In-App Purchasing Finally Coming To Android; Disney Brings Tap Tap Revenge To Take Advantage

Today at their Honeycomb event at the Google HQ in Mountain View, Google had a lot of information to share. First, they gave a demo of the new Honeycomb features. Then they shared the new Android Market Webstore. And then they had an announcement to make that a lot of people have been waiting for: in-app purchases.

Android engineering director Chris Yerga noted that developers that use their in-app purchasing SDK will be able to sell virtual goods and the like in their apps. And one of those developers who has been waiting for a while for this is Disney Mobile. Google has been working with them to get an important game of their’s ready for such a launch: Tap Tap Revenge. Yes, the game that has had over 50 million downloads is finally coming to Android.

Disney Mobile’s Bart Decrem took the stage to show off TTR and a few of their other apps. He also showed off how in-app purchasing will work. Decrem noted that some 25 million songs have been downloaded inside of TTR thanks to in-app purchases (on the iOS platform, of course). And he said that they were given the latest Android in-app code just five days ago, so it was very simple to implement.

One thing to note is that the feature won’t launch until the spring, though Google is giving the SDK to developers now to get them ready. Yerga promised a launch by the end of this quarter.

Related:

Honeycomb Is The First Shot Fired Along Apple’s Bow

Here’s What Pulse Will Look Like On Android Honeycomb

Google Unveils Android Market Webstore. It’s Already Live!

Android Honeycomb Livestream Is Happening Now

Live From Google’s Android Honeycomb Event

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Android Honeycomb Livestream Is Happening Now

You can watch Google’s Honeycomb Android 3.0 presentation live right now here. They’re primarily diving deeper into the Honeycomb UI they’ve been showing sneak peaks of for the past few weeks.

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Google Unveils Android Market Webstore. It’s Already Live!

Today at their Mountain View headquarters, Google held an event to show off Honeycomb, the latest version of the Android operating system. After some demos of the OS itself, Android engineering director Chris Yerga took the stage to show off a big new feature: the Android Market Webstore. Yep, the Market just hit the web. Finally. And it’s already live. Find it here.

Yerga notes that up until know, the only way to find and install apps was via the Market on your phone. But now users can simply go to their browser. And it’s more seamless than something like the iTunes native app because when you select an app, it can be set up to download automatically to your Android device. “There’s no wires, no syncing with computers. None of that sort of nonsense. Everything is connected,” Yerga says.

There’s also a social element in that users can email links to the Market to one another. And you can easily share links to apps on Twitter.

The new web version of the Market also features better filters for finding apps. And there’s a nice device and app manager.

Update: As numerous people have pointed out in the comments and on Twitter, while the Market itself is live, you cannot sign-in. I just tried as well — no luck. So, it’s more like live-ish.

Update 2: And now the Market appears to be fully live. You can sign-in and see your app downloads, and manage your account.

Related:

Honeycomb Is The First Shot Fired Along Apple’s Bow

Here’s What Pulse Will Look Like On Android Honeycomb

In-App Purchasing Finally Coming To Android; Disney Brings Tap Tap Revenge To Take Advantage

Android Honeycomb Livestream Is Happening Now

Live From Google’s Android Honeycomb Event

View the original article here

Samsung Galaxy SL drops AMOLED for Super Clear LCD, Hummingbird for OMAP3

By Nilay Patel posted Feb 2nd 2011 3:59PM You're Samsung, and you want to make sure you have enough still-limited S-AMOLED displays for the upcoming Galaxy S 2, but you don't want to discontinue the original Galaxy S. What to do? Well, you could always take a cue from the Galaxy S-based Russian Nexus S and use an LCD instead-- and so here we have the Galaxy SL GT-i9003, which is destined to hit the Middle East and Asia with both a Super Clear LCD and a processor swap from Sammy's Humingbird to a 1GHz TI OMAP 3630, along with a bump in thickness and weight due to a slightly larger battery. Apart from that it's pretty much just a Galaxy S, all the way down to the maddening stagnation on Android 2.2 -- but hey, give us 2.3 (or even 3.0) on the Galaxy S 2 and we'll be all smiles and giggles.

Update: BestBoyz got a Vodafone price list that seems to indicate that the SL will hit Germany as well. Achtung, AMOLED fans!

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Microsoft releases H.264 plug-in for Google Chrome, vows to support WebM video in IE9

By Darren Murph posted Feb 2nd 2011 2:12PM Hard to believe that the infamous "fragmentation" term is now being bandied about in the web browser world, but sure enough, it's Microsoft using the term today to describe the brave new realm we're living in. If you'll recall, Google defended its decision to not include H.264 support natively in Chrome, but maintained that WebM plug-ins were coming to Safari and Internet Explorer 9. Today, Microsoft's kinda-sorta returning the favor. Following the outfit's release of a Firefox add-on to bring full H.264 support to Windows machines, the outfit is releasing a plug-in for Chrome (only the Windows version for now) that provides support for H.264. Furthermore, it's committed to supporting third-party WebM video plug-ins; to quote, users "will be able to play WebM video in IE9." It's fairly obvious that Microsoft's taking this golden opportunity to push its browser as one that supports everything (rather than just its own preferred format), but regardless of the motives, we're just happy to see differences put aside and compatibility finding priority.

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For InMobi, Apple And Android Are Eating Up Global Mobile Ad Share

Global mobile ad network InMobi is making a big push to gain smartphone ad share. Back in June, it announced a $2 million promotion to get Apple and Android mobile app developers to serve up its mobile ads. By October, 2010, it was serving up 5.8 billion ad impressions on smartphones, according to a report it just put out (embedded below).

That represents 24 percent of the global ad impressions InMobi serves overall. In 90 days it increased its overall global ad impressions by 3.7 billion, up 18 percent. The ad impressions were split 40 percent in the U.S. and 60 percent globally.

InMobi’s network is feature-phone heavy, particularly with Nokia and other Symbian OS phones. Nokia is still the largest with a 19 percent share, but Apple iOS (16 percent) and Android (4.2 percent) combined are larger. And Nokia’s share dropped 6.6 points over 90 days, while Apple’s rose 6.0 points. Now the iPhone commands the largest share of ad impressions (13 percent) of any single device.

The smartphone impressions just kept going up after October. But here’s the thing, InMobi tells me that Android passed Apple’s iOS in the US  in December.

Consider all of this yet another data point showing how iPhone and Android are taking over the world.

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