smartphones

For all of your smartphone-owning life, you've been told you can't use your expensive device while wearing gloves, no matter how low the mercury plummets. You weren't really sure why, you just knew it wasn't going to happen.

And so rocketed sales of fingerless gloves, conductive gloves, and even conductive thread for those brave (or thrifty!) enough to hack their own touch-screen hand coverings.

Then something wonderful happened that obliterated this sad certainty of specialty winterwear dependence forever, and that was Nokia.

Starting with the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820, the industry got a … Read more

When sharing a post from the previous version of Facebook for Android, you may have forgotten to tap the itsy-bitsy people-sharing icon before you sent it off to the Interwebs. This icon controls the settings for who can see your post, be it Public, Friends, or other groups you're part of on Facebook. Fortunately, this icon hasn't gone anywhere, but in case you forget to use it, there's a fix -- and it doesn't involve logging in on the desktop Web site.

First, make sure you have the most recent version of Facebook for Android. Just … Read more

Huawei, the embattled China-based telecom equipment maker that has been trying unsuccessfully to make an entrance into the U.S., thinks it has the right recipe to be successful in smartphones.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview published on Friday, Huawei deputy chairman Guo Ping said that his company wants to expand its presence in smartphones and not co-branded devices with carriers, as it has in the past. As part of that strategy, the company wants to try and combine the benefits of flashiness and high-tech to appeal to customers.

"In some ways, (designing) a smartphone is in the … Read more

Despite Samsung's claims last month that its Galaxy S4 was performing quite well on store shelves, and had reached 10 million units sold in less than a month, analysts are concerned things are changing.

Samsung's shares were down around 6 percent Friday, representing their largest drop since August. Blame analysts worrying about flagging demand for the Galaxy S4. JP Morgan was among the analyst firms that expressed concern about Samsung, and it cut its share-price estimate by 9.5 percent.

In a note to investors, JJ Park at JP Morgan said that supply chain checks are showing "… Read more

No matter how slick the new hardware is or how hard BlackBerry strives to convince us that its new BB10 handsets are the cat's meow, there's still one massive stumbling block -- quality apps. Apparently even the BlackBerry faithful agree and intrepid tweakers have stepped in to fix the situation themselves.

Read on to learn how you can quickly take advantage of free BlackBerry 10 apps that others have kindly ported from Android. Best of all, the entire process takes minutes and loading apps to your Z10 or Q10 just a matter of seconds.

Gather your tools So … Read more

Clearing the way for services like Uber, an appellate court Thursday lifted a temporary injunction on New York City's pilot plan to allow travelers to hail yellow cabs via smartphone. The plan, which challenges the traditional curbside street hail, has faced strong opposition from New York's livery and black-car operators.

Uber had just launched its New York taxi-hailing pilot program at the end of April when the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division issued the emergency injunction.

Today's news came just hours after another related legal victory for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration. His plan to expand … Read more

Samsung's supercharged Galaxy S4 may be sucking in all the headlines, but for Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile, both Sprint's prepaid carriers, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is more than enough Android phone for its customers.

Starting June 12, Boost and Virgin will begin selling Samsung's high-end GS3 smartphone for $399.99 (it initially sold for upwards of $600 off-contract). That makes the Galaxy S3 the most premium product in Boost Mobile's roster. Thanks to the carriers' Sprint ownership, the handset rides Sprint's 4G LTE network in its 88 markets (and growing).

The Galaxy S3 may … Read more

LG will want to sell the Optimus F3 it announced on Thursday to everyone, but the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean smartphone comes with some features specifically meant for blind and hearing-impaired users.

Most notably, the phone automatically integrates Google TalkBack, a text-to-speech accessibility app that you would ordinarily have to download and activate to use.

Students can also download the Accessible Education ID pack using Sprint ID. It contains Web apps that center heavily on math and target students who struggle to read print.

For hearing-impaired users, the Optimus F3 color-codes a spectrum of LED colors and pulse patterns … Read more

U.S. Cellular announced on Thursday that it was adding the LG Optimus F7 to its smartphone lineup, selling the more-than-midrange Android smartphone with a $99 price tag -- with a new, two-year service agreement, of course.

Powered by Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, the handset boasts a 4.7-inch 720p LCD IPS display, a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, and 8GB internal storage (4.1GB of which is user-accessible). Additionally, the phone features an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and 1080p HD video capture, plus a 1.3-megapixel shooter right above the screen.

Users will also appreciate the LED … Read more