It's official folks - Samsung has begun inviting press to its upcoming IFA 2012 event on August 20th. The event has been the subject of some announcement rumors of late, with everyone in general agreement that we will see a new handset come out of Samsung's IFA event.
Apple and Samsung may be currently locked in a rather ugly trial centered around various alleged patent and design infringements, but that doesn't mean the owners of either company’s products needs to needlessly suffer. Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is one of the products that finds itself right in the middle of the ongoing dispute between the two technology giants, but even in the midst of all the legal wrangling, it still manages to find itself receiving a nice new software update which brings new and improved Android features.
The fabulous Nexus 7 has only been released for a very short time and already it has managed to win over most of the doubters with its impressive specification and overall pleasurable user experience. The device itself feels like a premium build product, and the integration of Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean provides the perfect companion quad-core Tegra 3 processor which Google and ASUS have packed under the hood.
Google paints its Wallet services as the future of shopping transactions, and using the power of NFC, or Near Field Communication, it has certainly shown much promise. The lack of a few important features is largely attributable to its infant state, but today, the Big G has given Wallet a pretty big update, offering support for all major credit and debit cards.
As many of you already know, Android 4.1 Jelly on the Google / ASUS Nexus 7 uses a mix of tablet and phone user interfaces. The home screen launcher is fixed in portrait mode with virtual buttons at the bottom like the Galaxy Nexus, but when you go into landscape mode for landscape-oriented apps / games like Dead Trigger, the virtual buttons are placed at the bottom unlike the Galaxy Nexus. This is a completely new mix for UI (with respect to placement of virtual buttons) that has never been seen before on Android tablets; Google developed this specifically for the 7” tablet form factor.
If you happened to walk into a store and saw the Nexus Q sitting on the shelf for sale, you might want to consult a salesperson to actually find out what the elegant black orb does. Unlike smartphones or tablets that lend their visuals to their functionality, or the Apple TV unit that gives away its function in the name, the Nexus Q is a visual enigma that hasn't really gotten the consumer technology world convinced.
The smartphone industry is one of the most fiercely contested in tech space, and although Windows Phone 8 will bring Microsoft well and truly into the fold, the battle is currently fought between Google's Android and Apple's iOS platforms.
In terms of technology, we're heavily reliant on insider information and the typically "unspecified" sources in order to gather intel, but often, indications of new features are right under our noses. When a new software feature arrives in Android or iOS, the foundations are usually laid long before that, and it's down to us to do the digging and uncover them.
Google means business with Android these days. That's not to say it didn't before, but since the company's Google I/O conference recently it has become clear that the people at Google are beginning to understand what it takes to make a premium smartphone. It's not apps, and it's not handsets. It's the feel of the operating system.
One of the great things about having devices like smartphones and tablets is the ability to constantly update the standard functionality of the gadget by downloading and installing additional apps which are available through marketplaces like the iOS App Store and Google's own software market, the Google Play Store. In some instances it is possible to acquire installations from other sources, but for the mainstream user, the official app hubs prove more than sufficient with over 1.2 million combined apps available on the two largest sales platforms.
