Even before the well-documented IPO a few months back, Facebook had been placing increasing emphasis on improving its mobile prowess, and the purchase of Instagram for a cool billion dollars outlined this desire even further. Despite acquiring the most formidable social image app on the planet, Zuck and his team has continued without relent to improve its range of apps, while also bringing forth some new ones at the same time.
The Apple vs. Samsung court case has vacuumed the lion's share of the blogosphere's attention over the past couple of weeks, and with the key figures of both companies now getting involved, it's simply impossible to to be intrigued by the constantly-moving sequence of events. Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iOS Software and regular speaker at the WWDC keynote speeches, testified in the case last week, and now NetworkWorld has latched on to some intriguing information mentioned by Forstall months ago.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has been something of a revelation among those using Google's mobile operating system, since it's the first time Android has seemed as though it can compete with Windows Phone and iOS in terms of smoothness. Ice Cream Sandwich was a vast improvement on Gingerbread / Honeycomb, but even with some devices packing in quad-core processors, Android smartphones and slates were still susceptible to more than their fair share of lag.
While from the outset, it does appear that Apple and Samsung are fighting over the design of “black rectangles”, newly released evidence from the courts shows just how blatantly Samsung copied Apple’s design ideas*. Check it all out after the jump.
Although both Apple and Samsung legal representatives are spending most of their working days locked in a Californian court room battling out their difficulties, it hasn't stopped the two companies putting plans in place to make an assault on the smartphone industry. After all, business is business, and although the two largest smartphone vendors in the world clearly have issues. With Apple planning to entice users over to the fruity side with the announcement and release of the next-generation iPhone sometime next month, it seems that Samsung have their own plans for market domination.
Late last month, Samsung ensured the tech world's attention wouldn't be solely focused on the iPhone 5 or Nexus 7 by pinpointing August 15th as a date for a key announcement. The tactic worked, and fans of everything digital have been speculating what the Korean company may have up its sleeve.
One of the most popular features of any connected device, regardless of whether it is a desktop machine, mobile smartphone or a games console, is being able to get onto the internet and see what marvels are available. To be able to achieve this the device in question obviously needs to have some kind of web browser application that acts as the medium between the device and the user. With Google only recently releasing their Chrome browser onto the iOS App Store, mobile web browsing has been a recent topic of discussion, especially the performance issues that surround browsing.
We have come across a new Windows to Android transformation pack today. Simply named the Android Jelly Bean Skin Pack for Windows 7, the transformation pack includes a bunch of different programs that, when used together, give Windows 7 an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean-like look.
If you pulled together a focus group of average smartphone users and gathered their thoughts on the platforms which they believe are most relevant at the current time, then it is unlikely that BlackBerry and RIM would get a significant mention. There was a time when RIM were on top of the world and riding on the crest of a wave, but the emergence of iOS and Android as well as some killer underlying hardware from Apple and other manufacturers has seemingly put an end to that.
Whenever we talk about and discuss tablets, we only refer to Apple's iPad, the Nexus 7 from Google and ASUS, as well as the Kindle Fire and Samsung's Galaxy Tab range of devices. While they may be the most popular and relevant devices in that category at the current time, we mustn't forget the tablets which at one time looked like they would make a great impact on the industry.

