About Author: Dan Sung

Thinner, faster, better

The Samsung Galaxy S III is one of the biggest gadgets of 2012. With its predecessor topping the Android charts in the previous year and pretty much sweeping up all the best mobile phone awards it could find, it’s of little surprise that the world has its ears like a safe cracker to the web for news about the next member of this highly acclaimed super-smartphone dynasty.

Naturally, it’s our job here at Pocket-lint to sweep up any such tidbits of information and mould them in our experienced grip until we have a fully formed model of what we all expect the Samsung Galaxy S III to look like. Whether that turns out to reflect what the real phone shapes up to be remains to be seen, but read on to find out the shape of things right now according to the Samsung Galaxy S III rumours.

Samsung Galaxy S III release date

It all began just one month after the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S II when the president of Samsung’s mobile division, J.K. Shin, told the Dow Jones Newswires in an exclusive interview: “Samsung may launch a third version of its Galaxy S smartphone in the first half of next year after launching a second-generation version called Galaxy S II last month.”

Now that “may” might have sounded a shade wishy-washy at the time but we only had to wait until the 11 October 2011 for our next glimpse into the future when Phandroid.com received a leaked slide of the Samsund roadmap which featured none other than the Samsung Galaxy S III at the top of the tree. There were no dates along with the information but, with around six months to go, a Mobile World Congress 2012 launch wasn’t a big stretch.

But a big stretch it turned out to be by the end of January 2012 when Pocket-lint reported via Sammyhub and the Verge that what looked to be nailed on seemed to be suffering from delay. According to a well-trusted source group called “people familiar with the matter”, Samsung had been planning an MWC 2012 launch but there were issues which meant the timescale had been set back to a “before summer” release and that could have been about trying to reduce the long gap before users in the US got to buy them, as occured with the SGS2 arrival.

“We are still reviewing several options when to launch, so we'll let you know when it's decided,” was the official line at the time from Samsung’s head of Global Marketing, Younghee Lee, as he more or less made the handset official for the very first time.

All the same, it wasn’t until Samsung dropped a memo into Pocket-lint’s inbox a few days later on 1 February 2012 that we knew for sure that MWC 2012 was simply too soon.

"The successor to the Galaxy S II smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product." was the word and the current anticpated arrival time for the Samsung Galaxy S III is May 2012.

Samsung Galaxy S III screen

The Galaxy S II had a whopper of a display when it arrived and Samsung even inched it out a little further for the LTE version, so one might expect something similarly grand for the Samsung Galaxy S III screen.

According to the leaked information on Phandroid.com in October, that’s exactly what will be happening with 0.1” addition taking the total to 4.6” on the diagonal. The same rumour talks of a much expected upgrade in the actual technology of the screen too. First it was Super AMOLED, then the SGS2 made it a Super AMOLED Plus and then the Galaxy Nexus came out with a 720p Super AMOLED HD. Apparently the Samsung Galaxy S III will have a Super AMOLED Plus HD. What this means in real terms has not been said but, in practice, it’s either going to be a 720p or 1080p resolution.

The only other story so far on the matter came from Samsung itself. Just after CES 2012, the company produced a video with its new product launch triumphs fresh from the show and some bright spark with the pause button at the ready spotted a large, but not Galaxy Note style, mobile device seven minutes in. What we see is a broader mobile with virtually edge-to -dge screen across its width and even less black along the top and bottom than you currently get on the SGS2. It looks great. The chances are, however, that it’s some kind of mock up but one never quite knows.

Samsung Galaxy S III camera

Again, it’s really, so far, only October’s leak that’s given us anything to go on in terms of the Samsung Galaxy S III camera. The word on the slide shot is that the 8MP rear-facer is going to be upgraded to a 12-megapixel backlit sensor which should improve performance under low light conditions as well as up the resolution. What’s more is that the sensor is apparently the same size as one you’d find in a compact at 1/2.3" and that might have some very interesting optical improvements so long as the lens put in front of it and circuitary behind it are up to scratch. That’s also if the leaked photo happens to be true, which looks a bit less likely when you notice a couple of typos.

The possible mock up in the post-CES promo video gives us another potential clue as far as the front-facing camera goes and that’s only to say that it’s in the same position as before. One would hope to get a little more resolution than the VGA version in the SGS2 but more on that when we hear about it.

Samsung Galaxy S III processor

The Phandroid.com roadmap listed a?dual-core 1.8GHz Exynos 4212 chip backed up with 2GB of RAM as the engine room of choice for the Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone. On the one hand, the memory seems about right but, what with Tegra 3 and quad-core processors looking to rule the waves in 2012, the Exynos 4212 seems a touch short.

Indeed, according to a report in Androidandme.com in November 2011, it will, in fact, be an all-new?Exynos 4412 system-on-a-chip instead. The Exynos 4412 is still based on an ARM Cortex A9 CPU architecture but comes with four cores running at a 1.5GHz clock. The GPU attached is said to be a?Mali-T604 GPU with a 5x faster factor than previous Mali chips and up to, again, four cores to work with.

Samsung Galaxy S III form factor

Form factor-wise, while the Phandroid.com rumour reports Samsung taking a step away from the squared-off candybar shape to disentangle itself from any iPhone infringements, the more interesting information is in the February 2012 story from Korean publication ETnews. The suggestion here is that the Samsung Galaxy S III will be just 7mm thick, thanks to?printed circuit boards, connector parts and chips that are 10 to 20 per cent thinner than conventional units. That would make it 1.9mm thinner than the SGS2.

Samsung Galaxy S III connectivity

The Phandroid.com report from October 2011 stated that the Samsung Galaxy S III would come equipped with both NFC and LTE connectivity. That certainly makes sense, given that two of Samsung's recent top phones have included these standards, so there's no reason why the company would deprive their upcoming flagship model of them either. The question for UK users, of course, is whether we'll see the LTE version this side of the Atlantic?

Samsung Galaxy S III software

With Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich the latest version of the Google Mobile software for the first part of 2012, it's pretty much a cert that that's what will be adorning the Samsung Galaxy S III. The variable is the UI on top and, although there's been no word either way, the obvious choice is whatever the latest version of Samsung's TouchWiz is. Currently, it's TouchWiz 4.0 as released on the SGS2, so either that or an all-new TouchWiz 5.0 would make the most sense.

Samsung Galaxy S III pictures

So far, the Samsung Galaxy S III has been kept pretty well under wraps. For visuals, the two images we have to go on are from the post-CES 2012 promo video and the roadmap from Phandroid.com. The best bet would be to take both with a pinch of salt but it’s probably the latter which we’d hope to hold more truth. What the slide suggests is that the Galaxy S III will be less boxy than the previous models with a larger curve at the bottom and soft keys much more like the Galaxy Nexus.

Doubtless we’ll get more blurry shots and leaked images as we get closer to launch.

Samsung Galaxy S III price

There’s been no word on the Samsung Galaxy S III price for the time being. One would expect it to come in at under the cost of the iPhone, as is usual for top Android phones, but not a huge amount less. Naturally, bigger and better technology is going to drive the price up but the original ?499 PAYG/?40pm contract release tag of the Samsung Galaxy S II would seem like a decent guide.

Samsung Galaxy S III review

Expect plenty more coverage as we get closer to the release date and a full and thorough Samsung Galaxy S III review once we've had a chance to get Samsung’s latest top super-smartphone for 2012 into the Pocket-lint labs.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Samsung Samsung Galaxy S II Samsung Galaxy S III Features Android Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Samsung Galaxy S III: Review of rumours, features, pictures and specs originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:11:00 +0000

Organise your life

Evernote is not the only note taking service. If you’ve never got on with the green-look super-program that is, then today’s App of the Day on Pocket-lint is definitely worth a try. For a start, you can change the background to one of a huge variety of different non-green themes and, secondly, it’s a lot more social and a touch user-friendlier too.

So, if your life needs a little sorting out, you’re terrible at remembering things or you just want to bring all those little post-it notes of yours into the digital age, then the app you need to try out is...

Springpad

Platform

Web, iOS, Android

Price

Free

Where

Here, here and here

Springpad’s been around as a web service for quite a while but, if you are going to take to it fully, you’ll need to download a mobile version for your iOS or Android device as well. Fortunately, it’s free, so no excuses there.

The way it works is that you create notes to add to your profile. You can make them from scratch by typing them in yourself or you can get Springpad to look things up for you. So, for example, you might want to remember the name of a book or a film or a bottle of wine that tickled your fancy. Quickly put in a brief search term and Springpad will find it out there on the web in services like Amazon or Pricegrabber or even on the social networks if it’s a person that you’re seeking. Should it be a product, however, the service might also come up with a list of places to get it near you and just what it will cost.

On top of that, you can create tasks that will alert you, sync Springpad with your Google Calendar, scan in from barcodes and there's even a section which ties in your Facebook and Twitter networks so that you can see the notes that your friends are saving too - so long as they've allowed that of course. Nothing on Springpad is open to the public unless you've set it to share.

The whole idea is that you've then got all your thoughts, inspirations and wished-for products and consumables in the same place just ready for you to act upon.?All in all, lots to play with. Make sure to give it a full go before you decide whether it works for you.

Tags: Apps Android apps iPhone apps iPad apps App of the day Springpad Evernote

 

APP OF THE DAY: Springpad review originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:06:00 +0000

Organise your life

Evernote is not the only note taking service. If you’ve never got on with the green-look super-program that is, then today’s App of the Day on Pocket-lint is definitely worth a try. For a start, you can change the background to one of a huge variety of different non-green themes and, secondly, it’s a lot more social and a touch user-friendlier too.

So, if your life needs a little sorting out, you’re terrible at remembering things or you just want to bring all those little post-it notes of yours into the digital age, then the app you need to try out is...

Springpad

Platform

Web, iOS, Android

Price

Free

Where

Here, here and here

Springpad’s been around as a web service for quite a while but, if you are going to take to it fully, you’ll need to download a mobile version for your iOS or Android device as well. Fortunately, it’s free, so no excuses there.

The way it works is that you create notes to add to your profile. You can make them from scratch by typing them in yourself or you can get Springpad to look things up for you. So, for example, you might want to remember the name of a book or a film or a bottle of wine that tickled your fancy. Quickly put in a brief search term and Springpad will find it out there on the web in services like Amazon or Pricegrabber or even on the social networks if it’s a person that you’re seeking. Should it be a product, however, the service might also come up with a list of places to get it near you and just what it will cost.

On top of that, you can create tasks that will alert you, sync Springpad with your Google Calendar, scan in from barcodes and there's even a section which ties in your Facebook and Twitter networks so that you can see the notes that your friends are saving too - so long as they've allowed that of course. Nothing on Springpad is open to the public unless you've set it to share.

The whole idea is that you've then got all your thoughts, inspirations and wished-for products and consumables in the same place just ready for you to act upon.?All in all, lots to play with. Make sure to give it a full go before you decide whether it works for you.

Tags: Apps Android apps iPhone apps iPad apps App of the day Springpad Evernote

 

APP OF THE DAY: Springpad review originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:06:00 +0000

Free movies wherever you go

With the world now awash with video-on-demand services, one might wonder if we really need another to think about, but that’s exactly what we’re recommending on App of the Day at Pocket-lint.

We’re not saying that you shouldn’t be spending your time trying to figure out whether you’re a Netflix or Lovefilm kind of person but if you want something quick, dirty and on the side, then today’s player is for you. What’s more, it involves that all important magic word - free!

Crackle

Platform

iOS, Android, Xbox, PS3, TVs

Price

Free

Where

Market/iTunes

Crackle has been around for a few years now - and even a few years before that, when it went by the name of Grouper. These days, under the stewardship of Sony Pictures Entertainment, it brings free-to-stream films from its parent company's catalogue as well as a clutch of orginal content in the shape of some specially made TV series. We’re not going to lie to you - the TV series are not particularly attractive and the movie catalogue could be described as a touch dated at best. All the same, there are some gems just waiting to be unearthed. For every Cruel Intentions 2 there is a One False Move; for every Nice Dreams, a The Principal.

The quality of the streams over mobile is not great. They’re pixelated just over the threshold at which you notice it; and searching for films beyond the featured carousel on the front and the Most Popular section isn’t as easy as it should be. But it’s all a fairly small price to pay given that you’re getting decent, feature-length movies for nothing. Probably the nicest touch is that the Crackle app will remember where you last left a film if you don’t manage to finish it in one sitting.

You can download the app for nothing on iOS and Android and you’ll also find versions of it on games consoles and a lot of internet-connected TVs out there. If none of those methods tickles your fancy, you can always just visit the Crackle website and watch films there.

Tags: Apps Android apps iPhone apps iPad apps Crackle Movies Films App of the day

 

APP OF THE DAY: Crackle review (Android, consoles, iOS, Smart TVs) originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

For the smartest phone of all

Smartphones apps aren't just about games. There's some educating to do out there if you'd care to tear yourself away from Fruit Ninja for just two minutes and we at Pocket-lint have amassed the very best Android apps for learning and reference so that you know where to start.

So, whether it's spodding up for a pub quiz, indulging in your affair with outer space or simply learning how to speak the Queen's English properly, you'll find something to tickle your t?te here. Seek out, download, digest and achieve enlightenment.

NASA App

It's a real pleasure to see an organisation like NASA have such a thoroughly good app available on Android. It's simply packed with information and freebie media and without so much as an advert to pay for it. What's another few quid when you're in the business of sending men to the Moon?

NASA App brings you all the information on all of the current NASA missions including schedules as well as just what they're trying to achieve. On top of that, there's access to a vast library of space photos, the NASA YouTube channel, TV & Radio sections, the Twitter feed, but, probably best of all, are the ringtones which include speeches by JFK, bleeps and cheeps over the radio and, of course, immortal words like "the eagle has landed".

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 5/5

?

Google Sky Map

Continuing on the cosmos, Google Sky Map is an absolute shoe-in for best apps on Android phones in general and there's no way it wasn't going to make this list. One of the original AR bits of software for Android phones, it allows you to wave your mobile around your head as you use it as a window to the stars and other celestial bodies.

Your mobile screen then shows you a map of outer space with everything in its correct positioned and all named too. Want to know what that bright star is that you're looking at? Google Sky Map will tell you. If there's too much to take in at once, then you can filter the sorts of things you're looking for. Best of all, no data connection is required.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 5/5

?

How to Tie a Tie

If you thought there was only one way to tie up a tie, then prepare to have your tiny mind blown. Then prepare to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror trying to perfect them with this How to Tie a Tie app. It's a surprisingly well put together piece of software that takes you through the stages of each knot, step by step, with a picture of what you're supposed to be doing at every turn.

There are 13 to master in total with familiars like the Half Windsor and the Simple Double to the rakish Kelvin and the fiendishly tricky Persian. There's also the bonus of how to tie a bow tie as well. All in all, it's an excellent download. The only trouble is that, to our eyes, all the knots rather look the same.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 5/5

?

Origami Instructions HD

If you're looking for a way to relax, impress small children or drunken potential mates down the boozer, then you might want to think about the free Android app that is Origami Instructions HD. Yes, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding can be yours with a simple click on the Android Market, a little head-scratching and lot of sheets of practice paper.

Much like How to Tie a Tie, the app gives you step by step pictorial guides on 35 different origami schemes featuring, yes, the ever-popular crane and water bomb. Start simple with something like the whale and work your way up to the likes of the tulip.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 5/5

?

British Museum: Treasures

British Library: Treasures is the first smartphone app from the world's largest library (in terms of books and articles, not area) and it's a guide-based app that provides the opportunity for interaction with the Library’s collections at home, on the move or within the Gallery itself.?The app is a multimedia hot-bed of information and entertainment with over 100 of the Library’s greatest collection items featured in its 250 high-definition images and 40 videos.

There's loads of goodies in there for you to look at including the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dickens’s handwritten draft of Nicholas Nickleby, Jane Austen’s teenage writings, the world’s oldest bible Codex Sinaiticus, Nelson’s Battle Plan - written before his victory at Trafalgar, Galileo’s letters and Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks. Read More

Market: Link

Price: ?2.49

Rating: 4/5

?

TED Air

If you're unfamiliar with TED Talks, then a) where have you been for the last 5 years, and b) prepare to be amazed.?TED (which stands for Technology Entertainment and Design) is a worldwide, on-going conference, organised by the?Sapling Foundation, with the objective of presenting "ideas worth spreading". Since 2006, the Talks have been posted online at TED.com and there are now over 1000 of the lectures which have been viewed more than 290 million times.

The TED Air app brings a bunch of those talks to your Android mobile over Wi-Fi and 3G connection but, rather handily, you can also download each one locally for you enjoyment when you don't have any kind of data signal.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating:?5/5

?

Treasures of the Bodlean

For those unfamiliar with the Bodlean Library, it's the Oxford University central research library and it's entitled to request a copy of any book that goes into print in the land. It's been doing that for quite a while now and it has a fair few with some proper oldies like a Gutenberg Bible. But we digress.

The point is that the Bod has put together a free app featuring some of its old faves for Android users to explore. You can't read them but you can get an understanding of what some of these ancient tomes are all about and why they're so important. With lots of videos and podcasts on the subject, there's plenty of seriously rich and seriously good classical knowledge to digest here.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 4/5

?

World Atlas

There's a few atlas apps for Android but the interesting thing about World Atlas is that it's not really much of an atlas at all. That is to say that the map part of the equation is really not a big deal. In fact, it's just Google Maps, really. The good part is all the other good population, geography, social and climate info that's stuffed in along with it.

Largely, the app operates as a hub to all sorts of other services that provide the data but it's presented in a good enough way to make it work. What we really enjoy though is the flag quiz that comes as part of it too.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 3.5/5

?

Dictionary.com/Collins English Dictionary

While you're doing all this learning and reading you might come across the odd word you don't understand. No need to be ashamed. Instead, open up a good dictionary app like Dictionary.com and broaden your horizons a touch.

To be fair, there's quite a few dictionary apps out there with the likes of the Farlex Dictionary and the Free Dictionary just as good. The problem, however, is that none of the freebies out there are a even a shade on a proper paid for version like the Collins English Dictionary app or the Oxford English Dictionary one either. Why? Because all the free ones are effectively American English dictionaries and not actual English ones, and, unfortunately, both the Collins and the Oxford are ludicrously expensive.

Market: Dictionary.com/Collins

Price: Free/?18.59

Rating: 4/5 & 5/5

?

BT Phone Book

BT Phone Book is not a complicated app and, what it does, others already have done for quite a while. What's really refreshing to see though, is that the business pages guide is integrated really, really nicely on Android - to the point where it might be worth ditching the rest.

The only things that are holding it back at the moment is that not every business has bothered to put itself in the Phone Book over the last few years, with Google indexing offering more relevance.?Once that comes together, or BT agrees a deal with another data rich review service, then it's going to be a real winner. Read More

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 3/5

?

Wikipedia

There are a lot of third party Wikipedia apps on Google's mobile platform but the real Wikipedia has very recently stood up and unleashed an official version of its very own. To be fair to all the others, it's basically the same. In fact, all the Wikipedia apps are basically the same. So, we won't blame you for sticking with Wikidroid if you'd rather.

The Wikipedia Android app presents the text in any one of 280 languages, it supports voice search, offers random articles and, best of all, you can save pages for offline use as well. The whole thing is neatly presented and optimised for the small screen with a good column width, text size and lots of collapsible sections. There's also a map view so that you can see if there are any articles about anything near where you are.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 5/5

Tags: Apps Android Android apps Features Wikidroid BT Phone Book British Museum Wikipedia Dictionaries NASA Google Sky Map Origami TED

                     

Best Android apps for learning and reference originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Your smartphone, your choices

One of the joys of Android is supposed to be customisation and yet few people even bother to change their wallpaper after unboxing their little darlings. One of the problems is that most of us have been scarred by our early live wallpaper experiences - the ones that were just a little too much for our?phones?to handle 24/7 back when the insides of mobiles weren't quite as chipped up as they are these days.

Fortunately, things are different nowadays. Android smartphones have harnessed much more bite with plenty of RAM and often a dual-core processor to help kick things along. So, today is the day you fight back and remember why it was that you chose the Google OS in the first place. Here are the best Android customisation apps around at the moment; all well worth a tinker.

LauncherPro

If you've got yourself a Android phone with a slightly annoying user interface on it - as basically most people who don't own Nexus or HTC Sense phones do - then LauncherPro is a superb way to iron out those creases in your experience. The launcher also happens to represent pretty much the ultimate frontier of Android customisation short of rooting your device altogether, so the app brings with it a certain amount of kudos too.

To really get the full out of LauncherPro, you need the paid version but the basic still brings you a far zippy home and app screen, a customisable and scrollable desktop dock, as many home screens as you like and all sorts of tweaks and tucks thereabouts. It might seem a bit overwhelming and possibly a touch pointless to begin with but going really granular will pay off in a big way once you get things just right. Not a quick fix but a very good one indeed.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 4.5/5

?

Zedge

Whether it be wallpapers, notifications or ringtones that you'd like to make your own on your Android smartphone, Zedge is a good place to start. Zedge is home to 32,996 of the first lot, 82,903 of the second and a whopping 537,828 of the last. That's a few to choose from and luckily you can break them down into categories or simply search by name and subject matter.

The bits and pieces of downloadable media are user generated but there's a fairly tight net from Zedge when it comes to copyright material. All the same, if you're looking for the theme tune to CHIPs, you'll probably find it. In fact, we just did. The only down points to this app are that there's a fair bit of dross (where those filters come in handy) and there's also some nasty banner ads that could dupe you into paying for things. Just stay within the app UI and you'll be fine.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 3.5/5

?

PhotoWall Live Wallpaper

Like most good apps, PhotoWall Live Wallpaper tells you pretty much what it does in the name. It's live wallpaper comprised of photos. Simple enough.?The fun comes in because it's your photos that we're talking about and there's all sorts of different settings to choose from in terms of how you'd like them to appear. They can fade in and out, they can be a pile of overlapping Polaroids or a puzzle of pictures or a wall; you will need the 69p upgrade pack to unlock some of these though.

PhotoWall will take photos from your gallery app, or even specific folders within it, but, given permission, it's also equally adept at rifling through either your Facebook or Picasa accounts as well. At some point, of course, you'll chance upon a picture that you don't remember or you'd like to take a look at in more detail, so all you do is click on it to open it up in its own right.?Yes, this app might hog a bit of your RAM but it's well, well worth it. Read more

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 4.5/5

?

Koi Live Wallpaper

There's very little that's as tranquil as watching fish swim around a pond and Koi Live Wallpaper gives you the chance to do that wherever you go just by gazing into the screen of your mobile phone. There's not quite as many options as you get with My Beach HD below but your 69p investment still buys plenty of tick boxes and sliders.

You can adjust how many, what type of and how large the fish are; whether or not it's raining and how hard; the numbers of lillypads and flowers, and how big the rippling effect is when you tap the screen. Best of all though is when you double tap the screen to drop in some food and watch all your little friends come along for a nibble. Lovely stuff.

Market: Link

Price: 69p

Rating: 4.5/5

?

Beautiful Widgets

“Beautiful” might be pushing it a little far but, presumably, the marketing department over at LevelUp Studios didn’t think Nice Widgets would be as compelling.?Either way, what the app offers is, funnily enough, a selection of widgets for your desktop largely based around clocks and weather with the addition of little toggles for functions like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode and all that jazz.

There are widgets to suit every size from one square up to the entire screen and you can even choose what source your widgets take the time and weather from as well as how regularly they call home.The Beautiful (Nice) part of things comes in because you can download lots and lots and lots and lots of different themes so that you can change the background, the typeface and even the tone of your widgets with all sorts of pretty, scary, futuristic or whatever skins you're after. Read more

Market: Link

Price: 89p

Rating: 4/5

?

My Beach HD

My Beach HD is quite simply the very best live wallpaper we’ve come across so far. It’s not as factual nor interactive or even as clever as some, but it’s smooth, it’s beautiful, it’s detailed and, most of all, it’s fun.?Your 99p outlay buys you some beachfront property on a summer's day on what we imagine is a well to do spot of upstate New York. Not bad for a quid.

With it, you get any, all or none of a ball, bucket, cooler and drink, towel, umbrella, blanket, bonfire, bottle rocket, clouds, lifeguard chair and all sorts of other details that you can change including the weather, time of day, time of year and even a little sign which you can scrawl upon as you will. The possibilities are almost absurd. Read more

Market: Link

Price: 99p

Rating: 5/5

?

Colors

One of the big wow factors when the Nexus One arrived were those funky, interactive, live wallpapers that we could have spanning our desktops and secretly chewing through battery life and taking up precious RAM. So, eventually, these get a little dull and actually something more subtle and speedy becomes appealing.?Step in Colors by developer Tim Clark. Colors is a very simple look at wallpapers for Android. Like the name suggests, the app offers you a choice of plain colours. All you do is pick one and it becomes your wallpaper. Now, that sounds rather dull but there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

Firstly, there are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of colours to choose from. Secondly, they sort of all look brilliant, and thirdly - probably the part we like best - is that you can chop and change whenever you feel like it without having to search the Market and download another app.?Forgive the American spelling. Colors is still a fantastic app. Read More

Market: Link

Price: Free/89p

Rating: 5/5

?

Androidify

Ever wondered what the little Android mascot would look like in a nice suit? Or perhaps a dress? Or maybe even what he'd be like if he worse a bikini, had a bright pink afro, sported ballet shoes and had skinny legs??If you answered yes to any of these questions then it's clear that you're a very strange person. But you're also in luck, because with Androidify you can find out the answers to all of those wonders and more.

Androidify lets you can customise the little green robot (what is his name, does anyone know?) with an absolute wealth of styling options. You can dress and accessorise him however you want, and you can even change his body shape as well.?"Why?" you might ask. Well, so as you can post up your effort on Twitter of course - that's what everyone else seems to be doing anyway. Read More

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 3/5

Tags: Phones Apps Android Features Android apps LauncherPro PhotoWall Live Wallpaper Zedge Beautiful Widgets My Beach HD Colors Androidify Koi Live Wallpaper

     

Best Android customisation apps originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:45:00 +0000

Your pictures, your wallpaper

Sure, you've got a gallery app full of pictures on your mobile phone. Yes, you might even have the odd widget window on your desktop that connects to it too but, frankly, if you're not using today's App of the Day on your Android handset, you're not making the most of your snaps.

We know that live wallpaper is neither particularly exciting nor, for some, worthwhile spending your precious memory on but, trust good old Pocket-lint, today is the day we change your minds on that one. Meet...

PhotoWall Live Wallpaper

Platform

Android

Price

Free

Where

Step this way

Like most good apps, PhotoWall Live Wallpaper tells you pretty much what it does in the name. It's wallpaper - i.e. it covers the background of your desktop - it's live, so it moves, and it's called PhotoWall, so you can be pretty certain that this moving desktop background is, in fact, made of photographs of some kind. Simple enough.

The fun comes in, of course, because it's your photos that we're talking about and there's all sorts of different settings to choose from in terms of how you'd like them to appear. They can fade in and out, they can be a pile of overlapping Polaroids or a puzzle of pictures or a wall; you will need the 69p upgrade pack to unlock some of these though.

PhotoWall will take photos from your gallery app, or even specific folders within it, but, given permission, it's also equally adept at rifling through either your Facebook or Picasa accounts as well. At some point, of course, you'll chance upon a picture that you don't remember or you'd like to take a look at in more detail, so all you do is click on it to open it up in its own right.

Yes, this app might hog a bit of your RAM but it's well, well worth it.

Tags: Phones Android apps Wallpapers Android App of the day

 

APP OF THE DAY: PhotoWall review (Android) originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:08:17 +0000

What comes next?

The iPad 3 is probably the most hotly anticipated product of the year with the only other possible contenders for the title the iPhone 5 or the Nintendo Wii U. Frankly, we're champing at the bit to get our hands on any of them, right now.

Today, though, we're going to talk tablets, especially with the iPad 3 most likely the first of these products to hit in 2012. The intertubes have been ablaze with gossip about exactly what Apple are going to come up with this time. Will it be a significant improvement or are we talking more of an iPad 2S? It's time to review the iPad 3 rumours, follow the trail and try to work it out for ourselves. Who really wants to have to wait until Tim Cook gets on stage to know what the answer is?

iPad 3 release date

The first iPad was held aloft by Uncle Steve (GRHS) on 27 January 2010 and hit the shelves in April that year. Similarly, the iPad 2 was announced about a year later on 3 March 2011 with it, again, turning up for sale that April. Now, it doesn't take much of a genius to suspect that the iPad 3 announcement in February 2012 or thereabouts will lead to a very probable April 2012 iPad 3 release date, but ultimately that's just guesswork.

As far as the evidence goes, an anonymous Apple staffer was quoted as saying that that the iPad 3 was supposed to arrive in the autumn of 2011 back in March of the same year when the iPad 2 itself had just taken the stage. So much for that idea, despite some apparent credence added to it by the last moves of LulzSec, however much stock you put in that.

Naturally, those dates have been an gone but the last piece of hot goss on the matter was in December 2011 when Digitimes reported that Apple would show off two iPads - the iPad 3 and one other - at iWorld (what was formerly MacWorld) between 26-28 January 2012. While it's not out of the question, somehow the estimates of a February launch to time the iPad 3 release with the two previous years seems more comfortable.

iPad 3 screen

One of the most exciting developments that people are hoping for is an improved iPad screen. There was a shade of disappointment when the iPad 2 arrived sporting the same resolution as the previous model despite the upgrade of the iPhone to what Apple has termed the Retina Display.?

Since as early as May 2011 however, there have been some pretty consistent rumours that the same kind of 300dpi plus technology is in store on the iPad 3. Originally it was i4u that came up with the goods with a report focused largely around screen technology and, more specifically, that Samsung had managed to create a?2560x1600px display on a 10.1-inch device. The theory was that LG, the company behind the iPad's panel, would be following suit in time for launch. Well, maybe.

As expected, come later in the summer of 2011 and the Wall Street Journal were happily flinging their sources about talking of a doubling of the iPad's resolution from the?1024x768 to a mathematically sound 2048x1536 resolution. Fast forward to January 2012 and the same publication reported that 1 million such 2048x1536 panels, as made by both Sharp and LG Display, were to shipped to manufacturers in Q4 2011. The figure, according to the same story, is set to rise to 7-8 million in Q1 2012 supposedly in time for the launch of the iPad 3 and that all seems to fit in with the current expected timescale.

Likewise, the story in Digitimes on 29 December 2011 brought up, once again, the same screen resolution and even the use of dual-LED bars to keep it lit.

Perhaps the interesting part of the iPad 3 screen rumours is that there's been nothing suggested otherwise - no same display as the previous models and no different resolution. Could Apple really stick with the same screen yet again or is an iPad 3 Retina Display what the public is going to get?

iPad 3 camera

There's been very few rumours about the iPad 3 cameras at all. In fact, there's really only been one, and that was back at the end of December 2011 when sources from Digitimes said that the iPad 3 would come with either a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor as made by Samsung or an 8-megapixel CMOS sensor from Sony.

So, do we put much stock in those? Well, not a whole lot. An 8-megapixel sensor seems pretty ludicrous for a device that hasn't set the world alight on the photography front and even a 5MP model is quite a jump from the current 1MP rear facer. It seems like an obvious thing to do to update this part of the device but it wouldn't surprise us if it was more modest improvement. As for the front-facing camera, the 0.3MP unit does the job but there's been no word, so we'll just have to wait and see.

iPad 3 LTE

There have been suggestions that the iPad 3 would be LTE compatible from all the way back in the middle of 2011. As part of the final act of LulzSec, the big idea was that both the iPhone and iPad were both given LTE testing phases.

Now, that on its own doesn't necessarily mean we'll see any 4G technology in the final version of the iPad 3. However, in November 2011 there were two reports talking about two separate versions of the iPad 3, possibly under the codenames of J1 and J2 according to Digitimes and partly corroborated by 9to5mac.

The more likely part of this is that they're codenames for a Wi-Fi version and a 3G version. Sure, it's possible that Apple will make the iPad 3 LTE but before the iPhone and for a device that's primarily something for the sofa (how Steve Jobs demoed it at the original launch)? We're not so sure. Maybe LTE is something for the iPad 4.

iPad 3 quad-core

Each year has brought an improvement for the Apple SoC as manufactured by Samsung. The first iPad had the Apple A4, the iPad 2 had the Apple A5, so does that mean that there'll be an Apple A6 for the iPad 3?

Well, there was a story back in July 2011 that it wasn't to be Samsung who would be making the things at all after the well documented patent disputes between the two companies. However, it all seemed to be back on track by October 2011 with the Korea Times reporting that Samsung Electronics's version of a quad-core A6 going ahead as planned.

iPad 3 battery

The current generation iPad 2 has some pretty serious battery life in it for a portable device so whatever Apple releases next has big boots to fill. Rumours are that either Symplo Technology or Dynapack International Technology will be turning out the new power units.

Despite both sounding like they could transform into Skynet at any moment, they actually translate to whopping 14,000mAh batteries for the new iPad. This could mean an even more improved battery life, although we aren't sure what sort of impact a new screen or processor might have on the tablet's power consumption.?

NFC on iPad 3

Yes, it more than just an interesting rhyme. Apple was very clear that NFC technology was something that interested the company in 2011 when it quite clearly stated that there would be no NFC in the iPhone 4S, or iPhone 5 as we were expecting at the time.

Again, though, the iPad 3 doesn't seem like the first product that Apple would stuff NFC into. Not only are contactless operations less relevant on something that isn't pocketable anyway, but it's most likely come too early for Apple, who aren't known as early adopters, with the NFC infrastructure still in its fledgling stage.

iPad 3 pictures

Perhaps the oddest thing of all is that there hasn't been a single supposed shot of the iPad 3 published anywhere; not a leaked prototype, not a pre-production case, not even a blurry snap of an iPad 2 in disguise. Nothing. Does this mean that the iPad 3 will have the exact same form factor as the iPad 2? Not necessarily, but it could well be the way it works out.

iPad 3 price

Until Apple tells us all, there is absolutely no way of knowing exactly what the iPad 3 is going to cost. What we can do is examine the suspected parts inside and then ponder how much they might add to the overall device price.

So far it's the batteries that are looking worrying, the new technology meaning a possible 30 or 40 per cent cost increase for Apple, which will no doubt be translated into cost for the consumer. Still you know you are going to buy one ...

iPad 3 review

Expect plenty more coverage as we get closer to the release date and full and thorough iPad 3 review once we've had a chance to get Apple's latest tablet for 2012 into the Pocket-lint labs.

Tags: Tablets Apple iPad 3 Features iPad

iPad 3: Review of rumours, features, pictures and specs originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:44:00 +0000

What comes next?

The iPad 3 is probably the most hotly anticipated product of the year with the only other possible contenders for the title the iPhone 5 or the Nintendo Wii U. Frankly, we're champing at the bit to get our hands on any of them, right now.

Today, though, we're going to talk tablets, especially with the iPad 3 most likely the first of these products to hit in 2012. The intertubes have been ablaze with gossip about exactly what Apple are going to come up with this time. Will it be a significant improvement or are we talking more of an iPad 2S? It's time to review the iPad 3 rumours, follow the trail and try to work it out for ourselves. Who really wants to have to wait until Tim Cook gets on stage to know what the answer is?

iPad 3 release date

The first iPad was held aloft by Uncle Steve (GRHS) on 27 January 2010 and hit the shelves in April that year. Similarly, the iPad 2 was announced about a year later on 3 March 2011 with it, again, turning up for sale that April. Now, it doesn't take much of a genius to suspect that the iPad 3 announcement in February 2012 or thereabouts will lead to a very probable April 2012 iPad 3 release date, but ultimately that's just guesswork.

As far as the evidence goes, an anonymous Apple staffer was quoted as saying that that the iPad 3 was supposed to arrive in the autumn of 2011 back in March of the same year when the iPad 2 itself had just taken the stage. So much for that idea, despite some apparent credence added to it by the last moves of LulzSec, however much stock you put in that.

Naturally, those dates have been and gone but the last piece of hot goss on the matter was in December 2011 when Digitimes reported that Apple would show off two iPads - the iPad 3 and one other - at iWorld (what was formerly MacWorld) between 26-28 January 2012. While it's not out of the question, somehow the estimates of a February launch to time the iPad 3 release with the two previous years seems more comfortable.

iPad 3 screen

One of the most exciting developments that people are hoping for is an improved iPad screen. There was a shade of disappointment when the iPad 2 arrived sporting the same resolution as the previous model despite the upgrade of the iPhone to what Apple has termed the Retina display.?

Since as early as May 2011 however, there have been some pretty consistent rumours that the same kind of 300dpi plus technology is in store on the iPad 3. Originally it was i4u that came up with the goods with a report focused largely around screen technology and, more specifically, that Samsung had managed to create a?2560x1600px display on a 10.1-inch device. The theory was that LG, the company behind the iPad's panel, would be following suit in time for launch. Well, maybe.

As expected, come later in the summer of 2011 and the Wall Street Journal were happily flinging their sources about talking of a doubling of the iPad's resolution from the?1024x768 to a mathematically sound 2048x1536 resolution. Fast forward to January 2012 and the same publication reported that 1 million such 2048x1536 panels, as made by both Sharp and LG Display, were to shipped to manufacturers in Q4 2011. The figure, according to the same story, is set to rise to 7-8 million in Q1 2012 supposedly in time for the launch of the iPad 3 and that all seems to fit in with the current expected timescale.

Likewise, the story in Digitimes on 29 December 2011 brought up, once again, the same screen resolution and even the use of dual-LED bars to keep it lit.

Perhaps the interesting part of the iPad 3 screen rumours is that there's been nothing suggested otherwise - no same display as the previous models and no different resolution. Could Apple really stick with the same screen yet again or is an iPad 3 Retina display what the public is going to get?

iPad 3 camera

There have been very few rumours about the iPad 3 cameras at all. In fact, there's really only been one, and that was back at the end of December 2011 when sources from Digitimes said that the iPad 3 would come with either a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor as made by Samsung or an 8-megapixel CMOS sensor from Sony.

So, do we put much stock in those? Well, not a whole lot. An 8-megapixel sensor seems pretty ludicrous for a device that hasn't set the world alight on the photography front and even a 5-megapixel model is quite a jump from the current 1-megapixel rear facer. It seems like an obvious thing to do to update this part of the device but it wouldn't surprise us if it was more modest improvement. As for the front-facing camera, the 0.3-megapixel unit does the job but there's been no word, so we'll just have to wait and see.

iPad 3 LTE

There have been suggestions that the iPad 3 would be LTE compatible from all the way back in the middle of 2011. As part of the final act of LulzSec, the big idea was that both the iPhone and iPad were both given LTE testing phases.

Now, that on its own doesn't necessarily mean we'll see any 4G technology in the final version of the iPad 3. However, in November 2011 there were two reports talking about two separate versions of the iPad 3, possibly under the codenames of J1 and J2 according to Digitimes and partly corroborated by 9to5mac.

The more likely part of this is that they're codenames for a Wi-Fi version and a 3G version. Sure, it's possible that Apple will make the iPad 3 LTE but before the iPhone and for a device that's primarily something for the sofa (how Steve Jobs demoed it at the original launch)? We're not so sure. Maybe LTE is something for the iPad 4.

iPad 3 quad-core

Each year has brought an improvement for the Apple SoC as manufactured by Samsung. The first iPad had the Apple A4, the iPad 2 had the Apple A5, so does that mean that there'll be an Apple A6 for the iPad 3?

Well, there was a story back in July 2011 that it wasn't to be Samsung who would be making the things at all after the well documented patent disputes between the two companies. However, it all seemed to be back on track by October 2011 with the Korea Times reporting that Samsung Electronics's version of a quad-core A6 was going ahead as planned.

In February some screenshots from a debug tool called iBoot emerged that mentioned the model number S5L8945X. The Apple A4 chip is called the S5L8930X and the A5 is the S5L8940X. So if you add S5L8930X and S5L8940X together, divide by the S5L8945X and carry the 3 you get quad-core. Apparently. That's the suggestion anyway.

iPad 3 battery

The current generation iPad 2 has some pretty serious battery life in it for a portable device so whatever Apple releases next has big boots to fill. Rumours are that either Symplo Technology or Dynapack International Technology will be turning out the new power units.

Despite both sounding like they could transform into Skynet at any moment, they actually translate to whopping 14,000mAh batteries for the new iPad. This could mean an even more improved battery life, although we aren't sure what sort of impact a new screen or processor might have on the tablet's power consumption.?

NFC on iPad 3

Yes, it more than just an interesting rhyme. Apple was very clear that NFC technology was something that interested the company in 2011 when it quite clearly stated that there would be no NFC in the iPhone 4S, or iPhone 5 as we were expecting at the time.

Again, though, the iPad 3 doesn't seem like the first product that Apple would stuff NFC into. Not only are contactless operations less relevant on something that isn't pocketable anyway, but it's most likely come too early for Apple, who aren't known as early adopters, with the NFC infrastructure still in its fledgling stage.

iPad 3 pictures

Perhaps the oddest thing of all is that there hasn't been a single supposed shot of the iPad 3 published anywhere; not a leaked prototype, not a pre-production case, not even a blurry snap of an iPad 2 in disguise. Nothing. Does this mean that the iPad 3 will have the exact same form factor as the iPad 2? Not necessarily, but it could well be the way it works out.

iPad 3 price

Until Apple tells us all, there is absolutely no way of knowing exactly what the iPad 3 is going to cost. What we can do is examine the suspected parts inside and then ponder how much they might add to the overall device price.

So far it's the batteries that are looking worrying, the new technology meaning a possible 30 or 40 per cent cost increase for Apple, which will no doubt be translated into cost for the consumer. Still you know you are going to buy one ...

iPad 3 review

Expect plenty more coverage as we get closer to the release date and full and thorough iPad 3 review once we've had a chance to get Apple's latest tablet for 2012 into the Pocket-lint labs.

Tags: Tablets Apple iPad 3 Features iPad

iPad 3: Review of rumours, features, pictures and specs originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Get home safe

One of the best things to come out of the smartphone revolution was that we got to throw away all those bits of paper in our pockets along with the 10 minutes before we left home of poring over maps trying to work out where we were going to go. GPS-enabled mobiles have changed all that but that doesn't mean that all navigation apps were created equally.

To help you out, here are the very best Android navigation apps to download to your phone. There are plenty more out there with some more stripped down and specialised versions of what we've listed available if that's what you're after. Ultimately, choose the ones with the functions to best suit you and, remember, look out for those with offline maps if you have the storage space to house them.

GPS Essentials

GPS Essentials is very much what the developer itself describes the app as - the Swiss Army Knife of GPS navigation. It's piece of software that uses the Google Maps platform but adds absolutely heaps of other measures and markers on top of it as well, all of which you can place in the dashboard alongside the maps.

There's altimeters; latitude and longitude figures; times of moon and sun rise and set; an AR mode; compass; speed, pace and distance measures and even charts that track these variables over time. On top of that you can add pictures to your travels, waypoints and follow the course of satellites. It's rather overwhelming, really. The only dampener on the whole thing is that, at the moment, there's no offline maps available, so you do have to be connected if you're looking to follow a specific path.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 4/5

?

Distance Marker

Distance Marker is one of the more frivolous navigation apps you'll find for Android but it's amusing nonetheless. It's a pocket version of that sign you'll find at all tourist trap style landmarks with far flung places on it pointed off in different directions next to impossible to fathom numbers of miles. The difference here is that it's on your phone and you can switch between miles, kilometers and even a human approach which simply reads things like "very far".

The downside to all the fun is that it requires a data connection to work which seems a little odd given that it only needs to have access to a map if you'd like to customise the experience with your own location markers. Once in the memory, it should be able to calculate distances with just the GPS but apparently that's not the way it's been set up. Shame.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 3/5

?

Tube Map

There's quite a few different London Underground maps you can get for Android and most of them are free if you can put up with the customary small banner ad at the top or bottom of the screen. One of the better ones out there is the simply enough named Tube Map which brings you the famous English topological transformation and a little bit extra too.

The extra comes in the form of a route planner and station finder which all work without the need of any kind of data connection. If you are hooked into mobile broadband, however, there's also a section of the app with a Twitter stream and other live updates of any issues that may be going on anywhere in the network.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 4.5/5

?

Google Maps Navigation

Google Maps Navigation comes preloaded on just about every Android smartphone out there. Anything with the Google Maps app will have the?separate?navigation app, which looks like a small blue arrow. Once you tap the app you might be prompted to download text to speech software. You'll need to do this if you want Navigation to be able to give you voice commands. You can then type or talk in a destination, navigate by contact or go to starred places which act like favourite locations you have saved.?

The actual mapping itself is very much like normal Google maps, albeit with a slightly slicker and less detailed map. It moves faster and follows where you are going turn by turn. You can, if you so choose, simply opt to use a directional arrow with distance countdown and time estimate. Otherwise the map will follow your location in a sort of third person view, tracking your movements and helping to give you an idea of where you are in your journey. The only big flaw in the GM Navigation plan is that it does, again, require a data connection to work. If you're going offline, you can access Google Maps but without the directions. All the same, for those yet to use Navigation, we highly recommend it. ?Read More

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 5/5

?

CoPilot Live Premium UK & Ireland

The previous version of CoPilot's satnav app has proved so popular that it's been given a full makeover.?The UI has been completely revamped so that frequently used features are easier to reach. You'll also be given?the choice of three different routes, so you can either vary your route each time you travel or avoid traffic?depending on the time of day. You'll also have the ability to re-route simply by dragging the onscreen route?to a different location - useful if you want to avoid a specific road or roundabout.

The ActiveTraffic function?takes into account real-time traffic speeds in order to calculate the fastest route and avoid any?unnecessary delays.?The app also has social networking integration - you can share your journey details using in-app?Twitter updates or check in with Facebook Places, making it easy to keep in touch with your pals if you're?travelling in convoy. One of the most comprehensive navigation apps around. Read More

Market: Link

Price: ?20.82

Rating: 5/5

?

ForeverMap

ForeverMap is a simple concept but an important one nonetheless. Rather than a gateway to a bunch of maps stored on an internet server, it allows you to download complete cartographic?data to your handset to access without the need of any kind of connection.?Naturally, the downside is that it takes up what can be a precious amount of storage space on your phone, but ForeverMap gets around this by allowing the user the choice of which city or country maps to download individually.

The free version of the app is identical to the paid one except for the methods by which you download the maps. If you pay, you can do it at normal speeds and via a dedicated server. If not, it’s P2P torrent connection for you which takes an unnecessarily huge amount of time - about an hour for 250MB for example. So, the moral of the story is to think ahead.?All the same, ForeverMap works well and will keep you covered all over the UK and the rest of Europe. Certainly handy for holidays.?Read More

Market: Link

Price: Free/?1.37

Rating: 4/5

?

Satski

There are plenty of GPS-based apps for smartphones, which no doubt function very well, but if you're serious enough about your skiing to warrant a piece of software that can map your route and beam your precise whereabouts, you want something that will do the job and do it well. This is precisely what Satski should deliver.?One of the best things about this app is its offline capabilities, as after you've worked out where you want to go you just download the relevant map from the Satski website.

Other features include geotagging photos; buddy tracking, as long as your "buddy" has the app downloaded; Real Time Replays, which allow you to review the slopes you have skied as well as see how far you've travelled, and a whole host of resort info.?If that little lot wasn't enough, it can also get you out of a fix by providing crucial information to emergency services.?There's a wealth of resorts in the data base, the full list of which can be found on the?Satski website. If you're going Skiing and want to be in the know, then this really is a peach. Read More

Market: Link

Price: ?3.49

Rating: 4/5

?

Google Earth

The actual navigational use of Google Earth is seriously limited but that's not really the point of what this eagle eye view of our planet is all about. The swish about the globe and browse the world experience that the app offers is probably better from your sofa as something to while away your time checking out the peaks of the Himalayas and the engineering of the Eiffel Tower from the comfort of your own home but it still has a place on a big screen smartphone.

You can use voice if you prefer but, whatever you do, make sure you have a decent connection. Wi-Fi is preferable otherwise your device will feel like its buffering forever which rather ruins the fun. A lovely app but, as we say, it's more like cruising a visual version of Wikipedia than it is drilling down to look for some hard and fast information.

Market: Link

Price: Free

Rating: 4/5

Tags: Apps Android Android apps Features Car And GPS Google Maps Navigation Satski ForeverMap CoPilot Tube London Underground GPS Essentials Distance Marker Google Earth

           

Best Android navigation apps originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:58:50 +0000