Mobile News
Mobile Word Congress is going on right now where mobile device manufacturers are making announcements everyday. There isn’t too much exciting happening besides the announcements of upcoming phones, but one theme is standing out. Tablets are hear to stay.
It doesn’t seem too long ago that laptops outsold desktops; then netbooks outsold laptops. I believe the next stage is… tablets outsell netbooks. And this year’s MWC is starting to show that trend. We now have several competing tablet platforms. Apple’s iPad, Google’s Android tablets, RIM’s Playbook, and now HP’s WebOS tablets. Also, Microsoft is starting to add Windows as an option.
Microsoft started a little too early by offering resistive touchscreens requiring a stylus. The hardware was not very capable and software needed much improvement. Apple started this trend by expanding off their already popular iPhone and used capacitive touchscreens allowing nothing more than a finger(or more) to use. Now that the hardware and software has caught up, this looks to be the popular computing platform until something better comes along.
Jailbreaking and Rooting
What is jailbreaking and rooting? It is the process of installing special software on your Apple or Android mobile phone allowing you full access to the entire operating system on the device. Mobile smartphones are “locked down” to prevent unintentional harm to your device(and to restrict you from certain features).
You have access to memory cards and other limited areas of the storage on your device. The operating system is protected so you do not accidentally delete something important, and to protect from viruses and malware. But you do have access to everything else to make settings changes, add apps, or store files. The jailbreaking(Apple) and Rooting(Android) processes turn off the general protection. Why would anyone want to do this? I’ll explain why on both fronts. Read more >>
Android Market Web
Finally Google has implemented a web based version of the Android Market. This will allow large screen searching and reviewing. Plus, you will be able to send the app directly to your phone wirelessly. Slightly unrelated, but Google has also demoed the upcoming “honeycomb” release for tablets.