Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud service has been knocking around for a while now, and having been given a native iOS app a couple of months back, it has now arrived - fashionably late as with most apps - over at the Google Play Store.
When it comes to social networking on the move, Twitter is one of the easiest out there. Although Facebook remains by far the world's number one social hunt, Twitter fills in a great little niche, and for quickly updating your followers on-the-fly, The Twitters is arguably the most favorable option.
The guys over at Facebook could be forgiven for going into the weekend expecting to have a nice relaxing time, considering the amount of effort that has been expended by the company in the last couple of days by pushing out updates to their mobile software. Both Android and iOS users have benefitted from the world's largest social network, eventually getting themselves into gear with a spree of updates, beginning with a new version of Facebook for Android that brought more efficient image handling and closer control of the creation of events through mobile.
After what seemed like an endless toil, Facebook finally put a decent app together for those frequenting the social networking site. Unfortunately for the Android users out there, Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users have once again gotten first dibs, but Facebook's Director of Mobile Engineering has assured those running Google's flagship OS that the company will be releasing an Android iteration in the near future.
Considering Facebook is the world’s largest social network and their mobile apps for iOS and Android are probably two of the most downloaded apps on their respective platforms, you would be forgiven for thinking that they provide an extremely positive user-experience, especially considering Facebook's own statistics show that an enormous percentage of their user-base regularly access their accounts through mobile devices. Unfortunately, the Facebook apps have been the center of a lot of criticism due to the internal decision to build the app primarily using HTML5 for cross-platform distribution.
You picked up your Android powered device to read a text message or send a quick email, and while you were doing it, you decided to read a chapter or two of the the latest eBook you downloaded before eventually sitting back and thinking that your device is missing something. It has games, music apps, apps that allow you to keep up to date with the latest news, but it needs another Twitter app to let you check your messages and see what the world is tweeting about. But not just any Twitter app, it needs a fully featured Twitter app with the Android 4.0 ICS look and feel.
Before Wi-Fi and 3G became the norm, do you remember how much hassle it was updating your mobile device? There was none of this over-the-air (or OTA) business, and in order to get those essential new features, you had to connect your device to your computer, and often wait several hours for it to work its "magic."
The introduction of app markets like the iOS App Store and Google's Play Store have undoubtedly been a fantastic addition to the mobile space and have allowed developers to have their software housed and showcased with minimal effort. One of the underlying issues of having so many apps in one place is the visibility, or lack of it, of certain products, meaning it can be extremely difficult for users to find what they are looking for in some cases even though the store is broken down into a set of categories.
Instagram has managed to make itself one of the most popular and well-known apps on the App Store and Google Play Store, notching up over 80 million registered members on its extremely eventful journey. The Instagram story hasn't been without its set backs, as you might expect from a team of developers venturing into the unknown on a relatively new platform, but with the membership-base growing everyday and the relatively recent acquisition by Facebook, Kevin Systrom and his twelve man team are now able to relax a little as they continue to build the app and grow the Instagram name.
If you’re without a credit card and need to buy apps from Google Play, you’re pretty much out of luck. The lack of gift cards on Google Play forces many young teenagers to adopt alternative methods of getting their paid apps, if you know what I mean. It’s terrible for developers, especially when people want to pay for apps but just can’t.
