Robo5 launches for Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD!
Animoca, the creator of the ultra-cute Pretty Pet Salon franchise, presents a steampunk robotic adventure that will give you hours of mind-bending fun! Get Robo5 on the Amazon Appstore for your Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HD!
Robo5 is a 3D action puzzle game that gives you control of Robo #5, a lone little robot trapped in a strange decaying world filled with towering mountains of junk. Robo is missing his memory and you need to guide him to the top of gigantic piles of boxes to help him reactivate his cognitive functions.
Help Robo by pushing, pulling and climbing past boxes and traps. Remember to keep a close watch on Robo’s energy reserve, because once he runs out, it will all be over for our little mechanical hero. Play Robo5 now and try to uncover his origins and purpose!
Robo5 is available on Amazon for the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD
Top Android tablets & brands among new Animoca users for July 30 – August 6, 2012
Every now and then we take a look at the distribution of the most popular tablet devices among new users in the Animoca Android network. Since Animoca users are fairly well spread out over the world (as described here) this gives us a rough idea of current global trends in the Android tablet market and lets us glean insights for game development. We trawled through last week’s data and now we share the breakdown, by device and by brand, of the most popular tablets among new Animoca users for the week of July 30 to August 6, 2012.
These data are for tablets only, not phones; we also excluded hybrid devices like the Galaxy Note, since such devices are better treated as large phones rather than tablets. The first table shows breakdown by individual model, the second table looks at the overall share of each brand.
Please do keep in mind that these numbers are derived from looking at new users of Animoca products over the past week, and nothing more. As noted, it gives us a rough idea of current trends. Other developers with different audiences could well report quite different results.
Top 10 tablets among new Animoca users for the week of Jul 30 – Aug 6, 2012
| Tablet | Share of New Users | Screen Size | Brand | |
| 1 | Kindle Fire | 18.84% | 7” | Amazon |
| 2 | Galaxy Tab | 10.71% | 7” | Samsung |
| 3 | Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) | 4.17% | 7” | Samsung |
| 4 | Galaxy Tab 10.1 | 2.77% | 10.1” | Samsung |
| 5 | Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus | 2.69% | 7” | Samsung |
| 6 | Iconia Tab A500 | 1.63% | 10.1” | Acer |
| 7 | Nexus 7 | 1.37% | 7” | |
| 8 | Xoom | 1.27% | 10.1” | Motorola |
| 9 | Tablet S | 1.18% | 9.1” | Sony |
| 10 | Galaxy Tab 8.9 | 0.95% | 8.9” | Samsung |
Top 5 tablet brands among new Animoca users for the week of Jul 30 – Aug 6, 2012
| Brand | Share of New Users | |
| 1 | Samsung | 25.33% |
| 2 | Amazon | 18.84% |
| 3 | Asus | 3.51% |
| 4 | Acer | 3.37% |
| 5 | 1.37% |
The data allow for some interesting observations. We can see immediately that Amazon’s Kindle Fire is the top Android tablet, an especially impressive accomplishment considering that the original Kindle Fire will soon be superseded by the launch of the even more appealing Kindle Fire 2.
Another company that continues to impress is Samsung: the South Korean titan of tech accounts for no fewer than half of the entries in our top 10 list. The strategy of providing a broad product range has made Samsung the top Android tablet brand, in aggregate. Essentially, Samsung made one out of every four tablets that joined the Animoca Android network last week (25.33% of them, to be precise).
Asus did not manage to break into the Top 10 with any individual device, but popular models like the TF201, TF300 and TF101 all together accounted for 3.51% of last week’s new users, the third highest total for a brand. The single most popular Asus device was the TF300 at 11th position, with 0.90% of the share. Note that we counted the Nexus 7 as a Google device and not an Asus device, however either way Asus remains a distant third behind Samsung and Amazon and ahead of Acer.
Acer’s Iconia series, from the A100 to the A500, accounted for 3.37% of new Animoca users last week, hot on the heels of their fellow Taiwanese rival Asus. On that note, HTC is absent from these lists because – although it is a major phone manufacturer – its foray into the tablet space has been quite limited. The budget-oriented HTC Flyer (which was discontinued at the end of 2011) did show up in the top 100 when we compiled our data, but it was too far down the list to be of much note.
This brings us to Google’s tablet, the Nexus 7, which has overtaken Sony and Motorola in less than a month and a half since being unveiled and despite some difficulties in obtaining the device! It’s undoubtedly a promising entry in the market.
A large percentage of new tablets on the Animoca network last week were either unidentifiable or made by brands with less significant market share, including Viewsonic, Archos, Ainol, Hyundai, Newsmy, Coby Kyros, APad A8, Archos, Lenovo and the afore-mentioned HTC.
Another item of interest is screen size: five of the top 10 devices have a screen size of 7 inches, three are 10.1 inches, and two are roughly 9 inches. While it’s obvious that larger tablets still have significant appeal, it seems that a screen of 7 inches hits the sweet spot for factors like usability, price and portability.
Hey TechCrunch: what Android decline?
The posts of the legendary MG Siegler on TechCrunch have soared fantastically over the mundane landscape of technology news & analysis, reaching adulatory heights rarely matched by other Web publications while providing an interesting and entertaining (if occasionally slightly skewed) read.
But now a TechCrunch post by a different writer (Matt Burns) alleging the rise of an “Apple monopoly” in smartphones and tablets has left readers confused on some points, and not because of adoration in the classic Sieglerian style. The article, titled The Decline Of Android Foretells The Rise Of A Total Apple Monopoly, makes some surprising claims – among, it must be noted, some fair points. The first questionable claim is in the title itself, where an Android decline is alleged. There are a few others.
On Android:
Android is faltering at the hands of the iPhone.
On the iPhone:
There isn’t a better universal smartphone on the market. This isn’t open for discussion and the numbers prove it. Smartphones are now outselling less expensive feature phones with the iPhone as the number one seller. That states above all else that consumers overwhelmingly prefer Apple’s take on mobile phones.
On consumers:
They want a phone that works and they’re choosing the iPhone.
On the competition between iOS and Android:
Android is the only hope to stand tall against Apple and it’s currently in a sad state…. Four years after Android launched, consumers overwhelming choosing the competitor within the last three months.
And so forth. We propose an explanation, firmly tongue-in-cheek: Morbus silicii vallis. It is a (fictional) condition found among some technology professionals in the Silicon Valley area, resulting from over-preoccupation with one’s immediate sphere of activity and leading to a geographical attentional deficit. [Offered with apologies to all medical professionals and students of Latin, plus everyone in Silicon Valley]
Hey, we did emphasize that it was tongue-in-cheek. On that note, we’d like to point out that the last part of the web address of the TechCrunch article is “apple-will-one-day-rule-the-world”. It may not be an entirely serious post but it does provide fodder for discussion. Read on for the full treatment.
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