There’s one very big difference between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android: how the updates and fixes work. Of course, there are much more differences than merely that, but this one has its own significance. So, if Apple messes something up in one iOS update, users will have to wait for the company to release another before that issue can be fixed. Be it battery woes to some driver having one line of code messed up, you have to rely on, and wait for, Apple to fix it (unless you’re jailbroken, that is). With Android, however, that’s now how things work. If something’s wrong with even a newly released device, chances are high that someone from the massive developer community will come up with a generally-implementable fix.
The Gangnam Style music track might be the most immediately recognized sounds of recent times, but without the power, that is YouTube, it is extremely likely that the majority of us would have never even heard of it. There's a good chance that the majority wish they never had heard it, but gathering the momentum of a runaway steam train and becoming the most viewed YouTube video of all time has propelled PSY's track into a worldwide phenomenon, and now thanks to the official Gangnam Style live wallpaper app, Android users can ensure that they are never without a small piece of that horse dance in their lives.
Custom ROMs are the life and blood of Android. One of the beauties of the entire platform is the fact that you don’t have to remain stuck with whatever the manufacturer of your smartphone or tablet had chosen for you; instead, you get to make your own choices, either in the form of stock-based custom cooked firmware, or the likes of CyanogenMod and AOKP, which are direct derivatives of the Android Open Source Project.
It has always been a subject of curiosity as to why Facebook decided to make its Messenger feature a separate entity on mobile devices. The fact the version 1.0 of Facebook Messenger was riddled to the core with bugs certainly didn't help, but while many had seen the move to separate the two as merely arbitrary or for purpose of vanity, it appears there is, after all, some method to the madness. The Android department of the Facebook Messenger app will soon be releasing an update fairly soon to users in select countries, and intriguingly, it will no longer require users to own an account to log in and get chatting. A direct challenge to the likes of WhatsApp and the traditional SMS app? We think so.
The Samsung Galaxy S III may only have been around for half of this year, but the focus has now well and truly turned to its eventual predecessor. The past couple of weeks have seen a notable spike in Galaxy S IV rumors and general coverage, and although much of it has been conflicting, we've seen some very interesting tidbits of information. The status of the Galaxy S brand certainly justifies the excitement building up, and in the latest revelation, it would seem recently-leaked handset - codenamed "Project J" - is going to be arriving circa April 2013.
A new Facebook app? Does it really deserve a mention? What’s so special about it? Why should I consider recommending it to my readers? What does it have to offer that current ones don’t? These, and some more, are generally the questions I ask myself whenever I come across a new client for any platform – iOS, Android, Windows, or anything else – for the social networking giant. There are some obvious reasons for that. Being the largest social network on the planet, Facebook has no shortage of client apps – both official and third-party – for any platform. Some of these, like the one for iOS, are really functional and decent, while others are catching up pretty rapidly, and the Android counterpart is no exception. With all of that, a new player like oStream does make one raise eyebrows. However, after my run with the unofficial Facebook client for Android, I was pretty impressed, and satisfied enough to recommend it for your downloading pleasure.
LED Notifications are a great way of finding out whether your Android smartphone or tablet has any new information or notification to show you, without having to actually activate the device or turn the screen on. Not only is that friendlier on the battery, but also more convenient. However, there’s a limitation – the device has to have an LED notification light in the first place. While most of the devices out there actually have that these days, not every one them comes equipped with an LED. For such cases, there have been apps like BLN (Back Light Notifications), which uses your device’s capacitive touch buttons to double as LED notification lights. Their restriction: almost all of them require root access. What if you’re unrooted, or rock a device that perhaps doesn’t have root yet, and still want some level of notification control akin to what we have discussed above? LEDBlinker has the answer.
In a few earlier posts of mine as well, I have stated the biggest challenge that I faced when I jumped ship from iOS to Android – the terrible battery life of the phone, and the quest to improve it. It’s not really a particular device’s fault, either; the way Android is coded, it’s bound to eat more battery. Nevertheless, there were quite a few tips and tricks that I came across, along with apps like JuiceDefender that worked wonders as per masses, and perhaps rightly so. However, then I came across another reliable source that advised against using the said app, since that actually contributed to poor battery life, according to them. Beyond that, JuiceDefender is paid if you want total control, so that’s another caveat.
The amount of apps that are available to download for Android and iOS is growing every single day, but it seems that some of the most successful and universally praised apps available are ones that are used to access social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It has already been proven that developers who manage to create a stunning and functional Twitter client will almost guarantee themselves success, which could be one of the reasons behind the release of the new Falcon Pro Twitter app for the Android platform.
Google's Nexus brand of smartphones had been a huge success in the run-up to the Nexus 7 slate released earlier this year, and the 7-inch device proved to be a huge hit with consumers. Not only was it powerful, but it ran on the buttery smooth Android 4.1, and priced a great deal more economically than others out there, has since sold in the millions. Things might be about to get even more interesting, though, because the $99 Nexus 7 we've been hearing about has shown up on benchmarks, and although these things can be faked, shows as packing a microSD slot, as well as 8GB of standard memory.
