One of the main reasons why people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a smartphone is because of the hundreds of thousands of apps available on Google Play and the iTunes store, especially since many of these apps are free.

If you’re trying to decide whether to buy a new iPhone 5, one of the new androids or even if you just want to make your Apple fan boyfriend or girlfriend jealous with the phone you already have, here are five android widgets that are likely to your iPhone friends go green-eyed.

Swype

Even though this Android-exclusive app isn’t available on the Android Market, you can download Swype onto your android phone from their homepage if it didn’t already come installed on your phone.

Swype is a keyboard that allows you to type by swiping with your finger. I admit that Swype is a bit hard to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, this app allows for much faster typing than the regular keyboard.

Google Drive (Free)

If you use the Android OS, chances are, you use some or all of the Google Tools as well. As you may know, Google Drive is the new home of Google Docs and even though Google Drive still isn’t as good as a word processing application as Microsoft Word in my opinion, its primary benefit for me is that documents are stored in the cloud and can be accessed anywhere you have Internet access.

With Google Docs, not only can you access your documents anywhere, but you can also edit those documents and collaborate with others, retaining full control over the documents you create.

LauncherPro (Free)

After a while, many people get bored of the default settings and look their phones have and then start looking into ways they can personalize them without trading off on functionality. Well, when it comes to launcher apps, LauncherPro is one of the most popular, and for good reason.

Even though LauncherPro is packed with features, and has plenty of animations, it doesn’t take up too much resources and it’s very fast. It also comes with many different home screens, so there is plenty of variety and choice when it comes to customization.

Beautiful Widgets ($3.29)

If you’re bored with the look of your phone’s interface, then you may want to check out Beautiful Widgets. This app allows you to spice up your interface and make it reflect who you are as a person

Unlike with desktops and laptops, widgets are extremely popular on mobile devices. Beautiful Widgets is an app that supplies you with an array of well-designed and appealing widgets, such as clock widgets and weather widgets. You can also customize these widgets, since Beautiful Widgets supports themes and skins.

Advanced Task Killer Pro

Every smartphone user is going to have those days where the apps on their smartphone seem to be taking up all of the resources available. On those days, Advanced Task Killer Pro is definitely a godsend. There is a lite version of this app, as well as the full version which costs $4.99, which is a price that is worthwhile if it keeps your smartphone functional at all times.

As you can probably tell by the name, Advanced Task Killer Pro, or ATK, is an app that kills any other apps that’s running. Often times, people use this app to automatically kill apps automatically, yet the makers of this app suggest to use this app only to manually kill apps.

For some people, a quality exclusive app can mean the different between getting an Android smartphone or an iPhone. There are hundreds of android exclusive apps, but these are just a few of the best ones.

Android is by far the best mobile operating system in this world. There is iOS, but due to its limitation to just Apple products, its not as popular as Android. But then Microsoft is trying to get into the mobile market with their own operating system. They have launched a series of smartphones with other brand names running on Windows mobile operating system. But can it beat the immense popularity of Android ?

How does Windows 8 stack up against the latest Android 4.1? We’ll take a look at the differences and see which OS holds up best.

Android 4.1 vs Windows 8

The Android operating system has been around for a while now in various incarnations but nowhere near as many as Windows, the latest incarnation of which is now at Version 8 which is not even an accurate reflection of this operating systems history. The true number of Windows operating systems that have been released is more than 15 over a period of 30 years. The reason to mention this fact when comparing Android and Windows is the amount of technology and expertise available to the software designers and engineers. The results not startling really if you bear in mind the might and maturity of Microsoft.

Android has suffered from some significant hiccups since it was introduced back in Nov 2007. Although backed by the might of Google, their business is wholly different to the giant operating system developer Microsoft and their successful foray into the mobile operating systems market was partly because they prudently also hired the inventors when they acquired the technology rights.

Windows 8 shows all the characteristics of a maturely developed mobile OS and is clearly easier to use than the competing Android 4.1 which graces every Samsung mobile device and many other brands of smartphone and tablet these days. There is some sound technical reasoning behind this too. One of the issues with Android 4.1 being used on so many different hardware devices is that the scaling and functionality has had to be programmed into the apps written for Android. Windows 8 has a different approach by breaking the screen up into a grid of available squares. Different resolutions choose from a limited selection of grids. This means that an app will look and behave the same on different devices running Windows 8. Obviously those with better resolution will have more grid squares available so therefore more opportunity for extra features, buttons etc. What will not happen is that where different phones are using similar but not identical displays (for example 3.2” or 3.1” or 3.5” display) they will not experience strange and different graphics as the Android tries to match graphics with the available pixel density and the screen size to the display. This can result in some odd looking apps and unreadable text in some cases. There are usually patches available to address such problems but that is really not a great way to experience what should be a “smart” phone.

The New Year will bring in with it the usual flood of new apps as developers get cracking on new releases and this is the area where most will be swayed one way or another when choosing a new mobile device. There are obviously other considerations such as the hardware but Windows 8 is available on a wide range of devices now so the choices are not restrictive at all. Application availability is probably going to drive the situation with the number of Android apps outstripping Windows 8 by ten to one at present. Android offers 60 frames per second crisp video which is great visually – a feature that will obviously be very appealing to buyers. Those looking to store and access their data through USB 3 might prefer Windows 8 as it has native support with Android users reporting all sorts of issues with USB 3 devices including charging that will not work through USB 3. The choice of apps is split; for smartphone apps, Windows 8 will not impress – for tablet apps the choices are much better. With the expected exponential growth in apps availability, by the time 2013 has got through its first quarter there will be a lot more apps available for both smartphones and tablets. To compete in 2013, it seems Android might need to step up the pace a little!

Author Bio- The above post is contributed by Raymond Ray. He is a data recovery engineer with an extensive background in researching about technology and gadgets. He enjoys sharing his tips and insights about technology and gadgets on various blogs.

Developers are continuously developing and designing software and custom ROMs to facilitate the users. Some developers got together to make a new ROM. HyperLight ROM is the new custom ROM that has been released for Samsung Galaxy S3 l9300. XDA member “j0ep0” has combined the developmental works of two other XDA members,“wanam” and “kristofpetho” to make this ROM. It has speed, and has no extra applications, libraries and resources in it, which is the reason for its name.

Some important features present in this ROM are Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean (version XXDLIB), Busybox v1.20.2, Super SU v0.96, init.d support and much more. All these things have added up to create an ultimate experience for the Galaxy S3 users. Below are mentioned the steps which need to be followed to download this ROM on our Samsung Galaxy S3.

Install HyperLight ROM on Samsung Galaxy S3 l9300

Caution

• Before proceeding to the installation of the ROM read all the instructions carefully and make sure that you understand each and every step before you actually go through with it.
• These guidelines are specifies only for Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-l9300. If you try to use it on other device then there is no guarantee that the same results will be produced.
• These instructions are to be applied by the owner at his own risk. Any damage occurring will not be our responsibility.
• The guide being provided may or may not work accordingly depending on your specific condition. The guide is only to provide instructions and for learning.

Pre-Requisites

•  A Samsung Galaxy S3 Gt-l9300.
• Flash ClockworkMod Recovery on your device. If already present then ignore this step.
• HyperLight V0.9 ROM is available in four versions. Depending on what you choose for your device download its specific file on your PC.
• HyperLight v0.9 Basic

Its features include being solid, stable, speedy and workable.

• HyperLight v0.9 Compatible

This has international support, and comes with S Beam and Wi-Fi Direct.

• HyperLight v0.9 Slim

This is most suitable to use as a base ROM.

• Your personal data on the device is likely to get erased during the downloading procedure so make sure that you make a backup of all your data like contacts, SMS, MMS, internet settings, WiFi passwords and more.
• Charge your device to have maximum battery or 70 % at the least. Any less battery may interrupt the process before completion.

Guidelines

• The first step is to copy the HyperLight ROM package on your device’s SD Card.
• Now switch off your device.
• Boot into ClockworkMod Recovery Mode by pressing down the Volume Up, Power and Home buttons together. Navigation could be done using the Volume Up and Down keys and selection of any choice can be made through the Power button.
• From the main menu, select “Backup and Restore” and then “Restore”. This is going to backup the current ROM.
• Move to the option “Wipe data/ Factory Reset” and confirm the action on the screen that appears.
• Next navigate to “Install ZIP from SD Card”. From the next window, select “Choose ZIP from SD Card” and locate the HyperLight ROM file from it. Select it to begin installation.
• Again go back to “Wipe data/Factory reset”, and allow the process complete.
• Now select “Wipe Cache”, and press “Yes” on the window that appears.
• Now navigate to Advanced and choose “Wipe Dalvik Cache”. After this is done, select “Fix Permissions” from the same window of “Advanced”.
• Restart your device now to complete the installation process on your device.

Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-l9300 has now been installed with the new ROM, HyperLight ROM. Enjoy! Feel free to leave comments.

Anyone who uses either the iPhone or Android mobile phones will be familiar with apps. Some of the best apps have very practical purposes although many prefer those addictive Angry Birds or utopia building type games. It seems like every week there’s an excellently developed idea made into an app and as a concept the app has led to some examples of truly great innovation. The app has irrefutably assisted mobile phones in becoming more like personal assistants and gaming platforms, and so it’s always worth keeping an eye on what’s big right now in the world of new apps.

One app that will definitely capture people’s imagination is iPlayer Radio. It seems like iPlayer radio bridges two worlds – old media and new – and it emphasises the fact that radio can still compete with all forms of visual media. The standard of some of the features on Radio 4 and associated BBC channels is excellent and the ability to hear them on demand could really boost radio listening figures.

The iPlayer Radio app would be great in a car with the relevant iPhone dock. When driving or just commuting the spoken word is our primary form of entertainment and judging by reviews, this updated iPlayer app is even better now a couple of bugs have been ironed out.

Other very practical apps are things like Rightmove where you can casually browse a selection of properties without the pressure of showrooms or sites which demand endless details. The house market is the type of market that requires a constant connection to get the best deals, and the Rightmove app gives you immediate access to an array of properties in your area meaning you can act fast.

The motors app from motors.co.uk works along similar lines. The world of used cars is similar to the housing market where those closest to the market get the best bargains. The motors app allows you this quick access and also lets you find deals which match your criteria exactly instead of being limited to the stock in your local dealership.

On a lighter note the Weird but True app delivers 300 facts to your mobile phones in an enticing and fun fashion courtesy of National Geographic Kids.

Parenting has never been an easy task. The difficulty to manage kids has increased a notch with modern phones and other technology readily used by children. On one side increased awareness and openness to technology makes it difficult for parents to get hold of their children. On contrary, the same technology, used wisely, helps parents keep an eye on the children for their safety and well being. Let us have a look at some of the apps that would help make parenting more manageable.

Android Apps for Smart Parents.

Cozi Family Organizer

Organizing a family and making it work as a single unit requires a lot of planning. Parents have to chalk down all the important tasks that they need to do every single day of the week. With overwhelming amount of tasks to do, these lists can become really difficult to manage. Cozi Family Organizer helps parents organize and prioritize all important tasks without getting lost into the unending ordeal of tasks. The app can help parents administer all daily family chores, manage family calendar, and make sure no important dates like a crucial visit to the doctor are missed. Organizing all the tasks makes it super easy for parents to get all things done without losing track of anything important.

Lociloci – Mobile Phone Tracking

Lociloci is a mobile phone tracking service online that can come in very handy for all parents who want to have an eye on their children. It tracks a mobile phone’s location by receiving data from the transmission mast closest to that mobile phone. By looking at this website we found out that there are many mobile phone tracking apps and services that can be installed on your smartphone or ordinary phone. Lociloci for example can track all new GPS as well as old GSM phones. Its reliance on both GSM and GPS tracking technologies helps save battery. Whereas in GPS – only mobile tracking apps the battery is drained quickly. As Lociloci is not an app, users do not need to download it on their mobile phone or desktop. They can access the mobile phone tracking information an interactive map using any smartphone, tablet PC, or personal computer that can access the internet. Lociloci is currently available in four countries including the UK, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. You need to have a valid account for the country in which you want to locate a mobile phone. There is no limitation from where you can track a phone.

Lost phone apps

Don’t you hate it when your kids lose their phones. We stumbled on this review on android apps for retrieving lost mobile phones and we were amazed to find out how well Plan B works for find your lost phone. No matter what lost phone apps you install on your children’s phones, they need to be fully configured in order to work effectively. Parents are requested to ensure that they understand and correctly configure either Plan B or Where’s My Droid on their children’s phone. The simplest way to check if the app has been correctly installed or not is by checking the phone’s app if it works the way it is supposed to or not.

Plan B

Plan B does what most of the other apps fail to do. It exploits a loophole that existed in the pre-Honeycomb android operating systems. This app fires up your smartphone remotely. The phone loser will have to login to Google Play using any web browser to install the app. The app will be installed on the phone despite of the fact that it wasn’t installed on the phone before it got lost. Once the app has been installed the user can use his Gmail account linked to his Google Play account to locate the phone within no time. Plan B does not only help you find your lost phone but also keeps you updating on regular interval about your phone’s latest location. There are very few apps which go that extra mile in helping you locate your phone. If the phone’s GPS is switched off, it tries to switch it on and if it fails to do so, it still keeps tracking the device using cell-tower triangulation technology.

Where’s my Droid

This is a free app designed to locate all android smartphones that run android 1.6 or higher version. This app works differently than many other apps. The user can send a secret attention word to the lost phone which activates the phone’s find-me mode. The phone is automatically set from vibration to ringer with significant increase in the volume. Once the message is sent, the phone rings for 30 seconds (good enough to trace it if it is within the audible range). Similarly, a different word may also switch on the GPS of the phone. If you are successfully able to find the phone, the app Where’s My Droid will send you the exact coordinates of the phone’s location as longitude and latitude which can be put in Google Maps to find the exact phone location. A key advantage of this app is that unlike many other apps, it does not constantly send information about its location, which saves the battery for longer time, giving phone user more time to locate the phone. A lot of features for this app are free. However, for some of the more advanced features like remote wipe capabilities, you need to subscribe to the pro version.

ShopSavvy

Budget management is one of the most important tasks that parents have to look after. Every family nowadays is trying to efficiently run all the home affairs to make savings for bigger investments. ShopSavvy is one such app that helps you get things done economically. There are many shopping apps that claim to help you save money but few of them really go the extra mile to add real value. ShopSavvy allows you to take a picture of the product’s barcode using your phone. The app identifies the product and finds the best deals locally available for it. The app adds to your convenience by helping you locate the nearest stores carrying that product using Google Maps.

Trendmicro Mobile Security for Android (Free):

Trendmicro Mobile Security helps overcome the virus and web security issues for children. This app successfully adds necessary filters and helps successfully implement parental controls. Unlike many other apps, this app works just fine with any kind of internet connection used by smartphones. There are three different security levels that parents can set for their children depending on their preferences. The app does more than just censoring internet accessibility; it also helps avoid unsolicited phone calls and messages. Parents can for example block specific numbers or all anonymous numbers. The app also predefines an action for incoming calls or messages. Parents can also look at the log history to see which phone calls and messages have been blocked by the app.

Epicurious

Are you a worried mom always wondering what to cook today? Millions of moms around the world ask this question to themselves every day. This app is made just to solve this problem. The app will not only come up with suggestions on what to cook but will also guide you with a how-to step-by-step process for reach recipe recommended. The app is particularly designed to help moms cook dishes that kids really love to eat. Similarly, added cooking instructions come in really handy for moms not very good at cooking.

Beginning with the basic concept, android is an operating system based on Linux (a system that was developed with the collaboration of the free and open source software) and used in the devices like tablets and smart phones. The initiative to develop the android system was taken by Google (who purchased the initial software developer) followed by 86 other companies including telecommunication, software and hardware companies who together founded the Open Handset Alliance that developed the android system to advance the open standards for the mobile devices. By the end of the 2010, Android smart phones were the leading phones,
and at present android hold approximately 59% of the share of the smart phone market, with 400 million activated devices.

The Rivalry Between The Models

Sometime back iPad was considered to be the best tablet to use but the introduction of the android phones has changed the mind setup. Definitely there are various reasons and explanations to prove the comment. Moreover, the android based phones have introduced many new features that have given a tough competition to the iPads and iPhones.

Discussion About Various Characteristics:

1. In the iPhones and iPads receiving notifications is quite disturbing as it all about pop-ups that even stop the existing function. But the notification system on the androids is simple and does not interrupt the existing function during a message notification. It just informs about the receipt with a slow music and then fades at the bottom.

2. The android phones provide a good home screen with folders to organize the applications which basically helps avoiding too many pages. The screen provides space to place the widgets and other applications in the home screen.

3. The android phones are considered to be truly multitasking as it has enough power to handle the same. The new phone Android 3.0 has a multitasking panel that is not only easy to operate but also provides preview of the applications running at that moment. Moreover, in the android phones there is a facility to capture screenshot which is more updated in the Android 4.0.

4. Among others, one of the best features that has increased its demand is that Android has number of applications which can be downloaded easily from the Android web Store and can be stored in the computer and as well device without syncing.

5. The android system is updated frequently and there is a community of developers for writing applications that adds functional value to the devices. And these latest applications can be downloaded from online stores or third party sites.

Features That Differentiates between various Characteristics of the Phone

1. The platform of the device can adapt VGA, 2D, 3D graphics library having of OpenGLES 2.0 disclaimer.

2. The connectivity supported by the Androids includes CDMA, GSM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, IDEN, UMTS, NFC, LTE and Wimax.

3. The messaging type includes SMS, MMS, text messaging and more lately Android Cloud to Device messaging which is a part of push message service of the Androids.

4. The Android phones are java supported as the applications are written in Java.

The Androids supports all formats of audio, video and still like WebM, H.264, MPEG 4, AMR WB, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, JPEG, PNG, GIF and many more.

Author Bio : This is a guest post by Rajkumar on behalf of http://techienize.com/ and http://techieblast.com/

It is no doubt that Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the market. Despite facing competition from other giant operating systems, the Android technology has still managed to win the hearts of world-renowned mobile phone vendors such as Samsung, LG, HTC, and Sony Ericson. The prudence of this technology in the market is undoubtedly increasing and will soon hit targets that not so many expect. Simply defined, the Google Android technology is a Linux-based operating system that allows its users to create their own applications and use them on the phone. This has allowed for creation of millions of applications competing for the open space on the platform.

Read : The Evolution of Android – Then and Now

The Pros of Android Technology :

There are many advantages of the Android OS, and also there some cons of this system. We will see about that later. But for now let’s see at some of the pros of Android technology. Here are listed some of the most common pros of Android technology that many of the users don’t even know about.

Multitasking
The Android technology has created a platform where mobile users can perform one million functions at a go. For instance, you can Google information while listening to music and still run other applications such as CPU monitor. This makes the experience fun and very little energy is spent.

Easy Notification
Android OS allows various notifications to take place. This ensures that you do not miss a single email or important text message sent to you while busy or preoccupied in another call or text message. You will see any incoming notifications on your home screen and should you accidentally exit the notification without reading it, then a blinking LED light will persistently remind you to do so.

Read : Why Is Android So Popular ??

Easy access to applications
The Android allows for easy access to applications and makes it convenient to download as many as your phone’s memory can hold. Additionally, there are online application stores where you can specifically buy and download these applications to your phone or tablet. Automatic update of the applications is also necessary using the Android technology.

Availability
The Android is readily available. This means that you can find it in most of the popular mobile devices. It is not limited to one particular type of handset like the Symbian in Nokia or iOS in Apple products. The customer is therefore free to make their own choices including favorite product names and still enjoy the Android technology, as it is available in a wide variety of phones.

Modified RAM
The Android technology is capable of allowing the user to modify the custom installed RAM to fit their demands and lives. This makes the Android technology in mobile phones and tablets  flexible as compared to other phones. The modified RAM can also perform other function which are not available with the default one.

Shortcuts
A lot of widgets are available on the home screen menu to allow the user to navigate easily from one function to another. With these widgets, you can easily change the use and applications of one application to another.

Automatic Update
Android allows the users to select a specific interval for which downloaded applications can check for update automatically without asking.

Google Mania
Loyal lovers of Google get an upper hand as the technology integrates Google services such as Gmail with the phone so that you can easily access them by a touch on the screen or by setting automatic updates.

About the Author: Jim Taylor is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. His blog focuses on blog Internet Service, Technology, Android Phone and Internetserviceproviders.org. You can follow him on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.