The Samsung Galaxy S5 is the electronics giant's latest and greatest smartphone, and has brought with it a myriad of exciting new features. As well as the fingerprint sensor, gold color configuration, heartbeat monitor and other such niceties, the device is also a great deal more rugged than its predecessor. Thanks to a more robust build quality that also renders the handset waterproof, the Galaxy S5 is a lot more rough-and-ready than its predecessor, although as you might imagine, it more than met its match when faced with the bullet of a .50 caliber sniper rifle.
It's an accepted fact that Apple changed the face of the smartphone industry with the introduction of the iPhone back in 2007, and even though it has only been seven years, it feels as though we've always been tapping home screen icons and gesturing our way through interfaces. Not only did the iPhone completely turn the market on its head, but Google's in-development Android interface - which didn't, at the time of the Apple smartphone's announcement, support touch input - also had to be completely re-thought.
Google's Android 4.4.3 update may well be on the way for select devices, but while this rudimentary bump could be rolled out in the next couple of weeks, something much more significant is said to be on the horizon. Currently referred to as 'Project Hera,' the future implementation will aim to bring an aligned, synchronized experience across Android, Chrome and Web apps, with users able to carry out tasks in a seamless manner throughout the range of Google platforms.
Even though the Play Store is moderated to ensure that dodgy, malicious apps don't make it through the gates and onto people's devices, it's not a completely foolproof system. Virus Shield, a relatively new app that claimed to protect users from viruses and other such non-niceties, has scammed many folks out of their money because, at $3.99 a pop, it didn't actually provide any speakable anti-virus features. Although it has since been ousted by the search giant after being exposed, it remains to be seen whether the 10,000+ customers that parted with the substantial sum will see any kind of refund.
Android's biggest weakness may be the huge numbers in which smartphones running the software have sold, but it's fairly safe to say at this point that phones and tablets running various flavors of Android are less than secure. In fact, the hacking of Android-powered devices is such a problem that it's been the beneficiary of plenty of attention from the security fraternity.
Independently of the forthcoming Android 4.4.3 update, which should begin to trickle out to the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 in the very near future, Google plans to add some useful new features to the native camera app of its mobile operating system. According to a newly emerged report, the standalone app will be given a complete makeover, delivering a revamped UI, improved panorama and more.
It seems that we can't go any longer than a few posts without professing our love for the jailbreaking scene. Maybe not always for some of the tweaks that it comes up with, after all, some can be pretty poor indeed, but rather for the kinds of things that it makes possible. For the doors that it opens, often far beyond the idea of simply being able to skin an iOS device to within an inch of its life.
Some things are just never going to happen. Some things are just highly unlikely. With Steve Jobs around it was unthinkable for Apple to bring the iTunes Store to Google's Android mobile platform, but in a post-Steve Jobs world, it's looking increasingly possible that those packing non-Apple hardware could be able to buy songs from iTunes.
Having been purchased by Google three years ago before being recently offloaded to Lenovo for almost $10 billion less, you might have forgiven Motorola for losing a little of its get-up-and-go, but today's announcement of the Moto 360 - the first confirmed smartwatch to be running on its former overlord's Android Wear software - indicates that Motorola is far from beleaguered by the unsettling corporate movements, and still has a great deal to offer the mobile market. The device itself, which looks a digitized version of a traditional wristwatch, will be available at some point in the summer, with Motorola - like Google - currently focusing its efforts in developing the ecosystem.
With Samsung having already announced the Gear 2 and Gear Fit smartwatches at Mobile World Congress, it was only going to be a matter of time before the other big names in tech joined the fray, and amid ongoing rumors that Apple will drop its elusive 'iWatch' product later this year, Google has gone ahead and released the Developer Preview of its 'Android Wear' SDK. As the name implies, this particular flavor of the search giant's open-source platform is designed specifically for wearables, and the Big G also took the opportunity to reel off a bunch of manufacturers, including Motorola and HTC, that will begin releasing wearable products using the software later on this year.
