In case you didn’t know already, it’s February 29th AKA “Leap Day” today. It’s a day that comes only once in four years* and Verizon is celebrating it with a special one-day sale which offers some of the latest and greatest 4G LTE devices $100 off the original retail price. Check out promotion details after the jump!
Have we told about how Android lets you pick and choose different components of the operating system such as its keyboard, launcher, dialer and first-party apps such contacts and gallery? If you’ve been following my app reviews lately, you probably have heard me saying this multiple times. I like repeating myself on this conceptual difference between Android and iOS because I believe more people need to know about this.
Instagram singlehandedly set the trend of photography apps that allow users to take a quick photograph, apply a “filter” and then share it on social networks. It launched back in late-2010 on the iPhone 4 and has, since then, gained over 10 million users; it is one of the most popular iPhone apps today and is strongly awaited on Android.
When Android users take their phone out of the box for the first time, things gnenerally work; average users don’t really customize their Android experience but enthusiasts like to hunt for the perfect third-party alternatives to things that they think don’t work. The browser on Gingerbread and below is a good case in point: it’s a lackluster offering that is slow and not customizable at all. Searching for the best alternative browser on Android through Market can be gargantuan task, but if you do your homework you’ll find that Dolphin Browser and Opera Mobile are fan-favorites.
Samsung's iMessage, Gtalk and other IM service competitor, ChatON, is already available for Bada, BlackBerry, Android and iOS but now it has gained a new platform - the desktop.
It would seem that the freight train that is the Android mobile operating system is continuing to steam through the mobile industry with Google's Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content, Andy Rubin, announcing that the OS is receiving over 850,000 activations per day which represents a rise of over 250 percent since last year. It has to be said that these are pretty impressive statistics considering there is only one device currently being sold which comes pre-installed with the latest Android 4.0 OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. Even more so, when you consider that only approximately one percent of Android devices in existence run Ice Cream Sandwich.
I personally feel that Android needs a strong, unified syncing solution that harmonizes your desktop computer with your smartphone and tablet. Apple has got this nailed with iTunes and iCloud but Android is severely lacking in this department; users have to install a bunch of different apps that sync different kinds of files: you have Dropbox for photos/videos, Google Docs for documents, doubletwist’s excellent AirSync app or Google Music for your music library etc. etc. Android enthusiasts tend to see this as a plus on Android’s part but I don’t.
Apple makes a big deal of its iCloud service, and it has put considerably more clout behind it since the switch from MobileMe. The company freely admits that iCloud is to become the cornerstone of everything it does moving forward, with seamless syncing and the like very much expected to be part of how we run our digital lives. At least, that's how it is going to work in Apple's iOS and Mac ecosystem.
Progress on official CyanogenMod ROMs was pretty slow these past few weeks because of the lack of build servers. The CyanogenMod team asked for donations for new servers and a large number of people from the Android enthusiast community responded to the call.
It is proving to be extremely difficult to keep score in the on going legal disputes between Apple and Motorola, with both companies notching up temporary victories in the last few weeks. Today however, the victory banner will be printed with Apple's name, as the Higher Regional Court in Karlsruhe, Germany, have ruled in the fruit company’s favor against Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI).
