More details have now emerged regarding Samsung’s latest Galaxy S III device; notably when it will release, and how much it’ll cost. Given that it is – without doubt – one of the most eagerly-awaited Android releases this year, those waiting to get their hands on it will be pleased to learn that it will release in just over two weeks’ time, on June 1st, and cost $799 unsubsidized.

In the Google Play store, there are numerous utilities/apps that you can download to help optimize and improve your experience when using an Android phone. But there’s one tool in particular that combined the functionality that’s usually spread across multiple of these utilities into one. It’s called Cosmos, and it offers the ability to monitor the sneaky privacy settings of the apps you have installed, moderate your battery usage, and delete useless junk files off of your device. It also features a pretty straightforward and easy to use – but not as easy on the eyes, unfortunately – user interface.

Given its position as the most widely-used mobile software within the smartphone market, it’s only natural that Android yields a significant amount of blog space, but while the tech community offers much praise for Google’s OS, Android also generates its fair share of negative press – notably with regards to outbreaks of malware.

Whether you love or loathe Google’s Android mobile operating system, its meteoric rise to become the most widely-used of the big ecosystems in just a couple of years is something which must be applauded.

Having dipped its toes into the branded mobile device game, Google is all set to expand its Nexus program, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The search giant is apparently planning to offer early access to future Android iterations to up to five device OEMs, with the intention of selling the devices directly to consumers.

It’s been a pretty significant day on the browser front, and with the possibility of a Chrome browser for iOS on the horizon, Mozilla has also released a new beta version of its Android browser – the very first to be released to the public.

A lot of people, including most of the Redmond Pie team, live with their smartphones in silent mode. With the vibration motors being so good on handsets these days, you can probably hear the thing as well as feel it, anyway!

Samsung’s half-smartphone half-tablet Galaxy Note recently received Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich and there is good news for those of you who like to hack their devices: an easy-to-apply method has been unveiled that not only lets you gain root access to your Galaxy Note but also do it so without increasing the flash counter that causes a yellow ! sign to show up at boot time. We’ve prepared a step-by-step guide that you can follow right after the jump!

The news that Google is looking to bring a Game Center-like feature to its Android smartphone and tablet operating system is a particularly interesting one, if perhaps not a surprising one.

If you want to reclaim some long lost storage space on your Android smartphone and happen to be someone who is installing and removing apps more often than most, then SD Maid may be the app for you. By completely removing traces of uninstalled apps, SD Maid promises to reclaim some of that storage space that you probably never thought you would see again.

It’s amazing that, although our devices offer features such as LTE, pin-sharp cameras with 1080p recording and screens bereft of a hint of flaw that often, some of the more ‘bread and butter’ features such as notifications aren’t as convenient as they should be, and with such high-end hardware packed into our smartphones, we expect the software to perform at the same advanced level.

The ability to run custom launchers is one which certainly gives Android the edge over rivaling mobile OSes, and Go Launcher – a home screen alternative we featured a short while ago – is without doubt one of the best around.

Android and iOS are two very different ecosystems, and while it’s a matter of opinion as to which one is more superior, each has its strengths and weaknesses. Up until last October’s release of iOS 5, the notification system of Apple’s mobile OS was nothing more than a whimsical collection of popups and alarms, but the Notification Center soon saw to that, and thanks to iPhone Notifications for Android, a similar system can be replicated on devices running Google’s domineering mobile software.

A combination of great camera hardware and the rise of Instagram has given developers behind image and photo-centric apps something to shout about, but having said that, the app still has to deliver the goods and offer a substantial array of features to have any lasting effect on consumers.

Once upon a time, an alarm clock was a simple, sharp sound played in a loop at a given time in order to wake one up. In the days of Android and iOS, however, the process of rising from sleep is something many developers are trying to nail down to a fine art, and as such, there are bunch of apps purporting to help you feel fresher, more alert, and less cranky when morning comes.

Google’s Android has constantly come under fire from Apple for ripping off elements of iOS, with former Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously vowing to go “thermonuclear” and “destroy” what he deemed to be a “stolen product,” and one suspects the Cupertino outfit won’t be best pleased to hear that the Big G has, according to rumor, decided to develop its own Game Center-like infrastructure for Android.

The battle for supremacy in the cloud computing market is hotting up, and although Apple was the first of the big companies to push forth its iCloud service last year, Microsoft and Google have both joined the party in the last couple of months with their SkyDrive and Google Drive services respectively.

Smartphones have great range of uses – a range which is increasing all the time, but occasionally, an unexpected use crops up, and Metal Sniffer – a utility allowing you to locate scraps of metal using just your Android device – certainly falls under that umbrella.

It still seems like madness that in some cases, brand new Android powered smartphones and tablets don’t get shipped with Google’s latest version of the Android operating system installed upon them. If I was rushing to the store to purchase myself some of the latest hardware, I would expect it to ship with the latest and greatest software available in the market.

If you check out any technology lover’s arsenal of gadgets, I am pretty sure it will contain pieces of kit that cover all aspects of the consumer electronics spectrum. In today’s day and age it isn’t uncommon to walk into a home office and see a desktop computer as well as a laptop or notebook, also accompanied by a smart mobile device such as Apple’s ‘Post-PC’ iPad tablet as well as the a smartphone like the iPhone.