Believe it not, the smartphone that looks the most like a MacBook isn’t from Apple.

The HTC Legend($TBA) is a new Android 2.1 handset featuring an Apple-like unibody aluminum design, as well as a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen — not as roomy or sharp as the one found on the company’s Google-branded Nexus One, but no slouch, either — a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, a 600 MHz processor, and the requisite Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. (via Uncrate.com)

One way would be for Facebook to use its own mobile applications to advertise third-party applications that use Connect. By creating a channel for mobile games and other applications within its own mobile app interface, the company could help drive more users to developers — and in turn, make its own apps more central to how people use mobile devices.

Another way would be for device manufacturers and carriers to build similar channels on their own, showing top games and other apps that use Facebook within their own app stores and device interfaces. For example, Nokia could build a special channel within its own Facebook application to show off other Ovi apps that integrate Facebook Connect. Or imagine seeing updates from friends about the latest games that they’re playing whenever you open your phone.

We’ve already looked at the app-channel idea for Facebook’s iPhone app. Facebook already has one of the most popular apps for the iPhone, and it lets you use core features of Facebook’s main site — but it doesn’t have a place for third-party Facebook applications or iPhone applications that use Facebook Connect. Facebook could add a new option to its iPhone app interface, showing iPhone-Connect games that a user’s friends are playing, or that are especially popular with other Facebook-iPhone users. It would be a sort of Facebook app directory like what the social network already has on its web site, but just for the iPhone.

The underlying problem, of course, is that mobile devices have not historically allowed developers easy access to users. Carriers have typically cut deals with only handfuls of developers, to pre-load only a few applications on devices. Some platforms, like Symbian, have been around for years, but have restricted what developers could do. Apple’s iTunes App Store changed that, proving to the industry that users wanted to be able to choose from a wide variety of applications on their own. While the App Store is regularly and quite appropriately criticized for its restrictive and quirky app approval process, at least it successfully connects thousands of developers with millions of users. However, there are now so many applications for the iPhone that developers are having a hard time getting discovered. Third parties have already started creating their own distribution channels to address this problem: See SGN’s cross-network game promotions or platforms such as OpenFeint or Scoreloop for more.

Other companies, like Nokia, have meanwhile launched their own app stores, but so far none have proved nearly as successful as Apple’s.

This week, Facebook and Nokia announced an application for the manufacturer’s N97 model of phones, available through Nokia’s Ovi app store. Facebook could potentially feature gaming applications for Ovi that use Connect within this application’s interface, although the application was developed in-house by Nokia so that company would need to take the lead on such a move. Considering that Nokia wants Ovi to become a serious competitor to iTunes, it should think seriously about this idea — or at least some way of using Facebook data to help users find new games that they might want to play. It could also, for example, feature apps that use Facebook Connect within the Ovi home site.

Source: http://www.insidesocialgames.com/