The Facebook app for Android has - like that of other mobile platforms - born the wrath of the critical army of mobile socialites at times. Being the official app of the largest social network on earth, no fault goes unnoticed, and a significant bug can quickly alienate fans in their droves. Although Mark Zuckerberg's network hasn't had trouble increasing its users base exponentially over the years, perfecting its mobile apps to a level satisfactory to its 800 million or so users has proven to be a lot tougher.
Spotify is used by tens of millions worldwide, and although digital music services such as iTunes continue to thrive, Spotify has proved there is still room for the streaming / rental model among consumers.
Some interesting ideas and apps have been created using smartphone cameras - some more creative and intriguing than others. Ranking up there with those utilities which allow words and sentences captured via the camera lens to be translated on-the-fly, SnapNPlay for Android allows you to take pictures of sheet music, and then plays that piece back to you.
Whenever we discuss the advantages of rooting, the term "kernel" is often thrown around at will. The fact of the matter is, many of those with rooted devices don't even know what a kernel is, so in an attempt to clear the haze, a kernel is simply layer of code allowing your Android OS (and apps therein) to interact with your device's hardware.
Since Microsoft has yet to jump on the mobile bandwagon with its Office series (with the exclusion of OneNote), the billions of Windows users (and those using Office for Mac) looking for a mobile alternative haven't been particularly spoiled for choice.
Android users are very proud of their notification area. It is one of the features that they have long lauded over iPhone owners as the biggest advantage of Google's smartphone OS over that of Apple's. iOS 5's Notification Center has gone some way towards redressing the balance somewhat, but one thing is still missing.
Although most of today's smartphones pack some pretty mean specs and performance when it comes to taking photos, as we should have learned from the unprecedented rise of Instagram, taking the shot is indeed only half of the fun.
Gentlemen, load your guns. As announced back in February, he highly popular iOS game Death Rally has just been released on the Google Play Store for Android (albeit slightly late from the original target of March.) Described as an action-packed combat racer, the game blends together combat and rally racing in an all-around fun package. And best of all, it's currently free on Android, while it is 99 cents in the iOS App Store.
If you're increasingly bored with the engine noise of your car (smart car owners, I'm looking at you), a new app has been released that hopes to partially solve this problem. Available for both iOS and Android at the low cost of $0.99, XLR8 simulates the audio of various sports cars by utilizing your phone's accelerometer to play engine sounds that kind of matches the way you're driving. When you rev your real car, the audio revs up as well. When you slow down and approach a stop light, the audio also matches this as well.
Proxy Browser is a new third party browsing app for Android that makes it easier for people on restrictive Wi-Fi networks to access the data and services they want, right from their smartphone or Android tablet device.
