The sudden surge in interest in Android (largely due to all of the hype surrounding the Droid) has caused a lot of developers to reconsider the platform. Atleast one major development house, however, isn’t impressed.

Earlier today, Alexandre de Rochefort, Finance Director of Gameloft, told an investor conference that the company had “significantly cut [their] investment in Android platform, just like … many others”. Gameloft is one of the largest mobile games companies around, having pulled in roughly $132 million in the last three quarters alone. While there are plenty of fish in the developer sea, this can’t be one that Google is happy to see swim away.

Everyone loves picture messaging – or at least, they love the idea of it. The iPhone carrying masses clamored for it, then celebrated once they got it by sending everyone pictures of their immediate surroundings and beloved pets before forgetting the feature exists. After the novelty wears off, it’s generally reserved for the occasions when there is genuinely something interesting to show. Need the wife’s advice on whether to buy the blue shirt or the green one? Picture message. Want to ask her out to coffee? You’ll probably stick with text.

FunMobility, a company thats been cashing in on cell phone media (like ringtones and wallpapers) since 1999, is looking to change that with FunMail, a service which they’re dubbing as “every-day picture messaging”.

Buying someone else a phone is risky business. Preferences vary, you’ve gotta get their carrier right… it’s a tough game. But if you’re down to make a gamble, we’re here to help. I’ve spent more time playing with new phones in the last year than anyone should ever spend with any phone ever, and have broken down my favorite offerings from each carrier by “Best Bet”, “Best Bet For Under $100″ (though it’s usually worth it to splurge), and “Best Bet for Business” for you Enterprisey folks.

As the TechCrunch Network’s resident mobile guy, I was given the task of writing up a list of apps for each smartphone platform that you ought to buy as little e-stocking stuffers for your loved ones. It was to be my primary contribution to CrunchGear’s ultra-amazing Holiday Gift Guide; my festively themed magnum opus.

But there’s a problem with this idea: it can’t be done. It’s not because I’m lazy (which may be true), nor because I don’t have any apps to recommend (which most certainly is not). I can’t recommend apps for you to buy for others, because you can’t buy apps for others.

While Android 2.0 has been floating around on Motorola DROIDs for over a week now, one important chunk of it has been under lock-and-key: the source. Even amongst manufacturing partners, we’re told, Google hasn’t been completely open; outside of Motorola (and more recently, HTC), most of the other handset manufacturers have been left out in the cold with nothing to keep them warm but Android v1.6. Until tonight, that is.

As the sun set over the Silicon Valley last night, Google pushed the source code for Android 2.0 to the Android Open Source Project. Within two hours, the endlessly able Android community had it up and running on the eldest Android of them all, the T-Mobile G1.

Palm and Sprint have taken a very different approach to the launch of the Pixi than they did with its slightly older and slightly brawnier brother, the Palm Pre. In the days leading up to the Pre, both parties were on full attack mode; keynotes were held, massive tradeshow booths were built, full page newspaper ads were run, and countdowns ticked away. With the Pixi? They’ve got a commercial.

Compared to Palm’s last run, the marketing campaign surrounding the Pixi is decidedly more average – and after spending a few days with the phone, I’d say they made the right decision there.

As the number of Android-powered handsets on the market continues to expand, so do the technical capabilities of the applications that run on the platform. The Droid, for example, is the first handset to introduce video recording at a resolution 720×480 (more than double that of the 320×240 recording found on most other Android handsets), and app makers are already swooping in to take advantage of it.

The first off the bat is the mobile video broadcasting service Qik, who will later tonight be announcing beta support for the increased resolution. Not only is Qik the first to reach such the new resolution on the Droid, but they’re also proudly claiming to be the first of all the mobile streaming services (amongst competitors such as Ustream, Kyte, and Flixwagon) to support such a high resolution in general.

While the tech-loving world continues to debate the merits of the Droid following its launch on Friday, it’s pretty safe to say that the Android platform has seen a pretty hefty influx of users as of late. In the past two weeks alone, we’ve seen the aforementioned Droid, it’s cheaper, younger sibling, the Droid Eris, and the Sprint Moment all hit the shelves; if any of them sold even reasonably well, there’s a lot of new folk cracking open the Android Market for the first time right now.

For the sake of these nascent newbies, we’ve thrown together a list of a handful of apps we think are worth checking out right off the bat. Got a favorite of your own? Throw it into the comments below.

Early this morning, 200 Android developers woke up to one hell of an e-mail: they’d made it into the final round of the second Android Developer Challenge, and were thus one giant step closer to as much as $250,000.

Android Developer Challenge 2 officially began way back in May, though the actual voting didn’t begin until some time in September. The votes were split amongst Android users and Googlers (with the latter getting a 55% say), with all voting taking place in a special, custom-made application. To be eligible, applications had to be completely fresh to the Android Market (read: no updates allowed) as of August 1st, couldn’t have been a part of the first Challenge, and had to play friendly with Android v1.5.

My inbox is in pain. Almost immediately after I hit the publish button on last week’s iPhone 3GS vs Motorola Droid Smartphone Showdown, a torrential blast of comments and questions has been barraging just about every communication inlet I’ve got. Phone calls. Twitter DMs. Lots, and lots, and lots of emails. Across the board, it all seems to indicate one thing: people want more.

We hear you. There are a number of worthwhile topics I simply didn’t get a chance to touch on, and a few observations I’ve made since that are worth mentioning. For those, may we present: Round 2.

While other carriers might finally be dipping their toes in the Android water this month, T-Mobile has been in this game for a long time. They got their first Android phone (the G1) out last October, and managed to launch two more (the myTouch and the CLIQ) within the year. It makes sense, then, that they’re the first to pipe up with some usage details.

T-Mobile today shared some of these details, along with announcing a number of ways they’d be increasing their support for the Android Market.

When the iPhone OS 3.1 update rolled through town, it brought with it a handful of new features – but it also killed off one, not-so-official feature: unauthorized data tethering on AT&T.

Early this morning, the endlessly ingenious iPhone hacking community released Blacksn0w, a carrier unlock for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. Even if you have no need to plug in a different SIM card than what was originally intended, however, Blacksn0w still has its perks. Namely, it brings the aforementioned unauthorized data tethering right on back.

We’ve just walked through the process, and it went off without a hitch. If you’re interested in doing the same but don’t want to do it alone, we’ve thrown together a handy step-by-step guide, just for you.

Whenever you hear about bugs and exploits being discovered in the iPhone’s browser, Safari, it’s usually the doings of some masterful meddler who devoted hours to unearthing any flaws they could find — not some user casually tapping around the application. Apple’s pretty good at keeping things locked down, and the iPhone’s got enough users that most of the nasty user-facing bugs have been flushed out. Well, except for this new one.

It’s not an incredibly common bug, and it doesn’t seem likely that it would hit most users – but for the iPhone users this newly discovered bug does affect, it could mean huge operator fees.

Gameloft, one of the world’s largest mobile gaming development houses, has just released their numbers for the third quarter of 2009.

In the first three quarters of 2009, Gameloft has already slung $132.3 million in mobile applications. This is up roughly 18% percent from the same time period last year, during which they brought in roughly $112.2 million.

Way back in March, Apple announced that the latest and greatest build of the iPhone OS would open up a whole new world to third parties: richly featured accessories, complete with tie-in software. No longer would accessory makers be limited to headphones, cases, and FM transmitters with hardware controls – now they could make glucose meters, guitar amp controllers, and FM transmitters with onscreen controls! The possibilities were endless.

8 months later, what is there to show for it? There’s a $120 car cradle that boosts the GPS accuracy of the iPhone, some fancy running shoes, and.. er.. well, that’s about it.

If hype were to be believed, the Motorola DROID is the pièce de résistance of the mobile world; the conclusive creation sent down by the Great Smartphone in the sky to rid us of our woes. It would prepare your breakfast promptly each morning, tuck you in at night, and, maybe — just maybe — knock the iPhone down a notch or two.

Beginning about a week before its launch (largely due to Verizon’s incredibly intense marketing campaign) I began getting calls and tweets from friends and colleagues asking about the Droid. They always had two questions: the first would be something like “What do you think of the Droid?”, followed by “Would you recommend it over the iPhone?” Same questions, each.. and.. every.. time.

I’ve been using the Droid as my primary phone for a few days now, and I think I’m finally ready to answer them.

A few weeks back, we shared a video by Swedish Design agency Ocean Observations which demonstrated a rather clever (but arguably useless) concept: Exposé for the iPhone homescreen.

We shared that video on a whim, and the resulting conversation and comments were outstanding. As a result, the same design firm has since churned out two more iPhone-related concept videos: Coverflow Multitasking, and Dashboard Widgets. Just like the last time, we’re left wondering: would you use these?

As the endless brouhaha ringing from all corners of the Internet has proven, AT&T (or Apple, or whoever takes the blame in the end) really dropped the ball on this Google Voice thing. Whether it was rejected outright or shelved indefinitely, competing parties have been quick to play on their delays.

First, Palm essentially put third-party Google Voice dialer gDialPro on its shoulders and carried it across the finish line by ensuring that it was one of the first (and still one of just a few) applications to land on the webOS App Catalog. Now, Sprint has come along and done something rare: they’ve dropped long-established fees. With Google Voice’s new keep-your-number feature in mind, Sprint will be doing away with the call forwarding fees associated with third-party voicemail services come mid-November.

Flixster, a social networking site for movie fans, is doing pretty well for itself in the mobile space. Name any smartphone platform, and there’s a good chance that the Flixster app has spent some time on the top of it’s download charts. iPhone? Yep. BlackBerry? Yep. Android and Palm webOS? Double yeps.

Earlier today, the company shared with us the news that they’d crossed over a fairly monumental landmark, along with the details surrounding updates for their apps on both Android and BlackBerry OS.

Pretend, for a moment, that you’re one of the creative minds at the iPhone app development house, Smule; you and your team have had a series of back-to-back successes, and your audience has come to expect certain things of you; they expect the utmost highest design quality, for it to be music-related, and — perhaps worst of all — some level of maturity. When expectations are high and narrow in focus, how are you supposed to unleash your creativity?

If you’re Smule, you go and establish a second company as your first company’s evil twin. Then you release an application involving zombies in bikinis.

Much like everyone thinks they’re the best driver in the world, everyone thinks they’re great in the sack. Maybe you’ve got the Kama Sutra down like the back of your partner’s… hand; maybe you’ve used that internet connection to amass a few external drives full of “training material”. Whatever arts you’re trained in, the question has almost undoubtedly popped into your head during the heat of the moment: “Am I good at this the best lover in the world?”

Well, friends, to fall back on an almost-stale cliche that I promise we’ll use only a few dozen more times: there’s an app for that.

You hear that rumbling? That’s the sound of mobile internet usage exploding.

Sometime tomorrow, Opera will be releasing a couple of interesting usage statistics for what is one of the most popular browsers in the world, Opera Mini. They were nice enough to fill us in on the details a bit early, and to give us a green light to share them with you tonight.

This just mysteriously appeared on our doorstep. The return address on the label leads to Verizon’s PR company, Weber Shandwick. We’re going to do a video unboxing in just a second – in the mean time, any guesses as to whats inside?

Update: We’ve unwrapped the mystery box – check out the video here.

RIM is good at plenty of stuff: As any sore-thumbed business-type could tell you, they’ve got the whole email thing down. They can pump out software updates for a bunch of handsets at an outright impressive pace. With the BlackBerry Storm2, they’ve shown people that they can build the touchscreen device everyone thought they were building the first time around. Even with all these talents, one thing still drags them down, tarnishing an otherwise exceptional brand: their browser.

After RIM snatched up the development company behind a WebKit-based browser back in August, it was pretty easy to deduce where things were going: there would be a new browser, and it’d be fueled by WebKit. For everyone out there not comfortable with deduction, however, we’ve now got good ol’ fashion undeniable proof.

Just hours ago, Apple made an announcement that has developers everywhere dancing down their collective, metaphorical street: In-App Purchase is now good to go in free applications. This, of course, comes just months after Apple essentially told a room full of journalists that such ideas were nonsense – that free apps should always remain absolutely free.

Still – hindsight is always 50/50, or whatever that saying is. There were really just too many advantages to allowing it to let it pass by any longer. Freemium applications! Upselling! It made In-App Purchases seem less tacky to the user! Hurray. But there’s one major factor that isn’t quite so obvious; one issue that this, to some limited extent, solves: piracy.