Smartphones are taking over the space where feature phones have long reigned. With so many mobile platforms, devices and form factors, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Here is where you can keep up with the smartphone space and follow all the major players in this market.
While Siri and VoiceOver can assist visually impaired iPhone users, new software out of Georgia Tech looks to supplement these accessibility options. BrailleTouch uses traditional Braille input on the iPhone’s touchscreen, allowing people to type up to 32 words per minute with 92 percent accuracy. Read More »
Streaming March Madness tournament games next month won’t be as free and easy as it was last year, with broadcast partners CBS (NYSE: CBS) a… Read More »
Nuance added support for Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0, in the latest beta of its Swype software keyboard on Thursday. The new version has a limited audience base, but Swype is getting ready for devices as they gain the update to Android 4.0. Read More »
One of the new features of OS X Mountain Lion, coming this summer, is Messages for Mac, which replaces iChat. Apple’s iMessage service is available as a beta version to download for use with OS X Lion today. Here are our first impressions. Read More »
Seven months after Mac OS X Lion, Apple is releasing its first developer preview of what comes next for its desktop OS, which will be called Mountain Lion. Like its predecessor, Apple’s upcoming desktop OS is starting to bear more than a passing resemblance to iOS. Read More »
The mobile payments industry can learn a lot from Starbucks, which has seen tremendous success with its year-old payment app for iPhone and Android. But very few players can match Starbucks’ brand recognition or customer demographics, and no one should expect to replicate its success.
HTC, one of the earliest champions of smartphones seems to have fallen on hard times. But the Taiwanese phone maker isn’t ready to call it quits and is said to be working on a slew of new products including a music streaming service – relatively soon. Read More »
Leaked images of Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry 10 software show much similarity to the user interface of Apple iOS and Google Android. The screenshots indicate that BlackBerry is finally moving towards a more touch-friendly platform that supports home-screen widgets. Now about the supporting ecosystem… Read More »
Apple is testing smaller screens for a new mini iPad model, according to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. It’s about time a smaller iPad arrived for a number a reasons. And the idea that iOS won’t work on a 7- or 7.85-inch touchscreen is flawed. Read More »
This is Jonathan Koomey’s second essay in a series of four this week that highlights, and excerpts from, his upcoming book, “Cold Cash, Cool Climate,” which discusses how entrepreneurs and investors can profit from tackling climate change, one of this century’s greatest challenges. Read More »
Shown off at TEDxBoston, Netra is a $2 solution for mobile eye exams. The Netra clips to a phone, and users tap buttons on the touchscreen display until images seen in the Netra are aligned. The device can measure for nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism. Read More »
People were saying we can’t make powerful phones like Apple. Yes, we can, but we couldn’t believe consumers would put up with that kind of battery inefficiency and that kind of network inefficiency. Just as I wouldn’t try to manage a business school, Roger Martin, dean of … Read More »
It’s no secret I like large-screened phones and 7-inch tablets. Although I own an iPhone, I use my 4.65-inch Galaxy Nexus far more often. The same goes for my Galaxy Tab 7.7 as compared to my iPad 2. Why? I’m a two-handed phone user. Are you? Read More »
Apple stock hit an all-time high of $503.83 in early trading Monday, surpassing the magic $500 mark. It has since gone back down a bit, and at the time of publishing, AAPL was at $499.22. The stock has gone steadily upward since Tim Cook became CEO. Read More »
Forrester says 1 billion consumers will have smartphones by 2016, with 257 million of them in the U.S. That’s not just a big trend. It’s forcing companies to rethink their IT strategy as the world goes increasingly mobile first. Read More »
For the past week or so, the Internet has been abuzz with news of mobile apps uploading iPhone address books without asking us. The controversy highlights the fact that social and web apps need to have the moral imperative to do the right thing. Read More »
U.S. sales of all consumer gadgets hit just $144 billion last year, which is actually a half percent dip when compared to 2010. But last year’s results weren’t terrible news for all CE companies. There is one company that’s doing pretty well in the U.S. Read More »
Following weeks of outrage and some protests regarding the working conditions at the factories of Apple’s third-party suppliers, Apple announced Monday that it is requesting extra audits of the health and safety conditions at factories where its iPhones and iPads are built. Read More »
Remember Crazy Frog? The bike-riding amphibian and his irritating, ubiquitous song symbolized the premium ringtone market a few years ago, before fading into obscurity. The frog has disappeared, but one startup thinks it has found a way to evolve the idea for the modern mobile user. Read More »
On this week’s podcast, Kevin convinces Matt to try Chrome for Android now that Matt’s custom ROM issue on the Galaxy Nexus is fixed. Also, what to expect from quad-core phones and what would it take for either host to upgrade to the expected iPad 3? … Read More »
Have a DVD that you want to watch while traveling or otherwise away from home? The latest version of the TV Anytime app will let its users rip and transfer DVDs from their desktops to mobile devices for on-the-go viewing. Read More »
In yet more legal news on the Apple front, on Friday the company filed another lawsuit against Motorola. It’s asking a district court to prevent Motorola from suing Apple in European courts over technology in mobile devices Apple says it’s licensed to use via Qualcomm. Read More »
In this week’s edition: Bloons 2 ($0.99 Universal) is the latest in a series of highly addictive games by Digital Goldfish featuring a dart-throwing monkey with a thing about popping balloons. Read More »
Apple filed a complaint earlier this week in a federal court in San Jose citing two patents and asking for an injunction against the Korean electronics maker. One of the patents at issue concerns the spelling and autocorrect feature found on iPhone and iPad devices. Read More »
Just a week after Motorola was awarded two significant victories in a German court over Apple, the companies’ luck have changed. On Friday, a judge ruled he would not grant an injunction against Apple products on the basis of a 3G/UMTS patent claimed by Motorola. Read More »
Google’s mystery device has been unveiled by The Wall Street Journal as a Sonos-like platform for wirelessly streaming music around the home. But the most important thing is that Google is moving beyond software to making a branded hardware device of its own. Read More »
Siri is hot, but the software is exclusive to the iPhone 4S; iPads, iPod touches and older iPhones need not apply. The situation provides an opportunity for developers on non-Siri devices, and SpeakToIt Assistant, a $1.99 app, is one of these. How does it stack up? Read More »
The scheduled delivery of petitions asking Apple for better treatment of workers in factories that produce iPhones and iPads happened on schedule in New York City on Thursday morning. Observers say there were far more press in attendance than protestors. Read More »
Appcelerator, which helps developers build mobile apps, has been on an acquisition tear in the last year and has added mobile backend provider Cocoafish on Thursday to fill out its offering. The pickup allows Appcelerator to offer a full suite of front-end and backend solutions. Read More »
Priceonomics, which keeps track of the resale value of items like cars, bikes and gadgets, published a report Wednesday that shows how the value of iPhones, Android phones and BlackBerrys hold up over time. Short answer: iPhones, even years-old models, retain their value the longest. Read More »
After using the stock Google Android software on my Galaxy Nexus for two months, I’m getting antsy. The new Chrome beta for Android is a super browser and Google Wallet is great too. But now It’s time for a custom ROM to reinvigorate the Nexus experience! Read More »
Representatives from Change.org and SumOfUs.org will deliver petitions to Apple stores in several major cities Thursday with the names of 250,000 people who want the iPhone maker to develop “a worker protection strategy” covering the people who build its devices in China. Read More »
DoubleTwist, a popular free media play application for Android, has improved its software to include over-the-air podcast subscriptions. The new feature is available as part of the DoubleTwist Pro in-app upgrade, a $4.99 fee that also adds AirPlay support, wireless media synchronization and album art downloads. Read More »
Microsoft added Android support for OneNote, enabling Android users to take notes from their device and sync them in the cloud. But a few key features are missing that appear in competing apps. Is this space owned by Evernote or can OneNote succeed on Android? Read More »
Sprint sold 1.8 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, or just a quarter of the number of iPhones that AT&T did. But it’s actually good news for the nation’s third-largest carrier, which announced its quarterly earnings Wednesday. Read More »
Embattled Nokia is hoping it can become faster and more competitive by shifting the heart of its manufacturing operations to Asia, a move which will see 4,000 jobs cut in Finland, Hungary and Mexico but will be seen as long overdue. Read More »
Mobile World Congress is still three weeks and an ocean away, but Samsung is already threatening to steal the show. Analytics blog Anlytk has compiled Twitter data on the most referenced terms surrounding MWC and found that Samsung is already generating an enormous amount of buzz. Read More »
Google’s Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system went public in the same year but they haven’t converged until now. Google is finally introducing Chrome for Android, a robust beta with a lot of slick features which is limited to Android 4.0 devices. Read More »
The challenge is getting the best video quality possible, as well as making the call as convenient to manage as possible. And believe it or not, the trick is to use a smartphone car mount with a hand mirror. That’s right, a common household hand mirror. Read More »
We already knew the iPhone 4S camera was good thanks to its small pixel size and backlit sensor. That’s helping the iPhone 4S to become the most used camera on Flickr, and it may help the iPhone 4S become the most used smartphone in a microscope. Read More »
Nokia released the Belle software upgrade for its recent Symbian phones on Tuesday, bringing additional home screens, much improved notifications and other features. The rollout is a day ahead of schedule, showing that Nokia is starting to make good on promises to deliver on time. Read More »
Both Apple and Samsung have sold a historic amount of smartphones in the past year, and coming up with a tally of who sold more is harder than you’d think. But The NPD Group says they’ve done all the number crunching and have a winner. Read More »
This report outlines the myriad issues at play in Facebook’s move, from examining how CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to rewire the world to understanding the company’s infrastructure dependency. But from every angle, it’s clear the effects will ripple throughout the startup and tech communities.
Based on a growing number of data points, Android’s sales dominance may be nearing its apex while iOS is on the rise. Even as a daily user of both an Android smartphone and tablet, I can’t deny the facts that Android’s future won’t rival Android’s past. Read More »
Your smartphone is already your mobile stereo. Why not make it the centerpiece of your car’s sound system too? That’s what makers of the Devium Dash, a kit you install in your car that makes your iPhone or iPod touch fit right in your car’s dash. Read More »
I used to use Bump, the mobile app that wirelessly transfers data between two smartphones, but over time, I uninstalled it. Now it’s not only back on my phones, but has a coveted home screen spot thanks to the latest share-to-desktop feature.
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