Android Authority |
- Purported Sony Honami press images hit the web ahead of handset’s announcement
- The 10 Best Android Apps of the Month: June 2013 (video)
- Latest Chrome OS adds beta in-browser Office document editing
- Apple finally signs deal with TSMC to move away from Samsung – WSJ
- The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom set to launch on July 8th
- HTC and Samsung smartphones cost carriers more money than the iPhone
| Purported Sony Honami press images hit the web ahead of handset’s announcement Posted: 29 Jun 2013 04:19 PM PDT
A new set of images reportedly showing the unannounced Sony Honami have hit the web, and this time around we're apparently looking at press images for the device. A couple of different sets of images said to show the Sony Honami (Xperia i1) have surfaced recently, with at least one report claiming that the handset in those pictures is the same one teased by Sony in its July 4 Paris media event invitation. The device in the official teaser image was initially believed to be the Xperia Z Ultra – this smartphone has been unveiled since that invite was issued – and now it’s said to be the next 5-inch flagship handset from Sony, the Sony Honami.
The three new images only reveal the front side of the handset, although that seems to be enough to identify the device as the Honami, at least when compared with previous leaks. In case you've seen them, you'll easily recognize the layout button on the right side of the handset which includes the on/off switch, the volume rocker, but also what is believed to be a dedicated camera phone button, placed towards the lower part of the right side. Furthermore, the fact that a picture of the Eiffel tower is shown on the display of the handset in two of them seems to indicate that the Honami will be a smartphone with a focus on camera features, which is something previous rumors have also claimed.    The Honami is said to offer a Full HD 5-inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 20-megapixel camera, 2.2-megapixel front-facing camera and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. That said, this is still just a leaked set of images, and we won't be able to tell you whether they're showing the real deal or not for at least a few more days, as we hope that Sony will properly unveil the device in Paris. 
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| The 10 Best Android Apps of the Month: June 2013 (video) Posted: 29 Jun 2013 12:57 PM PDT
There are thousands of apps that release every month, and we’re here to sift through all of that and show you some of the best ones that released this month! If you’re in a rush, jump straight to the video, otherwise, stick with us as we take a closer look at these apps! Despicable Me
First up on our list is a little game called Despicable Me: Minion Rush. If there was one thing everyone liked about the movie, it was the minion. And now you can put yourself in their world, as they now have their own game! A huge plus to this particular game is that it’s a lot of fun, unlike a lot of poor movie adaptions out there. Upon first glace, one would say this is just another rendition of Temple Run. They’d be right, too, however, Gameloft added a lot of additional content. So much so that it really sets itself apart from all of those other Temple Run rip offs. Furthermore, the graphics look really nice, and the cutscenes are a welcome and fun addition. Overall, the game was a lot of fun to play, and really, our only complain is the overused game mechanics. If you’re a fan of Despicable Me and the little minions, though, that’s easy to look past. Ditalix Live Wallpaper
Next up is a live wallpaper called Ditalix. This unique and fun wallpaper has literally thousands of permutations — it’s one of the most customizable live wallpapers that we’ve ever seen. Not only that, but the settings are a lot of fun, too. There are a lot of options available. You can use squares, hearts, owls, and they even pay an ode to XDA Developers. Unfortunately, there is simply way too many settings for us to cover them all. So if you’re into live wallpapers and like a lot of customization, Ditalix might just be up your alley! Duolingo
Our regular viewers should recognize Duolingo, as we included it in our Best apps for Kids list. This is because it is a great learning tool for kids, as it assists them in learning a second language. It won’t teach your kid a second language on its own, though. It’s just a helpful tool to use on the side. It also supports a lot different languages. So if your kid is learning a certain second language, chances are that that same language is available on Duolingo. All in all, it’s a very easy app to use. Each lessons is set up in a way that allows people to quickly complete it so you don’t have to sit around tethered to a computer for hours trying to finish an entire section. It gives it to you in bite-sized pieces, which is great. Floating Notifications
Next up on our list is Floating Notifications, a unique, yet helpful little app. For those who have used Facebook Messenger’s chat heads, imagine that the chat head functionality was available for any app that sends notifications. That’s basically what Floating Notifications does. Any app that is able to send a notification can be come a chat head, for lack of a better term. What’s really nice is that instead of dealing with notifications in your notification bar, you can take care of them directly from your desktop. This can be great if you’re in a hurry or if you’re just a fan of these kind of notification systems. Either way, Floating Notifications is a great app, although it’s very niche. The important part is that it works well and is pretty much bug-free. Google Keyboard
Not a fan of popular keyboard’s like SwiftKey and Swype? Are you into the vanilla Android look? Well, we’ve got some good news for you. Google launched the stock Google Keyboard from Jelly Bean 4.2.2 and put it on the Play Store! As you might expect, it’s a very solid keyboard, and it has all of the features that you would normally get on a device running vanilla Jelly Bean 4.2.2. It has trace typing, auto correction, and it’s stylish. The voice dictation was also very accurate, and overall, everything seemed to work great. It’s hard to not recommend the stock Google Keyboard, and since it’s launch, it’s easily one of the best out there. Quick Social
Next up is Quick Social, a must-have for social network aficionados. If you’re on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all day, Quick Social can make things vastly easier to manage. It does this by allowing users to post updates to all three social networks, or any number of them, at once. While it’s a very simile app, it’s definitely one of the most handy out there. All you really need to do is sign into your various social networks. After that, simply go to your notification bar where you can post to any social network at any time. If you really want to update all three networks at once, you can use the quick social feature to do that. There isn’t much to Quick Social besides that, but it’s still a very powerful tool that will no doubt come in handy for heavy social media users. SourcesPro
SourcesPro is a very unique app, which means it’s pretty niche, too. This graphics app is a lot of fun if you’re into fractals and things like that. You can create custom images using a number of tool that can be tweaked over and over again until you get them the way you want. There is quite a learning curve with this particular. We had to test them one out for quite some time before we were able to get the hang of it. Once you do, though, it’s quite fine to use, especially if you’re someone who likes to create art. SourcesPro can also be a lot of fun for creating quick animations or background images. SuperN64
There’s a lot of good emulators out there — PlayStation, Super Nintendo, Game boy Advance, you name it. However, Nintendo 64 emulators seem to be strangely absent. There are a few out there, but most of them are just too broken to work. SuperN64 looks to change that, and so far, it’s done a pretty good job. This is, far and wide, the most stable Nintendo 64 emulator to date. It still has a few bugs — if you try hard and play a lot of games, you can still find issues with it, but it’s nowhere near as bad as other Nintendo 64 emulators. Overall, it’s a really good Nintendo 64 emulator. Vine
For those of you who somehow don’t know, Vine is a social network that features six second videos instead of your regular status updates. It’s not really unique, though, as other places have done something similar. However, in this scenario, it’s an app, and a lot of people seem to like it. Being owned by Twitter, you’ll notice that Vine has a lot of similar functionality to Twitter. You can check out what’s trending, individual posts, your own activity, and pretty much everything else. The iOS version has been out for awhile, but the Android version just released this month. It’s also received a steady number of updates, adding new functionality and better performance. All in all, it’s a pretty solid app. Where’s my Mickey?
Disney has a number of games based on their hit title Where’s My Water?. This new iteration is called Where’s My Mickey?, and as you might expect, it’s pretty much the same as Where’s My Water?. Only this time, you’re trying to get Mickey some water so he can successfully run a lemonade stand. For those who aren’t familiar with the game, each level has a finite amount of water. A certain amount of that water has to get to Mickey, and to do that, you dig paths to him. It can be a little tricky, but nothing too difficult, and it’s a lot of fun! VideoAlso check us out over at Revision3! Wrap up
If you take a look at our leaderboard (image above), you can see how these apps stack up against each other. Keep in mind that these are not how we rated them — they are based off of Google Play Store ratings. So there’s no bias on our part whatsoever. We try to keep these end of the month lists even with games and functional apps, as games usually rule the list. However, it was nice to see some good, functional apps make their way to the top this time around. Especially some of the useful ones, such as Quick Social and Floating Notifications. Thousands of apps are released every month, so there’s always that possibility that we missed a really good one. If we did and you want to talk about it, tell everyone about it in the comments below! 
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| Latest Chrome OS adds beta in-browser Office document editing Posted: 29 Jun 2013 10:54 AM PDT  Courtesy François Beaufort Chromebooks like the Pixel are ostensibly functional enough to serve as full-blown laptop computers, but they've lacked a very important feature since inception: integrated Microsoft Office file editing. The desktop suite's ubiquity ensures serious work will most always require modifying files produced by Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but until now, no great solution existed in Chrome OS. Sure, you could import files into and export files out of Google Drive, but the process was hardly seamless. Google's solving the "Office problem" by introducing in-browser native editing. As first reported by developer François Beaufort, it relies on QuickOffice technology to recognize and preserve the formatting of Office documents. Though in beta, it seems to be able to edit Word and Excel files just fine, though PowerPoint support is conspicuously absent. Of course, it's probably safe to say editing capabilities will improve over time.  Courtesy François Beaufort This isn't Google's first step towards true Office integration. Chrome OS has featured third-party document viewing for quite some time. However, it does make clearer the company’s larger strategy to get users to rely less on Microsoft Office for document creation and modification, and more on Google’s stripped-down, simpler tools. Many Chrome OS features migrate to the Windows and editions of Google's Chrome browser, so it wouldn't be a stretch to see the search giant challenge Microsoft’s Office dominance in a more direct way soon. If you have a Chromebook, setting up the editing feature is relatively simple. Here are instructions from The Next Web:
Do you have a Chromebook? Let us know how the new editing features are working out for you. For everyone else, hopefully we'll see this ability on Windows in the near future. 
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| Apple finally signs deal with TSMC to move away from Samsung – WSJ Posted: 29 Jun 2013 05:50 AM PDT
The thorny relationship between Apple and Samsung is well known. From close partners, the two companies became fierce rivals following Samsung's entry in the smartphone business, but years of lawsuits and obvious hostility haven't stopped the two top players in the mobile industry from maintaining an uneasy cooperation. Samsung currently manufactures the systems on a chip that act as the brains of the iPhones and iPads, as well as a part of the displays and memory modules for Apple's mobile devices. But that will change soon. WSJ reported yesterday that Apple has finally took the big step of signing with TSMC a deal that will see the Taiwanese chip foundry build Apple's processors starting with 2014. Meanwhile, the bulk of the chips in the iPhone and iPad will still be made by Samsung, though from 2015, TSMC will take over most, if not the entire production. This long rumored deal was plagued by glitches in TSMC's technology, says WSJ. Apparently, the first discussions between Apple and the Taiwanese company started in 2010, but until now, TSCM hasn't been able to deliver the quality and quantity demanded by the Cupertino-based company. What does this mean for Samsung? Mainly, it's a financial loss. According to an analyst working for Sanford Bernstein, Samsung made about $5 billion from Apple's chip business in 2012. It's a significant amount of money for sure, but Samsung's entire component business brought in about $59 billion in the same period, so the Koreans can certainly take the hit. 
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| The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom set to launch on July 8th Posted: 29 Jun 2013 05:32 AM PDT
The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is just one device within the legion of devices that make up the Galaxy S4 family, and although it was launched a few weeks ago at Samsung's Premiere 2013 in London, it has yet to get an official release date. Now however, it looks as if U.K. customers won't have long to wait, as online U.K. retailer Clove has began taking pre-orders for the Galaxy S4 Zoom, with the smartphone-camera combo shipping on the 8th of July. Of course the Galaxy S4 Zoom will set you back a little, with Clove selling the Galaxy S4 Zoom for £369 ($561) before tax. What you'll get for your money is a 4.3-inch qHD (960 x 540) Super AMOLED display, with a pixel density of 256 PPI, a 1.5 Ghz dual-core processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz on top, 8GB of internal storage with a microSD slot for expandability (up to 64GB), and a 2330 mAh battery to run it all.
On the camera side of things, there's a 16-megapixel camera with 10x Optical Zoom and an Xenon Flash on the back, and a 1.9-megapixel camera on the front of the device. There is no doubt that you'll be able to achieve better results with the Galaxy S4 Zoom than your regular smartphone when it comes to taking photos, however you'll have to sacrifice some other specs and the slimness of the Galaxy S4 Zoom, because it's 15.4mm thick frame means this isn't the thinnest smartphone on the market. While this isn't a smartphone for everyone, if you can live without top of the range specs in other departments, the Galaxy S4 Zoom will probably be the best photo taking smartphone on the market for the near future. Of course we'll be eager to test this smartphone's photo taking abilities in a review as soon as possible. Will you be picking up the Galaxy S4 Zoom? 
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| HTC and Samsung smartphones cost carriers more money than the iPhone Posted: 29 Jun 2013 03:44 AM PDT
It's not a big secret that the carriers dislike the iPhone. Thanks to high subsidies and the conditions Apple sets for carriers just to sell the iPhone, the carriers have been known to push other smartphones ahead of the iPhone. However, according to an ABI Research report both Samsung and HTC smartphones cost the carriers more than the iPhone. On average, carriers have to cover 84% of the costs of Samsung smartphones when selling them for the subsidized price, while carriers have to cover the costs for 80% and 74% of HTC smartphones and iPhones respectively.
Even though the absolute value of subsidy for the iPhone is $110 higher than the average price for a Samsung smartphone, carriers are still left to cover 84% of Samsung smartphones. So why is this the case? Well the obvious reason is that Samsung has a lot of smartphones, which cover almost every sector of the market. The iPhone 5 costs (on average) $199, the iPhone 4S costs $99 and the iPhone 4 is free on most carriers, however the iPhone 5 is by far Apple's most popular smartphone. Samsung on the other hand, has many smartphones available for sub-$100, and its smartphones go on sale much more often than the iPhone, meaning carriers must bare the brunt of the costs for the smartphone. The same can be said for HTC smartphones.  The poor Galaxy Note 2 was stamped with a Verizon logo on its home button. Carriers most likely carry this burden thanks to the freedom that Android smartphones offer them. Unlike the iPhone, Samsung and HTC smartphones are often stamped with carrier logos (the Galaxy Note 2 on Verizon is a While Samsung's share prices have taken a dip due to concern over Galaxy S4 sales, the fact that it can create smartphones almost completely in-house and that it's portfolio of devices is so broad, it looks like Samsung will continue its dominance of the smartphone market, albeit at a lesser extent.
Other Android OEMs have been producing brilliant smartphones that have been catching the eye's of consumers and the press alike, so Samsung will need to continue to press forward with innovative steps and a slam dunk Galaxy Note 3 could do just that. Do you think Samsung can continue its dominance of the smartphone market? Can HTC make up some ground? 
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