Since tablets became popular the iPad has dominated the space. No other tablet has even come close to its massive sales numbers. Even now, with a collection of other tablets options taking a bite of sales, the iPad is still the top selling tablet by far. From GigaOm:

Apple is still the world’s largest tablet seller; it shipped 19.5 million in the last quarter, up from 11.8 million the same quarter a year ago, according to IDC and its own numbers released earlier this month. That’s an increase of 64 percent. Its No. 1 mobile competitor, Samsung, saw its shipments grow even faster, from 2.3 million tablets a year ago to 8.8 million in the latest quarter. Rounding out the Top 5, Asus and Amazon also more than doubled their tablet shipments from a year ago. Microsoft, which did not start selling tablets until October 2012, shipped 900,000 Surface units between January and March.

But if you look at the top five tablet manufactures closely, you’ll notice something important: three of the five top tablet providers run the Android OS. And that doesn’t account for the other popular Android-based tablets that didn’t make the top 5 – like Barnes & Noble’s Nook. According to the IDC report, “Other” tablets made up 31.5% of the market share in Q1. That large number, plus the sales of Samsung, Asus and Amazon means Android has taken over as the most common tablet operating system. From GigaOm:

The overall growth in tablets means Android is now the most popular mobile OS in tablets shipped during the quarter; a year ago it was on 8 million of tablets shipped worldwide, compared to the 11.8 million iPads. This past quarter saw Android shipped on 27.8 million tablets that were shipped and 19.5 million iPads and iPad minis.

So while one, individual tablet or manufacturer has a long way to go to catch up with the iPad, Android as a whole is overtaking iOS. With Apple keeping its operating system all to itself, this development was only a matter of time once other makers started putting out tempting tablets.

The take away: Even though we continuously hear about the iPad crushing the competition, don’t neglect Android tablet apps – they have a pretty far reach.

Google Android is famously different from Apple iOS because of its policy of openness. While iOS is often referred to as a “walled-garden,” Android allows for customization and gives users the option of downloading apps from other stores. While many Android users love the OS for those exact reasons, it has also led to a malware-laden reputation for Android. Google has taken steps – like adding built-in antivirus – over the past year to help solve those issues, but it recently announced yet another step.

Google updated its policies to prevent developers from releasing app updates in any form other than via the official Google Play store.

Sophos notes that this can be a good and bad thing:

One possible downside to this is that it now explicitly prevents developers from publishing emergency patches via their own websites, even if only part of the app is changed, while waiting for the new version to be approved into the Play Store.

On balance, though, this seems like a loophole that needed closing.

The risk of a bait-and-switch, where an app draws you in under a veneer of Google-bestowed legitimacy and then turns itself into something you’d never have chosen if only you had known, are obvious.

This obviously won’t effect apps downloaded from other Android stores so it won’t eliminate malware all together. Taken together with Google’s other recent app security steps, though, it shows that Google understands the issues its open platform inherently faces. The company is trying to strike a balance between protecting users and walling off its own garden.

Last month, uTest introduced a brand new UI for Apphance, a mobile quality tool that makes it easy for mobile app developers to understand how their apps are working across a wide range of mobile devices, carriers and locations. After making so many improvements to the UI, we’re ready to turn our attention to the other half of the Apphance software stack – the SDKs. Today we’re launching a new and improved version of the iOS SDK, version 1.8.8, that adds several features and enhancements our users have been asking for. Let’s take a look at a few of the big ones:

Two-Finger Swipe Bug Reporting

One of Apphance’s coolest features is in-app bug reporting. You simply shake the device and Apphance responds by taking a screenshot and allowing the user to write a complete bug report right on the device itself. Our customers love this feature because it allows them to see bugs in the same context as they were discovered, along with important details and information about the device and app state.

While most users prefer to trigger bug reports by shaking the device, some of our customers have asked us for an alternative. Many of them use the accelerometer for other purposes, or they’re developing fitness apps where the device is always in motion. With this new update, we’re introducing an alternative (and optional) bug reporting approach that relies on swiping your fingers upwards from the lower corners of the screen.

Instructions for changing the bug reporting mechanism are available in the Apphance help topics. By default, Apphance will still trigger bug reports using the accelerometer, but switching to the two-finger swipe method can be accomplished by adding just two lines of code.

Read more…

When you think about bad mobile app security, Android tends to come to mind. The open nature of Android makes it (theoretically) easier for malicious apps to find their way into the app store and onto users’ devices. While intentionally malicious apps may be a problem for Android, when it comes to data leaks and the loss of personal information iOS is actually a bigger security offender, according to Veracode’s recent State of Software Security report. From Computer Weekly:

Surprisingly, 26% of Android apps exhibited information leakage bugs, compared with 42% on iOS. This covers the leakage of personal information such as email, text messages, GPS coordinates, and the content of users’ address books.

“When you install Android, it requests access to certain phone functionality. The app developer has to request explicit access, while on iOS a developer does not have to request access,” said [Chris Eng, vice-president of research at Veracode].

Even when developers take the extra steps to make their apps secure, their approaches may be miss guided. Trying to build in cryptographic keys to protect user data can actually make security worse if not done correctly. This issue is troubling for both major operating systems.

Overall, cryptographic issues affected a sizeable portion of Android (64%) and iOS (58%) applications.

The report warned that using cryptographic mechanisms incorrectly can make it easier for attackers to compromise the application. Cryptographic keys are used to protect transmitted or stored data.

It found that in some applications, developers had hard-coded a cryptographic key directly into a mobile application. Should these hard-coded keys be compromised, any security mechanisms that depend on the privacy of the keys are rendered ineffective.

Mobile app security is complicated. Developers and testers need to keep working to understand the issues and learn how to best address them.

In the business world, a year-over-year growth rate of 163% percent is cause for celebration. In the world of mobile malware, a 163% growth rate is cause for consternation. If we are to believe a recent study from Mobile service provider NQ Mobile, that’s the present situation for the Android operating system – and it’s probably going to get worse.

Here’s TechCrunch with the story:

Trends indicate we’ll only see more attacks, and more creative ones, according to NQ. In February, security researchers identified a new type of malware that uses an Android device as a launch platform for infecting a target computer via USB connection, the company said. That remains limited to only a few identified infected handsets, but it’s a troubling attack vector that could pose plenty of problems down the road if it becomes more sophisticated. In a release, NQ Mobile co-CEO Omar Khans said that what’s needed is a system that can detect threats in advance of infection and prevent them, something which so far hasn’t really been widely available.

NQ Mobile’s report found that more than 32.8 million Android devices were infected over the course of 2012, up more than 200 percent from 2011. Of course, the general Android device population grew massively over the course of the year – a recent ABI Research study indicates that there will be over 798 million active Android devices by the end of the year, compared to around 300 million as of early in 2012. And the U.S., despite having a large chunk of the overall user population, is actually further down the list in terms of target countries, with just 9.8 percent of infected devices, compared to 25.5 percent in China, 19.4 percent in India and 17.9 percent in Russia.

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Cupcakes, froyo, ice cream sandwiches and jelly beans are all delicious! They’re also all Android operating system versions. Over the years Android has released 39 public updates to their OS. What did each update add to the platform? When did your favorite feature hit the market? Learn all about the history of the Android versions in this infographic put together by Kinvey.

All this talk about Facebook Home for Android has peaked my curiosity. As a new Android convert and a Facebook junkie, it seems logical that I would gravitate towards this. However, I find all the information out there is negative criticism. Everything from security issues to how Zuckerbergs announcement was remiscnent of Microsoft in 2011 (see video).

But, for those of us with an Android phone, and who love the capabilities of the Android, this could be a great thing! A recent post on AndroidAuthority highlights some of the benefits of this marriage.

1. Android dodged a bullet by creating a software that runs on top of android and not forking android, like the Amazon Kindle Fire, “(Android) has further cemented its position at the top of the mobile ecosystem”
2. “Facebook has just become one (if not the most) powerful Android ally.”
3. “Custom launchers will become much more popular, and thus a real advantage in the market for Google, and not just another paragraph in “top 10 reasons Android is better than iOS” articles.”
4. “Love it or hate it, the concept will surely make a lot of impact on the market.”

Personally, I am excited for it, but what I really want to know if what you think about. Tell us in the comments!

One of the big “problems” of the Windows Phone ecosystem was the so-called lack of apps. Understandable, considering how young the OS was (and is) and also considering how entrenched iOS and Android were in the space. Microsoft has done a good job luring developers with promotions and money, but many still see it as not being enough.

Blackberry chose to go another route. Instead, they made it incredibly easy to port over existing Android apps to their BB10 platform. So far, their bet is paying off:

BlackBerry’s App World now touts 100,000 BB10 applications. An impressive number for a platform just months old. But out of those 100,000 applications, roughly 20% are Android apps, simply ported over rather than being coded specifically for BlackBerry 10.

This is a win for BlackBerry. It’s a big win. Android or native, it shows that BlackBerry is successfully pulling developers into its fold. Even without the Android apps, App World still has roughly 80,000 native BB10 apps. As it sits right now, the Android ports are simply holding seats for big apps.

BB10 has a good selection of apps now, but it’s still missing key apps with Instagram and Netflix being two of the biggest holes. But don’t worry, there are Android ports available. And while they might not be native to BB10, these apps still work. That’s what matters at this point.

While the Android ports run just fine, most do not utilize BB10′s core services making them feel and respond different from native BB10 apps.

The last sentence of that quote has MAJOR testing implications. Think about it: An app that was developed and designed for one platform being used on another platform, with different gestures, functions and features. The strategy will work great, until the apps don’t work as expected for users. It’s going to happen. Guaranteed.

Lucky for them, there’s a mobile app testing solution that can help BB10 developers make sure their new apps are delighting users.

Part of having a successful app is understanding the app economy as a whole – or, at the very least, the state of the category you’re about to enter. Number of downloads is one metric. Longevity and number of versions/updates are a few more. Star ratings and reviews offer some insight. But how can you judge the overall health of the app market? That’s the question the Applause Index set out to answer. The brand new index is “the first-ever way to measure and track the state of user satisfaction in the mobile apps economy.” Here’s how it works, from the Applause App Analytics Blog:

Similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Applause Index provides a daily look at how users feel about the bellwether iOS and Android apps and assigns a weighted, cumulative score (again, similar to those used to measure the overall stock market). This enables journalists, analysts and mobile decision makers to understand trends in the macro apps economy and make more informed decisions.

The Applause Index also includes a full complement of sub-indices that measure specific categories of market-representative apps across ten key categories, including Gaming; Lifestyle; Entertainment, Travel and Content.

The Applause Index is calculated based upon the Applause Score of 60 iOS and 60 Android apps that meet rigorous selection criteria. It then applies a weighted formula to produce a daily cumulative score across these bellwethers. The result is a top-down look at the overall sentiment of users about the apps economy; across categories; across app stores; and over time.

Those bellwether apps include Angry Birds, Evernote, Yelp, Netflix, PayPal, Quora, NFL Mobile and Skype, just to name a few. Here’s a few examples of the criteria used to select the indexed apps:

• Number of app versions and app reviews
• Length of time an app has been available
• Performance data across Applause Attributes
• Representative allocation across app store categories
• 100% overlap between the list of 60 iOS and 60 Android apps

To learn more bout the Applause Index, read the full post on the App Analytics Blog, or check the index out for yourself! To see how your apps, your competition’s apps or your favorite apps are faring in the hands of users, look them up on Applause.

Not that you need reminding, but mobile app testing is difficult. Beyond the fact that it’s still a fairly new medium and testers are still figuring out the nuances of mobile app testing, the single biggest challenge is the sheer size of the mobile ecosystem.

Even when focusing on a single operating system, the number of different devices, screen sizes and OS versions – not to mention carriers and locations – make testing a single app quite complicated. To illustrate this, let’s take a look at this recent Engadget article discussing the launch of the BBCSport app for Android. According to the article, the BBC’s newest app “is compatible with Android devices running version 2.2 or above and while the Beeb has worked to ensure it works on the recent wave of 7-inch tablets, it doesn’t currently support larger sizes.”

Encompassing smartphones and tablets means the app has to be testing on too many different screen sizes to count. In fact, here’s an image Engadget published of just some of the devices BBC used to test the Android app.

I count 13 devices in that image. Beyond handhelds, developers and testers also have to contend with OS versions. According to Android Developers’ latest count, version 2.2 and up account for nearly 98% of the Android user base. That’s pretty good coverage so it’s easy to see why BBC chose to support versions 2.2 and newer. How many versions is that you ask? Five, and all their accompanying sub-versions. Android 2.2 is nicknamed Froyo, and sticking with the alphabetical desserts theme, Android is now on Jelly Bean. That means this app works on (and was presumably tested on) Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean. If you’re being thorough, each version needs to be tested on multiple devices to see how each combination reacts.

So for this one app the BBC had to test on a slew of different devices, across the major carriers in the UK and on five different OS versions. That’s what makes mobile application testing so complicated. (And why in-the-wild testing makes it some much easier.)