Currently Android is trailing behind the iOS platform with regards to making money for app developers and according to a report here, iOS generates around four times as much revenue for the top 200 apps. This is in comparison to the top 200 applications found on the Android Market.

Even if you look at the apps that are downloaded for free and then use in-app purchases, the App Store still has a big advantage. According to an end of year report by Distimo 65% of the top 200 on the Android Market are free downloads, while on the App Store only half are free.

The gap in revenue is smaller when comparing applications for tablets, with these only generating twice as much as the Android Market. This revenue gap leads many developers ignoring the Android platform as their first choice in releasing new applications. With this in mind it will be surprising if Google’s Eric Schmidt claim that the Android platform will become the primary choice for developers coming true.

There are monetization options open to developers, which are helping some developers on the Android platform close the gap on iOS. StartApp is one such alternative that was recently launched by Android, and has paid out $200,000 to developers who install its SDK.

StartApp has its own search portal with applications from developer customers, and users get a search icon on their home page. It’s what generates revenues, and pays out $10 to $50 to developers for every 1,000 downloads or shares in the ongoing search revenue. It has now been installed on 450 applications, and in turn generated ten million downloads. This has helped some developers see their revenues jump by ten times as much.

StartApp’s CEO Gil Dudkiewicz said, “We are thrilled by the results we have seen thus far, with developers rapidly adopting our solution driving incredible growth in the download and distribution of our search solution”, and “We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our partners, many of whom have seen dramatic increases in the revenue they are receiving from their apps. This has led to a zero churn rate in the number of developers using our solution”

Apple recently banned Tapjoy’s incentivized download model for allegedly gaming the App Store rankings, but on the Android platform it is doing well and has helped developers. If current trends continue the Android platform could overtake iOS in app downloads, and many developers may choose it as their primary platform. Google does have to close the revenue gap though or developers will continue to look at monetization options, which won’t necessary be popular with users.

We have been using Android for roughly 18 months and we love how socially-connected you feel whilst using a smartphone which runs this OS, however we can’t say the same for iOS 5 – here’s what we think needs to change.

Let’s start with the most obvious annoyance, the lackluster official Facebook app available at the App Store. This application is ever-improving, but in our opinion far too slow and clunky for an enjoyable user-experience. When connected to Three UK’s HSPA+ network at roughly 4Mbps down and 1.5Mbps the app still seemed sluggish, especially when tapping on notifications. In comparison the official Google+ app for iPhone is quite similar in terms of functionality but runs much more smoothly, how is it that such a comparably infantile application has already trumped one of the most download applications at the App Store? Sometimes when trying to access Facebook on the iPhone 4S it was far easier to use Safari, navigate to www.facebook.com and log in that way – this seems mad given the huge popularity of Facebook and the iPhone doesn’t it.

These days people love to quickly and easily share photos and videos with social networks and websites, however when browsing through your iPhone’s gallery there is no easy way to share media with Facebook. The video embedded at the end of this post explains exactly what options are available to you, we are sure that people would use a “Share to Facebook” option more than some of the options that are currently there. Instead you have a long-winded process of going into the Facebook app, going into Photos and then manually uploading your photos – this seems archaic compared to the way that Android allows you to share your photos and videos with Facebook.

We really think that iPhone owners deserve a richer Facebook experience than they currently get, even if they just addressed the issues raised in this brief article we think it would be a huge improvement – do you agree? What other improvements would you like to see?

The first thing you should do is brine your turkey and decide on which recipe to follow, this is where the Turkey Recipes app by Feather & Moor Ltd comes in handy, it features 38 of the best recipes out there and costs just $1.99 here. The worst thing about this app is choosing a recipe, however the ‘Herbed Turkey With Garlic Gravy’ recipe sounds good to us!

If you own an iPad you should definitely check out Thanksgiving Recipes HD by Mahalo.com Incorporated. This app is just $0.99 and features HD videos showing you how to cook the perfect turkey, melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin pie and much more, it even shows you how to carve your turkey with minimal waste. You can can grab this application here. This app has great reviews and the cooking experts shown in the videos are said to help the worst of cooks become a chef during Thanksgiving.

When cooking multiple things at one it is hard to keep track of cook times when food is on the hob or in the oven, so let us introduce you to KitchenPad Timer. This app allows you to set up to 9 timers at once (5 stove, 4 oven) and this should ensure that your food does not end up overcooked and bland. This app costs just $0.99 here and can be used anytime you cook, not bad value for money eh? Even if it stops you from burning just one item of food it had probably paid for itself!

We really hope that these apps help you during Thanksgiving, if you find a better app leave us a comment below.

The app can be found over at iTunes here, it is completely free and is just 3.2MB in size, currently version 1.0.1 of the app is available and this will run on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch as long as you are running iOS 4.0 or later.

Once installed you will be able to read your mail with threaded conversations, see notifications when you get new messages, search through your mail, send and receive attachments and auto-complete contacts as you begin typing. There are lots of email organization features to check out, like the full Gmail website you have access to the priority inbox, also you can archive your mail, label messages, star them, report spam and delete messages.

You can see screenshots of the app running on iPhone below, as you can see the app is pretty well laid-out and we particularly like how easy it looks to add attachments to your emails.

It is no surprise to see the app looking a lot better on iPad (see below), it really does thrive on the 10.1-inch display.

You can find out even more about this new app and even see some more screenshots over at the GmailBlog, Google’s devs are promoting the fact that it has been optimized for touch and efficiency.

We would love to hear from you if you have installed the official Gmail app on your iDevice, feel free to leave us a comment below telling us if the app is meeting your expectations.

The app was put together by Dorling Kindersley and is aptly named the “Batman Arkham City Official Map App”, it has seen great reviews so far, but it does cost $2.99 – we are sure this will put some of you off. You can grab it from iTunes via this link.

According to the app’s description this app is officially licensed for Batman: Arkham City, it is a great companion to the game as it features maps for the entire game which are interactive (scroll / zoom capable) – making it easy to find your way across the vast city.

The maps will allow you to locate every Riddler Trophy for Batman & Catwoman, not only this but it will help you solve all of the Riddler’s Riddles. You can see two screenshots below, on the right you will see that the app allows you to track your progress as you work your way through the 350+ collectibles.

Sadly there is no official app for Android, but you may want to check out the Batman Arkham City Guide Tips, Batman Arkham City Achievement and Batman Arkham City Guide.

Have you found any better apps than these? If so leave us a comment below and we will add them to the list.

Someone from New York City recently posted an entry on the MacRumors forums, to sum things up he had his suspicions about his wife, so installed the Find My Friends on his partner’s iPhone 4S – he then texted her asking where she was and she lied about her location whilst the app clearly showed she was at another guy’s house. In an attempt to prove that this wasn’t fake the screenshots (below) were posted.

Whether the above story is authentic is hard to judge, but we are sure that many of you will be sceptical, over at the forums over 300,000 people have viewed the post and many news sites have covered this story.

Most GPS-based applications are pretty accurate these days, therefore you would of thought that an Apple app running on brand new Apple hardware would be accurate to within a few metres of his wife’s actual location – obviously Facetime would have allowed for better evidence, or perhaps he could ask Siri – OK enough of the poor jokes, but it just goes to show how technology is changing the world.

So there you have it folks, Find My Friends truly does work – you can grab it from the App Store here, it’s free! We would like to think you have enough trust in your relationship to not have to secretly install it on someone else’s iPhone, but we live in a world where people go on talk shows to discuss their private matters – so don’t be too surprised if we hear plenty of similar stories over the next few months…

Yesterday Apple had some scheduled maintenance for its iTunes Connect service, and prevented developers from changing their prices while the service was down. But it didn’t stop Apple changing the way it structures its pricing, which is now more reliant on the exchange rate. According to an article on iTWire by Alex Zaharov-Reutt while Australians will pay less for their apps, residents in the UK will pay more.

Australia has seen its dollar being much stronger than the US dollar for a while now, and has resulted in price drops of up to 25 percent. Applications which used to sell for $1.19 AUD will now fall to $0.99 AUD in line with the US price. This price also includes the Goods and Services Tax so means even better value for Australian residents.

Meanwhile over at Tapmag an article is looking at the price increases on the UK App Store, and now means a £0.59 application will now cost £0.69 a 16.9 percent increase. While an application which once cost £1.19 will now come in at £1.49, an increase of 25.2 percent. When a developer submits an application to the App Store they don’t actually set the exact price for it. Instead they pick a pricing tier which is set by Apple, this will set the prices across all the regions it will be sold.

This will annoy many users in the UK but for residents in Australia and Japan who will also see a price drop. It makes you wonder if prices may start increasing in the US if the dollar remains weak, and developers outside the county may push prices up to compensate.

While the App Store continues to have more content than the recently updated Android Market, Android users often see more applications which are free. The popular Angry Birds was available free to Android users, while on the iOS platform there was a charge for it.

Do the App Store price changes affect the area you live?

Best Golf Courses Locations is available for iDevices and has 50 golf courses from around the world. The best courses have one thing in common, which is their clever design and these are covered by the app. it has photos, maps and detailed descriptions for each course. The application is completely off line and can be found on the App Store for only $0.99/£0.59.

Golf Courses-USA is another iOS application which includes all US golf courses. It has information of addresses and links, No. of holes, hazards, bunkers, tea times, hours, pull carts, spikes, and the ability to view the golf course locations on a map. It even has details about the type of grass, and can be found on the App Store for only $0.99/£0.59.

Golf’s Greatest Destinations is an iOS application which is great for planning your next golfing trip. It has all the best destinations in the US, and courses to suit all kinds of players. It has information on value packed golf packages, and additional features such as golf schools and spas. To find out more and to purchase visit the App Store.

Skyfire is by no means new, in fact the only reason we are giving it a mention today is that Skyfire Labs will let you buy the app for just $2.99 for a limited time, usually it costs $4.99 so if you have been considering buying this app today is a good day to do it. The app uses its patent pending technology to compress and convert Flash video almost seamlessly to give iPad users the content they want to see quickly and easily.

You can find out more over at iTunes (where you can also buy the app), we do not know when this offer will end and we highly recommend this app to anyone who has ever want to view Flash videos on their iPad, please note that Flash games and apps are not supported.

Skyfire has won plenty of awards and accolades and is currently the top utility app in the US AppStore, it is not a one trick pony either as it features a great user interface and all of the features which we would expect from a modern-day mobile web browser.

Did you buy Skyfire? If so, are you impressed so far?

Let’s start with SkySafari, this has been developed by Carina Software and is said to act as a celestial travel guide, you can see a demo video here and if you are impressed buy it from the App Store for $14.99 here.

There is also another app called SkySafari 3 Pro which has been developed by Southern Stars, we are not sure whether it is related to the aforementioned app but it claims to be the “most comprehensive astronomy app available for iOS”, this is a bold claim which if true probably just about makes it value for money, it costs $29.99 check out this link for further details.

If you don’t want to miss an eclipse the Eclipse Calculator by Daniele Cenni may be worth a shot, it costs just $0.99 and allows you to enter your nearest city or co-ordinates to find out when it is the right time to look out your window, you can find out more here.

For those of you who take astronomy a little more seriously than the average person you may want to check Eclipse0709, this is astronomy-related but this time tells you all about the Solar Eclipse of 22nd July 2009 you can find more about this free app here.

Finally if today’s Lunar Eclipse has just kicked off a new astronomy hobby for you and you own an iOS-based device you should check out Star Walk – 5 Stars Astronomy Guide. This award-winning app features augmented reality which allows you to point your iPhone 4 or 4th-gen iPod towards the sky to see stars, constellations, and satellites, there are plenty of other features and it seems like a bit of a steal at just $2.99. Check out iTunes for more information.

Do you know of a better astronomy app? If so, let us know in the comments section below.