Lexington StartupDigest is made possible exclusively by:
Kauffman’s website Entrepreneurship.org is a free online site chock full of content and resources for entrepreneurs, business mentors, investors and anyone in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Content ranges from information entrepreneurs need to launch a company to policies and research that has been conducted regarding entrepreneurship. Check it out at www.entrepreneurship.org.

What’s Going on in the Lexington Community

Mobile Developer’s Meetup
When: Monday, Sept. 19, 5.30pm
Where: Base 163, 163 E. Main St., Lexington

Lexington meetup for anyone interested in developing mobile apps.

A lunch meeting for anyone interested in Lexington’s startup and venture community.

Top Upcoming Events
Sept 27 – Game Developer’s Meetup

For newcomers: StartupDigest Mobile is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best articles in the mobile technology industry.

You can become a member for free here.

Happy Friday All!

We hope you enjoyed the short week. Vas and I just got back from New York where we were celebrating the opening of Accel’s NYC Office. It is amazing how much the NYC tech seen has progressed in a relatively short period of time. Anyways, we kick off this week’s mobile digest with an interesting piece highlighting that for the first time, the total number of Android app downloads will surpass app downloads on iOS. Pew Research comes out with some data that reveals over a quarter of American adults are using mobile and social location based services. Baidu continues to take on Google as they push into the mobile space with their Baidu Yi OS which will definitely butt heads with Android. Not surprisingly, Instagram is growing like crazy. The mobile photo social network surpassed 50 million photo uploads in August bringing the total to more than 200 million. Last but not least, Outblaze, a mobile game developer, is seeing ARPU’s that are 30 percent higher on Android than on iOS. They attribute most of that to customer acquisition methods and less competition on the platform. Have a good weekend and see you next week.

StartupDigest Mobile is curated by:
TJ Nahigian – Associate at Accel Partners - @tjnahigian
Vas Natarajan – Associate at Accel Partners - @natarjv 

StartupDigest Mobile is supported exclusively by:
BlackBerry- No matter what your individual needs, a BlackBerry® solution will enable you to accomplish more by keeping you in touch with information, colleagues and friends.

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

Android is projected to hit 8.1 billion app downloads in 2011 compared to Apple’s projected 6 billion on iOS devices. That is up from 1.4 billion and 2.7 billion downloads on the respective platforms in 2010 according to research firm Ovum.

According to Pew Research, more than a quarter of American adults use mobile or social location based services of some kind. Only 5 percent of cell owners use their phones to check into locations using geosocial services like Foursquare or gowalla. Nine percent of internet users set up social sites like Facebook and Twitter to automatically include their location when using the service.

Currently Baidu is a desktop web browser / search engine that competes with Google Chrome in China. Baidu announced this week that it has plans to conquer the mobile front with Baidu Yi OS, a similar mobile OS to Google’s Android.

While I’m not sure if Mike Arrington is an investor, I don’t think these stats are fabricated, but they are certainly impressive. It took 10 months for Instagram to hit 200 million photos when it took Flickr almost 2 years to hit 100 million photos.

Outblaze, a Hong Kong-based mobile game developer that has reached 30 million installs across its titles, has seen ARPU’s that are 30 percent higher on Android than on iOS. While only 20 percent of its downloads are coming from Android, they are pushing hard to get that ratio closer to 50/50.