One of the advantages that Android has over iOS is that users have more control over their user-experience. If they are dissatisfied with the stock keyboard, launcher, music app etc., they can just head out to Android Market and download something that fits their needs. This may be perceived as Android being an OS that “doesn’t work out of the box”, but it’s more about giving users more choice.
As a technology news writer following Android, I’ve lost count of the number of Android tablets. It’s simply impossible to keep up with all of them when manufacturers like Samsung introduces five tablets within a few months. We’ve discussed the negative effects of this in our post on the Galaxy Tab 2: it’s creating consumer confusion, making things difficult for manufacturers to keep all of their lineup updated to the latest version of Android and, as a consequence, making your average Joe just pick up an iPad. Sure, the Kindle Fire and ASUS Transformer tablets are selling well relative to other Android tablets, but the iPad is simply smoking them.
The debate over whether iOS or Android is the best home for smartphone app developers is one that has been raging for some time, and one that shows no sign of abating.
With multi-cores, multi-gigabyte RAMs, every increasing flash memory capacities and upcoming software like Ubuntu for Android, it is only a matter of time before the smartphone replaces the desktop. Yes, believe it or not, smartphones are becoming that powerful.
This post could easily just be an embedded YouTube video alongside just one word - "WOW" - and that would probably suffice. That said, we like to offer a little more insight than that here at Redmond Pie so here goes.
ASUS’s Transformer Prime is one of the most hotly-discussed Android tablets out there. Much of the hype is due to its best-in-class quad-core Tegra 3 chip which offer desktop-class processing and graphics with excellent power management.
Samsung Electronics Co. have released updated sales figures which show that their popular smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S II, has surpassed the twenty million units shipped mark in its first ten months of existence in the market. The world’s number two smartphone maker say that the figures represent both domestic and international markets, but only take into account the number of units which have been shipped to service providers and don't take into account SIM-free sales or individual customer purchases which means the figure could be significantly higher.
Collaboration is becoming more than just a buzz word these days, with many businesses needing their teams to work closely on projects, be they long form text documents or complicated spreadsheets. Google seems to understand that, and is working on making the whole experience a whole lot more mobile.
If you follow Redmond Pie, you’ll know that we regularly post updates to Android Market in the form of APK files you can install on your own. Google later pushes the update to devices automatically and despite heavy testing, it may just happen that your device doesn’t like the latest update. Stability issues, regular force-closes etc. etc.
Android has its fair share of third-party music and media players, mostly because the stock app is pretty weak and also due to the fact that Android is itself an (relatively) open mobile platform; Android users are spoiled for choice.
