Mozilla's attempt at a mobile OS has been a long time in the works. The open source smartphone and tablet operating system first began back in 2011, since which the Mozilla team has regularly kept us posted with various updates and info. An appearance at CES on an unspecified smartphones, followed by the release of a couple of developer handsets late last month has certainly heightened general interest, and those keen to get started with Firefox OS may only have a short wait left. According to a press release, the European market will see the first smartphone running Mozilla's new OS via the Alcatel One Touch, which will first arrive in Poland venturing west across mainland Europe.
The Mobile World Congress 2013 is well and truly underway, with a number of companies using the event to launch some of their newest and most exciting products. As well as launching a bunch of new smartphones to accompany the Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 on Windows Phone 8, Nokia has also made some key software alterations and enhancements to its broad range of apps.
The iPad mini is most certainly far from a perfect device. The lack of a Retina display and high cost have both been pointed out as glaring issues with the scaled-down Cupertino slate, yet one aspect that doesn't seem to have divided opinion is the design and form factor of the device. Doubtlessly, it's beautiful to hold and use, and for the last few months, it has been reported that the full-sized iPad may be treated to similar design traits. Following on from the supposed Retina iPad mini case leaks, the first cases of a redesigned iPad 5 have leaked via case maker MiniSuit, which seem to further substantiate the notion of the iPad mini and regular iPad adopting a uniform look moving forward.
The 85th Academy Awards ceremony may be all about the glitz and glamour of Hollywood but it seems virtually impossible for a large event to pass without Apple making some kind of appearance.
Anyone who’s ever purchased a stock device – computer, notebook or cell phone – from any OEM, is bound to have come across bloatware. Essentially, this is bundled software that the manufacturer chooses to incorporate within the device for certain purposes; sometimes, the software may be useful in some cases. Either way, bloatware isn’t something that’s usually welcomed by end users, because they’d, for the most part, make the device slower, underperform, and take up unnecessary resources on your device.
The PlayStation 4 event earlier this week threw up as many questions as it answered, notably pertaining to what it looks like, how much it will cost, and when it will be available. We have no real idea of what form the console will take, its price, or any real details on ETA except "in time for the holidays," yet many retailers have deemed this information enough to begin taking pre-orders and running competitions as they try and take advantage of the PS4 Mania.
Airplane mode is a great little feature of iOS. If you wish to sacrifice all connections for the benefit of saving battery, Airplane mode ensures your device can stay alive for as long as possible. But unfortunately, it is not possible to schedule this so, at times when your device is not / will not be in use, such as at night, you can save on battery life. Thanks to Cydia tweakster Zmaster, however, this is now a possibility, and his AirplaneScheduler tweak allows you to set your iOS device to flit in and out of Airplane mode depending on the times set by you.
Instagram is the most popular social network for the editing and sharing of images, and although the user base continues to grow exponentially, the app itself is far from perfect. Not only could the UI benefit from a makeover, but several options one would perhaps expect from an app of this kind are clearly lacking. The ability to zoom in, for example, is something we can easily do natively on iOS, but when it comes to Instagram, those pinch-in and pinch-out gestures are to no avail. Luckily, a tweak by the name of Instahancer not only solves this particular caveat, but a bunch of other little nagging issues, and we'll be taking a closer look at how it works it magic after the break.
As anybody who spends a great deal of time at a computer will be able to vouch, the timing of GTalk, Facebook, and other notifications received on a desktop, and the time it takes for that same notification to be pushed to a mobile device, are rarely in sync, with a delay of around three or four seconds occurring in extreme cases. However, a fix for this issue has been developed by a member of the XDA-Developers forum, and although it doesn't guarantee that notifications will arrive at the same time as they do on your desktop, it does make the retrieval of notifications much more streamlined.
When It comes to the Web, or indeed any field within the technology industry, Google is never far away with its own service or product looking to revolutionize (or at least Googlize) the way we do things. With the likes of Spotify and Pandora currently seen as two of the main players in the streaming music game, The Big G, it is claimed, wants a piece of the action, and with Apple trying to get its own iTunes Match service off the ground, Google would once again be locking horns with one of its fiercest rivals.
