Steve Jobs was known for his fanaticism for his own company Apple, which is why he was such a technology innovator and a genius. His authorized biography written by Walter Isaacson, shows that Jobs was angry with how Google supposedly stole certain aspects of the iOS mobile platform for Android operating system. According to Jobs’ biography,...
Good and Latest News: IOS 5.1 is available for download now. At its event in San Francisco Wednesday, Apple announced it would release iOS 5.1 and that it would bring Japanese-language support for Siri, the voice assistant on the iPhone 4S. The news had been rumored for a few weeks, but now it’s official. There were also rumors that...
After Apple announced the new iPad Wednesday, the company dropped the price of its predecessor, the iPad 2, to start at $399. Previously the device had been sold starting at $499. Apple will offer the iPad 2 in two configurations, a 16GB Wi-Fi only model sells for $399. A 16GB Wi-Fi and 3G model (available on either AT&T or Verizon)...
Windows Phone has a smaller selection of apps available to users than Android or iOS, but the average quality is exceptionally high. As the platform becomes more popular, the range of apps will increase and hopefully the quality will remain as high, or even higher, than it is now. Here are few apps that prove the worth of the platform. Weave Mobile...
Turning an Android smartphone into something like an iPhone or a Windows Phone (or vice versa) is a very common type of customization that people like to do. It lets them enjoy the functionality of one mobile platform while having the looks of another. Although I am not at all a fan of such customization, if you’re the type who wishes to make their Android look like an iPhone, this post is for you.
Before we get down to the three most common methods to get the iPhone look on Android, consider this: if you want the true iPhone look, you’ll have to get yourself an iPhone. No launcher/ROM/customization will ever nail the iOS look, and the better ones that are available are, well, well-intentioned but still far away from looking like iOS.
Method #1: Get ADW/GO Launcher
The most common and safest way to get an iPhone-like look on Android is to download, install a launchers like ADW or GO. Both pack their own set of unique features, but have one common aspect: theming. You can download a wide variety of themes (originals, clones, mash-ups, whatever floats your boat) that give your device a distinct look.
Despite being the easiest and most configurable method, we aren’t big fans of it. Firstly, because the free themes aren’t of good quality and the paid ones cost more than full-fledged apps. Secondly, because these are, well, themes that are added on top of a launcher; they aren’t made from the ground-up and that is exactly why you’ll find lots of rough edges.
Download ADW.Launcher for Android [Market Link]
Download GO Launcher for Android [Market Link]
There are dozens upon dozens of iPhone themes. Search for “iPhone ADW/Go launcher themes” on Android Market.
Method #2: Get Espier Launcher
The last method is similar to Method #1 in that it involves a launcher. The difference here is that Espier Launcher was developed from the ground up to look and work like Springboard on iOS. Unlike the themes on ADW/GO, Espier comes with Spotlight-like search, Folders, “jiggly mode”, uninstall-in-one-click and more!
Download Espier Launcher for Android [Market Link]
According to a survey conducted by Security firm Check Point, Corporations Prefer iOS Over BlackBerry and Android. The research that surveyed 768 IT professionals from the U.S, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan demonstrates that Apple’s iOS is the preferred mobile platform, especially for security Purposes.
89% IT professionals, questioned have smartphones or tablets connected to their corporate networks but Apple iOS is the most common mobile platform used to connect in corporate environments. IOS accounts for 30% of the devices connected, followed by BlackBerry with its 29% and Android’s 21%. The Windows Mobil Phone still accounts for 18% of the total connected devices.
71% consider that the addition of mobile devices on the corporate networks contributed to increased security incidents. However, Google’s Android is regarded the less secure among the platforms. It is considered to introduce the greatest security risks, the answer came from 43% of those asked.
Google is working hard to overcome the security risks of Android in order to suit the needs of businesses. There’s even a Security Enhanced version of the platform, released by the NSA, that aims at solving some of the problems related to security. However, the corporate world still thinks it is less secure than Apple’s iOS which is also less secure than RIM’s BlackBerry OS.
VIA Checkpoint
To control the global market for smartphones, both Google and Apple are in an intense competition for succeeding against each other. Whether they will succeed is a question that a research and analyst firm Gartner is trying to answer through making some predictions which are quite surprising.
According to its report, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 will have a better market share by 2015 than Apple iOS. Android will take over almost 50% of the mobile smartphone market in the next two years. The recent predictions report by Gartner says that Android will increase its market share from this year’s 38.5% to 49.2% in the next, which is astonishingly more than double its market share of 22.7% from the last year.
Same fascinating inferences are about iOS that it will also pace up its market share this year at 19.4%, but it will go down to 18.9% in 2012 and to 17.2% by 2015. On the other hand, Windows Phone will leap up from 5.6% this year to 10.8% in the coming year and will stretch to 19.5% in 2015. BlackBerry is predicted to have a slow decline by falling from this year’s 13.4% to 11.1% in 2015. These are all the research estimates from the firm Gartner.
Smartphone Market by 2015
With iPhone, the iPad and the MacBook Air, the Apple has been very successful over the past years favourable reviews. Nobody had ever thought that a tech company struggling a decade ago would be now world’s most valued. But all this grading does not come without the flaws. Apple has weaknesses to address, which are:
1. The cloud: The claim of iPad 2 being a “post-PC” device is not genuine because one still has to plug it into a computer to activate and sync it. Apple should think about the cloud like Google for removing these PC dependent services. Due sometime this year is Apple’s new version of iOS. Apple should not remain unaware of the variety of things that Dropbox, Amazon and Google, etc. are doing with the cloud. As of the present situation, Apple has not made its mark positively here.
2. Social: Apple has not been so social except with Ping, the social network based around iTunes music and GameCenter, the social gaming service. Not being so social can cost Apple in the long run. But this could be overcome in the next version of iOS.
3. The living room: The new Apple TV has a small upgrade with live video streaming for MLB and NBA games, but it still does not make it a strong product as it has limited video choices with no threat of high competition. To improve on the situation it has to decide between being a good platform and being a prominent content seller.
Different products from Apple
After just three years, a combined one million apps have been developed for iOS and Android, two of the most popular operating systems for mobile devices.
But mobile application firm AppsFire.com, which made the estimate, said only about 80 percent of these apps are active.
“There you go. We just hit the a significant milestone. If you take all the apps ever published developed on iOS and Android we just reached today 1 million mobile apps combined. Now careful: those 1 million apps are not all active. 800k in total are active,” it said.
Still, it said this was an impressive milestone reached “in a few years and an incredible level of activity lead by the developers’ community.”
In its estimate, AppsFire said iOS apps make up 52 percent of the one million apps, although it hinted there may be more Android apps.
“Our tracking on Android also includes apps that have not been published on the Android Market, while on iOS we count apps that are or were published on iTunes. The point is, there are over one million apps developed or being developed combined on both OSes,” it said.
AppsFire predicts there may be one million live apps for iOS and Android combined before the end of 2011.
A separate article on TheNextWeb said this is due to the smartphone market continuing to boom and device owners downloading an increasing number of applications.
“Judging by how quickly app stores are growing, we might not have long to wait,” it said.
The app stores for both iOS and Android opened in 2008 – Apple’s App Store on July 10 and Google’s Android Market on August 28.
HTC, a company that builds smartphones based on Android and Windows Phone 7 operating systems, is mulling a purchase of a new mobile OS, HTC CEO Cher Wang told the Economic Observer of China.
“We have given it thought and we have discussed it internally, but we will not do it on impulse,” Wang said in the interview.
While such a purchase is far from a done deal, the fact that HTC is even considering it is telling. Nokia has close ties with Microsoft and its WP7 platform; HP folded its webOS business, and Google recently purchased Motorola Mobility. This leaves HTC — which has grown to be one of the biggest phone manufacturers in the world — exposed and dependent on two mobile operating systems whose owners’ priorities lie elsewhere.
It’s no wonder Samsung — another phone manufacturer that’s been very successful with Android-based smartphones — still pushes its own mobile OS, Bada, although it has had little success actually selling Bada-based devices.
If HTC wants a new mobile operating system, perhaps as a “spare” similar to Samsung’s Bada strategy, there are a number of avenues the company can take. It could try to develop one in-house, purchase an already finished product (such as HP’s webOS) or perhaps find a middle ground by extending the functionality of its own Sense, which acts as an additional UI layer on Android devices.
Most iOS users wouldn’t like to trade the user experience of their system with the one found in Android, yet it’s often nice to experiment with new user interface paradigms. Android Delete is a new jailbreak tweak that allows iOS apps to be deleted from the Home Screen just like they can on Android launcher.
By default, in order to uninstall apps on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, users must simply press and hold any app on the homescreen and click on the “X” button over the icon of the app they want to remove. On Android, apps, or rather shortcuts, can be removed by dragging them into a trash can icon, a user experience many prefer, if it were for apps. Android Delete simply brings this paradigm to iOS by adding a trash can icon at the bottom of the screen whenever any app icon is pressed and held. From there, apps can simply be dragged to said trash can and be wiped off the device immediately, as shown below.
Android Delete also adds a new menu to the iOS native Settings app, allowing users to adjust the speed of the animations as well as temporarily disable this tweak completely.
If you wish, you can still use the old iOS method of removing apps, even when this tweak is installed: just use the one you feel like using at any given time. I personally find the iOS method much more efficient and less time-consuming, yet I’m glad the choice is available. Some of you might have a different opinion.
The Korean Electronics Manufacturer, Samsung might have surpassed Apple and Nokia in smartphone sales in the second quarter of this year.
Samsung has made of one of the most popular phones of the year in the Galaxy S II. Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics told Bloomberg that Samsung might have sold more smartphones than Apple and Nokia during April, May and June.
Mawston said, “Samsung is estimated to have sold between 18 million and 21 million smart phones globally in the April-June quarter, compared with 16.7 million for Nokia and 20.3 million iPhones“.
The possible total of 21 million isn’t solely Galaxy S II models, in fact we’re still wondering if Samsung knows how many of those it has sold after much confusion over its pre-orders and sales figures. Samsung has yet to launch the Galaxy S II smartphone in the US.
If we include basic phones into the equation Mawston reckons that Samsung will have 20 per cent market share compared to Nokia’s 26 per cent. If this prediction comes to fruition then it would be the smallest gap in phone shipments between the two firms to date.
Samsung also makes budget smart phones such as the Galaxy Europa and Galaxy Mini. These phones bring Google’s Android operating system to consumers who can’t afford a pricey contract tariff or whopping SIM free payment.
In terms of market share, we have recently learned that Apple has overtaken Nokia. Figures from IDC showed Apple with 21 per cent market share compared to Nokia’s 20 per cent. According to IDC, Samsung had 14 per cent.
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