A recent analysis from IDC experts boasts about 10 predictions for  the year 2010. One of them is about the App trends for the year 2010. Nobody is really surprised with the obvious prediction being made that mobile apps are going to multiply tremendously in the year 2010.

As Apple is aggressively leading the App world with over 120k apps in its store and Android is chasing it fiercely with some 20k apps in Android Market, the future of mobile apps is just awesome. Apple is expected to double (may be triple) its current app count and Android is expected to hit 100k apps mark by end of 2010.

With more and more cellphone users switching to smartphones for regular use, hundreds of millions of apps are expected to be downloaded each and every month by end users. With plenty of android phones lined up for launch in 2010 already, industry experts are emphatically anticipating that Android population might surpass iPhone userbase by 2010 end, which would make this growing competition more interesting and fierce than what it is now.

PCWorld says that there might be an App Explosion in the year 2010, we bet, it will be an App Supernova ! But we have some doubts over the quality of apps delivered to end users. We hope, Google has some definite plans for quality assurance of android apps as well.

It’s no news that Motorola Droid is making the waves all over and Droid is selling like hot cakes in US & will soon hit 1 million mark in direct sales, even before it gets available in europe and asian markets.  But it’s good to see that Motorola isn’t so overwhelmed with the successful take-off in Android space and already working on its next Android phone called “Motus“.

The rumor mill has spilled out technical specs of Motorola Motus and it seems that it will not more superior and feature-rich than Droid. Here are the specs…

• Quad-band GSM/EDGE/GPRS (same as every smartphone of today)
• 7.2Mbps HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100MHz) (no surprises here as well !)
• QWERTY Physical keyboard (probably similar to Droid)
• 5 MP camera with Autofocus(similar to Droid) and LED flash (high-quality photography lovers would love this!)
• 256MB of RAM (Should have been more than this)
• GPS, Wi-Fi (obvious)
• 3.1″ capacitive 480×320 display (Large capacitive touchscreen is addictive and this one is lot bigger than usual)
• Bluetooth 2.0 support , MicroSD slot (obvious)
• Weight: 133 gms (lightweight phone)
• 1400 mAh battery (heavy duty battery)
• Qualcomm MSM 7201A CPU (just OK, nothing special about it)
• MOTOBLUR (nice ‘motorola only’ UI enhancer, lovable)

There is no info on the pricing but expect it to be dirt cheap with a data plan contract. The chances are that this phone will go in favor of AT&T network as AT&T is probably the only mobile carrier that’s not having an android phone in its kitty. Rumor mill is favoring this as well.

We will follow up with more specs.

It was almost certain that the much rumored iDon’t killer(iDon’t=iPhone) Motorola Droid will debue by October end but hardly any of the geek freaks knew that some Motorola guy would accidently(or intentionally) make the hidden stuff LIVE on public website of Motorola.

For what ? Is that so difficult to figure out ? Publicity stunt !

But honestly, Motorola Droid has got it all to be hyped to the level of becoming a threat to iPhone. It has got all the reasons to force any Apple fanboi to ditch his iPhone for Droid.

Take a look at the Eight most interesting facts about Droid first.

- First ever smartphone to sport Android 2.0 version of Android OS

- Droid to launch with Verizon Wireless, unarguably the best mobile carrier in U.S.

- Thinnest QWERTY slider keyboard smartphone till date (Slightly thicker than iPhone)

- TI OMAP3430 processor. Expect this to be lightening fast.

- The largest touchscreen ever(2.8 inch) in any smartphone till date

- 5.0 megapixels high resolution camera. Quite enviable, right ?

- 32 GB Memory space. What else can you ask for

- More than 10,000 android apps to choose from

- Arguably the Most Impressive Android Phone till date !

Needless to list the obvious smartphone features and support such as Wi-Fi, Capacitive touchscreen, high resolution…….

The above features are enough to excite deep sleeping souls as one could hardly expect such hardware capabilities to be packed in a smartphone. Those having netbooks might prefer replacing their netbooks with Droid. Wait for few more days(or another planned accidental leak ) and the pricing and other details will also be out as well.

The speculation over the next big handset manufacturer, ready to boom Android smartphone business should be over by now. It’s Motorola and the date (Sept 10) for the suspected launch of ‘Sholes’ and ‘Morrison’, is not so far either. Now, as the specs and snaps of Motorola’s flagship android phones are already creating huge buzz on web, it seems that the market has had enough of iPhone and now wants to say “hello” to Android mania.

Android platform’s future trends are bright and clear as HTC has already declared to opt for over 50% Android adoption and Dell is looking ready to take on asian consumer market with Dell 3i Smartphone as well. Now, as Motorola takes the front stage and starts selling Android smartphones with Verizon, the leading and most reliable mobile carrier in North America, things are going to be much better for Android than now.

Now, let’s talk a bit about ‘Sholes’ and ‘Morrison’. ‘Motorola Sholes’ is an Android phone that will be exclusively sold over Verizon network. Below are the rumored ‘Sholes’ specs (via AndroidandMe) but there’s no official statement yet on Sholes specs.

• OMAP3430 – 600 MHz ISP Processor
• Dim: 115 x 60 x 13 mm
• Wt: 169 gm
• Battery Li-Ion 1400 mAh
• Standby: ~450 hours, talk time: ~7 hrs
• 3.7-inches touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 854×480 pixels, 16 million color depth.
• 512MB ROM
• 256MB RAM
• microSD / microSDHC expansion slot
• Camera: 5.0 megapixel with autofocus and video recorder
• Connectivity: USB2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Wi-Fi
• Supported audio formats: AMR-NB/WB, MP3, PCM / WAV, AAC, AAC +, eAAC +, WMA
• Supported video formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, WMV
• GPS navigation
• Comes along with 8GB MicroSD memory card

On the other side, ‘Motorola Morrison’ is expected to come over T-Mobile. But there’s another rumor floating across the web that ‘Morrison’ will be a CDMA based  smartphone. Take a look at the specs for ‘Motorola Morrison’.

• Processor : Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 MHz
• Memory: 256MB RAM
• ROM: 512 MB
• Memory Card Type: microSDHC, expandable to 32 GB
• Screen resolution : 320×480 (HVGA)
• Comes alongwith Magnetometer, Proximity Sensor and Ambient Light Sensor
• Voice Bands : GSM 850/900/1800/1900, W-CDMA 900/(1700 or 1900)/2100
• Wireless LAN:  802.11 b/g, WEP, WPA, 802.11i (WPA2)
• Bluetooth Version: 2.0 + EDR
• Bluetooth Profiles: A2DP, AVRCP, GAP, HFP 1.5, HSP, SDAP, SPP
• USB: USB 2.0 High Speed, Micro USB connector
• Headset Jack: 3.5mm
• Camera : 5 megapixels
• Camera Digital Zoom (max): 5.4x
• Video Recording Resolution: 320×240 (QVGA)
• Video Recording Frame Rate: 25 fps
• Location Services: Standalone GPS internal antenna, Assisted GPS, e-Compass
• Supported Email Protocols: POP3, IMAP4, Exchange ActiveSync

The pricing is undisclosed so far but you can safely assume that it won’t be (or shouldn’t be) more than $200-300. iPhone’s pricing has really put a lot of pressure on all other smartphone manufacturers and has forced them to find other ways out for monetizing their products (remember the $2.4 billion iPhone app economy).

The Mobile OS market is very dynamic and may swing swiftly. With growing interest from majority of handset OEMs in Android platform, we estimate that Android may gain upto 10% market share by the end of 2010.

Keep checking in for more updates on Sholes and Morrison.

Here, we probably have the most basic Android powered phone (feature-wise) so far, called HTC Click. It seems like HTC is taking Android much more seriously than any other cellphone manufacturer and showing all the signs of its 50% android adoption.

The tentative unlocked price of HTC Click may be somewhere between $280 to $340. Although, the information about HTC Click isn’t much but it is clear that HTC wants to target the lower pay capacity market with HTC Click. It’s a market that doesn’t really go for monthly mobile internet subscription and just want to use mobile handset for basic mobile purposes.

This Android phone will particularly suit Asian markets where pay capacity is relatively low and this can also help HTC explore better possibilities with Android in Asian countries. We still have to wait for more detailed information on HTC Click.

The whole internet community is abuzz with the arrival of Google’s new Operation System called ‘Chrome OS’. Although we wrote earlier why ‘Chrome OS’ is not meant to kill Android, we have been hearing talks going on amongst Android community, especially third party developers, who are feeling endangered since news about ‘Chrome OS’ broke out.

Everybody knows what open source community has done for making Apple iPhone, such a global success, apart from making tens of millions of dollars for Apple. As of now, more than 65000 third party apps have attributed to over 1.5 billion downloads in just one year of App Store’s launch. The same thing happened with Android Market, which accounted for millions of app downloads since T-Mobile G1′s launch, followed by HTC Magic and Samsung i7500.

This very much proves the worth that open source community holds in such businesses and when we talk about platforms such as Android, which is actually built on an Open Source platform (Linux kernel), the open source community matters probably the most.

But now, as we hear, many android developers are planning to shift the gears. The main reason behind this drift may be an blurred future of Android, mainly due to ‘Chrome OS’ development.

What’s the argument:  Earlier, any mobile app developer could see a stable future in Android as it was supposed to be a universal OS, an OS that will primarily take over the Mobile OS market, and  move ahead to have a face-off with Windows thereafter. Although Android will have to confront much established rivals such as Symbian and  iPhone OS in the Mobile OS market but as the platform is Open source and supported by OHA(Open Handset Alliance), the long battle is plausible to be in favor of Google Android. But now with the advent of Chrome OS, it’s quite intuitive that Google’s focus on building a killer OS will be divided. It may also be a case that Chrome OS may get more attention by Google, as it is meant to conquer the BIG OS battle.

Does that mean that there will be lesser interest in Android from Google’s side ?? We reckon, absolutely NOT.

Three simple yet sufficient reasons to justify our belief..

1. Target Markets: It will never be a case that Chrome OS will serve as a Mobile OS. It also means that Android is well secure in its own arena of Mobile Handset Industry. Hence, it’s a zero probability to see Android going out of Google’s focus anytime soon.

2. Open Handset Alliance: OHA, the alliance, which was established in late 2007 with the sole purpose of collaborating and building open standards for Mobile devices, comprises of over 50 companies, including Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, Samsung, LG among many other big industry players. Now, Android platform is actually the fruit of not only Google’s efforts but also the contributions by other OHA participants. Now, when almost all the major mobile manufacturers have clubbed their hands for making Android, a global success, it is a rare possibility to see Google doing any mischief as the leading OHA member. When interests of so many companies are involved in Android, it’s certainly a safe bet to be a part of Android Community.

3. Android’s momentum: Although Android’s achievements fall short when compared to iPhone’s success but as a new operating system, it has done phenomenally well. With hundreds of thousands of units sold and millions of app downloads, Android has started off its journey quite decently. Right now, its only T-Mobile G1 and HTC Magic(G2) but by next year, there will be over 20-25 Android phones in the market. It will be a blunder if Google ignores such an explosive market with a great product(Android) in its hands. Google would simply want to build the Android momentum further and make a realized place in Mobile OS sector.