The world of tablets and smartphones is a fast one. It seems like a new device that pushes the boundaries is introduced each week. When it comes to Android, what devices set the boundaries for others to break? Google’s Nexus line. Nexus devices are what Google thinks of as the ‘benchmark’ Android device; what an Android device should be. On November 13, two brand new Nexus devices were made available for sale.

This year, there are two new Nexus devices to tempt eager buyers. There’s the Nexus 4, a 4.7 inch phone made by LG and the Nexus 10, a 10 inch tablet made by Samsung. Here’s a brief overview of the two devices based on the five most important aspects most business users look at when looking for a new phone.

The display
The display is one of the most important components of any mobile device, as it’s what enables us to use it. As such, development companies are pushing the envelope in terms of resolution. The Nexus 4 has a 4.7 inch display with a 1280X768 (HD) screen. The display is on par with other devices currently available, and many reviews have noted that the display is the best they’ve seen in midday sun.

Samsung is well known for their displays, take a look at a ES900 TV next time you’re in an electronics store and it’s hard not to stare in amazement at the picture clarity, not to mention the thinness. This quality transfers over to the Nexus 10. The display is 10.1 inches, and has a resolution of 2560X1600 – the same resolution as the new 13 inch MacBook-pro Retina display.

Another noteworthy point related to the display of these devices is that they both use Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2, which make them considerably more scratch resistant than older devices.

Battery life
For business users, the amount of time they can use a mobile device before needing to charge it is crucial. The battery on the Nexus 4 should be powerful enough to get you through the day with moderate usage. Reviews are coming back that the device is actually fairly poor in terms of battery life. According to engadget, “our standard video rundown test, which consists of looping a movie at 50 percent brightness with WiFi on (but not connected) and normal pull notifications for email and social media, (the Nexus 4) lasted for five hours and 18 minutes before the battery died.” Most business users will likely be charging this phone at the office.

The Nexus 10, when subjected to the same test by engadget writers, lasted almost seven and a half hours. This isn’t bad, considering the display, but it isn’t great either, almost every tablet of the same size lasted longer. The late 2012 iPad lasted for just over 11 hours for example.

Processing power
The faster the processor, the better the apps will run. The Nexus 4 has a 1.5GHz quad-core processor which is comparable to other high-end devices currently available. This processor should be more than capable at handling all you can throw at it, and likely will for at least the next year or two.

The Nexus 10 has a slightly more powerful 1.7GHz quad-core processor, which is currently one of the fastest processors available for mobile devices. As with the Nexus 4, the tablet should be able to hold its own for at least the next few years.

The OS
As is tradition, the release of new Nexus devices means a new version of Android. This year, Google has released 4.2, however, it’s an incremental update rather than a completely new version of Android – 4.2 is still called Jelly Bean. The new update brings a number of features including a small update to the layout, a new camera app and a new keyboard where you can swipe your finger over the letters to spell words.

The biggest new feature in 4.2 is the ability to set multiple users. Each user gets their own private environment with different apps, settings and files. The downside to the multi-user environment is that it’s only available for tablets at this time. It will likely be available for smartphones in a later update.

Price and availability
When it comes to picking devices for use at the office, price will play a large part of which device business users select. While the Nexus 7 tablet, released earlier this was ridiculously cheap considering it’s specs, both of these devices carry on this trend.

The Nexus 4 is available in a 8GB or 16GB versions for USD$299 and USD$349 respectively. Both versions come unlocked and can support nearly every network around the world. The only downside is, there’s no LTE. So if you upgraded to a LTE plan in the past few months, you may want to give this one a pass. Does the price seem a bit high? The next cheapest device with similar specs is USD$450. Based on price alone, this phone is worth it, and if you live in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Spain, you can pick one up now. Other countries will likely have to wait a couple of months.

The Nexus 10 is available in either 16GB or 32GB for USD$399 or USD$499, respectively. While this is a fairly large chunk of change, the iPad starts at USD$100 more. Like the 4, the Nexus 10 is, comparatively, a good deal when looking at price alone.

All Nexus devices can be found on the Google Nexus Store.

Ultimately, are these devices worth it? If you’re looking for a new Android device that isn’t too costly and don’t want to bother being locked into a contract where you can’t replace your phone. these devices are a good to great choice. Wondering how they will work in your organization? Contact us, we may have a solution.

One of the greatest things about the Android system is widgets. They help us check our mail, change the song, or the settings, all from the home screen(s) of our device. You could say they are multi-taskers and efficiency enablers that help users get the most out of their phones. The only issue with widgets is, you can’t usually use them while using another program, well, not without an app.

Widgets are small apps that enable a user to perform a function of an app e.g., change the song playing without having to open the music player on your Android. Widgets are an integral part of the Android platform as most of them allow users to execute the main function of an app from the home screen. Widgets Anywhere, USD$1.99 on Google Play, is a great app for Android users who love multi-tasking. It allows users to have access to their favorite widget even while in a program.

The app is currently available for devices using Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and 4.1 (Jelly Bean). If you have Jelly Bean, you can easily bring up your favorite widget by pressing and holding on the Home button (center button), and selecting the Widgets Anywhere logo. This will work anywhere, making it easy for you to multitask.

You can also set the size, transparency and visibility along with what widget is shown from the apps settings. The only downside we can see with this app is that it replaces the Google Now shortcut on Jelly Bean, however, few users utilize this feature anyway.

This app definitely makes the Android user experience easier, especially if you’re a heavy widget user. If you’d like to know more about using Android in your business please contact us.

One of the main reasons people choose an Android smartphone is because of the openness of the system. Don’t like the layout your phone uses? Change it, Google isn’t going to stop you. One of the most common things people change on their device is what keyboard they’re using. There’s a number of options available, the problem being which is best.

Here are four great keyboards that you can install on your Android device.

Swype
Traditional mobile keyboards utilize the thumbs to tap the letters. With Swype, you do use your thumb, but instead of tapping you trace the word you want to spell on the keyboard. If you want to spell the word ‘Hello’, for example, you place your thumb on ‘H’ and trace it over to ‘E’ then ‘L’ then to ‘O’.

With practice, you can quickly type out full sentences with one finger, and this is as fast, or faster than typing on a normal keyboard. Swype is currently in Beta (pre-release testing) and is therefore free, however you will have to download it from the website as it’s not on Google Play. If you’re looking for a keyboard to use with one hand, Swype is the best choice.

SwiftKey
SwiftKey is all about making predictions. It won’t tell you next week’s winning lottery numbers, but it will try to guess what you’re trying to say and either correct the word or provide the next word in the sentence. You can also sync the keyboard with Facebook, Twitter, SMS and Gmail where it will learn your typing style. With syncing on, it can be eerie at how accurate it is. Beyond that, it supports 42 languages, with up to three active at once. Just start typing and it will figure out what language you’re using.

SwiftKey is available on Google Play for around 3-4 USD and is a great keyboard for users who speak more than one language and/or want to have a predictive keyboard.

Android Stock Keyboard
Each version of Android has its own stock keyboard (the keyboard that comes installed on the phone) and some manufacturers also offer their own keyboard. These keyboards are generally good, albeit a little plain. If all you’re looking for is a keyboard to type messages and don’t need any extra features, these keyboards are perfectly adequate.

Hacker’s Keyboard
On the other end of the spectrum is Hacker’s Keyboard, a full keyboard complete with keys other mobile keyboards are missing. If you use your device to remotely connect to the office, this is the keyboard for you, as you’ll be better able to navigate non mobile apps. This keyboard is open source, which means it’s free and has a high level of support.

These keyboards should have you typing anyway you want. To find the best for you, you might want to try all of them. What keyboard do you use on your Android device? Let us know.

Google has a bit of a sweet tooth, as is evident by the codenames it applies to the different versions of Android. The newest version, introduced in late June has been given the codename Jelly Bean, and will bring with it some great new features that will benefit many users. Are you ready for something sweet?

Here’s an overview of Jelly Bean’s new features.

1. Location based help. Google aims to make your phone smarter with this feature. Using location services like GPS, your phone will update you with relevant information. For example, you’re going to a meeting, using your phone’s GPS, your phone will keep you up-to-date with traffic reports and suggest quicker roots. This could be a useful service for users who have to travel a lot.
2. Faster interface. Dubbed Project Butter, Google touts an update to the user interface that makes it “smooth as butter.” Essentially using your phone will be a smoother and faster experience compared with older versions. They even noted that less battery power will be used due to a new feature that guesses where you’ll click next.
3. More intuitive home screen. The home screen – the place where all your icons are – has had a bit of an adjustment as well. Previously, you had to make space for new apps and widgets. With Jelly Bean you place one on your screen, and the others will be rearranged so it can fit. Beyond that, If you don’t want an app on your screen, simply flick it off.
4. Voice search engine. One of the most promising smartphone features of the past few years is using your voice to interact with your phone. Apple popularized the trend with Siri, now Google has introduced a similar service, and improved it. When you search for something, the result will be returned in a card, swiping to the right will show the full search result. Beyond that, you’ll also be able to use your voice for typing, even if you’re offline.
5. Better notifications. Notifications on the Android have been upgraded, with more information and live updates being introduced. Receive an email, pull down the notification page and be able to reply to it directly, no need to open the mail app. Another cool feature is with the calendar notification. If you’re running late, bring up the notification and email all attendees a canned response, all without opening calendar or email.

These are just a few of the new features that will be introduced with Jelly Bean. Businesses who use Android as their mobile OS will no doubt see some value in the upgrades. The most notable is a better user experience that could make employees happier with their devices and therefore, more productive.

Google noted it should be available by OTA (Over The Air) updates for Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Motorola Xoom sometime in the middle of July, and for other phones by the end of 2012. If you’d like to learn more about how an Android device will fit into your organization, please call us.

Update:
As of July 10, 2012, Jelly Bean has entered Open Source, which means it’s finished and phone companies and developers can access it to begin to modify it to meet their needs.

The amount of information available to us is staggering and growing at a daily rate. Because of this, many managers have been turning from newspapers and magazines to the Internet to get their news and other information. The only problem with this is that you have to physically go to each website and scroll through tons of information. RSS Readers on your Android are a way to get around this.

You’ve probably seen a dark orange icon with a white dot and three semi circles around it on many websites before. This is an RSS icon, it tells the viewer that they can use a RSS Reader to view updates made to the website.

RSS, RSS Feed or RSS Reader?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a Web format that’s used to deliver standardized content. The RSS format is typically used for content that’s updated frequently and includes blogs, news and videos.

An RSS Feed is the term that’s applied to documents that use the RSS format. Information typically includes partial or full text, author’s details, published location and date published. From the content producer’s side, it’s an easy way for them to publish their information, say an article, once and have it reach a wide number of users without subsequent re-publishing. For users, articles are all in the same format which makes it easier to read and view large amounts of info at once.

If you were to look at an RSS Feed of a website, all you’d see is a bunch of code. To make the RSS Feed useful, you need an RSS Reader, a piece of software that turns RSS Feeds into something you can read. The cool thing about RSS Readers is you can subscribe to a near limitless number of feeds. This means you can quickly read news and posts without having to visit separate sites. Reading RSS Feeds is simple on Android, and can be done with these apps:

• Google Reader. Google Reader is a cross platform RSS Reader that allows you to quickly subscribe to RSS Feeds and read them on your phone. As this is a Google app, it’s integrated with your Google account, and many Android users probably have this app already installed. The best thing about this app is you can subscribe via the Web app, and access it on your phone. Free from the Google Play store.
• Google Currents. While not a full-on RSS Reader, this app works in conjunction with Google Reader to present your RSS Feeds in a magazine style. Beyond that, there’s also a growing collection of popular blogs that you can sign up to. You can also sign up to other websites with RSS Feeds to read them in a magazine style. Free from the Google Play store.
• RSSDemon. RSSDemon is a great RSS Reader as it comes preloaded with popular feeds. The best feature of this app is that it will notify you when a RSS Feed has been updated. If you have a Google Reader account, it can pull the feeds from there and will notify you when a new one is posted. Free from the Google Play store.
• Flipboard. Billed as a social-network aggregator, Flipboard collects social media and website content and displays it in magazine format. Users “flip” through it like they would a magazine. The best thing about this app is that it comes with widgets that display new stories. It can also combine with Google Reader to provide another way to view RSS Feeds. It’s currently in Beta, but can be downloaded for free from here.

Which RSS Reader should you go with? We recommend using Google Reader as your base app, subscribe to all your feeds there and view them with Google Currents or Flipboard. To subscribe go to the Google Reader website, and click Subscribe. Enter the name of the website you want to subscribe to and select the website that comes up. You can also subscribe by entering the full url with a “/feed” after i.e., http://www.oursite.com/feed. This will work for all blog sites, including ours.

RSS Feeds and Readers are a great way for business owners to quickly catch up on topics they are interested in. If you’d like to learn more about how to use RSS Feeds on your Android, please contact us.

As we come to rely on our smartphones more and more, it’s becoming important to have programs that can meet our needs and demands. One important program is the Internet browser, all smartphones have one and many users use it on a regular basis. If you have a phone with Android, you’re probably aware of the different browsers out there, but which one’s the best?

Here’s an overview of the three most popular browsers for your Android device.

Google Chrome Beta
Google released the mobile version of Chrome earlier this year. It’s essentially a copy of their popular browser for PC and Mac, optimized for mobile devices. Pages load relatively quickly, and tabbed browsing is supported. The feature that sets this browser apart from others is the syncing with Chrome on your computer. Looking at a page on your computer and want to keep reading it when you leave the office? You can, no button presses required.

The main downside to this browser is the lack of Flash support. What this means is that Web pages developed using Flash won’t load. Luckily the majority of sites that are Flash dependent have mobile versions that don’t use it.

Firefox Beta
Previous versions of Firefox browser for Android have been slow and tough to use. That’s not the case anymore. Firefox Beta is a complete overhaul, pages load faster and the new layout makes it easier to use. The main draw to Firefox Beta is the wealth of plugins available that allow you to customize the browser to meet your needs. You can also sync your tabs from your computer to your phone.

Like Chrome, this browser doesn’t support Flash, nor any other form of multimedia. Luckily, there are plugins available that will allow multimedia use while browsing.

Stock
The stock Android browser is another good choice for users who want a low frills, easy to use browser. It’s the perfect browser for users that don’t often use their phone to surf the Internet, for other users, it may seem a bit bare-bones. One interesting feature of this browser that the other two don’t have is the ability to use your voice to search.

Which browser should you use? If you currently use Google Chrome on your computer, Chrome for your phone is a good choice, likewise for Firefox. If you use other browsers, you can search the Google Play store for a mobile version, or use the stock browser. If you have questions regarding other browsers for your Android device, please contact us, we’re happy to help.

Android versions have some pretty delicious sounding names. The newest version of the OS, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, has some tasty features that many users are now able to enjoy. These sweet new additions and improvements have definitely made the OS easier to use and more appealing to the multitude of discerning users.

Here are some great tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Ice Cream Sandwich:

• Settings. There’s a quick and easy way to access settings. Simply swipe down from the top of your screen and the Notifications menu will open. Press the blue icon (sliders) beside the date to access your settings.
• Uninstall apps. This used to be one of the more complicated actions of Android, but with 4.0, it’s easy. On the home screen press the Apps icon (white circle with 6 squares) and find the app you would like to uninstall. Press and hold the app, drag it up to Uninstall which will be in the top left of the screen and let go.
• Swipe away. A neat feature of 4.0 is that you can swipe away apps and messages in some locations. If you have lots of notifications, open the Notifications menu and swipe the message to the right to dismiss it. You can also do the same with recent programs (double rectangles in the bottom right of your screen) and browser tabs.
• Disable app icons. When you download and install programs from Google Play, a shortcut will be automatically placed on your home screen. You can turn this off by opening Google Play and selecting the icon with three vertical grey squares followed by Settings. Tap Auto-add widgets and app shortcuts won’t be added to your home screen after they’re installed.
• Send text response when you can’t answer. If you’re in a meeting and can’t answer a call, simply drag the call selector button up to be given a number of text responses you can send to the caller.
• Quick browser control. You can streamline the browser controls in the stock Android browser. Open the browser and select the three grey squares in the top right of the screen and tap Settings. Select Labs followed by Quick Controls. You’ll notice that your URL bar and tabs are gone. To see them, press and hold anywhere on the right side of your screen to bring up a selection wheel.

Ice Cream Sandwich is by far the best version of OS and offers users some great features. If you’d like to learn more about Ice Cream Sandwich, or other Android products please let us know. We’re happy to help.

Change is always happening, sometimes it’s good and other times it’s bad. Google is a company that embraces change, constantly updates its apps to increase functionality, introduces new features, and solidifies and integrates other apps into a single app or retires redundant apps. A recent update to the Android Marketplace has managed to do all four of these things.

Google have killed off the existing Android Marketplace and replaced it with Google Play. Android Marketplace was an Android only marketplace, and this did not mesh well with Google’s current goal of integration across platforms. What Google has done with Google Play is integrate movies, books, apps and music into one central hub. Any movies, music or books users have previously bought through their respective services have also been moved to Google Play.

The Marketplace, Music, Movies and Books apps have also been renamed: Google Play, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies and Google Play Books. This has been done to promote integration across the Google platform. You can buy a book from your tablet, start reading, switch to your phone and pick up where you left off. When you get to work, you can continue reading on your browser.

What does this mean for my business?
If your company uses Android devices it means that the Android apps and other related software can be purchased all from the same place. It will also make it easier to roll out and install apps from one browser. Other than that, there aren’t that many major changes aside from the name changes – Google Play looks and acts exactly the same as the Android Marketplace.

This change seems to be for the good, and will give Android users a centralized place for their entertainment and apps. For more information on Android, or Google, please give us an email. We’re here to help.

The big difference between Android and the iOS is the fact that, on an Android device, you can play Flash videos. There are times however when this seeming advantage can be a disadvantage as Flash (such as Flash ads) can slow down your browsing experience or even crash your browser. There is a solution.

You can turn off Flash if you choose to. Simply go to your Browser’s Settings by pressing on the Menu/Options button, then go to Advanced and change ‘Enable plug-ins’ setting from “Always on” to “On demand.” Flash applications will now appear as an arrow that you must touch to start.

If you own an Android phone, you can use it as a substitute for an external drive or a USB key. You can load files into your phone simply by plugging it in to a PC with a USB cable, then tapping on “Mount” when you are prompted by the system.

This mounts the internal storage of the device as an external drive relative to the PC, and you can easily drag and drop files or create folders on the device as you see fit. Of course, it is recommended you do this on the SDCard that likely came with the device, or one that you buy for your phone.