Google has updated the stable channel of Chrome for Android to Chrome 26, which offers two new syncing features designed to save you a bit of time on mobile devices.
You can grab the latest version of Chrome for Android from the Google Play Store.
This release has two noteworthy features — password syncing and form autofill syncing. Keeping track of passwords is a pain and let’s face it, most mobile password managers leave much to be desired. With the new Chrome for Android you can sync and access your saved passwords across devices.
Even if you prefer not to have Chrome store your passwords for you, the form autofill syncing is equally handy — especially given how tedious it can be to fill out forms using your mobile device’s tiny keyboard.
Like all of Chrome’s syncing features, you’ll need to be signed into your Google account to use the new password and autofill sync.
This release also fixed a few bugs and offers some modest performance and stability improvements. For more details, see the Chrome blog.
Read complete at: webmonkey.com
Photo-sharing phenom Instagram is celebrating its one-year anniversary on Android with a fun fact: Nearly half of its members are using the Android application.
Instagram launched its Android application on April 3, 2011, a whole 17 months and 30 million users after the popular app for shooting square, filtered photos first debuted on the iPhone. At the time, the service was also just days away from announcing that it would be purchased by Facebook for about $1 billion in cash and stock.
Today's little reveal suggests that Instagram's Android application has at least 50 million active users. The app's Google Play page, which shows a wide range of 50 million to 100 million installs, seems to support the claim.
"We're working hard to make the app fast and easy to use, and we're dedicated to always bringing you the best Instagram experience possible," Philip McAllister of Instagram's Android team wrote in a celebratory blog post. "So to all of our Instagrammers on Android, thank you for helping to make this community amazing. We're glad you're here."
I'm sure they are. The Android application has helped the service become a force to be reckoned with in social-networking land. Instagram has more than 100 million active users and is incredibly popular with teens and tweens who seem to prefer the simplified social experience over Facebook.
Read complete at: cnet.com | venturebeat.com
It’s official: the smartphone marketplace is a duopoly. Chances are, if you own a smartphone, your device’s operating system is either Android or iOS. Combined, The Register reports that the two operating systems accounted for 91.1 percent of all smartphone sales after 2012’s fourth quarter, according to analysts at International Data Corporation.
Apple fans will be upset to know that the bulk of that dominance belongs to Android, which topped out at nearly 69 percent of all smartphone sales. (To put it into perspective, there were nearly 500 million Android-powered smartphones sold in 2012, versus the 136 million Apple devices sold, giving them nearly 19 percent of the smartphone market.)
Sales of iOS-powered smartphones were highest in the Western markets, and the increased numbers are largely accredited to the lowered prices of the iPhone 4 or 4S after the introduction of iPhone 5. (We should also mention, the excitement over the release of the iPhone 5 also brought in record sales.)
In comparison, Blackberry device sales plummeted more than 36 percent last year. It’s no surprise, considering how long it took for the company to step up its game and catch up with the innovations that have made Android and iOS so popular. BlackBerry 10 was only unveiled a few couple weeks ago.
But Microsoft phones are still at the bottom of the totem pole, accounting for just 2.5 percent of smartphone sales.
It’s tough to say whether or not there’s a chance for any of the current companies to make any headway in the market, but for the time being, if you’re looking to buy a new smartphone, chances are the device you’ll choose will be powered by either Android or iOS – the Windows and Mac, or Pepsi and Coke, of the smartphone market.
Read complete at digitaltrends.com
The war between Apple and Android wages on, and now the battlefield is the online app market. Google Play, the marketplace for Android devices, has always trailed the App Store in number of offerings, even though it launched just three months after the Apple resource. The App Store has 700,000 products up for sale, according to Apple's iPhone 5 presentation on September 12. But Google Play is nearing that total with 675,000 apps available. The platform also passed 25 billion downloads yesterday and held a major sale in honor of the milestone, with several top apps still available for just 25 cents.
While the number of available apps for each operating system is drawing even, there are still major differences in how each store works. Apple requires an approval process before an app can go up for sale on iTunes, but Google Play has no such vetting procedure. There's an up and a down side to that. It means that Apple went without any spam appearing on its store for five years, and the first malware app popped up on the system just this summer. So although there have been complaints that Apple is inconsistent and overly conservative in the content it approves, you're all but guaranteed a safe app when using Apple.
Google Play has a lot more opportunity for developers, but does require a little more effort for shoppers. If you own an Android device, you'll want to research an app's safety and usability before buying. We have a comprehensive guide that can help you track down great Android apps that will best fit your needs.
[Image credit: LAI Ryanne]
This article was written by Anna Washenko and originally appeared on Tecca
Mobile phone maker Motorola's update of the Droid RAZR to the Android 4.0 operating system appears to be on the way.
New official videos posted on the company's Japanese website show the OS running on the handset. Spotted by Droid Life, several videos -- some in Japanese --show off new features in Motorola's custom version of Ice Cream Sandwich.
For instance, shortcuts for text messaging and the phone dialer have been added to the lock screen, so instead of unlocking the phone and then looking around for one of those functions, they're right there; on stock ICS only the camera and unlock are available in this way.
You'll also appreciate the way ICS lets you access your music controls directly from the lock screen when music is playing.
And if you've ever wanted to capture what you're looking at on your phone's screen, ICS makes it simple. Taking a screen shot is only a matter of pressing the down volume and power buttons simultaneously for a few seconds. The phone shows you a quick version of the image it snapped, then saves it to your gallery where you can store it or share with others.
The video lineup also includes one that shows off how Webtop 3.0 works. It's an application that allows you to hook the phone up to an HDTV or monitor with an HDMI cable. Once the phone detects it's connected to an external display it launches the Webtop app which lets you see all your apps on the bigger screen and access a full version of the Firefox browser.
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A patent filed by Microsoft in 2010 could help the software company’s flagging mobile platform bridge the app gap between it and Android by helping users find Windows alternatives to the Android apps they already enjoy.
According to a story from GigaOM, Microsoft’s patent is for a technology that would actually have two capabilities. The first would be to analyze another device, like an Android smartphone, and find out which apps it already has on it. Then, Microsoft’s tech would search through the Windows Phone app store, find the apps’ Windows equivalent, and make them available to purchase. It seems likely that in places where the app didn’t have a direct, official Windows version, Microsoft would probably suggest a well-reviewed third-party alternative.
So one part of the service would be like an app search engine, allowing Android users to find Windows alternatives, should they want them. But the patent also suggests that it would be able to transfer Android apps and their data from the original device to a Windows device. If that’s possible, it could be something of a game-changer.
Right now, Android enjoys a very comfortable lead over Windows Phone, as does Apple’s iOS, because Microsoft is having a tough time expanding its app offerings for its platform. In the very simplest terms, Android has just thousands of apps more than Windows does. It’s an easy selling point for Android and a large part of what keeps Windows Phone holding down a percentage of the smartphone market that’s in the single digits, while Android entertains a huge portion of smartphones around the world and in the U.S.
But if Microsoft can bring apps from Android devices to its own, that would significantly change the conversation about which platform is better. It wouldn’t be the first platform to be able to do that, either. BlackBerry maker RIM’s PlayBook tablet was capable of supporting Android apps with an emulated version of Google’s operating system.
Of course, that’s a big “if.” Android, like iOS, doesn’t allow apps to access the data of other apps, and neither allows its apps on other operating systems. But if Microsoft finds a way around those restrictions, perhaps with an emulated version of Google’s open-source OS, it might still be able to support Android apps, even if it can’t actually transfer your app data from one device to the other. But that possibility might help to make Android’s lead over Windows Phone a little less comfortable.
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There are a lot of Android browsers making their way into your devices. Each has its own unique abilities with some promising a great experience while others providing the sheer simplicity to get a job done. So which are the best Android browsers of the year so far?
Google Chrome Beta: Chrome from Google is frankly one of the best web browsers around currently. Only recently it became the world’s most used browser and Google, in the last few months, released and updated the beta version of the browser for devices running on Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Android version of Chrome is one of the smoothest browsers with a great speed and displaying only that which is absolutely required. However, Chrome doesn’t have Flash integration and hence regardless of the fact that your device is Flash enabled or not, nothing will adapt to Chrome. Some sites often send a link to a mobile version of a website sometimes, but Chrome lacks in a toggle to request desktop sites.
Nonetheless, Chrome makes amends by its clean and minimalistic approach and appearance and a great tab management that can be compared to its desktop compatriot.
Firefox: Firefox is currently catching up with the other browsers in the market. Although the desktop version of the browser is pretty cool to work with, the Android version still needs some work to do. Although it can be slow at times to render certain pages which make everything sluggish later, it does provide a synchronized integration and keeps the history and tabs available on all the devices.
Firefox for Android also provides a unique method of hiding and showing the active tabs. You can reveal them by dragging them from the left hand side of the screen, and you can also continue browsing as normal. Later, by either tapping the ‘X’ or pulling your finger to the right hides them again. This is pretty innovative on its part.
Read complete at ibtimes.com
