Almost every mobile platform today comes pre-packaged with some sort of app store. For Android that's Google's Play Store, Windows Phone and iOS both have their own app stores, too. All of these marketplaces allow you to browse, search, find, and download apps for your mobile device. They each also let you update the apps that you've already installed on your device, whenever an update is published. Facebook recently started updating their app -- from within their app. If that sounds strange to you, it is. The usual manner of updating would be by pushing a new version of the .apk to the ...

I've been using Windows since the 3.1 days. Back then my desktop computer cost thousands of dollars. To convince my dad to make the purchase I had to promise that I'd somehow make it last through college -- I wasn't even out of Junior High School at the time. Before you laugh, that was back in the day when such a claim could actually be pulled off. Home computers were generally of the "desktop" variety back then -- they sat on your desk and your huge CRT monitor sat on top of them. A few years later my friend's dad showed me a "luggable" computer. It was essentially a desktop computer with ...

Apparently Samsung wants to create a phone and/or tablet that's perfect for every person on the face of the planet -- even if that takes 7 billion different models. Okay, that may be a bit of an over-statement, but honestly! Samsung, can't you do something about your runaway screen sizes? The Galaxy Note II has a diagonal screen measurement of 5.5-inches. That's a pretty big "phone". It's so big, in fact, that we had to coin a new term to describe it: the "phablet" -- part phone, part tablet. It's a strange beast, but it ends up working pretty well, as long as your hands are big enough. We ...

The question came from someone close to the Pocketnow family, which means that even the geeks among us are still confused with just how secure (or insecure) public WiFi is. It's a valid concern, and one that you may not have stopped to consider. We all like free WiFi, right? Should we be worried? What's the worst that could happen? For the context of this article we're going to limit the conversation to just "public" WiFi -- meaning wireless Internet access that's available to the general public. This could be offered at a school campus, public library, your work's office, a fast food ...

T-Mobile has been my cellular carrier since before they were T-Mobile. Yes, I'm a VoiceStream guy! Anyone remember those days? I picked VoiceStream because (1) they were all digital, (2) they used an international standard, (3) I could switch to any other phone just by swapping the SIM card, and (4) they were less expensive than anyone else. They also had fairly limited coverage and you couldn't stray far from big cities or Interstate highways without losing signal. That was fine with me, I was covered 90% of the time. Since then "regular" phones have become "smart phones" and our cellular ...

It should come as no surprise to anyone who's visited in the last few years: I'm an Android fan. Notice I said "fan", not "fan boy". There's a difference. Instead of following blindly along, espousing that Android can "do no wrong", I've been critical when shortcomings have arisen. I've been upset when Google doesn't get things right. I've been vocal. The other side of that coin is that I subscribe to the notion that Android represents the best choice in smartphone and tablet technology, and is likely the most robust of any mobile operating system available today. Android offers the ...

"Rooting" could mean causing a plant or cutting to grow roots, or when an animal turns up the ground with its snout in search of food. In this context, however, "rooting" is the process of allowing apps to attain "privileged control" or "root access" within the Android subsystem. Almost all smartphones and tablets come with root access disabled -- at least to you, the end-user. Ironically, the desktop or laptop computer that you use probably already has root access. When we're talking smartphones and tablets, "rooting" in Android is often compared to Jailbreaking in iOS. Though there are ...

Google's Android OS has morphed and adapted in the years since it was originally released. Some of those changes have been "under the hood", while others have been more cosmetic in nature. We suspect the next version of Android, Key Lime Pie, will include some pretty significant UI changes. Could some of those changes be "pie-esque"? We've recently talked about the possibility of a gesture-based UI in the upcoming version of the operating system. We've even shown off a pie-like launcher that you can install on your Android today. Various custom ROMs have pie-based launchers and controls ...