Month: May 2012

The much anticipated Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone went on sale in the UK yesterday. UK retailers have warned of stock shortages amid the kind of hype and queues normally reserved for Apple devices.

The Galaxy S3 has an impressive list of specs, not least the massive 4.8″ HD screen. The device also runs the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, but also has Samsung’s Touchwiz interface running on top of that to differentiate it from other manufacturers’ devices. The most interesting feature that I’ve seen is the eye-tracking, so the screen won’t dim whilst you are looking at it.

I’m not due an upgrade until September, but I can’t imagine much will come along before then that will displace the Galaxy S3 from the top of my wish-list!

Following China’s decision to greenlight the takeover, Motorola Mobility is now officially part of the Google family, as announced by Google on their blog.

Now it remains to be seen what exactly Google’s plans for Motorola are – will future Nexus devices come exclusively from Motorola? Will Motorola get newer versions of Android before anyone else? I’m sure Google must have confirmed that this won’t be the case in order to get the go ahead for the takeover. Is it just for Motorola’s pile of patents to help in the battle against Apple? Only time will tell.

The popular iOS app Songify has finally made its way to the Android platform. Songify is an app that allows you to turn speech into a song – all you have to do is talk into your phone, wait a few seconds and it will turn it into music!

The app starts at the screen below – just tap the centre, say the words you want turned into music, and away you go…

The app is free to use, although you can make in-app purchases in order to get extra songs. Download it from the Google Play store today!

Flipboard, the popular iOS social news magazine app, has been touted for Android devices for a while, and was intended to be exclusive to the soon-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy S3 for a while, but a post on the xda-developers forum has leaked the app which can be installed on any Android device (assuming that side-loading has been enabled).

Flipboard allows you to choose a range of topics to receive news for, and also view your social network feeds in a magazine format where you flip pages. If you want to check out the app, head to xda-developers, sign up and download the APK.

Citroon is a newly released free Android app that is available from the Google Play Store. Installing the app and registering will allow you to send and receive all SMS messages from your web browser! Messages are sent using your phone’s SMS allowance. After registering on your phone, all you need to do is go to the Citroon website and log in, and then you can send SMS messages from your browser and new messages will give you a notification as well.

In the image above, I was able to send an SMS from one phone to another, and when I replied the message was also received in the web browser along with a notification. For users who send a lot of text messages and would prefer to do it from their computer on a proper keyboard, Citroon could be a godsend. Free users are limited to sending/receiving 100 messages a month – premium packages are available from 99 cents a month (in euros) which offer unlimited sending and receiving.

The main website is in French and the ‘English’ link doesn’t seem to work, but I’m sure this will be updated in time. However once you log in (click Connexion after entering your details) some parts are in English. I know enough French for this not to be a problem but others might struggle a bit. The website uses HTTPS so your messages will be secure.

If this sounds like a useful app for you then I’d recommend installing it, it’s free anyway so you can’t lose out by giving it a go!