Yahoo app targets smartphone homescreen

Yahoo has debuted an app for Android smartphones that serves up information based on where users are and what they might be interested in a given moment.

Yahoo has ramped up its move to mobile, grabbing for Android smartphone home screens with an Aviate application tuned to where people are.

Yahoo bought Aviate early this year in a deal reported to be valued at about $US80 million ($A86.56 million). The software was subsequently honed with a test group.

An English language version of Aviate for handsets powered by Google-backed Android software made its global debut on Monday, in a move to give new prominence to Yahoo on the smartphone.

"We created Aviate to connect you with the information you need at the moment it's useful," Aviate founder and Yahoo product manager Mark Daiss said in a Tumblr post on Monday.

"Yahoo Aviate simplifies everything about your phone."

The Aviate application available at Google Play online shop is touted as creating an "intelligent home screen" that serves up applications or information based on where users are and what they might be most interested in a given moment.

"It starts with a clean, new layout and apps automatically organised for you," Daiss said.

"But it's not just about making your phone simpler - Aviate also makes your phone smarter by offering intelligent information throughout your day."

The Aviate release comes as part of a campaign by Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer to revitalise the faded internet firm as a premier digital content company at the heart of people's daily routines in the mobile age.

"At the end of the day, Yahoo is trying to be a content site again; really connect you back to the content you want to read, watch, and enjoy," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

"It is like next-generation TV on steroids."

To succeed, Yahoo needs to seize control of smartphone screens and put its content, along with money-making advertising, at the centre of experiences on mobile devices, according to the analyst.

Online retail titan Amazon last week made a move in the same direction by unveiling Fire smartphone infused with software tightly tied to its online offerings.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unveiled the device, Amazon's first smartphone of its own, which has a 4.7-inch display, a high-definition camera and Amazon's free help service.

The phone also ties in to Amazon's vast array of other offerings, serving as a platform for digital content such as books, films and music and connecting users to the firm's cloud storage.


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