Hate ads? Download Brave web browser. Fast, secure, built in ad-blocking.
Listen to the NEW Pocketnow Weekly
Read More
If you're interested in the hardware that powers your devices, you're probably lost in sea of numbers. Let us help out. Introducing Pocketnow Power User.
I'm an Android guy through and through. That wasn't always the case: I started out as a Windows Mobile guy. Now that Microsoft has announced Windows Phone 8, how'd they do -- from an Android guy's perspective?
For the latest in mobile device news, tips, tricks and other fun stuff, subscribe to our YouTube channel!
Lean about Android's bootloader, what is it, why it's there, and why it's usually locked.
Although I love being an early adopter, most of the time the cost of entry is very high, the potential for failure is a big unknown, and the novelty can wear off a lot faster than one would have predicted. Nevertheless, Pocketnow is here to help you through the quagmire that exists on the cutting edge!
Have you ever noticed that your Internet connection isn't as stable when you're tethered to your smartphone as it is when you're connected to a WAP or router connected to a cable? Why is that? In this episode of the Android Guy Weekly we'll dig into how cell towers work, and tell you why your tethered connection is more fragile -- and we'll throw in one quick and easy way to help minimize your tethering woes.
Have you ever wondered why it’s so difficult to transfer something from one phone or tablet to another using NFC? Isn’t NFC supposed to make everything easier? I’ve got the answer to that question, along with a look back at another “transport mechanism” in this week’s episode of the Android Guy Weekly.
Long, long ago (okay, not that long ago) we had something called IrDA that literally let you transfer stuff at the speed of light! Infrared light, to be precise… Who knew the speed of light was so slow! [...]
What do you do when your smartphone goes missing? Here's the real story of how my wife's GSM Samsung Galaxy Nexus was "stolen" -- and a bizarre turn-of events that makes me want to get new locks.
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is coming soon to a phone near you! Depending on how old you phone is, who makes it, and what carrier you're with it may not be coming to your phone. Hopefully it will, and hopefully it will be sooner than later. In the meantime, now that the source-code to Jelly Bean has hit the AOSP be ready for a whole slew of ROMs to start hitting the net! But before you get to excited, there are a few options you should probably be aware of.
Now that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is literally days old, I've got to wonder: what's next.
Wikipedia says a “point release” is a minor release of a software project, especially one intended to fix bugs or do minor cleanups (rather than add features) and implies that such releases are relatively frequent in nature. These versions differ from a “major release”, which is typically a full number, and generally represents a significant change in features and is usually accompanied by noticeable modifications to the UI.
Google doesn’t follow this pattern exactly, instead their bug releases are generally versioned with a “sub-point”, [...]
In our last few episodes of the Android Guy Weekly we’ve talked a lot about processors and SoCs. We’ve talked about ARM-based CPUs primarily, and one of our readers, Prateek, wants to know: where is Intel in all of this?
ARM is a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture. Intel is a Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) architecture. Android, as we know it, runs on RISC hardware. RISC is generally considered faster and uses less power than CISC. The reasons for this are varied, but one of the factors is that reducing the instruction set offloads the [...]
Central Processing Units (CPUs), Systems on a Chip (SoCs), dual-core, quad-core, ARM, Cortex A8, Tegra, Exynos, OMAP…
How are CPUs and SoCs related? What do all of the major SoCs have in common?
What does it all this mean in the context of our smartphones and tablets?
That’s what we’ll try and unravel in today’s episode of the Android Guy Weekly.
We've talked about it in the past and I'm sure we'll talk about it long into the future: battery life. Today we're going to tackle the subject from another direction. Rather than talk about what you and I can do to try and extend how long our batteries last, let's talk about what manufacturers and OEMs are doing to try and maximize battery life in phones and tablets they make.
Many smartphones and tablets come with a microSD card slot as a means to expand their storage from their stock capacity up to an additional 32GB. There are many different sizes, form-factors, capacities, and speeds to take into consideration. Not every variation works in all slots, so there are some things that you need to know before you head out and buy your card.
Way back in the day of PDAs, if you wanted to add some extra storage to your device you had a choice: MMC or SD. MMC cards were usually less expensive than SDcards, had fewer moving parts [...]
Android often takes quite a bit of criticism for its “fragmentation”. It’s got lots of versions currently on the market, it comes in different shapes and sizes, OEMs can customize it to their liking… the sky is the limit with Android.
But have you ever looked beyond the chatter and stopped to ask: Why does Google allow Android to be so open? Why the need for ICS, Jelly Bean, and OEM UIs?
That’s what we’ll talk about in today’s episode of the Android Guy Weekly!
Last week on the Android Guy Weekly we talked about how batteries are holding our devices back. Our CPUs, GPUs, RAM, screens, and wireless radios are getting more power-hungry, but our batteries aren’t making the same technological leaps as the other components.
The comments on that episode we very informative and helpful, but a single thread began to stand out from the others: What can I do to make my battery last longer. What was more interesting that the comments were geared more to the lifespan of the battery, not the run-time per charge.
We’ll tackle that [...]
Batteries are included inside all our smartphones and tablets, but most of us don’t pay much attention to them — not until we run out of juice.
Every phone includes the capacity of its battery somewhere on its spec sheet. A Nexus One includes a 1400mAh battery and a GSM Galaxy Nexus includes a 1750mAh battery. Both run at 3.7 volts.
In batteries, “pressure” is measured in voltage, the size of the jug is measured in amp-hours (or milliamp hours). If we compare electricity to water, milliamp hours (mAh), are analogous to the size of a water jug; [...]
With the NFC-enabled Google Wallet app arriving on more devices, more phones coming with NFC, and batteries not getting any bigger, is is safe to upgrade your battery? Given the fact that batteries in these phones have a message on them that indicate they include NFC inside the battery itself, can you you simply swap your battery? Will doing so make Google Wallet stop working? How does all this magical NFC stuff work, anyway?
We’ll answer that, and more, in today’s episode of the Android Guy Weekly!
What is NFC?
NFC, or Near Field Communication, is [...]
In this week’s episode of the Android Guy Weekly we’ll talk about technology, politics, and animal husbandry. No, really! Somehow me manage to tie it all together into a common thread, but you’ll just have to watch the video to see what I mean.
Operating systems and brand-names aside, when someone goes to buy a new smartphone or tablet, or install a new app, they fall into one of two groups: those who buy the product because it’s what they’ve been told to get, and those who are more fully-informed about what they’re getting and why.
To [...]
This week’s Android Guy Weekly was delayed due to a medical emergency in the family, but the experience taught me some things about how to better prepare for emergencies and utilize our smartphones to potentially save a life.
Our first tip involves using the “Owner Information” on your phone to help provide first responders information about who to contact and if you have any allergies in case you’re involved in an accident or can’t answer for yourself — and addresses the problem of securing your phone with a lockscreen but still allow [...]
A few viewers have written in with various questions about dual-core versus quad-core, Cortex A9 versus A15, nvidia’s Tegra 3, and why relative performance between them is so different and seems to defy logic.
In this episode we’ll talk a little about cores, different architectures, and make some super-awesome car-analogies along the way to try to explain it all.
We’ll keep things high-level enough to keep the episode understandable, but will get into enough detail to keep things interesting — and you’ll find out why a 3-cylinder commuter car [...]
Ads help app developers release “free” apps, but they’re still able to make money through ad networks. Ads help content providers “pay the bills” so they can write content that you and I like to read, watch, or listen to.
Love them or hate them, ads are what let you get your apps and content for “free”.
Recently, T-Mobile USA updated one of their apps and “accidentally” included the ability to push ads into user’s notification bar — a space that’s supposed to be reserved for “important” [...]
Today’s topic goes way back to the PC days where OEMs would load them up with software that you didn’t need, and most users didn’t want. The term for this software? “Bloatware”.
Pocketnow reader Laurentiu sent in the following question:
What do you think about built in Apps in Android devices, starting with launchers (Touchwiz, Sense, etc), daily apps like memo takers, voice recorders, email clients, Kies air and the corresponding widgets for these applications.
Many refer to them as bloatware, while I find them useful and better [...]
