HTC explains decision to skip Android 4.0 for Desire HD: we'd rather not wipe your data

HTC damaged a few spirits when it dropped the Desire HD from its Android 4.0 upgrade list. The company might feel your pain, but it claims to have a good reason for denying the update that it's been doling out elsewhere. There's no way to shoehorn a new version into the device like there was for the Desire's leap to Android 2.3, the company says. Fitting all that Ice Cream Sandwich into the Desire HD would require repartitioning the internal space, and repartitioning risks overwriting personal content; needless to say, the company isn't keen on explaining why it might nuke our family photos just so we can run Chrome. Even if that weren't an issue, a nebulous set of "other technical limitations" might not rub upgraders the right way. All of the explanations add up, although it's nonetheless easy to sympathize with Desire HD owners now stuck in Gingerbread land and are void access to updating to the official android 4.0 updates.

So if you own a Desire HD what are your thought and feelings will you be rooting your phone or be avoiding htc in the future let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Android Jelly Bean vs. iOS 6 vs. Windows Phone 8

A quick comparison on all the new 3 major Operating systems being released this year by 3 big companys

(For the record, this is not a review. There will be no review until we have spent some quality time with the final versions of iOS 6, Android 4.1 and Windows Phone 8. This is, instead, a look at how these three stack up on paper in 12 key categories.)

Apps

iOS: 650,000 apps. 225,000 for iPad. Still tops as far as smartphone platforms go.

Android: Android is currently at 450,000 apps for Android. Most apps will run on tablets, but the number of tablet-optimised offerings is significantly lower than iOS (Google won’t give an official number, but a quick run-through Google Play makes the situation abundantly clear).

Windows Phone: Windows Phone currently has 100,000 apps available for download, which is considerably less than the other two. And since there’s no Windows 8 tablet yet, well…

 

Maps

iOS: Apple now has a maps service of its very own like Google and Microsoft. Not only does it deliver traffic updates, points of interest, and turn-by-turn navigation (which is well integrated throughout iOS 6), there are 3D maps which both look cool and might be helpful when lost in the middle of a crowded metropolis. But the lack of public transit directions hurts, even if they’re offering a third-party API solution. 

And iPhone users reared on Street View might sorely miss it; Apple hasn’t presented an equivalent.

Android: Google Maps in Jelly Bean will likely be unchanged from what Google showed off a few weeks ago at its dedicated maps event: 3D buildings, offline caching and Yelp integration will all be added to supplement the top notch combination of search, turn-by-turn navigation, and Street View. Plus, the search giant is going crazy with mapping the insides of notable locales—Compass Mode employs a phone’s gyroscope to give you 360-degree interior views—so expect to see more of that over time.

Windows Phone: Windows Phone 7 was a showcase for Microsoft’s Bing maps, but the mobile navigation turf will belong to Nokia on Windows Phone 8. The good news is, that means terrific NAVTEQ maps, turn-by-turn navigation, 3D buildings, offline caching, and dynamic routing for public transit. There aren’t many bells and whistles here, though, for better or worse.

Browser Sync

iOS: iCloud Tabs are new in iOS 6, and unify your browsing across all of your iOS and OS X devices. It’s not a full cloud browser that offers the same tab view across all devices, but rather a list of tabs tucked behind an icon or sub-menu, along with your bookmarks.

 Android: The Chrome Beta on Android offers tab syncing with your desktop as well, but throws bookmark and search syncing in the bargain. And since there are more desktop Chrome users in the world than any other browser, a lot of people will be taking advantage of this feature.

Windows Phone: Browser sync is conspicuously absent from Windows Phone, which is odd considering it will run the same version of Internet Explorer that Windows 8 will in the WinRT environment. Then again, with Windows 8 and WP8 both not expected until this fall, there’s a lot of time for Microsoft to make this work. Fingers crossed.

 

Facebook Integration

iOS: Facebook is integrated throughout iOS 6, which means you can update your status and upload images from various apps (not to mention notification center), sync contacts, and have your Facebook events coordinate with your iOS Calendar. Plus a third-party API is on the way, so all apps can integrate Facebook into their wares.

Android: Android has always been good for Facebook sharing, and there’s no reason for that to change with Jelly Bean. You can share and upload from pretty much anywhere in the OS, or inside most Android apps. Plus you can pull Facebook data for your contacts already stored on your phone, or pull all your Facebook friends into your contacts.

Windows Phone: Facebook integration has always been one of Windows Phone’s selling points, as the platform seamlessly integrates features like status updates, images, Contacts, Chat, and Events into Microsoft’s own sections (People, Messaging, Calendar, etc). It’s as well-designed as Facebook integration can get.

Voice Commands

iOS: Siri wasn’t amazing in iOS 5, but it worked. In addition to being able to dictate texts and emails, schedule calendar events, and set timers, Siri in iOS 6 has much more promise, given its ability to pull data from even more sources (sports scores, movie times, dinner reservations), in more useful ways. Plus, Siri will be able to interface with car audio and navigation systems once iOS 6 goes live in the fall.

Android: With Jelly Bean, speech recognition is about to get a big update. Google has always allowed for voice search and dictation across the entire OS, but now it taps into Knowledge Graph and a built-in speech recogniser that will be in future devices. Not only should Android voice recognition improve dramatically, but it will recognise voice input even while offline and, like Siri, can spit back Wolfram-like semantic search results (with or without your voice).

Windows Phone: Windows Phone also has voice commands, allowing you to place calls, send texts, search the web, and launch an app all from your device. It may not have the depth of Google and Apple’s efforts, but it’s there.

Mobile Payments

iOS: Surprise! The iPhone doesn’t have NFC, which means Apple doesn’t have much to offer in terms of mobile payments. But Passbook is Apple’s way in. When it’s up and running, it will collect tickets, rewards cards, debit/credit cards and more into a single app relies on both GPS and QR codes to work. It can also deliver updates and notifications for the items you have stored in Passbook (flight updates, expiring deals, etc). It’s clearly been designed with NFC payments in mind; we just have to wait a few months until Apple makes it official.

Android: For the time being, Google Wallet—which includes mobile payments, deals/rewards/offers, and more—remains unchanged. But it is a HUGE question mark for Google. Sprint is still the only official Google Wallet mobile partner (and even they’re rumored to be parting ways), MasterCard is the only card company on board, and the number of devices NFC is available on is limited. Google announced new NFC-based features today unrelated to payments; hopefully it’s enough to entice hardware partners to include the tech in future devices.

Windows Phone: With the arrival of Windows Phone 8 will come Wallet, which is Microsoft’s full-fledged attempt at, well, a digital wallet. You’ll be able to store credit/debit cards and rewards/loyalty cards, not to mention the ability to access deals. But what might set Windows Phone apart from Android and iOS is that it will make use of secure NFC elements stored on SIM cards, which will allow for more flexibility—and security—when it comes to the preferred standards of card companies and mobile carriers (Google Wallet has hit a wall because of resistance to its own built-in secure elements). Save for Apple strong-arming everyone into playing by its rules, this may be the most frictionless way for NFC-based payment technologies to succeed.

Video Chat

iOS: Apple has FaceTime, which can place calls over 3G or Wi-Fi, and works fairly well. But its also a pretty insular app that only works with other Apple devices.

Android: Android’s Gmail/Google Talk-based video chat system is a bit more universal, considering you can video chat with anybody who has Gmail on a Mac, PC, or Android phone. And yes, you can chat over 3G or Wi-Fi. But Google’s ace in the hole, surprisingly enough, might just be its Google+ app, which features Hangout support and will be available for both Android and, some day soon, iOS.

Windows Phone: Microsoft’s secret voice chat weapon is Skype, which is arguably the most universal standard of them all. There are already proper Skype apps for Macs, PCs, iOS, and Android—and Microsoft owns all of them.

Call Features

iOS: iOS 6 lets you decline a call with a canned SMS response; filter out calls annoying contacts, and includes a Do Not Disturb toggle, all of which will prove useful for power users.

Android: Android lets you compose a series of texts you can use as quick auto-replies when declining a call, and also lets you filter out calls from specific people, but it lacks the ability to enter into a Do Not Disturb mode.

Windows Phone: This is another weak point in Windows Phone, as there are no pre-composed texts you can fire off to people you don’t want to talk to, nor is there any sort of Do Not Disturb functionality. But there are advanced filtering and call block options for those people you’re trying to avoid.

Messaging

iOS: iMessage is a beta feature with a lot of promise, given its ability to trade messages between phones, tablets and laptops. But it’s hardly seamless, and barely reliable, and not exactly intuitive. There’s currently no real way to link a phone number and iCloud account of a contact and have texts and iMessages appear in a single thread. Nor do messages always arrive to all your connected devices. And there’s no way to instant message with non-Apple users. We have yet to see the final implementation of this cross-device integration, which probably won’t be settled until iOS 6 is officially out, but there’s definitely some work to be done in this regard.

Android: With WebOS all but dead, Android has the best native instant messaging platform hands down. Sure it doesn’t integrate with AIM or Facebook, but AIM has a foot in the grave anyways, and Gchat is every bit as ubiquitous as Facebook Chat. When you’re logged in to Gchat, messages always arrive on all connected devices reliably and quickly. That’s more than can be said for iMessages. Plus, Google Voice is well integrated throughout Android, which means text messages sent from your phone or laptop stay perfectly synced.

Windows Phone: The messaging effort on Windows Phone is solid and well considered, allowing you to seamlessly send texts, Facebook messages, and Skype messages to a given contact from a single window. No, there’s no Gchat or AIM, but that’s not particularly shocking, given the trend towards walled ecosystems with each platform.

Smarter Icons

iOS: When it comes to dynamic app icons, Apple is sorely lacking. Sure it has badges that let you know when there are new messages, emails, or notifications, but they don’t really tell you anything else.

One of the things we’d hoped for was that Apple would smarten up its app icons. Let them change to display information. Unfortunately, Apple is still stuck in the past on this one.

Android: Android doesn’t really do much with app icons either, and that doesn’t change with Jelly Bean. But since the App drawer is pushed into the secondary layer of Android, it doesn’t matter. Android employs widgets to take on the task of real-time updates, which allows for a fair amount of customization when it comes to getting your mail/weather/calendar updates from your home screen in a quick manner. They can sometimes be messy and unruly, but when properly implemented, are quite useful.

Windows Phone: Windows Phone 8′s Live Tiles are the cream of the crop amongst smartphones. Not only can they display notifications and vital info (such as texts, mail, weather calendar events), but they arrange into a neatly-organized grid that is now bolstered by the ability to break tiles into three different sizes depending on how you want info displayed. Microsoft is way ahead of everyone else in this regard.

Media Streaming

iOS: iOS 6 has AirPlay, which has been one of the easier, more intuitive implementations of media streaming we’ve seen so far. You can push music from your computer or iOS device to AirPlay-approved speakers, AirPort Express routers, and Apple TV (which also accepts video and iOS device mirroring, and soon OS X mirroring). And if you’re streaming from a computer, you can push to multiple AirPlay devices. But like some of Apple’s other features (FaceTime, iMessage), AirPlay doesn’t really extend past the Apple product ecosystem. That said, you’ll find AirPlay baked into more and more devices with each passing month.

Android: With the introduction of the £200 Nexus Q, Google just provided its own streaming standard for Android-based devices. The hubs will be able to take audio and video streams, and spit them out to televisions and speakers (powered by the Q’s 25-watt amplifier). Plus you can link hubs together for more robust multi-zone streaming than what Apple offers. Think of it as Sonos for Android, complete with the modest sticker shock.

Windows Phone: Windows Phone will have SmartGlass to serve as its media streaming portal to the Xbox. Though built directly on top of DLNA streaming standards, the app simplfies and visualises the process of pushing content back and forth between the Xbox and Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 devices. Plus, SmartGlass can beam supplimentary content to your device while watching a TV show, such as Game of Thrones. Toss in the possibilities for gaming and support for Windows, Android, and iOs, and you have yourself a very intriguing streaming platform.

Hugely anticipated Nexus 7 Now available for Pre-order

Google announced a freakin' sweet 7-inch tablet appropriately called the Nexus 7 at I/O today, and no doubt many of you are itching to get your hands on one. You'll be happy to hear that it's available for preorder starting today, and will be shipping mid-July to the U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia. The pricetag is a low, low $199. Here's a quick run-down of the specs.

7-inch 1280 x 800 display
Quad-processor
Tegra 3 12-core GPU
Front-facing camera
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, gyroscope
9 hours video playback
300 hours standby
340 g
Chrome as standard browser
$199, shipping mid-July to US, Canada, Australia and UK, preorders available today
Includes $25 credit in Google Play store, lots of preloaded goodies

Want to get in on the action? Order here! So, who's excited? I'm excited.

Create Your Own Smartphone App With Infinite Monkeys – No Coding Knowledge Required

It would be great if we all had the time, skills, and patience to learn computer coding, especially since technology pervades so many areas of our life. But thankfully, there are applications and web developers out there who provide ways for the rest of us to produce apps with little or no coding skills.
Back in June, I reviewed one such web application called Buzztouch, which is designed to allow anyone to create their own smartphone application. Now a similar program has just been released called Infinite Monkeys, a web-based tool geared toward niche communities who want to share content on the iPhone and Android platforms. Infinite Monkeys is not as polished theme wise as Buzztouch, but unlike the latter, Infinite Monkeys, says the developers, “Is completely web-based, and works on any computer or tablet device. You never touch the source code and don’t have to know what it is or how it works.” There are several other differences that also might make Infinite Monkey more accessible to non-programmers than Buzztouch. But you’re free to explore both and see which fits your needs.

Web-based GUI

Infinite Monkeys’ web-based graphic user interface allows users to incorporate existing web content from social networking sites like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and blogging sites.

These web-based apps of course don’t compare to more advanced apps like Angry Birds, but they are great for small niche communities and businesses, such as school associations, sports teams, churches, musicians and restaurants, who want to share content privately or publicly.

Infinite Monkeys provides three different app platform models, ranging from free to the pro level version of $499. But for many users, the free HTML 5 web-based, and ad-supported model should suffice.

Building An App

Infinite Monkey provides a seriously easy step-by-step process for creating a smartphone app in less than an hour; that is if you have an ample amount of content already posted on the web.

The great thing about using a web-based platform is that you can constantly add content and updates to your app via your blog site, YouTube channel, photo sharing site, etc.

The Infinite Monkey web application uses a familiar drag-and-drop process. You start off by giving your app a title, followed by choosing a privacy setting. You can make the app public, or private for closed community access which will prompt users to enter a password to view content.

You can of course customize the background image and splash screen, as well as the font colors for the title and other text.

Core Content

The core content of your app consists of primarily news and third-party feeds such as your blog site(s) and specific URLs.

Infinite Monkeys includes additional content models for music and books, food and beverages, events, sports, reference materials, and location services such as a map and directions.

With the click of a button you can easily preview your app at any point in the development process. The online app also includes an embedded short video tutorial for each of the three part steps and multifunction tools.

You have poor control over the content of your app, including links to streaming videos, live chatrooms, shared calendars for upcoming events, shopping links to recommended products, and tap–t0–call phone contact information.

Publishing App

The free version of Infinite Monkeys allows you to instantly post your HTML 5 version immediately to the web so that anyone with a web-enabled smartphone can access it through the assigned URL.

Since your app is ad-supported, Infinite Monkeys will host it for free on their server. While it is not nearly as polished as professional apps that you will find in say the iTunes App Store, it does provide a way for anyone to get their content into this space.

Microsoft shows some Android love via Kinectimals game

Smartphone users are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing various applications, whether its apps to help us with our everyday lives or fun games, picking the ones that are worth the time and money downloading can be difficult, and the team on Phones Review try and keep our readers up to date with all the big releases. Today we can tell you that Microsoft shows some Android love by releasing the Kinectimals game.

Microsoft has been busy on the Android platform this week as earlier the company released the My Xbox Live application to Google Play, and now as an article over at the Android Community is reporting Microsoft has released its first Android game so far, titled Kinectimals. This fun little game has been available on both the iOS and Windows Phone 7 platforms for quite a while now, and it is now available to Android users.

The popular kids game available forAndroid smartphones and tablets works on both Android in standalone mode, and also as the Xbox 360 companion mode where users get the chance to unlock five new cubs. Your kids will love playing with the cute and cuddly animals on an Android device with many adults also giving the game the thumbs up as well.

The game is great for kids and animal lovers alike and allows you to have a virtual pet or two, and while Microsoft has been busy working on Windows 8  it is nice to see the company still find time to make some of their apps available to all the Android users out there. Only yesterday we told you about another popular application, Zombies, Run! finally landing on the Android, as more hugely popular titles are starting to find their way onto the platform.

Kinectimals is available via the Google Play Store and is priced at £1.93/$2.99. Will you be downloading Kinectimals?

Source: Google Play

Carphone Warehouse offering free Galaxy Note on £21 contract for next seven days

The Samsung Galaxy Note is one of the surprise Android success stories of the past six months. And now British retailer the Carphone Warehouse is offering the device for free on a surprisingly reasonable £21 per month, 24-month service plan. In addition to a free Galaxy Note, the deal gets you 100 minutes, unlimited texts and 750MB on T-Mobile UK, which is a pretty competitive package for the UK market. Carphone says the deal will be available to new customers online and in-store for the next seven days.

Although it's more than half a year old at this point, the Note still stands up alongside current high-end Android phones, with a 1.4GHz dual-core Exynos chip, a 1280x800 SuperAMOLED display and an 8MP camera. Better still, it's just been updated to the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. If you're unfamiliar with the Galaxy Note, be sure to check out our full review of Samsung's 5.3-inch stylus-toting beast.



Carphone Warehouse Smart Deal of the Week – Samsung Galaxy Note (£21 per month)

LONDON June 15, 2012— This week’s brand new super money saving “Smart Deal of the Week’ from Carphone Warehouse is the practical and fun Samsung Galaxy Note.

For the next seven days, the Samsung Galaxy Note will available for free to new customers* on T-Mobile for just £21 a month. This deal, exclusively available with Carphone Warehouse, will give users 100 minutes, unlimited texts and 750 MB of data per month.

The Samsung Galaxy Note has the ability to capture notes like a notepad, the large practical screen f a tablet and the communication features and mobility of a smartphone. The generous 5.3” screen is the first to include HD Super AMOLED technology, making it one of the highest quality displays on any phone, and combined with an 8 MP camera means your pictures will never look better. The S Pen and S Memo also let you record your ideas, notes and memos instantly.

The Carphone Warehouse Smart Deal of the Week is available in store, online at www.carphonewarehouse.com or by calling             0800 925 925      .