Articles about Android

While I love Android, I am open-minded. Despite the fact that I collect Android figures, I am no "fan-boy" of Google's mobile operating system. My choice to use the OS is because I like it. Over the years, I have tried Palm OS, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Phone -- all of these smartphone-focused operating systems are good in their own ways. However, I fell in love with the counter-culture aspect of Android -- hacking, rooting, flashing roms; it was fun.

The holy grail of this sub-culture of Android is the Nexus smartphone. You see, these phones are easy to tinker with because you can easily unlock the bootloader, plus they have a pure Android experience. The newest such smartphone, the Nexus 5, has the Android community giddy with excitement. The phone sold out almost immediately and it is currently on backorder for weeks. If you check eBay, you will find the device selling for more than MSRP. You must be thinking that this phone is amazing right? I am sorry to say it's not. It's just OK. It's also one of the best Android phones you can buy. Confused? Read on.

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Evernote Corporation has released Evernote for Android 5.5, a major update to the mobile client for accessing its online note-taking service, which users can access through the browser or via a range of dedicated apps.

Version 5.5 ships with improved notebook picker and Page Camera tools for all users, while premium users gain the ability to annotate PDFs from within the app as well as customise the homescreen.

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Up until now, if you wanted to try out Android 4.4 KitKat, there were only two options available -- buy a new Nexus 5 that has the OS preinstalled, or download a custom ROM and roll your own. Now there is a new option, at least if you have a Nexus 7 or Nexus 10, as Google is rolling out the latest version of Android to its flagship tablets.

It is not just owners of the latest Nexus 7 who are in luck as the update is also being made available to the 2012 model. The fact that KitKat is rolling out to older hardware will please many people. Sadly, there has been no change of heart -- not yet, anyway -- for Galaxy Nexus owners hoping for an upgrade.

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Windows Phone may be the fastest growing major smartphone platform, but its market share still has a long way to go in order to become an imminent threat to Apple's iPhones, let alone Android smartphones. The latest IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker report shows, once again, Microsoft's tiled mobile OS in the same distant third place, far behind its more popular rivals, despite the impressive 156 percent year-over-year growth in shipments from Q3 2013.

"Android and Windows Phone continued to make significant strides in the third quarter. Despite their differences in market share, they both have one important factor behind their success: price", says IDC research manager Ramon Llamas. "Both platforms have a selection of devices available at prices low enough to be affordable to the mass market, and it is the mass market that is driving the entire market forward". That difference in market share that Llamas mentions is a whopping 77.4 percentage points, between Android's 81 percent and Windows Phone's mere 3.6 percent; put differently, Android shipments (211.6 million units) were 22.27 times higher than those of Windows Phones (at 9.5 million units).

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The need for more secure communication services has certainly spiked in the wake of the NSA spying revelations, with providers placing a higher emphasis on keeping their users' personal and work information safe from unwanted access. After all, those users expect (and demand) them to do so. As a result, it is not out of the ordinary to see the word "secure" being used as one of the many buzzwords that describe such services nowadays. The question is whether the presentation matches the behind-the-scenes reality.

Among the slew of services that promise secure communications is Perzo, which launched as a beta in late-August 2013. Perzo was founded by David Gurle, who is best known for his former roles as head of the Windows Messenger development and general manager and vice president of Skype for Business in the early 2000s. The service piqued my attention, and I chatted with the man to find out what sort of features and security options Perzo can bring to the table as a newcomer in the "secure communications application" market.

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Launched earlier this year in Barcelona, KNOX, as we reported at the time, is a secure Android platform powering Samsung Galaxy devices. It's designed to strengthen Android by using hardware features to provide the highest level of protection. KNOX is aimed at offering security whilst remaining manageable and addresses the need to separate work and play on the same device.

With the launch of a partner program, Samsung is helping resellers and independent software vendors to provide extra value for their customers and extend the benefits of KNOX to the enterprise market. It provides partners with assets, resources and training to help them provide support for Samsung devices. Compatibility is included for existing master data management (MDM) solutions to allow resellers to offer a complete solution or work with existing installations.

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It's the iPad and the Nexus 7 that make the most headlines in the tablet market, but the fiercest competition for consumer cash in the run up to this year's Christmas holiday season will be taking place lower down the food chain.

Taiwan-based audio-visual specialist Hannspree is the latest to enter the fray with its new HANNSpad SN14T71. Offering a 13.3-inch screen it launched today in the UK with a price tag of just £199.99 ($318). The screen itself is a 10 point Multi Touch unit with a resolution of 1280 by 800. Whilst that’s pricier than other budget tablets like Tesco’s £119 Hudl, it’s squarely up against some premium smaller devices like the 16GB Nexus 7 and you are getting a lot more screen real estate for your money, albeit with a lower resolution.

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Five words, 25 letters, all indicating the latest addition to Apple's growing iPad family. Let's try to skirt over the name that extends to almost Tolstoyan lengths before we get too bogged down in it. But it does bear mentioning that this is a name no one is going to use; this is the iPad mini, perhaps the 'new' iPad mini to help differentiate from its predecessor. However it's not just the official title that's big… there's that price tag too.

While the price is not a new revelation -- we knew about it when the new iPad mini was announced a few weeks back -- now that the latest model is actually available to purchase, it seems a good time to reassess it. Head over to the Apple website and you can pick up the diminutive tablet for $399. And that's just the base price.

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Another busy week with more news than you could shake a stick at. Following the release of KitKat, Google was riding high as figures revealed that Jelly Bean is now installed on more than half of Android devices. It’s a similar story for Microsoft. Its previous operating system, Windows 7, is still the most popular while growth for Windows 8 and 8.1 remains slow. It was better news for Windows Phone which is making serious inroads into Android and iOS's share of the mobile market in Europe, and even managed to overtake Apple in Italy.

It seems that more people want to be able to use the latest and greatest version of Android, and following the announcement that the Galaxy Nexus would not receive a KitKat update, a petition was quickly launched to try to change Google's mind. Showing that the march of progress will always leave casualties, Google announced that Internet Explorer 9 will no longer be supported by Google Apps, and Windows 7 users gained Internet Explorer 11. To push the launch, Microsoft unveiled a new Anime ad campaign focusing on the browser's improved security.

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Google has updated its messaging tool for Android users with the release of Google Hangouts 2.0. The tool, which replaced Google Talk and Google+ Messenger as the de facto messaging service for Google users, gains support for SMS and -- on Android 4.0 and up -- MMS messaging, along with animated GIFs, location and mood status sharing.

The service, also available on iOS and computer via a Chrome browser extension, supports group video and voice calls as well as more traditional text-based chats and offline messaging. Version 2.0′s features were first mooted weeks ago, but have only now become publicly available to Android users for the first time.

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Phones are great for music, but in most cases the built in speakers are a bit subpar; quality might be decent enough, but if you're looking for a punch of volume, speakers are going to be needed. Or maybe not. If you're an HTC One owner looking for something a little different -- and have a wad of spare cash lying around -- the Gramohorn II could just be of interest. It brings not one, but two gramophone inspired horns to amplify your music without the need for power.

3D printing is all the rage, and the Gramohorn II is the latest accessory to be produced in this way. There are plaster- and metal-based versions available, but whichever one you opt for, you're going to need to have deep pockets. The plaster-based model is the cheaper of the two, but "cheaper" is very much a relative term. There are 22 color choices and five metallic finishes but only 100 will be produced.

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If you had to put money on what type of app Google would release next, you probably wouldn't have wagered much on this. Forget searching, maps, and cloud storage, Google Opinion Rewards is an app that you can use to earn credit that can be spent at Google Play. Sounds good? Well, you have to be willing to do a little work. What's the catch? The clue's in the name of the app: you'll have to spend time completing surveys.

The free Android app is available in the US only (for the moment, at least) and once you have created a basic profile you will be notified whenever a new survey is ready to be completed. Unlike other paid surveys, it looks as though there is going to be a limit on how many are announced. The frequency is described as being "about once a week".

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Amazon began shipping its seven-inch Kindle Fire HDX back on October 18, going directly after the Google Nexus for supremacy of the low-price tablet market. Now the company follows up by announcing that the larger version is heading out the door today.

The 8.9-inch Fire HDX weighs in at 13.2 ounces, which Amazon claims makes it "the lightest large-screen tablet". It also features a 339 ppi display, and boasts three times the processing power, two times the memory and four times the graphics performance of the previous generation. Fire OS 3.0, the new mobile operating system, also features a "mayday" button -- for those in need of a bit of hand-holding.

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While the Nexus 5 is relatively inexpensive (in smartphone terms) at $349, you should still protect your investment. Android fans will likely want the official bumper case, but that costs $35 -- a bit expensive at 10 percent the cost of the device itself.

I decided to purchase an alternative, third-party case, so that I can compare the two. The Cruzerlite series of cases are quite popular on Amazon -- they are inexpensive, look good and get great reviews. And so, I chose the Cruzerlite Bugdroid Circuit Case which is almost a third cheaper at $12.95. The question becomes, which deserves your hard-earned money?

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Google is going to start displaying Google+ Photos as caller ID images from early 2014. The new feature will be enabled by default for anyone who has a verified phone number associated with their Google account.

This means that should you get a call from someone you have circled on Google+, but have not added to your phone's address book, you will still be able to see who they are -- or at least be able to see whatever their most recent Google+ profile image is.

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