1）据insidemobileapps报道，Google Play应用下载量日前已超过250亿次，该应用商店历时近20个月实现10亿下载量，但仅隔5个月就迎来第20亿次下载量，后来再隔2个月就实现第30亿次下载量。在2011年12月，Google Play每月下载量超过10亿次，总下载量突破100亿次。到2012年6月，Google Play下载量已超过200亿次。

Google Play downloads(from insidemobileapps)

仅隔3个月，Google Play下载量就突破250亿次，这意味着该应用商店平均每月下载量达15-17亿次（游戏邦注：苹果在今年6月的WWDC大会上宣布iOS应用总下载量超过300亿次）。

Google Play目前有67.5万款应用，已经逼近苹果App Store的70万款应用。

App Store vs Google Play(from insidemobileapps)

2）安全技术公司Arxan Technology最近报告显示，当前应用领域的破解现象盛行，即使是免费应用也不能幸免。

该公司发现在前15名热门免费iOS应用有40%以上产品已被破解，而前15名热门免费Android应用的被破解比例高达80%。这一问题在付费应用中更为普遍，在前100名iOS热门免费应用中有92%被破解，而前100名热门免费Android应用几乎每款产品都已经被破解。

Top 100 paid apps(from Arxan)

popular free apps(from Arxan)

Arxan指出最普遍的破解类型是复制出一个付费应用的免费版本，而免费应用被破解的情况一般是被移除广告，解琐IAP内容或者绕过其中的安全措施。

此外，据杀毒软件供应商McAfee观察发现，免费和付费应用被破解时也都可能被绑定流氓插件，其最近报告指出移动流氓软件感染率已经达到12个月来的最高点。

3）Ovum最近报告指出，去年全球智能手机销量为4.5亿部，其中新兴市场销量达1.6亿部，中国在这一市场中的销量占比达三分之二。

smartphones(from cerneaworld.com)

预计2017年全球智能手机出货量将达17亿部，新兴市场占比57%。中国将是其中主要发展动力，印度、印度尼西亚、巴西和俄罗斯也将出现较显著的增长。

在平板电脑出货量方面，IDC预计2012年这一设备出货量将达1.171亿台。

4）广告解决方案供应商Azullo最近针对1014名智能手机用户的调查发现，仅有21%受访者能够回忆起在过去6个月中看到的移动广告内容。

mobile ad(from computersnyou.com)

有53%受访者无法想起任何品牌、产品或服务的广告内容，但这不是因为他们讨厌广告，而应归咎于广告信息传递方式的失败。

当问及为何无法回忆起广告内容时，34%受访者表示这些广告无法给人留下印象，39%称那些广告图片太“曲扭”。

报告指出，多数移动广告格式是从桌面广告调整过来，条幅广告被压缩成针对更小屏幕的格式，因此清晰度略有不足。另外，图片广告在移动网络上的加载速度通常也比较慢，这些原因导致广告无法吸引用户。

5）据venturebeat报道，美国流行歌手Justin Bieber最近在与手机应用开发商RC3的官司风波中赢得了第一回合的胜利。RC3曾推出一款恶搞这位明星的手机应用《Joustin’ Beaver》，Justin律师为此在2月份起诉后者侵犯其当事人的商标权等权利，但RC3回应称根据美国第一修正案条款，它有权制作出取笑名人的内容。

justin-bieber vs joustin-beaver(from chatterbusy.blogspot.com)

RC3曾在佛罗里达地区法院请求法官认同其非分权声明，但法官Roy Dalton否决了这一申斥请求，因为Bieber并不住在佛罗里达。如果RC3申请在另一地区审理案件，那就会大大提高其诉讼成本。

6）据gamasutra报道，EA日前收购《战地3》网页及手机应用Battlelog开发团队ESN，但并未公布具体成交金额。

ea buys esn(from pcgamesn.com)

ESN团队位于瑞典，过去几年与EA及DICE合作开发《战地3》的Battlelog服务，支持用户通过PC或移动设备使用其中的语音聊天、配对、论坛、资料、积分排行榜等功能。

ESN表示仍将专注于开发与《战地》、Battlelog，以及同DICE（总部也位于瑞典）合作的项目，其团队目前有20名成员，计划通过本次收购聘请更多开发者和设计师。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Android reaches 25 billion app downloads, 675,000 total apps available

Kathleen De Vere

Consumers have downloaded more than 25 billion Android apps through Google Play.

To recap, it took Google Play almost 20 months to see its first billion downloads, but the second billion took just five months, and the third took two months. By December 2011, Google was reporting its app store store was seeing more than 1 billion downloads a month and had passed 10 billion lifetime downloads. By June 2012 Google reported Google Play had passed 20 billion downloads.

Now, just under three months later, Google Play is up to 25 billion downloads. This means that Google Play is probably close to seeing somewhere between 1.5 and 1.7 billion downloads a month at this point. By comparison, Apple announced at its June WWDC event that iOS has seen over 30 billion lifetime app downloads.

Google is celebrating the milestone with a major sale. For the next five days, the company is discounting a variety of popular, paid Android apps from developers such as Gameloft, EA, Rovio and Full Fat to $0.25. It’s a strategy the company used when it rebranded the Android market to Google Play and when Google Play passed the 10 billion download mark in December 2011. The tactic not only rewards customers with sizeable discounts on premium apps, it also gives Google a way incentivize Android owners to add payment data to their accounts, which in turn should reduce the friction surrounding future purchases.

Google also announced there are now 675,000 apps available in Google Play, putting its store on even footing with iOS, which now boasts 700,000 apps according to figures revealed by Apple at the iPhone 5 launch event.（source:insidemobileapps）

2）Being free is no defense: Arxan finds 40% of free iOS, 80% of free Android apps have been hacked

Kathleen De Vere

Even making your app free isn’t much of a deterrent for hackers reports security company Arxan Technology.

The company found that over 40 percent of the top 15 most popular free iOS apps and 80 percent of the top 15 most popular free Android apps have been hacked. Unsurprisingly, the issue was even more common when an app was paid — the company reports 92 percent of the 100 most popular paid iOS apps and every single one of the top 100 most popular paid Android apps have been hacked.

Arxan reports the most common type of hack is to simply make a free copy of a paid app available. For apps that are already free hackers typically strip out advertising, unlock in-app purchases or bypass security measures.

Hacked versions of both free and paid apps are also commonly bundled with malware, a finding backed up by security and anti-virus software provider McAfee. The company recently reported mobile malware infections hit a 12 month high as hackers experimented with new kinds of mobile malware. The two fastest growing categories of malware are ransomware — code that holds a user’s data for ransom until money is received — and botnets that turn infected devices into “zombies” that are used to send spam or conduct DDoS attacks.

Although sometimes found in official app stores, hacked or cracked apps are most commonly found in unofficial third party app stores such as Cydia, torrent sites and app distribution sites run by third-parties and hackers.  While iOS users that wish to use hacked versions of apps need to first jailbreak their device to gain root access to the iOS operating system, Android users can simply change a setting in their device preferences to allow them to download apps from any source or market. This setting, combined with the fact that apps released through Google Play aren’t encrypted (as they are in the iTunes App Store) accounts for the higher level of Android app piracy according to Arxan.（source：insidemobileapps）

3）Smartphone shipments to hit 1.7bn in 2017

by Zen Terrelonge

And emerging markets are expected to account for 57 per cent of them.

Ovum reports that 450m smartphones were sold last year, with emerging markets accounting for 160m of the sales – specifically, China was the driving force for emerging markets and accounted for two-thirds of the sales.

Total smartphone shipments are set to reach 1.7bn in 2017, and emerging markets are to power 57 per cent of devices sold.

Shiv Putcha, principal analyst of telecoms emerging markets, Ovum, said: “China is at the center of smartphone development and adoption in emerging markets, with the whole ecosystem increasingly geared toward the production of ever-more feature-rich affordable devices.

“This new wave of affordable smartphones will have a major impact on consumer choice in emerging markets.”

Indeed, low-end smartphones can be bought for sub-$100, though affordability is still an issue in developing countries.

While China is the dominant force, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia are also set to show growth.

In other shipments-related news, IDC expects 117.1m tablet shipments in 2012.（source:mobile-ent）

4）Only one in five phone users remember mobile ads

by Tim Green

Oh dear, the message is not getting through.

The mobile ad business keeps growing, with some of its networks serving 30bn ads a month.

These firms, and the advertisers they work with, are realistic enough to recognise that only a small number of consumers engage with their campaigns.

But still, the results of this survey from Azullo will be pretty alarming.

Azullo, the company behind the advertising solution Respond, polled 1,014 smartphone owners and found that just 21 per cent recalled having seen any kind of mobile ad in the last six months.

And 53 per cent of this group couldn’t recall which brands, products or services were being promoted in the ads they had seen.

But there is a silver lining. The reason for their ignorance was not down to dislike of the medium, but actually to the failure of the ads to communicate.

When asked why they couldn’t recollect a campaign, 34 per cent said the ads weren’t memorable, while 39 per cent the images were ‘too distorted’.

Guy Cookson, co-founder of Respond, said: “Most mobile ad formats are adapted from desktop. Banners ads are squeezed to fit far smaller spaces, with resulting compromises in clarity.

Graphical ads are also often slow to load over mobile networks.

“This is no way to engage an audience, to invite discovery, to inform and delight.”

Respond solves this by replacing banners with a call to action ‘button’.（source：mobile-ent）

5）Justin Bieber winning joust with Joustin’ Beaver game creator

Dean Takahashi

Pop star Justin Bieber won a round in his legal joust with RC3, a maker of mobile apps that created a game parodying the singer’s life. Joustin’ Beaver has been out for a while, prompting the singer to sue for trademark and publicity right claims in February.

RC3 countersued in Jacksonville, Fla., that it had a right to make fun of the singer on First Amendment grounds. After all, if Billy Crystal can make fun of celebrities at the Oscars, why can’t RC3 do the same in an app? Bieber’s attorneys have issued a cease-and-desist letter asking the company to pull the app from the Google Play and iTunes App Store.

In its lawsuit, RC3 said that the game was inspired by Biebermania. In the app, a beaver floats down a river. The cartoon character has long bangs like Bieber, and it has a lance and a purple sweater. The beaver takes out paparazzi-like Phot-Hogs that are trying to take his photo. The beaver also has to sign “ottergraphs” for onlookers, and it also has to dodge the “whirlpool of success.”

RC3 was trying to get the judge to sign off on a declaration of noninfringement. But U.S. District Court Judge Roy Dalton dismissed RC3′s complaint because Bieber doesn’t live in Florida. If RC3 has to file in another venue, it will likely make the lawsuit more expensive for the company.（source:venturebeat）

6）EA buys Battlefield web app maker

By Eric Caoili

Electronic Arts has acquired the team behind the Battlelog web and mobile app for Battlefield 3, strengthening its efforts to attach online services to its major titles. Terms for the deal were not disclosed.

Based in Sweden, ESN has spent the past several years working with EA and DICE to create the Battlelog service for Battlefield 3, which gives users access to game-related features like voice chat, matchmaking, forums, statistics, leaderboards, and more on their PCs or mobile devices.

A number of publishers have made these ancillary services and game-centric social networks a key part of their titles in recent years, as can be seen with Activision’s Call of Duty: Elite offering and Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Network web app. EA’s upcoming title Medal of Honor: Warfighter will also feature support for Battlelog.

ESN says it will now focus all of its energy on Battlefield, Battlelog, and projects with DICE (which is also headquartered in Sweden). The studio currently employs 20 workers, and is looking to hire more developers and designers after this acquisition. （source:gamasutra）