Zubin Rathod, Author at Devils' Workshop

Today Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world. It is developed by Google. Sony, Nokia, HTC, Blackberry, Motorola and many other cell phone manufactures ship cells with android.

It is a one of the major competitor to the Apple iPhone and many other cell phone manufacturing companies providing their particular mobile OS.

It is an Open Source Mobile Operating System and has more than 2,00,000 free applications. Some of the best android apps for your phone are listed below.

1. Advanced Task Killer

Android phones are capable of running more than one application at a time. This can Slow down the phone performance, but Advanced Task Killer helps by aborting the background running process at a click.

2. Evernote

Evernote is an app which is used in both computers as well as cell phones. You can easily find and search for you notes using Evernote. Also the ones made using your desktop PC. You can Capture your Ideas, Inspirations and Experiences using Evernote for android.

3. Fring

Fring is an android app using which a user can make calls, video calls and instant messages worldwide to their family and friends. The plus point of Fring is that it can communicate with users who are not a Fring member, also it is absolutely free of cost with more than ten million users worldwide.

4. FxCamera

You don’t need a 5MP camera for better photos if you have FxCamera. This applications have many filters and supports editing of photos. It can take snaps in special effects like ToyCam, Fisheye, Polandroid, SymmetriCam, Warhol, and Normal.

5. Gmote

Gmote turns your android phone to a remote control of your PC. Download Gmote to your device and Gmote Server to your PC. Connect both of them and you are done. It supports standard features like Play, Pause, Rewind, Volume Control, etc and also has a built-in browser to help you select what to play easily sitting at a distance.

6. Google Earth

Now Google Earth is available for android. Using it you can explore the world in your plam. Its features are Exploring in 3D, Local Search, My Location, Search by voice, Multi Touch, Layers. Not all the phone running android have a Google Earth supports. Phones having android 2.1+ version of android are supported.

7. Google Goggles

It searches information of the photo or a picture provided to it. If you see any landmark or product and want information about it just use Goggles and it will give you everything. Also it can read bar code of the products and helps you find similar products.

8. Google Maps

Google Maps as everyone know about it is now available for android based phones. You can use it to route your path, find place and paths using the maps on the Google servers at any place using your phone.

9. Opera Mini

The developers of Opera Mini have now launched a final version for android phones. It can be set as a default browser and pages outside the browser can be loaded using opera min. Its compression gives smaller bill amount. It has features like Tabs, Speed-Dial Navigation, Minimise Downloads and Opera Link.

10. Palringo

Palringo is an instant messaging app. You can connect to MSN, Yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ and many others. You never miss any chat with the notifications on your phone. You can share your location plus it supports rich media communication.

11. Pandora Radio

Pandora Radio is Internet Radio app. Just type in your favourite artist, composer or band and it will create a station which plays their songs and if you are an existing user of Pandora you can use you sync stations along with many new available.

12. XnView

XnView is a multi-format graphic browser. It can view more than 400 types of graphic file types also have options like thumbnail and preview.

13. WeFi

WeFi is an app which automatically finds and cconnects to the wi-fi spot near you. It also have its own Wi-Fi network around the world to access internet from anywhere. It has an inbuilt IM for your Buddy list. If you are frustrated searching for a Wi-Fi connectivity around you try this for free Wi-Fi connectivity.

All of the above apps are absolutely free and can be easily used with your Android phone. You can click on the name of the app to get more information and to download them.

Do keep an eye on the data charges. Do drop in your comments and views.

Apple’s iPhone is a powerful and the most buzzed thing in the telecom industry that integrates technologies from Infineon, Samsung, Broadcom, Intel, Linear Technologies, STMicroelectronics, Triqiunt, NXP Semiconductors, Texas Instruments, Marvell and many more. It is a global effect of over 10,000 people from over 30 countries and 3 continents. So lets have an insight tour of this amazing product from apple.

The iPhone basically have five elements:

Display glass
LCD
Main logic board
Battery
Back Panel

Touch-Screen & Display in iPhone:

Its large 3.5” multi-touch screen responds to both touch points and their movements (like spreading fingers to zoom in or pinching in to zoom out) simultaneously.
The screen has two main parts – the glass and the digitizer/LCD.
The glass and the LCD are separate in 3G.
Touch screen comes form Sharp and Sanyo Epson.
Broadcom’s BCM5974 chip is used as touch controller and Texas Instruments provides the line driver. National Semiconductors LM2512AA provides display interface.

Processor & Memory in iPhone:

Samsung provides the DDR SDRAM and the main processor (S3C6400 Based on ARM1176 Core)
S3C6400 is a 16/32-bit RISC micro processor designed to provide cost-effective, low-power and high-performance application solution for mobile phones
The main memory comes in 8 GB and 16 GB NAND Flash form Toshiba.
SST’s Chip provides 1MB Serial Flash.

Power Management in iPhone:

Infineon’s SMARTi Power management IC SMP3i 6820 is optimized to support modem and data card applications.
System-level power is controlled and managed through NXP chip
Triquint provides three power amplifiers, each working on different frequencies and providing highly integrated linear amplifier, duplexer and coupler
For communications function Skyworks SKY77340 provides power amplification in quad-band GSM/EDGE

Battery:

Infineon provides solution for as many as four key design aspects.
Other than the power management IC, it provides UMTS Transreceiver, Baseband processor and GPS Receiver.

GPS:

The inbuilt GPS capability is provided by Infineon’s PMB2525 Hammerhead II GPS that is integrated with assisted GPS (A-GPS)
It provides low-noise RF Front and multipath mitigation, which helps in reducing errors in urban areas

Accelerometer:

Changing the orientation form landscape to portrait and vice versa is possible because of STMicroelectronic’s LIS331 DL Accelerometer.
Use of this chip has given platform to many application developers for innovation in gaming, photography, etc.

Audio:

Wolfson WM6180C is the audio codec that replaces the original WM8758
Audio Formats supported by iPhone 3G are AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV

Wireless Capability:

The two chips at the back of the main board are Marvell’s single-chip 88W8686 offering Wi-Fi and CSR Bluecore6-ROM.

Camera:

iPhone 3G comes with a 2-megapixel camera and the iPhone 3GS comes with 3-megapixel camera which is capable of VGA Video recording.

(Thanks to Zion Technology, Delhi, India, Where iPhone 2G and 3G were disassembled. And other firms like Insights, Technoline and ifixit cracked the mystery of most of the chips used in the iPhone)

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[Editor Note: This is the first guest post submitted by Zubin J Rathod, A Civil Engineering Student, Interested In Ethical Hacking.
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