I hate using email. I get an average of 60 to 70 emails every day, and only one percent of them are from people I actually care about. Using email today is all about sifting through the clutter. Dextr is an app that helps you accomplish that by filtering your inbox to only include emails from your friends and family. → Read More
LG’s Optimus G successor, the G Pro, is coming to AT&T on May 10 with pre-orders beginning May 3, the companies revealed in a press release today. LG’s Optimus G Pro offers a 1.7GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 5.5-inch 1920×1080 display with a pixel density of 400ppi, and a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera. The G Pro will be available on a two-year agreement for $199.99, and packs… → Read More
Amazon doesn’t share details on how well its Amazon Appstore apps sell, but according to mobile app analytics firm App Annie, the app marketplace is seeing growing traction among developers. The company surveyed over 1,500 developers, and found that 22.5 percent of them were now publishing to the Amazon Appstore, and half of that group (50 percent) cited the game category on the Amazon… → Read More
Don’t write off Microsoft’s chances in mobile just yet. It may still be struggling to make itself count in the smartphone space but early signs are more promising for Windows plus tablets. Microsoft has gone from having no share of the global tablet OS market in Q1 last year to taking 7.4% one year later, with 3M Windows 8 tablets shipped in Q1 2013, according to Strategy Analytics. → Read More
Nokia has announced another handset in its S40-based Asha portfolio of low end mobiles which compete with the budget end of Android and cheap BlackBerrys. The 2G-plus-Wi-Fi Asha 210, due to ship before the end of Q2 costing $72 (before taxes), has a dedicated hardware key on the front that short-cuts to messaging app Whatsapp. A second variant, intended for separate markets, has a Facebook key. → Read More
Way back in March of 2010, Swype launched a super private Beta of its then totally mind-blowing swipe-to-type Android keyboard. While they’ve since shipped it out-of-the-box on dozens of handsets, opened the Beta to pretty much anyone, and sold for $100M, they’ve never gotten around to ditching that Beta tag — until today.
This morning, Swype will hit the Google Play store for the first time. → Read More
Sony has decided to release a sequel to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) for Xperia S it began in August of 2012, and took over from Google in November of last year. This time, the Xperia Z is getting its own project, which means that the company’s water resistant flagship phone will get to participate in the kind of Android development work normally reserved for Google-blessed Nexus… → Read More
HTC really wants you to buy an HTC One, and it’s making sure that you have every opportunity to do so. First, it opened up pre-orders for the HTC One Developer Edition, a carrier-unlocked 64GB version of the phone with an unlocked bootloader for custom ROMs. Now, it’s also offering a network-unlocked 32GB version of the handset, which doesn’t have the unlocked bootloader, but which is less… → Read More
Security firm Lookout has detailed a clever new bit of Android Malware lurking in the Google Play store.
The good news: unless you’re downloading questionable Russian clone apps, you’re probably not affected. The bad news: that hasn’t kept it from being downloaded a few million times. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — pictured themselves in a boat on a river, as the first wave of Google Glass hit the network, aka Scoble’s forehead. @scobleizer promises to never take off this thing, and even the hyperbole doesn’t refute the central notion. The whole world is not only watching but feeding the realtime stream. Social meets… → Read More
Baltimore-based Apkudo is debuting its “Apkudo Approved” program this week, extending its existing work with making sure that Android apps and devices perform well for consumers. The company has positioned itself in a growth market, to act as a layer both between developers and devices, and between devices and carriers, to help both parties deal with the fractured and often maze-like landscape of… → Read More
The HTC One, the Taiwanese company’s flagship smartphone device, goes on sale today across the U.S. at retail stores including AT&T, Sprint, Best Buy, Walmart Target and more, as well as online via those retailers, HTC itself, Amazon and beyond. The phone has already been highly praised by early reviews and anyone who seems to have gotten their lucky mitts on one, but will that be enough to… → Read More
Google’s CEO Larry Page revealed something during today’s earnings call that his company doesn’t seem to have actually spelled out before: Google Glass runs on Android. In response to a question about how much people can expect to see engagement increment with new products like Glass, he said that “obviously, Glass runs on Android, so [Android] has been pretty transportable across devices, and I… → Read More
Opera has just put out its latest State of Mobile Advertising report for Q1 2013 and its findings put the iPhone back on top for “impression volume” (i.e. generating the most traffic to mobile ads), regaining its lead over Android. iOS also maintains its top position for monetisation compared to the other mobile platforms. → Read More
The “personal assistant” craze is in full effect on mobile devices, with Apple’s SIRI kicking off the fun. The dream of being able to speak out loud and have information come back to you is something that technologists have been discussing for years. The smarter that our devices are, and the more we use them, the more we expect in return. Google is in the game with its own… → Read More
Microsoft just scored a coup on the patent royalty front, with a new deal with Taiwanese phone maker, Hon Hai, which owns Foxconn. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will get paid a flat fee per Android and Chrome-based device that Foxconn makes. And there are a lot of those. A whopping 40 percent of the world’s phones come from the firm’s China-based factories. Foxconn is an ODM… → Read More
Facebook boldly moved to expand its presence in the mobile space with its Android-only replacement last week (with mixed results), but it’s far from the only company who has shown interest in Google’s mobile OS as a springboard for better social connection. Speaking at the D: Dive Into Mobile, recently installed Twitter VP of product Michael Sippey seemed intrigued by the sorts of… → Read More
Google chairman Eric Schmidt today denied that there is any tension between his company and Samsung, the world’s biggest handset maker and the biggest OEM partner for Google’s Android mobile OS. “They have hundreds of millions of phones coming out on Android and I don’t think you will see much of a change there,” he said of the Korean handset maker, during an interview at the D:Dive Into Mobile… → Read More
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was on stage today at AllThingsD’s Dive Into Mobile event in NYC, talking about his book and his vision for Google. When asked about how he and Google feel about projects that take Android as their base and then build something different with them, like Amazon’s KindleOS or Facebook Home. Schmidt’s response was extremely positive. → Read More
Mobile malware remains a small and nascent issue, especially when compared to the scale of threats crowding around desktop OSes, but the threat that is out there continues to mostly affect Google’s Android platform. This despite Apple’s iOS technically having more vulnerabilities, according to a new report by security software firm Symantec. → Read More
Atlassian’s HipChat is in the process of rolling out revised or new native apps across all platforms for it group chat tool, and now it’s introducing HipChat version 2.0 for Android devices. The improved app is the product of a beta testing period that spanned the last few months. HipChat beta tested it through by borrowing a page out of Google Chrome’s book and offering both a developer and a… → Read More
Mobile service provider NQ Mobile today released a study of malware covering 2012, using data gathered from the company’s Security Labs. It found that malware threats in general on mobile platforms grew 163 percent in 2012, totally more than 65,000 identified distinct forms of app repackaging, malicious URLs and SMS phishing (also known as smishing). The attacks were mostly geared towards Android… → Read More
If you’re an iPhone user, you might be feeling a little left behind, because Facebook launched an application called Facebook Home, touted by CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the “next version of Facebook.” In fact, you might be feeling this way if you’re an Android user, too. For now, only a handful of select devices can even run Home (officially) — notably missing from the lineup is Google’s Nexus 4, the… → Read More
In case you happened to miss the furor earlier today (or yesterday, depending on your timezone), Facebook officially pushed its Facebook Home launcher into the Google Play Store for owners of a select few devices to muck around with. Early impressions seem to run the gamut, but unless you had the right hardware you were plumb out of luck if you wanted to take Home for a spin.
Well, let me… → Read More
Facebook Home, the new Android-based launcher that puts the social network and its messaging, photo and other services front and center on a user’s mobile device, is now available for download on Google Play for a limited selection of Android devices: HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II. This comes after earlier today Facebook updated its Facebook Messenger… → Read More
Cinemagram, a startup among those that pioneered short animated video clip sharing on the iPhone when it originally debuted back in 2011, has officially launched its Android app today. The new app brings Cinemagram’s “cine” creation tools to Google’s mobile OS, allowing users to create very short animated GIFs and share them with their followers and on social networks. → Read More
Sometimes you just need a disposable phone number. Why? Maybe you’re not too sure about that dude you just met, but you want to give him a chance. Maybe you don’t want weirdos from Craigslist calling you once your couch is gone.
Last August, an app called Burner came along that popularized the idea of disposable numbers at the push of a button. After 9 months as an iOS-only app, Burner is… → Read More
“This is not a Facebook Phone.” Yeah, whatever. The HTC First is the first phone that has Facebook partnering up with an OEM to bake an Android pie with Facebook Home filling, so I’m calling it the Facebook Phone. There will be more. This is just the first. And guess what?
It’s really good. → Read More
Today, Microsoft has leveled more accusations about Google’s practices by way of its “Scroogled” campaigns. This time, the complaints are about how Google handles users’ data when they purchase an application from Google Play. Previous “Scroogled” campaigns have targeted both Gmail and search over ads and privacy. In the two videos below, Microsoft uses… → Read More
FairSearch.org group, a lobby group that counts Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle among its number, has filed a complaint about Google’s Android platform to the European Commission, describing Android as a “Trojan horse” designed to enable Google to “dominate the mobile marketplace and cement its control over consumer Internet data for online advertising as usage shifts to mobile”. → Read More
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