First thing first, the breaking news is: Google announced yesterday on its blog it has acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The importance of this acquisition lies on that Google is reaching now the same status as its main competitor (Apple) since it becomes at the same time both OS provider and device manufacturer.

Actually, Apple has enough reasons to fear such operation: Android is the most used OS on smartphones so far, and the only field that Apple overtakes Android is on the amount of devices sold (basically due to the fragmentation). The acquisition of Motorola Mobility feeds Apple’s fear of a future Android integration. However, it could also raise doubts on the other smartphones manufacturer using Android OS.

Surprisingly, most of these manufacturers have taken the news as something positive (at least that is what they have officially said).

“We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem.”

- J.K. Shin
President, Samsung, Mobile Communications Division

“I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.”
- Bert Nordberg
President & CEO, Sony Ericsson

“We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem.”
- Peter Chou
CEO, HTC Corp.

“We welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.”
- Jong-Seok Park, Ph.D
President & CEO, LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company

These reactions are due to two basic reasons. First, Google has stated that Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android, and Android will remain open-source Google will treat Motorola Mobility as a separate business. Google says that it is meant to boost Android ecosystem and improve the competence on devices technology. Second, Google has announced that policy on the manufacturing of Nexus devices won’t change.

“We have this strategy where we have this Nexus program, and we have this lead device strategy. That strategy has worked quite well to help focus the team.

What we do is that we select each — around Christmastime of each year — we select a manufacturer that we work very closely with to release a device in that time frame. That includes, also, semiconductor companies and all of the components that go in the device.

We don’t expect that to change at all. The acquisition is going to be run as a separate business. They will be part of that bidding process, and part of that lead development process. And obviously Android remains open to other partners to use as they are today.”

Despite the initial calm with which the major manufacturers have received the news, there are two questions that are still a mystery, and that could be a cause for concern.

Why Motorola?

Although Google has worked closely with HTC (Nexus One), Samsung (Nexus S) and Motorola (Xoom tablet) with satisfactory results, the latter is probably the little brother regarding marketing and business growth. In other words, they haven’t taken advantage (at least not as the other two) of its relation with Android. Since Motorola is, let’s say, the ‘emerging’ company on smartphone and tablet devices, the operation of acquisition was probably easier than with the two others.

What will happen from now?

Despite Google says that “everything will stay the same”, this operation isn’t an accident. From now, Google will make their own products, that means: it will have control over the whole manufacturing process, from the hardware factory to the Android OS developing labs and it’ll hold thousands of patents. The advantage of these lies on that it ensures that all devices out there have been made exclusively for Android and they’re properly tested. Whether the other manufacturers like or not, Motorola will become the jewel in the crown of Google.

(Via our friends from elandroidelibre)

We’ve been all night long playing and getting our hands on with Google+ app. It’s time to share our early findings. First at all, we have to say that it has surprised us all pleasantly. Without further delay, let’s get our teeth into it.

The app weights about 2Mb and it’s absolutely integrated with Android. The four mainstays are our Stream, our photo gallery, our circles and Huddle. Let’s take it step by step:

At the bottom we’ll see our notifications. There we’ll find all events and stuff that we’re incumbent upon: mentions, comments, messages…As we’ve said, it’s indissoluble from Android so those notifications will also be shown on our status bar. That is, where everything concerning us is shown, the same place that, as you might or mightn’t know, iOs users hated until not so long ago.

In our Stream we can see all the news and content shared by our friends. Essentially, it works as a Facebook Wall with +1s instead of likes. From Google+ app we can share our location, upload pics, update our status and refresh our wall. Everything’s crystal clear, intuitive and properly working.

When we tap on ‘photos’ we can manage all our albums, upload pics and see our friends’ and our circles’ (see below). We thought that would be all there was to it. But then we discovered the ‘instant upload’ option that we can sync to automatically upload those pics we’ve taken with our device camera. Thereafter we’ll choose if publish them or not.

From ‘Circles’ we can manage our all circles (obvious) of friends. Add and remove people, create new circles o search for a particular person. This option is one of the best Google+ features, as it makes easier to share content with some people, but not others. To put someone in a certain circle, just drag and drop his avatar inside.

When you add someone to a circle you can share with them and see what they’re sharing with you. They’ll be notified and can add you to their own circles, but they’ll never see the names of the circles you’ve added them to.

There’s one profile to the world and another to us. As always, you have to be careful about what you reveal about yourself. From your profile you can also investigate your friends’ and see a summary of your own posts and pics.

Remember that Google bought some months ago a company called Disco Messaging, don’t you? Disco Messaging was specialized in bulk text messaging, a sort of Whatsapp if you want to see it that way. And voilà, here’s Huddle as a proof of nothing happens by chance.

Huddle is Google+ instant message platform. It’s so important that we’ll have another app in our Android only for it. It’s more or less the same as any other cross-platform mobile messaging app. In addition, group chat is available from its very beginning, a feat that Whatsapp only achieved a few months ago. Assume that messages are received by push and we can leave any conversation when it no longer is of our business. Pics, smilies and geolocations can’t be shared by Huddle yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Likewise, Sparks and Hangout, two key features of the web version, have to wait for their moment, too.

In conclusión, Google+ app has the potential to become the most important app developed for Android so far. It’s its birthright. Welcome it as it deserves.