WSJ yesterday revealed  RIM’s plans to launch a BlackBerry touch –screen smartphone to rival Apples iPhone & iPad.

The new smart phone is said to have a slide-out keyboard, and will let users swipe through screens and expand images with their fingers.

Rim are also testing a tablet device as a larger screen companion to the BlackBerry phone and could be available by the end of the year

For the full story visit WSJ here

Bored with iPhone OS?  Frustrated by Apple’s death-grip platform control?

Well David “planetbeing” Wong may have an answer for you. He’s successfully dual-booted Android on an iPhone. Yes, really! In IT Blogwatch, bloggers look on, in slack-jawed amazement.

It would appear that a way to run the Android OS on an iPhone has been discovered.  This is massive news for iPhone users waiting for the new iPhone OS 4.0 and all the features that are available with that platform.

Googles platform has been hard on the heels of Apple for quite sometime, and despite some good features has so far been shunned in favour of the iPhone OS.  Android however has seen a growing interest over the past few months with many predictng 2010 to be the year of Android.  The Android App sotre now has in the region of 30,000 apps with 9000 apps added in March alone.

News of a way to run Android on an iPhone will only fuel speculation that Android is becoming the must have OS for your smart phone.

For more information on this story visit http://blogs.computerworld.com/15980/android_on_your_iphone_theres_an_app_for_that?source=rss_blogs.

Apple announced Tuesday that more than three billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store by iPhone and iPod touch users worldwide.

“Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months–this is like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”

The news comes nine months after it hit 1 billion downloads, with the second billion taking a further six months.

When the 2 billion mark was reached, Apple also announced that 85 000 apps were available in the App Store at the time. This time, the company chose to stick to download numbers only.

However, in November 2009, Apple did say that 100 000 apps were published to the store.

Application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010

App Store

Consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores while advertising revenue is expected to generate $0.6 billion worldwide, according to Gartner. Analysts said mobile application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010, eight out of ten of which will be free to end users.

Gartner forecasts worldwide downloads in mobile application stores to surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. Free downloads will account for 82 per cent of all downloads in 2010, and will account for 87 per cent of downloads in 2013.

(more…)

There’s been some useful discussion recently about using the app store model for distributing enterprise software and services within organizations. Up until now, most IT needs in the majority of businesses have been met through one-size-fits-all delivery of solutions that are either hand-crafted or purchased and then imposed on all. It’s been this way for at least three decades, but now this aging and inadequate process is beginning to improve. (more…)

Social news aggregator Digg.com has released its free iPhone app in the App Store. Packed with a slick, feature-rich interface, the app is a strong start for the popular website, though there’s plenty of room for it to grow. (more…)

Buongiorno

Mobile Communication, like the printing press, personal transportation and the advent of mass media – is delivering new levels of personal independence, choice and opportunity. Through the most popular gadget in history, billions of people are beginning to interface with their world in completely new ways. More than 3 billion people now carry personal mobile devices, which can offer far more than just voice and text.

Social networking has clearly been an exciting, if unexpected, success on the web. This success has attracted hundreds of millions of users who connect to each other on their own terms, actively creating content and defining the links between this content. Social networking has proven to be the natural expression for the Web 2.0 movement, allowing users to wrestle the publishing power from established media to become both consumer and supplier. (more…)

Intersting article on the shelf life of apps stores looking at how developers are promoting themselves in an ever crowded market.  Bango are a mobile analytics company that provides the technology that powers commerce for businesses targeting the growing market of internet enabled mobile phone users.

Bango are Silver Sponsors at Mobile Social Media on the 15/16th March at Olympia, London.

(Bango – 03/02/10)

With the intense coverage that mobile applications continue to attract, the content developers are already starting to investigate alternative distribution channels to the App “Stores” themselves. In the rush to follow the now crowded mobile apps market, developers are starting to realise that after all their efforts to build a mobile app, to get noticed and survive they need to look beyond the app store. (more…)

Mobile Social Media (www.mobilesocial-networking.com) taking place at Olympia on the 15th March will focus on the latest developments being made in Social Media and mobile devices.

Topics being addressed are: How far has the Mobile Social Networking market come in the last year? Mobile Internet and Social Networks – a perfect marriage, Monetising your mobile offering and Mobile multimedia 2.0: Developing the ultimate handset.

Key Speakers include:
•    Mark Watts-Jones, Head of Development & Innovation, Orange UK
•    Shaun Gregory, Managing Director, O2, Media Business
•    Yoel Flohr, Head of Mobile, Bebo
•    Angel Gambino, Vice President, Sonico
•    Bob Rapp, Head, User Communities, Vodafone Group
•    Peter Ward, Co-founder & CEO, WAYN
•    Cian O’Sullivan, Editor in Chief, GoMo News
•    Claudio Venezia, Researcher, Telecom Italia
•    Matt Dicks, CMO, Flirtomatic

(more…)