Android is, by a long shot, the most customizable of the three major mobile operating systems. With most modders and developers congregated over at XDA Developers and RootzWiki, it's one of the most thriving communities of all, allowing Android users to customize and enhance their device's software to the nth degree.
As with Instagram, which was recently bought out by Facebook for a whopping one billion dollars, I often wonder whether the guys over at Rovio could have predicted just how successful their mobile title Angry Birds would grow to become. Beginning on iOS, the title is now available on most platforms facilitating casual gaming, with Microsoft's Xbox 360, the Sony PlayStation 3, and Nindendo's 3DS also soon to join the party, as we revealed yesterday.
The rampant "iPad Mini" rumors have taken a slight recess in the past couple of days, making way for more talk of the next iPhone, which is expected to ship within the next few months. The rumor mill has been indicating a longer form factor, larger screen, smaller dock connector, modified speaker grills, and a repositioned headphone jack, and the so-called "exclusive" leak by KitGuru appears to suggest those changes will be implemented.
Although we have seen snippets of what is purported to be the next iPhone, history forces us not to take anything as a given. In times past, the blogs and various tech affiliated sites have been almost certain of what Apple was preparing, only to be completely thrown off by the eventual product. Still, that hasn't stopped TaoBao, a Chinese site similar to Amazon, from taking pre-orders of the device, and as you would expect, the images on their landing page are based purely on the rumors we've been seeing and hearing for quite a while now.
Apple and Google follow very different principles with their mobile platforms. Apple maintains a tightly closed system where they put their software on their own hardware whereas Google has a much more open policy. Google licenses Android to companies like Samsung, HTC and Motorola which manufacture their own hardware and run it on customized versions of Android. While Apple’s way has plenty of advantages there is one area where it lags behind Google: sheer units sold and total market share. Android smartphones as a whole have been dominating the iPhone in USA for quite some time now. In a latest report, its dominance has been reaffirmed. Check out the details after the jump.
I feel pretty confident in saying that any seasoned jailbreaker would agree to the fact that restarting an iOS device can be a painstaking chore. It doesn’t matter what type of jailbreak user you are, there comes a point in using the device where you just have to either restart it or respring it after installing a particular tweak or package.
The iOS vs. Android battle is one of the most fiercely debated within the tech industry, and although most people tend to lean towards one or the other, both have their own strengths and unique quirks. One of the great things about using an Android is the ability to add home screen replacements, otherwise referred to as custom launchers. In this category, iOS is a little one-dimensional, but on Google's mobile OS, things can get very interesting, and there are many, many fantastic custom launchers out to offer a vastly improved mobile experience.
The Amazon Kindle Fire is not your archetypal Android tablet by any stretch of the imagination, but that hasn't stopped members of the modding community from treating it as such. With Android Jelly Bean now beginning its official rollout, those looking to install it on their Amazon tablet can now do so thanks to an AOSP-based Jelly Bean (4.1.1) ROM.
Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites on the planet, and although it doesn't yield the same amount of active users as Facebook, it offers a fantastic niche platform from which people can communicate in the here-and-now.
Although most of the details with regards to Apple's much anticipated OS X Mountain Lion are already public domain, the Cupertino company has now revealed which specific Macs will be upgradable once the next iteration of its desktop operating system does emerge. If you're in ownership of a MacBook released prior to 2007, you'll be disappointed to learn that you'll need to grab yourself some new hardware if you wish to sink your teeth into Mountain Lion, since it's thought it will simply not run on 32-bit GPUs.
