One of major reasons why smartphone enthusiasts opt for Android over other mobile OSes like iOS and Windows Phone 8 is because of Android’s relatively open nature. It allows users to customize every facet of their phone while iOS doesn’t, even with powerful theming systems like DreamBoard and WinterBoard in place. Android enthusiasts are often heard installing “Custom ROMs” on their devices; these modified versions of Android OS are cooked up by passionate and dedicated developers in their free time and we’ve mentioned some of the most popular ones after the break.

One of the biggest Apple-related news items last week – other than the launch of the iPad 4 and iPad mini – was the announcement from CEO Tim Cook that Senior Vice President (VP) of iOS Software, Scott Forstall and Head of Retail John Browett would be leaving the company in 2013.

We’ve heard it multiple times over the past few months and we’re hearing it again today: Microsoft is working on their own smartphone.

With PlayStation 3 sales slowly decreasing year over year, Sony appears to be preparing key developers for their next generation PlayStation console.

In an effort to convince existing smartphone owners to switch to Windows Phone 8, Microsoft has released an update to Windows Phone sync tool for OS X. Check it out after the jump.

Visually speaking, iOS’ Springboard “launcher” hasn’t changed much over the years. If you look at the iOS 1 vs. iOS 6 image we’ve placed after the jump, you’ll find the preceding statement to be very much true.

The Galaxy S III may have a multi-core chip, a gig of RAM, high-end optics and an HD display, but that HD display is also freaking huge! At 4.8-inches, it is among the tallest and widest Android smartphones available in the market. As comfortable as it is to hold, with its smoothly curved body, it is mighty uncomfortable to use with one hand.

The high-end superphone of today is the mid-end, economical smartphone of tomorrow. HTC’s Desire X, which was announced back in June, 2012, comes with a dual-core chip, a 4-inch 480 x 800 display, 768MB of RAM, 5-megapixel sensor on the back and, well, no optics on the front. It is powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Yesterday’s biggest Apple-related news was that of veteran Apple executive, Senior Vice President of iOS Software, Scott Forstall and recently inducted Head of Retail operations, John Browett leaving the company.

If you want to make changes to iOS’ user interface or wish to get rid of pre-installed, stock apps, you are required to first jailbreak your iOS device and then install the relevant tweaks from Cydia. This is fine on older A4 / A5 devices running previous versions of iOS, but if you’re using a device like the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5G or iPad 4, you’ll be out of luck. That is until now!

The most unexpected announcement at last week’s Apple media event was that of the 4th generation iPad; Apple broke its steady February-March release cycle of three years to shift to more business-friendly pre-Christmas holiday shopping cycle. The new tablet is essentially an iPad 3S considering the fact that it has received under-the-hood specifications bump without any updates in its somewhat chunky design.

After the success of software distribution platforms like Software Center and App Store, Microsoft has followed suit by introducing Windows Store on Windows 8. Like the App Store, it has its fair share of limitations over which apps go in and which don’t and, like the Software Center, it charges a fee per download of a paid app, but what’s different about it is that, by design, apps on the Windows Store (generally) run both on desktops running Windows 8 and tablets running Windows RT.