When the Nexus 4 was announced as next Android flagship, there was no mention of any 4G/LTE support. Then, when the phone came out mid-November, there was, again, no LTE support again – not very surprisingly, though, since supporting 4G would have essentially meant manufacturing multiple versions of the device to make it agreeable for all the different 4G bands around the globe – an approach that Apple had to adopt with the iPhone 5. LG, however, decided to avoid going down that road, and hence, Nexus 4 stuck to the plain old 3G bands.
With Thanksgiving day, followed by Black Friday, and inevitably, Christmas, the consumer electronics market will be abuzz with savings, as each vendor and retailer looks to attract additional custom at this most lucrative time of year.
Using an Android phone is no east feat, I tell you. Apart from the fact that if you’re a fond of playing around with the intricate workings of your operating system, and consequently flash a new ROM every week (can be even day, in extreme cases), one major annoyance that you’ll feel is the battery, which essentially drains faster than any other smartphone OS that I’ve played around with. It’s not really necessarily the device’s fault – a simple code inspection actually establishes that it’s how the AOSP is built which causes the battery to drain faster, and perhaps it’s Google’s acknowledgement of this fact that they’ve decided to take up Project Roadrunner after the successful implementation of Project Butter with Jelly Bean.
Comic book-based titles have had a great year in both the gaming and motion picture industry, and if you're a fan of this particular genre, you may want to check out Avengers Initiative for Android. If your device doesn't run on a Tegra-3 processor, Avengers Initiative is unfortunately not supported, but if you have one of the growing list of Tegra-3 smartphones or tablets currently available - such as the Samsung HTC One X or the Google / ASUS Nexus 7 - then you'll be able to enjoy a title boasting some very cool visual effects.
In the world of Android, rooting a device is what jailbreak is to Apple’s iOS creations, although the former is much easier compared to the latter, thanks to Android’s open source nature and direct Linux-based kernel base. Nevertheless, it does take quite some skill to achieve that for all the new devices that are released, and here, we owe thanks to the highly dedicated and active developer community that exists for Android, putting in tireless hours to make lives easier for us. This is symbolized in many cases. Take Google’s Nexus 4, for example, that got rooted just a few hours after its release, showing how much potential the platform has for community support and developers’ love.
Samsung's Galaxy series has taken to Google's Android platform like a duck to water, and the release of the Galaxy S III earlier this year was by far the biggest Android release of the year. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that, after just a few months, the rumor mill is now picking up tidbits on its eventual successor - the Galaxy S IV.
Google has a knack for doing things other companies have already done, but doing them better, or cheaper, or in an easier manner to understand; or any number of the above. Android took the iOS format and made it accessible for everybody; Chrome delivered a faster and more efficient and dynamic browsing experience than most; the list is endless. Every company fears Google when it decides to sink its teeth into a new project, and in news that is sure to have the head honchos over at Apple on red alert, it looks as though the search giant may be about to implement its own AirPlay-esque local streaming service.
Today’s smartphones are arguably the best portable media players in the market, beating at times even dedicated offerings from renowned manufacturers. Don’t believe me? Pitch the iPhone 5’s audio chip with decent earphones against anything that the competition might offer, or bring in the HTC Sensation series with its Beats Audio offering for some really heavyweight competition. With powerful hardware and capable software to go along with it, mobile phones provide massive digital music libraries that we can carry around anywhere with little or no hassle.
We may be fast approaching the fabulous holiday season which the majority of us are looking forward to throughout the year, but it would seem that the latest version of Android Jelly Bean simply does not want Android users to be celebrating. Version 4.2 of Google's industry leading mobile operating system has been shipped with a rather startling flaw in the date picker control that prevents users from selecting the month of December when adding date information in apps that use the native picker. It might not be the biggest bug we will ever see with shipped software, but it is certainly one that should never have gone live.
The world of technology is in a state of shock with the impromptu release of several significant apps that claim to be from Apple on the Android Play Store. Without any prior warning, it would seem as though Apple had finally decided to drop the likes of GarageBand, iPhoto and Keynote for Android, but our better judgment leads us to suspect they are big, fat clones.
