25 awesome iPhone tips and tricks

What's the only thing better than 25 ways to master your iPhone?

Here we go:

Turn iBooks into audio books: Like most smartphones, the iPhone has a number of accessibility options. One feature is called VoiceOver and it can read aloud any text on the screen. While designed primarily for the seeing impaired, anyone can take advantage of this feature if they want to turn an e-book into an audiobook. Now you can listen while commuting to and from work, while closing your eyes in bed or when jogging down the street. To activate it, go to Settings, then General, followed by Accessibility. Finally, swipe to change VoiceOver from Off to On. You'll also be able to tweak settings, such as the speed of voice reading to you. She sounds like the voice of Siri, by the way.

Quick access a draft email: You probably know you can start an email and save it as a draft to finish or review at a later time -- if not, when you're typing an email, tap Cancel and then select Save Draft — but here's a super quick way to access your message draft when you're ready to continue working on it: Open up the Mail app, touch and hold the Compose button (the icon of the small pencil in the square) and after a second or two it'll automatically take you to your last saved message draft. Neat, huh? Otherwise, you need to open Mail, select the email account, select Drafts and then find the message.

Cool Smartphones Under 5k

There was a time when smartphones were used only by executives, business magnets and those who wanted to remain connected 24/7 with their work. But, not these smartphones have moved beyond the executive’s boundary. In this age of social networking most of the smartphones are used by budget constrained young generation to connect to their friends by social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc. To make smartphones available for young generation or for students those who now-a-days Facebook and Tweet freaks, mobile makers have introduced very affordable smartphones. There are host of inexpensive smartphone available in the market but, here are the best four smartphones under 5000 available in the Indian market.

Tips & tricks to keep your PC safe

 No two ways about it: If you're connected to the internet, your PC is at risk. You might not even know it, but hackers probably have access to the data on your computer if you've been lax with its security. And that's just for starters. They could be reading your emails when you do, viewing your bank passwords when you type them out, and even mount hack attacks oninternet servers through your machine — while you remain blissfully clueless. 

Thankfully, you don't have to spend "protection money" to ensure that your computer is safe. Free software will do a fine job of keeping your machine safe from the evils of Cyberia. 

Get an antivirusWhen it comes to antivirus programs, the impression is that paid versions are always better. Not true. Paid anti-viruses have more features —- like sandboxing (to isolate the web browser) or anti-spam (to filter emails) -— but the detection engine for virus scanning and real-time protection is more or less similar across guardian software. 

The 20 Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2012

Halfway into 2012, there are now more than 1.2 million mobile applications available to download to iOS and Android devices. With so many options literally at our fingertips – including dozens of worthy titles introduced to us each day – the task of compiling a mid-year “best of” list of new apps is more challenging (and enjoyable) than ever.

Out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of titles worthy of inclusion, our favorite 20 iOS and Android apps released so far in 2012 can do everything from appraise the value of a home merely by taking its picture, to supplying users with loyalty schwag merely for checking-in to their favorite TV shows. We also salute a highly anticipated game sequel that somehow catapulted beyond its otherworldly hype.

A quick primer on our methodology before we get going. All apps picked were either released or significantly updated between January 1 and June 30 of this year. Titles that debuted on iOS or Android in 2012 that were previously available on another platform are eligible for inclusion. All of our selections were sourced, ranked and finalized by Appolicious Advisors and members of our community.  In all, about a dozen members of the Appolicious editorial team offered their favorites. We also surveyed the most active and influential users of Appolicious sites and applications. We did not account for the number of app downloads or overall popularity. Our qualitative assessment is based primarily on the production value, utility and creativity of baked into each cited application.

Top 10 Features of Jelly Bean

Jelly bean a.k.a Android 4.1 is a latest version of Andriod OS. Jelly Bean was announced at Google I/O 2012. Right now Jelly Bean is only available for Google Nexus 7 tablet.

Jelly Bean: The Best Android OS

Google launched Jelly Bean at Google I/O 2012 and the entire gadget world start phrasing it. Jelly Bean is indeed a best Android OS produced by Google due to many reasons. Jelly Bean was introduced with Nexus phone and tablet. Motorola Xoom is the second tablet to receive Jelly Bean after Nexus 7. 

Why Jelly Bean is the best Android OS yet?

1. Speed: The Jelly Bean is much faster and smother than Ice Cream Sandwich due to the introduction of "Project Butter". Project Butter involves Triple buffering due to which The CPU, GPU and display can run independently without waiting for each other.

Camcorder vs digital camera: What to buy

A lot of people thinks whether you need to buy that camcorder or not if you already have a camera. The simple answer: If you want to shoot fantastic photos as well as videos then you need both - a digital camera as well as a camcorder. On the other hand, if you're satisfied with the occasional video and are not so concerned about its quality, then your existing camera should suffice. But let's break it down... 



Video qualityMost digital photo cameras (including the S3100) are capable of HD (720p) video with some advanced models even offering FullHD (1080p) recording. Still, very few compact shooters can match the high-quality video from camcorders. In fact, the difference in output—better colour depth and sharpness—is almost always apparent when viewed on HDTVs. 

Ice Cream Sandwich is the third favorite flavor of Android

Although Google continues to make improvements to its Android mobile operating system, users of devices designed to run it are still a few steps behind. According to the latest stats released by the search engine giant, only 10% of Android device owners are running version 4.0 of the software, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

The most-used variant, Gingerbread (Android 2.3), was released in December 2010 and has an install base of 64%. After that is Froyo (Android 2.2) at 17.3% and Eclair (Android 2.1) at 4.7%. Ice Cream Sandwich debuted in October 2011 on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and, according to Google, is compatible with any device that's able to run Gingerbread.

Where Google Is Going Next: 5 Things You Need to Know

On the last day of the Google I/O developers conference, we sat down with engineering director Peter Magnusson to digest the introduction ofCompute Engine, which adds Google-scale processing power to the company's list of cloud offerings designed to take on Amazon Web Services. Here are the announcement's five key implications:

1. Forget Web vs. Native. There’s Only One Cloud

According to Magnusson, all the hand-wringing over Web versus native apps is really nothing to worry about. It’s a short-term problem. “We’ll have both for now,” he said, “and small teams will have to prioritize” based on what they learn from their customers. But eventually, Google intends to make so much possible from the cloud that the particular interface to an application won’t matter.

We’re almost at the inflection point, in fact. Magnusson points out that high-profile exits of small apps such as Instagram wouldn’t be possible without a managed cloud infrastructure. The new pieces of Google’s cloud offerings are trying to expand that flexibility to broader kinds of applications. “We’re trying to build the future cloud global computer,” Magnusson said.