In the video above, Samsung tells the story of the design process for their new superphone, the Galaxy S4. It starts out a little creepy, because they purposefully planned to "go deeper into people's lives," but there was no nefarious intent involved. In fact, the video helps share Samsung's desire to have their smartphone truly improve people's lives by being easier to use as well as more functional. The video attempts to showcase Samsung's priority to make the experience of using their devices appeal to as many people as possible.

Despite this the video also shares that the new phone is "not a radical difference, but more of an evolution." At the end of the video, Samsung's, Vice President of Product Design, Minhyouk Lee, attempts to clear up this contradiction. He said that Samsung attempts to create something new with every smartphone. He explained, "People say there is nothing more you can design in smartphones, but in Samsung Design, despite this challenge, we believe we can create something new, something that brings greater value to people. That’s what we think."

The video makes it clear that Samsung doesn't want to fix what isn't broken, but they also want to continue to evolve the features and functionality in order to improve the user experience.

What do you guys think about the conclusions Samsung makes regarding smartphones? How significant is your smartphone in your life?

Source: SamsungTomorrow

This sounds like something out of some b-rated action movie in which the protagonist leaves the bar and gets assaulted after having too much to drink. Of course, we are talking about a phone here, so no alcohol was involved, but if you are squeamish about seeing a beautiful smartphone tortured you may want to prepare yourself. The above video is very surprising, in that the new HTC One actually can take a great deal of punishment.

How do you think your current smartphone would fare with this level of aggression?

Source: Phonebuff YouTube

The HP Slate 7 just went up for grabs in the U.S. on HP's website. You can pick up the new Android 4.1 Tablet for a mere $169.99. The tablet matches up pretty well against its primary competitor, the Google Nexus 7. For the most part the Nexus 7 is a bit better device; however, if you prefer a tablet with a microSD slot and want to save $30 bones, then this is worth a peek. Here's a recap of specs:

• 7″ 1024 x 600 display
• ARM Cortex-A9 Dual-Core (1.6 GHz)
• Android 4.1/Jelly Bean
• 1GB RAM
• 8GB storage
• 3,500mAh battery
• VGA front camera
• 3MP back camera
• Beats Audio
• MicroSD Card Slot

Here's a link to HP if you want to check it out: Slate 7 Tablet | HP® Official Site

Snapdragon BatteryGuru (Beta) is a smart little app created especially for devices that has a Snapdragon processor. This includes (but isn’t limited to) the likes of the Nexus 4, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, Droid RAZR MAXX, Droid DNA, Sony Xperia Z, LG Optimus G and Samsung Galaxy S3. For a more exhaustive list check out Qualcomm’s website here. The app works by optimizing your device and making subtle changes to your daily settings to enhance battery life. It’s a free app and if you have a compatible phone, you should definitely try it out!

Features:

Snapdragon BatteryGuru (Beta) helps users who use a device with a Snapdragon processor to make significant battery savings. It’s an app you can simply download from the Google Play Store and initiate by opening and starting the app, accepting the T’s & C’s and finally clicking the Get Started tab. As soon as you do this, the app goes into learning mode and you can forget about it altogether.

Over the next few days (it suggests 2-4) it monitors closely how you use your phone and especially what idle apps and actions drain the most battery unnecessarily. When the period is up, it optimizes your device for best battery performance by making small adjustments. For example, you'll noticed that the app will switch off your Wi-Fi connection when you go out in the morning as it knows you only use a mobile connection during the day. Therefore, it prevents your phone from constantly looking for a WiFi signal throughout the day- saving precious battery.

There are plenty of apps in the Google Play Store that promise that they will save you battery life, plus others- like the powerful Tasker, that will let you intricately... [Read More]

Obviously all the attention right now is focused on the hot new flagship from Samsung, the Galaxy S4. It's easy to forget that the previous flagship device, the SGS3 is only a year old and is still a very powerful and capable device. Luckily, our friendly neighborhood DroidForums.net members are great about helping us remember these things. They are also awesome at sharing when great deals come around. Here's a perfect example from MandyMakesApps,

Hey everyone,

I just found a pretty sweet deal if you are looking for the Samsung Galaxy S3. There is a Groupon through Wirefly to get the Galaxy S3 for $9.99 w/ a two year agreement. Per the specs on Groupon the coupon does not expired.

You can check out the details here: Samsung Galaxy S III - 4G LTE for Verizon Wireless ($99.99 List Price). Free FedEx Shipping Both Ways.

Here's the deal:
$9.99 for a Samsung Galaxy S III 4G LTE smartphone for Verizon Wireless from Wirefly ($99.99 list price)

Thanks for sharing this with us!

Here is her original post on the subject complete with a recap of specs: Hot Deal: Samsung Galaxy SIII for $9.99 - Groupon

You knew this would finally happen. For the first time ever in the 1st Quarter of this fiscal year, smartphones finally out-shipped feature phones. The new IDC marketing study indicated that 51.6% of mobile devices shipped were smartphones. Here's the full press release,

More Smartphones Were Shipped in Q1 2013 Than Feature Phones, An Industry First According to IDC

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The worldwide mobile phone market grew 4% year over year in the seasonally slow first quarter of 2013 (1Q13) as smartphones outshipped feature phones for the first time. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 418.6 million mobile phones in 1Q13 compared to 402.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012 and 483.2 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012.

"In addition to smartphones displacing feature phones, the other major trend in the industry is the emergence of Chinese companies among the leading smartphone vendors"

In the worldwide smartphone market, vendors shipped 216.2 million units in 1Q13, which marked the first time more than half (51.6%) the total phone shipments in a quarter were smartphones. The market grew 41.6% compared to the 152.7 million units shipped in 1Q12, but 5.1% lower than the 227.8 million units shipped in 4Q12.

"Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones."

"In addition to smartphones displacing feature phones, the other major trend in the industry is the emergence of Chinese companies among the leading smartphone vendors," noted Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team. "A year ago, it was common to see previous market leaders Nokia, BlackBerry (then Research In Motion), and HTC among the top five. While those companies have been in various stages of transformation since, Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE as well as Coolpad and Lenovo, have made significant strides to capture new users with their respective Android smartphones."

Smartphone Vendor Highlights

Samsung maintained the position it held at the end of 2012: the undisputed leader in the worldwide smartphone market. By the end of 1Q13, Samsung shipped more units than the next four vendors combined. The company revealed its highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4 with new features including display, camera, WiFi, and security innovations. What remains to be seen is how Samsung's new Tizen-powered smartphones will look and feel later this year, and fit into the company's overall smartphone portfolio.

Apple's smartphone shipment volume hit a new first-quarter high thanks in part to the iPhone 5, with volume growing 6.6% year over year. However, the last time the iPhone maker posted a single-digit year-over-year growth rate was 3Q09. The iPhone maker has held the second spot in the smartphone rankings for the past five quarters. Apple's mix

... [Read More]

The folks at Google are getting a bit more serious about security for apps in the Google Play Store. Apparently, Google has banned app developers from performing updates unless they go directly through the Google Play Store. Here's Goggle's official statement on the matter,

An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play's update mechanism.

What's interesting about this is actually how it came about. This new stricter policy was instigated by Facebook of all things. Apparently, the social network giant decided to update their pre-Facebook Home Facebook app, but did it directly through the app, bypassing Google's Play Store completely. Google was not happy about this, so they tightened up their policies.

Source: AndroidPolice

The HTC One is arguably the best handset the Taiwanese company has released to date. It has the aesthetics and power to get any Android enthusiast excited just looking at it, but all is not well with the device. There are a lot of reports coming in with users having sensitivity issues with the Home and Back capacitive buttons. Users are complaining that the problem seems to be an inconsistent detection of button-presses, while others believe the detection area is too small. Regardless of whats causing this, the common issue that users are experiencing is that they have to keep pressing the Home or Back button to get the desired result. This would obviously be a deal breaker for many, but luckily a fix is on the way.

HTC has started rolling out an OTA update to unbranded devices across Europe and Asia, and US customers will have to wait just a bit longer to receive the update. Unfortunately we do not have any information on that timeframe, but knowing HTC the OTA should hit carrier branded handsets sometime next week. In the meantime, users who own an unlocked or non-carrier branded device can try updating through Settings / About / Software Update / Check Now.

This is not the best way to kick off a flagship handset especially with the Galaxy S4 lurking in the background. Our question is, how did they miss this obvious bug?

Via: Android Authority

The highly successful mobile chipset maker, Qualcomm is set to light our summer on fire with their latest technology, the Snapdragon 800. At a media event in Beijing, Senior Product Manager Yufei Wang shared that the new superchip will go into mass production toward the end of May this year. To recap, here's a quote from an older AnandTech article with several of the improvements this new Krait 400-based chip brings to the table,

Today Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 800, which implements four Krait 400 cores running at up to 2.3GHz, an Adreno 330 GPU and Qualcomm's 3rd generation LTE baseband (9x25) all on a single die. Snapdragon 800 is the part formerly (or still internally) known as MSM8974 which we've seen rumblings about numerous times.

Qualcomm tells us that the Adreno 330 will offer roughly 50% more graphics performance over Adreno 320, and an almost 2x increase in compute performance.

The integrated 9x25 3rd generation LTE baseband enables support for UE Category 4 LTE with up to 150Mbps downstream, this is the same IP block as in MDM9x25, and likewise MSM8974/Snapdragon 800 will be available in all the usual variants (CDMA2000/WCDMA/LTE, WCDMA/LTE, and finally no modem).

Snapdragon 800 also integrates 802.11ac baseband, a new feature of modern Qualcomm SoCs, just like 8960 and the previous S4 family.

Snapdragon 800 also includes a 2x32 LPDDR3 memory interface.

On the video/decode side, the SoC supports encode/decode of 4K HD content at 30 fps. ~ AnandTech

What's interesting to consider is that the current king of the Snapdragon's, the 600, performs almost on par with Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa-core. Considering the improvements in the newer generation Snapdragon 800, it is probably a safe bet it will actually outperform Samsung's latest flagship. We look forward to seeing the benchmarks this summer. Sadly, no info was given as to what future devices we will see with this chipset.

Source: AndroidAuthority

We have a couple of Galaxy S4 stories to share with you this morning. First, the new flagship from Samsung just launched in India. The phone will retail there for Rs 41,500 (roughly $783USD) and will be the Octa-core Exynos 5 version. Here's a quote with some additional detail,

The Samsung Galaxy S4 will go on sale from tomorrow, April 27. It will first be available only from the Samsung eStore and Samsung premium brand stores in Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Bangalore from 12 noon to 4PM. Anyone picking up the device during this time period will also receive “surprise gifts” from the company. After 4PM, the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be available from major retail stores around the country.

Our second story is that in Asia Samsung will soon release a dual-Sim version of the phone called the Galaxy S4 Duos with the model name I9502. This one is also the Octa-Core Exynos 5 CPU.

Source: AndroidAuthority

Most of the time, games that are made from movies tend to be mediocre at best and atrocious at worst. There are notable exceptions, but most franchise games are just sloppy cash-grabs to take advantage of a quick popularity trend. Luckily, the new official Iron Man 3 game from Gameloft actually falls into the "notable exceptions" category. It's not be a major evolutionary leap in gaming technology, but it is a solid and fun action game that is worth your time, especially considering the whopping price of zero dollars on the Google Play Store. Here's a description from the Play Store followed by a link for you to grab the game,

Become billionaire Tony Stark as Iron Man in this free, fast-paced, endless runner, the official game of the upcoming movie!
After the events of Iron Man 3, Tony has become a peacekeeper, but new threats emerge regularly all around the globe and Iron Man is the only one who can take care of them.
Get ready for intense action in this free, addictive, endless 3D runner!
THE OFFICIAL GAME OF THE MOST AWAITED SUPERHERO MOVIE, FOR FREE!
✔Fight against rising A.I.M. forces around the world during amazing runs
✔Discover 3 different locations offering endless, self-generating levels: Malibu Shores, New York City and China
✔Confront 4 epic villains from the Iron Man comics: Crimson Dynamo, Ezekiel Stane, Living Laser and the mighty M.O.D.O.K.
BECOME IRON MAN AS NEVER BEFORE!
✔Complete various missions in fast-paced flying battles and epic one-on-one confrontations
✔Unleash Iron Man's superpowers with amazingly responsive swipe controls
✔Enjoy an outstanding 3D world with cutting-edge graphics and animations
COMMAND STARK INDUSTRIES
✔Research and develop up to 18 suits from the different movies (MARK II, MARK 42, Silver Centurion, etc.)
✔Upgrade your armours and powers in the research Lab to wipe out your enemies

For all fans of superhero games, runner games, action games, arcade games, Marvel games, and for all of those who want to fight as Iron Man during amazing and intense free runs.
Iron Man 3 – The Official Game from the upcoming Marvel movie is a free-to-play game, but if you wish, you can enrich your experience by purchasing game items to boost your progress!
Enjoy Gameloft's other arcade and action game from Marvel Comics:
The Amazing Spider-Man: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ANMP.GloftAMHM
Find and power up Iron Man's suits in a great game at Iron Man 3: In Cinemas April 24 for your chance to win awesome prizes including a tablet, an iPod touch and in-game credit for the Iron Man 3 game. Have you found MK17 - HEARTBREAKER (Artillery Level RT Suit) yet? Need another clue? ‘The southernmost tip of the Australian mainland’. Go to Iron Man 3: In Cinemas April 24, solve the riddle and find the suit! This promotion is available only in Australia and New Zealand!

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Visit our

... [Read More]

A new update to the Google Play Store started pushing out today. Version 4.0.2.7 which follows closely to the recent update from a week ago.
Even though, this version doesn't have big improvements from the last update, we thought we'd share it with you anyway.

Download

The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing Play Store. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. If you don't want to wait for weeks for it to push your device, simply download the APK and install it like any other. It should install right over the current one you have installed.


Google Play Store v4.0.2.7 download link - Droid Network



via Android Police