5 Cool Android Apps Released in 2012

So you’ve got your Android device and you’ve visited the Play Store to download the Facebook, Twitter and Angry Birds apps. But what else should you download? I mean what are the coolest apps of 2012, the ones that you simply must have?
Well, luckily for you, we have our fingers on the pulse when it comes to the hottest apps and have decided to provide you with a list of the 5 coolest Android apps released in 2012. And here they are:

1) Instagram

Yes, you’ve heard the hype from your iPhone-owner friends, telling you that Instagram is the best thing ever to happen to mobile photography and that the app is all theirs. Well, now (finally!) in 2012, Instagram has been made available on Android. In their own words, “Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family.” This app has the ability to turn amateur, and even poor, photographers into professionals. Simply take a photo of anything you like, choose a filter, and completely transform the look. You can then share said photo with the Instagram community or with friends and followers and Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr too – genius!

2) CTERA Mobile

OK, so it may not be cool in a fun kind of way but cloud and document syncing apps are all the rage at the moment and CTERA Mobile may prove to be one of the best. Recently released for Android, CTERA is unlike other similar apps in that it has been designed specifically for mobile use, as opposed to being adapted from a desktop program. Working seamlessly with CTERA Portal and CTERA Cloud, this mobile app allows secure downloading of documents for storage on your device. You can also save attachments from emails and upload them to your CTERA Cloud. Very useful, especially for big smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Note or the new HTC One X that are usually used for business.

3) WeatherWise

If you’re looking for a cool weather app (who isn’t, right?), WeatherWise is bound to satisfy. In fact it’s probably the coolest weather app there is. The app has all the features you would expect from a weather app but delivers it in an animated theme. A Zen Tree is the default theme and plenty of others are available for $0.99 – well worth a download.

4) Google Play Music

If you are into your music, Google Play Music is an app that you simply must have. In fact, stop reading for a second and download it now… OK, done? Good. Let me explain a bit about the app. This app lets you listen to your entire music collection anywhere. OK, so your standard music app allows you to do this, but I’m talking about your ENTIRE collection! You can add as many songs as you like to your computer, access them via the app and save your favorites for offline playback. No need to rush out and buy a 64GB SD Card either, all the music is stored online. Any music purchased from Google Play will automatically show up in the app and you can share a free play with friends on Google +. This is a great apps for all Android phones, especially for those that come without microSD card slots.

5) Generate All The Memes

We’ve all seen those crazy weird video and picture-based memes that are all over the web. You know the ones that have a funny picture with an even funnier description? Well, if you have ever wondered how to create them, Generate All The Memes is the app you need. You can create a picture, add some funny text and share it with all of your friends. There is also over 10,000 user-made image memes to browse through, so you’re bound to find something that makes you chuckle.

That’s it, the 5 coolest Android apps of 2012 so far, all designed to change your mobile device for the better!

Top Five Action Games For Android

Android platform has the best mobile platform for inter process and inter application architectures. If you want to install suits of application and games in your mobile, then android blows most competitive platforms in this area. There is something about android mobiles, which gives you alluring, interesting and tempting experience while playing games. If you have bought android device recently or any plans to buy it in future, then here are top five action games, which will give you thrilling experience.

1. Assassin’s creed: If you want to experience the real power of assassin in digital epic adventure then must play this. The game which gives you well balance experience of chaotic actions, stealth and riddle solving exploration, with historic environments in digital form. This gives you the much-feared experience and rides you through lot of adventures move.

2. Dungeon Hunter: The exceptional games like Dungeon Hunter don’t come occasionally. The game is embedded with story of man who supposed to fight a queen in a mystical land. Game passes you through occasional exploration, protection and killing with the help of five magical fair ladies. It’s the ideal game to play alone which will keep you stuck to your android for lot of ours.

3. Gangster west coast Hustle: Is the first game in the gangster game series from west coast hustle games for android in particular. Game comprises of two parts, gangster offers you mind boggling experience of gangster’s life through realistic environments. You run your own gang, steal money, shoot cops and goes through rapid firing through different weapons. The graphics in gangster are awesome; the extra digital effects add perfect originality while playing this game. You get obsessed in leveling system so much that, you will find very difficult to pull yourself from game before finishing it completely.

4. Heavy gunner 3D: The most recent fantasy is possible for android users through game like heavy gunner which is in enlightening 3D experience format. This game is a first person shooter game creates inter-galactic atmosphere by offering mind blowing and thrilling shooting experience. The game has beautiful concept with best visual presentation, which involves nonstop actions and best customize options to choose your game difficulty levels, which keep you intact till you achieve your final mission.

5. Robo defense: If you already played tower defense game, you know basics of robo defense game. Same as tower games, robo defense games offers lot varieties of towers, which comes with more upgraded options. The game really set unforgettable experience for user and is highly addictive. The 11 difficulty levels and riddle solving exploration keeps you extremely curious till the end of the game.

Games is the most loved feature an android ever has, and if you really want to take true gaming experience then android computer will be best device for you. Playing above games on your laptop may cause their batteries draining out; in that case android computer is perfect option. So just add above games to your android and they will give you perfect excitement you want on your android.

Smartphone Market Share : Windows Phone Vs. iOS Vs. Android

Microsoft may have been a late entrant to the Smartphone segment (not considering the popular but old fashioned Windows Mobile here) but it does look like Redmond is doing a lot of things right so far. The Windows Phone UI and functionalities are extremely slick and despite the relatively few apps available on the Windows Phone marketplace compared to the iOS AppStore or Android Market, a lot of people have started to check out their smartphones. Today, Windows Phone enjoys an encouraging, but not so great 1.9% market share. But that could apparently change in the next few years thanks to the Lumia series of phones from Nokia that run on the Windows Phone platform.

According to the latest report from IHS iSuppli, Microsoft Windows Phone could beat Apple’s iOS in market share as early as 2015. In their report, IHS claim that 2012 could be the watershed year for Microsoft as their Windows Phone grows in popularity from a market share of sub 2% levels to as much as 9%. This is good not just for Microsoft but also Nokia that has seen its popularity fizzle in recent times to the iPhone and Android handsets.

Read : Number of Windows Phones Sold To Be Higher Than iOS by 2015?

Here is how the market share of the three big Smartphone players expected to move over the next three years.

iOS
2011 : 18.0%
2012 : 18.0%
2013 : 17.3%
2014 : 16.8%
2015 : 16.6%

Android
2011 : 47.4%
2012 : 53.9%
2013 : 55.9%
2014 : 57.8%
2015 : 58.1%

Windows Phone
2011 : 1.9%
2012 : 9.0%
2013 : 15.3%
2014 : 16.1%
2015 : 16.7%

The share of the rest of the Smartphone OSes is expected to fall from 32.7% in 2011 to just 8.6% in 2015. Is RIM going to be dead by then?

Motorola Motoluxe and Defy Mini Launch Announced

Just a short while after the launch of the RAZR Motorola has announced that two new Android phones are due to be released very soon. The Motoluxe and Defy Mini both run on Android Gingerbread. Neither phone is quite as cutting edge as the RAZR but they are nice additions to Motorola’s burgeoning Android range.

The Motoluxe is a large 4 inch touchscreen phone that will be ideal for web based features and Android apps. The phone runs on quite a slow 800MHz processor but is fairly well endowed in 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. It also has a pretty decent 8 megapixel camera and a VGA front facing camera.

While the specs may not be amazing the Motoluxe is certainly a stylish phone, and has a unique ‘lanyard slot’ at the bottom right of the screen that will light up when you have a missed call, new message or email. This is a bit like the light indicators that used to be included on the exterior of flip-phones, and it is a wonder why this useful feature has not been included on more touchscreen phones. The lanyard slot allows you to quickly check whether you need to read a new message or check a missed call without actually having to walk across the room to pick up your phone.

The Defy Mini is a smaller version of the earlier Defy released in 2010. The Defy was a rugged phone, a phone designed to withstand the worst that Mother Nature had to throw at it (as well as your own cack-handedness). Being able to endure high volumes of dust, being held under water for extended periods and shrugging off drops to the floor that would leave other phones weeping into a thousand pieces are just some of the reasons that rugged phones have become popular with mountain climbers, divers and fans of other outdoor pursuits.

Until the Defy though, these rugged phones were pretty basic. Probably more basic than a phone you had ten years ago, but Motorola showed it was possible to bring this durability to touchscreen smartphones. The Defy Mini is the same sort of thing, albeit quite a bit smaller, which probably makes it even more ideal for outdoor activities.

The Mini is a little bit slower than the original Defy and the camera isn’t quite as good, but it does come with a more modern version of Android (Gingerbread) and the same decent Wi-Fi and 3G connections. Most importantly though, for when you find yourself lost on a mountaintop somewhere, the Defy Mini has a far superior battery life compared to the original for talk time and standby.

Both phones will feature MotoSwitch, which evolved out of Motorola’s earlier MotoBlur system. MotoSwitch has adopted ideas used on Facebook that will display contacts and app icons more prominently on your phone the more you interact with them. So if you have one contact that you phone ten times a day and another that you sent a single message to 8 months ago, your regular contact will be easier to access from the phone’s homescreen.

The two phones are due to be released in the coming weeks in Europe, China and Latin America, although Motorola has not released any price details just yet. When these phones are finally released you will be able to get them in the UK from mobile phone comparison website Best Mobile Contracts.

The Samsung Galaxy SII – Snapping and Capturing

The Samsung Galaxy SII’s 8 megapixel camera has often been described as the best on a smartphone. With an LED flash and autofocus it is user friendly and compares well with others available on the market. Along with its large screen for multimedia purposes, the fabulous 8 megapixel camera has been one of the main reasons for the popularity of Galaxy SII deals. So is it as good as people claim?

An improvement from the 5 megapixel cameras found on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S and HTC Desire, the quality of pictures is notably clearer and sharper. It is the add-ons and features that means this camera phone takes on the compact market. The shutter speed is quicker, meaning users can take pictures in fast succession. The autofocus takes a little longer and unlike the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc the autofocus feature cannot be turned off.

Users can personalise what is most important to them when taking pictures. So a column on the left hand side of the screen allows you to add shortcuts for those function you use most regularly. These can be individually set for the camera or for video.

Other features include ISO, an option to change exposure settings, a timer, an anti-shake device (vital as the phone is so lightweight although it does mean the camera takes a little longer to take a picture) light metering options and 13 scene modes. Four different filters help enhance picture taking options, whether indoor or outdoor. The Outdoor Visbility setting, for example, is a preset that increases the contrast to tackle direct sunlight making it more flexible. More macro modes have preset options for changing the exposure and metering to correct colours and brightness. Like other digital cameras blink detection holds off the shutter for a fraction of a second and the smile shot again ensures you get perfect family shots. The wide angle lens does cause some barrel distortion meaning some objects can lean into shot.

The video is 1080p with Full HD and 30 fps. It captures excellent colour and records audio well. Recording and playback is affected by whether it is daytime or nighttime with best results in indoor daylight although a video light does improve settings for darker shoots. Resolution can be reduced down to 176 x 144 and exposure and white balance can all be altered.

The speed of the phone, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor means it is one of the most powerful on the market, and also means there is little disruption or catch up when taking a picture or video or changing options. Both in stills and video this makes it an impressive camera phone. Images can be edited in a Photo Editor app available from Samsung. This allows for small editing, cropping and stylizing. As on other Android phones there is also Snapbucket which allows for uber-stylized edits and playing with images.

The impressive 4.3” screen and Super AMOLED Plus display makes this a great smartphone for playback. Some critics have voiced concerns that the pictures look better on the phone’s display rather than when uploaded onto laptops. The ability to share pictures quickly and easily via the Social Hub means it is simple to take pictures and video and then upload them to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The screen and the camera on the SII certainly live up to the hype, and are a large part of the reason that Samsung has managed to shift so many phone contracts for this Galaxy.

Samsung Galaxy S2 Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts

There is nothing greater than when a new device is released and it is greater than the sum of its parts. After a bit of a usage of the new Samsung S2 phone we have concluded that this phone is certainly that.

The S2’s main strengths are its screen and its processor. However it does certainly have a strong facet in another number of areas and this is what makes it greater than its individual attributes. The device has a very smart 1.2GHz dual core processor that really can hammer the applications it is multitasking on into submission. This means the phone is fast enough to handle any form of streaming, browsing and gaming.

The huge processing power puts the phone at the top of the new smart phones as far as the latest phone engines go. The phone’s biggest strength comes in the glassy shape of its screen. The 4.3inch Super AMOLED Plus screen is excellent and shows some great contrast of colours and depth of shades.

The Android 2.3 operating system is also excellent and really sparks into life when you see the things it does with the Samsung created TouchWiz interface. The combination of applications and their use of the processor and screen make this a device to be reckoned with and it is no surprise that it is the top selling phone in the last few months, with more than 5 million Samsung Galaxy S2 deals having been picked up since the phones launch just a few months back.

Add to this the 8mp camera and the ability for it to record at 1080p and you are in for a very fun time indeed. The camera is excellent and the sensor very good and we were delighted displaying it on the TV at home via a DLNA connection.
The phone is also a nicely shaped slim device and weighs in at a tiny 116g and is only 8.49mm wide, though is slightly thicker towards one end because of the speaker. To be honest it is very hard to fault this phone and like the previous Galaxy S and the HTC Desire before it – it is an iPhone beater and great because of all its parts combined.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 Vs. iPhone 4

Once upon a time there were two companies, the first company did something no one ever did well before and released a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. It did very well and was the toast of the kingdom until a man from a company who made very attractive but sometimes flawed devices released a touch screen phone that allowed users fast internet connection and a huge selection of downloadable applications. In case you didn’t guess we’re talking about Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry.

So, with a new Bold 9900 released, how does it compare to its direct competitor for number one, the iPhone 4.
Processor wise the BlackBerry has got an upgrade and is now running a super powerful 1.2GHz snapdragon processor with 768MB of RAM. Compared to the iPhone which currently runs a 1GHz chip with 512MB, on paper the BlackBerry is the faster chip. Then you have to take into account that the iPhone is a year younger and you have to give it its dues.

The matter of tactility is different; then again it always was and will be. BlackBerry’s really about the QWERTY keyboard and though this one allows dual navigation with keyboard and screen, the buttons are the best bet and are possibly the best BlackBerry have ever made. The iPhone is a touch screen and an amazingly responsive one at that. As far as this is concerned, it really is a case of what you prefer – like a lot of things you seem to be born for one or the other.

The screens do differ in size and the iPhone’s 3.5in is better for what it is meant to do, that is being a multimedia player. Though the BlackBerry has a 3in screen it does have a certain charm. Though quality wise the iPhone 4 wins hands down, with its amazingly clear retina display.

Both devices have 5mp cameras, to be honest there is not much give or take between them and they could be considered equally good flashers.

As far as the operating system is concerned iOS offer an amazing experience and has really set the pace. However, BlackBerry OS 7 is a huge improvement on previous offerings and does put up a good fight but is staring into the face of the best.

Design wise both maintain their classic styles, with the iPhone 4 looking fantastic and the BlackBerry looking stylish in a different way, with its curved chassis and keyboard. It really is a case of personal preference. Some people swear by either brand, though if you want a multimedia experience the iPhone is better and perhaps the BlackBerry is better for professionals.

HTC Pyramid Sensation Features Rumors

HTC’s batch of smartphones released at Mobile World Congress are not all that they have in store for 2011, with the Taiwanese company joining the dual core revolution in the form of the EVO 3D and Pyramid smartphones. While quite a bit of information has surfaced about the EVO 3D and its parallax barrier display, HTC are being more tight-lipped about the Pyramid. It is likely it will feature a similar set of specs to the EVO but without the 3D extras, and could possibly make its way to UK stores under the name of the HTC Sensation.

HTC’s first two dual core smartphones have already upped the ante by packing dual core 1.2GHz processors, already offering more speed than existing dual core handsets like the Motorola Atrix and LG Optimus 2X/T-Mobile G2x. Although still running on Android Gingerbread, the Pyramid/Sensation will have a little less memory to play around with with 768MB compared to the EVO’s 1GB.

The Pyramid Sensation is expected to feature a 4.3″ qHD screen with multitouch along with accelerometer and gyro sensor. Also on board is an 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording, dual LED flash and quite likely a fairly decent 1.3mp front facing camera too. The Sensation is also expected to come with HTC Sense 3.0 as its interface so we can expect some great features including good social networking support.

Although the Sensation is being touted as the name that this phone will be released under in the UK there is still no indication just yet as to whether it will be released elsewhere as the Pyramid or whether that is just a code name used during development. Either way the Sensation looks set to be one of the best Android phones in 2011 alongside the EVO 3D, and HTC are expected to release full details of the handset at an HTC event on 12th April.

Android Steals The Show At MWC

The absence of Apple at the Mobile World Congress has definitely given Google’s Android the definite edge over its competitors at the show in Barcelona this year. With the MWC for this year coming to a close today, everyone who’s been at the event has only one thing to say – Android is brilliant. With Nokia disbanding its own phone OS Symbian and partnering with Microsoft for Windows based Nokia phones, they did not have anything to offer this year. Almost every phone, be it the Motorola Xoom or the Samsung Galaxy S or the Sony Xperia Play smartphones or the Samsung’s second generation tablet or LG Slate, everything has been Android. There was Blackberry Playbook that was not running on Android but spoke of including Android apps and HP’s Tablet – TouchBook that did not use Android but WebOS.

So, this MWC belonged to Android completely.

Bada 2.0 Unveiled By Samsung

Last year at the same time during the Mobile World congress, Samsung unveiled Bada – its own phone OS. After an year, Samsung has now announced Bada 2.0, the next version of Bada 1.2, Samsung’s own smartphone OS today. Bada 2.0 will feature NFC (Near Field Communication Support), WAC (Wholesale Applications Community), HTML 5, voice recognition and multitasking. Samsung would also providing a server development kit (SDK) allowing developers of other platforms as well explore the OS. The SDK would allow developers to look into the apps’ performance with the help of a faster simulator and advanced code.

Bada was first launched by Samsung in November 2009 and right now it is the 1.2.0 version that is in use. Samsung Wave (GT-8500) was the first phone to be launched on the Bada OS. Along with Bada, came the Samsung Apps, their own app store which is apparently growing quickly.