In a day and age where we all spend our lives tethered to our smartphones, checking emails, making calls and generally relying on them to run our lives, there's a very real problem when it comes to power usage. In fact, how many times have you picked your smartphone up only to find it is dead, with no power at all after well under a day's worth of use? We’re willing to bet it's a fairly common occurrence indeed.
Regardless of whether you are a fan of Apple's Siri or prefer to use Google's Voice Search on your device, it looks like giving audible commands to a smartphone or tablet is definitely here to stay and will play an increasingly important role in how we interact with our devices. We have recently seen a video comparison showing Siri and Google Voice Search going head-to-head and now we are seeing the release of the NowNow jailbreak tweak that is designed specifically for those who want to quickly invoke Google's Voice Search on their iOS device.
You've seen the Samsung Galaxy S III; you've heard about the iPhone 5; but as of November 9th, a third flagship device will also be available to those on AT&T in the United States. I am of course talking about the Nokia Lumia 920, and with a new, Windows Phone 8 interface, a tweak on an already award-winning design and a camera already proven to outclass any other on the smartphone market, Steve Wozniak isn't alone in his hype of the device.
In the mobile market, it's fair to say Microsoft has a little catching up to do, but having already released a very promising mobile platform and, lest we forget, the Surface, the Redmond company is now setting its sights on the increasingly-popular 7-inch tablet market. Taking a slightly different angle to the manner in which the Nexus 7 and iPad mini have been marketed, rumor has it the software maker's effort will be pushed as a "gaming tablet," and work on the purported "Xbox Surface" is already said to be underway.
Waiting patiently for the official release of the latest version of Android has never been an easy thing to do. Even when the switch is flipped and the latest variant of Google's mobile operating system goes live, it still inevitably takes an eternity for it to filter through the approval process of various manufacturers and networks and make it onto existing devices. That is one of the reasons why we often see individual elements ripped right out of new Android versions and packaged up for existing users to flash onto their current installations, which is something that has happened with the core Google apps from Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
It should be common news by now that Apple has taken the decision to have an executive shake-up in Cupertino, with a number of notable faces set to leave the company in 2013. One of the most well-known casualties of the internal restructure is Scott Forstall who has held the role of Senior Vice President of iOS over the last few years. Forstall has been in charge of developing and handling the direction of iOS and has reportedly been shown the door due to his inability to play nice with other executives, as well as the publicly perceived shortcomings in the new Apple mapping system and the Siri digital assistant.
If you have the opinion that there aren’t enough monthly subscription based media streaming services available, then Amazon has listened to those concerns in an attempt to compete with other services on the market by making their Amazon Prime service available on a subscription basis. Amazon had previously offered the Prime service at a $79 per year price point, but are in the early stages of testing out a more relaxed monthly offering that comes in line with the likes of Hulu and Netflix.
Facebook have tonight taken the opportunity to push out an update to their universal iPhone, iPod touch and iPad mobile app, taking it to the version 5.1. The world's biggest social network have been on a relatively well-received mobile push recently with significant updates to their iOS and Android apps. This latest update on Apple's iOS platform brings some notable enhancements and serves to make the software a lot more social thanks to more powerful chatting and photo sharing features.
Microsoft's Surface RT tablet has not been on the market long, and reviews of the machine have been somewhat hit and miss to say the least, but the current product is only part of the overall equation. There's the Surface Pro, for example, and that's arguably the one most will want to pick up.
The Samsung Galaxy S III is currently one of the most successful smartphones available on the market, and one of the prime reasons why Samsung has recently announced record breaking profits. With the Galaxy S III still standing on top of the Android powered community, it should come as good news to United Kingdom based consumers that the 64GB variant in black is now available for pre-order, and that as a SIM free option.
