Those of you who are familiar with jailbreaking, rooting or unlocking their smartphone will know that the tools that apply these modifications use an exploit – either in your device’s software or hardware – to get system-level access and allow other applications to do the same.

Most of the attention of the technology loving world has been lavished on Apple and Samsung over the last two weeks, partly because they are the two largest smartphone vendors in the world and are currently actively competing against each for the top spot, but also due to the fact that they are currently locked in a fairly bitter legal dispute in California to resolve whether or not Samsung did indeed “slavishly” copy the design of the iPhone. As entertaining as the court case is, and as enjoyable as the information that it is unearthing, we should really try to step away from the fact that two of the industry’s largest names have had to go down this route and instead concentrate on the wonderful products they both offer.

Android Jelly Bean (4.1) seems to have gone down a treat among those using it, and it certainly seems as though Project Butter – a movement to make Android a lot sleeker and lag-free – has done the trick. With any new operating system, the temptation for many is to simply mod and tweak in order to decipher just what it’s capable of, and for those having done a little – maybe too much – modding on their Nexus device, you’ll be pleased to know you can grab a fresh, stock copy of your mobile OS.

Although plenty of successful inroads and developments have been made over the years in the modding and jailbreaking of the popular games consoles (most notably Geohot and his famous PS3 jailbreak), they can often take a while to arise due to the tight-belted nature of the console vendors, most of whom tend not to be accommodating.

For all of its strengths, one drawback of owning an Android device is the increasing number of threats from malware. While Windows Phone and iOS are largely considered to be safe from attack, there are scores of fake .apk files and other non-niceties lurking about aimed at those using Google’s market-leading mobile operating system.

With beautiful typography, continuous horizontal layouts and large thumbnails, Window Phone 7’s “Metro UI” is arguably the best looking mobile operating system in the market today. It provides a completely original user-experience which focuses more on information than apps.

The good people at Google have been getting their heads down, with their Director and Managing Counsel of Telecoms and Media, Richard Whitt filing a ‘special temporary authority’ application to the Federal Communications Commission which will let them test their new next-generation personal communication device outside of a laboratory environment. It all sounds very technical, but just what is a ‘next generation personal communication device’?

For any consumer who may be taking the time to consider purchasing a new mobile phone, or a tablet computer, they will more than likely begin by considering either an Apple iPhone or iPad as their purchase of choice. With over a quarter of a billion iOS devices sold around the world, the iPhone and iPad are insanely popular, and considered by many to be the leading products in the mobile computing sector.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one of the latest touch screen devices to be released to the masses running the latest 4.0 version of the Android operating system, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. For those of you out there who aren’t fanatical about all things Android, the Galaxy Nexus is a device developed collaboratively between the Korean giant Samsung and Google.