You Just Got An Android Phone, These Are The Apps You Need
Google recently reported that 3.7 million Android devices were activated between Christmas Eve and Christmas, which means a lot of people just got sparkly new smartphones. We’re pretty big Android fans here, so we want to lend you some expertise when it comes to picking out some essential apps to start your journey. This isn’t going to be a mechanical ‘THESE ARE THE 50 BEST APPS YOU CAN GET’ article, but rather a smaller amount that we use regularly. (This article assumes your phone is straight out of the box and not rooted or ROM’ed out.) Without further ado, here are the Android apps you need to throw on your phone right quick!
Facebook Messenger For Windows Is Useless [UPDATED]
![Facebook Messenger For Windows Is Useless [UPDATED]](/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/FacebookMessengerDesktop.jpg "Facebook Messenger For Windows Is Useless [UPDATED]")
Okay look, I’m a bit of a Facebook apologist. When Engadget bandied around the rumor that the big blue social network was releasing a stand-alone client for Windows, I was eager to ditch Windows Live Messenger, the only chat application I’ve even bothered to open for the past decade. Well, ladies and gents, you don’t need it, because it’s not worth your time.
Samsung’s Gargantuan Galaxy Note To Finally Arrive State-side Next Year
Kelly has admitted to me that he would love a phone with a large screen, which seems ironic considering he totes an iPhone 4. He handed me his phone after I’d gotten acquainted to the Galaxy Nexus‘ 4.65″ display and the iPhone looked like a glowing postage stamp. The massive Galaxy Note – which is still a phone mind you, not a tablet – I might have just the tool to reel him over The Dark Side. The biggest problem, however, is that American carriers are probably going to screw the whole thing up before it even arrives in stores. The beautiful super-AMOLED display on the Galaxy Note measures 5.3″ at a resolution of 1280×800. The biggest feature is actually an included stylus as the phone’s size actually allows for enough real estate to comfortably jot down notes and drawings. The TouchWiz additions also allow for some cool Courier-esque copy and paste action. Who knows, it might even get in a bite of some Ice Cream Sandwich considering its release timeframe, but they might screw that up, too. Still, even if the device’s dimensions don’t entice, I have no doubt it’ll be a cool playground for ROMers and mods alike.
So Samsung, whenever you’re ready, we’ll be more than happy to give the device a fair shake
Source: The Verge
Sprint Starts To Build Their LTE Network, But Is It Already Too Late To Compete?
Yes, that little yellow dot is Sprint’s current LTE coverage, perched over the small town of Kankakee, Illinois, a stone’s throw from Chicago. While the site exists for testing purposes for a network that won’t even start to roll out in earnest until next year, it’s a harrowing reminder that Sprint is way behind the competition in rolling out next-generation cellular tech, even if the other guys are fumbling a little.
Now Bored To Death, Google+ Admins Now Censoring Mildly Offensive Images
The image above of formee full-time TechCrunch writer, and complete Apple fanboi, MG Siegler, was removed from Google’s services abruptly. As he writes on his blog, he’s not mad about the incident, but he is curious about Google’s opaque policies regarding photos that feature flipped birds. While all services have issues with policy in their youth, this strikes me as odd considering Google has had years to learn from Facebook regarding this stuff. That they failed to disclose this to MG is another issue entirely.
Verizon To Charge For The Convenience Of Paying Your Bill [UPDATE: Verizon Decides Against It]
![Verizon To Charge For The Convenience Of Paying Your Bill [UPDATE: Verizon Decides Against It]](/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/VerizonCharge650.jpg "Verizon To Charge For The Convenience Of Paying Your Bill [UPDATE: Verizon Decides Against It]")
UPDATE: After making the announcement, both the entire population of the internet and the FCC – yes, the FCC – revolted against the increases. Verizon has now backed down from the charges.
So this is cool. Starting January 15th, Verizon customers are going to be charged an additional $2 every time they pay their bill through their automatic phone system or online through their web site. The only way to get around this? Set your account up for automatic withdrawal, which hardly seems like a convenience considering they’ll probably just ‘automatically withdraw’ an additional $2 per month that way, anyway. I can see the situation now…
Verizon: Your Wireless Network Needs To Be Online In Order For Us To Use It
When lunch time came around, it was super thrilling to get to reel out my phone and catch up on e-mails, read my TweetDeck stream, check my Facebook notifications, etc. The problem is that my connection was so intermittent that I couldn’t accomplish hardly any of that. And it wasn’t just me, either, it was thousands of Verizon Wireless customers nationwide. Being a recent convert from Sprint for obvious reasons, I was already disappointed by the lowly 1.2Mbps average downloads I was getting in areas around town flush with LTE, but my signal shows single bar-to-double bar reception all the time, regularly flipping between 3G CDMA and 4G LTE modes. (In fact, attempting a SpeedTest right now resulted in such a downgrade in speeds.) Verizon is the nation’s largest carrier with the largest fourth-generation network, based on LTE, designed to give mobile users crazy speeds (apparently 10x my rates in urban areas) at the expense of some battery. Well, consider my battery safe because I’m not getting lightning bolts or conjured Viking gods out of my connection.
The Photographer’s Best Accessory For 2012: A 1.8 Gigapixel Helicopter
Forget the storm of quadrocopters that’s brewing on the horizon, the United States Army is deploying three Boeing ARGUS helicopters that feature 1.8 Gigapixel (as in, 1,800,000,000 pixels per image) cameras. Yeah, sure, there are battlefield applications, like being able to keep track of over 60 targets at once, or take photos from over 20,000 feet, but let’s think about this a little bit: what would you do with a 1.8 Gigapixel camera on wings? Let’s count the ways:
Windows Phone Marketplace Hits 50,000 Apps, I Still Don’t Have One
I apologize in advance for the incredible tease: we don’t have an application on the way. So a little over nine months after we reported Windows Phone’s Marketplace hitting 10,000 apps, Microsoft reports that they’ve quintupled that amount. While my feelings for the platform have softened in the face of aggressive competition and a better supported, multi-platform music service, I’d still own one as a second phone around the same time that my pimp cane and solid gold gloves arrive. Unfortunately, Microsoft still has a long way to go to convince people that the iOS and Android libraries (which are roughly ten times larger) are worth a pass and provide more games worthy of making this the portable Xbox they never made. Aside from the other issues that they have with Windows Phone, Microsoft also has to work harder to make third-party apps work better on the OS, which shouldn’t be an issue considering the hardware is virtually identical across the board. Still, as Mango allows more developers the ability to put more glanceable information on the Start screen (through Live Tiles), it hints at something so much greater than they’ve done so far.
All the best to ya Microsoft, maybe when you stop restricting the hardware so much, I’ll dive in!
We Really Don’t Know How Many Domains Go Daddy Has Lost
First let me say, I don’t like Go Daddy and I also work at a hosting company so they are a competitor. That being said I’ve see tech news websites writing about how many thousands of domains Go Daddy has lost today or this week. The truth is we don’t really know how many they have lost, check this out. Read the rest of this article…
