The holiday season is upon us, which means it’s the season of giving which is why Apple has been holding an annual “12 Days of Gifts” promotion for its iOS App Store. The 12 Days of Gifts comes in the form of a giveaway app that was only available for those living in Europe and Canada, but this year, Apple has decided to allow U.S. customers in on the giveaway fun. (more…)
Apple Including U.S. In ’12 Days Of Gifts’ Giveaway App original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Waking up can be quite a difficult task at hand, especially when you consider how the weather outside seems to be so fine for sleeping in. Many of us use the alarm clock function on our smartphones to help us get out of bed, and without a Snooze function in the alarm clock, life could get pretty tough. Instead of listening to the usual ring or din, how about letting you greet the day with your favorite tunes? The latest update to the Pandora for iOS app would enable you to do so, where after downloading this update from iTunes, you can make use of the built-in alarm clock.
Need additional minutes to lie in bed? Fret not, the snooze bar is there to save the day. Apart from that, there is also a new sleep timer which would allow you to listen to music for a pre-set amount of time prior to the app being turned off. Since some of you do make use of the Pandora app before falling asleep, why not make use of the very same app to wake up? This particular app has been updated visually to match what you see in the iOS 7 environment, too, for a more seamless user experience. [iTunes Link]
Let Your Favorite Tunes Wake You Up With Pandora For iOS original content from Ubergizmo. 
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‘Tis the season to be jolly, tra-la-la-la-la! Do you feel so? Perhaps you need nudge in the right direction, and the folks over at Motorola might just have the right kind of tonic for you. They have recently introduced an update on the quiet to not only the Motorola Moto X, but the Motorola Moto G as well. This update will not be able to deliver performance enhancements or better memory management to your respective smartphones, but what you will get is a holiday-centric boot screen animation.
Basically, you will find the animation as shown on the video whenever you boot up your smartphone, allowing you to enjoy the sights of animals and snow and Christmas trees. Do bear in mind that the handset in question will need to run on Android 4.4 KitKat at the very least, or you can take the alternative of installing the Motorola Boot Services app from the Google Play Store, where it will also update the boot animation. This particular holiday boot animation is tipped to remain until January 6th, and after that, Motorola will switch back the boot animation to normal. Would you like to see other smartphone manufacturers also do the same to get you into the holiday mood?
Motorola Unveils Holiday Boot Screen Animation For Moto X And Moto G original content from Ubergizmo. 
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The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active has been around for some time already, being one of the rugged models from Samsung that is able to withstand more than just regular wear and tear. Having said that, it seems that the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active has just received a bump in its chipset, where the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset is now thrown into the mix, giving users another option other than picking up the standard issue SHV-E330S Galaxy S4 in SK-Telecom’s smartphone family over in South Korea. Needless to say, this bumped up device would arrive with support for LTE-A networks (of up to 150 Mbps, theoretically speaking).
Other than the updated SoC as well as 2.3GHz quad-core processor and Adreno 330 GPU, the updated Samsung Galaxy S4 Active would also sport better hardware specifications, where you will be able to enjoy a 13-megapixel shooter which has a far higher resolution count than the 8-megapixel camera on the existing Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, alongside a new color scheme. Despite that, it is also slightly lighter, while arriving in white. As for the rest of the hardware specifications, it will sport a 5” Full HD display, a 2,600mAh battery, and IP67 certification. It remain to be seen whether it will be available internationally.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active Receives Snapdragon 800 Chipset original content from Ubergizmo. 
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It has not been too long after Google started to roll out their Android 4.4.1 KitKat updates to various Nexus devices, where among them would include the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7, but here we are with word that Google has also begun to introduce Android 4.4.2 KitKat to different Nexus devices – with whispers on the street stating that the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 devices have begun to be on the receiving end of such updates, while there were also reports of manual download links popping up.
So far, there has been no official announcement from Google concerning the Android 4.4.2 KitKat update, although Sprint did make an announcement that you can take advantage of an update to build KOT49H for the Nexus 5. Considering how Google’s update last week happened to be build KOT49E, it goes without saying that the KOT49H update is a wee bit more recent. Will such minor increments and improvements made in the latest update (or at least, it is perceived to be as such) really be important in the larger scale of things? Perhaps Android 4.4.2 KitKat was released so soon after Android 4.4.1 KitKat hit the streets in order to address whatever niggling issues it carried, which is a good thing actually.
Android 4.4.2 KitKat Starts To Appear On Different Nexus Devices (Unofficial) original content from Ubergizmo. 
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How has your Android experience been so far over the years? I am quite sure that you have had your fair share of ups and downs with it, but as with a good marriage, things get better and better with each passing year. Google themselves certainly deserve a pat on the back for their efforts in bringing up this mobile operating system to mainstream consciousness, and this time around, Google has ensured that the action overflow button will always be on, never mind if there is a presence of a hardware menu button on your device – starting with Android 4.4 KitKat powered devices.
Here is a little bit of history to catch up on things. After all, if one is unable to remove physical navigation buttons because of different manufacturers around, why not remove the capacitive menu button instead? Google did formalize soft navigation buttons with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, where the “action overflow menu” happened to function as a substitute for the menu button. Ever since then, this action overflow button has not been as consistent as expected when it comes to Android apps, as it shows up on devices with soft navigation buttons, but not whenever it detects the presence of a hardware menu button. With an always on presence now in KitKat, life would be much better, no?
KitKat Devices Feature Android Menu Button By Default original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Have you ever wondered as to why certain companies like to roll out a “mini” version of a perfectly fine and working handset? Perhaps it is because they have already done their bit to position the brand of the smartphone in such a way where it might cost even more money to actually start branding a new kind of device, so why not save that dough with some of the work already completed, use a similar looking chassis at a smaller physical form factor with lesser specs, and rely on the same name, except that there is the suffix “mini” behind it? The LG G2 too, might be on the receiving end of the mini treatment, where the display is tipped to be 4.7″ in size.
Come to think of it, 4.7″ is not mini by any means if you were to roll back the clock by a couple of years, heck, it is still bigger than what the iPhone 5s has. It remains to be seen just what kind of resolution will the 4.7″ display carry, although it is widely tipped to arrive with 2GB RAM and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU. Pundits speculate that it could be unveiled at CES which is all set to kick off in less than a month’s time.
LG G2 Mini Rumored original content from Ubergizmo. 
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A couple of months ago, Motorola announced that they would be taking on the Phonebloks concept to turn it into a reality, calling it Project Ara. For those unfamiliar, the goal behind Project Ara is to create smartphones made of modular components, meaning that users would be able to pick and choose which hardware goes into their phone, and swap out existing parts for upgraded ones, kind of like building your own computer. Well it turns out that Xiaomi has similar plans of their own which is called Magic Cube.
The images above were originally posted by the company’s CEO on Weibo, but was soon taken down. Based on what we can see, the concept is pretty similar to Project Ara, save for the screen which appears to be attached to the mainboard, meaning you can’t remove it without removing the mainboard at the same time. Unfortunately apart from these photos, not much else is known about the project for now. Some have speculated that it could be Xiaomi’s Magic Cube project that might have attracted Google’s Hugo Barra to join the company, where he promised to help transform Xiaomi into the next Google or Amazon.
Magic Cube Could Be Xiaomi’s Modular Smartphone Concept original content from Ubergizmo. 
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The LG G2 was launched a few months ago and features some pretty impressive hardware, especially its camera which seemed to take some pretty decent shots even in low-light conditions. Given its specs and mostly-favorable reviews, we would have expected the handset to be a huge success for LG, but as it turns out that might not be the case, at least so far. According to recent reports, the LG has only managed to sell 2.3 million LG G2 units to date, which is about 4 months since its release. This definitely falls short of LG’s initial projections where they estimated that they would be able to hit 3 million units sold in Q3 alone.
Oddly enough the handset did not do as well as we might have imagined back home in South Korea, where the handset has only managed 600,000 units to date, which slightly beats out the LG G Pro of 2012 by about 60,000 units. Many are speculating that the handset will see an increase in sales during the holiday season , so perhaps LG will see a spike in units sold then, so until then we guess we will have no choice but to wait and see. In the meantime what do you guys think of the LG G2’s sales so far? Given its hardware and features, why is this handset not as big a hit as it ought to be?
LG Has Sold 2.3 Million LG G2 Units So Far original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Apple made headlines when they announced the iPhone 5s not because of the looks of the device or its features, but rather the fact that they achieved an industry first by introducing a 64-bit chipset into a smartphone. Naturally several companies later announced their plans to hop aboard the 64-bit bandwagon as well, but it looks like coming in at second place is none other than Qualcomm, whose SVP at that time dismissed the notion of such technology. However interestingly enough, instead of creating a high-end chipset that would power future flagship devices, Qualcomm has instead chosen to use this chipset for low-end devices for emerging markets.
Dubbed the Snapdragon 410, this is a 64-bit low-cost processor that Qualcomm expects will make its way into devices of the $150 category. Despite its intended destination, it is no slouch as it will have enough power to support hardware such as 13MP camera modules, 4G LTE connections, and even 1080p Full HD video playback! It will also sport an Adreno 306 GPU, meaning that even those on budget devices will be able to enjoy some decent games. Qualcomm expects to begin pushing their chipsets to OEMs next year, with the first devices to hit the shelves in the second half of 2014.
Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 410 64-Bit Chipset For $150 Devices original content from Ubergizmo. 
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