The wait finally ends. . Apple has issued invitations to an event in San Francisco, where the advanced version of iPad will be showcased. With rumors regarding the launch of the much awaited tablet iPad 3 doing the rounds, iPad lovers have been watching the market carefully. Apple’s preferred location, Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts has been decided as the venue for this Apple event.

With this launch, the iPad app developers shall surely have some food for thought.

Google owned mobile platform is on a rise and the growth has been immense as compared to last year. According to Andy Rubin, SVP, Mobile and digital content, there are 850,000 activations taking place every day with the total number of devices passing the 300,000 milestone. Rubin in one of his blog posting said that Android based devices like Amazon’s Kindle Fire are not counted as they don’t include company’s apps and services.

Last year at Mobile World Congress, it was announced that the android market had more than 150,000 apps. It’s just the beginning of 2012 and the mobile app developers have already taken this number up by three times to more than 450,000. That is massive. Schmidt, the founder of the internet search leader , in one of his earlier chronicles expressed that Android was getting large . So, why not the developers start producing apps for android first, instead of iOS?

Apple has released an iOS app development guide titled “Start Developing iOS Apps Today” that focuses on setting up of proper tools along with an insight into the basic principles of mobile application development for iOS and the App Store.

“This road map provides the perfect starting point for iOS app development,” Apple wrote in the document.

The reader who has no knowledge of the mobile application development process is then encouraged to enroll as an Apple developer in the iOS Developer Program after downloading the toolkit available in the guide. With “Jump Right In” the reader is then directed to a tutorial named “Your First App” on building a mobile app to become familiar with the tools and the software development kit. Apple has made sure that the reader is thorough with the fundamentals of iOS app development.

The basic principles of app development are well explained in the guide under the sections, frameworks, design patterns, human interface design, app design and the App Store, which help the budding developers’ brace up their knowledge.

This is another step towards a growing App Economy. According to a report released by TechNet, around 466, 000 U.S. jobs have been created  in the past four years due to rise of app development.

Today, Android has turned out into the most popular operating system for smartphones but still may be losing ground to iOS in the area of new mobile applications.
In a study by Flurry, a company that analyzes mobile software data, it was unveiled that the apps created for Android this January was less in number as compared to the previous year. Mobile application developers on an average made one new Android app for every three apple apps. Google though made huge profits with the sale of its first android phones in 2008, saw a decline in the growth of new apps for Android in 2011, which was just about half that for Google.
Ken Murphy, vice president at GameHouse, a maker of games such as Doodle Jump and NCIS the Game says that it makes three to four times greater revenue on an iOS title than on an Android game. According to Murphy, it takes an additional two months to develop an android game than what is required for an iOS title. It is hard to generate revenue from Android apps as they take comparatively more time to be developed. Also, mobile application developers merely have to submit iOS programs to Apple’s site while with Android, the software has to be distributed to multiple mobile application stores, which requires more efforts.

Since its introduction in 2003, Android evolution and growth is truly remarkable. For Android lovers and mobile users, its worth the effort to rewind the past and get a visual account of the android history from Android 1.0 to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). People at [x]cubeLABS, a leading specaility mobility solutions company, have come out with an epic infographic giving a detailed account of the Android OS timeline, its version history and its growing presence in mobility landscape. Here’s the infographic. Scroll down and enjoy. For high resolution image, click on the infographic.

Infographic by Android Developers at [x]cubelabs

The much speculated name of the upcoming Android OS “Ice-Cream Sandwich” is confirmed now. Earlier Eric Schmidt had mentioned that the next version would start with an “I” and will be named after a dessert. This gives enough evidence of it being names “Ice-cream” and “Ice-Cream Sandwich”.

A developer from Google responded to the code issue using the term “ice-cream sandwich” which makes it pretty much official. The current issues in Honeycomb will be resolved in the up coming version of Android OS.

The upcoming Google I/O should give enough us info on this.

Sony today unveiled its first internet tablets powered by Android’s Honeycomb. The launch was through official launch from the company at a press event. The first Sony tablet is 9.4-inch S1 media tablet with both front- and rear-facing cameras and a curved wrap design that resembles a folded magazine. The S1 features a Tegra 2 SoC and customized “Quick and Smooth” touch panel UI and has integrated infrared.

Sony second tablet is the dual-screen S2 clamshell with the same processor. The tablet is fold able and fits well in the jacket pocket. The split screen makes you relive the PSP gaming experience enhanced with its touch sensitive screen.  Both the tablets are Wifi Capable and capable enough to take on the iPad head on.

Android developers one may feel happy that major companies are looking forward to using Android as their OS even for tablets.