Tag Archives: Android.

Cydia, The Alternative App Store For Jailbroken Apple Devices, Now Runs On Android

May 14, 2013   admin   No comments

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Cydia, a platform commonly thought of as the alternative app store for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, has just today arrived on Android, of all places. Though Android is by its nature more open and customizable than Apple’s locked-down iOS, it now has a growing collection of apps designed for power users who root their devices – a process that’s similar in spirit to the iOS jailbreak. Cydia for Android could soon become home to some of those same tweaks in time – or at least allow developers to port them to the Android ecosystem, whether or not they’re housed in Cydia directly.

Jailbreaking an iPhone makes a lot of sense because customizing Apple’s software, including its lockscreen and homescreen, is all but impossible. However, on Android, the perception is that many of the quirks and customizations you may desire can be managed through the installation of third-party apps, ranging from Android launchers that can change everything about the device (like Facebook’s Home application, for instance) to very specific tweaks that can change the device’s default behavior.

That being said, rooting an Android phone gives users even more power to do things outside of the scope of what’s possible out of the box. In addition to being able to upgrade to newer versions of Android ahead of “official” releases, various apps for rooted phones and tablets allow users to adjust CPU settings, define custom multitouch gestures, record video of their screens, undelete files, gain access to  apps not offered in their country, adjust cache size, change permissions, and a host of other delightfully geeky things.

Cydia for Android could one day become a centralized place to find all those things, but at launch it is merely the framework. The only Cydia-enabled extension available at this time is WinterBoard, the “theme engine” that grew popular on iOS over the years as a way to customize more than just the phone’s background. On Android, WinterBoard works with themes provided by other customization platforms, including ADW Launcher, GO Launcher Ex, Launcher Pro, dxTop, and the T-Mobile/CyanogenMod Theme Chooser platform.

According to a lengthy and detailed description on the Cydia Substrate app in Google Play, the software will run on Android versions 2.3 and up, plus “equivalent” versions like CyanogenMod or the Kindle Fire. It will also work on ARM or Intel CPUs and even on Google Glass. (Are people rooting Glass? Do tell.)

The Cydia substrate has been tested on a number of Android devices, but as with rooting itself, it’s not the sort of thing for a layperson to undertake without a backup in place…and a backup plan, too, on the off chance things go awry and you end up bricking your phone.

If, however, you feel comfortable going beyond the bounds of what’s officially approved, to get started with Cydia (after first gaining root), you can install the APK from the new Cydia homepage or Google Play, then grant Superuser access to Substrate when prompted.

Videos showing Cydia in action on Android have already started popping up on YouTube if you’re more curious than motivated for now:

Cydia for Android is new, but its iOS counterpart is now being used by tens of millions of users, according to Cydia creator Jay Freeman.


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Android Launchers Are A Small Market, Can Facebook Home Change That?

April 05, 2013   admin   No comments

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Facebook is getting into the “Android launcher” market, the company has confirmed, thanks to its new Facebook Home application announced today. The app, as previously reported, is new software that integrates the Facebook experience deeply into the Android operating system. But Android launchers today aren’t a very large market, relative to the reach Facebook has in mind. Will the Facebook brand be able to change that?

Facebook already has an incredible presence on mobile. It’s the most-used application on your phone. And of Facebook’s more than 1 billion active users, 680 million are active on mobile. It only makes sense for Facebook to build something that takes better advantage of this major shift in computing by putting its service front and center in people’s everyday lives.

But compared with the enormity of Facebook, the Android launcher market is much smaller. According to Google Play data, Go Launcher EX, the top free Android launcher, has somewhere between 50 million to 100 million installs worldwide. But that includes users who are installing it on multiple devices, or again and again as they change phones. According to app-store analytics firm Distimo, the launcher has actually only been installed on 6 million unique devices in the U.S. since mid-August 2012.

Facebook Home To Join The “Android Launcher” Market

Launchers are mobile applications popular among Android users that allow you to further customize the look, feel and functionality of the native Android experience, replacing the user interface experience that ships with your phone.

They allow you to do things like install themes, customize icon skins, change the way you navigate between screens or access the application drawer, for example, and much more. Some have 3D effects, others include their own widgets, and some offer a variety of widgets, themes and other add-ons for download or sale separately. But the one thing they have had in common is that they’ve generally appealed to a more advanced, more technically inclined crowd that likes to tweak and customize their devices. They appeal to those who feel confined by the locked-down experience on iOS and want more control.

This is the competitive market that Facebook Home is joining, and Facebook’s Launcher, though beautifully designed, is an entirely different experience from the launchers available today. Although like the others, Home is about changing the default Android interface, it differs in that it changes it to one of Facebook’s liking, while other launchers are about offering users tools to make their phones their own.

What About The Others?

Today, Facebook Home’s launcher competitors include dozens of apps, including Go Launcher EX, ADW.Launcher, Nova Launcher, Apex Launcher, Launcher Pro, Regina 3D Launcher, Zeam Launcher, Holo Launcher, MXHome Launcher, Launcher 7, Launcher 8 SPB Shell 3D, Trebuchet Launcher, and many more.

You might now be wondering how popular these types of programs are among users, especially here in Facebook’s largest market, the U.S. Of those listed above, the most popular free launcher in Google Play is the GO Launcher EX, which ranks No. 70. The only others ranked in the top 1,000 free applications on Android are the Nova Launcher (No. 324) and the Apex Launcher (No. 505).

In the chart below, you can see the estimated installs per device for these launchers for March 2013. To be clear, this is not unique downloads per user, but installs per unique device. It’s not an exact science here, but this helps give you a feel for the size of the market in the U.S. for these types of customizations.

The Go Launcher EX has an estimated 786,948 app installs in the U.S. Android app store in March 2013, and, as noted above, it has 6 million installs since August 2012.

Among paid apps, Nova Launcher Prime is tops, ranked No. 6, which shows that a good many Android users care enough about customization to actually pay to achieve such a thing.

However, because it’s a paid application, the number of installs here is even lower – around 138,794 in March. Other popular launchers in the top 1,000 paid Android apps are ranked even lower still, and have fewer installs. These include: Apex Launcher Pro (No. 32), ADWLauncher EX (No. 54), SPB Shell 3D (No. 147), Holo Launcher Plus (No. 299) and Launcher 7 – Donate (No. 974).

By revenue, these apps also fall further down the charts: Nova Launcher Prime (No. 195), GO Launcher EX (No. 264), SPB Shell 3D (No. 339), Apex Launcher Pro (No. 513) and ADWLauncher EX (No. 584) are those that make a showing here. This indicates that only some portion of the audience is happy to pay for the extended features outside of the initial one-time download.

That also speaks to Facebook’s ability to sell add-ons within its own “Facebook Home” experience. Other messaging apps (messaging is a key feature in Facebook Home) often sell things like sticker packs/emoji, games, and other upgrades to generate revenue. Facebook doesn’t do this, nor does it display ads within the private messaging interfaces of either Facebook Messenger or its iOS-only private messaging app Poke.

And from the experience described today, Facebook Home doesn’t include ads, either (at least, not yet). But it could take advantage of its deep presence on users’ devices to improve its ad-targeting capabilities in the future.

“It is a bit difficult to say something about the market size for launchers,” admits Hendrik Koekkoek, a data analyst at Distimo. “The three apps in the top 1,000 free together generate 0.38% of all device installs of the top 1,000, so this is not particularly large,” he says.

“For paid apps, the six apps in the top 1,000 together generate 2.9 percent of all device installs in the top 1,000. So proportionately, they generate quite a lot of all paid device installs,” Koekkoek adds.

In terms of revenue, launchers don’t do all that well; the five apps in the top grossing generate only 0.22 percent of all revenue of the top 1,000.

Facebook specifically chose not to do its own phone because an install base of 10 million to 20 million units was too small. “Our community has more than a billion people in it. We want to build the best experience for every person on every phone,” said Zuckerberg. But even extrapolating the above U.S. numbers out to a worldwide audience, it seems that being a consumer-facing app will take Facebook Home only so far. The company will need to target its integrations at OEMs that are bringing the next billion mobile users online to have a real impact here.

Then again, maybe it’s wrong to look at the current launchers on the market and draw any conclusions about the potential for Facebook Home whatsoever. It’s a very different experience. Still, as a consumer app, Facebook will have to convince the Android customizers and tweakers that its app is better than their current overlay, and it will have to educate the more mainstream users that such customizations even exist.


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Ooyala Launches Discovery Guide For Personalized Channels, Hook Plugin For Android Mobile Video Viewing

March 27, 2013   admin   No comments

Ooyala

Video distribution platform Ooyala wants to get more people watching more video on more devices. That’s it’s job, right? Well, ahead of NAB, the company is launching a couple of features that will help do just that. That includes a new discovery engine that its clients can use to extend the amount of time people spend watching their videos. It also includes a plugin for improved video viewing on Android devices and a way to connect with *ahem* connected TVs.

The new Ooyala Discovery Guide provides a way for its customers — big media companies with lots of videos — to increase the number of videos that viewers end up watching. The product works with both linear and on-demand video feeds and provides a list of videos that users might want to watch next.

Using behavioral data, as well as content metadata, program schedules, and other information, the Discovery Guide offers up a TV guide-like directory of content to choose from. But it’s done in a way that is probably more enticing for viewers, as each guide is personalized to fit their specific tastes or viewing patterns. Even if users aren’t watching the content immediately, they can save for later with a new, DVR-like feature.

In tests with viewers, the discovery guide has shown an increase of engagement of up to 47 percent, according to Ooyala director of engineering Belsasar Lepe. That will hopefully enable its clients to better monetize their videos through advertising. Or at least keep subscribers happier. For that reason, the Discovery Guide will come as an add-on rather than a free feature for Ooyala’s clients.

In addition to the launch of its new Discovery Guide, Ooyala is hoping to help increase viewing on Android devices. It’s doing that with the introduction of its Hook video runtime. Hook enables Android users to download a single application from the Google Play store and then enjoy high-quality streaming video directly from within the Chrome web browser.

Due to the number of devices and form factors, as well as differing video capabilities throughout the Android ecosystem, providing a single viewing experience across them all wasn’t always possible, especially for media companies that required a certain DRM or copy protections. With Hook, Ooyala can serve up videos with live, adaptive bit rate, DRM and other capabilities across almost all Android phones and tablets. It also provides publisher with advertising and reporting tools.

That will allow Ooyala clients to serve up high-quality video directly in their mobile websites, without having to develop expensive native applications. Android users typically watch half as much video as their iOS counterparts, but the one-time Ooyala Hook install should hopefully change that. Users can download it themselves from Google Play, or they’ll be prompted to do so when they hit a page which uses it.

There’s also that matter of getting videos from mobile devices, tablets, etc. and being able to watch them on the TV. More and more, people are browsing (discovering!) content on their phones and whatnot. But who wants to watch that on a 5-, 6-, or 7-inch screen? No one! So Ooyala is rolling out XTV Connect, a cool little feature that lets users beam content from their little screens to their big screens.

The feature uses DLNA technology to connect with a number of supported connected TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other companion streaming devices. That will give it access to a whole bunch of screens for beaming and viewing.

Ooyala is showing off all this — and more! — ahead of the NAB Show in Las Vegas, hoping to stir up excitement from broadcasters and cable networks who wish to make more of their content available online, on mobile devices, and on connected TVs. The company has raised more than $ 80 million since being founded in 2007, including a big $ 35 million round last summer.


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Google’s Play Store Android App May Soon Get Another Facelift

March 21, 2013   admin   No comments

new-google-play-via-droidlife

Google’s been awfully busy these past few weeks, but it seems that between sunsetting Reader (and pissing off most of the internet in the process) and rolling out new services like Google Keep, the company has been working on a redesigned version of the Google Play Store for Android. That’s what the folks at Droid-Life claim, anyway — they appear to have obtained and installed the unreleased 4.0 version of the Google Play Android app ahead of a wider release.

The Play Store’s current mobile design first rolled out in July 2012, and while Google has seen fit to rebrand and tinker with a few things since then, more than a few bits look essentially the same as they did back then. If this is the real deal (and I strongly suspect that it is), then Google Play is about to get quite a facelift. Gone are the gloomy blacks and dark grays that used to permeate the app — this new version returns to a lighter color scheme that’s highly reminiscent of the old Android Market days. On the whole, the new app also looks much cleaner and more spacious than the Play Store so many of us have gotten used to.

It’s not hard to see some similarities between the updated Play Store app and the Google Now’s design — there’s a more pronounced focus on bigger images and italicized text. What’s more, individual app listings are separated into little cards rather than being displayed in a more traditional list, yet another sign that Google’s Play Store developers are cribbing UI flourishes from Google Now. If anything, the unification of design between these two services makes me wonder just how far Google plans to go here. After all, Google Now and the Play Store are cornerstones of the Android experience — it wouldn’t be huge shock to see the next version of Android take a similar approach to aesthetics.

At this point there’s no firm word on when (or if) this update is slated to go live, but it’s very possible that Google could wait until I/O to officially pull back the curtain on a redesigned Play Store app. In the meantime, major mobile players like Facebook are exploring ways to bypass the Play Store completely and push new updates to users, so here’s hoping Google pushes the update out before others follow suit.




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Disrupt Finalist Maluuba Expands Past Android, Launches Its Siri Alternative On Windows Phone 8

February 27, 2013   admin   No comments

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Maluuba, a service many have lovingly dubbed the “Siri for Android,” is migrating to a brand new platform. No, the Disrupt finalist isn’t planning on a hostile takeover of Siri’s home turf, but Windows Phone fans may have something to celebrate.

The company has officially announced that the Maluuba app is now available on Windows Phone 8.

Here’s what Maluuba had to say about the launch:

Windows Phone 8 is a great opportunity for us and we’re excited for users to get it in their hands. We’ve gotten praise for our Android app from both the press and users and we think Windows Phone will be as positive. We’ve done some neat integration with live tiles and will continue to add more as Microsoft grows the platform. Unlike Google Now and Siri, we want Maluuba to be device independent. We’re in an age where users expect great services to not only work on multiple platforms but to leverage each platform’s strengths, we think we’ve done that for Android and Windows Phone and we’re already working on expanding to more platforms soon.

Maluuba first launched into the public at Disrupt SF in September of 2012. The app acts as a sort of Siri alternative for Android users (and now Windows Phone users), taking voice requests and turning them into useful information or actions.

For example, Maluuba for Windows Phone 8 can search restaurants, movies, events, and businesses (and handle shopping requests), set alarms, reminders and meeting scheduling, place calls, texts and emails, give directions and the weather, and it even integrates with Outlook calendar.

Maluuba is to Android (and now Windows Phone 8) what Siri is to iOS, except Maluuba (like Android) is open. The company officially launched a voice API in November, letting any app enjoy the power of voice transcription and computing. Past an API, the Maluuba team has also been looking into evolving past the phone.

Maluuba has teamed with Best Buy and Walmart to offer instant shopping queries to the Maluuba feature set. And if that weren’t enough, the team announced at CES that it’s working on integrating Maluuba into a number of different devices, such as fridges, cars, and TVs.

Maluuba debuted the Windows Phone version of their app at MWC today, and released a little demo video alongside it which can be seen below.

Maluuba also mentioned that they’ve “been in talks with a number of OEMs to integrate [their] technology with their systems,” which is an exciting thought.




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Apple Reaches Highest-Ever U.S. Smartphone Sales Share At 53.3%; Android Consolidates In Europe

December 21, 2012   admin   No comments

arm wrestling

Apple’s shares, as you may have seen, have been sliding in the market on the back of strong competition from Android device makers. Today, some new figures on recent smartphone sales will give the market both encouraging and discouraging food for thought on that matter as we dive into the final weekend of sales before Christmas.

According to 12-week sales numbers out from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech — the WPP division that tracks smartphone sales across several key markets on a monthly, rolling basis — Apple is at its highest-ever share of smartphone sales in the U.S., at over 53%. But the question remains whether that is strong enough to offset the fact that Android is increasingly gaining prominence everywhere else. In Europe, Android is at its highest-ever share of sales, at 61%, with Samsung leading the charge; and it is also in the lead in the other key markets that Kantar assesses: Australia, China and Brazil.

Meanwhile, Windows Phone is continuing to gain some momentum. The platform has now surpassed RIM in the U.S. market as the third-most-popular platform, but it’s still miles behind the top two by quite a long way.

The researchers note that in the last 12 weeks ending November 25, Apple’s iPhone range accounted for 53.3% of all smartphone purchases, a rise of more than five percentage points on last month’s 48.1%. As was the case last month, a lot of the momentum is coming from sales of the iPhone 5, Apple’s latest addition to its smartphone line, introduced in September.

Apple’s gain in the U.S. was a mixture of taking share from Android and RIM: Android is at 41.9% but that’s a drop of some 10 percentage points over the same period last year. RIM meanwhile lost nearly 6 percentage points and has now dropped down to fourth, with Windows Phone now in third place with just over 7% of all purchases in the last 12 weeks.

The picture, however, is not as rosy for the iPhone in Europe. Overall, Android is now at its highest-ever percentage of sales, with the various OEMs that make phones based on Google’s platform now accounting for 61% of all smartphone sales in Europe’s top five mobile markets. Apple, in contrast, is at just over 25%.

That charge continues to be led by Samsung. The Korean handset maker’s Galaxy line of devices accounted for 44% of all smartphone sales across the European big-five of the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain — meaning that, even comparing brand-to-brand, it’s doing better than Apple. Given that Apple has not really made any forays into targeting the cheaper end of the smartphone market — notwithstanding the fact that it continues to sell older models of the iPhone — as economic pressures continue to weigh on consumers in Europe, this trend is likely to continue.

And developing markets are likely to follow suit, too. In the two that Kantar tracks — Brazil and China — Android phones respecitvely accounted for 60.7% and 72.2% of all sales in the last 12 weeks.

Windows Phone and its main licensee Nokia, meanwhile, continue to see gains — albeit still on a modest scale that is not able to break the hegemony of Apple and Android.

In the U.S., as we noted above, it’s now passed RIM as the third-most-popular platform for smartphone buyers. In the UK, it’s still at number-four after Android, Apple, and RIM. But if RIM continues to drop fast — its sales fell by more than 10 percentage points over the last year in the UK — Windows Phone will overtake RIM by next month in the UK.

But at what cost to margin, is perhaps one question we should ask. Kantar notes that part Nokia’s success has come in the form of “keenly priced” devices being sold on prepay contracts:

“Nokia is managing to claw back some of its share in Great Britain through keenly priced Lumia 800 and 610 prepay deals.  The next period will prove crucial in revealing initial consumer reactions to the Nokia 920 and HTC Windows 8X devices,” writes analyst Dominic Sunnebo.

What Nokia may need to work on next is getting younger users (another key, price-sensitive segment) more interested in its brand.

Kantar notes that over the past six months, only 28% of Nokia Lumia 800 sales came from under 35’s, but that group collectively accounted for 42% of all smartphone sales. Sunnebo speculates that this might see Nokia applying even more competitive pricing to some of its newer high-end devices, such as the Lumia 920 that works on the EE LTE network.

Image Flickr


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Long November: Google Left December Out Of Its Date Picker In Android Jelly Bean OS 4.2

November 18, 2012   admin   No comments

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There are bugs, and there are pretty embarrassing and ridiculous mess-ups. This one was is a screwup straight from Mountain View, and it’s a very real problem. If you’re trying to add your friend’s birthday to their contact entry, and you use an Android device with Jelly Bean 4.2, and they’re born in December…you’re crap out of luck, because Google decided to leave December out completely. For all the years.

Oops. The issue was apparently reported two days ago and we might be getting Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1 before we know it. Because, well, December is indeed coming, whether Google wants it to or not.

I was able to confirm this on my Nexus 4, 7 and 10. Yes, this is a very real issue:

How does something like this make its way into a production environment? I mean, Google is a huge company, and I’m sure that the Android team alone has a massive fleet of QA testers. Are they simply grinches? The latest version of Android, 4.2, has only been in the wild for four days now.

On a very real note, this could effect any and all apps that rely on the Android date picker, which will cause all kinds of issues. The issue has been “reviewed” by someone at Google, but there is no timing until a fix will be shipped. The good thing about Android is that the update process is fairly seamless.

Still though, would Apple ship something like that? Doubtful.

[Photo credit: Flickr]




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Google Shopper For iOS And Android Gets A Pre-Holidays Update With More Deals And GoodGuide Ratings

November 09, 2012   admin   No comments

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Just like every year, there will surely be long lines in front of your local Walmart, Best Buy and Macy’s on Black Friday in two weeks (assuming you live in the U.S.). With the shopping season about to start in full force, Google is launching an update to its Google Shopper mobile app for iOS and Android to help consumers find that one cashmere sweater they’ve always wanted to give to their loved ones.

According to Google, four out of five smartphone and tablet owners plan “to use their device for holiday shopping – for comparing prices, locating nearby stores, and searching for coupons.” Those shoppers will now be able to use the redesigned Google Shopper app to find what they are looking for. The app’s new home screen now features a larger search box for easier navigation and larger photos to “let you view product designs in more detail.”

If you’re looking for a good deal on that moving alarm clock from Brookstone, Google Shopper now also makes it easier to find sales thanks to the introduction of the aptly named ‘Sales’ page. This page will show you deals from nearby stores’ weekly circulars and show you store promotions like 30% off deals and free shipping offers.

With this update, Google is also integrating ratings from GoodGuide, so if you are not sure how healthy, safe and environmentally friendly a given product is, Google Shopper can now help you put your mind to ease by showing you GoodGuide’s scores.




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Amazon Launches Cloud Drive Photos For Android, A Photo-Sharing App For Android Phones & Tablets

November 01, 2012   admin   No comments

android-cloud-drive

Amazon announced this morning the launch of a new photo-management application for Android phones, which takes advantage of its consumer-facing service known as Cloud Drive, a competitor to Google Drive and Dropbox. The new app, Cloud Drive Photos for Android, allows users to upload photos, store them in Amazon’s online storage, and view and share the photos from both their Android smartphones and tablets.

Cloud Drive includes a free level of service, offering 5 GB of storage before having to pay for additional space. Afterwards, users can buy storage starting at $ 10/year for an additional 20 GB. For comparison’s sake, Dropbox offers 2 GB for free, while $ 9.99/month buys you 100 GB and $ 199/year offers 200 GB.

Because of the way Android is architectured, the Cloud Drive application can deeply integrate with the Android operating system itself. Users can press and hold on a photo in their Android album, and select “Upload to Cloud Drive” to save existing photos from their device to Amazon’s cloud. In addition, users can choose to upload entire albums in a similar way.

Once online, photos can be shared via email, on Facebook, or launched using other apps.

Cloud Drive is already integrated with Kindle Fire HD, so it makes sense that Amazon would choose to broaden its reach with a storage solution for other Android users as well.

The app is available now as a free download on Google Play and in Amazon’s own Appstore for Android.

Developing… 




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Hubbl, The App Discovery Service From Disrupt Finalist Hmmm, Goes Live On iOS And Android

October 01, 2012   admin   No comments

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In August, the founders of TechCrunch Disrupt finalist Hmmm announced their plans to shift their attention (dare you to say pivot!) to a new app discovery service called Hubbl. Today, Hubbl is available for download on both the iOS and Android app stores. Although the new app is participating in a crowded space, Hubbl has a unique and engaging design, and makes clever use of the now-familiar hashtag for organizing and sharing your opinion around mobile apps.

Hubbl, as you might have guessed, is named for the famous telescope, and it uses the idea of “star-gazing” to inspire its theme and design. A feature in the app called “SkyView,” for example, lets you gaze at the universe of mobile apps with different lenses. App icons are laid out across the night sky, and you can move a slider to showcase apps which are now popular in the news, apps popular among your friends and others in the Hubbl community, and apps seeing activity among your friends specifically.

While the SkyView section allows for a more serendipitous form of app discovery, the key feature in this app is its use of hashtags. You can search for apps based on how users have hashtagged (labelled) them and you can use a “Suggest” option to recommend apps to others by tagging the app with what you use it for the most. Unlike in the iOS App Store, where developers create the keywords which enable their app to be discovered through search, Hubbl turns over the keyword creation process to its community of users, via crowdsourcing techniques.

This could end up being a better tool for discovery than the official App Store because sometimes, developers fail to understand how users perceive their application. So they might categorize their app for “note-taking” and “reminders,” perhaps, while a good number of users have decided it makes for an excellent “grocery list” application. With Hubbl’s hashtags, a search on its platform could retrieve the app based on hashtags related to the latter term, while the same search on the iOS App Store, for example, may have never retrieved the application at all. (That’s also why this news from earlier this morning related to Apple’s possible termination of app discovery apps is concerning. These have the potential to do offer better ways to find new apps than the official App Store).

During Hubbl’s private beta, the app saw some notable traction among testers: 40,000 apps were discovered via Hubbl, 20,000 apps were hashtagged, and 55,000 social interactions took place, which includes adding apps to favorites, among other things. The average session time was at a remarkably high 9.5 minutes as well.

In the version of Hubbl launching today, there’s also a gaming layer that features a leader board with “Appstronaut” (get it?) positionings. Further down the road, Hubbl will begin to award Top Discoverer and Top Contributors with real-world rewards, through in-app contests and other activities meant to encourage continual participation. Today’s launch also includes a developer program, which will allow app publishers to come in and claim their apps in order to gain access to a custom dashboard where they can learn more about user engagement around their app on Hubbl’s platform.

Be Warned: Still Beta, Still Buggy

Hubbl’s design has changed somewhat since its beta, but it seems a bit less cluttered now and therefore, easier to use. As a beta tester myself, the app was fun, and I enjoyed the concept of app discovery via hashtag. I’ve been looking forward to the public launch, but was really disappointed this morning to find that Hubbl is now plagued by a bug on iOS which leads the app to crash quite a bit. Hubbl’s founders, Archana Patchirajan and Kusha Choksi, assure me there’s an update submitted to Apple to address this, and it should be fixed ASAP, but you should definitely be aware of this in the meantime. Honestly, you may even want to hold off on launching this thing until they get it stable.

To be fair to readers, I would normally refrain from covering a buggy app, but because the app is live now, because it’s cross-platform (Android and iOS), because the bug is limited to iOS 6, and because the founders previously had what it took to make it to the Disrupt stage in the past, I’ve decided to go ahead and put this news out there, and let you decide whether or not it’s worth bookmarking Hubbl for later use.

I think there’s potential with Hubbl to be an interesting tool in the emerging and busy app discovery market (see also AppFlow, Kinetik, Crosswalk, Discovr Apps, AppsFire, Xyologic, etc.), but all will hinge on whether or not Hubbl’s crew can work out the kinks and grow its user base significantly after doing so. And that’s still a big unknown.

You can grab the Android version here, and iTunes version here, if you’re interested in testing Hubbl further.




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