Tag archive: Smartphones

It’s now been over two years since we first gazed upon the well-stocked shelves of the iTunes App Store. While our Top iPhone Apps were tough to choose the first time around, the task has become even tougher as developers have flooded the market with apps, now to the tune of over 500,000 (that’s a separate app for every person in the city of Portland). Even for a niche tasks like calculating your blood alcohol content after a night of drinking,… Read More

Shares of Groupon, the most popular daily deal site on the Web and once touted as “the fastest growing company ever,” fell over 15 percent yesterday on news of a net loss of two cents per share on revenues of $506 million. Revenues increased 194 percent from a year ago, essentially meaning that Groupon made much more money than it did last year, but also spent significantly more to achieve those gains. This follows Sprint’s announcement of a… Read More

With over 500,000 apps available through Apple’s App Store, it can be daunting for developers to get their apps noticed — let alone downloaded. Enter a recent thread on app developer site Touch Arcade, in which a poster who was recently shopping around for ways to get his app more exposure was contacted by a “marketing” company that promised it could break apps into the top 25 rankings in exchange for a lump sum payment — in this case $5,000.… Read More

Today Google finally introduced Chrome for Android after three long, impatient years. It’s now available as a beta release for smartphones and tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich – which, unfortunately is incredibly limited. Right now that means that only the Galaxy Nexus and Wi-Fi only Xoom tablets will be able to access Chrome. First, the bad: It’s a bit of a slap in the face for Android owners: Chrome for mobile has been one of the most… Read More

Sony Ericsson has announced a limited edition of its Xperia Active smartphone, after teaming up with extreme sports clothing brand Billabong. The Xperia Active Billabong edition comes with a redesigned rear panel, plus a wealth of branded material stored on the phone, such as wallpapers, videos, screensavers and a special surf game. The phone remains the same as the standard Active, with Android 2.3 Gingerbread (although the Active will be… Read More

Asus has been one of the leaders in innovative tablet designs. We were saddened that it did not announce any new products at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but it looks like Feb. 26 or 27 may be its time to shine. Asus has confirmed with MoDaCo (via PocketNow) that it intends to unveil a newly designed PadPhone tablet + phone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.  Much like the concept of the Motorola Atrix + Laptop Dock, the… Read More

The Samsung Galaxy Note was one of the most talked about phones at the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks ago, and it looks like AT&T isn't wasting its time bringing the device to market. The Note will hit shelves on Feb. 19 for $300 with a two-year contract.  The new phone is one of the largest Android phones (maybe the largest) to be released with a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED screen (1280×800 pixels). Not shying away from size,… Read More

Apple bounced back in the October to December quarter of last year to once again become the world’s largest smartphone vendor, knocking Samsung back into second place. According to data released Thursday by research firm Strategy Analytics, the iPhone maker took a 23.9 percent share of the smartphone market against Samsung’s 23.5 percent for the three-month period. The top two positions are reversed from the July to September quarter when… Read More

In the US, Apple's iPhone has surpassed the smartphone market share of all Android devices combined during the final three months of 2012, according to new numbers out from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, as reported by Reuters. But the difference is almost invisible: Apple owned 44.9 percent of the market; handsets running Google's Android operating system owned just 44.8 percent. Though the difference in popularity may be… Read More

When you're a phone geek it's easy to get tied up with thoughts of 4-inch-plus touchscreens, big megapixel cameras and multi-core processsors; effectively forgetting the low-end of the market entirely. The truth is though, feature phones are still out there and they're selling at an astonishing rate. This morning, Nokia announced the sale of its 1.5 billionth Series 40 feature phone, and that it's still selling 12 similar… Read More

The battle over which data cable standard will dominate in the years ahead is beginning to heat up. With USB 3.0 beginning to take off, the fate of Intel's high-speed Thunderbolt port has been under scrutiny as of late. Everything runs on USB and though Apple has been a huge proponent of the new Thunderbolt port, including it as one of the only ports on its entire line of MacBook computers, support from the world's most popular tech… Read More

Back in 2010, AT&T led the way toward the elimination of unlimited data plans and now the carrier is at it again. On Jan. 22, the wireless carrier will raise the minimum cost of a usable smartphone data plan from $25 to $30 per month. This comes as the carrier begins widespread deployment of its 4G LTE network across the country.  Here are the new data plans: $20 per month for 300MB $30 per month for 3GB $50 per month for 5GB Here are the… Read More

One of the most annoying aspects of changing phones is making sure all of your contacts are transferred to the new device. In the olden days, this meant manually typing in countless names and phone numbers, but our smartphones can now do most of the work for us. This guide will focus on moving contacts from iPhone to Android, but the main principles of this guide will help out other platforms. Setup The first thing you will need to do is to… Read More

Picture the scene. You’re eating at a restaurant with a friend. You’re telling them what you consider to be a pretty interesting story and, just as you’re about to deliver the climactic line, your friend’s phone starts vibrating. “Just hold on,” they tell you, reaching for their device. Unable to close your story, you’re left staring at them like a dog that’s been shown a card trick. The moment has passed. The story is ruined. Since the… Read More