notification

How to get your Android ready for Christmas

Look no further for suggestions on how to add the holiday magic to your Android device.

Games

A great way to pass the time while waiting for relatives to arrive or for those cookies to come out of the oven. Many games on the Android Market feature a Christmas or holiday theme for the season.

Angry Birds Seasons, by Rovio Mobile Ltd. No Android game list is complete without the mention of Angry Birds. Now your favorite slingshot bird action has a holiday feel.

Beyond Ynth Xmas Edition, by FDG Entertainment. Five free Christmas-themed levels to … Read more

Customize iOS 5's Notification Center with Quickpick

I don't use the Notification Center that iOS 5 ushered in nearly as much as I thought I would when I first saw it. With the 99-cent Quickpick--The Universal iOS Launcher app, however, I am pulling down the Notification Center on my iPhone with greater frequency.

Really, the only things I've done with the Notification Center since its debut is delete the occasional alert and remove the stock ticker so I no longer have to watch prices scroll by for stocks I don't own. With Quickpick, however, I can call, text, and e-mail my favorite contacts with a swipe and a tap, and I can access commonly frequented apps and Web sites. The design of the app leaves a bit to be desired, but the added functionality it brings to the Notification Center is much appreciated.

Note: the Quickpick app disappeared from the App Store this morning. I'll add a link to its page in iTunes should it make a return.… Read more

Five other fixes I want in iOS 5.0.1

As CNET reported last week, Apple is not only aware of the battery problems associated with iOS 5, but has already pushed out a second beta of iOS 5.0.1--which promises to fix them.

My take: why stop there? Apple's already prepping an update, so why not address some of iOS 5's other quirks, annoyances, and omissions? Here are five I'm secretly hoping will get fixed in 5.0.1:

1. A snooze option for reminders. The new Reminders app? Awesome. Long overdue. Love it. But it's missing one crucial feature: a snooze option. … Read more

Urban Airship raises $15 million

Mobile notifications provider Urban Airship has raised $15 million in a Series C round led by strategic investors Verizon and Salesforce.com.

The company, which provides companies with push notifications for mobile apps, said it recently served up its 7 billionth notification and is averaging 1 billion notifications a month.

The Portland, Ore.-based company recently acquired geolocation startup SimpleGeo in an all-stock deal rumored to be worth about $3.5 million.

"With 20,000 customers on our platform, close to 30,000 apps across iOS, Android and BlackBerry we've seen a 1,000% increase in traffic to … Read more

Gmail to get a native iPhone, iPad app?

According to sources speaking with TechCrunch columnist MG Seigler, Google has indeed been working on, and even submitted, a native app for Gmail. And oh yeah, it's pretty cool.

Despite Google's pretty great UI for Web-based Gmail on iOS, the native app has been a unicorn of sorts in the iOS community since the announcement that third-party apps could be written for the iPhone and subsequently the iPad. Seigler writes:

"At first, the talk was that Apple wasn't going to allow another mail app on their device. Then it was that Google was simply focusing on … Read more

iOS 5 tip: How to enable LED flash alerts

iOS 5 introduced a number of new and varied notifications, from the Notification Center and different alert tones for different apps to custom vibration patterns and a new visual alert.

Buried in the accessibility settings is a new feature that uses the LED flash next to the rear-facing camera on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S to notify you to incoming calls and alerts. It's a great feature for the hearing impaired and anyone who would rather receive visual rather than audio alerts.

To set it up, to to Settings > General > Accessibility and then scroll down until … Read more

iOS 5 notifications: A deeper look

CNET has told you all about what's new in Apple's iOS 5 operating system and in the iPhone 4S that launched today, but this here's a deep dive into the Notifications Center, one of the new features to hit iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

Pull down notifications The new notifications center is one of the biggest changes to iOS 5, and also among the best. Previously, if you missed or dismissed an alert, that's it, it was gone. Now you can place a finger at the information bar at the top of the screen and pull down to reveal a whole collection of messages, e-mail, reminders, calendar events, and other notifications you may have missed.

Comparisons with the pull-down menu in Android's operating system have been plentiful, and I'll get to them later on. But yes, the surface similarities are apparent.… Read more

How to change alert tones in iOS 5

"Was that you or me?"

I can't tell you how many times a perfectly mediocre episode of "NCIS L.A." or another procedural crime drama my wife forces me to watch is interrupted by the ding of an incoming e-mail on one of our iPhones. If we had different tones, then she could continue watching the NCIS team's riveting investigation while I checked my phone, or she could pause the show and check her phone. So that I would not interrupt Chris O'Donnell, L.L. Cool J, and the rest of the gang, … Read more

Apple iOS 5 review: Modest, but definitely worthwhile

At long last, iOS 5 is finally here, two days before the launch of the iPhone 4S.

(Related: We've heard that a number of users have had problems installing the update. Get the latest news on install issues in this post from CNET's Josh Lowensohn.)

Though iOS 5 is not as drastic of an upgrade as we saw with iOS 4 in June 2010, it does offer some much-needed and exciting enhancements for iOS users. A few are quiet and long overdue and others will seriously change how you use your Apple handset.

On that note, perhaps the … Read more