After reports surfaced claiming the Google Play Store was about to reach 15 billion app downloads, Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it reached the milestone “a few weeks ago.” Apple reached the same number of downloads in July 2011 and recently surpassed 25 billion downloads in March. The gap between the two marketplaces seems to be widening slightly, with Google seeing about 1 billion app downloads per month while Apple is serving about 1.25 billion app downloads per month. The Google Play Store currently has more than 500,000 apps, while Apple’s App Store has some 600,000. There have been reports, however, that claim iOS developers are making more money than their Android counterparts. Analyst Horace Dediu noted that up until the end of January 2012, Google has paid developers $320 million compared to $4 billion from Apple, but the Cupertino-based company’s app download rate is reportedly slowing, having fallen by 30% in March. Google expects to earn $35.9 million from its app store this year.

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Adding yet another positive note to Instagram’s biggest week ever — Facebook on Monday announced that it will acquire Instagram for $1 billion — the company’s new Android application has been downloaded more than 5 million times after less than one week of availability. Instagram launched for Android-powered devices on April 3rd, and it took less than one day for the highly anticipated app to reach the one million download mark. As of Monday, April 9th, the application had been downloaded from the Google Play marketplace more than 5 million times, The Next Web reported. Instagram allows users to capture photos or import them from a smartphone’s camera roll, and then apply retro effects before sharing them with their contacts. Facebook expects its acquisition of Instagram to close later this year.

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Wealthy smartphone users are more likely to own an Apple iPhone and less likely to play games or post on Twitter than average users. According to research from The Luxury Institute, 62% of U.S. consumers earning at least $150,000 per year own a smartphone. 45% of people falling to that category own an iPhone, 35% use an Android-powered device and 25% have a BlackBerry. More than 80% of wealthy smartphone owners download mobile apps, with the most popular categories being weather (63%), news (51%), travel (42%), business/finance (39%) and sports (34%). Facebook, Angry Birds and Words With Friends are the most popular apps, however higher-income consumers use far less entertainment apps than the average smartphone user. “As you get older and have family and significant others, aging parents, and a lot more assets and investments, you’re going to need apps for far more relevant things than playing games and chatting with your peers,” The Luxury Institute CEO Milton Pedraza noted.

[Via Reuters]

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RapidShare is widely known as an invaluable tool for the illegal sharing of copyrighted digital material. Much like Megaupload, which was shuttered earlier this year when company founder Kim Dotcom was arrested and charged with racketeering and violating anti-piracy laws, RapidShare allows users to upload any file and share a link with other users who may then download the content. While some users share files legally with RapidShare, millions more upload copyrighted movies, music and eBooks which are then downloaded illegally by others around the world who find links to the files on blogs or through special search engines. Following a preliminary ruling, a court in Germany has now declared RapidShare to be legal, but it must utilize a monitoring mechanisms if it wishes to remain operational. Read on for more.

In its fight against GEMA and German book publishers in Germany, RapidShare was ordered to implement a system that would monitor for copyrighted content uploaded to its servers. Now, however, the court has amended its decision according to TorrentFreak. Rather than monitor files being uploaded to its servers and block copyrighted content — which may be stored legally if it is not shared — RapidShare must create a system to monitor in-bound links from other websites that may point to infringing material.

“For the first time the Hamburg Higher Regional Court has followed our line of argument on key points and has conferred legal legitimacy on our service, just as other courts have done over a considerable period of time. This is a significant result for us,” said RapidShare CEO Alexandra Zwingli. ”That is exactly what RapidShare has already been doing for many years. If the Anti-Abuse Team identifies a download link on such pages which results in a file that has clearly been published illegally being on the company’s servers, the file in question is immediately blocked.”

Because RapidShare is already taking the measure outlined by the court, it plans to appeal the new decision to Germany’s Supreme Court. “We are doing this of our own accord because we have a strong interest in ensuring that our service remains clean,” Zwingli told TorrentFreak. ”We believe that being obliged to carry out such actions is questionable from a legal perspective. For this reason we will appeal the verdict to clarify the issue of proactive monitoring of external websites at the highest judicial level.”

The past year was a good year for the music industry as sales rose to their best highest point in eight years. According to the IFPI’s annual Recording Industry In Numbers report, revenue from physical media fell by 8.7%, compared with 13.8% in 2010, but were vinyl sales up nearly 29%. Digital revenue continued to grow, increasing 8%, compared to 5.6% in 2010, with digital track sales growing 19% to 3.7 billion songs. Australia leads the way in the digital space with 60% growth, compared with 8% growth in the U.S. and 10% in the U.K. $1.27 billion in digital singles were sold in the U.S., while the U.K. accounted for $176.2 million. Digital sales made up 31% of the total revenue of the music market and reached $5.3 billion in sales. Overall global music revenue fell by just 3% in the last year, however. “2011 marked the least negative result in global recorded music sales since 2004, when revenues were flat,” the report read. The IFPI credits services like Spotify, iTunes, and unlimited-access operators like Rdio, MOG and Rhapsody for bringing new revenue models to customers that have helped the U.S. music market.

[Via PaidContent]

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In an effort to bypass censorship as well as heat from authorities and copyright owners, The Pirate Bay on Sunday unveiled new plans to “experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air.” The GPS controlled drones will hover over international waters and host parts of the website. “Everyone knows WHAT TPB is. Now they’re going to have to think about WHERE TPB is,” The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak. “We’re already the most resilient and the most down to earth. That’s why we need to lift off, being this connected to the ground doesn’t feel appropriate to us anymore.” The Pirate Bay has been the subject of a number of raids and investigations stemming from numerous claims of copyright infringement. In order to stay afloat, the service seemingly must find new and innovative ways to reach the masses. ”We’re just starting so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore,” the team stated on its blog. “These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we’re building, that’s more than enough.”

[Via TorrentFreak]

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A new study suggests that more than half of all Internet traffic is generated by non-human sources such as hacking software, scrapers and automated spam mechanisms. The majority of this non-human traffic, according to cloud service provider Incapsula, is potentially malicious. The study is based on data collected from 1,000 websites that utilize Incapsula’s services, and it determined that just 49% of Web traffic is human browsing. 20% is benign non-human search engine traffic, but 31% of all Internet traffic is tied to malicious activities. 19% is from ” ‘spies’ collecting competitive intelligence,” 5% is from automated hacking tools seeking out vulnerabilities, 5% is from scrapers and 2% is from content spammers. ”Few people realize how much of their traffic is non-human, and that much of it is potentially harmful,” Incapsula co-founder Marc Gaffan told ZDNet. Incapsula, coincidentally, offers services aimed at securing small and medium businesses.

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The Motion Picture Association of America this week filed a motion for a summary judgement against file-sharing service Hotfile in a U.S. District Court in Florida, TorrentFreak reports. The MPAA, which describes itself as ”the voice and advocate of the American motion picture,” argued in its filing that Hotfile’s business model is identical to that of Megaupload, a popular file-sharing site that was shuttered earlier this year. ”Hotfile is responsible for billions of infringing downloads of copyrighted works, including plaintiffs’ valuable motion picture and television properties,” MPAA lawyers wrote in the filing. “As with other adjudicated pirate services that came before it, from Napster and Grokster to Isohunt and Limewire, Hotfile exists to profit from copyright infringement.” The document continued, ”More than 90% of the files downloaded from Hotfile are copyright infringing, and nearly every Hotfile user is engaged in copyright infringement.” The MPAA hopes that its motion will convince the court to have Hotfile shut down and forced to pay damages to movie studios, thus avoiding the need for a lengthy trial.

[Via TorrentFreak]

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Apple on Saturday confirmed that apps in its App Store have collectively been downloaded more than 25 billion times. The Cupertino-based company will reward Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China with a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card for downloading the 25 billionth app. Apple also stated that there are now 315 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices in use around the world. “We’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.” Apple began the countdown in mid-February, and it took just over two weeks to complete. The iOS App Store opened its doors in July 2008 alongside the launch of the iPhone 3G, and the company unveiled the Mac App Store in October 2010. The App Store reached its 10 billionth download last year on January 22, 2011.

Apple’s App Store Downloads Top 25 Billion

CUPERTINO, California—March 5, 2012—Apple® today announced that more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store™ by the users of the more than 315 million iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® devices worldwide. The 25 billionth app downloaded, Where’s My Water? Free, was downloaded by Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China. As the winner of the App Store Countdown to 25 Billion Apps, Chunli Fu will receive a $10,000 iTunes® Gift Card.

“We’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.”

The revolutionary App Store offers more than 550,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 123 countries around the world, with more than 170,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from an incredible range of apps in 21 categories, including Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel. The App Store has paid out more than four billion dollars to developers.

Microsoft announced on Thursday that its Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been downloaded a million times. “One day later…one million downloads of the consumer preview,” a Microsoft spokesperson posted on the company’s Building Windows 8 Twitter account. Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its upcoming desktop and tablet operating system during a press conference on Wednesday, and response has been generally positive. BGR published a full review of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Consumer Preview on Wednesday and called it “the future of computing.” Windows 8 marries a Metro-based touch-friendly tablet platform with a Windows 7-like desktop experience, creating a single operating system that is both versatile and powerful. Microsoft said it plans to launch Windows 8 later this year.

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iPhone users may be more inclined to pay for apps than their Android-toting counterparts because apps in the Android Market are usually priced much higher, according to market research firm Canalys.The company on Thursday released the results of a survey that found Android apps to cost two and a half times more than iPhone apps on average. The top paid-for Android apps were priced “dramatically higher” than those on iOS for the iPhone. “In the US, to purchase the top 100 paid-for apps in the Android Market would cost $374.37 – an average of $3.74 per app – more than 2.5 times the cost of the top 100 paid-for iPhone apps. The top 100 iPhone apps would cost $147.00, or $1.47 on average per app,” read the company’s press release. The survey found that 82 of the top 100 paid apps in Apple’s App Store were priced at $0.99, against just 22 in the Android Market. More aggressive pricing in the Android Market, however, could encourage more consumers to make their first app purchases, the firm claims. Read on for Canalys’s press release.

Android apps are too expensive

Apple’s more mature, controlled retail environment drives app price competitiveness

Palo Alto, Shanghai, Singapore and Reading – Thursday, 23 February 2012

Canalys today released the results of a recent App Interrogator survey of the top paid-for and free apps from the leading consumer app stores to clients of its App Store Analysis service. The survey reveals that the top paid-for Android apps are priced dramatically higher than those on iOS for the iPhone. In the US, to purchase the top 100 paid-for apps in the Android Market would cost $374.37 – an average of $3.74 per app – more than 2.5 times the cost of the top 100 paid-for iPhone apps. The top 100 iPhone apps would cost $147.00, or $1.47 on average per app.

A narrower focus on just the top 10 or 20 downloaded paid-for app listings reveals the same striking disparity in pricing. The top 10 or 20 Android paid-for apps cost, on average, $3.47 or $4.09 each respectively, compared with $0.99 or $1.04 respectively for the top 10 or 20 iOS paid-for apps. A similar picture was also seen in all five countries surveyed (Germany, India, Singapore, the UK and the US), though the Indian and Singaporean Android Market listings are not truly localized.

‘That developers can apparently charge more for their apps on Android and make it into the top paid list is clearly a positive,’ said Canalys Managing Director, Mobile and APAC, Rachel Lashford. ‘But the reality is that with fewer people willing to purchase apps on Android than on iOS today, there is more of a necessity to do so. Developers and publishers need to balance the iOS volume opportunity with a potentially greater value per download opportunity on Android, where more apps command higher price points. Selling more apps at higher prices is the Holy Grail for developers, but achieving big volumes of paid apps on Android is no small challenge. More aggressive price competition around Android apps would help to encourage more consumers to make their first app purchases, drive greater download volumes, and ultimately be good for the vibrancy of the app ecosystem.’

It was noteworthy that the top downloaded paid-for apps on Android and iOS had little commonality in any country. In the United States, just 19 apps appeared in the top 100 paid lists for both stores. Individual apps tend to be priced very similarly where they do appear in both stores, with the exception of apps that are subject to promotional pricing on iOS.

‘It is clear that apps or games that prove to be runaway successes on the iPhone do not automatically prove to be so popular with Android smart phone users,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst, Tim Shepherd. ‘Apple’s App Store and the Android Market are very different retail environments. The former is now a mature but still very closely controlled retail environment, while the latter remains more open but also less secure and consumer friendly. As such, developers and publishers use the stores in different ways. Electronic Arts, for example, regularly offers discounts across its portfolio of games in the App Store to ensure they remain visible to customers by featuring in the top app lists. Price competitiveness is crucial in Apple’s store, where the vast majority of top paid apps cost just $0.99, in a way that is not the case in the Android Market. This leads to disparities whereby an app such as Monopoly is priced at $4.99 in the Android Market, but is discounted to just $0.99 in the Apple App Store.’

The survey shows that 82 of the top 100 paid apps in Apple’s US store are priced at $0.99, against just 22 in the Android Market in the US. But with iPhone users increasingly familiar with in-app purchases, there are further options available for monetizing iOS apps beyond the initial payment. Having downloaded, installed and used low-cost apps, consumers will be more willing to pay additional sums for extra content, levels or add-ons for apps they like, than to pay a greater up-front sum for an app of unknown quality. ‘That in-app purchasing is a better established feature within the Apple ecosystem than on Android, gives iOS developers an advantage in this regard,’ said Tim Shepherd. ‘It also underscores the importance of app store providers innovating and being quick to implement new features, which can enable developers to build robust and credible app business models and to make real money.’

The Canalys App Interrogator, comprising snapshot surveys and analysis of the leading app stores, is an analytical tool within the company’s App Store Analysis service, which is new for 2012. It provides valuable data and insight on the top downloaded and purchased apps across different countries and stores, including pricing trends, top developers/publishers and user preferences for different app categories. If you would like more information about the App Interrogator, please contact us.

Angry Birds for Facebook has launched one day ahead of schedule according to NewsCore. The wildly popular game has been in development for more than a year and was supposed to make its debut Tuesday. Instead, the hotly anticipated title launched late on Monday. The Facebook variant features the same game play as the original mobile app along with added social components, new power-ups and exclusive new levels. The game itself is free to play, with a 20-use power up costing $1. Angry Birds has been downloaded more than 500 million times and is reportedly played by 130 million individuals on a daily basis.

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Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace is reportedly now home to more than 50,000 applications. That’s a relatively small figure taking into consideration that Apple’s iTunes App Store now boasts more than 500,000 apps and the Android Market is estimated to offer almost as many. However, it is double the amount of applications that were available just five months ago, in July, when the Windows Phone Marketplace only offered 25,000 apps. All About Windows Phone, which first reported the milestone and went into great detail showing the app spread, said 17,276 new Windows Phone applications were published in the last 90 days while 8,010 apps were added in the last 30 days. The site also noted that entertainment is the most popular category, with 15% of all Windows Phone applications falling into that group. The entertainment category is followed by books and reference (14%), games (14%) and tools and productivity (15%). All About Windows Phone also estimates that 58% of the apps in the store are free, 14% are paid but come with a free trial and 29% are pay-for only.

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Apple on Monday released the 2012 edition of its “12 Days of Christmas” application for iOS devices. From December 26th through January 6th, Apple is giving away free iTunes content including songs, music videos, apps and books to iOS device owners. New content is accessible through the app each day and free downloads will expire after 24 hours. Monday kicks things off with several Coldplay songs and videos, which can be downloaded for free until new downloads are made available on Tuesday. Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas app is compatible with the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2 and iPad as well as the third and fourth-generation iPod touch devices, so users of older iOS device models are out of luck this holiday season. The app is currently available in the U.K. with U.S. availability expected at a later point in time.

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Google on Wednesday took the wraps off a new and improved music service. Building onto “Music Beta by Google,” Google has launched Google Music, a publicly available cloud-based music services that will be free to users in the United States. Google Music users can add up to 20,000 songs from their local libraries to the cloud and stream them to any number of supported devices over the Internet. “Pinned” albums and songs are downloaded to devices and cached for local playback without the need for an Internet connection. Read on for more.

The service is integrated with the Android Market, allowing users to purchase 320Kbps songs from within the Market starting at $0.99 a track. Features include a curated music section, a recommendation engine, a name-your-own-price self-managed “artist hub” for independent artists, integration with YouTube for artists, music playback from within the Market, auto-transfer of purchases to your online locker, carrier billing (T-Mobile will soon become the first carrier to support carrier billing) and several sharing features that are integrated with Google+, Google’s new social network. Purchased tracks that are shared with users via Google+ can be played once for free, and then users can click through to purchase tracks they want to buy.

In an interesting twist, Google worked with artists including The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Shakira and Busta Rhymes to offer tracks and live albums that are exclusive to Google Music and unavailable anywhere else.

EMI Music, Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and 23 independent labels have signed on as content partners. The new enhanced Google Music service is available immediately online, and updated Google Music apps will trickle out to phones and tablets in the coming days.