Where is this consumer attention being focused?

The biggest beneficiaries have been mobile apps. Time spent on apps dwarfs time spent on the mobile Web, and smartphone owners now spend 127 minutes per day in mobile apps.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we analyze the main mobile usage trends developers and publishers should consider to be successful in mobile, detail how users are consuming content on their mobile devices, take a look at the most popular mobile activities, and examine how mobile usage is an additive activity.

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Here’s an overview of the four usage trends developers and publishers should consider:

The rise of gaming: Games are the largest mobile app category and the biggest money-maker in the app stores, accounting for 70% of Apple’s top-grossing apps. However, even with the most addictive games, consumers’ attention is fleeting and companies run the risk of becoming “one-hit wonders.”
Mobile-social synergies: Social networking apps are the second largest time bucket for mobile users. 39% of mobile users access social networks. This includes mobile versions of desktop favorites, as well as mobile-first networks like Instagram. Mobile holds promise for the social category, but monetization is far from a sure thing.
The piggyback rule: The only tried-and-true way for a mobile success is to take a popular usage category and build a product that piggybacks on that activity to provide a unique mobile-native experience. Instagram did it with photos, “Angry Birds” with games, but other usage categories — news, weather, travel, video etc. — are waiting for a similar hit.
Portal erosion: Mobile is a fragmented space, and consumers seem to like it that way. No one has succeeded aggregating services via a single app or mobile website. The desktop portal is fading with the advent of mobile. Yahoo Mail Traffic declined 12% in the 12 months leading up to December 2012. Carrier attempts to build mobile portals have failed miserably.

Of course, there are tons of other Android tablets now, and the Tab has evolved into Samsung’s entry-level “consumption” tablets, leaving the high end to the company’s premium Note line, which adds more features and processing power (not to mention a stylus) for people interested in “productivity” from their tablets.

The Tab, on the other hand, is all about kicking back and enjoying some good old-fashioned content. All the models include an infrared blaster for controlling your TV as well as preloaded remote-control software.

Part of the package is Samsung’s WatchON app, which displays TV content visually, letting you browse shows as if they were Pinterest pins. The search function integrates with more than just your TV’s content, surfacing shows from digital video services as well.

All three models come in white or dark brown, which Samsung calls “Gold Brown.” If you see it in the dark, you’ll think it’s black.They’re all Wi-Fi models; any carrier partnerships for 3G or 4G connectivity will come later.

Here’s the rundown on the three models:

Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
The littlest of the Tab 3 line, the 7.0 sports a 7-inch LCD with 1,024 x 600 resolution. The chip inside is a Marvell dual-core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. There’s only 8GB of storage, but you can augment that with a microSD card. Although it’s the lightest of the three at 10.6 ounces, its 0.39 inch thickness is actually thicker than the Tab 8.0. It runs Android 4.1 and costs $199.

Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
With its 8-inch screen and ultra-thin (0.29 inch) casing, the Tab 8.0 is clearly targeting the iPad mini. At least this model runs Android 4.2, backed by a Samsung 1.5GHz dual-core Exynos processor with 1.5GB of RAM. Screen resolution is 1,280 x 800, and there’s 16GB of built in storage, plus a microSD slot. Price is $299.

Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
The daddy of the line, the Tab 10.1 is notable for being the first mainstream Android tablet to pack an Intel processor, an 1.6GHz dual-core Atom chip with 1GB of RAM. It runs Android 4.2 and has 16GB of storage, plus a microSD slot. The 10.1 is also thinner than the 7.0 — just 0.31 inch — and weighs 1.1 pounds. Like the Tab8.0, the screen resolution is 1,280 x 800, and it costs $399.

After Eight
Although Samsung is offering three models in its new Tab line, it’s clear where the focus is: The 8.0 model is the thinnest, has the best camera and has the largest pixel density. It also happens to be $30 cheaper than the iPad mini, a tablet it actually bests with a couple of specs.

Watch for reviews of the Galaxy Tab 3 devices in the coming weeks, and let us know which one you like the best in the comments.

The downside: it only works for Office 365 subscribers, or those who pay for Microsoft’s cloud-based Office service. Office 365 starts at $100 per year and lets you access your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on just about any device using Microsoft’s virtual storage service called SkyDrive.

The iPhone app is pretty straightforward, letting you view and edit documents stored in your SkyDrive account on your iPhone. All your changes and new documents will automatically sync with your Office 365 account, meaning you can access it all from your PC or Windows tablet too.

It’s not the perfect Office solution for iPhone, but it’s the closest Microsoft has come.

In the last year, in-app sales on Google Play have grown significantly. At the latest Google I/O Conference, held in San Francisco, the search engine giant confirmed that in-app sales have grown an incredible 700%.

There’s an important message for android app developers in these figures – consumers want to trial apps for free, and only when they are happy with their use are they willing to invest.

Furthermore, Google Play Subscriptions, a product launched only one year ago, have doubled in revenue in each of the last four quarters. Some of the apps using the subscription model, such as Internet radio service Pandora, are even starting to enter the top grossing list.

A key trend revealed by Google is that tablet users are 1.7 times more likely to spend money on an app compared to smartphone users.

In addition, apps that are updated to take advantage of the latest changes to the Android platform generate 2.2 times more revenue than older versions.

Google also announced several new improvements to Google Play development at the I/O Conference including beta testing and staged roll-outs, a public page for highlighting tablet-specific apps, translation services, analytics and monetization tools.