Android apps must play nicely

Google has updated its terms and conditions so that all apps on the Play store must use Google's update mechanisms and are not allowed to directly update themselves.

This will directly affect Facebook's Android app, which had a persistent message displayed to users that a new version was available and took the user to a download link directly from Facebook.

Forcing users to only update through Google Play is a good move as it also allows Google to ensure apps can be removed from the store and thus users will no longer be able to access updates, which is especially useful if they are found to have malicious code or break other T&Cs. It also allows Google to track downloads etc.

Opensignal launches iPhone app

Opensignal the company behind Opensignal Coverage Maps has released an iPhone app available on the iTunes store.

The Android app (available in Google Play) has been around for some time and the iPhone app is unfortunately a poor cousin in terms of functionality due to the limitations of Apple's restrictions in iOS.

The iPhone app is more of a WiFi locator app, though it does have access to Opensignal's coverage data as a map overlay. This is pulled from Opensignal rather than being able to read any information (apart from signal strength and connected network) from iOS itself.

In order to better coverage data, users will still have to download the Android app and use that to map WiFi and cellular signals which are directly exposed in the underlying operating system.

Opensignal could release a Blackberry app as much of the underlying network is also exposed, though whether they will do this is as yet unknown.

Spotify nows Plays on Android

Spotify has now released their app on to Google Play (formerly Android Marketplace). The app has been available from Spotify's site in beta for a while. The new features are

• Totally new app with full support for Android 4.0
• All-new slide-out navigation
• Crossfade/gapless playback settings
• Widget - control Spotify from the home screen
• Playlist folder support
• Even more social - check out friends’ profile pages and playlists on the go
• Artist imagery in high resolution
• Related artist view - available for the first time on mobile
• ‘Extreme’ sound quality setting for 320kbps listening
• Play queue
• Last.fm scrobbling
• Speed increases

In order to use the mobile version users need a Spotify Premium subscription. Spotify now gives access to over 18 million songs and is available in 15 countries including USA, UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. there are now over 10 million active users with over 3 million paying subscribers.