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.

Google makes developing Android apps easy-as-pie

Google has made available App Inventor for Android that allows anyone to develop an Android application with minimal programming (if any) knowledge.

The website has uses visual building blocks which are dragged on to the 'canvas' and these can link to other functions. Access to the lower level Android functions (like GPS location and SMS) are available.

There are basic functions like buttons, canvas, checkboxes, etc and then media, animation, social, sensors and screen arrangement functions allowing complex applications to be constructed. It uses the Open Blocks Java library, which is distributed by MIT's (Massachusetts Institute of Technology's) Scheller Teacher Education Program which was used to develop the Scratch programming language. The compiler that converts the visual framework to a native Android app uses the Kawa language.

App Inventor for Android isn't openly available yet and potential users have to complete a form (using a GMail address) entering information about what App Inventor will be used for.

There are around 60,000+ apps in Android Marketplace, compared to over 200,000 in Apples app store, maybe this could redress the balance.