Thinking of making the jump between platforms?
Well, Google chairman Eric Schmidt is happy to ease the transition — publishing a 900-word guide on “Converting to Android from iPhone”.
Google announced this week Google Play Newsstand, an app for reading non-book content (magazines, newspapers, blogs and more) on an Android phone or tablet.
Google Play Newsstand is an alternative to Flipboard. But Google gives us no strong reason to choose that alternative.
Here are the three things Google needs to change in order to turn Google Play Newsstand from also-ran to awesome sauce.
There aren’t many in-ear monitors made of steel. Aluminum? Yes. Plastic? Wads. But steel-bodied IEMs — now that’s a rare find. There’s good reason for this: Though the material is solid, hard-wearing and, according to some, produces a cleaner sound, it’s heavy — which can make steel-housed IEMs often uncomfortable and annoyingly ill-fitting.
But forget all that. Scottish-based RHA have managed to make the stainless steel-bodied MA750i supremely comfortable and well-fitted, even under heavy action. In fact, RHA absolutely nailed it perfectly with these ‘phones in every single category that matters, with only two or three minor trade-offs.
Cult of Mac reported early today (or very late last night) that Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $290 million in its patent trial for copying key features of iOS devices — bringing Apple’s total damages to $930 million.
According to two of the jurors assigned to the case, however, the key factor that swayed the jury in Apple’s favor came down to just one witness: Chicago-based certified public accountant, Julie L. Davis.
eBay’s Black Friday sale is set to start a day early this year, on Thursday, November 28 — and it includes a whole bunch of tablets, smartphones, consoles, and cameras. So whether you’re into Android or iOS, there’s a great deal to be had, such as an original iPad mini for $239, a Nexus 7 for $199, and the new iPad Air for $469.99.
Chances are you’ve already picked your preferred music streaming service by now, but you’ll have another to consider next year when French startup Deezer make its debut in the United States.
The company has avoided the U.S. up until now, citing too much competition, with Spotify, Rdio, Google Play Music All Access, and many others already offering subscription-based music streaming services there. But having already amassed over 5 million paying customers in 185 countries worldwide, it’s ready to do battle with the big guns.
We finally have a verdict in the high-profile Apple-Samsung patent infringement lawsuit, and it involves Samsung paying Apple $290 million for copying key features of both the iPhone and iPad for its own line of smartphones and tablets.
The jury’s verdict covers 13 of the 26 Samsung devices.
The HBO Go apps for Android and iOS have today been updated with support for Google’s Chromecast. The feature works on Android smartphones and tablets running Android 2.3 Gingerbread and above, and on iPhones and iPads running iOS 6 and above.
With less than a day to wait for the new Xbox One, Microsoft has announced that its new console will have an official YouTube app, after all. What’s more, you’ll be able to send videos to it from your Android and iOS devices.
If there are two main areas where Microsoft massively lags behind both Android and Apple it is market share and app availability.
Well, Microsoft has copped to its role as a “distant third” in the former capacity (Windows Phones represent less than a 5 percent share of the overall market), but is the latter something more immediately addressable?
Yes, according to a tweet posted by Windows Phone VP Joe Belfiore — the man responsible for the design and software product definition of Microsoft’s smartphones — who enthusiastically claims that the end of 2014 is going to mark the end of the “app-gap” between Windows Phones, and those available for Android and iOS platforms.
In latest news from the Samsung vs. Apple patent case, Samsung on Wednesday filed an emergency motion with presiding Judge Lucy Koh to halt Apple’s damages retrial.
Why the halt? Because according to court documents, the US Patent and Trademark Office has suggested that Apple’s “pinch to zoom” patent (which much of the patent trial revolves around) might not actually be valid.
Twitter has already removed the option that allowed users to receive direct messages from people they don’t follow, just over one month after the feature was introduced. This means that even if you opted in to accept DMs from anyone, you’ll have to go back to following people who you want to communicate privately with.
Why does Google call it “Google Now”? Wouldn’t “Google Occasionally” or “Google Never” be more accurate?
Google Now is clearly designed to be used “now,” or all the time, or at any time. The “now” suggests that when something of interest happens, you learn about it “now.”
Trouble is, Google doesn’t present the service in a way that makes it useful as a real-time notification system.
Sony’s new PlayStation companion app is now available on Android and iOS ahead of the PlayStation 4’s worldwide launch this month. The app allows you to access the PlayStation Network on the go to view your notifications, invitations, game alerts, and (finally!) messages; as well as your friends list, trophies, and profile.
Here comes wearable computing, and Android and the Googleverse have a huge head start. But will the Android devices lose the lead because they fail to target the women’s market?
Apple’s iPhone 5s became the world’s first smartphone with a 64-bit processor when it launched this September, but as you might expect, it’ll have plenty of competitors next year. Unsurprisingly, some of those will come from Samsung, which is already planning 64-bit chips and 16-megapixel cameras for its 2014 flagships, according to industry sources.
Back when AT&T first started rolling out its nationwide LTE network in late 2011, it was at least a year behind Verizon. In fact, when the third-gen iPad launched with LTE last year, we were hard pressed to recommend an AT&T model simply because LTE coverage was so lame compared to Verizon.
But things have changed. Thanks to aggressive pushes into new markets, AT&T and Verizon are now pretty much nose-and-nose when total number of LTE markets is compared.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3x-bAWZWPM
Will flexible, bendable smartphone screens ever become a reality? Samsung thinks so. In fact, if you ignore the hysterically douchetastic concept video they are using to promote the foldable Galaxy tablets of the future, Samsung says we should have folding displays on the market by 2015.
It might have been the unsaid mission statement for quite some time, but now top executive Shin Jong-kyun has puts his cards on the table, telling analysts that after overtaking Apple in smartphones, Samsung aims to be the world leader in tablet computers, too.
Shin noted that Samsung tablet sales will exceed 40 million units this year — more than doubling the sales in 2012.
“Samsung tablet shipments started to grow remarkably since the second half of last year,” he said.
Acer CEO JT Wang has announced his decision to resign from the consumer electronics company following poor financial results and struggling PC sales. Wang will step down from the CEO position on January 1, but will remain chairman until the second quarter of 2014.
Acer president Jim Wong will become its new CEO.
While the iPad’s Retina display has traditionally been considered the finest tablet display on the market, that’s no longer the case thanks to Amazon. Its new high-end Kindle Fire HDX has the best tablet display ever tested by DisplayMate expert Dr. Raymond Soneira, “significantly outperforming” the iPad Air’s in several key areas.
While Apple has aimed to keep the design of the iPhone consistent over the last six years – same screen size, same form factor, same metal band antenna on the outside – Google has managed to keep fans excited by providing different variants of its flagship Nexus device every single year.
Sure, all those different screen sizes and hardware changes have helped push the state of horrific fragmentation in the Android market, but at least fandroids get new design choices every year. To celebrate the release of the Nexus 5, our friends over at GadgetLove created an awesome GIF GIF showcasing how the Nexus has evolved over the years.
Check it out below:
Last week, we reported that Samsung had beaten Apple and claimed the top spot in J.D. Power’s latest tablet satisfaction survey. On closer inspection of its findings, it was unclear how the South Korean company had earned first place after its tablets received lower ratings than the iPad in so many areas.
J.D. Power has since explained why that’s the case.
BlackBerry has today announced that it has scrapped plans to sell its hardware business, and that it will be replacing current CEO Thorsten Heins instead. The Canadian company has also secured $1 billion from a group of investors led by Fairfax Financial, and its CEO, Prem Watsa, will become lead director.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt has hit out at the National Security Agency (NSA) over claims that it has spied on Google’s data centers to gain information about its users. Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal that the allegations are “outrageous” and potentially illegal if true.