In the Android ecosystem, the first ever tablets (other than the first experimental builds like original Galaxy Tab and HTC Flyer) ran on Honeycomb, Android 3.0, which was tailor-made to suit the tablet devices’ larger screens. Unfortunately (or not), Android 3.0 didn’t really see much glory for two reasons. One, it was rather buggy in itself, and two, when Ice Cream Sandwich was released, it unified both tablet and smartphone versions of the Android ecosystem, making it redundant to have a separate OS in the first place. For the same reasons, the said Android version didn’t see much developer love, either.
Android is constantly a target for those looking to spread malware, and the latest - discovered by Russian security outfit Doctor Web - is probably one of the more significant to date. Arriving in the form of a trojan, it can aid the loathed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, while also housing the ability to send spam SMS messages and receive commands from the criminals behind them.
Samsung’s Galaxy Camera is a truly remarkable device. To begin with, it’s the first of its kind, offering a truly powerful and capable camera running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The connectivity options on board are truly a tech-enthusiast’s dream come true. Then, you can do a lot more on the device than you’d be able to on any traditional point and shoot camera. Despite being priced rather steep, there’s a lot of love that the unorthodox Android device has received. You have root access on the Galaxy Camera whilst running Android Jelly Bean, and then there’s an unlocked boot loader, too. Is there more to wish for? Yes, you certainly can, because XDA member Adam Outler has discovered some neat Samsung internal codes that can be executed even on the Galaxy Camera to gain access to hidden menus and secret areas.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II were two devices that redefined how the world viewed smartphones. The Dell Streak had been perhaps one of the original phablets (phone + tablet), but the Note lineup’s revolutionary design, hardware specifications, and the exclusive S Pen stylus made it something much more than any of its predecessors. Add to the fact that the device was produced by the famous Korean manufacturer that had already made for itself a towering reputation with droids, didn’t hurt the device’s success in any way. If you think about it, the Galaxy Note is a complete winner in almost all aspects, except for the large size (which is completely a matter of preference and opinion, by the way).
One of the biggest reasons I, and a lot of other Android users, would want to root their smartphones and tablets, and install a custom recovery, is the ability to take nandroid backups. The stock Android recovery console allows you to only either wipe data/factory reset, or to install legitimate, signed ZIP updates for the Android operating system. Custom recoveries offer you so much more, one of which is the ability to back up all the partitions – system, data, cache et al – which lets you restore the device to the state it was originally in.
Being able to use a keyboard of your choice, and not just by aesthetics, but a completely unique package with a distinct feature set of its own, is one of the biggest freedoms of owning and using an Android device. I have used both the iPhone and iPad as my daily drivers, and while iOS boasts one of the best touch-based character entry mechanisms in the market, there’s still a lot to wish for in the stock iOS keyboard. Even with a jailbroken device, you don’t get a really staggering number of choices, and definitely nothing close to what Google’s droid has to offer. Android simply leaves iOS biting the dust on this front.
Flashing new ROMs every now and then is something that’s almost a must for any Android owner that wants to modify their device in any way, and if you’re using custom ROMs, this phenomenon is going to be even more frequent. Developers continually release newer versions of their offerings at a very fast pace, and more often than not, you may find yourself flashing a new ROM every other day. While all of this is both exciting and rewarding, you may at times run into some problems with the firmware that you’re trying, ultimately resulting in the need to go back to a stock one. Samsung devices here have a clear advantage over the rest of the crowd, in that they have Odin3 – the magical tool that lets you download stock Samsung ROMs and flash them to your Android phone with ease. While other manufacturers do prefer offering something similar, Odin3 remains, by far, the easiest to use.
Some developers in the Android community had been inspecting the internal CSC file of their Galaxy Note 2 smartphone in order to find out what possible features and handy little shortcuts Samsung had decided to prevent users from gaining access to in different localities on the phone. In an extension of that work it seems that the same developers have dedicated a little bit more time to the cause and have provided a list of modifications that can be made to the system CSC file in order to enable a few hidden and secret features that lie dormant on the international Galaxy Note 2.
Ever since Temple Run took the casual gaming world by storm, there has been a marked spike in the number of similar, running-based titles. TheEndApp, Agent Dash, and PITFALL! are prime examples of titles which have enjoyed great success by adopting the tried-and-tested motif, the latter of which has finally debuted over at the Play Store. PITFALL!, as many veteran gamers will be more than aware, is a classic in its own right, and having left millions of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users hooked on its challenging levels, those on Android can now lose themselves in the immersing world of PITFALL!
Thanks to the release of the iPhone 5 back in September, Apple has captured a 53 percent of the smartphone market in the United States - the very first time it has passed the 50 percent barrier. The number crunching was carried out by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, and its most recent sales data figures show the Cupertino company's market share has increased dramatically on the 37 percent recorded at the same period of last year, and takes into consideration the 12-week period ending on November 25th.
