Leaked Android 4.3 Jelly Bean

Android 4.3 Jelly Bean ROM leaked last week and the most interesting fact is that it wasn't for a Google Nexus device. This leaked ROM was for the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition. It must be sad that this leaked Android 4.3 is an early build and changes may be present in the final build.

For now we have very few user-facing changes in this version, but we could see some modifications in the official Android 4.3 final build when it comes out. Listed below is what is new in leaked Android 4.3 found on Samsung Galaxy S4:

The Camera: this camera is the same with the one that we find on Google Play Edition Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. For most part, there are UI changes and improvements on what is already a very good camera.  The big change here is the camera settings circle, which has gone from a full circle design to a semi circle. The interesting part is that you can already Download Android 4.3 Camera apk and install it on your non-Nexus device. It works flawlessly, i can tell you from my on experience. You can go ahead and download it from the link above.

Google Android 4.3 new camera user interface

New SunBeam live wallpaper: this was first seen this on Google Play Edition of HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. Now it has a new name and it's called Phase Beam live wallpaper and like the camera, you can Download Sun Beam Live Wallpaper apk and install it on your smartphone. It's new and shiny!

New SunBeam Live Wallpaper

Always on Wi-Fi : hidden deep in advanced WiFi settings there is a strange option which states “Scanning always available”. This means that your Wi-Fi will always be turned on, enabling applications, and Google of course, to always get a position on you. But don't panic, this option has more to do with saving your precious battery juice than with invading your privacy. This method of determining your exact position is much more battery friendly than the other one, GPS always on. A big improvement if you ask me. But if you have privacy concerns than simply turn it off.

Low Energy Bluetooth: this feature has been talked about for a while now, and it appears that this option has finally made it's debut on this leaked Android Jelly Bean 4.3 build. The name "Bluetooth Low Energy" is telling us exactly what this feature will do for your smartphone. Yes, you guessed it,  it will go easy on your battery and it will enable a bluetooth frequency that consumes considerably less power.

Other Minor Changes: you will find some new developer settings as well as some renaming of different settings like “cell broadcast” setting which will be known from now by the name of “mobile broadcasts”.

Bellow you have a short video presentation of this build:

Conclusion: this particular build of Android 4.3 doesn’t have many user side changes, changes that are very visible for the end user but it seems that  Android 4.3 Jelly Bean will be more of an refinement rather than an big evolution. The revolution would be televised and will be brought to you by the next big thing from Google: Android Key Lime Pie.

When will we see it? Well, let me take here a wild guess...pretty, pretty soon! Internet rumors place the official launch of Android Jelly Bean 4.3 toward the end of summer.

So, what are your thoughts on this early leak, are you a bit disappointed, did you expected more from Android 4.3? What other changes/additions did you hope for? 

By Aleman Adrian

Leaked Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 for Samsung Galaxy S3

SamMobile, a community dedicated to Samsung mobile devices, just got hold on the latest Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 test firmware for Samsung Galaxy S3. This is the second leaked version of Jelly Bean 4.2.2 that has hit the internet in the last month.

A couple of weeks ago i managed to get my hands on the first 4.2.2 firmware and, with great enthusiasm and expectations, i proceeded forward with the operation code named  "Flash 4.2.2 Jelly Bean On Galaxy 3". For starters, i have to say that this firmware was a test firmware and is considered to be a pre-release version of the upcoming Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean which will be released, sooner are later, for all of 50 millions Samsung Galaxy S3 out there. This being sad, the test firmware didn't disappoint at all. Almost all the new futures that Samsung introduce with the launch of Galaxy S4 managed to find their way to Galaxy 3 devices. Obviously, one could discover a bug here and a bug there, if you looked deep enough, but keep in mind that this was a pre-release test firmware for Galaxy S3 and was not officially endorsed by Samsung. The same goes for the second coming of Jelly Bean 4.2.2. test firmware.

Android Update 4.2.2 for S3 tweet from SamMobile Twitter page

Developing stage for Android 4.2.2 isn't completely done yet and the South Korean smartphone manufacturer still has some problems with the TouchWiz user interface, meaning that the final Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy S3 will not be released anytime soon as some folks would have hoped, but rather at the end of July or even late August 2013.

Samsung Galaxy S3 with leaked Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2

So, what is all the fuss about? Is it better? Does it run faster? Should i hold my horses and not buy the new Galaxy S4? Below you will find a list with what is new, what has improved and what are the  enhancements in the Samsung Galaxy S3 Android 4.2.2 update:

• new Samsung Galaxy S4 lockscreen which means you can now have multiple widgets at the same time on your lockscreen 
• daydream feature
• fully functional driving mode
• two new unlock phone effects - Light and Ripple
• new screen modes  imported directly from S4: professional photo and adapt display
• interactive notifications, new additions in notification center 
• additional voice controls and improvements to Samsung in house breed S-Voice 
• completely revamped and redesigned settings menu,  exactly like you can find on S4
• you will have more voice commands for controlling different parts of S3
• new look with white 3D background for gallery browsing
• you now have the option to move apps to SD card in Samsung Galaxy 3

Samsung Galaxy S3

You must be aware that Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean leaked firmware update will work only with Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300. You can check what kind of flavor is your phone by navigating to Settings>About phone>Model number. After you made sure that you got the international version of Samsung Galaxy S3 you can proceed further and download Android 4.2.2 leak for Galaxy S3. It goes without saying that your phone must be rooted.

As this firmware is branded as a test, an alfa update firmware, i will not be providing instruction of how to flash your phone with this 4.2.2 Android update. However, i can point you to Samsung Galaxy S3 thred on XDA forums where you will have all the tools and information that you need for successfully flash your phone with this latest update.

I hope you will find it in you and you will have the strength to flash your beloved Galaxy S3 and rejoice at the thought that you are now part of a select few who can enjoy this latest update! Please, kind readers, do share with us your Android updating adventures in the comments below.

By Aleman Adrian

Best Android Custom ROM: CyanogenMod

CyanogenMod huge success resides in it's ability to offer you an almost pure Android experience.  Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean is Google’s latest and greatest Android version, but you will only find this Jelly Bean flavor on Nexus devices, and there’s no way of telling when other Android devices, like Samsung galaxy S3 for instance, will be updated.

CyanogenMod is by far one of my favorite Android custom ROM's. CM essentially gives you full  access to features hidden deep into Android system and the ability to temper with your phones hardware. You will be able over-clock or under-clock the CPU and, as a result, CyanogenMod can offer significant battery life improvements. You will experience a redefined Android experience. CM transforms your device in such a way that your Samsung, Sony or Lg smartphone will look and feel like Google intended from the start, the Nexus way.

There are so many fantastic features in CyanogenMod ROM's, that is pretty difficult to pinpoint any of them, as different users tend to have different preferences. We will discuss just the most important of them so that you get a general idea and feel of what CM ROM's can do for you. CyanogenMod has proven itself, over and over again, to be more appealing than any of Samsung, Sony, HTC or LG's variations of Google Android mobile OS. Gone is the bloatware and gone are the ugly and buggy TouchWiz, Sense or Moto Blur user interfaces. They are being replaced by the more simplistic and bug-free Trebuchet UI. This helps CyanogenMod to be as streamlined and lightweight as it can be.

CyanogenMod is most definitely more smoother, stable, consistent and faster than any other stock ROM. This is made possible because CM takes full advantages of your smartphone's hardware through some clever coding and software engineering. You will be able now to customize your phone's processor clock speed and the amount of zRAM  that you will have at your disposal. There are others hardware related  tweaks that you can apply to your smartphone and you can find more about them on CyanogenMod own website.

Once you installed ("flash" in Android terms) CM on your smartphone you will have access to new features like profiles, quick menu access or the ability to customize the power menu. You can tweak the power widget, the lock screen shortcuts and even change what the hardware keys do. One can also fine tune their operator network, telling the phone to switch seamlessly between 2G/3G/4G networks and, very important for some users,  Wifi tethering just works!

Themes are also a big deal for CM fans. There are literally thousands of themes out there just waiting to be downloaded and applied. You can change the color and icons of the status bar, the color of keyboard keys and fonts and the general appearance of phone's dialer. 

It doesn't matter if your smartphone is high-end or not,  CyanogenMod should install on almost every smartphone out there without any problems. And this is the one big advantage that CM brings to the table. The ability to install the latest and greatest Android from Google on your old smartphone. You can now take full advantage of the latest developments in Google's original Android and  benefit from the tweaks that CyanogenMod team provides for the end user. 

A fairly popular nice addition in all CyanogenMod ROM's is the ability to change music tracks with volume keys when your phone screen is turned off. A long press on volume up or volume down will be enough to change tracks in any music player.

So, what are you waiting for? Here is a quick link to +xda-developers Google Plus page where you can find more details about your specific phone and appropriated CyanogenMod version.

By Aleman Adrian

What are Android Custom ROM's?

If you are a proud owner of an Android smartphone then you will surely have heard by now about custom ROM's. If you find yourself lost when it comes to installing aftermarket ROM's, upgrading your phone software or you are not really sure why you need it - then it's time for you to make acquaintance with  the wonderful world of custom ROM's.  But, is it safe, should i do it? Hopefully, i will manage to clear things up for you in this post. 

Custom ROM's Logo

Let's get started by explaining what all of these mambo-jambo geeky abbreviations stand for:

• stock ROM is the phone's operating system that comes with your smartphone when you buy it.
• custom ROM is a standalone working version of Android with custom code modifications to make the OS (operating system) run smoother, faster and better on a device 

Now a few words about how Android ecosystem really works. Google, the original developer of Android, offers a  so called vanilla version of Android to smartphone manufacturers all over the world. But, being an open software project, means that Google makes the Android source code available for anyone to use,  free of charge of course. Software connoisseurs and digital gurus from all over the word take this precious code and alter it in any way their heart desires it, whether to add useful extra-features and tweaks or to completely reskin the entire ROM. They will do pretty much what their mental agility and technical skills allow them to do.

Paranoid Android Custom ROM

Many of these Android software experts join forces over the internet and form ROM release groups. Their ultimate goal is to build the fastest and most feature rich custom ROM out there.  Some of  the most successful ROM's are the ones released by CyanogenMod, but we will talk about them in another post.

Everything more clear now? Great, let's move on folks! Enumerated bellow you will find the most important advantages that you can gain over stock ROM's if you are going the Custom Rom way, the right way:

Custom ROM for LG smartphones

1. Better performance and efficiency: it is a known fact that custom ROM's use less memory, run more faster and efficient and are battery friendly in the same time 
2. Regular updates and releases: having a custom ROM installed on your smartphone means that you will get more frequent updates, bug fixes and also get new features
3. Faster switch to the latest Android version: if your desire is to always be on the very cutting edge of what Android can provide than you are oblige to install a custom ROM. Freelance developer tend to offer the latest and greatest version of Android and this is in straight contrast with  the update policies of big smartphone manufacturers who rarely update their software. 
4. You can install apps to the SD card: believe it or not, some of the biggest players in smartphone industry don't offer this simple but yet very useful option. This feature can come in handy when we dealing with large data quantities that some applications require like games, for instance.
5. Rom shuffle: once you have rooted and installed a custom ROM, you can try various custom ROM's. If you want to, you can even revert to your stock manufacturer software that your phone originally came with.

And there you have it, all the motives why you should root and install custom ROM's on your Android smartphone. With this post, i hope that i have managed to convince you to take the big step and cross over to custom ROM side. 

Have you installed any custom ROM's on your smartphone? If so, what is opinion? Share your thoughts in the comments section bellow!

By Aleman Adrian

Top 5 Android Applications of June 2013

Who doesn't fancy a top 10? Or a concise and informative list? We all do, we love them! So i decided to compile a documented top of Android apps in every month. Let's get started.

Are you in search of new apps and would  like to install fresh and innovative  applications on your Android device? Look no further! Here, in this post, you will find a list of five successful Android apps as of June 2013.

You can find numerous apps on Google Play market, and shuffling through them can be quite overwhelming and intimidating sometimes. You can loose your way fast and you can end up installing Google Play apps that you don't really want or need. And that's where i intervene. The role of this kind of posts will be to guide you through the apps jungle. Here are just some of the free apps that you must install on your Android phones or tablets. Five of them. This applications have old stats and by now they have been downloaded by millions from Google Android Play Store. Oh, and did i mentioned that they are free? Click on the name of the application for more detailed information and free download.

5. Soundhound

Say you are on a terrace, enjoying your tea, and suddenly that music track that you so much enjoyed on the radio on your way to work, just pops up from the speakers on the terrace. Now you really have to know what's it called and this is where Soundhound comes in handy. Much like Shazam, Soundhound can recognize a song by "listening" to a tune  from a speaker in about five or four seconds. You will also get up to date information on touring dates of that artist or band, you can watch music videos related to the artist, buy the song, view lyrics and even share your newly discovered favorite artist on Facebook or Twitter. Nice!

4. Instagram

Instagram is a photo-sharing application for mobile devices and it can be found both on Android and IOS. How does it work? Simply. You take a photo, then choose an effect that you apply to this photo, share it online on Instagram's own network or on any other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. But what makes these app so popular? Instagram  was the first application who made editing and sharing photos easy and so it managed to established itself as the choice when you wanted to install a photo-sharing app on your smartphone. Celebrities use it, car manufacturers use it, politicians use it and all of your friends use it! Everybody is using it. What are you waiting for? Download Instagram.

3. Beautiful Widgets Lite

A nice feature that only Android smartphone have is the ability to add all kind of widgets to your homescreen. Beautiful Widgets offers a ton of these widgets . You will have widgets that can tell the time,  weather conditions in your area or any other place that you are interested in and you can also see a beautiful animations of your battery status. You can resize any of these widgets to fit on your Android device screen. Another nice addition is the possibility to set up all kinds of animation to make your home screen feel more alive.

2. One Today by Google

For all of those who feel compel to do a good think every day, this application, developed by Google, showcases on your phone various nonprofit organization every day and offers them a chance to donate 1$. The do-gooders can support different causes ranging from protecting the environment to helping starving children in Africa and also, through social media or email, can encourage their friends to donate too! One Today by Google  is currently available only in a few countries through a limited pilot.

1. Vine

Vine, an Iphone exclusive application until recently, is live on Google Play for every androider out there to enjoy! What is so great about Vine, you ask? With Vine you can shoot a short video, exactly six second long, and then share it on your Twitter. Most like Instagram, with Vine for Android it' all about user created content. You will find that more and more celebrities have Vine accounts and you are witnessing the inception of a huge hype wave that will engulf all social media. Trust me, i'm from the internets!

I really hope you enjoyed my first "top 5 Android applications" and you have find it useful in your quest for a better Android experience.  The good application are out there, we just need to get to them!

By Aleman Adrian

What is Android?

It has been back in September 2008 that a little chubby green robot made it's first public appearance on a mobile touchscreen device. Almost 5 years later, and the Android robot is stronger than ever.  Google's mobile operating system has been incredibly successful in managing to find it's way to almost every smartphone and tablet out there. Still, there are folks who wonder about the green robot, finding themselves in a middle of a little puzzlement, trying to understand what it all means. If you find yourself in this category than consider this article as a crash course in all things Android. Keep on reading and the uncertainty will end here! 

What is Android?

 

To cut a long story short, Android is the world's most popular mobile operating system and it can be found mostly on smartphones and tablets.

Android is a Linux-based mobile phone operating system that is actively developed and owned by all mighty Google. What differentiate Google's Android operating system from Apple's iOS mobile operating system or Microsoft's Windows Phone is the fact that Google is giving it away for free to different hardware manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola or HTC to name just a few. This companies can than add their own twist and customization's to the vanilla software provided to them by Google and that is way you will find a galore of Android user interfaces on smartphones. But, at their core, all of them have inside Android's green robots.

Google is constantly developing and updating Android software and this updates normally come out every six to eight months. Android software versions usually arrive with codenames that are named after desserts like Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and with the latest and greatest  being Jelly Bean. The next Android iteration will be called Key Lime Pie. Hungry for more? Read on!

So, what can i do with an Android phone? 

Mostly, all you can think about. From simple tasks like reading your favorite newspaper, writing an email or diving yourself deep in to social networking, listening music or watching HD videos to more complex tasks like finding your way through the world by using your phones GPS navigation or counting every single calorie that you had burned on that last wild bicycle ride through the woods!

The open nature of the Android mobile operating system offers application developers a lot of room to maneuver. Most of the flagship phones have a plenitude of hardware sensors on their insides and outsides like temperature & humidity sensor, accelerometer, barometer, GPS, proximity sensors and many others ( over 10 sensors are present in some cases ) and by combining this hardware sensors with software wizardry you will be amazed by the ingenuity, resourcefulness  and inventiveness of some application developers.

What are these apps i keep hearing about and where can i get them?

You can  literally find hundreds of thousands of apps and games available in Google Play Store. It is predicted that in June 2013, the one million available application holy grail will be reached and surpassed. Most of them are free for you to download and use (in some cases advertising will be displayed), for others you will have to pay a small fee and lastly, there are a few application with monthly subscription. 

In Google Play Store you can find applications for photo editing, video editing, weather forecast, productivity application like calendars, document editing applications and office surrogates, application for fm or satellite radio listening and music&video players. And this is just the the tip of the iceberg. You can find apps that track your daily calories intake, track you sleeping habits or count your every step you take, application that can tell you how long was your last jogging session, what was your average heart rate or how many calories you have burned.

And of course there are games. Games! Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you've probably heard of and played Angry Birds, Temple Run, Diamonds Blaze and many others, the list can go on forever.

As more and more software developers tend to build platform agnostic applications, you can rest assured that you will always find applications that will suit your every need.

 Who makes Android smartphones? Now i really want one!

All the major consumer electronics manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Sony are producing top of the line smartphones. HTC is specialized in producing only smartphones and they are pretty successful at doing just this. Google also is a big player in this market through his own line of products, Nexus, which are manufactured under licence by LG, Samsung or Motorola, the last one being acquired by Google last year. The Chinese are present ( how could they not be?) in this emerging market through their own brands, most notably ZTE and Huawei.

Not every android smartphone is created equal and not one is alike. They come in many different colors, shapes, sizes and specific hardware configurations. Some have dual, quad or even octa cores incredibly fast processors, others have 10 or 12 MPx powerful cameras and most of them have gorgeous big 4' to 5' inch AMOLED or LED touchscreens.

Some of the most popular android smartphones on the market now are Samsung Galaxy S4 (1080p, 4.9' Amoled screen), Google Nexus 4 (720p, 4.7' Lcd screen) and, my favorite, the beautifully and carefully designed HTC One.

Closing words

Google's android ecosystem is constantly growing and expanding enveloping in the process big chunks of smartphones market. Even more than this, android is fast in establishing itself as the #1 player on  tablet market to. So you see, there's really no escaping from Google's green robot embrace. If you plan to become a well informed citizen in all things android, visit this blog regularly and i will do my best to keep you updated with the latest developments and fresh details regarding Google's smartphone&tablet operating system.   

By Aleman Adrian