Firefox's well-documented six week release cycle means as soon as one version arrives, the beta of the next edition is no more than a couple of days away. True to that motif, just two days after Firefox 14 was released for Windows, Mac and Linux, Firefox 15 beta has arrived, which, among other things, takes care of a few nagging memory leaks.
Sparrow, the creator of those very popular iOS and OS X applications, has just been acquired by Google, in a move which will certainly raise more than a few eyebrows. Sparrow has dedicated its existence on making some altogether great apps for Apple's platforms, but it is the Big G that has decided to swoop for the start-up, and Sparrow will now join the Gmail team to "accomplish a bigger vision."
Despite most Apple products being manufactured over in China, the nation is usually behind most other countries when it actually comes to seeing the newest Cupertino device. Some four months since the US and Europe release of the third-generation iPad, the slate has finally hit stores over in China, and unlike the usual frenzied rush, the launch came and went relatively quietly.
Some smartphones just outright refuse to die. The HTC HD2, released in late 2009, is the most recent example of this. It was the first smartphone with a 4.3” display*, powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera. The HD2 was the last smartphone that was based on Windows Mobile 6.5, but later, thanks to vibrant community support, the device was able to run Windows Phone 7, and Android all the way from 2.2 to the recently released 4.1 Jelly Bean.
Considering that the Cydia store is packed to the rafters with tweaks and packages that span across multiple aspects of Apple's mobile operating system, it is always a nice treat to see an offering land in the repositories that offers something slightly different and exists solely to enhance a part of the operating system that has often been overlooked in the past. The CallTap tweak, may not be feature packed but it does offer some useful functions.
We’ve already discussed everything you need to know about Jelly Bean in one of our previous post, but if you’re not in the mood to read the lengthy post itself, you should know that Android 4.1 brings vastly smoother user interface, more powerful notifications, better keyboard with next word prediction and offline typing, and lastly, the amazing Google Now.
When it comes to the world of jailbreaking and the associated tweaks that are housed within Cydia, history has shown us that small and easy to use packages can sometimes be the best and most fun to use and interact with. There are always exceptions to this and there might come an instance when a little depth is required, but the tweaks that offer a quick and fun solution to something generally have a lot of mileage in them.
As well as making any tech fan shudder, the drop tests of our much loved gadgets serve an educational purpose, because despite most consumers getting carried away with nice displays, sharp cameras and other great hardware features, few actually take into consideration how quickly it can all be lost with one spillage or drop on the floor.
The 2012 Olympic Games are nearly upon us, and although it's a great festival and celebration of the human form pushed to its physical limits, there's also the small matter of the medals. As all countries involved look forward to what will undoubtedly be a great spectacle, many will be hoping their nation manages to not only do well, but bring some medals home in the process.
As important as the hardware specification of a smartphone or tablet may be, it's not necessarily the end-all, be-all, and the software it runs can be an even more significant factor in the overall quality and popularity of a device.
