There were two heartwarming pieces of Android news released this week. First, we heard the news that Android reached a market share of 85%. Second, we heard that Android is beating iOS in terms of web usage – something that Apple has repeatedly waved in the face of Android fans. Let’s break down these news items and explain why they’re so exciting. A total market share of 84.6% for Q2 2014 Strategy Analytics and the IDC both released similar reports for Q2 2014. Strategy…
A headline like “Samsung and Apple reach patent war truce” would be a landmark moment in history. Unfortunately, this headline is only a partial landmark moment in history. Apple and Samsung have officially reached a truce in their lengthy patent war. Unfortunately for mobile users, that truce only exists outside the United States. Specifically, Samsung and Apple will not sue each other over silly patents in the following countries: -Japan -Germany -South…
Have you heard of PlayStation Mobile for Android? Probably not, which is why Sony is cancelling it. PlayStation Mobile for Android was part of the company’s initiative to support cross-platform game development. The idea was that developers could publish apps for Android and PS Vita at the same time. Sony is officially cancelling PlayStation Mobile, which means that it is no longer “guaranteed to work” on Android versions 4.4.3 and higher. It will, however, continue to be…
Samsung is in for a protracted legal battle with Microsoft with the latter filing a suit about the South Korean major breaching licensing technology contract obligations. The smart phone market has been growing exponentially in the last couple of years and the stakes are indeed high for all players. Samsung has leadership position in this market but now faces the accusation by Microsoft that it has stopped making royalty payments for using patented technology of Microsoft. Samsung has not yet…
Today’s sports app scene is dominated by the big players. ESPN’s SportsCenter, theScore, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo Sports all have popular apps that are used by millions around the world. These apps keep you updated on the latest developments in major sports leagues. The problem with these apps, however, is that they’re designed to promote whichever sports Yahoo, ESPN, or theScore want you to watch. ESPN, for example, is notorious for flooding news feeds with news about LeBron…
A few years ago, I owned a point-and-shoot digital camera. Today, I use nothing but my smartphone to take pictures. That’s because most smartphone cameras are far more advanced than cheap point-and-shoot cameras. They’re also more convenient. Photography professionals may laugh at people who take pictures with their smartphone, but hey, I’d rather not lug around a massive DSLR camera on my next backpacking trip. However, just because you have 13MP in your camera doesn’t mean…
Most lock screens are boring. Sure, you may see the time, temperature, battery percentage, and a camera icon, but that’s it. Why not make it a little more interesting? Thanks to a member of the XDA Developers Forum named wangxing, you can make your lock screen more interesting than ever with a photo slideshow. Wangxing’s new app is called Galaxy Photo Screen Lock. That app lets you “dress up your mobile lock screen and give your fun and love” – according to wangxing himself.…
The wonderful invention that it is, the smart phone has radically changed the way people communicate, get entertained and even do business. When you have a compact device that you can make use at any time of the day to do the above activities, why would you spend extra on other gadgets supposedly manufactured to do the same? Yes, my reference is to the many types of digital cameras, camcorders and what have you that used to rule the roost and for which many of us would have paid a handsome…
The world economy over the last 6 years has witnessed many turbulent moments starting with the subprime mortgage crisis in the US and continuing with escalating instability in the Middle East. Things are beginning to stabilize now albeit in a slow fashion. But there can be very less doubt about the fact that neoliberal globalization in the past few decades has succeeded in bringing down poverty levels. This can evidently be seen in the tremendous strides made by emerging economies of India,…
The problem of inadequate security and vulnerability on the Android platform has been dogging the minds of analysts and followers of this platform for some time now. Right from the time Avast made its disclosure about the ‘factory reset’ not being effective and data retrieval from used phones was possible, Google has been trying to tighten up security on this flexible platform. Discovery of the SmsPay It is therefore with some worry that the flagging of a mysterious app called the…
