Yahoo July 1 launched Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger applications for Android as well as a search widget for the operating system created by Google for smartphones, tablets and other mobile computing devices. The apps will work on devices such as Google's Nexus One, the Motorola Droid and forthcoming Motorola Droid X, the HTC Droid Incredible, and the HTC Evo 4G. While young popular Internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter already boast applications for Android-based devices, Yahoo's new Android apps are the first Yahoo has created using Google's open source OS.
Yahoo July 1
launched Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger applications for Android as well as a
search widget for the operating system created by Google for smartphones,
tablets and other mobile computing devices.
The Yahoo Search Widget for Android, available free in
the U.S. through the Market for Android 2.0 and newer, puts a Yahoo Search box on
the home screen of an Android phone.
Yahoo Mail for Android will let users receive push notification of new e-mail messages;
send e-mails to contacts from the Yahoo Address Book and to contacts in the
native phone address book; search e-mail messages; and upload photos from the phone's camera or the
photo gallery.
Yahoo Messenger for Android will let users send instant
messages to friends, check their status updates and update their personal
status and availability and, as with the Yahoo Mail for Android app, send
photos to friends directly from the phone's camera or photo gallery.
The Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger Android apps are
available globally for Android 2.0 devices and higher as free downloads in the
Android Market.
The apps will work on devices such as
Google's Nexus One,
the
Motorola Droid and forthcoming
Motorola Droid X, the
HTC Droid Incredible,
and the
HTC Evo 4G.
In other Yahoo mobile messaging news, Yahoo rewrote Yahoo
Mail and Yahoo News for mobile with HTML5 to "give consumers a faster and
more sophisticated mobile browsing experience."
Available globally in 28 languages across 200 countries,
Yahoo Mail is optimized for iPhone and iPod Touch and is expected to be
available across other Webkit-enabled browsers in the future.
A new Yahoo News layout sports animated visual effects
and navigation that uses touch gestures. The new Yahoo News is currently
available in the U.S. on the iPhone or iPod Touch browser.
While young popular Internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter
already boast applications for Android-based devices, this is the first
time Yahoo's has forged apps for Android.
Yahoo's delays to market in Android and other areas of
the Web are a big reason why Yahoo has struggled for growth in an Internet era
now dominated by Google, Facebook and Twitter.
The company can't afford that lag time at a time when it is
angling to keep as many of its 300 million Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger users
as possible from going to other more modern services.
Supporting the two rising smartphone platforms in Apple's
iPhone and Google's Android is one way to make sure its users are able to
access their content from mobile devices.
Yahoo is getting the picture. While the company
reportedly failed to acquire
location-based check-in service Foursquare, it
acquired Indian check-in service Koprol last month.
Yahoo also
deeply integrates with Facebook, one of the Internet companies that is making
it tough for Yahoo to grow its user base.
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