What is not included on any platform (Android, iPhone or Windows) is a built-in QR code scanner.
The bigger problem Android has consistently had is what is generally called fragmentation.
But human (or android) nature being what it is, many have evidently believed they can be the last out the door and so have kept borrowing at the low-interest window.
"What this research found is really little cracks in Android -- not great big security holes you could drive a truck through, " said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder and chief technical officer of Lookout Mobile Security, a leading provider of security apps and services for Android devices.
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Further evidence that tech companies have their eye on domestic chores was seen in what is claimed to be the world's first Android-powered oven.
Google stated that it open to the handset manufacturers on what software they use, reminding us that Android is open source and they do not control OEM or carrier customisations.
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Consider what is really at stake here: establishing or not establishing Android as a viable OS and ecosystem for smartphones.
An Android app developer has published what he says is conclusive proof that millions of smartphones are secretly monitoring the key presses, geographic locations, and received messages of its users.
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What is however relatively new is that it has managed to leverage the huge following garnered with the wide array of Android choices to start challenging Apple in the high-end of the smartphone market.
What it made us realize, however, is that an Android phone is really better off with a keyboard, and we were longing to get back to the Droid a number of times while using this device.
"What Facebook wants is to put itself at the front of the Android user experience for as many Facebook users as possible and make Facebook more elemental to their customers' experience, " said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.
That has opened the floodgates for startups like SwiftKey, which builds a predictive Android keyboard that tries to anticipate what a user is trying to type, and Snapkeys, a futuristic-style keyboard that consists of only four keys, to remake the keyboard on Android smartphones.
What new technologies is AOL championing, such as something to improve mobility like Android?
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Using the new Android client, he talked about what happens when the application is in the off-state and what kind of notifications to send to user when they are not in the application.
The Google Drive app on Android is going to be an experience much similar to what we had with the web browser: the user interface doesn't vary much from the original Docs app.
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Engadget's very own parent company AOL has released its Play music player app for Kindle Fire, and the interface here is actually considerably different from what you'd get on the straight Android version, available in Google Play.
And what there is to do is much clumsier because the screen sizes and specs for Android tablets are all over the place.
Helping CIOs to manage devices is what it used to do but now it offers device management for Apple and Android devices as well as its own.
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And this is exactly what Alibaba just did by launching Aliyun, a mobile operating system based on Android and tailored for the Chinese market.
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What's notable here is that BGR's source is saying that the inclusion of Android 3.0 could push the Moto launch out to February 2011, but inside sources of our own are reporting that tablet devices running Gingerbread are still figuring into Verizon's Q4 2010 plans, so we'll have to wait and see how that shakes out.
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To look at it from the right perspective, not only do both of us agree that Nokia is dead no matter what fork of road it decides to walk down, but now, Android has a reason to laugh.
As with television, we are seeing the development of homegrown app models (such as Sony's PlayMemories Camera Apps included with its NEX-5R) and the use of Android (from both Nikon and Samsung, the latter of which has slapped what is functionally a Galaxy SIII on the back of a camera).
Granted, Android is an open system that anyone can manipulate to their liking, which is what has made it so broadly adopted and successful.
Because we had more flexibility with Android, we got to look at what we thought was an optimal screen size, which is smaller than what Apple could do without creating a whole new class of iOS applications.
What I mostly use tablets for is reading Kindle books, watching Netflix movies and checking email and there are excellent Android apps for those particular tasks.
And hardware makers also have to modify the user interface on Android, at least until Google comes up with what it calls a "device profile" that is specifically tailored for tablets.
It's basic, but it represents pretty much what all these new operating systems are supposed to be: ways of getting functionality that is at least close to Android but without all the licensing costs associated with running Google services.
These people also said the download store would be an "interim" step toward what is expected to be a more ambitious cloud-based subscription service compatible with mobile phones built with Google's Android software.
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