Android 5.0 "Key Lime Pie" release date

Until Android 4.4 was announced we had expected the Android 5.0 release date to be some time in October 2013. We instead saw Android 4.4 KitKat launch on 31 October and in the face of that point release, we think it's now likely that we'll see Android 5.0 shown in mid-2014, quite possibly at Google IO, Google's annual two-day developer conference in San Francisco.

That's a year on from when we had originally expected to see Android 5.0, which was at Google IO 2013, which took place from May 15 to May 17 2013. Given that Google announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at 2012's IO conference, it seemed reasonable to expect to see Android 5.0 at the 2013 event.
But on 13 May 2013, we got our confirmation that there would be no serving of Android 5 at Google IO from Sundar Pichai, Google's new head of Android. Pichai told Wired that 2013's IO is "not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system". Boo! "Both on Android and Chrome, we're going to focus this IO on all the kinds of things we're doing for developers so that they can write better things," he added.

Android OS, from Cupcake to Jelly Bean

 

Since the introduction of Android in 2007, Google’s flagship open-source OS for mobiles, the dynamics of the mobile phone industry have changed completely. A new mobile ecosystem, consisting of Android apps and mobile hardware has evolved at a rapid pace, challenging traditional market leaders like Apple, Nokia and Blackberry. If you ever wondered how this game-changing mobile OS has evolved over the years, then please read on. However, bear in mind that Google has an odd, albeit humorous, way of codenaming its Android OS products after mouthwatering desserts, so if you have a sweet tooth, we suggest that you find something sugary to enjoy while reading this post!

Android OS:

Google entered the mobile industry after acquiring Android Inc. in 2005, setting off rumors that it was planning on entering the mobile space. The rumors turned out to be true, as Google announced in November 2007 that it indeed was working on an open-source mobile OS, named Android, based on a Linux kernel. This new OS was to be used by members of the’ Open Handset Alliance’, a consortium of 65 companies involved in the mobile space who are advocates of open source standards for the mobile industry. Since then, mobile devices running on Android have gained rapid popularity among consumers, with Android OS currently dominating the smartphone market.
Each major release of the Google Android OS is named after a sugary treat, in alphabetical order. Here is a quick flashback of all the different versions, along with the associated sugary delights:

Android 1.0 & 1.1

The first version was released in September 2008, along with its launch device, ‘HTC Hero’. Both the OS and the HTC device received favorable reviews. The dream of an open-source mobile ecosystem finally became a reality!

Version 1.1 (released in February 2009) just came with a few updates and tweaks, with no major changes. At this stage, Google had not started naming its Android releases after delicacies, so these updates had no names assigned.

Android 1.5 Cupcake

Released in April 2009, this was the first major Android revision to get an official name by Google, heralding the start of the “dessert series” naming convention. With Cupcake, features like video uploading, text prediction and wireless music streaming became available.

Android 1.6 Donut

Released in September 2009, Donut came with major updates, the highlight of which was Google Maps. It also fixed OS reboot errors and enhanced the photo and video capabilities.

Android 2.0-2.1 Eclair

Version 2.0 was released in December 2009, followed by 2.1 in January 2010. These are considered to be a single release by most people, allowing added capabilities for Bluetooth, multi-touch support and live wallpapers, among other features.

Android 2.2 Froyo

Short for “Frozen Yoghurt”, this version was released in May 2010. It allowed for improved OS speed, supported hi-definition screen resolutions and Adobe Flash 10.1, enabling users to stream videos via their mobile browsers. Added support for Wi-Fi hotspot connectivity also became available.

Android 2.3-2.3.2 Gingerbread

This version made its debut in December 2010. The key feature that became available with this release was the much hyped ‘Near Field Communications’ (NFC) capability, allowing users to perform tasks such as mobile payments and data exchange through swiping their mobile phones over a tag. It also added support for more than one camera and other sensors.

Android 3.0,3.1,3.2 Honeycomb

Released first in February 2011 and followed rapidly by the 3.1 and 3.2 revisions during the same year, this incremental release added several new features. This version was optimized for tablets and provided developers with more control over UI. It also allowed users the capability to load media files directly from an SD card.

Android 4.0, 4.0.3,4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich

Released in October 2011, this was a major overhaul to the Android UI, allowing enhanced contact menus, improved keyboard layouts and NFC capabilities. Since Honeycomb was optimized just for tablets, with most phones still running the 2.x Android versions, the Ice Cream Sandwich release strove for a unified platform that was optimized to run on both tablets and phones.

Android 4.1.x,4.2.x,4.3.x Jelly Bean

The latest major Android update was released in July, 2012. Jelly Bean further polished the Android UI, and also refined the software, enabling Android devices to run faster and also making them even more user-friendly than before. The 4.x updates have allowed developers to create quality apps over Android, cementing its place as the operating system of choice among users.

Android 4.4 KitKat

Google announced Android 4.4 KitKat, internally known as Project Svelte on 3 September 2013. The release had long been expected to be numbered 5.0 and called 'Key Lime Pie'. KitKat debuted on Google's Nexus 5, and has been optimised to run on a larger range of devices, with at least 512 MB of RAM.

Is your Android Phone Lost or Stolen?

Remotely locating an Android phone isn’t quite as simple as finding a stolen iPhone. Android doesn’t prompt you to set up a find-my-phone feature when you set up your phone, as Apple does. But there are many good options for remotely locating your stolen phone, even if you never set anything up before you lost your phone. Even Google now provides their own lost-phone-finder.

Bear in mind that you can only remotely locate your Android phone if it’s powered on and has a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection. If it’s powered off because the battery died or it was placed into airplane mode, you won’t be able to remotely locate your device.

Android Device Manager

Google now offers an integrated find-my-Android feature for all devices running Android 2.2 or newer. This service is useful because you can activate it without installing anything extra or creating any new accounts. If you lose your phone, you can just visit Google’s website and locate it with your Google account. This service will be the best option for most Android users.

To set this up, open the app drawer on your Android device and launch the Google Settings app. Tap Android Device Manager and enable the “Remotely locate this device” option. If you want the ability to remotely lock or factory-reset it, you can also enable this option.

When you lose your device, you can visit the Android Device Manager website to find it on a map, ring it, lock it, or remotely erase it.

Android Lost

Lookout’s Plan B was an app you could install remotely on your phone or tablet to locate it, even if you didn’t set anything up ahead of time. However, Plan B only works with Android 2.0 to 2.3. If you have a phone running a version of Android released in the last few years, you’ll need a different solution.

This is where Android Lost comes in. You can install it on your phone remotely and activate it without needing access to your device. This is extremely useful if you lose your device before setting up a tracking solution.

To remotely locate your lost phone, follow the instructions on the Android Lost website. You’ll have to “push” the Android Lost app to your device via the Google Play website, and then activate it by texting a special message to your device. After you have, you can authenticate to the Android Lost website via your Google account and see its location on a map.

Avast! Mobile Security & Antivirus

Antivirus apps aren’t generally necessary for Android devices because Android already has integrated malware-scanning features. But avast! Mobile Security is more than just an antivirus app. It also includes an excellent anti-theft feature. This is actually based on a powerful old anti-theft app known as Theft Aware, which avast! purchased and integrated into their app. Anti-theft protection is free, but avast! does now charge $15 per year for premium features such as remotely photographing a thief and capturing audio with the phone’s microphone.

To get started with avast! anti-theft, install the avast! Mobile Security & Antivirus app and open the Anti-theft pane. You’ll be given two different ways to install the anti-theft feature. In the normal way, you’ll simply download the anti-theft app from Google Play. It’s named “Update Agent” to disguise itself from thieves. In the advanced way, you’ll need root access. With root access, avast! can install this anti-theft protection as a system app so that it remains active even if a device thief performs a factory reset.

After installing anti-theft protection, you can go back into the avast! app to set up and configure it. Avast!’s anti-theft app contains a variety of advanced features — for example, you could set up “geofencing” and the device would be automatically marked as lost when you leave a certain geographical area.

To remotely locate your device or issue commands, use the My Avast! website after setting this up.

Cerberus

Cerberus isn’t free, but it offers a week-long free trial and a lifetime license for just 2.99€ after that. Cerberus is a powerful app with a variety of additional features, such as the ability to remotely control your device, taking pictures, recording audio from the microphone, viewing information about its network, and viewing a list of calls sent and received. This gives you the ability to snoop on phone thieves more easily. If you really want these features, you should choose Cerberus — it’s much cheaper than avast! premium. However, if you don’t want these features, avast! is free while Cerberus is not.

Like avast!, Cerberus can be installed with root access to integrate itself deep into the system and persist even after standard factory resets.

To use Cerberus, simply install the app and set up a Cerberus account. You can then visit the Cerberus website and to locate and remote-control your Android devices.

Which is Best?

In summary, here are your options:

• Android Device Manager: Google’s option is simple, integrated, and easy, but doesn’t offer many advanced features. This is the ideal option for most normal people and even geeks who don’t really want the advanced features.
• Android Lost: If you’ve already lost your device, Android Lost is the app to use. If you have the luxury of setting up an anti-theft app ahead of time, you’ll want to choose one with a better interface.
• Avast!, Cerberus, and Others: There are many other strong anti-theft apps, from avast! to Cerberus to Lookout. They generally offer advanced features like the ability to persist after factory resets via root access, take pictures, and capture audio. If you’re looking for something more advanced, any of these apps will serve you well.

Which Android anti-theft solution do you use on your phone? If you don’t already use one, you’ve essentially chosen Android Lost, which is more of a hassle. You should at least set up Android Device Manager ahead of time

Asphalt 8: Airborne launching August 22

 

Dev offering the chance to win pre-launch download codes for Nexus 7-optimized racer

First unveiled at Google's Nexus 7 and Android 4.3 event in San Francisco a few weeks back, Gameloft's Asphalt 8: Airborne was due to be released back on Aug. 8. Obviously that didn't happen, however there's now a new release date on the cards — next Thursday, Aug 22.
But if you can't wait that long, Gameloft is giving away a pre-launch code to one lucky winner, who'll be able to play the game before anyone else. To enter, you'll need to subscribe to the developer's YouTube channel and fill out the form on its website.
Asphalt 8 is one of the new Android titles optimized for OpenGL ES 3.0, the new 3D graphics standard included in Android 4.3. The title promises 180 events, 47 licensed cars and social integration, including  Facebook support.

Source: +Gameloft; Gameloft blog

 

Give Me Back My iPhone!

Android is a wonderful operating system. But most Android phones are crap.

Six years ago, Google launched an unconventional effort to gain a toehold in the growing smartphone business. Rather than make its own phones, the way Apple was beginning to do, the search company decided to make only half a phone: just the software to run the device, not the device itself. Google planned to give its operating system, called Android, to phone makers for free, and it would let them alter the OS in any way they liked.

Google thought that in the long run, the plan would pay off in two ways. First, it believed a free OS would push phone makers to create better Web-enabled phones, and better phones would let people spend more time on the Internet. More time online means more opportunities to use Google’s service and see Google ads—i.e., ka-ching! Android also provided a strategic benefit: If phone makers adopted Google’s OS, the search company would retain some influence on the devices people used to get its services. If it weren’t for Android, Google’s customers would have been using devices controlled by Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, or RIM, all of which had incentives to limit Google’s reach. Android lets Google control its own destiny.

The strategy worked brilliantly. Android is now the world’s most popular mobile operating system. It’s unclear if Google makes much money from Android directly—by some estimates Google makes as much from ads on Apple’s iOS devices as it does on Android machines. But there’s no question that Android has helped lower the prices of smartphones across the globe, which can only help Google’s ad business. It’s hard to call Android anything other than a resounding success.

Well, except for one small thing: Most Android phones are crap. As part of a New Year’s resolution, I promised to trade in my beloved iPhone 5 for an Android phone sometime in 2013. I reasoned that, as a tech writer, I should spend more time with the world’s most popular operating system. Phone makers and carriers have regularly sent me Android phones to test out in the past, but I’d never given most of them more than a passing look—I’d open them up, turn them on, get aggravated by their bad keyboards or poor touchscreens or frustrating add-on software, and I immediately package them up and send them back.

This shouldn’t be surprising—most Android phones are very cheap, and you get what you pay for. Over the last few months, though, I’ve been testing two of the most expensive, most advanced Android phones on the market, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. Actually, I’ve been doing more than that. I’ve been using two versions of each of these phones—the standard phone that you get for $199 when you sign a two-year cellular contract, and a second “Google Play edition,” which is a special, full-priced version that features only the essential software you need on a smartphone. (The Play edition HTC one is $599, and the S4 is $649.) I’ve been switching between these four devices, using one or the other as my primary phone at all times. Except for the brief period during which I tested out Apple’s new version of iOS, my iPhone hasn’t been charged in weeks, poor guy.

Altogether I experienced the best and worst of Android—and I saw, up close, Android’s basic problem. I’d sum it up as follows. Google makes a fine mobile operating system. Some phone manufacturers make attractive, powerful Android handsets. These phones have the potential to be really wonderful machines, even as great as Apple’s flagship phone. But then, at the last second, the phone makers and the world’s cellular carriers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They ruin the phones’ potential with unnecessary features and apps that lower the devices’ battery life, uglify their home screens, and make everything you want to do extra annoying.

This is one of the most important advantages Apple has over Android devices. When you buy an iPhone, it works exactly as Apple intended; it’s never adulterated by “features” that the company didn’t approve. But when you buy an Android phone, even a really great one, you’re not getting the device that Google’s designers had in mind when they created the OS. You’re not even getting the device that the phone manufacturer—Samsung and HTC, in this case—had in mind. Instead you’re getting a bastardized version, a phone replete with software that has been altered by many players along the way, usually in a clumsy, money-grubbing fashion.