Inspired by today's news about Microsoft's Windows Phone 7's latest release, "Mango," but can't let go of your beloved Android device? Now you can at least simulate the experience of using Windows Phone thanks to a new Android app, over half a year in development, which brings a Windows Phone-like launcher to Android users.
The new app called WP7 Launcher Lite began as a project featured in - where else? - the XDA Developer forums. Created by forum member TheRedDrake, the goal was to produce something that would provide "the freedom of Android and the grace and elegance of Windows Phone 7." Now a Lite (free) version of that application is available on the Android Market for you to try. And there are other plenty of other apps that bring you a similar experience, too. We've listed a few of these below.
NFC, or near field communication, is an emerging technology that will power mobile payment systems and mobile wallet solutions, like those in development by Apple, Google, RIM, mobile operators, banks and others. But NFC itself is just a way to send data wirelessly between devices, meaning it can be used for far more than mobile payments alone.
One way to take advantage of a phone's NFC capabilities is to make your own NFC tags. These tags, when read by your phone, can perform a number of actions, like open a map, launch a website, change your phone's settings and configurations, plus dozens of other tasks. Wouldn't it be fun to make tags like that? Well, now you can. Here's how.
When you've got just a moment to spare and your brain has a hunger for the freshest good news in whatever field of interest you focus on - what do you do? These days I spend those times perusing hot blog posts, fresh Tweets and great screenshots from the Web's most prestigious designers. I've been enjoying a mobile Web app I built with help from a service called iSites.us and I thought I'd share with you details about how I put it together. You could really do something like this on any topic.
To check out this app yourself, navigate your phone to the URL designnews.isites.us. Read on for screenshots and a description of the geeky fun behind this little creation.
Over the weekend, the group of iPhone hackers known as the Dev Team released two new tools to jailbreak the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 4.3.1. Both the PwnageTool and the tool called redsn0w allow users to perform an "untethered" jailbreak, which means that when rebooting your mobile device, it doesn't have to be connected ("tethered") to your computer in order to keep the jailbreak in place.
These jailbreaking tools were made possible by an exploit found by German security researcher Stefan Esser, who provided details regarding the exploit to the team.
There is simply nothing like Twitter for being a fly on the wall. People sit at work and tweet about what they're doing. They tweet at night, they tweet in the morning and they tweet a lot on the weekends - find a vein of good tweets from a group of people you want to learn from, watch it over time and the world is your oyster.
That's my theory, anyway. One of the things I'm interested in tracking are the streaming music services. So tonight I built a Twitter list of people who work at Rdio, Pandora, Mog and Spotify. (Then I remembered Grooveshark!) Give it a click and you can follow it too. I'll show you how I made it below - and of course this process could be applied to any field.
No one ever plans on losing their phone, but when it inevitably happens, panic quickly sets in. As someone whose iPhone sat on the bottom of a pond for over half an hour, believe me, I know the feeling. But now I'm on Android (and yes, the pond incident had something to do with that), so Apple's useful and free "Find my iPhone" tool, which tracks down lost phones via GPS, is no longer at my disposal. What to do?
Luckily, there's a free app for that on Android, too. And, frankly, it's even better than the iPhone's version.
Yesterday, Microsoft publicly addressed the reports that its first Windows Phone 7 update was "bricking" users' handsets - that is, effectively turning them into non-functional paperweights after the update was downloaded to the device. According to Microsoft's official statement on the matter, only 10% of users experienced problems with the update, and of those, only half (5%) had a problem that was unrelated to an issue on their end - like low disk space or a bad Internet connection. As had been reported, the only devices affected by this issue were Samsung phones, Microsoft said, although it didn't confirm which models specifically.
But what of those 5% whose phones are now dead? Here, Microsoft was less clear, simply pointing users to various online resources like FAQs and forums. What are these users supposed to do? We may have some suggestions for you.
Ses0nPass, the jailbreaking software for the Apple TV media center, has been updated. The new version now allows for the much-desired "untethered" jailbreak - meaning, the device does not have to be connected to a computer during startup. At present, the software is only available for Mac users, but a Windows version is said to be "coming soon."
But why would you want to jailbreak your Apple TV? How about access to streaming music from Last.fm, an HDTV-optimized Web browser, RSS feeds, weather forecasts, Twitter, additional support for video file formats and more?
It has now been nearly two months since my iPhone fell into a pond, forcing me to transition to Android. I had a review unit of the Nexus S on hand at the time which served as a backup phone in the wake of the tragedy. I've now moved to Android completely, save for the occasional Netflix stream or iPhone-specific app in need of testing. Throughout the process, I've been documenting the struggles and benefits of moving to Android here on ReadWriteWeb, in a series called "iPhone to Android."
Specifically, much of the focus is on moving to the Nexus S, as that's the phone I've chosen. (The review unit has been returned - I have my own Nexus S now.)
This week, I'm looking at taking the Nexus S overseas.
In November, Apple shipped the 4.2.1 update for its mobile operating system iOS, and days later, the iPhone jailbreaking community had figured out how to hack it. Unfortunately for jailbreaking enthusiasts, the only hack available at the time was what's called a "tethered jailbreak," meaning that every time you reboot your device, you have to connect it (i.e.,"tether" it) to your computer.
But now, members of the hacking group known as the Chronic Dev Team have released a new jailbreaking tool called greenpois0n, which delivers, at long last, the highly anticipated "untethered" jailbreak.
