The app developers guide to choosing a mobile platform: "Choosing among the competing platforms requires a clear-eyed assessment of the audience for your app, the technical strengths (and weaknesses) of the platform, how easy it is to monetize your work and the long-term health of the platform"
Mobile Application Stores: the state of play, from Distimo. Well-presented analysis of available applications in stores, though I'm not 100% sure that you can draw lessons about audience behaviour or preferences from the quantities, categories and pricing of available applications. That said, for many of us this sort of data is the best we have to work with...
It's nice to see Google acknowledging that mobile comes first, and hear them use the word "humongous". I loved his phrasing of it too: "your phone is your alter ego, an extension of everything we do". If Mark Curtis doesn't hurry up and beat me to it, I've a post in waiting along these lines...
I'm hearing lots of publishers echo these thoughts from Alan Rusbringer on the iPad and getting enthusiastic. The cynic in me (probably the bigger part) wonders whether the familiar size of an iPad screen is attractive, and that by seeming so similar to large-format print these folks with be persuaded to join an ecosystem that will be anything but familiar.
Intel and Nokia are merging their netbook OSs, though as someone I chatted to earlier pointed out, this looks to be a worst-of-both-worlds - dropping the gorgeous Clutter UI toolkit which sits at the heart of Moblin, and choosing RPM packaging over Debian. I'm guessing that the amount of effort not put into the combined project will more than compensate...
Everything is different now Windows Phone 7 has been announced, though we're unlikely to see real devices for a year. I heard nice things from folks who'd played with prototypes at MWC, but I'd like to understand more about the business model for this - how much will Microsoft sell it for, and will the cost (and complexity of engaging them in a commercial relationship of any sort) over Android, Meego, or Symbian be worthwhile for handset vendors? An engaging well-designed homescreen doth not a winning smartphone OS make, and MS have a lot of ground to make up, with mobile contributing little to their overall revenues. Also: what happened to "developers, developers, developers"?
Facebook Zero has been announced; really interesting, as one of the worlds most popular sites simultaneously tries to minimise its bandwidth impact for operators and extends its reach well beyond smartphone owners. Interesting that carriers have to sign up to get this too, a little shift in the power-balance there. I wonder what Facebook are getting in return for helping the operators like this?