Google Play now lets Android app developers see review highlights, ratings charts

Google today announced a few enhancements for the Google Play Developer Console, which Android app developers can use to monitor the usage of their apps.

Now developers have an easy way to see the most common themes that end users mention in their app reviews. Google bubbles up these themes in the new Review Highlights feature, Google Play product manager Fergus Hurley wrote in a blog post. More enterprising developers can use the new search box.

When it comes to ratings, Google is doing more there, too. You can now check out charts of ratings over the day, the week, or the month. The console also now lets developers run queries on ratings by country, language, the device, the version of the app, the version of Android users are running, the country where the user made the rating, and the language spoken by people who leave ratings.

Famous, Formerly The Controversial People-Trading App Stolen, Hits Android After App Store Ban

The creators of a buzz but controversial mobile game called Stolen, which let users buy and sell Twitter profiles as if they were trading cards, proactively shut their application down after responding to criticism that its game mechanics allowed for abuse and bullying. The company then revamped its concept, taking into consideration the opinions of anti-bullying experts, to release a kindler and gentler application called Famous, which instead focuses on fans giving love (in the form of hearts) to their favorite friends, celebs, and brands.

Now Apple has pulled Famous from the App Store, saying it doesn’t want apps that assign people numerical values in its App Store. That decision, which may not be reversed anytime soon, will have the startup focusing on building its web and Android versions instead.

Coincidentally – that is, not as a result of the Apple ban – the company behind Famous has just acquired the team behind Zoute, the transit application built by mobile developers Hai Le and Li Li, previously of the early location-based service Loopt, acquired by Green Dot.

China collecting sensitive personal data through Android apps: report

Hundreds of millions of Android smartphone users have downloaded photo-collage, karaoke and video-chat apps that send location data and other identifying details back to servers in China, a new report has found.

The information is collected by Chinese search and advertising engine giant Baidu, which collects users’ GPS co-ordinates, names of nearby wireless networks and a unique device number that can be used to identify a person’s phone, according to findings contained in a new report from The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

That information is stored on Baidu servers. The company says it gives Chinese authorities access to its data in accordance with local laws.