The latest version of the Android operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, was originally displayed to the world in May of last year before being showcased on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone in five months later in October. Four months down the line and it seems that only approximately 1% of Android devices are running versions of Android 4.0, bring about big concerns and showing that the adoption of the latest OS has been a lot slower than expected.
CyanogenMod is, as most Android enthusiasts will know, the most popular custom ROM for rooted devices. It is popular because of its roots in open-source Android, lack of bloatware, customizability and, of course, unique features that can’t be found elsewhere.
If you cast your minds back to last year, you may remember Google's well-documented purchase of Motorola Mobility for just over $12 billion; it was, after all, quite a big deal. In a year in which software rival Microsoft also made a rather large telecommunications acquisition ($8.5 billion for Skype), the Big G reckoned the buy-out would supercharge its already-successful Android platform. With 700,000 daily activations over the festive period of last year alone, Android has grown to be come a focal point of the web company's business.
The fundamental difference between how Apple sells its products and how other computer manufacturers sell theirs lies in the sheer product variety within the same general form factor. Apple believes in putting all its resources into making one unbelievably amazing product and updating it once a year while manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, Motorola believe in putting their resources into making a wide variety of amazing products which, naturally, end up looking and feeling pretty similar to one another.
While popular Android smartphones and tablets received unofficial ports to the latest version of Android i.e. 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich a long time ago, manufacturers are only now gearing up for the official release. HTC has officially stated that most of their top-of-the-line devices will be updated “later this year” and Samsung did say that the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note will receive ICS in Q1 2012 with updates for other devices to “soon follow”.
Malware on mobile platforms is slowly but surely becoming a real issue. Its existence was basically ignored in the days of weaker smartphones, but with today’s multi-core, multiple GBs of RAM-toting smartphones with “open” operating systems such as Android, it simply can’t be ignored. Because of its flexible nature and lack of strict app-policing by Google, malware is a bigger issue on Android than it is on iOS and Windows Phone 7. A new malware has been discovered for Android, Redmond Pie has learned. This one more dangerous than usual, because it affects between 10,000-30,000 Android smartphones everyday. Details after the jump.
Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire is one of the best tablets money can buy for under $300. Besides offering tight integration with Amazon’s services and doubling as a great eBook reader, it is hacker-friendly: the device is rooted, has lots of great ROMs available and is heavily supported by a vibrant community of skilled developers. Earlier today, we received news of the official release of MIUI for Kindle Fire. The good news is that it is based on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich and is pretty stable (for a ROM in Alpha state). Things like USB tethering, static wallpapers, hardware acceleration and themes don’t work, but they will be in the future. Check out our step-by-step guide after the jump!
Dropbox is pretty much the most popular cloud storage and syncing service in the market today. It is Redmond Pie’s favorite such service because of the fact that a. it syncs seamlessly with popular mobile, desktop platforms such as Android, Linux, iOS, OS X, Windows etc. b. besides the free 2GB starting storage space, the company regularly gives away free space for promoting their service and beta-testing preview releases. Dropbox has its fair share of competitors - Amazon Cloud Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive and SugarSync to name a few - but none of them have achieved the same level of popularity. Now, according to a recently published report, Google is looking to get into the cloud storage and syncing game. Details after the jump!
For any consumer who may be taking the time to consider purchasing a new mobile phone, or a tablet computer, they will more than likely begin by considering either an Apple iPhone or iPad as their purchase of choice. With over a quarter of a billion iOS devices sold around the world, the iPhone and iPad are insanely popular, and considered by many to be the leading products in the mobile computing sector.
Although Skype is the foremost company when it comes to VoIP telecommunications, a host of companies - namely Google, have been working contemporaneously plugging similar services for a number of years now.
