ReadWriteMobile

Last September, during the f8 Developers’ Conference, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor said that the company had no plans for a “central app repository” – an app store. Today, Facebook is changing its tune. The social giant has announced App Center, a section of Facebook dedicated to discovering and deploying high-quality apps on the company’s platform. The App Center will push apps to iPhone, Android and the mobile Web, giving Facebook its first true store for mobile app discovery. 

Did you know that the majority of Android users in China are on a 2G network? That about 44% of Android users in China use HTC phones? That almost 14% of iPhone users in China have spent $10-$20 on paid apps, with 9% spending more than $50?

China has the largest mobile-phone installed base (by volume) in the world, and just as it is in the U.S., the Chinese market is an Android vs. iPhone war. So how do people in China use their smartphones, and how does that compare to those in the United States?

Some things just cannot stay hidden. One of the most popular iOS apps of all time is now unofficially available for Android: Flipboard, the personalized magazine app that had been exclusively available only on the iPhone and iPad, has made its way to Android smartphones through an enterprising hack by a developer at XDA Forums. The greatest part? It is incredibly easy to install.

Laptops are doomed. In the next five years, tablets will displace notebook-style computers to become the dominant personal computing platform. And the transition from laptop to tablet has already begun.

Is the world ready for mobile payments? Not quite, according to a global survey released by MasterCard yesterday. There are a variety of factors that lead will lead to mobile payments adoption across the planet, from infrastructure deployment to consumer willingness to make payments with a mobile device. The mobile payments revolution hasn't arrived just yet, but if MasterCard can be believed, we are not far away.

The central issue in Oracle's Java copyright/patent case against Google, which has been lost after a million-and-one interpretations of the case over the last two years, remains this:  If Company #1 implicitly grants Company #2 the right to use technology that #1 created and owns, to the extent that it's perfectly fine with #2 copying portions of that technology for its own purposes without seeking explicit permission first, does that implied consent transfer to Company #3 when it acquires Company #1?  The interim answer, issued by a jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today, appears to have been, "It depends."

The jury in the copyright case between Google and Oracle has returned a split, partial verdict as to whether Google infringed on Oracle’s copyrights of Java and its APIs. Are computing languages copyrightable? The answer is not exactly clear cut.

Apple seems able to do no wrong. In its most recent fiscal quarter, the giant consumer electronics maker posted a 59% increase in sales and a whopping 94% rise in profits. Such stellar numbers disguise the possibility that Apple’s near future may not be so prosperous, particularly if it falters in China.

That Apple remains in first place in the tablet market comes as no surprise. IDC's latest research shows that in the first quarter of 2012, Amazon's once-hot Kindle Fire is struggling. According to IDC, Amazon's share dropped from nearly 17% of the tablet market to 4%, with fewer than 700,000 units sold compared to Apple's 11.8 million.

App stores are frustrating, cluttered places. Even with Apple’s prescreening process of every app that passes through its iOS gates, the App Store, it is often hard to find what you may want or need. This is a problem for consumers - but an even bigger problem for developers that often rely on these apps to make a living. For every successful app that makes millions for its publisher, there are thousands of apps that will not rise above the mess.

So, you are an app developer and you have figured out your next big idea. Dollar signs and millions of downloads float through your head, like so many sugar plum fairies. If you build it, users will come... or so the thought goes. But there is really a lot more to it than that.