In a few earlier posts of mine as well, I have stated the biggest challenge that I faced when I jumped ship from iOS to Android – the terrible battery life of the phone, and the quest to improve it. It’s not really a particular device’s fault, either; the way Android is coded, it’s bound to eat more battery. Nevertheless, there were quite a few tips and tricks that I came across, along with apps like JuiceDefender that worked wonders as per masses, and perhaps rightly so. However, then I came across another reliable source that advised against using the said app, since that actually contributed to poor battery life, according to them. Beyond that, JuiceDefender is paid if you want total control, so that’s another caveat.
Although Facebook currently holds the title as the world's largest social network with over one billion active monthly members, it doesn't mean that success is guaranteed. The face of companies such as Facebook and Twitter are constantly evolving to meet the demands of their user base, so it stands to reason that Facebook will be continuously trying to innovate and add new technologies and services to their social experience, one of which is the Photo Syncing feature we reported on last week. Although Photo Syncing was initially in a private beta stage with a select few iOS users, Facebook have now rolled the service out on a large scale to all compatible iOS and Android devices using the official Facebook app.
Google's Nexus brand of smartphones had been a huge success in the run-up to the Nexus 7 slate released earlier this year, and the 7-inch device proved to be a huge hit with consumers. Not only was it powerful, but it ran on the buttery smooth Android 4.1, and priced a great deal more economically than others out there, has since sold in the millions. Things might be about to get even more interesting, though, because the $99 Nexus 7 we've been hearing about has shown up on benchmarks, and although these things can be faked, shows as packing a microSD slot, as well as 8GB of standard memory.
One of the biggest freedoms of wielding an Android device is the choice of ROMs that you get. Unlike almost all other smartphone and tablet platforms, having an Android means you do not have to always stick to whatever the manufacturer has packaged with your device in its factory state, and much like a computer, you can choose to have your own OS, some with their own specialties and enhancements, while others built from ground up based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Power users always prefer AOSP ROMs over stock or stock-based offerings, because of the broader freedom of customization and tailoring that they entail. Among those, CyanogenMod needs least of an introduction – the first ever AOSP ROM to hit the Android world has now taken another hatchling under its wings – the mighty droid, Google Nexus 4.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is almost ready to make its tenth anniversary appearance on mobile devices, and in anticipation for the launch on December 6th, Rockstar has released a teaser video. By the looks of things, the game will look and run like the classic version on console, and since the release of GTA III to the small screen went down a treat, we'd expect the controls to have been adapted in a similar way for optimal gaming performance.
It’s always nice to see an app come to life that makes easier something that should’ve been that way from the get go, but wasn’t. However, that also depends on what platform you’re dealing with. Android, for one, and its fan following, for another, have always held in high esteem the platform’s ability to truly multitask, and it certainly deserves credit for that. Nevertheless, from my personal experience (and preference, before you label me biased), I believe iOS had app switching better than Android from day one, when it introduced a form of multitasking of its own. Try jumping from one app to the other on an iPad, with its multitasking gestures, and you’ll truly get what I mean.
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.
