Mobile Phones News Blog

Dropbox, a popular cloud storage service provider that offers support for various mobile and PC based operating system, has announced the experimental build for Google Android users. With this Dropbox users will get the automatic camera upload functionality, which earlier required the use of some very specific third party applications.

Besides the new update, few minor bugs of Dropbox has also been removed with this new upgrade. The application now bring along the much awaited automatic upload feature as well. Now Android users can automatically upload photographs and videos taken from the device’s camera right in to their Dropbox account without paying any additional fees.

Besides, the application also integrates itself with the device and synchronises all the photographs to the Dropbox account on the first install itself.

Users can choose the application to synchronise the photographs and videos using both 3G and WiFi . In order to conserve 3G bandwidth, there is an option to upload data only in the presence of a WiFi network as well.

The application has been updated but it has yet to be updated on the Android Market which will be done soon. For the time being users can simply follow the given link and download the preview or the beta application direct from Dropbox web site.

The Dropbox application during its experimental run is also offering up to 5 GB of storage space to users in 500 MB slots. So you will get 500 MB space as soon as you opt for the service and after that additional 500 MB will be given to you out of this 5 GB space as soon as you consume the first quota.

Symbian’s life has been hanging by a thread for sometime now, after the Android-of-its-day was systematically abandoned by manufacturers – remember both Samsung and Sony Ericsson once supported it, see the Omnia i8910 HD and the Satio for example 0 and even Nokia themselves opting to go with Windows Phone over the ageing platform.

If a new report is true, we could be getting very close to the final hurrah for Symbian, as The Register says Nokia has just one last phone running the operating system to launch, and that will be that.

Although other Symbian devices were in development, they’ve now been cancelled following lower than expected sales figures, with CEO Stephen Elop hinting the demand for low-cost smartphones is making it too difficult to compete.

Symbian could be going out with a bang though, as its rumoured swansong is to be a Nokia N8 sequel. The N8 has long been the best camera-phone on the market, and is one of the few devices still to feature a xenon flash; but it’s 16 months old and ripe for a refresh.

While new hardware may not continue, Nokia has repeatedly promised to continue supporting the software for several years yet – with 2016 often provided as an end date. There’s no reason not to think they’ll stick to their word, as we’ve got Nokia Belle coming soon, plus there has been talk of other updates for the future.

Perhaps we’ll find out more during Mobile World Congress, where there’s a chance we may meet the final phone too.

Reports surface earlier this week concerning malware discovered in the Android Market, which security specialists Symantec labelled it the ‘biggest ever’ threat found and estimated up to 5 million infections to date.

There were 13 apps discovered to contain the trojan dubbed Android.Counterclank, which recorded information such as the brand of phone it was installed on, various unique numbers such as the IMEI, as well as setting an alternative browser homepage and adding a new search shortcut to the homescreen.

After continued examination of the apps, and Counterclank’s relationship with another Android trojan named Tonclank, Symantec has confirmed the code comes from the same company. Subsequently, it now believes that rather than being malicious, Counterclank is actually part of an advertising network.

This doesn’t mean it’s not annoying though, but seems to put it more in the category of ‘adware’ rather than ‘malware’. Symantec has asked Google to remove the apps anyway, but so far Google has refused, saying they meet its Terms of Service.

In its official blog post on the subject, Symantec recognizes that to begin calling problematic software found on mobile platforms ‘adware’, ‘spyware’ or ‘malware’, could cause the same level of confusion it did when referring to Windows several years ago.

Instead, the plan is to inform users of what it calls ‘undesired applications’ and let them make up their own minds on what to do. Its security software won’t delete this software either. Whether this approach will see an increase in apps using Counterclank’s aggressive style of delivering ads remains to be seen.

Calculators have always been present on different devices, and that’s why they have become an inseparable part of the operating system itself. The stock Ice Cream Sandwich calculator, however, brings much more to the calculator.

The Android ICS calculator, which is called as Calculations 4.0, comes with two shades of grey whereas the rest of the operating system comes in electric blues and deep blacks.

The calculator app, apart from the standard calculations, also acts as a measurement converter, mortgage calculator and even as a currency convertor.

The best part of the app is its simplicity which makes it very easy to use.

New data from market intelligence firm IDC this week places Apple as the third largest manufacturer of mobile phones, in a fourth quarter of 2011 which overall showed surprisingly little growth on the same period of 2010.

Apple’s latest model, the iPhone 4S, was partly responsible for a jump of almost double the number of units shipped over the last calendar year compared to 2010, increasing from 47.5 million to 93.2 million in a jump of over 96%.

With Apple gaining so much ground in the smartphone race for market share, there had to be losers and the primary victim of the surge was LG, whose reported drop of almost 25 percentage points in smartphone sales between the end of 2010 and two months ago has badly affected shareholder confidence.

The Korean manufacturer’s overall market share is only down from 8.4% to 5.7%, though considering the huge amount of smartphones purchased in that year (nearly one and a half billion, up 11.1% on 2010), LG’s growth has certainly slowed compared to the iPhone’s success story.

The top two mobile makers remained unchanged with Samsung in second after near one-fifth growth year-on-year, whilst leaders Nokia, who also reported a loss of ground to Apple maintain top spot despite sales down from 453 million during 2010 to 417 over the last calendar year.