Breakfast Briefing: Apple attacks Android, Google blocks ad-blockers, Twitter adds line breaks

We start the day with a look at Apple’s attack on Android, why Google’s kicked ad blockers out of the Play store, progress on Firefox OS and Twitter adds poetic pauses in between tweets.

Apple on the attack

In a rare interview in no way timed to coincide with the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Apple’s chief marketing officer, Phil Schiller, has given Android a sharp prod.

Schiller told the The Wall Street Journal that “Apple’s own research shows that four times as many iPhone users switched from an Android phone than to an Android phone in the fourth quarter”.

“Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone,” was his considered opinion. Sales figures seem to suggest otherwise.

Google takes action over ad-blocking apps

TechCrunch reports how Google has thrown several ad-blocking apps out of the Play store. The app developers in question – including those making AdBlock Plus, AdBlocker, AdAway and AdFree – have all been told their wares breach Google’s developer distribution agreement and are no longer welcome in the store.

“You will not engage in any activity with the Market that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorised manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party… including Google,” the user agreement reads. The ad blockers could certainly disrupt Google’s main revenue stream.

Twitter adds line breaks – via haiku

We anticipate a flurry of

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tweets after the service announced in poetic form that it would allow line breaks in tweets for added emphasis. According to CNet, the line breaks are visible on the web version of the network and in the company’s mobile apps, though not, unsurprisingly, in third-party apps, which Twitter has been clamping down on recently.

Mozilla shows off Firefox OS progress

Mozilla has released Firefox OS Simulator 3 Preview to show off the features of its mobile platform. Among the latest additions is push to device technology for anyone with a compatible device while, as The Next Web reports, anyone who wants to have a play with the OS can do so from their current web browser.

“Basic geolocation API simulation has been added, so you can test geolocation in your app, and read out longitude and latitude values (specifying geolocation is coming soon),” TNW notes. “You can now also rotate the simulator, allowing you to get events when you do, as well as to adapt your contents to both portrait and landscape.”