BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — During his keynote speech on Tuesday, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said, seemingly with all seriousness, that someday, “there will be Android in every pocket.”

For someone who has been prowling around Mobile World Congress for the past four days, it’s a statement that’s hard to react to without spraying crumbs. Schmidt couldn’t sound any more delusional if he were sealed up in a hermetic chamber with a scale-model of the Spruce Goose. The iPhone dominates Mobile World Congress. Google can’t even get an Android in every pocket at its own tradeshow.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 –When Asus first announced the PadFone at Computex 2011, they did so with a level of gleefully cheesy showmanship that set Apple fans sarcastically hailing chairman Jonney Shih as South Korea’s next Steve Jobs. To many Apple fans, the PadFone — a laptop with a tablet inside with a phone inside the tablet — represented the worst of the rest of the industry’s “kitchen sink” approach to beating Cupertino. If we can’t build a phone to beat the iPhone, a tablet to beat the iPad, or an ultraportable to beat the MacBook Air, why not beat one device to beat all three at the same time?

But it’s wrong to dismiss the PadFone just because of cheesy showmanship, or because it’s not likely to topple Apple’s three pillars in one go. We had a hands-on with one, and it’s far from a cheesy device. In fact, it’s actually a little marvel.

According to a new report from Taiwanese publication Digitimes, Apple is gearing up to produce a 7.85-inch iPad. The rumored device is reportedly set to enter mass production by the third quarter of this year.

Rumors have been swirling about what Apple has in store for the iPad 3 next week, but little attention has been paid to the state of the iPad 2. Will Apple discontinue its current tablet after dropping the price for a limited time? Speculation abounds.

A new report tonight claims that Apple is set to announce a 8GB iPad 2 alongside the iPad 3 at its media event on Wednesday, March 7th.

A new Mac app called Reflection allows you to wirelessly mirror your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 screen on your Mac. Using the magic of AirPlay and OS X Lion, Reflection will allow you to view your iOS device’s screen in real time on your Mac display, no setup required. Screen activity can be recorded and saved to your desktop. You can even kick back and play your favorite iOS game on your giant iMac! Now that’s awesome.

One of the big trends at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has been announcements regarding NFC. While NFC has been supported in a handful of Android phones and BlackBerry models, till now there haven’t been many real-world applications for it. With several announcements around NFC, the technology’s time may be finally be coming.

Despite rumors, Apple has never shown an interest in adopting NFC in the iPhone or iPad.  Could Apple’s lack of NFC support could stick out like a sore thumb despite the fact that it managed to upstage every company at MWC with yesterday’s iPad 3 event announcement.

With baseball season nearly upon us, now is the time to download MLB’s brand new iOS app. MLB.com At Bat went live in the App Store for free this morning with some great features and better pricing options.

Instead of having to pay $30 for the separate iPhone and iPad apps like last year, MLB is offering a free, universal download with a season-long in-app subscription for $14.99, and there’s more options available.

The GSMA has announced the winners of the 17th Annual Global Mobile Awards which took place yesterday at Mobile World Congress. The top mobile products and services were showcased and there was even some entertainment with comedian/songwriter Tim Minchine as the host. Categories ranged from Best Consumer Mobile Service to Best Mobile Innovation for Publishing and while we love hearing about innovative products, it’s really the hardware categories that had us talking.

Following earlier reports that Apple is constraining retail supplies of the current Apple TV ahead of an imminent refresh, more evidence has surfaced that Apple is ramping up to launch a new set-top box.

Prominent retailers have seen inventory for the current Apple TV dwindle over the last few weeks.

Monster collaborated with rapper/actor Nick Cannon to make the N-ERGY “high performance in-ear headphones.” I put the last part in quotes because the N-ERGY headphones ($70) are neither “high performance” nor “in-ear.”

I’m not an audiophile, but I appreciate and know good sound when I hear it. It took a total of 15 minutes for me to realize that the “NCredible” (yes, that phrase is used to market the product) N-ERGY headphones are awful. They look great, but they’re about as painful to listen to as Nick Cannon’s comedy.

These days, the App Store is where it’s at. And if you don’t act fast, you may miss your opportunity to learn how to build an iOS app from scratch! This deal ends tonight at Midnight PST, so make sure to check it out.

If you have a great idea for an iPhone or iPad app, the only thing that’s stopping you from getting it out there is the actual coding of the app itself. But what if you’re the “idea person” and not a coder – and you have no desire to be one? It’s a pretty extensive process, and as you’re learning how to code you could be letting valuable time slip away – not to mention the fact that someone who CAN code might beat you to the punch. And while outsourcing the coding is an option, that’s often a costly approach – and a lot of back and forth between yourself and the coder that slows the process down even more so. So…what to do?

Well, this latest offer by Cult of Mac Deals is just what you need to get your app idea from vaporware to “actualware” with absolutely no programming. Period. And for a limited time you can save 80% off the regular price to boot – as it’s only $99!

Sprint has released an app in the App Store that let’s its subscribers watch on-demand TV from the iPhone. Sprint TV lets users access the most popular cable TV networks live over 3G and WiFi. The service includes many popular channels for free, and there’s a total of 40 paid packages available.

Some people will use any excuse to go green, just like some nerds will use any excuse to wear a Darth Vader mask. So umm, why not just satisfy both parties at the same time and make a breath-powered iPhone charger that looks like it should be worn by Lord Vader or Bane? The AIRE mask is a silly looking contraption designed by Joao Paulo Lammoglia to recharge iPhones using the power of your lungs. Utilizing tiny wind turbines the AIRE mask converts your deep sighs and frenetic breaths into usable electricity to power your iDevice.

There is certainly no shortage of Photography apps in the iOS store that promise to do magical things to your snapshots. Users can turn their photos into vintage looking pictures via Instagram, transform faces into comic book art with Halftone, or do weird things with Percolator, but this latest app is a bit different from all the rest. Pxl is a new app available for iPhone and iPad that transforms pictures into cool pieces of abstract art.

Ever find yourself alone in your positive review of an app? Maybe you think the price of a mobile game is too high while others think it’s a steal. User satisfaction in the mobile ecosystem is quite a roller coaster of information and emotion. That’s why uTest, a software testing company, decided to crawl hundreds of thousands of apps and user reviews to see just how happy or unhappy users of the top two mobile operating systems were with their app experience. uTest has laid out this information in a nifty little infograph showing user satisfaction across Android and iOS with side-by-comparisons of the two. Check it out and tell us what you think.

There have been some crazy rumors flying around lately regarding the iPad 3, but now we have a new one that is all about the MacBook Air. According Digitimes (which has a fairly poor track record with Apple rumors), Apple is considering launching a 14-inch MacBook Air specifically for Asian markets, that may enter production fairly soon. Apparently, 14-inch screens are more popular in Asia than they are in other parts of the globe, which is how the publication is justifying the rumor.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — In Russia, if you want to come up with a mascot for your company or a character for your app, there’s no focus groups or testing: it all comes from the top down.

That’s why when Russian app development and publishing company iFree wanted to release a new virtual assistant for Android and iOS to take on Siri, i-Free’s Kirill Petrov dictated the design of i-Free’s latest character. He would be an all white, gremlin-like humanoid with huge flashing teeth and glowing yellow eyes. He would hail from the planet Edelweiss (named after a beer), and he would come to Earth in the time-honored tradition of many alien invaders before him: namely to kidnap our women for his own lascivious pleasure.

Meet Spoony. He’s terrifying. He uses much of the same core technology as Siri, the distant relation he’d eventually like to kill, or at least surplant. Presumably after making out with her first.

Despite being known mostly for his monumental impact on the tech world, Steve Jobs also played a huge role in the movie industry. Not only did iTunes change the way movies are distributed, but Steve’s dedication to Pixar changed the way visual stories are told. Pixar stands as one of the most admired movie studios in the industry thanks in large part to Jobs’ assistance in isolating the company from Hollywood and his trust in the talent of his young directors.

John Carter, directed by one of Pixar’s most prolific directors, Andrew Stanton, comes out next week and though it’s not a Pixar film, it is dedicated to the memory of the legendary Steve Jobs. During the credits, a card reads:

Dedicated to the Memory of Steve Jobs, an Inspiration to Us All

At a recent press junket, Stanton was asked why he decided to dedicated Carter to Jobs and his answer was both logisically sound and beautifully poignant.

Despite RIM’s reassurances to developers at this week’s Mobile World Congress, the mass exodus of its government customers continued as another U.S. federal agency announced that it would ditch BlackBerry in favor of the iPhone. The agency in question is The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which announced that it will be abandoning the BlackBerry and RIM services beginning this month.

As the agency revealed its plans, RIM attempted to cast a softer light on the situation by playing up it’s overall standing with the U.S. government.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — Snapily is an app that lets you snap 3-D photographs with your iPad or iPhone, and then view them with 3-D specs. You can even order 3-D lenticular postcards from the app and have them sent to your home. It would be amazing: if it worked.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — On the surface of things, Asus’s Eee Pad Transformer Prime is just a wonderfully swell idea. Why have both an ultrabook and tablet when you can have one that is both? What if you could take your iPad, snap it onto a keyboard + trackpad, and have a MacBook Air?

It’s a nice dream, and, in actuality, the Transformer Prime is a beautiful piece of hardware. But the challenges aren’t hardware: they lie in software. And in software, neither Android nor iOS is yet up to the challenge of driving both a mobile and laptop OS. But after Windows 8 sets the bar higher, they both could be.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — If you thought that Adobe’s new Photoshop Touch was just a cut down, iPad-sized version of the desktop app, think again. I just watched a hands-on demo here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and this deceptively simple little app is pretty amazing.

Here’s Tomahawk, a music player with a difference: it plays music from anywhere and almost everywhere. Not necessarily music from your collection, either.

TinkerTool is the Swiss Army knife you need for your Mac.

With its blades you can activate – or deactivate – all sorts of features that are normally hidden from view.

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2012 — Fujitsu’s made the first Android phone that I, as an iPhone lover, found myself drooling over… which makes it a doubly good thing that the phone in question is waterproof. And not just waterproof! As thin and light and as perfect in the hand as a dream.

The only problems? Because of Fujitsu’s bizarre way of selling their devices, this phone, which has been on sale in Japan for months, doesn’t even have a set name. And forget about getting one Stateside. How does a company make a phone this beautiful and then have no idea how to market it?