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Another milestone has happened. Apple has successfully crossed over the 50 billion app download mark. The number was reached around 4:55pm and Apple will give a $10,000 gift card to the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app (still waiting to see who that is).

The Apple App Store was officially launched on July 10th, 2008 and reached 1 billion downloads in 9 months (April 23rd, 2009), then passed over the 5 billion download mark on June 23rd, 2010. The 10 billion app downloads occurred 6 months later on January 22nd, 2011. The massive 25 billion app download milestone was achieved on March 3rd, 2012.

Update: The 50 billionth app was Say the Same Thing, which was downloaded by Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio.

Source: Apple, (2)

Google announced a replacement to its Talk platform today called Hangouts. The unified cross-platform messaging tool brings text, photo and live video hangouts to mobile and the web, and it is now available on iOS and Android, as well as the web through a Chrome extension.

Hangouts stay in sync across devices, and with the newly-announced Google Cloud Messaging APIs, so do the notifications. It’s a great tool that we’ll look at more in-depth in the coming days.

Download Hangouts for Android and iOS.

Via: Gmail Blog

Last, but certainly not least, is Mobilicity with their launch of the Galaxy S4. Even though they’re a couple weeks behind other carriers, they’ve come to market with the lowest price at $649.99.

However, finding one might be initially difficult as they noted on Twitter that “A limited number of the new Samsung Galaxy S4 phones are now available at select locations. Contact your local store for availability!” We’ve reached out to Mobilicity for specific locations and will update you when we hear back – but if you know a location that has one, please leave it in the comments below.

Also, if you’re considering the GS4 make sure you check out our in-depth hands-on here.

Source: Mobilicity

Google I/O has always been a source to gain deeper insight into how much impact Android is having. New Android Chief Sundar Pichai said “the momentum has been breathtaking.” Back in 2011 the number of Android activations hit the 100 million milestone. The following year the number quadrupled to 400 million in 2012. This year, the company has significantly to a mind blowing 900 million Android activations. Humbly, Pichai stated “It’s a big number but we have to remember there are over 7 billion people on the planet — we have a long way to go.”

In addition, Hugo Barra, Android Product Management at Google, declared that Google Play has over 48 billion app downloads, with 2.5 billion installs in the last month. “Even better than that, in the last four months we’ve already paid out more money from Play than in all of last year. Revenue per uses is 2.5 times what it was a year ago, globally.”

Make sure you check out our live blog here for all Google I/O details.

Hey everyone! Welcome to the Google I/O 2013 live blog. We’ll have all the updates, announcements and general hilarity that comes from a Google I/O keynote right here, so stay tuned! It starts at 9am PT/12pm ET.

Google I/O is minutes away from starting, but miraculously the small details are unfolding before hand. Two confirmations have surfaced, first that we’ll see Google update the Android to version 4.3 (probably still named Jelly Bean), but the specifics of what’s packed into the update is still unclear. In addition, as revealed on the weekend, Google Play Games – which is similar to Apple’s Game Center – also made an appearance.

We’ll bring you more details from our Google I/O live blog.

Source: The Verge
Via: Engadget

If the numbers are correct, then WIND Mobile added 11,281 subscribers in Q1. Parent-company Orascom Telecom released their Q1 2013 results today and noted that WIND Mobile Canada now has a total of 601,719 wireless subscribers (up 44.9% from 2012). In addition, APRU (Average Revenue Per User) hit $27.60, up 1.1% year-over-year. The slight increase in subs was reportedly from “its ‘Value Plus’ strategy,” plus the launch of several flagship devices, such as the Google Nexus 4 and the BlackBerry Z10.

Source: Orascom (PDF)

BlackBerry Live 2013 is in full gear and there’s more news coming at you today. Apart from the new QWERTY/Touch Q5, BBM for Android and iOS, 120,000 available apps, BlackBerry has announced that adoption for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 has gained momentum. Unfortunately, there’s no new stats, only that “the growing number of organizations testing, adopting or reaffirming commitment” to BlackBerry.

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 gives IT admins the ability to securely manage their organizations devices, including BlackBerry, iOS, and Android. We previously heard that Canadian Tire deployed “thousands” of BB10 devices (Z10 and Q10), but today’s press release noted a few more Canadian companies have embraced BB10, namely BMO Financial Group, Torys LLP, and the Canadian Diabetes Association. In addition, the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have backed the platform.

BMO “endorsed BlackBerry 10 as their platform of choice” and Claudette McGowan, VP of Digital Workspace Services at BMO, said “We are placing BlackBerry 10 orders with our North American carriers. BlackBerry remains our enterprise standard and we’ve begun deploying within our environment.”

BlackBerry has over 76 million subscribers and yesterday it was announced that there’s over 60 million BBM users. During their Q4 2012 earning, BlackBerry declared that 1 million Z10s have been shipped, but this number should dramatically increase as more countries have recently released the Z10 and Q10.

Source: MarketWire, CNW

As promised, the BBC has brought BBC iPlayer app to Windows Phone users today. It’s an HTML 5 wrap of its mobile site, not a native app, and is only available to those who have a Windows Phone 8 device. Sitting at version 1.0.0.0, BBC iPlayer is broken down by “category, schedule, featured and most popular” and allows you to stream BBC TV and radio content from the past week.

Download BBC iPlayer here from the Windows Store
Via: WMPU

The Samsung Galaxy S4 went on sale in Canada on May 3rd and carriers and retailers quickly witnessed their stock deplete. Samsung Canada even noted that due to high demand for the flagship Android “the initial supply may be limited. We expect to fulfill inventory to meet demands in the coming weeks.”

Before the big release, Samsung expected to sell 10 million units. Although there’s no official announcement from Samsung HQ, overseas reports from Chosunilbo of Korea have an unknown Samsung exec claiming that “As of the end of April, we supplied four million Galaxy S4 handsets to telecommunication operators around the world… As of Friday, we have sold more than 6 million units, and we predict that we could break the 10-million mark by as early as the end of this month.”

Samsung usually creates a flashy image – see here, here and here – to celebrate such a momentous accomplishment. It’s certainly possible and this would make the GS4 the fastest selling Android ever.

Every Canadian carrier has included the Galaxy S4 in their linep: Rogers, Bell, TELUS, Fido, Virgin, Koodo, WIND, Mobilicity (not yet for sale), Videotron, SaskTel, Eastlink and MTS.

Source: Chosunilbo
Via: SamMobile