Google+ is the new social network which has everybody talking. If you haven’t joined in yet, it’s nothing new. Except it’s all about you and me and everyone we know.

So please add me to your circles and let’s get to know a bit more about each other.

Have you added me to your Google+ http://damiens.ws/ql8xsS

Damien Saunders

Music artist and producer Dangermouse has done it again – or that’s to say Google has done it with HTML5. The new album called Rome is in the style of a (spaghetti western) film soundtrack and if you’ve not hear it — then you’re missing out.

HTML5 Music Video wow-ness

Google has again helped to create an interactive music video ‘Chrome Experiment’ – to show off some of the awesome-ness that is HTML5.

The track selected is Black feat vocals by Norah Jones. To watch the video you need to open Chrome and go to ro.me

Like the music? Then buy Rome (via Amazon).

Damien Saunders

Develop apps for Android or develop mobile apps for Apple, some days its hard to figure out just what to do. On this website I’ve written a lot on Android phones and apps.

Around 6000 apps have been removed from the Apple store recently due to their erotic nature. It’s not that Android Market has no quality control – Adult or Erotic does not exist as a content category in Android Market but dating apps or other soft-porn apps so far have not shown huge growth (ahem) on Android.

Why Android Mobile Apps and Android Market should appeal to developers

As a platform, Android should appeal to developers because

1. Android Market provides a multi-country sales platform for apps and developers.
2. Sales of Android handsets are around 60,000 units a month and expected to grow
3. Major handset manufacturers are supporting the platform like HTC, Google (HTC), Motorola, Sony Ericsson
4. International Mobile Operators like T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange have all been keen to sell the phones (in fact it was Voda that took Android to the rest of the world with its ‘exclusive’ of the HTC Magic)
5. Android Market is not as rigorous at quality control or moderation as Apple. You can add an app to Android Market in 24 hours

Why Android Market didn’t take off yet!

So the conditions seemed right for Android and the Android Market – but what happened? Nothing went wrong – it was just a freak set of circumstances

• App Store has a PC & Mac client for easier discovery when Android doesn’t. Android Market website doesn’t allow you to make purchases.
• Apps and Content installation is tethered to iTunes – have you tried to mount an Android in Windows Vista and given up?
• iPhone launched first with much hype – the Android ‘major’ promotional launch came late in 2009 with the Verizon Droid in the USA
• App developers were tooled up and focused on making and selling apps only for iPhone
• Purchase and payments for Apps using iTunes was already setup for many existing iPod users buying songs and videos
• Mobile operating systems (Symbian, Java, Android, iPhone, Blackberry) all differed in how to develop for them
• Adult content and many apps didn’t need to have a home on the Android thanks to the mobile internet and improvements in HTML standards
• Finally – App Developers stuck in the maelstrom of certification, moderation and content restrictions via Apple wouldn’t have wanted to start a new app development!

So what do you think? Does Google need to appoint a Director or Head of Android Market to focus on sales, promotions and support for Apps to make it easier for customers? Do the Handset Manufacturers need to do more?

Damien Saunders

Newsrob is my favourite application for Android mobiles, it’s been covered in my 10 Best Android Apps list a few times. Newsrob integratess with your account for Google Reader (which allows you to manage and read all your RSS feeds). Newsrob recently turned 1 and celebrated by introducing a Pro version and an Adfunded Free Version.

What’s fantastic about Newsrob Pro

Newsrob Pro has a new feature that is great for any social media or mobile specialist. Newsrob Pro allows you to now share your articles with comments. In the free version you can only add it to your shared list.

The Newsrob Share with note is saved in the client until it next syncs with Google Reader.

Newsrob Free Version

The Adfunded Free Version is still the best Google Reader app. No features have been removed in the freeware version. The advertising is intrusive but you don’t notice this when you are on buses or the underground and ads only show on navigational menu pages. In the first image you can see the space that is ‘reserved’ for banner ads.

Newsrob has many helpful timesavers such as

• Press the Star icon to indicate an article that is important to read again or print out at the office / home
• Share by E-mail, Gmail to send that article straight to your colleagues
• Offline sync / wifi download, so you can read articles anytime anywhere
• Share Socially if you have Seesmic installed on your phone you can share the article you are reading there.

Damien Saunders

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be looking closely at Mobile Search and Mobile SEO. This week will be a round up of features on Google Mobile Search

Click to Call

Click to call has been a feature of WAP and mobile portals for sometime, however the mobile phones needed to support this action.

Google has now added Click to Call to Adword Mobile Search Results

Anyone running SEO or Adword campaigns should make sure they have configured the mobile search results as well and to now include the primary phone number for customers or clients to ring in on.

[Source: Google Mobile blog]

Damien Saunders

Will Google Wave change SMS texting and instant messaging? Most likely … but that’s about the best answer right now. Google will have to find partners to help ‘aggregate’ chat and email and address Internet infrastructure issues in a number of countries.

Thanks to Googles reach, Wave can launch and get a good penetration into its addressable Gmail base. It’s all looking good with a Public Beta? of 100,000 invites due to be sent out in September.

If, however you remain committed to Hotmail, Yahoo (which has a bigger user base than Gmail) or still use your ISP’s fixed email address, then Wave isn’t going to matter to you yet.   If you’re on a Dial-up Modem or Slow Broadband, you’ll probably be better to use a dedicated chat program, as the developers usually address these things. So then, where are the partners that will also deliver Google Wave so that ‘everyone’ can enjoy it?

So does that make Wave a great idea … yes, … combining elements of email with the instantaneous nature of chat and text is great. I’m looking forward to trialling it (I hope). I’m also keen to see what people think who dont want to Wave yet?

Damien Saunders

Here’s a more up to date list featuring some of the best apps you must get on your Android phone. All of them are free in the Android Market. Some of them also have a freemium paid version. What’s good is that many of these you will use daily, but some of them will just sit on your phone and do what its supposed to do.

(update: Nov 21 – Cyrket.com has been offline for some time … but is now around again – but try www.androlib.com for these apps)

Subjectively, I’ve missed out the social network sites and the streaming music apps – I do that from home – or the in the case of music streaming … none of the apps currently work when your underground.

Do you want to disagree with what’s here or have your own list? Let me know …

1. WiSync

Manage your data sync settings for the Android – this is important if you are not on an unlimited data plan or you want things to only happen on wifi. WiSync allows you to control the background sync settings for your phone.

What I think is the WiSync should go a step further – I’d love to talk to them about how this can help when you travel. Already you can turn off any sync when not on wifi, but what about the option to allow sync on your home 3G network but not on any overseas 3G networks. Roaming settings are something to sync/think about too. It now also comes with ‘Locale plugin’ a feature I’ve not worked out what it is yet.

Get it here.

2. Wefi

Wefi is an app to manage the connection to wifi hotspots around you – it automatically shuffles through all the nearest hotspots to find out which ones are open and have internet access or need to go through a login process. This is good as many hotspots seem to be open, but when you connect, they don’t work. Team this up with Wisync and you got a killer combo.

I also suggest you go to your phone wifi settings and allow wifi to remain on when connected to the power supply. This way, any emails or other updates (news) are downloaded when you’re sleeping and your phone is charging.

Get it here.

3. Itube Status

Seems this has been removed

4. Twidroid

Twitter on your phone … its free and the most popular in the market. You can see why with all the features that are crammed in. I suggest you turn off the vibration and don’t set it to fetch all your tweets, or you’ll be playing with your phone constantly.

Get it here.

5. Barcode Scanner

Now the team at Google even love this app — combine the power of a barcode scanner with a Google search and you have a price check tool, an Amazon search solution or maybe you can use another app like Anobii and catalogue all your books.

Get it here

6. Advanced Task Manager

This app seems to have matured in its development and settled down in the last month. There probably are other ‘app killer’ apps around – but this has a great feature in that you can control what apps to kill. It used to have an auto kill all feature which ran every 2 hours, I’m glad to see that has gone as it usually meant my music or some other app would stop working just as I was in the middle of using it.

Get it here

7. NewsRob

NewsRob was one of the first apps I installed …NewsRob works with Google Reader as there is no official Google Reader Android app … its as configurable as you like in terms of how often to check, how many articles to store and settings for wifi / 3G network access.

It crashed on me once and sent an email back to the support team. The next morning I had an email from someone saying they were looking into my bug. I got a follow up email a few days later saying my problem would be fixed in the next release. Great service with a Smile.

I also suggest you go to your phone wifi settings and allow wifi to remain on when connected to the power supply. This way, any emails or other updates (news) are downloaded when you’re sleeping and your phone is charging.

Get it here:

Here’s two apps to show your friends

8. Compass

You can’t get lost with a compass on your phone (did’t you know it was magnetised) — right?

Now what does E 68 mean?

Get it here:

9. BeebPlayer (only in the UK)

Everyone’s favourite Granny had to have an Android app … its probably one of the best apps I’ve seen that was not made by the BBC’s iPlayer team. I guess history will tell if the app continues to work or be developed – or if the Beeb will turn off 3rd party access to its content.

Apparently this app only works with the Vodafone or 3 UK sims – but I’ve had success as well using this on O2.

10. Robo Defense Free

One last app that will give you days and days of fun … or months and months as it turns out. The free version has 10 difficulty settings but only one level … its also the most simple with only 3 towers and 3 upgrades.  It’s by far the best executed tower defence strategy game.

Get it here:

There are a number of things I’d like to see better apps for … After rooting my phone with the Cyanogen build … I can …

- take screenshots

- use email from an  Outlook Exchange app

I’ve noted few issues with the Android Market and I’ll blog about differences in app stores soon.

Damien Saunders

Damien Saunders

Looking for somewhere to go …. Maybe you need to waste some time or want to find something else to try on your Google Android G1 or HTC Magic.

Google obviously has embedded a lot things into the phone – but here are 2 apps that were not installed on the Android phone when you open the box.

Places Directory

Price FREE   Downloads >250,000

updated — 21 Sept -- Even before augmented reality became a buzzword … Google Places Directory was already bringing Google Maps together with GPS / Location Based Services. The Places Directory is a search aggregator – easily find out the most talked about / blogged / reviewed Cafes in London. Trying to find a ‘Gas Station’ in Brixton might be a bit spurious – Gas Stations are not commonly found in the UK, but petrol stations are.

Places Directory is a great aggregator of content from Googles own directories, Wikitude, QYPE and food review sites etc. It’s still much better than the competition (think LAYAR) as its very quick and you dont have to join any new websites before you can use it.

Android Market - point your camera here

Voice Search

A new one, that I just found … and one to show your friends. Just speak and search Google. “Computer – take me to your leader”

Both apps are in the Android Market

Damien Saunders

29 Sep 09:  This is the better post to read: http://damiensaunders.com/2009/08/11/10-best-android-apps-for-your-phone/

Ok I’ve been using an HTC Magic for a few days now and I’m loving it … I’m so hooked I could almost get myself kicked out of the house, or have my ‘beautiful & precious’ phone smashed

Here’s what you too should try

there are so many free Apps in the Android Market that you can’t get bored. Given how much I use a phone and my focus on the mobiles and music, heres a choice selection

LAST.FM – its more a radio station here than the super Vodafone Last.fm Scrobbler (which you know I love)

NewsRob – it works with Google Reader – but I’m still not sure why there isn’t a GReader app?

Android-VNC-Viewer – once I got it working I loved it, but its a tiny screen, don’t use it for trying to control WinAmp or something, but its funny if you know how to use it to turn off windose

Toggle Wifi – its dead simple, but it still dont help if you then have to have a username or password for the wifi account

Barcode Scanner and Book Scanner – i love it … except when it goes beep in the bookshop (hehehe)

So whats missing?

• a basic screenshot app like the s60 Symbian app
• a VLC player for any videos
• a WinVista fix as today you still can’t plug your droid phone into your Vista machine
• a music store client that I’m happy to use

Damien Saunders