Do Android developers outnumber iPhone developers? If you believe this survey of 401 mobile developers than yes, yes they do. Vision Mobile, a “market analysis and strategy firm delivering market know-how to the mobile industry,” have a poll that indicates that more mobile application developers have experience with Google’s Android platform than with any other mobile platform, including Apple’s iOS. Developers polled cited: large market penetration, speed of development, potential to make money, and low cost dev tools as reasons for initially choosing Android. Developers indicated that they have the most experience in Android, followed by iOS, Java ME, Symbian, then “mobile web.” We should note, the poll asked developers which mobile platform(s) they had experience coding in, so it was possible to answer with multiple platforms. Hit the read link to see some additional charts from Vision Mobile.

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While speaking at the Red Hat Middleware 2020 virtual conference, Google’s Josh Bloch expressed serious concerns over the direction of Oracle’s recently acquired Java platform. Commenting that it has “appeared rudderless for the last few years”, Bloch went on to say that “technical and licensing disputes over the last few years have been highly detrimental. They’ve sapped the energy of the community and caused plenty of bad press.” Although he was clear to underscore the fact that the issues predate the buyout of Sun Microsystems, Bloch challenged Oracle to “take the lead of Java once again.” Specifically, he would like to see Oracle push out newer versions of the platform at a faster pace, make firm commitment to the swift release of Java 7, bolster support for the Java Community Process, and replace the woefully underpowered Java 2 Micro Edition. Bloch doesn’t believe hope is lost for Java and that “Java will remain a dominant platform in the enterprise space”, but if it doesn’t make the changes now, the King will go from having a cold to being gravely ill.

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Looks like AT&T is adding a few new handsets to its lineup for the holiday buying season as today, Ma’ Bell announced it will be carrying the BlackBerry 8520 and the new LG Shine II, all now added to its “best in the world smartphone lineup.” The Shine II is a 3G slider phone with a 2.2″ screen, stereo Bluetooth, Java 2.0, and a November 22nd release date. The Shine Part Deux will also set you back $119 with a 2-year commitment. Switching gears, the more familiar BlackBerry 8520 will boast the now-standard specs of: WiFi, a 320×240 display, 512 MHz processor, 256 MB of memory, and a 2 megapixel camera capable of video recording. The exact release date of the updated Curve was not specified but rather listed as within “the next few weeks.” Any takers?

Read 8520

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Not happy to let the T-Mobile Sidekick be the only device to keep its name, T-Mobile has, as you all know, released the update to the Sidekick LX named… the Sidekick LX. Similarities don’t end there, however. We’ve covered the device a little bit but we’ve now got a unit of our own and in addition to some unboxing photos, here are some of our continued first impressions:

The screen is possibly the best screen we’ve seen on a mobile device. RIM really nailed it with the Bold and 8900 but we think the ‘kick take it one level further. Anyone who has used a Sidekick before will obviously be right at home. The main navigation buttons like Jump, Back, Menu, Cancel are all in the same positions and the trackball makes navigating really simple. What about the keyboard? Any real ninja (not you fake ninjas) will know that the Sidekick holds the title for best mobile QWERTY. Ever. It’s not debatable and you will be banned for making a comment that says otherwise. So how is the LX’s keyboard? Fan-friggin-tastic! Really, really awesome. The thinness of the device is much appreciated nowadays but we really wish they’d step it up in the application department. Apple’s App Store approval process makes T-Mobile’s Catalog approval system look uncivilized and down right stupid at best, plus, it’s not like there are any great tools to develop applications with either on the Sidekick. At the end of the day it’s about the OS and we’re not sure Danger’s OS cuts it.

As far as the social aspect of the device, there’s still some major idiot decisions all around. First off, the 6MB mailbox. Do you even want anyone to at least try and take this seriously? It seems like you do. You added Exchange support finally. 6MB though? Get real. The browser is still pretty horrid and with no other 3rd party options, you’re out of luck. As usual, the Sidekick holds the crown for instant messaging. Yes, it does. Now with photo support (something that should have been added long ago), too. MySpace on the Sidekick is crack (if you uh, still use MySpace), but we need some time to dig into the new Twitter app and Facebook app.

All in all, the key phrase for the last two years for the entire industry (minus a very, very select few exceptions) has been evolutionary and not revolutionary. In a world where even Google is having trouble battling the BlackBerry, Apple and Nokia champs, the Sidekick brand (or Danger, or Dangersoft) really needed to come out swinging. It’s a completely different landscape than it used to be when the Sidekick reigned supreme, and we keep feeling like each new Sidekick product cycle should have happened an entire cycle ago — not where the roadmap currently sits. We’ll dive into this thing and get a review going. For now, check out some flicks in the gallery!

Click on over to our T-Mobile Sidekick LX Unboxing gallery!

The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal… well, not really, but we might see some Harrison Bergeron-ing of smartphones in the AT&T lineup. How awful would that be? The boys in blue are anticipating that by 2014, a very large portion of sales will be comprised of smartphones. In an effort to simplify things and make it easier to get mobile applications onto all its handsets, AT&T is strongly considering a single operating system for all smartphones. Roger Smith, director of next generation services, spoke at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco and stated that Symbian is “a very credible and likely candidate” to be that singular OS. While Symbian is the largest OS in the world today, a move like this would surely frustrate Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry and Mac OS X mobile fans, to say the least.

While this idea has its pros, it certainly has a number of cons. Developing a universal OS means pleasing the business and power users while catering to entry-level users all with one OS – not an easy task. AT&T will also complicate things for developers unless it creates a simple, standard environment in which developers can create and test apps. Another problem is that an operating system and software can often be very specific to the hardware. Can you imagine an HTC Fuze, BlackBerry Bold and an iPhone 3G performing the same exact tasks and using the same features on a single operating system? We don’t know about you guys, but we feel that variety and options are far more desirable than being forced to use a single system – hence our hatred for carrier crippling on handsets. Considering AT&T’s best selling handset is the iPhone, and the odds of Apple ever producing a Symbian handset are about as good as the odds of the Lions winning the Super Bowl this year, this just isn’t going to happen. Apple will continue to be one of AT&T’s biggest money-makers for many years to come – well beyond 2014. Beyond that, bailing on BlackBerry would result in a huge loss of AT&T’s enterprise customers as they would instantly head for the hills. If AT&T did somehow manage to pull off Symbian as a universal OS though, would you jump ship for another carrier?

Update: It looks like there are some misinterpretations in this post so we’re back to clear the air before anyone else freaks out about AT&T slapping the same OS on every smartphone it carries. First, that is definitely not going to be the case. Phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry handsets wouldn’t be affected because of how specific those operating systems are to the function and feature sets of the devices themselves. The last thing AT&T would want to do is annoy customers who have grown to depend on those features (such as visual voicemail and BlackBerry Messenger). Our good friend Marin Perez from InformationWeek has this to say, and we couldn’t have stated our clarification any better: “Of course the company would have a lot less headaches only supporting one OS, but Roger Smith said realistically that’s not going to happen. The company plans to offer the high-end experience on phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry, but Smith said there’s a large chunk in the middle that may not want that. And as the line between feature phones and entry-level smartphones blur, he thinks the new Symbian could be a good candidate for AT&T to address that chunk of the subscriber base.”

We hope that clarifies things a little bit and apologize for getting y’all riled up so early on a Friday!

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If you’re addicted to Facebook, as millions upon millions of people are these days, the odds are pretty good that you don’t want to be detached from your precious Facebook messages each time you step away from your computer. Smartphone users can enjoy a mobile app on several different platforms such as BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Mobile, but what about the rest of the masses? Sure there’s a semi-usable mobile site but it won’t provide you with any type of notifications when it’s not open in your browser… What’s an addict to do? Emoze announced earlier this year that it expanded its offering to support standard java-enabled devices and now the company is pushing the envelope once again. Today Emoze announced the addition of Facebook messaging support on all platforms currently covered by its application – Symbian, Windows Mobile and perhaps most significantly, nearly any handset that supports java applications. The app will allow users to instantly read, reply and send messages, and it even auto-populates friends lists. As of today, only Symbian users can enjoy the newly updated app by hitting emoze.com from their handsets, but Emoze will make the new Windows Mobile and java clients available this week. There you have it people – now the unparalleled time-suck that is Facebook can continue to whittle away the hours of your life no matter where you are. Sweet!

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Microsoft announced today that it will be teaming up with Sun Microsystems on a web search deal in an attempt to move one step closer to catching up with Google. It would appear as though Microsoft is getting pretty aggressive with its partnerships and expansions this year. First, it announced a partnership with LG for future Windows Mobile devices from the South Korean electronics company. Then there was the deal with Hewlett-Packard and the plan to add a new search toolbar to its future machines. Now, the partnership with Sun stipulates that users who download the Java platform will also be prompted with an option to download the MSN Toolbar for direct web searches using Microsoft’s engine. Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of Online Audience Business at Microsoft, said, “This deal will expose Live Search to millions more Internet users and drive increased volume for our search advertisers.” Things are getting intense for the continued fight for search engine market share as Microsoft had to aggressively outbid several other would-be Sun suitors for this deal. With Google holding 63% of the search engine market and Microsoft at 8.3%, it’s pretty clear that Microsoft has a long road ahead of it.

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The mobile browser wars are on. The competition is between Opera, Mobile IE, Safari, Chrome, and the Blackberry Browser. So far, even iPhone haters would agree, Safari has yet to be touched. It only makes sense that one of the most popular browsers out there, Firefox, and their creator, Mozilla, would want to jump in on the mobile browser battle. A few weeks ago, Fennec, Mozilla’s upcoming mobile browser, was released to some beta testers but was only available for the Nokia N810 Internet tablet. While the programmers testing it out found a lot of bugs, they also felt there is a lot of promise for Mozilla’s latest browser offering. Jay Sullivan, vice president of the mobile division at Mozilla, says the reports from testers were positive and that JavaScript performance was on par with the browsers on Android and the iPhone’s Safari.

If anyone knows how to make a browser powerful, but user-friendly, it’s Mozilla. Fennec is going to be no different in terms of their end goal for the mobile browser. First, they intend to use every last bit of screen real-estate to the browser, removing all controls, tabs, and buttons that would take away from the body of the page. Sullivan says they want to “give over the entire screen of the device to the Web content, removing all user-interface controls entirely.” How will a user navigate, you ask? Certain screen controls and finger swipes (for touchscreens) will activate the UI controls in a snap. If that isn’t cool enough for you, future versions may also include support for haptic feedback. While this is all cool and snazzy, Fennec has its work cut out because the others (Safari, Opera, Blackberry, Symbian) have established themselves and are still making progress. For more info on Fennec and what its future holds, hit the link!

Thanks, Chris!

[Via UnwiredView]

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If you’re keeping score, this is the second mobile application investment fund to start plowing money into potentially successful developers. Android had a developer challenge, but that’s not really the same sort of beast. RIM’s announcement came after Apple’s highly publicized $100M iFund, and we now know what three companies RIM’s BlackBerry Partners Fund has invested in:

• buzzd
• Digby
• WorldMate, Inc.

Buzzd is basically a location-based information city guide with a splash of social networking, Digby is a mobile e-commerce service, and you’re probably already familiar with WorldMate live and their mobile travel software suite. There’s only one thing left to be said, folks… Is this the best they could friggin’ come up with? Full press release is after the jump if you can keep your eyes open long enough.

BlackBerry Partners Fund Announces Investments in buzzd, Digby and WorldMate Mobile social networking, commerce and travel applications to receive funding from the BlackBerry Partners Fund

Toronto – October 29, 2008 – The BlackBerry Partners Fund LP, a $150 million venture capital fund formed to focus on applications and services for the BlackBerry® and other mobile platforms, announced today that the Fund has made investments in buzzd, Digby and WorldMate.

“Since its inception this past May, the BlackBerry Partners Fund has had the opportunity to review thousands of business plans from companies focused on developing the next generation of business and consumer applications for BlackBerry and other smartphone platforms,” said John Albright, Co-Managing Partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund.  “Today, we are announcing investments in companies that are leaders in the mobile application marketplace.”

“Around the world, people are becoming increasingly reliant on mobile devices in every facet of their lives, whether for business or personal use,” said Kevin Talbot, Co-Managing Partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund.  “To capitalize on this unprecedented market opportunity, the BlackBerry Partners Fund is helping entrepreneurs drive innovation and develop cutting-edge mobile applications and services with a compelling user experience. Our goal is to be the primary destination for entrepreneurs that are building behavior changing smartphone applications and that are determined to be the architects of the mobile ecosystem of the future.”

BlackBerry Partners Fund is proud to announce the following investments:

•    buzzd, a location-sensitive city guide and social network for mobile devices, has raised $3.2 million in a Series A Preferred Stock financing with BlackBerry Partners Fund, Greycroft Partners, Monitor Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures.
“buzzd is proud to be one of the first investments of the pioneering Blackberry Partners Fund,” said Nihal Mehta, CEO of buzzd.  “With the proliferation of smart phones around the world, we are excited to be part of a revolution that leverages rich handset functionality such as location-sensitivity and increased relevance to consumers everywhere.”

•    Digby, a leading mobile commerce service provider, has raised $5.5 million Series B Preferred Stock with the BlackBerry Partners Fund and existing shareholders.

“We’re thrilled to be working with the BlackBerry Partners Fund to advance our business to the next level.  Their knowledge of the mobile market and experience with building successful companies will play a critical role as we expand our marketing and sales activities”, said Dave Sikora, Founder and CEO of Digby, Inc.  “We are looking forward to solidifying our leadership position and accelerating adoption of our storefronts in the mobile commerce market.”

•    WorldMate, a company that has paved the way for mobile travel innovation and serves over one million frequent flyers and road warriors around the world, has raised $8 million in a Series C Preferred Stock financing with BlackBerry Partners Fund, Motorola Ventures and AMC Communications.

“We share the BlackBerry Partners Fund’s vision for a mobile internet business based on meaningful, valuable and profitable consumer experiences, and are honored that they consider us one of the companies spearheading movement toward this vision,” said Nadav Gur, CEO of WorldMate. “We’ve been instrumental in helping the travel industry enter the mobile space. This funding, as well as our association with the BlackBerry Partners Fund will help us take our leadership in this segment to the next level of commercial success.”

About BlackBerry Partners Fund
The BlackBerry Partners Fund™ is designed to deliver superior returns on the compelling investment opportunity in applications, services and supporting infrastructure for the BlackBerry and other mobile platforms. The Fund’s mandate is based on the premise that in the future smartphones will be powerful portable computers for use at home, work, and leisure. The Fund invests in companies developing applications that make smartphones a compelling platform for media, commerce, enterprise, entertainment, and lifestyle applications.  The Fund is global in scope, will consider all stages of development and is co-managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners.  For further information visit:   www.blackberrypartnersfund.com.

About buzzd
buzzd (http://buzzd.com) is a location-sensitive city guide and social network on the mobile device. buzzd answers the question, “What’s going on around me right now? ™” by allowing consumers to get up-to-the minute information on what’s happening at any venue right now, rate events and connect with friends and other people in the area.

About Digby
Digby is the premier mobile commerce solution provider powering the mobile channel for top retailers. The award winning Powered by Digby platform delivers an optimized shopping experience with both web and application based mobile storefronts that include easy search, browse and purchase capabilities, personal information integration, secure wallet and location based service functionality. Led by software industry veterans, the privately held company is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For additional information, please visit www.digby.com.

About WorldMate, Inc.
Based in Lod, Israel, privately held WorldMate® develops award-winning mobile travel software.  Removing stress and paperwork from the travel experience, WorldMate turns a mobile device into a personal travel companion, providing frequent fliers all the travel services they need at home, work or on the go. Dubbed a traveler’s “guardian angel,” the newest addition to the WorldMate product family, WorldMate Live, tracks every trip and sends real-time “push” alerts about itinerary updates and changes, including flight delays and cancellations.  WorldMate products also feature travel resources, such as flight schedules, weather forecasts, travel directories, maps, world clocks, a currency converter and much more.  For more information, visit www.mobimate.com.  WorldMate® is a registered trademark of MobiMate Ltd. All other trade names and trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

While the BlackBerry Bold is not yet listed as compatible on E*trade’s site, we can confirm that the app is finally ready to rock on the Bold. Woo! Bold owners who who hit etrade.com/mobile from their handsets will now be able to download version 1.1.3 of E*trade Mobile Pro, the stock information, trading and account management application issued by the popular online brokerage. We’ve been playing with it for a day or so now and we’ve got to say, it’s looking great on the high resolution Bold display. E*trade Mobile Pro allows E*trade customers to view and manage accounts, view real-time stock information, manage portfolios, execute stock and options trades using an E*trade brokerage account, check out relevant news, create watch lists and plenty more. To say it’s an awesome tool is a bit of an understatement really. The Bold version of the app is still a bit young so we’ve experienced a freeze or two but over all it works quite. If you’re an E*trade customer, definitely hit etrade.com/mobile and get your mobile trading on.

UPDATE: E*trade just dropped us a line to let us know that version 1.1.3 is not in fact the Bold-ready version, hense the glitches being reported. You might be able to download it and it’s working well enough for us but the full on Bold release is still to come. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready to rock.

Emoze has been a top player in the push email realm for quite a while now. Known for its consistent victories in speed battles with Blackberry, Emoze can likely push new mail to your smartphone faster than any other option on the market. There have been a few drawbacks to the service in the past such as an automatically-added Emoze signature, support for only one email account at a time and handset limitations. The third item mentioned however, has been a point of focus for Emoze in recent history however. Beyond its Symbian support Emoze has added Windows Mobile and even the iPhone to its list of supported devices. As of next month dumb-phone users (sorry guys) will have the ability to push email to their handsets with the speed and efficiency of a smartphone. Made possible with the addition of a java client, Emoze will become one of the most accessible push solutions on the market. The java version will work on a variety of popular handsets from manufacturers like Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia (S40) and will accompany several UI enhancements to all Emoze clients such as new graphics and screen rotation.

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We’ve been waiting for a long time for this update and it’s finally here! What was likely already the best music player / recommendation service available, MyStrands Social Player, has just received a major revision and trust us when we tell you, you can’t get it installed soon enough. The newly renamed Strands team has outdone themselves, and there are three key highlights to take note of:

• New native S60 application and Java version (S40-optimized) released!
• New Player UI – vastly improved interface, better controls
• Scrobbling support! Send track data to Last.fm as you listen

The post on the Strands Blog includes links to download both the native S60 app as well as the Java app. Now there’s really no reason why you can’t enjoy the complete interactive experience that Social Player provides on any Nokia (or other) device. Kudos to Strands!

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It seems like a new VoIP service pops up every few minutes in this day and age. In some ways that is a good thing as it drives advancement. In other ways, it’s just annoying. Why? Member to member calls are always free but when there are thousands of services to choose from, it’s unlikely that all or even most of your contacts are on the same page when it comes to picking and sticking with a VoIP provider. With each service comes different software to download, protocol variations and different accounts to drop money into. That’s what makes C2Call interesting. C2Call is the first service of its kind in that it is 100% browser based. No software to download, no system / OS compatibility issues and no bloatware. If you have a browser that supports JavaScript such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari then you’re good to go; Windows, Mac OS and Linux are all covered. The service is currently in public beta but our tests have gone very well. Registration is free and operation is fast and simple. C2Call uses a Java widget that loads right on the homepage once you log in, and it displays your contact list. To make a call, just click on the appropriate phone icon next to each contact. One of the greatest features of the service is that you can use it with people who aren’t even registered. Simply send a call invitation from within the C2Call widget and the recipient will get a link in the invitation email and he / she can begin talking to you immediately, no registration required. Future plans include calls to landlines etc, but as-is there are infinite applications where the simplicity and functionality of C2Call will prove advantageous. Check it.

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The big news at the Motorola booth, in addition to the Motorola Z10 of course, is the Motorola E8. We gave a bit of an "advanced preview" late last year, but today we got a chance to get the official run-down from the friendly folks at Motorola. The biggest attraction of the E8 is the contextual keypad. Depending on what application you’re working with, the keys display different information. If you’re in the media player, you get play / pause / etc., whereas switching over to the phone app makes those same keys display a numeric keypad. It’s clever little bit of trickery that, if not groundbreaking, certainly kept us entertained. The haptics rumble provided ample tactile feedback, and the device feels as good in hand now as it did back when we first played with it. We’re going to see a limited international launch sometime during the first quarter of this year, with worldwide availability (including the US!) to follow by year’s end. We’re diggin’ it, no joke, though the crippled EDGE radio might be cause for a bit of concern in this 3G age we live in. We see plans for future upgrades, right Moto? Check out our Motorola E8 pics in the gallery!

Click on over to our Motorola E8 hands on gallery!

What’s that you hear? The sound of another exclusive, here at BGR? Mm hmm. The Motorola ROKR E8 has often been referred to as the "morphing phone," and why shouldn’t it? The keyboard actually changes based on what function of the phone you wish to use. When you’re making a call at the home screen, you’d obviously want the full keyboard there. When you’re about to snap a flick, you get zoom in and out keys, a playback key for viewing recently taken photos, and a video camera key for switching to video mode. In music mode, the keyboard displays next and previous keys, a play / pause key, a shuffle playback key, and a repeat key. The actual device is pretty sharp, too. The entire front is like one smooth surface with a huge touch-sensitive "ROKR" (scroll) wheel in the middle. What’s incredible, is that there is absolutely no tactile feedback on any of the keys when the phone is off. It’s just a flat surface with little dots to help guide your fingers. But when it’s on, haptics lends support when you’re pressing a button, but it actually makes the keys press. Hard to explain, but there is definitely tactile feedback on a key press and not just the normal haptics vibrate. As far as we can tell, the Motorola E8 features a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth (with various profiles including A2DP), and is a quad-band GSM/EDGE device. You’ll also notice a 3.5mm headset jack at the top of the phone, which is a little awkwardly placed if you ask us. The Motorola E8 runs a newer version of the MOTOMAGX platform, so Motorola RAZR 2 V8 users will have no problem getting used to the new handset. We’re trying to track down a release date now, and we have no word on what carriers here in the U.S. will be jumping aboard to carry it at this point. All in all, it’s not going to take over the world, but with its thin and sleek profile complete with a unique keyboard and excellent call quality, we could see ourselves using this every day.

Click on over to our Motorola ROKR E8: hands on gallery!