That means you'll be able to port the phone number you've had for 5 or 10 or 100 years to Google Voice and use whatever phone you want, whenever you want, on whatever carrier you want, with your current number—meaning you'll never have to worry about your phone number again. Right now, you can kinda hack it by forwarding calls from your current number to your Google Voice number, but you're stuck with pitfalls like texts not being forwarded. Google's also got an app cooking that'll route outbound calls through Google Voice as well, so the service is more seamless—currently, your outbound caller ID is whatever's actually assigned to the phone you're using. Update: Lifehacker pointed out a few months ago that Google mentioned the possibility in their support pages, but TechCrunch specifies Google is testing it now and that it'll roll out later this year.

I have to say, it's been interesting watching carriers become more and more irrelevant over the last two years. Their fears of becoming a "dumb pipe" are certainly coming true, and cutting the core of your mobile identity—your phone number—completely out of their hands has to be at least a little bit scary for them.

Now if Google would just solve GV's other major flaw—actually letting people in. [TechCrunch]

The first thing you'll notice about these efforts—coming from such traditionally competitive companies as Palm, BlackBerry, Nokia and Microsoft—is just how similar they all sound. App World? App Catalog? App Market? Mobile Marketplace? This outward likeness actually runs pretty deep—these stores are advertising uncannily similar feature sets, for both users and developers:

Although it might not evident in the feature-by-feature breakdown above, there are two distinct kinds of app store: The primary store, which is the first and only source of an OS's apps (see Apple), and the secondary store, which is built around an existing stock of third-party apps, and with preexisting developers in mind (see BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Nokia). It's a combination of these different lineages and divergent policy choices that make the smartphone app store experience so varied.

Apple's iPhone App Store
At least for now, the App Store is the standard by which all others are judged. Beyond that, it's given us a rough guide for what works. With a $99 dollar developer's fee and a novice-friendly SDK, the barriers of entry for an iPhone developer are fairly low. Distribution, payments and to a large extent marketing are managed by iTunes, which iPhone owners are necessarily familiar and comfortable with.

And, of course, there's the iPhone: This store may only serve one handset (and its very similar nonphone brother), but it's a wildly popular one. This makes the app store uniquely attractive to developers, because it provides access to the largest uniform app-buying market in the world. Microsoft can argue that Windows Mobile 6.5 will connect developers to x gajillion different customers through y zillion different handsets, but this variety is a curse: Handsets have different resolutions, processors, 3D hardware, input types and basic feature sets. A motion-sensing 3D game with a GPS social networking feature won't work on a lot of WinMo handsets, but a 2D, keypad-controlled Asteroids clone won't make a developer rich.

But the App Store is far from perfect. Apple, like all App Store owners, has the final say in what gets listed, delisted or banned, and they aren't afraid to remind us of this. Along with the typical risque/racist/infringing content prohibitions, Apple enforces strict and often limiting rules against apps that compete with the iPhone's native set—iTunes, Mail.app, Safari to name a few—and apps that their partnered carriers aren't too fond of, i.e video streaming and tethering apps. Now, all these rules are showing signs of loosening with OS 3.0, but as long as the App Store is the sole source of iPhone apps, any rules will seem like too many rules—especially if you're accustomed to a totally unregulated system like Windows Mobile 6.1's. Hence, the gray market.

Android App Market
This second major entrant into the app store race represents a consciously different approach than Apple's, but not in that many ways. Immediately, we see a lot to compare: A single-handset userbase (at least for now), low costs for developers and a presence as the primary—though not sole—source of apps from Day One.

But the App Market is a different breed than the App Store. Most importantly, it's not the only place you can get apps. Google has been much more lenient about what they allow in their store since the beginning but in the rare case that they don't approve of an app, as in the case of tethering apps earlier this month, you can just go download an .APK file and sideload it onto your G1 anyway. This is a healthy middle ground for everyone involved; Google doesn't alienate users by destroying entire categories of apps, but isn't forced to come into conflict with carriers because of overly liberal policies. Google has also made their Market more friendly to consumers, with a no-questions 24-hour return policy.

Great! Then why is the App Market so underwhelming? Well, the G1 wasn't exactly a runaway hit, and the store got off to a slow start. Paid apps weren't made available for months after launch, and when they arrived they didn't benefit from the convenience and familiarity of a storefront like iTunes. Moreover, there's no guarantee that things will change that much in the coming months—more handsets from more manufacturers will boost Android's user numbers, but will lead to the WinMo-style toxic fragmentation that Apple so adamantly avoids.

BlackBerry App World
Matt took a dive into the newest mobile app store, and found it agreeable, but not spectacular. RIM's is the beginning of this "secondary" app store concept, and it shows: You'll be hard-pressed to find anything here that wasn't previously available elsewhere. It is simply an aggregator for existing applications.

This was a given, as developers have been cranking out BlackBerry apps for years now. But App World was a great opportunity for RIM to give the lethargic dev community a shot in the arm. Instead of doing that, they've made the store almost hostile to would-be app writers.

Listing your wares in App World costs a hefty $200, which gives you the right to upload 10 apps, but doesn't come with any new SDKs or development tools. The payment system is PayPal, which is clumsy to use and a pain to set up. A minimum non-free price tier of $2.99, probably intended to filter out spammy apps and cover PayPal's transaction fees, discourages developers from even trying to make simple, useful apps, eliminating the $.99-to-$1.99 sweet spot that has been central to Apple's success. App World feels like an afterthought, and a reluctant one. UPDATE: It should be noted that the 70% dev revenue share figure in the chart is incorrect, and has been update to 80%—a marked advantage over the other stores.

Windows Mobile Marketplace
With Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft will introduce the Windows Mobile Marketplace. So far, their announcements have shown an awareness of the pitfalls of both Apple's and RIM's approaches: They're emphasizing non-exclusivity and app approval transparency, a 24-hour return policy and wide device support, but also making sure to get big-name app and game developers on board to ensure that users actually have something new to look forward to at launch.

On the developer side, it's a mixed bag. As in every other store, the dev take-home is 70% of each sale, but the listing fees aren't great. $99 gets you five apps a year, but anything beyond that will cost an additional $99. I'm sure this will help vaccinate the Marketplace against the fart app epidemic that Apple has proven so prone to, but it'll do so at the expense of potentially useful free and $0.99 apps—again, a crucial price range. One important factor that's still TBD is the payment system. Microsoft says they'll support both credit card payments and carrier charges, but hasn't yet said how that'll look. In both cases the process will need to be as seamless as possible.

Nokia Ovi Store
You probably haven't heard much about this store, set to debut within a month, but it's kind of a big deal for the 40m+ Symbian S40 and S60 users that it'll serve apps to. It's planned to shoehorn into Nokia's new Ovi app suite, which we were introduced to with the XpressMusic 5800, and provide a go-to source for not just apps, but ringtones, wallpapers, and basically everything else that you might have found in a 2001 vintage carrier WAP store.

There has been a decided lack of fanfare surrounding this launch, probably because there just aren't that many Nokia smartphones in the US. But its success or failure will be informative: It will be the most open of all the app stores. For the time being, there is no developer fee, and app listings are free and unlimited. You can easily publish tons of different kinds of content—Flash Lite apps, Java apps, Native S60 apps, multimedia uploads and others—which will be subject to a vetting process that Nokia has assured will be minimal. As Nokia-averse Americans, we can view the Ovi Store as an experiment in laissez-faire app-mongering—a multi-handset, mixed-media, unfiltered feed of Symbian content.

Palm App Catalog
And finally, we have Palm's App catalog. This is the store we know the least about, but that is already set for a different course than all the others. At launch, the only handset it'll serve will be the Pre—though Palm has indicated that other WebOS handsets are inevitable. It'll be the first—and likely exclusive—source of WebOS apps, and developers will be furnished with a solid, though fundamentally limited, SDK.

Palm's still-vague plan for the App Catalog will no doubt be central to the success or failure of the Pre, but we can make an educated guess at what to expect, assuming that Palm doesn't get taken over by idiots in the next couple months: Palm will vet the apps thoroughly, provide an in-house payment system, and make development simple and cheap (previewed Mojo SDK apps have shown great promise). The end result will probably look something like the iPhone App Store, but with one huge difference: there will be no local natively running apps—the Mojo SDK doesn't provide for that, just for what amount to turbocharged, locally-stored web apps. Granted, these web apps will have privileged access to some of WebOS's core functions, but it's doubtful that high-end gaming, as we've seen on the iPhone, will even be possible on the platform. These limitations (along with WebOS's multitasking advantages) will affect the nature and quality of the apps that are listed in the store much more than the Catalog's policies, though exactly how, we'll have to wait and see.

Still something you still wanna know? Send any questions about app stores, SDKs or the finest in fart-app technology to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

The change comes with a new developer API that will actually make things much easier for other developers, who've had to rely on a few undocumented calls up until now. Current licensing agreements with labels—who Last.fm is in no position to alienate—prohibit mobile streaming, though the company's official mobile radio apps—right now just on the iPhone and Android—will still work fine.

As you could imagine, this kind of blows for a lot of people. Windows Mobile users will no longer be able to use Pocket Scrobbler, Symbian folks will have their beautiful baby, Mobbler, ripped from their hands, and BlackBerry owners will soon find FlipSide, a pay app, rendered silent. And as much as I'd like to, I don't really believe that we'll see official clients for any of the platforms, at least not soon. [Last.fm—Thanks, Jealousy!]

Our tipster points out that an attractive, functional Facebook app is a pretty big step for Windows Mobile users, who either had to put up with the aggressively shitty basic mobile interface or access the iPhone version of the site in Opera Mobile—an expensive download for people who just want return a few pokes. It's not clear whether or not this app will be standard in WinMo 6.5 or just available as a free download, but it is showing up in most of the early builds. [XDA via PocketNow—Thanks, Ron-Mexico!]

Users of the Pearl, Curve and 88xx phones, despite being highly capable devices, are getting it from all angles; on one front, RIM left these handsets behind for OS 4.6, and the touchscreen Storm looks like it's from a different planet. Other phone makers are moving into exciting new territory, releasing totally new hardware and software at steady clip. In short, it can be rough to own a last-gen 'Berry, not to mention one of the older 7000 series handsets. But the theory here is the same as before—just because your handset is technically last-gen device doesn't mean it has to feel like one.

Ditch the BlackBerry Browser for Good
RIM's newest browser, bundled with 4.6x and 4.7x handsets, is good. It renders like a modern mobile phone should. NOT SO for the 4.5 and earlier browsers. They might be fine in the exciting world of WAP, but that's yesterday's mobile web.

Opera Mini: This feisty little browser has been backing up RIM's stock software for years, and with good reason. It'll run on almost any BlackBerry, with (old version) support spanning back to the ancient, black-and-white 5810, which was released in 2002. Opera uses server-side optimization to speed things up, but the end result is an experience that at least resembles browsing as we know it today.

Bolt Browser: Bolt, which I made note of a while ago for "not looking horrible", is now available to the public, and it's quite good. It uses server-side compression just like Opera Mini, but generally achieves more faithful results in a shorter time. Most of its magic lies in its rendering engine, the same soon-to-be-ubiquitous WebKit found in Mobile Safari, Mobile Chrome and the Pre's new browser.

Dress Your Interface Up Like a New BlackBerry, Or Pretty Much Anything Else
Pre-4.6 BlackBerry OSes share the same awkward aesthetic. It's at once dry and businesslike, pastel and cartoonish. A relic for sure, but one that takes customization quite well. Plenty of themes are floating around on the internet, but loads of them cost money and nearly all reside in horrible, spammy website. Oh, and 95% of them are terrible. But that means that a few aren't—here they are:

Go to Themes4BB. Seriously. Registration is required to access the forums, but once you're done you have access to a huge number of free, occasionally decent BlackBerry themes for almost any model. The obvious iPhone, Mac OS and Windows skins litter the message boards, but the best will give your interface a near-full conversion. If feeling left behind is your problem, there are high-contrast 4.6-inspired skins for most models.

Fill Out Your App List:
While you've got a prime messaging device in your pocket, there are areas where the standard BlackBerry apps are lacking. We've covered browsers, but there are other apps that can have an equally transformative effect on your handset.

Google Apps: Aside from plethora of mobile web apps offered by Google, there are a few native ones as well. Google Mobile provides access to Gmail (possibly a bit redundant), GPS-compatible Maps (a must-have) and Google Sync, which will keep your contacts and calendars neatly paired with Google Apps.

VoIP: BlackBerrys have been sadly neglected by Skype, but that doesn't mean VoIP is out of the question. iSkoot is a surprisingly functional 3rd-party app which uses Skype's network and is able to make and receive relatively clear Skype voice calls, even over 2G networks. Truphone is a simple app that'll route international calls at local call rates. Gizmo5 is one of the better of the sea of second-tier Skypes out there, and their VoIP app, which offers not just free calls to other Gizmo5 users, but instant messaging on a range of popular networks, is worth a download.

WebMessenger Multi-Protocol IM: Some BlackBerrys are blessed with a bundled AIM app; most aren't. WebMessenger does a handy job of combining most popular messaging protocols into an easy interface. And honestly, what is your BlackBerry good for if not furiously typing short messages to all your friends through as many channels as possible?

TwitterBerry: Further facilitating the aforementioned HAVE QWERTY, MUST COMMUNICATE ethos is TwitterBerry, the preeminent Twitter app for any BlackBerry. The iPhone may have seized the attention of the Twitterati, but any BlackBerry, new or old, is better suited to the service that the Apple's buttonless handset. TwitterBerry has the potential to bring upon the world heretofore unseen levels of oversharing, courtesy of you, last-gen BlackBerry users.

Viigo RSS Reader: Viigo is a fantastic RSS reader, able to consolidate any number of feeds—website content, Google Alerts, social networking sites—into a friendly, simple interface.

Dealzmodo Hacks are intended to help you sustain your crippling gadget addiction through tighter times. If you come across any on your own that are particularly useful, send it to our tips line (Subject: Dealzmodo Hack). Check back every other Thursday for free DIY tricks to breathe new life into hardware that you already own.

As you can see, you plug the dongle in and pair it with the app on your phone, and then use it to control the PS3 video player or text entry system. Sure you could get the official QWERTY keypad add-on for ten bucks more and still control movies with the controller (which is as wireless as your BlackBerry, don't forget). But if you're already a fan of Unify4Life's A/V control rig, you might like this too. It's out in April. [Crackberry]

Well, it looks like she dances, slowly. You can spin the view of her tatami room around with your finger. This app is still forthcoming, so hopefully a nice tea service or cigar-lighting-for-d-bags trick will join her repertoire before it hits the App Store. [YouTube Japan]

When you press the shutter button with Night Camera, the app starts taking accelerometer readings for three seconds; when the sensor determines that you're holding the camera steadily, Night Camera triggers the shutter at that exact moment. Accelerometer sensitivity and sensor reading time are all configurable.

Since a harsh flash in darker situations is often your worst enemy as a photographer, this is a great feature for helping battle the blurriness brought on by hand-holding your shots at low speeds. I'd welcome this feature on my DSLRs, too. Night Camera is a buck, but for a "limited time only" so grab it up now. [Night Camera - iTunes]

The new Maps 3.0 Beta adds 3D topography and landmarks for 216 cities, high-res satellite photos, improved pedestrian directions and better turn-by-turn support. You can also plan a route online via Nokia's desktop Ovi service and then sync it immediately back to your phone. Anyone using S60 FP2 can download the new Maps beta today—Nokia's acquisition of Navteq is definitely showing its benefits here.

The new Messaging upgrade ties in all of your email and IM accounts, providing push services for some accounts and more syncing via Ovi if you have a 1GB Ovi Mail account. Messaging with Ovi sync will launch later this month.

So if you're using a Nokia S60 piece, go grab these updates. [Nokia Maps 3.0 Beta, Nokia Messaging]

Tech Crunch is sourcing someone close to the affair as saying that Apple left Google completely in the dark as to why the app didn't make it into the store on Friday, as previously planned. Google keeps an airtight lock on their news, and John Markoff's piece in the NYT was supposed to accompany the app's release.

Arrington's source says despite getting a green light for a Friday release, Friday came and went without Google hearing anything from Apple other than the "In Review" status message in the automated SDK tools. Why this happened is anyone's guess, but it's merely the latest (and one of the most glaring) examples of Apple's completely backwards app approval process.

Arrington also makes a great point that Google totally did Apple a favor by releasing this app first for the iPhone, and not Android. But even that wasn't enough for even a little extra love. Yikes. [Tech Crunch]

Related: Gizmodo's Essential Iphone Apps

The demo devices give an early version of the Market since it hasn't been launched yet. We needed to be sure that a few of the 3rd party apps are final for consumer use in the Android Market when the T-Mobile G1 officially launches on October 22nd. We're replacing the preview applications with final versions today. After October 22nd, developers will be managing their own applications.

So apparently just a little pre-release cleanup; after tomorrow, though, Mommy's going out to run some errands so you're in charge now, devs.

Owners of the following phones can grab the J2ME client now:

Nokia 5300, Nokia 6300, Nokia 6500 (classic and slide), Nokia 6555, Nokia 8800 Arte/Carbon Arte, Sony Ericsson G502, Sony Ericsson K660i, Sony Ericsson K850i, Sony Ericsson K858c, Sony Ericsson W890i, Sony Ericsson W908c, Sony Ericsson W910i, and Sony Ericsson Z750i.

And those who are carrying these ten Nokia pieces can contact Qik for an even rougher version of the client to test:

- Nokia 3120 classic
- Nokia 3600 slide
- Nokia 3555
- Nokia 5610 Xpress Music
- Nokia 6600 fold
- Nokia 6600 slide
- Nokia 6212 classic
- Nokia 7373
- Nokia 7390
- Nokia 7900 Prism

[Qik]

Qik Launches First Live Mobile Video Streaming on Mass Market Phones
Support for phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson brings inaugural live streaming to J2ME handsets, the most ubiquitous application platform for mobile devices

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – October 16, 2008 – Qik, Inc., the live mobile video streaming platform, today announced that it is the first live mobile video product to launch on mass market mobile phones. Available today in alpha, Qik's service is now ready for use on more than a dozen Nokia and Sony Ericsson mass market mobile handsets. With Qik’s free service, users can stream video live to the Internet in just two clicks from their mobile phone. Those watching the videos on the web can engage in live interactive chat with the person broadcasting.

“It's a real milestone for mobile technology that an advanced utility like Qik is now available on mass market cell phones,” said Ramu Sunkara, co-founder and CEO of Qik. “We have been astounded by the use of Qik by smartphone owners, and are excited to see what mass market cell phone users will stream live to the Web.”

Mass market cell phones include non-PDA and non-smartphone handsets which are more accessible to a much broader market of customers. These devices usually carry a lower price point than more advanced phones and have deep penetration in the global mobile market. Qik's software for these handsets is based on the Java Platform, Micro Edition, (commonly referred to as J2ME), the most ubiquitous application platform for mobile devices.

“Nokia is pleased that Qik's innovative live video service is now available for owners of Nokia feature phones as well as Nokia smartphones,” said Tom Libretto, Vice President, Forum Nokia. “Qik's release for these phones adds an exciting new way for people to use an even wider variety of Nokia handsets.”

Qik is initially launching in alpha on the following handsets: Nokia 5300, Nokia 6300, Nokia 6500 (classic and slide), Nokia 6555, Nokia 8800 Arte/Carbon Arte, Sony Ericsson G502, Sony Ericsson K660i, Sony Ericsson K850i, Sony Ericsson K858c, Sony Ericsson W890i, Sony Ericsson W908c, Sony Ericsson W910i, and Sony Ericsson Z750i.

Owners of the above devices can get Qik by registering at http://qik.com/. Support for these devices is expected to enter beta in the coming weeks, and support for additional Nokia and Sony Ericsson feature phones is expected soon after.

The Pope, Senator Barack Obama, Bono, and Steve Jobs are just a few of the notables to be streamed live to the web by Qik users in more than 150 countries. Journalists are using Qik to be more transparent in their reporting, and politicians worldwide are employing Qik as they campaign on a more engaging Web platform. Parents around the planet are easily sharing family events as they happen through Qik on their cell phones. With simple but robust software and a feature-rich site, tens of thousands of Qik users are streaming important moments live to the people with whom they want to share.

Qik, in addition to being the live mobile to web video service of choice for celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, is also delivering exciting footage shot by a wide selection of users across entertainment, business, sports, and technology. Recent Qik videos of note have included behind the scenes footage from Sarah Palin and Joe Biden's vice presidential debate, interviews with comedian Dane Cook, the launch of Apple's new notebook computers, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's speech reacting to the global economic climate.

"What makes Navizon even more exciting," says the publisher, Mexens Technology, "is that a GPS device is not even required... By using wireless signals triangulation, Navizon's Virtual-GPS is able to spot your location on a map."

Exciting? I hate to be a fly in the Navizon soup, but last time I had a conversation with a carrier about triangulation, I was told that the accuracy was measured in miles.

The accuracy of GPS, on the other hand, is measured in meters. When Navigon says, "You have arrived," how can you be sure you're really there?

Before this gets too existential, let me just add that it's a good thing Navizon has a free 15-day trial. If any of you do end up testing it out, be sure to report back to tips@gizmodo.com with your experience. If you're totally lost, don't worry: We'll send help. – Wilson Rothman

Press Release [Navizon - Mexens Technology]