2013 seems to be a year of high-end Android smartphones with rather-insanely-large screens. The trend started with Samsung’s Galaxy Note series last year (if you don’t want to consider Dell Streak, that is), and a lot of manufacturers seem to have caught up on the idea. Considering that Note II is a very popular phablet, we’ve then seen HTC Droid DNA enter the arena, and even Chinese manufacturers like Oppo, with their Find 5, seem to be jumping the bandwagon.
If you are an avid and passionate Android device user then you will be well aware of the ability to modify and tweak certain aspects of the firmware to get the most out of it. Being able to amend and enhance various aspects of the installation to suit specific tastes is always a good thing from a personalization point of view, and now thanks to the Android Tweaker app it just became a whole lot easier to modify certain elements of the operating system.
The folks of the XDA-Developers forums are old hands at solving problems and limitations with mobile devices, particularly those of the Android variety, and in the latest, one member has come through with a nifty wireless charging solution. The mod, which costs around $25 in supplies, can be completed in around ten minutes, and the final result is a fully-functional, wirelessly juiced Samsung Galaxy S III.
Using Android over other mobile operating systems draws many advantages, and as well as widgets, home screen alternatives and open source apps, the true multitasking is another feature setting it apart from the likes of iOS. With this in mind, XDA-Developers member and Android developer Mohammed_Adib has coded a beautiful app for Google's OS called Floating Stickies, which allows one to create floating, Post-It like notes at will. Said notes can be moved, resized, deleted or docked with ease, and the whole concept means one can easily make notes without deviating from whatever task is at hand. More details below.
Google’s has always had a rather funny and intriguing way of announcing new Android versions, coupling the news with the installation of a new Android statue at their campus. We’d seen these sculptures being erected for Froyo, then Gingerbread, Honeycomb, for Ice Cream Sandwich, and then Jelly Bean. Thus, it was no surprise when people went crazy over a certain Google+ post from Google’s Android community manager, Paul Wilcox, that indicated a new statue having been installed at the company’s official campus!
Google's Android ecosystem has made a spectacular amount of progress over the past year or so, and one of the key enhancements from Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) through Jelly Bean (4.1 and up) has been that of the task manager. Switching and killing tasks is a lot easier now than it was on older firmware, and thanks to the work of XDA-Developers member hamzawi, the recent apps menu is now available for those on Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Froyo, and other older Android ROMs.
One of the best things you can get out of technology is making your life easier by digitizing a huge chunk of your daily routine. Thanks to the smart devices that our phones have become today, we have gotten rid of a lot of stuff, like paper grocery lists, address books, pocket diaries and the like, replacing them with one intelligent device. However, there’s no limit to what you can imagine, right? So imagine if your phone was smart enough to perform various tasks for you on its own, without requiring you to perform actions like, say, triggering the text-to-speech engine through the device’s settings so that emails and messages can be read out load when you need your hands free. Having a smartphone that’s actually this smart would be cool, won’t it?
If there’s one thing that iOS hasn’t changed at all since its very inception, starting with version 1.0 and now to 6.1, it’s the look and feel of the interface. Granted, there have been various feature enhancements, and with iOS 6, there were some visual uplifts as well, such as the color-sensitive status bar and others, the overall feel of the operating system has remained the same. To be honest, this wasn’t a feel that was very catchy, either, so it’s not like Apple deserves any praise here either.
Several months ago, rumors starter swirling that Google and LG might be getting ready to unleash a new Nexus 4 in white color. To everyone’s surprise (or perhaps not), an entire photo gallery of pictures depicting a new white version of the device has surfaced, suggesting that a release might be closer than most of us might have expected.
Google's Nexus 7, built in collaboration with consumer electronics giant ASUS, has been a great success, having almost reached six million units sold since its release last Summer. Citing the usual sources familiar with upstream supply chains, the famously hit-and-miss Digitimes seems to think Google will team up with the very same manufacturing partner to bring a second-generation iteration of the popular slate, complete with a thinner bezel, full HD 1080p display, along with the Jelly Bean operating system.
