For years, many have been trying to figure out how to add physical gaming controls to the iPhone: a few solutions have surfaced so far, such as the BladePad and the iControlPad, but many of them are either too bulky or just downright unpractical. Luckily, there’s a new case in town: albeit in prototype stage, it has the potential to make your gaming experience much easier and keep the nacho smudges off your iPhone touchscreen.
As part of the plan to bring the full-sized 9.7-inch iPad in line with the recently released iPad mini, Apple is reportedly planning to announce and release the fifth-generation of their popular tablet in March of 2013. The speculated release date is notable due to the fact that it would come only five months after the current model iPad was introduced, and would effectively mean that the Cupertino based company will have launched the third, fourth and fifth-generation models in one twelve month cycle.
Facebook's Poke app has taken the App Store by storm, and in less than a day, already sits aloft the iTunes Free app chart. The app, which, in essence, is a chat app with a few twists, only just released for iPhone, but already, has become the most popular free on the App Store.
Flashing new ROMs every now and then is something that’s almost a must for any Android owner that wants to modify their device in any way, and if you’re using custom ROMs, this phenomenon is going to be even more frequent. Developers continually release newer versions of their offerings at a very fast pace, and more often than not, you may find yourself flashing a new ROM every other day. While all of this is both exciting and rewarding, you may at times run into some problems with the firmware that you’re trying, ultimately resulting in the need to go back to a stock one. Samsung devices here have a clear advantage over the rest of the crowd, in that they have Odin3 – the magical tool that lets you download stock Samsung ROMs and flash them to your Android phone with ease. While other manufacturers do prefer offering something similar, Odin3 remains, by far, the easiest to use.
The Facebook messaging platform has been on aspect of the social network that has changed dramatically over the years. When Facebook first launched the service, it was driven by the upload of photographs and proved to be an extremely media heavy social gathering place and while that is still true, the built-in messenger functionality has been significantly beefed up recently. Facebook have also recently announced that they are making additional changes to the conversation streams within messages as well as putting a pay-to-message test in place with a subset of United States based users.
I think we all understand the emotive human desire to spend the holiday season with our loved ones and the people that are closest to us but unfortunately it isn't always possible to share the festive season in person with those who matter most. Apple's latest iPad and iPad mini TV ad that has just surfaced today shows that the company not only understands that we can't always connect in person with the important people but that the 9.7 and 7.9-inch tablets make great digital companions that can act as a gateway to the people we love through the FaceTime protocols.
Some developers in the Android community had been inspecting the internal CSC file of their Galaxy Note 2 smartphone in order to find out what possible features and handy little shortcuts Samsung had decided to prevent users from gaining access to in different localities on the phone. In an extension of that work it seems that the same developers have dedicated a little bit more time to the cause and have provided a list of modifications that can be made to the system CSC file in order to enable a few hidden and secret features that lie dormant on the international Galaxy Note 2.
Remember when Google blindsided most of the mobile industry with their $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility? Well, it seems like they are actually in the process of putting their extremely expensive purchase to good use, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that they are working hard on an advanced smartphone that is referred to internally as the “X Phone”.
Customization is definitely one of the main reasons why mobile smartphone users prefer to have their needs handled by the fantastic Android operating system. Most aspects of customization are extremely popular within the Android community, but being able to replace the home screen with an alternative launcher setup is growing in popularity, partly thanks to developers who produce work like the lightweight and open-sourced LauncherAdvanced app which provides a great set of highly-configurable options to tweak the device.
Facebook has released a poke app for the iPhone, which the company describes as a "fun and easy" way to "say hello to friends wherever you are."
