Articles about Mobile App

Well, it's May 1 somewhere, which perhaps explains why Switch to Windows Phone popped up on Google Play tonight with the date. The concept is simple: Microsoft tries to ease the transition between platforms, or at least help evaluate if such move is workable. But the app-matcher comes up short and can't resolve something more fundamental: People with money invested in apps won't be quick to rebuy them elsewhere.

StWF is easy enough to use once installed; letting it scan and match on my Nexus claims to match 85 percent of the Android apps. But like most of the people reviewing the app, there's no way I see to view the list. Could it be the app posted early and the supporting services aren't switched on, or did Microsoft simply muck up?

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After using the Android and iOS counterparts, Facebook app for Windows Phone 8 feels rudimentary and out of place by comparison. Even though the interface takes some design cues from the operating system, it is not very intuitive, wastes too much screen estate and displays content in a visually unappealing way. The app would be rather nice, except 2010 has long passed.

Now Microsoft wants you to love the Facebook experience on Windows Phone 8, releasing a beta app that stands up against the Android and iOS alternatives. Gone is the infinite horizontal scrolling, now replaced by tabs that you might actually find useful. Swiping to the right reveals a tab to the left of the screen, containing a link to your profile, favorites, groups, friends, apps, settings, the usual policy information and a log-out button.

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Windows Phone customers have options for driving apps -- both Bing and Nokia produce excellent solutions. Now one of the most intriguing options for Android and iOS is preparing for a push to the Microsoft mobile platform and impending competition with the existing solutions already in place.

Waze, which happens to be my GPS app of choice on Android, announces early beta testing on Windows Phone 8: "We are now opening a beta program for Windows Phone users and we'd like you to join" says the company in its announcement.

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Under Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has started to really embrace mobile, rolling out a succession of apps. That run continues today, with the launch of a new Yahoo app for Android.

Available now, the app delivers a stream of short news summaries with images, to give you the gist of something. If you have the time you can then read the full article at your leisure. You can personalize the content you see by scrolling to the end of each story, and ticking the topics you like, and removing those you’re not interested in. Your preferences are maintained across all of the devices you use. Yahoo says: "The more you use the app, the more relevant stories you'll start to see".

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Today's set-top boxes do not all come from the cable or satellite provider and they frequently contain much more functionality than those that do come from the big providers. One is Roku, a company that has been innovating and upgrading at a rather quick pace recently, having only just released the Roku 3 with added functionality.

Now the company rolls out version 2.2 of its mobile apps for both the Android and iOS platforms. Roku promises that this latest update addresses feedback received from users.

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During the 1980s and 90s, Microsoft embarked on what the U.S. Justice Department refers to as an "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy. Google revises the approach for the new century, but out of necessity. Many of its products or services entered categories where others dominated, such as email, operating systems, productivity suites and web browsers. The company's business is long about co-opting other platforms, everything from desktop search app for Windows to Google Frame for Internet Explorer, and more.

But there's nothing quite like Google's recent invasion of iOS, where many of the apps are even better than Apple's. Today, a new search app brings one of Android's best features, Google Now, to iPad and iPhone. There's irony here, too. On Android, the feature is only available on Jelly Bean, which makes up about 25 percent of the install base. The majority of Apple mobile device users are on iOS 6, and the app supports version 5, too. In short order then, depending on installations, a greater percentage of iPads and iPhones than Androids may have Google Now.

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Little more than a month after the company released significant updates for three of its major Windows 8/RT apps, Microsoft unveiled a new set of features for the Weather app. The latest update is aimed at "meteorologists", but the enhancements are likely to be felt by casual users as well.

The weather app now introduces "interactive and dynamically" moving maps, a feature which shows cloud cover, precipitations, radar, satellite views and temperatures for the city or region in which the user resides. The functionality should be familiar to people watching the weather forecast on TV.

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Twenty-sixth in a series. Windows Store app growth has slowed down a bit in the past two weeks. The overall increase dropped below 2,000 new apps in both periods. The overall app count increased by 1,877 this week to 44,355 apps in the US Windows Store. Free apps increased by 1,372 to a total of 34,802, and paid & trial apps by 505 to 9553 apps.

The Windows 8 news app received an update this week that added support for RSS feeds to it. To add an RSS feed click on the Add a source link after you have opened the news app and add the RSS URL at the top of the source field on the page that opens up. You should not expect "Google Reader"-like controls but if you follow a couple of sites, you can add them here to do so using the news app.

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Even though BlackBerry unveiled the BlackBerry Q10 smartphone in late-January, prospective customers around the world are still waiting to get their hands on the device. But if you live in the UK the handset is available today from Selfridges. The BlackBerry Q10 will also arrive next week, starting May 1, in Canada.

At Selfridges, the BlackBerry Q10 is available to purchase outright for GBP579.99 which is quite expensive for any smartphone, let alone one with a QWERTY keyboard. For the money you get a 3.1-inch display with a resolution of 720 by 720 and a 330 ppi (pixels per inch) density, 8 MP back-facing camera with 1080p video recording, 16 GB of internal storage and 4G LTE cellular connectivity as the main features.

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Stardock Software has released ModernMix 1.05, the first major update to its paid-for Windows 8 tool for running full-screen apps in their own window within the confines of the Windows 8 desktop.

Version 1.05 adds background sound support for apps such as Netflix that don’t explicitly support it, meaning users don’t need to focus on the window in order to hear that app’s audio output. The new feature is joined by a preference that allows this support to be switched off if it’s not wanted.

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The weather is warming up and our thoughts are turning towards vacation time. Where are you heading on that big summer trip? Regardless of the destination you decide on, Gogobot in conjunction with HomeAway can make sure you get the most from your time away with its new social-based guides covering many popular destinations.

Insider Guides is a new social sharing service which allows individual vacation rental owners to create customizable guidebooks for their guests, packed with local tips and recommendations covering favorite restaurants, attractions and activities. The guidebooks combine the property owners’ local expertise with Gogobot’s destination content, photos, reviews and social functionality. The service boasts over 2.5 million contributing members.

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Today, through its Beta Labs blog, Finnish maker Nokia announces a new experimental app for the Lumia Windows Phone lineup. Available only in a select number of markets, Nokia Chat for Windows Phone is designed to connect Lumia users with "friends who use Lumia, Asha, S40, and Symbian devices, and those using Yahoo! Messenger on other mobile devices and platforms".

Nokia Chat for Windows Phone is available to Lumia users in Australia, Canada, India, Nigeria, South Africa, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States. The Finnish manufacturer promises to expand availability "to more countries in the near future". So what does Nokia Chat for Windows Phone bring to the table for us Lumia users?

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I find that having children is an excellent excuse for watching movies like Ice Age, Up, Cars and more. After all, I would feel a bit silly watching those flicks on my own, as I do with scary movies like Paranormal Activity, thanks to a wife and kids who would not sleep for a week if they joined me in front of the screen.

Now Ice Age, and all of its classic characters, like Sid, Manny, Ellie, and Diego, are coming to your phone -- providing that you are using a Windows Phone 8 handset.

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If you were expecting Nokia to unveil a mighty new smartphone today then you will certainly be disappointed. Two days after the company released a teaser which showcased bits of a new device, the Finnish maker simply unveiled another phone in its Asha series, dubbed Asha 210.

The highlights of the Asha 210 include a QWERTY keyboard, a 2 MP back-facing camera with a dedicated physical button, WhatsApp button, support for Facebook, Twitter and email accounts, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as support for dual-SIM in one of its two variants.

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Typing on touchscreen devices is very different from using a conventional keyboard and the traditional layout doesn’t help much. Researchers at the University of St Andrews, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Montana Tech have come up with a new layout that claims to allow tablet users to thumb type 34 percent faster.

Named KALQ  after the order that the characters appear, it's been developed to provide optimal character positions when typing on a tablet. By spreading the characters used in commonly typed words such as "on", "see", "you" and "read" which on a QWERTY keyboard would all need to be typed with one thumb, KALQ speeds up typing and minimizes strain.

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