Being able to take a smartphone and then tinker with it to the nth degree is part of the charm of the Android community. Being able to be the best looking, highest spec device on the planet and then put your own, heavily customized or completely stock version of Android onto it is the reason many people swear by Android over its iOS and Windows Phone competition. We've flashed more than our fair share of Android ROMs in our time, and we know both how much fun, and how frustrating an enterprise it can be.
One of the great things about the release of the Walter Isaacson biography detailing the life and times of Steve Jobs, was that we learned much more of events and instances that we'd only previously gathered the crux of. We hear names, we see keynotes, we enjoy products; but the ins and outs of what exactly goes on tend to remain obscured from the public eye - at least until another extensive book hits the market. Fred Vogelstein’s Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, is a self-explanatory tale of two modern-day tech titans, and The Atlantic has posted an interesting piece dissecting a particular chapter about the release of the iPhone and notably, Google's reaction.
If there's one thing we love about Android, it's that ability to customize just about everything that those using the platform are always telling is the reason it is so popular. There's something to be said for Apple's walled garden and the amount of control it likes to have over everything, but sometimes it's just nice to be able to fiddle around with your smartphone, isn't it?
The iOS vs. Android supremacy debate is almost as old as both the platforms’ own age, and it never ceases to be. In some areas, Android takes the top spot, while others see Apple’s offering outshine its Mountain View competitor. One area, however, where iOS has always maintained the upper hand, is fragmentation - the word that causes Android fans to hide faces and come up with other allegations against the fruity OS.
In the video below, we pit Moto G vs Samsung Galaxy S4 in a comparison test to see which of the two smartphones offer best value-for-money.
Every new smartphone seems to be following the same set of rules: bigger display, better processor, improved camera and a few extra mAhs of battery life to tide us over. But not every OEM is following the archetypal new handset policy. The Russian makers of YotaPhone have expressed their interest in going against the grain by teasing a dual-screen handset featuring an LCD on one side and an eInk (think Kindle Paperwhite) display on the other, and after months of nothingness, the devices is finally being released throughout many parts of mainland Europe.
There's no doubt that, in line with its continued popularity, Google has done a stellar job in improving its Android mobile operating system, and it is now vastly more functional, aesthetically pleasing and thriving than ever. But the issue of vulnerability and security risk - somewhat unavoidable on an OS boasting tens of millions of users and an open-source ecosystem - simply won't go away, and the latest in a string of issues to have blighted the progress of Google's mobile endeavors, it now seems that Nexus handsets are susceptible to DoS attacks via flash SMS messaging.
Google is constantly working to improve and update its Android ecosystem, and with photography now quite a big deal in mobile space, it looks as though shot-taking ability is about to be stepped up a gear or two. According to Google spokeswoman Gina Scigliano, the Android team is working on a new photo API that will allow wannabe photographers to shoot RAW uncompressed images. On top of that, Scigliano, who was speaking with CNET, also added that the revamped API will offer native burst mode, helping to push smartphone point-and-shoot towards the territory of pro photography.
It's fair to say that when Apple first showed iOS 7 to the world that it polarized opinion. Now, a couple of months following its official release alongside the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, iOS 7 is still a software release that has people arguing about its worth. It seems that some of the people that really like the new iOS 7 aesthetic also happen to be the owners of not an iPhone, but an Android phone. If you are in this camp then you have a problem in that you're obviously not going to be installing iOS 7 any time soon.
If there's one thing people like to do, it's compare sales metrics for smartphones. Potentially one of the best ways to ascertain just how well a device is selling when compared with its peers, average selling prices show just how willing buyers are to pay substantial amounts of money in order to get their fingers on the latest and greatest technology from their manufacturer of choice.
