Apple’s App Store generates four times more revenue than Google’s Play Store, but Google is gaining ground

App Annie just unveiled the App Annie Index, which will be a monthly report that provides revenue and download analysis of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. They have some pretty interesting things to report in their first month. The first of which is that Apple’s App Store generates four times more revenue than Google’s Play Store. That is so interesting when you consider that close to 75% of the smartphones are Android and it’s inline with the Android Engagement Paradox we wrote about earlier in the week. It’s not all doom and gloom though because Google Play revenue grew 311 percent for the year-to-date as compared to iOS revenue, which only grew 12.9 percent.

“The gap between global revenue on iOS and Google Play is still there,” said Schmitt, “but the gap is shrinking every month, creating more opportunities for publishers to generate significant revenue growth in several countries on Google Play.”

Another interesting tidbit is that the U.S. is no longer the top country when it comes to revenue for the Play Store. Japan is the now the number one country as of October, and this is the first time the U.S. wasn’t number one since January 2012.

Gameloft starts Thanksgiving sale on several games

Gameloft is kicking off the holiday shopping season with some big sales on a few of their popular titles. All of the games on sale are priced at only a dollar, which is a great deal on some of these games.

The first title is The Amazing Spiderman, a tie-in for the summer movie. Gangstar Rio is a Grand Theft Auto inspired open-world game, and BackStab is a more action-oriented game set within England’s Royal Navy. The Adventures of Tintin is a more fun game aimed at younger audiences, and the last title is the extremely popular N.O.V.A. 3. N.O.V.A. is only available on the Amazon AppStore, however.

So who’s going to pick up a few these for the holidays?

Google+ now has direct download links for Play Store apps

There’s a cool little feature that’s just been implemented in Google+. Whenever a user links to an app in the Play Store on G+, that post will have a direct download link that users can download the app from without being redirected to the Play Store page. Not a huge feature, but little things like that make the user experience that much better.

Google+ has done an excellent job of setting up new ways to share content with friends and family, from music, movies, and now applications. And with Google+ naturally growing in size, it’s great to see Google trying to help it along and adding new features for users.

source: Google+

Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 now available from the UK Google Play Store

Following the exclusive first go-around by the Australians, the LG Nexus 4 and Samsung Nexus 10 have officially gone on sale in the UK and other select European territories. If your country has access to a Google Play devices store, you can now place your order for either of the two devices, with your choice of storage capacity.

Users are reporting that Google is currently having technical issues handling the intensive load of web traffic within the Play Store, though others have confirmed that they are having success after repeatedly trying to get through. So, if you can’t place your order immediately, we suggest you give it another go.

Have you managed to place an order? Let us know what your thoughts in the comments below.

Update: And that’s that. It appears as though both versions of the Nexus 4 have sold out while the Nexus 10 is still available to purchase.

Source: Play Store

72% percent of Android apps pose a potential security risk, says study

According to a recent study, 72 percent of all Android applications in the Google Play Store request access to at least one extraneous permission that it doesn’t inherently need to function properly. This number may seem alarming, but let’s break down some of the research firm’s so-called “results.”

According to the published findings:

• 72 percent of all Android apps (more than 290,000) access at least one high-risk permission.
• 21 percent (more than 86,000) access five or more.
• 2 percent (more than 8,000) access 10 or more permissions flagged as potentially dangerous.

As you can see, Bit9 claims 290,000 apps to be labeled as “high risk” which it says equates to 72 percent of all apps available on the Play Store. But wait–Google just announced that the Play Store now houses over 700,000 total applications. So, it appears as though the company’s findings were based on a sample of 400,000 apps. A statement from Bit9 reveals the method by which risky apps were determined:

Google Play Store reaches 700,000 applications

 With all the excitement surrounding the impending launch of Google’s new family of Nexus devices, it isn’t surprising to hear that the company has reached yet another promising milestone. The folks from Mountain View announced today that the Google Play Store had surpassed 700,000 total applications. Keep in mind this is the same number of applications Apple said it had in its App Store just last week.

There’s no doubt the portfolio of games and productivity apps will continue to increase, ultimately beating out Apple for the number of total applications available to users. However, with the introduction of the Nexus 10, Google will need to make a push for tablet-specific applications if it intends to successfully compete in the 10-inch tablet space.

Source: Bloomberg 

8GB Nexus 7 no longer availble in the Play Store, listed as ‘coming soon’

Surprise, surprise. The official Play Store listing for the ASUS-manufactured 8GB Nexus 7 has been updated, effectively showing the item as “coming soon”. This move follows several strong rumors pointing to the idea that Google could potentially phase out the 8GB version of its Android tablet to shift the 16GB version downward and replace it with a 32GB version.

Users who have purchased the 8GB version have undoubtedly witnessed the limits of its minimal storage space. A trio of Tegra 3 games and an HD movie will almost certainly fill up that space by themselves. For this sole reason it would make sense for Google to up the storage capacity of the base model to fix storage dilemmas  And, with the launch of Apple’s new iPad mini approaching, next week’s event would be a perfect moment to do just that.

Regardless, if you were planning on picking up a Nexus 7 in the near future, I would suggest holding off–at least for now. With Google’s Nexus event upon us, who knows what could lie ahead. Perhaps even a 3G-enabled version of the tablet?

Day 4 of Google’s 25-cent app deals is now live

There’s just two days left for Google’s 25-cent app sale that’s going on in the Google Play Store. As you know, the sale started this past Wednesday to celebrate the milestone of 25 billion downloads. Hit the break for today’s action.

• Broken Sword: Director’s Cut
• Camera Zoom FX
• Cogs
• Cut the Rope
• Cut the Rope HD
• Dr. Suess’s Sleep Book
• Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro
• Farm Invasion USA – Premium
• MADDEN NFL 12 from EA Sports
• Order & Chaos Online
• Pool Break Pro
• RealCalc Plus
• Ski Safari
• Where’s My Perry

Also to note is that SwiftKey 3 Keyboard is on sale as well. It’s not at 25-cents, but at 99-cents, it’s still a great buy for easily the best replacement keyboard on Android.

If you missed out on yesterday’s sales, you can still grab those deals as they are still live. Hurry, because they probably won’t last long.

source: Google Play