During the big announcement of the PlayStation 4 yesterday, game developer Evolution Studios mentioned that companion app for Android tablets to its Drive Club title would allow gamers to communicate with others from a tablet running Google's software. At the time, it wasn't clear how far compatibility would go with other mobile devices, but Sony has just announced a new version of its ”PlayStation App”, which in turn offers a little more information on the matter. As well as being available to both the Android and iOS-using faithful, it will turn tablets and smartphones into 'second screen' controllers.
As smartphones have gotten better and more powerful, this has naturally had a knock-on effect with regards to battery life. The designers of the high-end handsets have had to think long and hard about how to keep the increasingly demanding feature set as juiced-up as possible, and although there have been some improvements from the early days of iOS and Android, devices seldom hold up beyond a day of moderate to high use. Chip maker Qualcomm, which develops processors for a fleet of Android and Windows Phone devices, has developed an app by the name of BatteryGuru which, it claims, will extend battery performance. As well as better battery retention, the app, which is still in beta, also purports to "improve overall user experience by intelligently making changes that optimize Snapdragon device functionality."
Mozilla has just released Firefox 19 for users of the Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, and among a plethora of new features comes an in-built PDF viewer. Since increasing its release schedule, Mozilla has stuck almost religiously to its six-week cycles, and although it's rare - in software terms - to see a whole number update pertaining to only a few minor changes, it helps Mozilla keep up with Google's rampant Chrome browser.
Wallpapers and themes are a great expression of your tastes, preferences and overall personality, be it on whatever platform that you apply them to. From desktop computers to feature phones to Androids and iPhones, background images have said more than perhaps any other thing that might be counted as a personalization feature on your device. I personally feel they add a certain touch to my phone that nothing else can provide, and for that reason, I am really choosy about what image ordains the screen of my Sony Xperia S.
Bump, the sharing app for Android and iOS, has been updated on each platform, with the takeaway feature being the ability to 'bump' files to a computer. It is often the case with the more popular apps that both the Android and iOS versions are given updates at around the same time, and while the iteration for Google's platform now stands at 3.4.9, the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch incarnation of the app has been, erm.. bumped to version 3.5.6.
For avid smartphone users, these aren’t just devices for fun and entertainment. While smartphones are great at serving multiple purposes for making our lives generally easier, a lot of users opt for productivity apps designed for specific purposes. One of the most popular category in this genre are note-taking apps. Since all of use continuously have so much to remember – when to make a call, sending out that high-priority email, shopping lists, daily tasks and so much more – notes are a great way to keep track of what you’ve done, and what remains to be tended to.
When Apple introduced Siri, they started quite a war amongst and for other smartphone competitors to match the Cupertino giant’s virtual personal assistant. Android, being the biggest iOS counterpart, received the most share of such solutions, including the likes of S Voice from Samsung, and Google’s own Google Now – a real time, intelligent and location-aware service embedded within the Google Search app for Android. Over time, Google now has matured quite a lot, delivering the right information at the right time, letting you plan your commutes, flights, travel plans, day schedule and whatnot when you need it. Now, with the latest update to Google Now, Google has made the app all the more useful, introducing widget support for devices running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and above, as well as new information sources.
Gestures are one of the most innovative ways (yet) to interact with any device that supports human interface input. Almost all modern devices, be it smartphones, tablets (that includes the iPad, too), or modern ultrabooks, support some form of gesture input. And for good measure, too, because using that, you can easily get things done that would otherwise require some form of button input, tapping on the screen, or navigating through the system otherwise. Being a long time user of the iPad, I can testify that the multi-touch gestures are, indeed, a blessing.
Smartphones have made our lives a lot, well, smarter, to put it in one word. They serve multiple purposes in our daily lives, such as portable media players, capable replacements for point-and-shoot cameras, personal information managers, handheld gaming devices, internet browsers, social connectors, news and eBook readers, email managers, document suites, and of course, communicators. We have become too accustomed to all these luxuries, that it would be hard to imagine going back ever to a dumb phone, and we have become so reliant on these conveniences, that our lives definitely feel incomplete without taking full advantage of the capabilities that a smartphone has to offer.
Sometimes, you just need to transfer a presentation to a co-worker or friend, or a home movie to a family member. In the age of fast Wi-Fi and smartphones, why use physical medium when you can simply send files around over the air? If you are using Android, Fast File Transfer is an easy-to-use utility that lets you do just that.
