All posts by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

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About Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

President, CEO & Editor of https://gavinsgadgets.com Reviews & News of Technology

Google removing apps that block its ads

Android, Tech News

Google has removed several ad-blocking apps from Google Play and sent letters to the developers explaining that they were breaking one of the rules. Section 4.4 of the Play store developer distribution agreement says:

“You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the Market, including the development or distribution of Products, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator. You may not use customer information obtained from the Market to sell or distribute Products outside of the Market”.

It seems that after Google announced it was closing down 70 services including Google Reader (which is criminal) it is still on the war path.

Don’t anyone tell me Google is open and Apple is a closed walled garden. That is so not the case anymore. Google is slowly but surely shutting down the hatches.

IDC forecasts android tablets will ship more than iPads in 2013 – just one problem

Android, Apple, Tech News

The latest tablet shipment forecast from IDC projects that Android will take a 48.8% share of the tablet market in 2013, a significant jump from the 41.5% share of the market the platform held in IDC’s previous projection. The rise of Android in the tablet realm comes at the expense of Apple (AAPL), which IDC projects will hold a 46% share of the tablet market in 2013, a decline of five percentage points from the 51% market share it held in 2012.

Only one problem, actually two.

These forecasts are made without any input of sales of new iPad versions and secondly there is a chronic shortage of android tablet apps.

Day 2 with the Samsung Note 2

Android, Tech News

So here I am at Day 2 with the Samsung Note 2. I am starting to move data from iTunes across and I discovered two options. Samsung are promoting their cloud music hub, a copy of Google Music in every way and also a piece of software easyphonesync.

Easyphonesync has an app on your phone and mac and syncs playlists from iTunes across, it can also sync every track if you want. What I didn’t realise as I went through the options is that it can also use your last iPhone back and add your text messages and calendar , contacts and photos. This has made the transfer so much easier. As I now have the music on the card, I can use the Samsung music player app which has incredible sound quality versus the other options.

Web browsing on the overall screen size has been a joy to use, making the small iPhone 5 screen seem well tiny.

I’ve installed Splashtop Desktop. Using the Note 2 to remotely access my mac is wonderful as its big screen is so easy to use. This is the first app where the Note offers a better experience and options over the iPhone.

Day 2 report.

First Impressions with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE coming from iPhone 5

Uncategorized

If you expect me to say how much better the Note 2 is from the iPhone 5 well that isn’t going to happen. They are 2 totally different devices.

I’ve got my Note 2 all setup nearly as I would like with over 100 apps installed. The screen is gorgeous and also huge, in fact at the moment the overall size is too big. I need some time to adjust.

I have found handwriting for the s-pen really good but sliding across the letters to enter words is even better, really fast.

What I have found is how clumsy everything feels at the moment. iOS is neat and tidy and does what you expect. For example of put a micro sd card in hoping to save some main memory space. Both Google Music and Amazon mp3 are saving music in the main memory not the memory card. There is no options to do that either without following so third party instructions for rooting. Too complex and not user friendly, nor does it follow the memory is expandable selling point.

The camera options are very good and I love all the effects but the quality in lower light doesnt compete with the iphone 5. As is the audio quality using the Samsung music player, only problem is that you can’t play google music or amazon music thru it. The phone has apt-x high quality Bluetooth codec and that makes a difference.

To go from the iPhone 5 to the Note 2 was relatively easy. Google Music had all my songs and dropbox all my photos and videos. Once my users names were entered everything was available on Note 2. Clever stuff.

Then we get to the apps. iOS simply crushes android. The whole app experience is far superior. In fact iOS provides a much better experience overall. Of course this is early days.

I have got a customised lock screen with app shortcuts, stocks and weather. I have a selection of widgets and apps on my several home screens. So it is not all bad.

End of Day 1 report.

eBay to Google – No thanks

Tech News

A report by auction website eBay has found that paying for advertising in the form of keywords on search engines has little effect on sales.

Platforms such as Google and Bing offer companies the option to “buy” words.

This means their websites appear more prominently if a person searches for a particular term.

The eBay study found that most people who clicked through as a result of this service were loyal customers who would have come to the site anyway.

Don’t know why eBay needed to arrange for a report to be undertaken to confirm this, as many people have moaned at the high cost of paying for keywords vs the poor returns.

Apple Maps updated again

Apple, Tech News

Apple has updated a number of cities with new or expanded Flyover support, updated 3D buildings and turn-by-turn navigation

Cities with new flyover coverage include Houston, Texas, Stockholm, Sweden; Munich, Germany; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Rome, Italy, Copenhagen, Denmark. Cities with Flyover coverage for the first time include Albany, New York, Indianapolis, Cologne, Glasgow and Vancouver, Many of the cities listed also include improved 3D building coverage and improved turn-by-turn directions.

China has seen a number of Maps updates including “a new coloring scheme that matches the vector-based Maps.

Also cities worldwide have seen updated labels, new satellite imagery and improved point-of-interest location information.

However despite all the updates it still is no force for Google Maps and severely lacks points of interest and proper searching of places.

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