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

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Welcome back to StartupDigest Mobile, the members-only guide to what you need to read in the mobile technology industry every week.
 
Happy Friday!Outside of our window, Apple’s flagship store in downtown Palo Alto has a line around the block with consumers eagerly waiting for the new iPhone 4S equipped with iOS 5 software. As we mentioned last week, iOS 5 is a major upgrade in Apple’s mobile operating system that complements the new hardware release, and we have scoured the web for an exhaustive review of the new features and how they will impact you. Next, check out some tips on how to better monetize your mobile apps as app store competition continues to heat up and developers need to do everything they can to stay relevant. The founders of GameYawp walk us through the positives and negatives of developing with HTML5 and talk through their new game, Zombie Typomaniac. Blackberry puts another hole in a sinking ship as they struggle to get their Rim email servers up and running for days. Lastly, the long–awaited Facebook native iPad app was released earlier this week, leveraging the larger screen by highlighting photos and videos beautifully.

Apple iOS 5
By Dan Moren, Macworld.com

An exhaustive review of all the features on iOS 5: make sure you’re taking full advantage!

 

A great overview on ways to continue monetizing your mobile apps, some fantastic points in this piece.

 

Staggering numbers coming out of Google today: 190M Android devices activated adding close to 600,000 new devices activated daily. Android certainly played a part in Google’s “gangbuster” third-quarter earnings well surpassing Wall Street analyst estimates.

 

Great tidbits and insights on developing games for HTML5.

 

A core switch failure created a backlog of messages in Europe that impacted other geographies.

 

If you have an iPad, it’s time to download the long awaited Facebook app.  While there are still a few bugs, overall we think it is a major step forward in how consumers will engage with social media.

 

 

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

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

There are three groups of non-basic tasks we perform each and every day. We work. We communicate, talk, and network. We read, listen and watch. Steve Jobs profoundly impacted all three, and in so doing, ushered our generation into a new technology Renaissance, one which challenged the prevailing assumptions around how we acquire and engage the new media of a post-internet society. He untethered the web from our sedate desktops and energized it in the palm of our hands – simultaneously challenging a legion of publishers, developers, writers, coders, and artists to entertain us, engage us and empower us. So many who answered that challenge have seen further only by standing on his shoulders. Your legacy lives on.

Apple’s much anticipated announcement of the iPhone 5, no the iPhone 4S disappointed some; however, we remain very excited. While there were certainly some major improvements to the hardware, most notably the dual-core A5 chip and the 8 mega-pixel camera, we are bullish because of iOS 5 and the integration of Siri. Adobe pushes hard into HTML 5 as they recognize the growing importance of ubiquity and presence on mobile devices. Nuance is doing everything they can to stay relevant in the battle for mobile input, announces Swype acquisition. Lastly, Sprint announces its push into 4G LTE planning to cover 250M people in the US in 2012.

 

 

 

 
American Icon

By Walter Isaacson, TIME

Steven P. Jobs helped usher in the era of the personal computer and led a cultural transformation in mobile communications and music for the digital age.

With iPhone 4S, It’s The Little Things That Count

By Erica Ogg, GigaOM

Apple’s fierce attention to detail gives this iPhone 4s a significant step-function over its predecessor.

Nitobi Enters Into Acquisition Agreement With Adobe

By Andre Charland, nitobi

Adobe continues its push into HTML5 with its acquisition of PhoneGap.

Nuance Communications Pays $102.5M For Swype

From peHUB

Shortly after Apple announces the Siri integration, Nuance picks up Swype and several of their patents in a defensive move that includes a try to broaden their mobile input portfolio.

Sprint’s LTE Plans Detailed: Phones, Tablets And Modems Coming By 2012

By Joseph Volpe, Engadget

Sprint plans to launch 15 LTE compatible devices and plans to cover more than 120M people next year.

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.

 

 

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?

 

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!

Hope you enjoyed the week. We kick off the digest with Google’s defensive move to buy more than 1,000 patents from IBM as lawsuits continue to heat up with Apple and Microsoft. We then take a look at how mobile search and mobile commerce will have a major impact on holiday shopping this year. Next, Softbank pumps $200M into mobile ad network InMobi to take on the likes of Google and Apple. Lastly, Finally AT&T is rolling out LTE in some markets as they are trying to catch up to Verizon. Have a good weekend and see you next week.

 

Google Nabs More Patents To Protect Android From Lawsuits
By Regina Sinsky, VentureBeat

In another defensive move, Google buys 1,023 Patents from IBM to protect themselves from Apple and Microsoft.

Due to an increase in smartphones and the number of people with easy to use shopping apps, we are seeing a major shift in shopping behavior. Google predicts that 15 percent of Black Friday searches will be from mobile devices and 44 percent of searches for last-minute gifts will come from a mobile phone. Retailers who want to capitalize on these shifting trends better have a good online to offline strategy in place.

AT&T is finally launching LTE in two days, but will have to play catch up to Verizon whose 4G LTE network reaches more than half of the US.

Bangalore, India-based InMobi has closed $200 million in funding from Softbank, who joins Kleiner Perkins and Sherpalo as investors in the company. This move should give the company more ammunition to take on Google and Apple in the rapidly growing, but still small, mobile advertising market.

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.

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.

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!

We kick off the digest this week with a piece from Keith Teare, entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of TechCrunch. His view is that mobile will change the entire software ecosystem over the next 5 years and that this transformation will completely debunk all notions of a bubble. This is followed by stats from Millenial Media that show Android gobbling up market share amongst smartphone players. GigaOM came out with an interesting piece that puts the past 10 years of mobile growth into perspective, and also provides a similar optimistic forecast for the next 10 years. Lastly, we round out the week with an article that highlights just how important smartphones are to carriers – $100 to Verizon at least. Hope you all enjoy the long weekend.

Smart Mobile and the Thin Cloud
By Keith Teare, TechCrunch

A great piece from Keith Teare who claims that software is increasingly becoming mobile and will start to take share of the web 1.0 and web 2.0 era companies. Anybody building anything in 2011 should be thinking “mobile first” and he claims that Apple’s iPhone architecture is best suited to this emerging human experience.

Android Bumps Lead Over Apple’s iOS on Ad Network
By Lance Whitney, CNET News

Android continues to up its significant lead over Apple’s iOS, according to the latest Mobile Mix report from Millenial Media. Device maker Samsung continues to grow to 19 percent market share of impressions for the month, second to Apple who retained a 26 percent share.

From 2001 to 2010, Mobile Calls Increased 10 Times
By Om Malik, GigaOM

GSMA’s Wireless Intelligence released a report that sows that in 2010 there were 1.6 trillian gloval voice minutes, 10 times 2001’s 170 billion minutes. The report also points out that usage grew twice as fast as connections over the same time period, probably because of flat-rate plans and decrease use of landlines.

Verizon Offering $100 to Smartphone Upgraders
By: Lance Whitney, CNET News

Verizon’s recent move shows the carriers’ preference for smartphones, as they can increase average revenue per subscriber significantly with costly monthly data plans.

 

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

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

Happy Friday!On Wednesday August 24, 2011, news that Steve Jobs would be resigning from his CEO role at Apple shook tech circles more than the 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia a day earlier. Much speculation has been drawn about Apple’s long term future, but one thing is for certain, Steve Jobs has been “the greatest technology business leader of our time” – Steve Wozniak. Next, we take a look at why Mark Andreesen thinks “Software Is Eating the World.” The Android AppStore continues to gain speed as Android picks up market share and we hear encouraging anecdotes from developers about ARPU’s on Android, primarily driven by incentivized installs. For those of you who want to polish up your mobile advertising skills, we round out the digest with a few quick tips from MoPub. Have a great weekend!

 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
The Minister of Magic Steps Down

From The Economist

As you all know by now, Steve Jobs resigned from the CEO role at Apple this week, with Tim Cook taking the helm. Only time will tell if Apple will be able to remain the most valuable company in the world without their visionary founder in charge. Surprisingly, Apple stock only closed 1 percent lower after the announcement.

Why Software Is Eating The World

By Marc Andreessen, The Wall Street Journal

In the words of Mark Andreesen, “In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones. Giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day.” I guess that is a pretty good reason why software is eating the world.

Smartphones: 68% Of Device Impressions; Gaming App Impressions Up 35% M-o-M

From marketingcharts.com

Some great stats on the smartphone market. Most impressive is that gaming applications have been the top app category on the Android network for more than a year, and they are continuing to accelerate in popularity. Gaming app impressions grew 35 percent between June and July, compared to 15 percent monthly growth of Android devices.

Android Not a Money Maker? Not For This Developer

By Ryan Kim, GigaOM

And we all thought ARPU was much higher on iOS. Apparently Android is narrowing the ARPU gap as developers can still utilize incentivized installs on the platform, while Apple banned them in April.

How To Optimize Your Mobile Ads

From mopub.com

Here’s a good piece for those who are new to mobile advertising or others that just want a sanity check. Some quick stats: A good target CTR is 1 percent and a typical CPC is $0.05, meaning $0.50 is a good target eCPM.

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Happy Friday! 

This week is all about usability, including four basics of user measurement, the importance of conducting your own research, and a behind the scenes look at A/B testing from 37signals. Also, if you want to meet some cool designers, come to the Designer Fair.

Have a great weekend.

StartupDigest Design is curated by:
Jeremy Merle – Creative Director, Brightcove
Enrique Allen - Founding designer, 500 Startups

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

The Four Corners Of Usability Measurement
By Jeff Sauro, Measuring Usability

Nice summary of the basic elements of usability testing and research.

Outsourcing Your User Research Is Like Outsourcing Your Vacation
By Jared Spool, User Interface Engineering

User research is obviously valuable for identifying and preventing usability issues, however, conducting your own research is equally as valuable for directly exposing your team to the process and results.

Behind the Scenes: Highrise marketing site A/B testing part 1
By Jason Leister, 37signals.com

Interesting overview of 37signals A/B testing process, including some surprising results.

Behind the Scenes: Highrise marketing site A/B testing part 2
By Another AC, 37signals.com

Interesting overview of 37signals A/B testing process, including some surprising results.

Come to the Designer Fair

Designers are building cool things all over Silicon Valley – it’s about time for show and tell to learn from each other.

 

Site of the Week

Reinvigorate

Simple way to track your users behavior with heatmaps.

 

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, everyone!

Nothing too exciting this week – NOT! We start of course with Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a blockbuster deal that sees Google finally make the move into handset manufacturers. Much to be seen in terms of their ability to integrate Motorola while still cultivating strong partnerships with the existing manufacturers (HTC, Samsung, etc.) who have been so instrumental to Android’s growth. Still, Google picks up a treasure trove of patents, which may be instrumental to defending Android’s ecosystem in the long run. Just down the road, HP’s CEO announces his decision to get out of the lower margin hardware business, discontinuing its webOS (and forthcoming Pre 3), and instead focus entirely on software and software services. We wrap up with a look at Spilt Milk Studios’ latest diary entry in their “Launching an iOS Game” series – an interesting and data-rich perspective on successfully conquering the App Store.

“Defending Android”
By MG Siegler, TechCrunch

Google picks up a treasure trove of patents that will allow it to continue to defend the platform.

H.P. Weighs Spinning Off Its PC Unit
By Verne G. Kopytoff, The New York Times

In the wake of Google deciding to get into the hardware business, H.P.’s CEO is contemplating splitting off their PC, tablet, and smartphone unit to eliminate the drag of a slumping, low margin business on H.P.

Android Now On 150 Million Devices Worldwide
By Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch

Android announced earlier this week that it had more than 150 million activated devices worldwide, up from 130 million a month ago. At this rate, Android is activating about 650,000 devices a day and rapidly catching up to iOS which has sold 222 million devices to date (including iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone).

Split Milk Studios Diary 11 – IPad & Free App A Day
By Andrew Smith, Games Brief

A multi-part series on launching a title in the App Store, a must read for entrepreneurs in the mobile games space.

 

For newcomers: StartupDigest Design is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best articles in the design industry.

You can become a member for free here.

Happy Friday! 

This week I focused on typography but we’re only scratching the surface. Immerse yourself, have fun and practice using fonts on your own.

Cheers,
Enrique

StartupDigest Design is curated by:
Jeremy Merle – Creative Director, Brightcove
Enrique Allen - Founding designer, 500 Startups

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

10 Essential Books on Typography
By Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

There are some amazing books curated here, especially “I Wonder,” by Marian Bantjes, which just showed up at my house to my delight.

What Designers Need to Know About Typography
By Kareen Liez, Naldz Graphics

Get to know the basics of typography; it’s one of the primary ways of communication and has been passed on from generations to you now.

Webfonts
From Google

Just in case you didn’t know, Google offers hundreds of open-sourced fonts optimized for the web. I’m assuming you already knew about typekit.com too.

Letteringjs
From Parvel

For those who want to customize their font even more, try this jQuery plugin.

30 Top Sources of Typography Inspiration
By Steven Snell, Design M.A.G

An oldie but a goodie if you want to dive deeper into more inspiration around the web.

 

Site of the Week

FontFeed

There’s even a documentary on Typography for you to geek out on!