NY Times Android app (which is available for free)

There are millions of Google Android smartphone users, with Google reporting that 160,000 new handsets are activated every day. But since Google is giving away the operating system for free, you might be wondering how Google plans to make money from Android.

The most obvious thing Google is doing is creating demand for Google services including search, email, calendar, contact, and other cloud-based apps. The more you use those, the more you’ll be exposed to Google ads — if not on  your mobile device, then the next time you login to your account using a desktop web browser.

But speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt suggested there might be another revenue stream: subscription services. For instance, if Google launched a service costing just $10 per year that lets you subscribe to premium newspaper content, Schmidt says, it could easily generate $10 billion dollars.

Of course, there is no such Google service right now. And if there were, Google would probably have to split the revenue with newspaper publishers. But you get the idea.

Oh yeah, and Google’s expected to launch a music service for Android users soon. Does anyone really think that Google isn’t going to figure out a way to make money off of the fastest growing smartphone platform around?

via Android Community

Time Magazine has launched an official Android app that lets you access much of the information available on the Time web site on your mobile phone. It’s available as a free download from the Android Market, but for some reason it’s rather difficult to find the official Time app by searching, so you’re best off scanning the barcode to the right with your phone’s camera to go directly to the download page.

Scan to download

Stories are broken up into sections including Latest, Most Read, Politics, U.S., World, Business, and Photos, to name just a few. There’s also a Videos section with links to Time.com video features.

The stories are formatted for a small screen and the overall user interface is attractive if not always intuitive (sometimes you use an on-screen arrow to go back a page, and sometimes you use your phone’s dedicated back button). You can also hit the Menu key to pull up additional options, allowing you to save a story, adjust the text size, email the link or share it over Twitter or Facebook, or download a story for offline reading.

The offline function is pretty awesome, and it’s something I wish more web-based news apps would add.

The only real problem I’ve found with the Time app is that I think it’s supposed to be ad-supported, but the ads aren’t showing up correctly. Instead, I keep running into a small bar at the bottom of some screens and the top of others that says “web page not available.” I have a feeling it won’t be too long before this problem is fixed.

via OMG Android

NPR has released the source code for its Android app. For now, that won’t mean much to most users. The app still lets you listen to reports from NPR programs and fine live streams from local NPR member stations. It was available as a free download yesterday and it’s still free today.

But NPR is hoping that by opening up the source code to the public, the app can grow in new and interesting ways.

What I didn’t realize until today was that a single NPR fan at Google was almost single-handedly responsible for building the original NPR Android app. He did it in his free time. NPR is hoping that contributions from other independent developers can make the app more useful, attractive, or just more interesting.

NPR is also taking suggestions for the app from Android users who don’t know how to code. You can reach out to the organization through its blog or Twitter account.

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The New York Times has released an official news app for Google Android. At first glance, the app looks like a clone of the newspaper’s iPhone app. Both allow you to sort news by category (World, US, Politics, N, Travel, Magazine, Latest, and so on). And both apps are much faster and easier to navigate on a mobile device than the New York Times web site.

But the Android app has a few features that set it apart from the iPhone version. The first is a “Latest Videos” section, which lets you see the latest videos from the New York Times web site and read a brief description. If you tap on a video, it will open up in the Android media player. The iPhone app doesn’t have a video section. Interestingly though, the iPhone app has a Popular section, which is missing from the Android version.

Scan to download

The New York Times App for Android also makes use of Google’s navigation scheme for Android. For instance, I find it much easier to hit the back button to return to the previous menu in the Android version of the app than to use the button at the top of each page in the iPhone version. On the down side, if you tap the back button one too many times, you might find yourself back at the Android home screen.

For some strange reason, the developers also decided to use a drop-down menu as part of the navigation. Hanging out in the “Latest News” section, and want to check the obituaries? Grab the top of the window and pull down to get a list of all available sections. The confusing thing is the top of the window looks a lot like the Android notification bar… and it’s awfully close to it.

I’ve already found myself accidentally opening the Android notification menu when I meant to pull down the category list in the New York Times app. This UI element also takes up more space than it really needs to — especially since you can bring up the same list by hitting the Menu button on an Android phone and selecting “Sections.” That said, the app is without a doubt the best way to access New York Times content on an Android device.

The New York Times app for Android is available as a free, ad-supported download for Android 2.0 and up. It’s available from the Android Market, or you can scan the barcode to the right to get started.

via Android Community

The New York Times offers an excellent free news app for the iPhone that makes it easy to catch up on the latest news from the paper without trying to navigate the NYTimes.com web site in a mobile browser. So far there’s no equivalent app for Google Android, but it looks like one should be available soon.

The New York Times has created a FAQ for a NYTimes Android app. It says the app should work with Android 1.6 and newer and that it should be available as a free download from the Android Market or by visiting nytimes.com/androidapp. Unfortunately, neither of those things is true… yet.

Google Operating System reports that there was briefly a video of the NYTimes app running on the Google Nexus One on Google’s YouTube channel for the phone, but that video appears to have been removed.

All in all, I would have been surprised if the New York Times wasn’t working on an Android version of its app for reading the latest stories and watching the latest videos from the Times web site. But it’s nice to know that we’re close enough to an actual product launch that a FAQ has been created and a promo video has been shot.