Boxee Continues To Innovate With API And New Alpha Version
Free entertainment hub Boxee keeps on getting better and better. A couple of hours ago, the venture-backed startup released a full API that allows developers to build applications for the open-source platform using a set of API calls in Python and writing the GUI using XML. At the same time, the company is laying the groundwork for a richer App Box, which it refers to as an open application store where they are not the gatekeeper (like Apple for its iPhone App Store) but rather a facilitator.
Heck, they’re even prepared to act as middleman for connecting freelance web developers with companies looking to leverage their API. Hard not to love that type of company.
Boxee is today also introducing a new test version of the Boxee alpha version for Mac and Apple TV (get it here for Intel Mac OS X 10.4+), adding two applications that were built using the brand new API. The new Boxee alpha comes with a lot of music goodness as it includes both Pandora, the popular music streaming service, and RadioTime, which enables their users to access over 100,000 traditional radio stations from across the globe.
This comes right off the heels of the introduction of a (basic) iPhone application.
See the full article at TechCrunch.
Last.fm Silences Third-Party Mobile Apps
Hot off an announcement that they’d be charging for radio access outside the US, UK and Germany, Last.fm has said that all non-official mobile clients will be banned. This isn’t going over well.
The change comes with a new developer API that will actually make things much easier for other developers, who’ve had to rely on a few undocumented calls up until now. Current licensing agreements with labels—who Last.fm is in no position to alienate—prohibit mobile streaming, though the company’s official mobile radio apps—right now just on the iPhone and Android—will still work fine.
As you could imagine, this kind of blows for a lot of people. Windows Mobile users will no longer be able to use Pocket Scrobbler, Symbian folks will have their beautiful baby, Mobbler, ripped from their hands, and BlackBerry owners will soon find FlipSide, a pay app, rendered silent. And as much as I’d like to, I don’t really believe that we’ll see official clients for any of the platforms, at least not soon.
Article source: Gizmodo.
iPhone Makes Up 50 Percent of Smartphone Web Traffic In U.S., Android Already 5 Percent
The iPhone now accounts for 50 percent of mobile Web traffic from smartphones in the U.S., according to an AdMob Mobile Metrics report released this morning. Over the past six months, the iPhone has taken share from Blackberry and Windows Mobile. In August 2008, the iPhone made up only 10 percent of mobile Web traffic from smartphones. During the same time, Blackberry’s share has gone from 32 percent to 21 percent (with the Curve and the Pearl coming in stronger than the Storm), while Windows Mobile has taken an even bigger hit, declining from 30 percent to 13 percent. Palm is also down to 7 percent from 19 percent six months ago.
The only other smartphone operating system that is showing gains in mobile Web usage is Android, which has captured a strong 5 percent share just three months after launch. And that is up from 3 percent in January. The gains shown by the iPhone and Android show what is possible when phones are built with fully capable browsers and support a rich array of Web apps…
Read the full article at TechCrunch.
iPhone App Causes Google To Shut Down SMS Service
A few days ago a paid iPhone app called Infinite SMS, which let iPhone users employ Google’s free SMS gateway to send SMS messages without paying their service providers. The resulting surge in traffic on Google’s SMS gateway forced Google to block all third-party applications from using the free SMS feature — including Google’s own GTalk client.
See the article at Slashdot.
Android sales to outstrip iPhone by 2012?
The iPhone’s lead over smartphone upstart Android may be short-lived, according to an industry watcher’s predictions.
Android smartphone sales will outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, market researcher Informa Telecoms & Media has predicted in a new report.
Last month, Telefonica Europe said that sales of the iPhone topped 1 million in the U.K. Although T-Mobile UK–the exclusive carrier of the first Android device, the G1–wouldn’t say exactly how many of the devices had been sold, it did say the handset now accounts for 20 percent of its contract sales.
Web behemoth Google released the first beta developers kit for its Android open OS platform in August, with the first handset–the G1 smartphone–launching the following month. A second handset, the Magic, is expected to arrive next month.
Apple’s iPhone has a slightly longer heritage–with the first device arriving in the U.S. in June 2007. However, the iPhone 3G hit stores last July, giving it only a few months’ head start on its Google rival.
Both Android and OS X are eating into the market share of the best-selling smartphone OS maker, Symbian. Last year, just under half of smartphones sold were based on Symbian–a drop of 16 percentage points from the year before when it had 65 percent market share. BlackBerry OS, Linux, and Windows Mobile are also gaining popularity and eating some of Symbian’s share, according to Informa.
See the full article at CNET News.
