Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a big fan of smartphones running Google’s Android OS . . . and in some ways finds them superior to mobile phones running iOS. ”My primary phone is the iPhone. I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do,” Woz told Dan Lyons. The both fascinating...

Jailbreakers may find it more difficult to find pirated apps from the App Store thanks to Apple’s latest legal maneuvers. The company has reportedly been sending DMCA takedown notices to Apptrackr, a popular service for tracking down cracked apps, in order to try and cut off pirated app downloads at the source.

According to Apptrackr developer “Dissident” (via Cult of Mac), Apple has apparently scraped links from the Apptrackr service and sent “huge takedown notices” to cut off access to pirated apps. To try and work around the copyright issues, Apptrackr has moved its servers outside the US and is using a form of redirection to avoid “direct” links to infringing content.

To what level piracy affects App Store developers remains a matter of debate. Some developers have used checks built in to their apps to determine piracy rates as high as 80 percent. If each pirated copy were counted as a sale, it would add up to a significant amount of money—on the order of millions of dollars given the sales volume of the App Store. Still, every pirated copy doesn’t necessarily equal a sale, and many developers don’t feel it’s worth the effort to work against pirates, many of whom would never have bought the app in the first place.

“Dissident” echoes these sentiments on the Apptrackr website. He claims the service is meant to allow users to test apps before buying, as Apple offers no mechanism to do so via the App Store, but he acknowledged that Apptrackr is often used to simply avoid paying for apps.

“It’s undeniable that a portion of our community pirates rather than tests the applications that they install,” Dissident wrote on the site’s “about us” section. “They were very, very likely never potential customers in the first place. Piracy’s conversion rate is absurdly low, and developers know that.”

Google’s Android Market just passed the 400,000 application mark last weekend, ringing in the New Year by closing the distance to Apple’s App Store, reports Netherlands-based app store stats tracker Distimo. Make that the “total number of active applications worldwide,” a number that’s soared over the past 12 months — Distimo says Android Market hit 200,000 apps in April last year, then surged to 300,000 in August.

That’s about 100,000 apps every four months, a pattern that if continued means Google could reach the Apple App Store’s current figure, 500,000, by May 2012. In fact since it’s taken Apple much longer to reach that number, Android Market’s poised to tie with or bypass Apple’s App Store sometime this year.

How to account for the growth? Distimo says it’s because of free applications (well, “freemium” anyway, so a mix of free and free-until-you-want-full-access fare), which account for around two-thirds of Android Market’s total apps. In 2011, free apps grew as a percentage of total, rising from 60% in April 2011 to 68% by the close of 2011.

Distimo breaks down pacing, too, which favors Apple at the outset (as the stores are growing through the 100,000 and 200,000 milestones), but shows Android Market growing faster thereafter, needing “only four more months to pass the 300,000 milestone” (versus eight for Apple) and another four months to hit 400,000 (versus seven for Apple).

Not that app store size correlates with sales success or design quality — you won’t find reliable independent metrics for those anywhere. Have you viewed all 500,000 Apple App Store apps? 5,000? 50? On my iPhone 4, the latter’s roughly how many I’ve downloaded and fiddled with, though I actually use maybe half as many, and I assume I’m not the norm (I suspect most people probably download and use fewer still).

So while it’s interesting to watch this “app ecosystem” grow — Distimo adds that the number of active Android Market publishers just hit 100,000, another milestone — the figures don’t have easily mappable significance. More in the mobile app space is too often simply more, and as customers trying to separate the wheat from the chaff (and genuine insight from paid-for user reviews and marketing rhetoric) in the absence of better tools than “top 25″ lists, that number’s growth correlates directly with “more work.”

For the last three weeks, iOS hacker pod2g has been tinkering away toward an untethered iOS 5 jailbreak and blogging about his progress. We’ve been keeping track as he succeeds in jailbreaking device after device, starting with a third generation iPod Touch. He’s now freed almost every iOS 5-compatible device from the grips of Apple’s restrictions. The only ones still underway are those with A5 processors like the iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

Aware of how eager the jailbreak community is to get their hands on an untethered solution, pod2g decided to share his work with the Chronic Dev team, who develops the greenpois0n jailbreak for public use. Early this morning, an untethered jailbreak for A4 processor-based iOS 5 devices was released via both greenpois0n and redsn0w, another popular tool for jailbreaking iOS.

This is the first time such a jailbreak has been available for iOS 5 since the new mobile operating system was released in October. Previously, users could only jailbreak the OS using a “tethered” solution, meaning it required devices be connected to a desktop or laptop whenever they are rebooted. It may have hit the spot for hardcore jailbreak addicts, but for most users a solution of that nature is too cumbersome.

Starting today, the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, first generation iPad and two most recent iPod models can be jailbroken using either the greenpois0n or redsn0w tools. Now that this release is out, pod2g is going to focus on hacking the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

Why Jailbreak?

When it comes to jailbreaking iPhones, iPads and iPods, there’s really no “killer app” to justify the move. Rather, doing so unlocks a world of unauthorized apps and user interface tweaks that aren’t available via the iTunes App Store. For some, playing vintage video game emulators makes the effort worth it. For others, they like the ability to tether their phone’s Internet connection to a laptop or open the phone using facial recognition instead of a pin number. Last year we rounded up more than 30 reasons to jailbreak, a list that has only grown since then.

Some of what comes out of the jailbreak community is of such high quality that Apple itself has borrowed ideas from it. The iOS 5 user notification system may look familiar to folks who had jailbroken iOS 4. Likewise, jailbreaking iOS 3 allowed users to shoot videos and customize their backgrounds, both features that are now very familiar to most iDevice owners. The company even hired jailbreak developer Nicholas Allegra (aka @Comex) as an intern in August.

Siri for Android is here! At least that’s what more than a 1,000 Android owners thought as they downloaded the app from the Android Market.

In reality the app is simply a shortcut to launch Google’s Voice Actions, which comes pre-installed on every Android phone. The fact that the publisher is named “Official App” probably hasn’t helped.

Official App, while obviously trying to profit from the popularity of Siri, does give fair warning that its product isn’t the real deal:

Siri, now for your Android device!

This application is a Siri icon that opens “Google’s Voice Actions” app.

Google Voice Actions is a powerful app that comes with every Android device. It supports many different voice commands and Google is constantly working to make it even more powerful. Show your iPhone friends your Android phone can do what Siri does!

Your friends with iPhones will be so jealous that you have an app that pretends to be an app they already have! Despite its fraudulent nature, seven of Siri for Android’s 21 reviews are positive, which means either there are people out there who don’t really know what Siri does or the publisher has a lot of friends.

Yes, developers love Android Market’s open, approval-free policy, but it’s hard to see how something like this would ever happen on Apple’s App Store. The price you pay for freedom, I suppose.

With Apple’s iPhone recently coming to market in 21 more countries and the likely launch of a new smartphone model from the Cupertino company in 2012, it may come as little surprise that Apple supplier Foxconn is planning to expand its Zhengzhou production facility in China, a move that will make it the biggest smartphone manufacturing plant in the world.

A China Daily report (via Apple Insider) says Foxconn will double the size of its factory, situated in central China’s Henan province, at a cost of just over $1 billion.

The expansion will see Foxconn increase the number of production lines at the facility to 95, with the aim of bringing in $20 billion in sales revenue in 2012.

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant currently employs 130,000 people who help to produce 200,000 iPhones a day. Foxconn is currently the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, employing just over a million people, mostly in China. The company makes products for a number of companies besides Apple, including Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Dell, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Recent reports have indicated that Apple’s iPhone is losing market share in some parts of the world, namely continental Europe. However, it continues to sell well in, for example, the US, UK and Australia.

While the slow down in sales can be largely attributed to consumers opting for cheaper devices during what is a challenging economic period, there are probably a fair few who are holding off purchasing an iPhone 4S in the hope that Apple will launch a new iPhone 5 device in early 2012, possibly with a larger screen among other design improvements. Foxconn, whose new factory will be up and running some time next year, will certainly be hoping the next iteration of Apple’s popular smartphone proves a big hit with consumers.

While the scam I mentioned in our previous warning was laughably fake, apparently a number of Apple customers have found a new e-mail scam circulating that gives the appearance of being quite genuine. The e-mail appears well-formatted with proper grammar, and is styled with shading and official-looking links, addresses, and copyright marks. The message also claims to come from an official looking e-mail address “appleid@id.apple.com.”

Beyond the e-mail looking authentic, the links provided in it are for a fake server that also appears to be authentic. If you click the Apple Store link, the server you go to will ask you for an Apple ID and password, and then display a page that requests you update your personal information including your credit card.

According to Intego this scam is apparently quite widespread, and is intended to target people who have new Macs, iPhones, and other Apple products that might have been purchased this Christmas season.

The best way to avoid any scam like this is to absolutely never click a link in an e-mail message, even if you think the e-mail is legitimate. Instead, go to the company Web site directly and use the resources on its Web site to update your account or access the features requested in the email.

Beyond safe practices like this, you can also avoid scams by checking the address for the pages they link to. While in this case the e-mail message states that its link is for “http://store.apple.com,” if you hover your mouse over the link you will see the true URL appear. You can also right-click the link and copy it to the clipboard, followed by going to the Finder and checking the Clipboard contents in the “Edit” menu to see the link.

If you have clicked the link, the very first thing you should do is check the address. All official Web sites for companies, and especially those that contain account information, will have a valid URL and will not use a server IP address. In this case, the address for the server contains an IP address (a series of 12 numbers grouped in threes and separated by periods), followed by a folder containing an Apple-titles HTML document.

For reference, here is a comparison of the login page provided by the scammers (top), followed by the real login page that you will find if you visit any Apple store online (bottom). Note the fake URL in the page, the title that is not the same as the Apple store, and also note the page is not verified. In this case it does not use the “https” protocol and does not have a signed certificate, whereas the real Apple page does (see the green text in the address bar for the valid Apple page):

The fake Apple login page has an invalid URL and is titles “The Apple Store.”

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler)

The real Apple store login looks like this.

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler)

In addition to the login windows being different, the update forms are also different. In the scam, after you enter your login information (any random information will work), the page will present the following page. In a real Apple store, entering invalid login information will result in an error. Additionally, the official Apple account page (bottom), will have separate pages for entering account information and otherwise managing your account.

The fake account update page looks like this. Note the same false URL and the difference in page title (Apple’s pages all have both the Apple store name and section of the Apple store).

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler)

The real Apple account update page looks like this.

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler)

Lady Gaga may love her little monsters, but not enough to give each and every one of the 17 million-plus that follow her on Twitter a free iPad. That’s why, when she appeared to do that very thing yesterday, people were understandably cautious…and with good reason.

Gaga’s Twitter account updated yesterday morning with the message “Monsters, I’m giving away FREE iPad2′s to each one of you in the spirit of the holidays Go to bit.ly/s5MTqM to receive one!” This came after an earlier (deleted) offer of Macbooks to each of her followers, also in the spirit of the holidays. Either Gaga had gone…well, gaga with yuletide generosity, or something was clearly up. After bit.ly updated the link to define it as “potentially problematic”–a polite way of saying “Please don’t go to this spam site”–that tweet was also deleted, and a third one posted, again inviting followers to a Bit.ly-ed site with the promise of free goodies.

Clearly something was up, a suspicion confirmed when Gaga replaced the offending tweet with a message that read “Phew! The hacking is over! And just in time, I’m on my way to Japan! So excited to spend Xmastime with my TokyoMonsters!”

According to TechCrunch, at least 7,000 of Gaga’s monsters did as their leader suggested, according to Bit.ly stats, with Twitter showing that a number of them also retweeted the offer. Gaga wasn’t the only Twitter account hit by the hack; singers Nelly Furtado and Nichole Scherzinger were both apparently affected and offering “free” Apple products to unsuspecting followers yesterday.

The moral of this story? Spirit of the holidays or not, there’s no free iPad, MacBook or other Apple toy out there for you, especially one hidden behind a Bit.ly link.

This is a funny little video with Siri and Cleverbot?