It’s no secret that FNB, First National Bank, is at the forefront of innovation at banking in South Africa, and actions are pointing at another first for South African banking from them.

FNB was the first bank that embraced social media, and since then has seen great success with its twitter consultant account, RBJacobs (FNB Guy), that helps FNB customers with quick solutions to problems they are experiencing as well as providing them with advice when they need it.

The last couple of weeks allot of FNB customers started asking about dedicated smartphone apps for the internet banking service, even though FNB gives customers access to mobile banking through their fnb.mobi site and through a USSD service, the company seems to have listened to their customers’ request and yesterday on twitter started asking around at what mobile platforms users would like apps for.

Shortly after users responded, FNB changed their profile picture by adding Apple, Android and BlackBerry logos to it, making it even more obvious that they will be launching smartphone apps. The FNB twitter account also mentioned that they will be announcing something today and questions answered by the account hinted that it may relate to dedicated smartphone apps for internet banking. This morning RBJacobs confirmed that today today they will be talking about the FNB App launch, confirming all the rumours.

Would you make use of a dedicated FNB smartphone app to do you internet banking? If so what platform would you prefer?

It feels like just the other day that Google revamped the Android Market giving it a great new look, but it seems the Google Mobile team has been at it again.

Google yesterday announced in a blog post that they have been working hard at improving the Android Market and has now released a brand new version. The new Android Market not just gives you new ways to find great applications and games, but the company has now also introduced movie rentals and book purchases.

Movie rentals and book purchases will however only be available to U.S. users, but you can see Google has put allot of thought into this as when you rent a movie or purchase a book it gets linked to your Google account making it instantly available across all of your devices - computer, phone, or tablet.

The new Android Market layout overhaul makes it faster, easier, and more fun to discover great apps, movies, and books. Google has not just increased the space to feature some of the most interesting content of the week, but they have also introduced staff picks and editors’ choice sections in addition to new top chart sections that will showcase the most interesting apps of the week.

The new Android Market will only be available to Android handsets running Android 2.2 Froyo and up and will be rolled out to users around the world in the coming weeks.

At an even last night in Mountain View, Google announced the long awaited Android Market website http://market.android.com

For long the only way Android users could explore the Android Market was through the Market app on their mobile phones, which was frustrating and compared to other App Stores, like the Apple App Store, a bit disappointing.

The new Android Market Website is set to change that by allowing Android users to browse through all the apps in the Android Market by category or introduce them to the latest top free and featured apps.

Android users also have the ability to search, something that was previously missing from the old App Marketplace. But for me the greatest feature has to be the auto app download to your phone, with a simple click on the Android Market Website you can request the selected application to download to your phone and install without you needing to touch your phone.

The Android Market Website is clean, fast and easy to browse its easy to see that this will be a hit amongst Android users.

What do you think about the new Android Market Website?

Apple recently started a countdown to the 10 Billion’th App download and even launched a contest to give away a very generous $10000 iTunes Gift Voucher to the person who download the 10 Billion’th app.

By the end of January 2010 the Apple iTunes App store stood at 3 Billion downloaded Apps, and a year later, today, it has surpassed the 10 Billion download mark.

It just shows how popular Apps have become amongst smartphone users, and with Apple that has launched the Mac App Store recently figures might just double during the year to come.

Apple has released no word yet on who the person is who won the $10000 iTunes Gift Card Vouchers, but I sure hope its me! In the mean time, if you are based in South Africa and would like to get your hands on all the wonderful games, movies, series, music and apps the US iTunes store has to offer, check out this tutorial on opening a US iTunes Account and then check out where are the cheapest places to buy iTunes Gift Cards.

DStv Mobile the new mobile television service from Multichoice that allows you to view a range of DStv channels straight on your mobile phone has announced that the release of their Android and Nokia apps are almost here.

DStv Mobile launched in December 2010 with the Drifta decoder, a mobile decoder that allows PC users and Apple iPad, iPhone4 and iPod users to view the channels on their devices, but lets face it although the Drifta decoder comes in at an affordable price of just under R600, the currently supported devices are limited.

DStv Mobile has however announced on their Twitter account that from April 2011 the Drifta will be compatible with certain Nokia and Android phones through the new applications that they plan to released.

The Drifta decoder works by receiving the DStv Mobile DVB-H signal and then retransmitting it over WiFi where phones, PC’s or devices with the DStv Mobile application can then receive it to view the channels.

DStv is set to launch the DStv Mobile service on 1 April 2011 commercially at a cost of R36 per month, there are however speculation that premium DStv subscribers would have access to the service for free. The service is currently in trial and you can buy your Drifta decoder at major retailers and make use of it for free until the end of March 2011.

With out a doubt one can easily say that 2010 was the year of the mobile App, with just about everybody jumping on board and releasing their own iOS, Android and Blackberry Apps, but what changed the way we consume mobile media even more was the release of the Apple iPad. Suddenly app makers had so much more screen real-estate, power and features to work with.

Every year Apple releases its annual iTunes Rewind feature where it names all the apps that are worth owning, and good for them cause with more than 300 000 apps in the Apple iTunes App Store, choosing the right one can sometimes be a bit difficult.

Its no surprise that Flipboard has taken the number one spot as the Apple iPad App of the year, this is definitely my favorite App for the iPad too.

Now if I were to choose the iPad game of the year I would give it hands down to Angry Birds, Angry Birds is in almost all of the iOS top 10 App categories for this year and rightfully so. The addictive game where you catapult birds has been a huge success with just about every iOS user this year, and its fame does not stop at the iOS platform. Unfortunately iPad game of the year went to Osmos for iPad.

Top iPad Apps of 2010

Top 10 Free iPad Apps

1. iBooks
2. Pandora Radio
3. Netflix
4. Google Mobile App
5. Solitaire
6. Movies by Flixster–with Rotten Tomatoes
7. IMDb Movies & TV
8. Kindle
9. Google Earth
10. Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD

Top 10 Paid iPad Apps

1. Pages
2. GoodReader for iPad
3. Numbers
4. Angry Birds HD
5. Keynote
6. Glee Karaoke
7. WolframAlpha
8. Pinball HD
9. Friendly Plus for Facebook
10. Star Walk for iPad

What is your favorite iPad App of 2010?

The highly successful iPhone, iPod and iPad game Angry Birds, which has has over 6.5 million purchases, has finally made it to the Android platform.

The aim of Angry Birds is to take control of a flock of birds who’s eggs have been stolen by a group of evil pigs. The pigs have taken refuge within structures made of wood, glass and steel and your job is to launch the birds with a slingshot to either hit the pigs directly or hit the structures around them to fall on them and destroy them.

Angry Birds has now been launched on the Android platform and for a limited time you can grab it for free via GetJar.

Angry Birds will work on the following Android devices:

Htc: Desire, Desire Z, Evo 4G, Hero, Incredible, Legend, Magic, Wildfire
Samsung: Galaxy U, GT I5500 Galaxy 5, GT I5700 Galaxy Spica, GT I6500 Galaxy, GT I9000 Galaxy S, GT M110S Galaxy S, GT P1000 Galaxy Tab, SCH I500 Fascinate, SCH I899, SCH R880 Acclaim, SGH T959 Vibrant, SHW-M100S, SPH D700 Epic 4G, SPH M900 Moment, SPH M920 Transform
Acer: E400 BeTouch, Liquid, Stream
Alcatel: OT-980
Apanda: A60
Chunghwa Telecom: CHT 8000
Dell: Streak, Thunder
Elocity: A7
Garmin-Asus: A10
Google: Nexus One
Huawei: U8100 Ivy, U8110, U8230
Lg: E720 Optimus Chic, GT540 Swift, GW620 Eve, KU9500 Optimus Z, LU2300 Optimus Q, P500, P503 Optimus One, SU950 Optimus Z, VS740 Ally
Motorola: A955 Droid II, Droid, Droid X, Enzo, MB501 Cliq XT, Moto XT800, XT701, XT720 Motoroi
Pantech: IM-A600S Sirius Sky, IM-A630K Sirius Izar, IM-A650S Sirius Vega
Sony-Ericsson: X10 Xperia
T-Mobile: MyTouch 3G, MyTouch 3g Slide, Pulse
Vodafone: 845
Zte: X850 Racer

Mobile and apps are today what the dot-com bubble was back in the late 90′s, and it comes to no surprise that Google knows this and that’s why they are now introducing apps in its search results.

Normally when you are looking for a certain app to do something you would like, you set out to Google it and then read up on it. Great news is that Google now makes it even easier to get your hands on the actual app.

From now on if you visit Google.com from you Android powered device or iPhone and search for an app, Google will now provide you with special links and content at the top of the search results. These links will enable you to go directly to the Android Market or iPhone App Store to download the app.

Some of the application’s basic details will also be listed on the results page like its rating, price and who published it.

Unfortunately us in South Africa will have to wait a bit longer for this feature as it is currently only available for US users, I believe it’s got something to do with the fact that we can’t get paid apps in the Android Market, not sure about IPhone App Store. Hopefully we will see this soon as I see this as a real handy feature.

The Android Market is fast catching up to the popular Apple iTunes store when it comes to applications. Recent statistics from AndroLib shows that the Android marketplace had 9,331 new mobile applications added during the month of march, this is almost double than the previous month.

Since the launch of the Android Marketplace in October 2008 the market has seen rapid growth. When the Android Market initially launched after its first month there was a mere 167 applications available for download. Today the Android Market features over 30 000 applications and the numbers is on the rise each month.

Apple currently still has one of the largest markets available for applications but Android is currently the fastest growing mobile application store out there. If your brand still haven’t got an Android application I think you should consider looking into one ASAP.

The Android Market at its current rate is almost multiplying application additions each month compared to previous months, this is good for the user but can be alarming for the developer wanting to get his idea out there first.

Tell us what applications you use from the Android Market.

Last week I got the news that I was eligible for an upgrade, at first I wanted to port to Vodacom to get the iPhone as I have played around with a few of them and love it, but after some consideration and a hefty price tag my attention turned toward the HTC Hero or iPhone killer as some say.

It was a mission to get hold of one, as everybody is either out of stock and only expects new stock in the next year or does not get the phone until next year. Lucky for me the guys at Durbanville MTN shop got hold of an HTC Hero in only one day, great service from them, and I picked up my Hero yesterday.

The phone is absolutely superb, I’m loving every aspect of it and can see why people are saying that it’s the iPhone killer. The HTC hero is lightning fast with applications and menus opening instant without any sign of hesitation. A nice feature is the Accelerometer, one example I tested was with Google Maps in street view. Enabling the digital compass feature and physically moving around with the phone in your hand made the street-view move around as if you where standing in the street and looking up, down, left or right.

Out of the box the Android operating system asks you for login details to social networking sites like Facebook, twitter and Flicker and integrates it into your home screens if you would like to. Importing contacts was a breeze specially since I had all my contacts in Gmail, Android just asked me to sync with my GMail account and voila there all my contacts was imported.

The Android market place is also a breeze to operate with all the apps you can think of, 99% of the kind of apps I searched for where free.

The 5 mega-pixel camera of the HTC Hero is also very nice, it takes very high quality images that is sharp and crisp. One downside of the camera is I would have liked a flash, but its not the end of the world.

I’m definitely a Android fan now, and won’t turn back anytime soon. The Hero is sure to give Apple iPhone a run for its money.

If you are due for an upgrade have a look at the Hero, I’m sure you’d like it. I’ll be writing more about Android and Tips and Tricks for the HTC Hero and Android marketplace from now on here.