Crash reputation can't be a good gift for mobile

Google's Android mobile operating system is marching steadily into consumers pockets, while its big rival in the PC world, Microsoft, is really suffering in the mobile stakes. In the latest Thinktank column in New Media Age, we wonder whether the Microsoft Windows brand might have helped or hindered its mobile efforts. It's certainly well known - but for some of us, at least, often for the wrong reasons! A lot of smartphones crash occasionally - they are, after all, mini-computers - but picking one with a system that is known for doing so on a PC might be a little bit less appealing.

According to industry analysts Gartner, Android also outsold Apple's iPhone OS in the first quarter this year. Not a big surprise, really, since there is a much wider range of Android devices - and they're getting increasingly attractive to consumers. It certainly means that anyone looking to use smartphones as an advertising or marketing platform must keep Android in mind.

Apple is predictably not too keen on letting competitors near its customers. It has decided to block mobile ad-networks from collecting certain kinds of information about iPhone users. Google, which now owns leading mobile ad network AdMob, isn't best pleased. The peculiarity in Apple's new iPhone rules is that it is happy to work with third parties, unless these are owned or affiliated with developers or distributors of handsets. Not being sore about the competition, then!