Triplicate Thoughts

After the lull of the new year, the smartphone market is ready to kick off again. LG and Samsung have each unveiled their respective flagships for the year - the G6 and the Galaxy S8/S8+ - and we can expect many more phones to be released in the coming months. If you are an Android fan, the process of choosing a smartphone can be rather daunting, as there are hundreds of phones released each year. According to GSM Arena , there were over 500 Android phones released in 2016 all over the globe. Admittedly, these include region-specific devices, but that’s still a lot of devices to choose from.  So how do you choose one phone from hundreds? What do you look for? What do you avoid? I’m going to help you answer these questions by explaining certain aspects of smartphones and giving my personal recommendations for each so you won’t get a headache when you choose your next smartphone. Size The most important physical aspect of your phone will be its size. Too big and it becom...

One thing you'll notice from following me on social media is that I like to post about technology. A lot. I have a few interests which I am quite passionate about, but I post the most about technology. Not necessarily because I'm most passionate about it compared to my other interests, but more so because of how prevalent technology is in our daily lives. I mean think about it. How much of what we do on a daily basis is done with the aid of technology? How much has our lives been made more convenient thanks to technology? I consider myself quite tech savvy, and so I try my best to share what I know with my friends and family. To me, it's such a shame if you don't use technology to its fullest, especially when it comes to smartphones. Since we carry our smartphones with us everywhere we go every single day, to not use it to its full potential is such a waste. So here are a few stories of how I use technology in my daily life which will hopefully give you some ideas o...

About three months ago, I wrote an article explaining why  Telegram is a better messaging service compared to WhatsApp . It did quite well, and quickly shot up to be my third most popular post of all time. As a quick recap, the reasons I mentioned were faster and more frequent updates, Telegram is cloud-based which allows it to be used on multiple devices simultaneously and also allows users to store shared media in the cloud rather than on devices, usernames as a way to connect instead of phone numbers, and the ability to send files. I never planned to write another article on the issue, but Telegram just has so many benefits over WhatsApp, a single article wouldn't be sufficient. So here are five more reasons why Telegram is better than WhatsApp, and why you should make the switch.

Source There are two kinds of people in the world - those who argue over whether Android or iOS is better, and those who don't. I'm in the former group, though I tend to stay away from mindless name-calling fanboy fights and reserve my energy for more, mature conversations. When geeks get together and discuss/argue about iOS and Android, most of the conversation revolves around, well, geeky stuff. Open source vs closed, custom ROMs and kernels, sideloading app APKs, etc. Mostly stuff that the average consumer either knows nothing about, or just doesn't care about. But even if we leave out all the technical arguments, there are still quite a few reasons why I believe Android is better than iOS. Things that even the average consumer can understand and appreciate. You see, while we geeks argue over all the technical stuff, at the end of the day it's the user experience which determines how good a platform really is. And you don't need to be a tech enthusiasts to u...

Messaging apps are some of the most popular among smartphone users. Three of the top five free apps in the Play Store are messaging apps, and there are many more as well. When it comes to sheer user base, none can boast a higher number of users than WhatsApp. As of August 2014, WhatsApp reports a total of 600 million active monthly users . WeChat is second by a huge 132 million user margin. But as in other markets, just because something is the most popular, doesn't mean it's the best. WhatsApp will always benefit from being one of the earliest cross-platform messaging apps in the market. They've had years to build up their massive user base, and as long as they have that, competing apps will find it difficult to get a foothold in the market. The problem newer messaging apps face is that not many people will use a service if none of their friends and family are. What good is a messaging app if you don't have anybody to send messages to? Telegram is very young compared...

There are many utility apps in the Play Store, but Pushbullet is easily one of the best apps you can have on your device. Simply put, it acts as a bridge between your mobile device(s) and your computer(s), allowing you to perform several tasks between them. Initially it was just used to easily send data between all your connected devices like links and files, but the devs are amazing at adding new functionality. The app has grown to be much more than just a tool to send files between your devices. You can also receive your phone's notifications on your computer, send SMSes from your computer, have one clipboard for all your devices, and it even has an RSS-like feature called Channels. If you want to find a way to productively connect all your devices together, this is definitely an app to checkout.

Android 5.0 Lollipop is the biggest jump for the platform since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which was released back in 2011. Ever since then, Android has been taking small steps towards becoming a more powerful platform, such as the introduction of Google Now in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and to look more polished and elegant, with the shift towards a lighter-coloured environment in Android 4.4 KitKat. But Lollipop is by far the biggest change for the platform, as you can probably guess by the version number. With this change comes a lot of new functionality, in addition to a huge design overhaul to make "stock" Android look more like a finished product, rather than a bare bones foundation for others to build on. I won't go through every new feature in Lollipop, there are various videos and articles out there already. I'm just going to share with you the five features which I like the most, and which I think will make the biggest impact on everyday use for the avera...

Image: Android Central Google I/O. When every Google fan and Android enthusiast geek-out over anything and everything Google announce. I gotta admit, I geeked-out pretty hard during the keynote (you can tell by all the posts I shared during the event). Even though a lot of what was announced had already been leaked before the event, there were still plenty of surprise announcements during the keynote which kept me wide awake (the event started at midnight here) until the end, almost . There were announcements regarding Android, Android Wear, Android Auto, Android TV (yes, a lot of Android), ChromeOS, Google Drive and many more. Now, this won't be a summary of the best announcements made during the keynote, there are plenty of those already out there written by journalists who attended the event. This will just be some of my personal favourite announcements from the keynote. It was difficult to narrow it down to just five, because there were so many awesome announcements. So I...

Image: Android Police While Samsung dominate the consumer market, Nexus devices are the preferred choice of many Android enthusiasts around the world. Being one of the oldest brands in the Android ecosystem, the only brand to ship with Android the way Google intended it, in addition to having the best after-market software support courtesy of the people from XDA, the Nexus brand is loved by many Android fanboys, myself included. So when news broke that Google might be killing it in favour of something called Android Silver , you can only imagine the heartbreak that must've been felt by Nexus fans. While it is still only a rumour, the amount of respectable sites that have published the story seem to indicate that there may actually be some truth to the rumour. While the details may still be uncertain, it does look like Android Silver could indeed be a real thing in the future. So based on what we have read from reports, I believe the Android Silver programme could actually be ...

Image: Wired Google is a monster of a company. They have their fingers in so many pies it's amazing that all their services and products work as well as they do. While Search may be Google's primary business, the company is also known for one other very successful product - Android. Although Android is free, Google do benefit a lot from having 80% of the worlds smartphone-toting population own an Android device . That being said, being the owner of the most widely used mobile OS in the world has it's fair share of challenges too. It's well known that Android had a hard time growing up. Up until ICS, Android was still maturing into a state that many would consider "complete", as depicted in this drawing by Googler +Manu Cornet . In the comic strip, the mascot eating the ICS is the first to have a straight back, which is why after 3 years, we are still happily on Android 4.x. Other than the upgrade to ICS, Google have also made many other brilliant decisio...

Is it? Image: ZDNet If you know a bit about me, you'll know that my first smartphone was the iPhone 4. Prior to that I was " training"  using an iPod Touch  I guess you can say, so I had about 3 years of experience using iOS before making the switch to Android . During that time, I was under the impression that Android was too complicated to use, while iOS "just worked". Now, after slightly less than two years on Android, I still think Android is more complex than iOS, but it's not too complex. In fact, there are some things that I feel are actually easier to do on Android than on iOS. That's what this post will be about, 5 things that are easier to do on Android than iOS.

Image: Evolllution One of the best things about the Android ecosystem is that as consumers, we have plenty of choice. We have a variety of manufacturers to choose from, as opposed to iOS where you only have the iPhone, or WP8 where the only good option is Nokia's Lumia devices. Or even BB10 where you only have phones from BlackBerry to choose from. With Android, there is pretty much a phone for every type of person. Each OEM that makes Android devices is good at something different, which is why we have different devices made suitably for different types of people. They each have their own strengths, and of course weaknesses. That is what this post will be about - highlighting what I think is each Android OEMs strengths, and weaknesses.

Class is in session. Image: Engadget Before I turned into a very vocal advocate of the Android operating system, I was a long-time iOS user. At the time, my reasoning was that iOS was just so simple to use, while Android was too complicated. I didn't want to make the effort to learn how to use Android. Now that I have, I still think iOS is easier to use than Android, but that doesn't mean Android's  too difficult to use. All you need is some guidance and Android will be a breeze. That's ultimately why I started this blog in the first place - not to report on mobile tech or spread rumours and such, but to provide the average consumer (who won't usually visit sites like Android Police or Pocketnow ) with basic knowledge on how to make the most of their Android device. I already wrote a beginner's guide to smartphones , as well as highlighted a few of my favourite apps , and now I will give 5 tips that I think every new (or less-informed) Android user should ...

If you are any level of a Google power user, even a "light" power user, you'll probably already know all of the things I'm about to share. But it's quite surprising really, just how many of my friends and colleagues are unaware of the perks of owning a Google account. Some of them don't even know what a Google account is , or that they have a Google account. So before we move on, if you have a Gmail account, or if you use Android, you have a Google account. In case anyone wasn't sure. One of the greatest strengths of having (and using) a Google account is the connectivity we can enjoy. We can have multiple devices in our arsenal  - a smartphone (or two), a tablet, and a desktop/laptop, but thanks to our Google account, all our devices will always be connected. And if you use iDevices don't worry, you can have a Google account on your devices as well. There are many benefits of connecting our devices with our Google account, and here are just a few of ...

Nexus 5 coming on October 28th! Not. Image: Pocket-Lint If 2013 taught us anything about the mobile industry, it's that when someone has a good idea an idea which people perceive as good, competitors will follow. Some of these ideas really are good, like HTC's front-facing BoomSound speakers, or Motorola's near-stock skin which allows for quick updates, but for some reason, nobody else seems to be following these ideas. But other ideas, which turned into trends within the industry didn't really make much sense to me. Which is why I wish they would stop as we enter 2014, or at least be changed in a way so that they do make sense. Most of these trends are " me too" trends, where OEMs do what others are doing just so they can say "we have that too!" , without actually putting much thought into their products. I hope OEMs actually think for themselves in 2014 instead of carrying on with these trends.

What will we see from the Android army in 2014? Image: iDownloadBlog 2013 was a good year for Android OEMs in general. Smartphones have made huge leaps forward from their 2012 predecessors. Smartphones from every major Android OEM are pretty much neck and neck in terms of performance, they each have their own strengths (and weaknesses) and Google have refined Android to the extent that you pretty much can't go wrong with any phone you buy. In the past couple of years, there have been some fairly consistent trends in the Android ecosystem. Some OEMs keep doing the same things which we come to expect, while others keep surprising us with things we never thought possible. A couple of months ago I wrote about what I expect from smartphones in 2014 , specs wise. This time I'm taking a more focused approach, and will share with you what I think we will see from each of the major Android OEMs in 2014.

Image: Android Guys I'm not the kind of guy who makes resolutions when new year's comes along. Quite frankly I think the whole concept is silly. I mean, why wait until the turn of the year if you want to be a better person? If you really wanted to better yourself, you would do so then and there. But I digress. The reason why I'm writing this post despite my previous statement, is because I just got my Nexus 5 . With a new device comes new opportunities to change your mobile habits. We are often restricted by our devices when it comes to what we can do. If we have a device with poor loudspeakers, we won't be listening to music much without earphones. If our device has a mid-range SoC, we won't be playing graphic intensive games. A poor camera, not a lot of photos. You get the point. Now some of my "resolutions" may not be directly related to, or a consequence of me owning a Nexus 5, but cover a broader scope of how I aim to improve my mobile habits. A...

The Play Store is abundant with amazing apps. Image: Tested Our smartphones are only as good as the apps we have on them. Having a powerful smartphone with a buttery smooth OS is cool sure, but having the right selection of apps is what makes the entire experience worthwhile. With over one million apps in the Play Store , choosing the best ones can be a bit difficult if you are new to smartphones or Android. Especially if you have no idea what Android is capable of, because some of the best apps in the Play Store take advantage of some of Android's strengths. This list is not a list of the best apps in the Play Store, because quite frankly, different people have different preferences. But these are some of the most popular in their respective categories, and I use all of them frequently on my smartphone. You can always look for alternatives if my suggestions don't suit your style. That's why Android is cool. You always have a choice. So here are my suggestions for must...

Image: Digital Trends Security is a major concern many people have in this modern technological era. With so much information in data streams, going back and forth between user devices and servers, with so much of our personal lives online, it shouldn't come as a surprise if some users value the data and information in their devices (or the cloud) more than the actual devices themselves. With more and more people using mobile devices, the mobile industry is becoming more appealing to would-be hackers and data phishers.  I believe that anything can be "hacked", to use the term loosely. There's no such thing as 100% security when it comes to something as vast and interconnected as the world wide web.  But that doesn't mean we should shun the advancements of technology all together. There are many security measures taken by service providers to ensure the security of their clients' data and information, and there are also many security measures users can tak...

What do you want in 2014? Image: Talk Android With the product cycles for this year's mobile devices coming to an end, many are already looking forward to 2014. We've heard rumours of a metallic Galaxy S5 , rumours of a larger iPhone , and even seen leaks of the alleged  successor to the HTC One . I've shared with you what I think we will see on spec sheets in 2014 , from an OEM perspective. But this time I'm taking a different approach, a more consumer-centric approach. Once a new device has been launched, we normally say things like "I wish they made this like this" , or "I wish they didn't include this" when reviewing devices. As consumers, we have our own preferences, hopes and dare I say, expectations with regards to the mobile devices we carry on our person at all times. This post won't focus on one particular device or brand specifically, but on the industry in general. Things that I hope I'll see more of (or in one particula...