The official New England Patriots app (for iOS, Android and BlackBerry) and New York Giants app (also on iOS, Android and BlackBerry) are highlighted in all of the “best” lists I found – for obvious reasons.

If you’re a fan of the game (but not necessarily of the Pats or the Giants) check out these Super Bowl specific apps:
Countdown to Super Bowl 46 (Android)
SB XLVI Guide (Android, iOS)
Super Bowl XLVI Official NFL Game Program (iOS)

Great general sports apps that got nods:
ESPN ScoreCenter (Android, iOS, Windows Phone 7)
NFL Mobile (Android, iOS)
NFL Pro Tweets (iOS)
SB Nation (Android, iOS)

Want to test your football knowledge and maybe even win a prize? These Super Bowl trivia apps were named best:
Super Bowl – Know It All (iOS)
Chevy Game Time (Android, iOS)
Super Bowl Winners (iOS)
Super Bowl Trivia (Android)

And let’s not forget apps to help you catch, keep track of, judge and comment on all those great (and not so great) Super Bowl commercials:
A+ Super Bowl Commercials (iOS)
Super Ads: Super Bowl Commercials (iOS)

That should give you plenty to download between know and 6:30pm (EST) Sunday and plenty to keep you busy while the Pats and Giants do battle!

The apps in this post were highlighted as the best Super Bowl apps by OnlyKent, ABC News, Consumer Report, MySanAntonio, Global News, AppAdvice and LapTopMag. Check out their sites to see who chose what and to get more insight into each app.

If you think there are any great apps we missed, let us know in the comments! Or better yet, if you find a bug in one of these “best” apps, let us know!

It’s Apple, Samsung Versus Everyone Else: Globally, Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 93 million for the entire year. Samsung sold 36.5 million smartphones during the fourth quarter and 97.4 million for the entire year. Nokia ranks a distant third, with 19 million smartphones sold in the fourth quarter and 77.3 million sold for the year.

Android And iOS Will Lead For Foreseeable Future: Together, Android and iOS own approximately 76.3% of the U.S. smartphone market. Android has 46.3% of the market, while iOS has about 30%. RIM’s BlackBerry platform is third with about 15%. The remaining 10% is owned by Windows Mobile, PalmOS, webOS, and Windows Phone.

Android Tablets Gaining In Popularity: Apple notched a massive 15.4 million iPad 2 sales during the fourth quarter of the year. While cheapo tablets weren’t much in the way of competition, it appears as though Android’s presence in the tablet market is eroding Apple’s lead, bit-by-bit.

Still Plenty Of Room For Growth: AT&T says 56.8% of its 69.3 million postpaid subscribers have smartphones, up from 42.7% a year earlier and 32.8% two years ago. Smartphones represented more than 80% of AT&T’s postpaid device sales for the quarter. Verizon’s smartphone penetration is 44.5% of its postpaid customers. That’s up from 39% in the third quarter of 2011, and closing in quickly on the 50% mark.

Check out the rest of the stats at InformationWeek >>>

Keep those numbers and trends in mind as you test across makers, handsets and carriers this year. And let us know if you see the tides starting to change, we love being ahead of the curve!

Travel comparison site Kayak.com has redesigned its Web site so it looks like its mobile app — not the other way around.

“We run the iPhone and iPad teams separately from the Web team, and the Web team had fallen behind,” said Paul English, co-founder and CTO.

The goal with the site’s design has always been to provide a simple layout, so that users can easily sift through thousands of flights, hotels and car rentals to find what they are looking for quickly.

But up until now, the focus wasn’t really on being beautiful, English said. The new look tries to incorporate a clean and attractive design. …

The larger significance is that mobile is influencing the Web, and not the other way around.

Increasingly, this may be the case in the travel industry as so much of the traffic now comes from phones and tablets. Kayak said more than five million applications were downloaded in the nine months ended in September, a 97 percent increase over the same period a year earlier.

In early testing, English said conversion rates are higher and completion times are shorter as a result of incorporating mobile designs — which, by nature, are always built with speed and ease-of-use in mind. “They [customers] are more confident to compete the purchase because we haven’t worn them out.”

Read the full article for a walk through of the changes >>>

Microsoft first revealed the Skype for Windows Phone app back in MIX 2011 last year, way before Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype. It had almost been a year without further news about the app, and finally during CES 2012 in January, a Microsoft representative mentioned during a video interviewthat the Skype for Windows Phone app will be “coming soon”.

Well according to reports from WP7Lab (via WMPU), Microsoft had just begun dogfooding (internal beta testing) the Skype for Windows Phone app. Furthermore, the website received an anonymous tip indicating that Microsoft will soon be sending out invitations for a beta version of the app. Here’s an excerpt from WP7Labs:

Skype for Windows Phone is just around the corner and we’ve teamed up with the Skype folks to help with beta testing. If you are receiving this newsletter directly, look for an invitation in the coming weeks and be on the inside track for what is sure to be one of the hottest new apps on the Marketplace!

Read the rest >>>

• Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Mim (iPad)
• Yahoo! Answers (Android)
• Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)
• Yahoo! Movies (Android)
• Yahoo! News (Android)
• Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)

And here’s their explanation:

We’re moving forward with a “mobile first” mindset. You can expect to see more new Yahoo! mobile products in 2012, especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!’s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr, which are already being used by millions of people around the world. And we’ll be building these experiences with disruptive technology that’s going to change the mobile game well beyond Yahoo!.

Read the rest >>>

Thanks to Wilson Electronics, Inc for putting together this great infographic and to Online Marketing Trends for posting it!

The most popular school-related applications among students polled include Dictionary, Wikipanion, Google Translate and Twitter. Students said these applications were useful in multiple classes and are usually free for mobile users.

Lauren Joffrion, freshman biology major, said she uses mobile applications specifically for organization and note taking. She recommends using the calendar pre-loaded to the phone to keep up with assignments and Evernote to record and organize lectures.

“I have a schedule on my phone and schedule events and assignments,” Joffrion said. “Evernote records my notes and (tries) to type them out for me.”

Shelly Hargis, transfer sophomore biology major, said when she was a student at Lamar University, she used the Blackboard application to complete many of her online assignments.

Chris Wilbourn, freshman political science major, said he finds functionality in In Class, a free application that helps organize everything school related. In Class features a schedule, to-do list and note section.

“My favorite app is In Class. It’s an organizer that has multiple features that lists professors and has a contact book with office hours,” he said.

Many teachers use mobile applications to improve their productivity as well as their students’. Dan White, English instructor, said he uses applications on his iPad that are not specifically for teacher use.

“Almost everything my students read from me is typed in Apple Pages. I use the app to build lecture notes, essay assignments, fliers for the Writing Center and other special events,” he said. “It’s convenient to give lectures with my notes and have an almost limitless research tool in hand.”

Read the rest >>>

I’m putting my money on personal preference, but in the event that your decision was driven by platforms, developers and marketshare here’s two interesting pieces of news:

1. While Apple has historically been the preferred developer platform (because it’s more lucrative), research firm Ovum is predicting Android to take that title by the end of the year.

2. Android and Apple marketshare are neck and neck as of the end of Q4 2011.

Here’s some more information on Point 1 from PCWorld:

Google’s Android will become the preeminent platform for developers over the next 12 months, edging ahead of Apple’s iOS, according to a study by research firm Ovum. Nearly all developers, however, will support both platforms.

Ovum’s call comes as Android continues to suck up market share, with more companies using the platform to crank out a wave of mobile devices. While iOS has seen its market share growth slow in the recent years, it has always been seen as a more lucrative location for developers to make money. As a result, most apps came to iOS first, and the other platforms second.

That, however, could all change in the coming months, Ovum said. Android’s prevalence is getting hard to ignore, and developers have incorporated new business models such as advertising and in-app purchases to spur revenue.

Read the full article >>>

And now a bit on Point 2 from Digital Trends:

Apple’s iPhone owned more of the US market than all Android-based devices combined during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a new study from market research firm Kantar.

In the US, Apple’s iPhone has surpassed the smartphone market share of all Android devices combined during the final three months of 2012, according to new numbers out from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, as reported by Reuters. But the difference is almost invisible: Apple owned 44.9 percent of the market; handsets running Google’s Android operating system owned just 44.8 percent.

Read more >>>

While they’re both interesting points and trends worth keeping an eye on remember to keep the reports in perspective. One’s a prediction and who knows what will happen in the mobile world in the next 12 months. While the other point is taken from a market snapshot report, there are also reports out there that say Apple growth is slowing drastically while Android adoption is sky rocketing (the exact opposite of what the Kantar report says).

But in the end, if you choose your hardware based on preference, not on which platform is more popular with the public or developers, these are both just moot points.

Thoughts?

Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphone platforms, is debuting a new Android app that lets you see mobile threats as they are detected around the world. Launched from Lookout Labs, the new app basically visualizes what’s happening in the mobile landscape and also shares details on top weekly threats & distribution of malware vs. spyware. …

Lookout collects data from its Mobile Threat Network, a cloud-based network which constantly analyzes global threat data to identify and quickly block new threats with over-the-air app updates. The network includes more than one million apps and 15 million user devices worldwide.

With the Lookout Mobile Threat Tracker, you can now see the thousands of threats that Lookout identifies and catches every day via the network. Within the Mobile Threat Tracker you can quickly see the top three trending threats. For example, if you tap on the name in the app, you can learn more about each threat. …

While the app may not be one for a daily check, the newest Lookout offering could be a useful way to routinely see what the possible threats are for your Android phone at any given time. Lookout predicts that malware, spyware and other mobile security risks will only increase in 2012, so users will have to be more vigilant about protecting their smartphones in the coming year.

Read the full TechCrunch article for more details >>>

Don’t skim over security testing, you don’t want to end up on Lookout’s app!