It hasn’t been very long since the world saw Android 4.2 Jelly Bean come to light, with all its fancy new feature enhancements, some of which have been welcomed across the globe with great enthusiasm. Whether you’ve tried the latest Android flavor on your device yet or not depends solely on what smartphone or tablet you are carrying, or if you’re using a custom ROM or prefer stock ones, but Google is on a roll already, having let out Android 4.2.1 just a while back, carrying, among various others, a bug fix that’s more obvious than all the others – the missing “December” in the original 4.2 release, which rendered people with birthdays and anniversaries in the last month of the year, well, without a reminder of sorts.
At a time when many carriers offer very limited cellular data packages, Wi-Fi awareness is of much importance to smartphone and tablet users. Many of you will have fallen victim to roaming or download charges at one point or another, but if you stick to a Wi-Fi hotspot, browsing and other online activities suddenly get a great deal cheaper. Unfortunately, when you're not in a Wi-Fi location and forget to turn it off, the strain - or rather, drain - on your battery can be significant. Thankfully for those on Android, a little app called Smart WiFi Toggler does exactly as its name implies, and only prompts your Wi-Fi connection into action when you are in the vicinity of a favored hotspot.
We've seen a spate of all-in-one tool-kits for Android devices surface recently, and adding to the release of the AiO for the Nexus 4 and HTC One X+, the guys over at XDA Developers have rustled together a similar tool for the HTC Droid DNA. Last week, we showed you how to go about rooting the slick 4G device and also unlocking its bootloader, but if you found that particular tutorial to be a little daunting, you can not only root, but install drivers, flash custom recoveries and more with the toolkit.
It still seems very strange to be talking about the success of devices like the iPad and Nexus 7 and the different levels of market share that Google and Apple hold in the tablet industry considering that this particular market didn't really exist until Apple forged it with the release of the initial iPad back in 2010. We may have recently seen the fourth-generation iPad released but it has only really been thirty-two months that companies have been competing in this space. With that said, recent figures are showing that the dominant iPad is losing some market share to Android powered tablets in the run up to the holiday shopping season.
Android toting users of Microsoft's Outlook.com email service rejoice, for today is the day that your prayers have been answered, with the Redmond firm launching a bespoke Android app, bringing Outlook.com email to the Google Play Store.
Samsung has brought an interesting product to the table in the Samsung Galaxy Camera, but unfortunately, its walkthrough video of the new product makes 13 minutes seem like 30, which doesn't bode well for consumer excitement in the device itself. The clip runs through some of the camera's many great features, and it will be intriguing to see just how many units this thing manages to shift.
A large number of Android users have been plagued by a rather annoying bug in Android 4.2 that caused the month of December to go missing from the native date picker in certain apps. Thankfully, it looks like Google has stepped up just in time to save the day with an update to Jelly Bean, taking it up to version 4.2.1.
Anyone who has ever played Grand Theft Auto will know that the game is packed to the rafters with a plethora of meticulously crafted vehicles, adrenaline fuelled missions and large-scale environments that are filled with surprises and insane amounts of peril. However, putting all of that aside, any frequent GTA gamer will have also spent a ridiculous amount of time driving around the city flicking through the multiple radio stations that are offered with each version of the game. If you don't own the game, or want to experience the musical goodness of one of the world's most popular gaming franchises, then the GTA Radio app for Android is something you need to own.
The Samsung Galaxy S III may only have released in the middle of this year, but it's certainly been out long enough for us to justify turning our attentions to its eventual successor. Naturally, it's presumed to be called the Galaxy S IV, and accompanying a stash of recent rumors, comes the apparent insight into the S VI's hardware thanks to leaked benchmark results.
It shouldn't come as any surprise that Facebook prefers that their employees fulfill their smartphone needs by using an Android device, after all, they originally took steps to convince workers to move across to an Android device back in August of this year. It makes sense that the Palo Alto company wants their own employees to extensively test their Android app variant, but it seems that they are once again attempting to switch employees over to Android in an internal campaign they are referring to as "Droidfooding".
