It’s always nice to see an app come to life that makes easier something that should’ve been that way from the get go, but wasn’t. However, that also depends on what platform you’re dealing with. Android, for one, and its fan following, for another, have always held in high esteem the platform’s ability to truly multitask, and it certainly deserves credit for that. Nevertheless, from my personal experience (and preference, before you label me biased), I believe iOS had app switching better than Android from day one, when it introduced a form of multitasking of its own. Try jumping from one app to the other on an iPad, with its multitasking gestures, and you’ll truly get what I mean.
At a time when many carriers offer very limited cellular data packages, Wi-Fi awareness is of much importance to smartphone and tablet users. Many of you will have fallen victim to roaming or download charges at one point or another, but if you stick to a Wi-Fi hotspot, browsing and other online activities suddenly get a great deal cheaper. Unfortunately, when you're not in a Wi-Fi location and forget to turn it off, the strain - or rather, drain - on your battery can be significant. Thankfully for those on Android, a little app called Smart WiFi Toggler does exactly as its name implies, and only prompts your Wi-Fi connection into action when you are in the vicinity of a favored hotspot.
Anyone who has ever played Grand Theft Auto will know that the game is packed to the rafters with a plethora of meticulously crafted vehicles, adrenaline fuelled missions and large-scale environments that are filled with surprises and insane amounts of peril. However, putting all of that aside, any frequent GTA gamer will have also spent a ridiculous amount of time driving around the city flicking through the multiple radio stations that are offered with each version of the game. If you don't own the game, or want to experience the musical goodness of one of the world's most popular gaming franchises, then the GTA Radio app for Android is something you need to own.
If you’re into shopping at all, and online version of it in particular, Black Friday and Cyber Monday would be nothing unfamiliar or new to you. Every year, retailers, brand manufacturers, stores and supermarket chains, wireless carriers, and almost everyone else, goes on a sale spree for the shopping frenzy that both these days are. Cyber Monday, in particular, caters to the digital crowd, and aside from the sales on goods that it brings, the app crowd can also rejoice, for this year’s no exception – both the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store – the conveyors of world’s biggest share of smartphone apps – are seeing massive sales on apps that have gone on pricing diets to mark the celebration weekend. We brought you a compilation of all the greatest iOS apps that went free for Black Friday a couple of days back, and now it’s time for its Android counterpart, the Google Play Store.
I’ve been a long-time fan of the notoriously-popular sitcom, “F.R.I.E.N.D.S”. In fact, so much that I have a re-mastered DVD set of all the 10 seasons of the TV show, and owing to that, I have watched it multiple times. I fondly recall that one episode where Joey, who was the least informed about everything amongst his friends, and consequently awkward in general discussions, spends his last $50 on an encyclopedia just so he can be a part of his group’s conversations. How that played our for him, I’ll leave it for you to see for yourself, but the fact remains that staying abreast with happenings around you, or in your field of interest, is pretty important not just for social reasons, but for one’s own mental well-being, too. To that purpose, RSS feeds are a great help, and I’m sure that you might be using at least some of them, or you won’t have been reading this article in the first place.
Sometimes, even little things that we usually don’t pay much attention to, can have a significant impact over anything. Take the Android 4.2 update, for example. It was an incremental update – technically not much feature loaded – but it brought some things that captured the audience much more than many prior major updates combined. The feature that I am talking about in particular, however, is not a game-changer – it’s merely a convenience that has been added to the AOSP, making lives easier in the process for millions of Android users. I am talking about the ability to display widgets on lock screen and launching camera directly from the same.
Using an Android phone is no east feat, I tell you. Apart from the fact that if you’re a fond of playing around with the intricate workings of your operating system, and consequently flash a new ROM every week (can be even day, in extreme cases), one major annoyance that you’ll feel is the battery, which essentially drains faster than any other smartphone OS that I’ve played around with. It’s not really necessarily the device’s fault – a simple code inspection actually establishes that it’s how the AOSP is built which causes the battery to drain faster, and perhaps it’s Google’s acknowledgement of this fact that they’ve decided to take up Project Roadrunner after the successful implementation of Project Butter with Jelly Bean.
Comic book-based titles have had a great year in both the gaming and motion picture industry, and if you're a fan of this particular genre, you may want to check out Avengers Initiative for Android. If your device doesn't run on a Tegra-3 processor, Avengers Initiative is unfortunately not supported, but if you have one of the growing list of Tegra-3 smartphones or tablets currently available - such as the Samsung HTC One X or the Google / ASUS Nexus 7 - then you'll be able to enjoy a title boasting some very cool visual effects.
The biggest problem with text-based conversation or communication is the lack of all other elements that help in conveying the correct message. For instance, you might jokingly make a remark over something, and the tone of your voice and the emphasis of syllables will tell the listener exactly how you intended it. Likewise, a joke might not really be a joke, which will be demonstrated by your body language. According to communication experts, 70% of the interpretation of our messages is defined not by words, but by how they’re delivered. This is a serious hurdle when you use text messages, IM, email, or any form of the written word.
Facebook has today released relatively major updates to its two biggest mobile apps, with iOS and Android users being treated to a bevy of new features and fixes.
