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769 'Android' stories August 2010 - February 2014

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Review: Anker IQ 40W 5-port smart USB adapter is the last power source you’ll ever need

Seth Weintraub Feb 15 2014 - 2:26 pm PT

27 Comments

As our families grow, so do our device charging needs. Where we just used to need 2 USB ports to charge our iPhones, we now have iPads, cameras, Bluetooth speakers, portable flashlight/batteries and even a few Android devices laying around that constantly need to be chargers. Our excellent 2-port ZaggSparq just couldn’t handle all of the stuff anymore. Time to step up to something more substantial.

We’d heard great things about the new Anker IQ 40W 5V / 8A 5-Port Family-Size USB power supply. In fact, at Amazon where it can be nabbed on sale for $26, it gets almost exclusive 4 and 5 star ratings.

Anker hooked me up with a unit to test out at CES and I’ve relied on it since to keep our house full of devices charged. What’s particularly impressive about this one is that it has 40W of power to distribute through the 5 USB ports (a 25W one is a few bucks less). Anker’s new IQ does one better by recognizing high power requirements in devices like iPads, other tablets and even HPs new Chromebook and giving those devices the full 2-3 Amps of power they need to get charged quickly. Anker explains it thusly:

Not all USB ports are equal. Where past USB ports were hard-wired to exclusively charge iOS OR Android, we’re introducing Smart Port technology to create a truly universal charger. Dynamically adjusting to any device’s unique maximum charging speed, the Smart Port takes the brainwork out of compatibility.Just plug in and it’ll do the rest.

Were the reviews right? Was this the end to my USB charging woes?

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BlackBerry Messenger for iOS adds voice calls, one-touch file-sharing and more

Ben Lovejoy Feb 14 2014 - 4:54 am PT

1 Comment

Version 2.0 of BBM for iOS app now allows free voice calls to BBM contacts, as well as a range of other new features that include one-touch file-sharing, Dropbox integration, location-sharing, 50-person BBM groups and interest channels.

Today, we’re excited to be adding those great new features and more to BBM that users on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry** can enjoy. When the update becomes available later today, these new features will give you more ways to chat and share than ever before on BBM.

Voice calling is supported on both wifi and mobile data. Note that while voice calls don’t incur any direct charges, as with other forms of VoIP calling you’ll eat into any data allowance you have.

Full details of the new features from the BlackBerry blog below …
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Smartphones are now a 95% Android-iOS global duopoly w/ Android closing in on 80% by itself

Jordan Kahn Feb 12 2014 - 7:54 am PT

10 Comments

Research firm IDC is out today with its latest report on the worldwide smartphone market highlighting shipments and marketshare by operating system for last quarter and all of 2013. Together Android and iOS made up around 95.7% of all smartphone shipments in the last quarter of 2013 (up from 91.2% in the year ago quarter), but the real story is how much Android has grown compared to iOS. As of last quarter, Android made up almost 80% of that 95.7% and shipped close to 800 million of the billion smartphones shipped during 2013.
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Future iPhones could be built by Google robots on Foxconn production lines

Ben Lovejoy Feb 11 2014 - 5:37 am PT

7 Comments

In what would be a rather amusing twist, future iPhones could be built by Google robots as Google’s robotics division assists Foxconn to “speed up robot deployment” at its factories.

The WSJ reports that Foxconn was looking for assistance in automating its production lines, while Google is aiming to introduce robots to manufacturing processes that have so far been largely manual – electronics assembly being a key example. It takes around 600 people to make each iPhone.

Foxconn has been working with former Android executive Andy Rubin since last year to carry out the U.S. company’s vision for robotics.

To speed up robot deployment at its own factories, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou met with Rubin in Taipei recently and they discussed new robotic technologies, they said.

At the meeting, Gou expressed excitement over new automation technologies demonstrated by Rubin, they said. Rubin also asked Gou to help integrate a technology company that Google is acquiring as Foxconn’s strength lies in mechanical engineering.

Google has acquired eight robotics companies over the course of the past year, and is believed to have ambitions to create a robotic operating system that would be to manufacturing what Android is to smartphones. Foxconn is looking to reduce operating costs and boost efficiency.

“Foxconn needs Google’s help to step up automation at its factories as the company has the lowest sales per employee among the contract makers, given its large workforce,” said Wanli Wang, an analyst at CIMB Securities.

How-to: Setup and Use Chromecast to stream your content from a Mac and iOS device

Sarah Guarino Feb 9 2014 - 12:00 pm PT

33 Comments

The Chromecast, Google’s streaming HDMI dongle came out last summer. It is compatible with any Android device running 2.3 or later, iOS device with iOS 6 or 7, and any Mac or PC. Initially, users were able to stream Netflix or Youtube from an iOS device and Android device, Google Play Movies and Music only on Android, or cast websites using the Chrome browser on a computer. The Chromecast works differently from Airplay in that you can multitask and do other tasks on the device or you can let it go to sleep while streaming.

Very quickly after its release, Chromecast has received support for Hulu +, Pandora, and HBO GO. Last month a major update added ten new apps including Plex, Vevo, Songza, Red Bull TV, Post TV from the Washington Post, Viki, RealPlayer Cloud, Avia, Revision3 Internet Television and BeyondPod. The most recent update the Chromecast received allowed users to stream Google Play Movies and Music directly from the Chrome browser on a computer.

In this How-to, we’ll discuss how to setup the Chromecast, use it with a Mac and iOS device and explore its gaming potential.

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Flappy Bird creator promises to remove popular game from App Store by tomorrow

Chance Miller Feb 8 2014 - 11:36 am PT

14 Comments

After reaching the top of App Store charts, the hit iOS game Flappy Bird will be removed from the App Store. According to tweets from the developer Dong Nguyen, it sounds like the game will be removed from both the iOS and Android app stores in just 22 hours. In the tweets, Nguyen says he “cannot take this anymore” and refers to the game’s success as ruining his “simple life.” He says the decision has nothing to do with legal issues. Nguyen also says he has no interest in selling the game to anyone and that he’ll continue to make games.

I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore.

— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014

I can call 'Flappy Bird' is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.

— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) February 8, 2014

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Google Maps for iOS now notifies drivers of alternative, faster routes while driving

Benjamin Mayo Feb 4 2014 - 4:23 am PT

4 Comments

Google continues to push its Maps product on iOS in the latest update, version 2.6. The app now alerts the driver when faster routes become available when navigating. This reflects functionality found in dedicated sat navs. Rather than simply offering several routing options at the beginning of your journey, Google will keep aware of traffic and road conditions in case a faster route appears later.

Theoretically, this means you are always on the fastest route possible when navigating. As always, the app is free.

SwiftKey keyboard arrives on iOS as Evernote-infused app, third-party integration possible

Mark Gurman Jan 30 2014 - 5:59 am PT

3 Comments

SwiftKey, a popular Android keyboard option, has arrived on iOS. No, not as a keyboard that you can install to replace Apple’s iOS touchscreen keyboard, but in the form of a free App Store application. The name of the application is SwiftKey Note and it is available on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. More details below:

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Virgin Mobile cuts unsubsidized iPhone 5s to $440 or iPhone 5c for $360 shipped (Update)

9to5 Staff Jan 28 2014 - 7:10 am PT

8 Comments

From 9to5Toys.com:

Virgin Mobile is knocking another 20% off their marked down iPhones yielding the lowest prices we’ve ever seen on the unsubsidized phones (that’s another 10% less than this weekend’s mention).

iPhone 5s is $439.99/519.99/599.99 for the 16/32/64GB.
iPhone 5c is $359.99/439.99 for 16/32GB .
Note you can also pick up an iPhone 4 for $159.99 shipped.

Note Apple charges $650 for an unlocked iPhone 5s and $550 for an iPhone 5c so savings is around $200/iPhone. While the iPhones are unsubsidized, Virgin does offer extremely competitive plans on the Sprint 4G LTE network starting at $30/month for unlimited text/data.
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iPhone-controlled hotel door locks will allow guests to bypass check-in

Ben Lovejoy Jan 27 2014 - 6:25 am PT

1 Comment

Guests at two boutique hotels in Manhattan and Cupertino will soon be able to skip the check-in desk and go directly to their room, using an iPhone app to unlock the door. The WSJ reports that the Aloft Hotel will launch the new service this quarter.

Guests at these properties will receive a message on a Starwood app containing a virtual key, which will unlock the door with a tap or twist of their phone through the use of Bluetooth technology. The company says the iPhone 4s or newer models and the Android phones running 4.3 or newer will be compatible …
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iPhone market share continues to fall, but it’s Samsung feeling the pressure

Ben Lovejoy Jan 27 2014 - 4:28 am PT

22 Comments

While Android reaching almost 70 percent of smartphone sales across 12 key markets is the headline, with iOS falling to just under 24 percent, it is Samsung feeling the pressure, says Kantar, reporting sales figures for the final quarter of 2013.

After years of accelerated growth, Samsung is now coming under real pressure in most regions, with European share down by 2.2 percentage points to 40.3% and in China its share ended the year flat at 23.7% […]

Apple has lost share in most countries compared with this time last year, but importantly it has held strong shares in key markets including 43.9% in USA, 29.9% in Great Britain and 19.0% in China …
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Virgin Mobile cuts unsubsidized iPhone 5s to $495 or iPhone 5c for $405 shipped

9to5 Staff Jan 26 2014 - 7:57 pm PT

6 Comments

From 9to5Toys.com:

Virgin Mobile is knocking another 10% off their marked down iPhones yielding the lowest prices we’ve ever seen on the unsubsidized phones.

iPhone 5s is $494.99/584.99/674.99 for the 16/32/64GB.
iPhone 5c is $404.99/494.99 for 16/32GB .
Note you can also pick up an iPhone 4 for $159.99 shipped.

Note Apple charges $650 for an unlocked iPhone 5s and $550 for an iPhone 5c so savings is around $150/iPhone. While the iPhones are unsubsidized, Virgin does offer extremely competitive plans on the Sprint 4G LTE network starting at $30/month for unlimited text/data.
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WWE Wrestling Network coming to Apple TV, company executive suggests

Mark Gurman Jan 24 2014 - 2:18 pm PT

21 Comments

<a href="https://twitter.com/saschasegan/status/421117388235358208/photo/1">Image via Sascha Segan</a>

Earlier this year, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) held a press conference to announce that it will be bringing its wrestling content to television and mobile devices via a new WWE Network. At the event, WWE Chief Revenue and Marketing officer Michelle Wilson announced hardware partners and that the network will provide its content via a 24/7 stream that costs $9.99 per month.

As shown in the video below (5:30 in), Wilson said that the network would become available on a slew of devices, including iOS devices, Android devices, Rokus, Amazon Kindle devices, Xbox hardware, and PlayStations. Rounding out the list of supported devices, Wilson said, is “a connected device that I am not allowed to mention at this press conference…”

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SwiftKey bringing its predictive gesture typing from Android to iOS w/ ‘Note’ app

Jordan Kahn Jan 23 2014 - 7:57 am PT

3 Comments

SwitfKey, the popular Android app that replaces the stock on-screen keyboard with a gesture-based, predictive typing system, will soon arrive in an official iOS app from the same developers. While details are slim, the screenshot above from @evleaks comes with the caption “SwitfKey Note,” which we assume is a note taking app of sorts by looking at the image. Since Apple doesn’t allow users to change the system-wide on-screen keyboard to third-party alternatives like on Android, we assume that the gesture and predictive typing features will be accessible only within the new Note app.
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iDevices top data usage charts, iPhone 5s users downloading 41 percent more data than Samsung S4

Ben Lovejoy Jan 23 2014 - 4:48 am PT

7 Comments

While Android devices have the greatest market share, the evidence that iOS users do more with their devices continues to grow. The latest survey by analytics company Arieso found that iDevices took six out of the top ten slots in terms of the amount of data downloaded by 2013 devices. All numbers use the iPhone 3G as their base, and exclude the iPad Air which was launched after the survey ended.

Unsurprisingly, the company found that our appetite for data grows with each generation of device, as they become increasingly capable. iPhone 5s owners, for example, download 19 percent more data than iPhone 5 owners.

But tellingly, iPhone 5s owners download 41 percent more data than the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung’s current flagship handset (a figure that increases to 54 percent in developing markets). A previous study showed that iPhone users spend more time using their phones than do Android owners.

In a separate analysis by the UK consumer association Which?, the iPhone 5c was found to have the greatest amount of usable storage space after built-in apps were accounted for. Comparing the 16GB models of eight leading smartphones, the 5c was found to leave users with 12.6GB of storage, with the 5s at 12.2GB taking third place behind the Nexus 5. The Samsung Galaxy S4 took bottom place, with just over half of its 16GB space available to the user.

Via TechCrunch

Apple gets more favourable rulings against Samsung ahead of trial in March

Benjamin Mayo Jan 22 2014 - 2:45 am PT

0 Comments

FOSS Patents is reporting that Apple received two more favourable rulings in their ongoing battle against Samsung in the courts. These judgements increase the chance of Apple winning the March patent trial “not hugely but significantly”, according to Mueller.

In a judgement filed yesterday, Samsung was found to infringe on one of Apple’s asserted patents and one of its own patents in the case was invalidated.

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Apple SVP Phil Schiller shares report showing Android had 99% of mobile malware last year

Jordan Kahn Jan 21 2014 - 10:49 am PT

7 Comments

Like he has done before, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller has taken to his Twitter account to share a new report highlighting a much higher amount of security threats on Android compared to iOS. Schiller linked to Cisco’s 2014 annual security report covering mobile malware trends over the last year, which happens to highlight a rise in malware on Android as one of its key takeaways:

Ninety-nine percent of all mobile malware in 2013 targeted Android devices. Not all mobile malware is designed to target specific devices, however… Many encounters involve phishing, likejacking, or other social engineering ruses, or forcible redirects to websites other than expected. An analysis of user agents by Cisco TRAC/SIO reveals that Android users, at 71 percent, have the highest encounter rates with all forms of web-delivered malware

That 71% encounter rate for web-delivered malware on Android mentioned above compares to just 14 percent for iPhone users, according to the report. The report’s finding that 99 percent of all mobile malware last year targeted Android marks an increase for Android when comparing to the last report Schiller shared. In March of last year, Schiller shared a report from security firm F-Secure that estimated Android had around 79% of all mobile malware for 2012 compared to just 0.7 percent for iOS.

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Analysts estimate Apple sold 55.3M iPhones last quarter, up 16 percent

Ben Lovejoy Jan 20 2014 - 3:59 am PT

4 Comments

With Apple due to report its earnings a week from today, Fortune has run its usual roundup on the numbers analysts are predicting.

The consensus among the 44 analysts we’ve heard from so far — 27 professionals and 17 amateurs — is unit sales of 55.3 million iPhones, up 16% from the same quarter last year.

It’s a near-certainty the numbers will be high …
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Apple keeps its options open with patent for iBeacon- & NFC-compatible secure payment system

Ben Lovejoy Jan 16 2014 - 6:41 am PT

0 Comments

While it seems likely that Apple is intending to eventually establish iBeacon as a wireless electronic wallet system, rather than the existing NFC system commonly used in parts of Europe and Asia, a patent filing published today incorporates both protocols. It also allows for other forms of Bluetooth payment.

The secure payment system Apple describes would work in much the same way as the chip-and-PIN cards which are well-established in Europe. Instead of transmitting your actual card details to the payment terminal, the card details are used to generate an encrypted code which is sent instead. The terminal is able to validate the code and identify the account without ever having access to the card details themselves.

As we always note with patent stories, Apple patents huge numbers of things, most of which never make it into products. But while Apple is adopting its usual wait-and-see policy where new technologies are concerned, the question of using iPhones for payment is almost certainly when and how rather than if.

Google Now comes to the Mac in the latest Chrome Canary release

Benjamin Mayo Jan 16 2014 - 5:50 am PT

0 Comments

There have been indications for a long time that Google Now was eventually coming to the Chrome browser. Via the Google Operating System Blog, the service has finally surfaced in the most recent release of Chrome Canary (Google’s name for the app’s ‘alpha’ channel builds).

As expected, Google Now in Chrome closely mirrors Google Now on Android. The contextually-relevant cards (which show information such as weather, news or upcoming flights) appear in Chrome’s Notification Center on the desktop. The notification area can be accessed in the menubar, represented by a bell icon.

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CyanogenMod Installer released for OS X, makes it even easier to install the custom Android ROM

Chance Miller Jan 15 2014 - 2:57 pm PT

2 Comments

Back in November, the CyanogenMod team announced an interesting new project that allowed users to flash the team’s custom Android ROM in just a few clicks. The app came with a catch, though. It was only available on Windows machines, leaving Mac users in the dark. Today, however, the CyanogenMod team has released its Installer application on Mac OS X.

CyanogenMod installer supports a long-list of devices, ranging from the HTC One and Galaxy S4 to the Nexus S and Galaxy S II. The process is very simple. First, simply join the CyanogenMod Installer for Mac beta group, download the actual app from Google+, connect a compatible Android device, and the Installer will handle most everything else. It’s important to note that the Installer will wipe all the data from your device, so be sure to back it up before beginning the process.

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Google Play app arrives on iOS to stream movies and shows over WiFi

Mark Gurman Jan 15 2014 - 1:58 pm PT

3 Comments

Today, Google has released a new application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch to allow Google Play users to stream purchased movies and TV shows. You cannot rent or purchase content via this application: you must download it from Google Play on Android or the web and then the purchased titles will be available to stream via this app. The application is only supported in the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. WiFi is currently required for streaming. The app also allows streaming to the ChromeCast.

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iOS/Android market share vs. installed base visualized

Ben Lovejoy Jan 10 2014 - 5:52 am PT

25 Comments

As the Guardian‘s Charles Arthur points out, market share is a very different thing to installed user-base. The highly-detailed piece is worth reading in full, but the take-out is the bottom graph. That’s what the real world of U.S. smartphone users looks like. Or, to put it in two sentences …

Here’s the reality: at the time this was written, more than 40% of the smartphones in use in the US […] were iPhones. Only about 51% of the smartphones in peoples’ hands in the US are Android phones.

Smartphone adoption as a whole has grown at a rapid rate, and within that iOS and Android have, in the U.S. (and many other developed markets, I’m sure) grown at pretty much the same rate, with a rather modest gap between them.

The $50 smartwatch will be here by the summer, says Archos

Ben Lovejoy Jan 9 2014 - 4:19 am PT

5 Comments

Photo: engadget.com

When a whole new category of technology arrives, you can usually rely on tech-heads to get excited about them even if the mass-market doesn’t. So far, though, smartwatches don’t seem to have made as much headway as many expected. When a confirmed gadget addict like me is left wondering why I’d want one, something somewhere is wrong.

But where functionality hasn’t persuaded many of us, perhaps price will. Archos is planning to launch a basic smartwatch in the summer for just $50, a price it may be hoping will lead people to stop asking ‘Why?’ and instead ask ‘Why not?’.

Don’t expect too much tech for your fifty bucks: what it will buy you is more of a dumbwatch than a smart one. All it will do is relay notifications from your phone and allow you to control music playback. Oh yes, and tell the time. The display, too, is low-tech: a 1.55-inch non-capacitive e-ink screen.

The styling also looks pretty crude. But for $50, it’s almost cheap enough to try one out just to see whether the idea of a smartwatch grabs you.

Archos also plans a color model with 1.8-inch capacitive screen for $100 and an aluminum-cased version for $130, but these won’t be available until later in the year.