We definitely live in a world where we all value the benefit of receiving something for nothing, which is why a lot of the most popular mobile apps are ones that are entirely free of charge to download and don't cost anything to use. Consumers may not immediately see the value in developers building software that isn't monetized, but a lot of times, the work is supported by investors or finances that come from advertisers meaning that savings can be passed onto the consumer. The AireTalk app is a great example of a free of charge piece of kit, but it also has a ton of functionality as well.
Announced four days ago, and all set to be launched on September 21st, five days from now, the iPhone 5 will be competing directly against Windows Phone 8 based smartphones like the Nokia Lumia 920 and Android based smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X. We’ve already compared the former two against the iPhone 5, and now it’s time to compare it against the One X.
After four iterations, Apple has upped the display size of the iPhone from 3.5 to 4-inches, with an appropriate increase in resolution (1136 x 640). It is arguably the biggest feature of the iPhone 5 for most people, as the other big feature - 4G LTE - is still restricted to limited to a select number of cities in the U.S. and Europe.
Mobile devices are not just great for calling, SMSing, browsing the web, sending e-mails and increasing productivity, but are also more commonly being used as high-spec gaming machines. With even your average smartphone or tablet device packing in multiple cores, one can immerse oneself in console-standards of gaming, and year by year, we're seeing many of the big publishers embracing mobile.
S Voice for Galaxy S III may look and work a lot like Siri for iPhone 4S, but it has been shown in multiple tests that both voice-based services are, in most ways, inferior to Google Now that comes built-in with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
One of the great things about the smartphone industry is its diversity and contains a number of different mobile operating systems as well as a plethora of devices being pushed to the market by a variety of different manufacturers. There is no definition of a one-size-fits-all device with each new handset offering its own set of features and abilities that appeal to different user sets. One of the frustrating things from a consumer perspective is appreciating 95% of what a device offers, but wanting to make the additional 5% up with options from a different device.
Battery retention is a massive issue with our electronic devices, and the smaller, thinner, and lighter they've become, the harder vendors have had to strive to keep the battery retention at optimum level. The companies behind our notebooks, smartphones and tablets tend to quote a battery life seldom reachable for the majority, and more often than not, the onus is on the consumer to take battery-conserving steps in avoiding that fateful warning popup or dreaded low battery logo in the corner.
If you are in a state of cellphone limbo and can't decide whether your life needs iOS, Android or Windows Phone in it, or are having difficulties choosing between your Apples, Samsungs and Nokias then you might have considered asking your peers what to do, or alternatively just searching the web for the latest in smartphone goodness. Either way, the chances are that during that time of intense reflection, the iPhone and the Galaxy S III probably popped up as recommended devices.
One of the main issues with Samsung devices that run Android - or any device that is powered by that particular operating system in fact - is the huge fragmentation issue that accompanies it. More often than not, powerful and high-end devices are often running outdated versions of Android, meaning that consumers are often missing out on features that have been integrated into new builds. This issue is something that we will likely see in the future as we continue to move forward and won't go away anytime soon.
The battle for supremacy in the cloud-based services has definitely stepped up a notch or two over the past few months, with a host of companies joining a territory manned mainly by Dropbox. Apple kicked things off by launching iCloud along with iOS 5 back in October of last year, and Microsoft finally brought SkyDrive to the mainstream in the early stages of 2012 - laying the foundations for the eventual release of its so-called "Cloud OS" - Windows 8.
