Android web share falls, Apple rises, and what that really means

The Android vs iOS battle will continue until one of them is gone. Given that is slowly losing its grasp on the mobile market, we’d be willing to bet that it won’t be Android that goes down first. However, new studies have come out showing that Apple controls the web share by nearly 40%.

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How is it to use Google Glass? An engineer gives us a glimpse of the interface

No, we are not here to report that someone broke those restrictive NDAs that Google required their Glass Forge hackaton attendants to sign.

But we have a description of the interface of Google’s futuristic head mounted display, offered by an engineer that recently had the opportunity to try out the Google Glass.

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CNET: Galaxy S4 announcement not coming at MWC 2013

A couple of days ago a report revealed that Samsung will not hold a press conference at MWC 2013, which implies that the Galaxy S4 will not be present at the Spanish show.
Meanwhile CNET was able to confirm with a “person familiar with its launch plans” that Samusng will not unveil the Galaxy S4 in Barcelona. As expected, the South Korean company “declined to comment” on the matter.

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Huawei Ascend P2 Mini reportedly confirmed for MWC 2013 announcement

We have already shown you the Huawei Ascend P2, a really skinny D2, and now we have a new report that says a Mini version of the handset is set to be unveiled in the coming weeks.
As most of you know already, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) takes place every year in February in Barcelona, Spain, and it looks like that’s where the Ascend P2 Mini will be unveiled right alongside its bigger brother.

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Galaxy Fonblet 5.8, Pocket 2, Star, Young, Frame and GT-B9150 spotted in benchmarks

It’s not only Galaxy S4 leaks that we get to look at on a pretty regular basis these days, but we also see plenty of unconfirmed details about a variety of other Android-running Galaxy-branded devices that are going to be released by Samsung at some point in the coming months.

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Pre-order your Ouya before February 4 to have it shipped in April

These are exciting times for mobile gamers. In the next few months, several Android-based mobile gaming consoles will be heading our direction, with Ouya seemingly leading the way. Developers already received their special Ouya console units back in December, while shipment for regular customers is expected to commence in April.

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Verizon introducing two new prepaid plans for smartphone users

Today Verizon launched two new prepaid plans for smartphone users. The base plan is $60 a month for unlimited talk, text and 500MB of data. For those needing more data, $70 will net you 2GB instead.

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T-Mobile to follow Sprint’s cue, launch prepaid service GoSmart nationwide soon

Believe it or not, Sprint has had prepaid service long before it’s recently released “Sprint Pay As You Go” plans. Using MVNO’s like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, Sprint was able to keep people on their network, if not under their name. T-Mobile has been working on a similar strategy with MVNO’s like Solavei and Ultra Mobile. They’ll be adding GoSmart to their list of MVNO’s very soon.

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Asus MemoPad 10 press shots and European pricing leak

Though Asus is yet to even confirm the existence of the MemoPad 10 ME301T tablet, there are but a few pieces of the puzzle left uncovered. Based on a leak from a month ago, an unboxing video emerged ten days back and additional info spilled today, the tab looks like a rather decent 10-incher with not a lot of oomph, but a pretty sensible price point.

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Huawei Ascend Mate goes up for pre-order in China, $575 gets you a 6.1-inch phablet

The Huawei Ascend Mate was made official last month at CES, but not without leaving a lingering question of whether bigger is really better. Regardless of how you feel about holding a huge phone in your hand(s), Huawei is looking to shake up the Galaxy Note establishment with its 6.1-inch phablet offering.

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Apple vs Samsung smartphone sales: iPhone wins Q4 2012 in the USA, Galaxy handsets take the year

The smartphone business is largely dominated by Android and iOS, and we have more and more reports detailing the supremacy of these two rivaling mobile platforms in the recently ended quarter.
Today we’re looking at smartphone shippments in the USA for Q4 2012, or the busy Christmas shopping-spree season, courtesy of Strategy Analytics. Android and iOS are again found to be the winners, although when it comes to sales it’s Apple and Samsung that are taking most of the profits, with Google not (yet?) able to compete with either of them.

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Buy a new phone from Best Buy and collect a $50 gift card

If you’re looking to buy a new handset sometime this year, then Best Buy will be running an offer which might be of interest to you. Starting Sunday, they will be running the same promotion they offered last year, where any customer who buys a phone from them will also receive a $50 Best Buy gift card.

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Google Glass headset passes through the FCC

The Google Glass project is something that Google seem very keen to push on with, as details have surfaced of the device at the FCC. Whilst it’s certainly not a done deal that the hardware outlined here will be the final product which ends up on our shelves, we can at least gather some insight as to what Google have planned.

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Galaxy S4 rumored to come with new update services, may not be as good as it sounds

With months to go until this Samsung smartphone hits stores, the Galaxy S4 rumors continue today with an update on a rumored future software update policy that will kick in once the new flagship device is launched.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 spotted at GlBenchmark with 1,280 x 800 pix res screen and Android 4.2

While we’re (almost) certain Samsung will be looking to refresh its tablet line-up by MWC 2013, trying to figure out exactly how many different models are incoming is a real challenge. Different sources say different things, but all in all we can expect as less as three and as many as six new Sammy slates to be announced in the next month or so.

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5 reasons why Apple’s best days are behind it

As we’ve been reading though so many reports detailing the performance of various companies over 2012, I thought it might be interesting if I shared my thoughts on why competition is heating up for Apple, and perhaps why the company’s brightest days are in the past.

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Rumor: HTC to launch two phones codenamed M4 and G2 during Q2 2013

We all know that HTC is going to host an event later this month, on the 19th, and that at said event we’re finally going to hear about the M7. If you haven’t heard about the M7 by now, you’ve probably been living under a rock, but here’s a quick recap: It’s basically the DNA/Butterfly, but with a smaller 4.7 inch screen, 13 megapixel camera, and a brand new version of Sense that doesn’t make you want to run to the bathroom and purge yourself. But what happens after the 19th?

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Rumor alert: Motorola X to come with big battery, microSD support and Sony Exmor RS camera

Though nobody expects Motorola’s mysterious X Phone to be out for at least four more months, the rumor mill’s been grinding like crazy these past weeks. The first pieces of the puzzle leaked about ten days ago, but in the meantime we heard from Google’s Larry Page on some of the X features and spotted a very interesting LinkedIn job posting.

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Xperia Z pre-orders begin in the UK, Sony gives away £300 headphones

We had a little sneak peak inside the Xpiera Z box the other day, and now there’s more good news for those who can’t wait to get their hands on Sony’s new flagship handset. The Xperia Z is now available for pre-order in the UK, and Three and Vodafone have also let slip that the handset will be available on February 28th.

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Asus reportedly sold close to 1 million units of Padfone 2

The Asus Padfone 2 was launched in October of last year. Although it is currently only available in a handful of markets, it doesn’t stop the smartphone-cum-tablet device from hitting the million mark.

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Court denies Apple’s request to ban the Galaxy Nexus again

A U.S. appeals court has just issued a rather brief order basically telling Apple to take a hike after it tried to request a revival of last year’s Samsung Galaxy Nexus sales ban as part of an ongoing patent dispute. As you may already know, the Galaxy Nexus sales ban first went into effect last year and then it was subsequently lifted after a successful appeal on Samsung’s part.

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Intel to showcase new Clover Trail+ and Lexington-based smartphones at MWC 2013

2012 has been all about baby steps for Intel in the Android décor. The world’s largest PC chip maker has adopted a very cautious approach for its first smartphone efforts, focusing mostly on entry-level devices targeted at emerging markets.

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Nexus 10 back in stock in US Google Play, also available in Germany and UK

Though it hasn’t been quite as slippery as its little brother, the Nexus 10 has also been pretty difficult to track and score ever since its “launch”. But if LG can get on top of demand and handle N4 shipments decently for a change, why couldn’t Samsung do the same?

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Jelly Bean coming to LG Optimus 4X HD in Q1 2013?

The LG Optimus 4X HD is only a couple of months older than the Optimus G. Yet, while LG has confirmed that the latter will receive its Jelly Bean treat, with the newer batch even shipping with Android 4.1 onboard, LG is still keeping mum on whether or not the Optimus 4X HD will get the software update.

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Nexus 4 giveaway to celebrate 100k YouTube subscribers!

Hey you! Guess what? It’s a time to celebrate at Android Authority, as we’re just about to reach 100,000 YouTube subscribers! Because of this, we’ve decided to  celebrate by giving away a Nexus 4 to our loyal fans!

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DigiTimes: NVIDIA struggling to secure Tegra 4 orders, only Toshiba is interested

Last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NVIDIA showed off their latest chip for smartphones and tablets, the Tegra 4. It’s got four ARM Cortex A15 cores, one incredibly fast graphics processor, and the whole package is allegedly six times faster than the Tegra 3, but we’re not going to believe that until we run our own benchmarks.

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RetroArch Android 0.9.8.1

RECENT VERSION: r6
Unfortunately Google’s ’Recent Changes’ box seems to rely on some hardcoded ’500 characters only’ field in a database table – hence why we can’t even add a changelog properly. So go to our forum instead to read the changelog.
Previous changelogs:
http://forum.themaister.net/viewtopic.php?pid=1202
Overview:
RetroArch now hits Android packed with all of the cores from the console and PC versions – and totally free.

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FRONTLINE COMMANDO 3.0.2

➤ Bug fixes and other improvements to game performance
Overview:
MASSIVE UPDATE: NOW WITH ONE MAN ARMY MODE! NEW LOCATION: KHAN’s PALACE! EXTENDED CAMPAIGN WITH NEW MISSIONS! NEW TANK ENEMY!
ONE MAN. ONE WAR. YOU ARE THE FRONTLINE COMMANDO.
As the sole surviving Commando of a renegade attack against a ruthless dictator, you are stranded on the frontline and hell-bent on payback. You must use all of your specialized skills to survive the onslaught of the enemy forces and avenge your fallen soldiers.

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Hit The Beast 1.0.2

 

Bug Fix
Overview:
Varieties of weapons, items and guns are available.
Upgrade to make them more powerful and increase the bullets of your guns.
Gorgeous graphic, various animals, different scenes and modes, just enjoy the game!
Play：
You’ll learn how to play here. Accomplish tasks to win more coins.

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Nokia and 73 other organizations to get $1.36 billion for graphene research

The Graphene Flagship Consortium, which is made up of 74 parties, Nokia being one of them, has just announced that the European Union will give them 1 billion Euros over the next 10 years to research graphene. What is graphene? It’s a one atom thick version of carbon that has so many potential uses we can’t even begin to wrap our heads around them all. Jani Kivioja, Research Leader at Nokia Research Center, says:

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Chinese Android users warned against “Bill Shocker” malware, 620K devices infected

Chinese users are warned against malware circulating around app repositories that hijack the smartphone’s messaging system to send spam messages. Dubbed “Bill Shocker,” the advisory on the malware was made by security research firm NQ Mobile, which runs RiskRanker. The firm said the malware is capable of sending mass SMS from the infected device. Other potential threats include the ability of the hacker to remotely control the device, as well as steal personal information, such as contacts.

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T-Mobile expanding its 4G coverage in New Orleans, just time for Super Bowl and Mardi Gras

February is a big month for New Orleans. With tons of tourists coming to the city, T-Mobile has now announced they are beefing up and expanding their 4G coverage in the area just in time.
While U.S. Football fans are already well aware of this, for the rest of you: This weekend New Orleans will be packed with fans coming in for the Super Bowl. Just a few weeks later, Mardi Gras will arrive as well.

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Sony “My Xperia” phone security service launching in phases

It’s never a bad idea to have a tracking service in place that could help you locate your handset, should it become lost. With that in mind, Sony is introducing a service of their own, dubbed “My Xperia”.
With “My Xperia” you simply link your phone up to MyXperia.com. If your phone is lost or stolen,

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EE brings its LTE network to nine more markets in the UK, now covers 45% of the population

Have you been waiting for 4G LTE to arrive in your city since the network was launched back in October? Ahead of schedule, EE has announced that its LTE service is now available in nine new towns across the UK.

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MetroPCS makes the LG Spirit 4G official – a $200 4.5-incher with Android 4.0 ICS

They say you have to be objective and fair with everyone when working in the media industry, but we’re all human, so we’ll be straight with you. We’re big fans of MetroPCS. Maybe not fans in a groupie kind of way, but we like Metro.

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Hilarious: Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd team up to pitch ideas for Samsung’s “Big Game” ad

The Super Bowl is coming. We might get sued for saying that without the NFL’s express written consent, but we don’t care, because we’re fearless like that.

Along with the Big Game, comes the most disputed ad window of the year, when dozens of companies compete to air the most impressive ads. This year, Samsung has signed actors Seth Rogans and Paul Rudd to star in a two-minute ad that will air during the Super Bowl, and today we got a nice little preview of what’s to come on game day.

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Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 landing in UK “by March” for unspecified price

Though Samsung’s basically skipped past this year’s CES and chances are MWC will get a similar treatment, you can’t say the company hasn’t been the usual busy bee all through January. Granted, we’ve been rather disappointed with the newly unveiled Sammy devices, most of which have felt rushed, underwhelming or plain illogical.

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16GB Nexus 4: Gone in 20 minutes on Google Play Store in Australia

Oops, the Nexus 4 has done it again. We told you yesterday that the flagship Nexus phone was returning to Google Play in Australia. It looks like buyers didn’t waste a single moment to wipe the virtual shelves clean, as the 16GB variant of the phone is now no longer available for purchase.

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Chrome Bugdroid statue hits Google campus, will Android apps run in Chrome?

Google’s I/O event will take place in mid-May this year, but there’s already plenty of speculation regarding what new products the company will announce this spring. We could see the Nexus 5 and/or Motorola X arrive, we’ll probably see Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie get official, but what about Android apps running in the Chrome browser?

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Galaxy S4 launch happening by early April, New Zealand contest seems to reveal

Samsung Galaxy S4 rumors continue to abound and this time around we’re looking at a leak that seems to indirectly confirm that the Galaxy S4 will be available to customers in early April.
An internal contest at a mobile retailer in New Zealand reveals that the handset could be launched by April 8, with the handset being one of the prizes offered to all winners.

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Sony Xperia Z gets official pricing in China, ETA in New Zealand

Sony’s Xperia Z seems to be the most sought-after Android smartphone around (okay, maybe the second most), but we’re still waiting for actual shipments to start. Japan is likely to kick the festivities into gear in about a week, but before that can happen we should get some ETA and pricing updates in a few other key markets across the globe.

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Nexus 4 Wireless Charging Orb costs $59.99, not that it’s in stock yet

3D-print it out yourself (and add the appropriate electrical wiring) or buy it from a regular electronics retailer, the Nexus 4 Wireless Charging Orb will do its job, charge the Nexus 4 without any wires.
However, the accessory is not exactly available to Nexus 4 owners. Electronics retailer Pure Mobile is going to sell the Wireless Charging Orb for $59.99 to anyone interested, but the gadget is not exactly in stock at this time. So for now, all the store does is list the device.

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Sony’s Music Unlimited service now supports 320kbps streaming playback

Feeling the heat from the competition, Sony Network Entertainment International has announced that high quality streaming is now available on its Music Unlimited service.
If you don’t mind burning your data plan faster, you can turn on the high quality streaming option in the service’s settings. By high quality, it means you can enjoy listening to the songs in 320 kbps AAC format. While this might be old news for Spotify customers, it’s quite an upgrade for Sony’s, as it previously only supported 48 kbps streams.

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Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition for Android gets delayed indefinitely

Have you been waiting for the release of Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition for Android? A lot of people have, and many still are. Unfortunately, each and every one of those people are going to have to keep waiting a little longer for the app to be released, as the developers behind it have hit an inconvenient snag that has something to do with the final ship panel APK files. This is according to a tweet from the game’s creative director Trent Osner which first got posted earlier this month.

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Write once run everywhere: Codename One kit hits 100k downloads, exits beta

The native mobile app development kits of today are all vastly improved versions of the ones that came before them. With that being said, however, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done if they are to be used exclusively by experienced and novice app developers alike.

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5.3-inch Spice Stellar Pinnacle Mi-530 coming to India with 5MP front camera

There has been a steady stream of Android-flavored 5-inch handset announcements in India this year, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon. The latest supersized model to join the club is called the Spice Stellar Pinnacle Mi-530, and its highlight features include a 5.3-inch qHD screen, dual-SIM support, and a 5-megapixel front facing camera that’s billed as making it the first of its kind — at least in India. While it isn’t the first model in the world to feature a 5MP self-portrait snapper, it’s definitely helping to spread this seemingly ongoing trend.

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Google Play Music updated to version 4.5, gets new features, bugs squashed

Are you enjoying the built-in music player that comes pre-loaded on all new devices that are running the Android mobile operating system? If you are, then you’ll be glad to know that this app, dubbed officially as Google Play Music, has just been updated by Google once again. The latest update rolled in today, and it is now on version 4.5.9. So what exactly has been added — or removed — from the Google Play Music app as part of this recent update? A few new features and necessary bug fixes.

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Google throws Microsoft a bone, extends WP Exchange support until July 31st

Microsoft has a proprietary technology called Exchange Active Sync that they use for making sure your emails, contacts, and calendar entries are syned up across all your devices. Microsoft, being a company who wants to make money, charges other companies to use EAS. The open source community, who hates Microsoft almost as much as they hate paying for things, came up with some free standards that do the exact same thing as EAS. Android uses these standards, which are known as IMAP, CalDAV, and CardDAV.

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HTC doesn’t declare any war to the Android dev community after all but HTCRuu.com still not safe

A few days ago, a new report suggested that HTC is making a move against developers by taking down ROM websites that offer HTC firmwares for various devices, with one of such site being HTCRuu.com, which was approached by HTC and asked to remove custom ROMs.

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Leak: Vertu Ti: This is the hideous over priced Android phone oil barons want

Yesterday we filed a report that said Vertu, Nokia’s old luxury phone unit, was going to announce an Android powered smartphone at some point in February. We didn’t know what the device was going to be called, nor did we have any photos of it. Today that changes thanks to the Japanese website Blog of Mobile. What you’re looking at above is the Vertu Ti. It’s going to ship with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, it’ll have a dual core Snapdragon S4, the display is sadly limited to just 800 x 480 pixels, and worst of all is the battery: 1,250 mAh.

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