Android

Features

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  Analysis: Why Linux is a desktop flop

  It's free, easier to use than ever, IT staffers know it and love it, and it has fewer viruses and Trojans than Windows.

• BYOD battle: A tale of two opposing IT viewpoints

  EdSouth is a bank holding company active in the student-loan arena, and Arrow Container Corp. manufactures cartons and containers. Their ideas about letting employees use their own mobile devices at work for business — what's often called "Bring Your Own Device" (BYOD) — couldn't be more different.

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  Mobile apps: The IT pro's new power tools

  Think the mobile revolution is all about word games and social networking apps? Think again. Heavy-duty apps for IT pros have arrived on mobile platforms and they're quickly changing the face of IT systems management.

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  LG's Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

  When will your LG smartphone get Google's latest Android update, 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich?

• Android's Ice Cream Sandwich update and why it takes so long

  We explain how and why Android updates take so long to be released.

• What smartphones will be like in 2012

  Since the advent of the first modern smartphone--arguably the original Apple iPhone in 2007--the power of these mobile computing devices that also happen to make phone calls has advanced by leaps and bounds.

• Want Siri on your Android phone? Try these apps

  Wouldn't you like to have your very own gofer dedicated to doing all the menial tasks you hate? That's a big part of the appeal of the iPhone 4S: Siri, the voice-driven virtual assistant, turns anyone with a couple hundred bucks into a CEO attended by a full-time lackey. But can you get the same kind of slavish devotion from an Android phone?

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  Mobile deathmatch: Apple iOS 5 vs. Google Android OS

  After months of hype, Apple has released iOS 5 for current iPhone 3G S and 4 owners, for iPad and iPad 2 owners, and for third- and fourth-generation iPod Touch owners. But the fact is that iOS doesn't exist in isolation. It competes with Google's Android OS, and the group of smartphones running Android now significantly outsells the iPhone. (It's a different story in tablets, where the iPad is trouncing everyone, including Android.)

• Patent madness! A timeline of the Android patent wars

  History may look at Android as the tech industry's Helen of Troy: The OS that launched a thousand suits.

• REVIEWED: Motorola's Photon 4G - The best Android smartphone yet

  There's new hope for Android aficionados who want IT to let them use their preferred mobile OS for work, thanks to Motorola Mobility's four business-oriented smartphones: the Photon 4G and Xpert for Sprint, Atrix 4G for AT&T Wireless, and Droid 3 for Verizon Wireless. Motorola has filled in several deficiencies of the Android operating system that keep many IT organizations from allowing its use. For example, the new Motorola devices add support for on-device encryption to Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" and support more Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) security policies, so they're now compliant with many organizations' security requirements.

• Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review

  The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is a gaming focused Android smartphone launching next week in Australia on Optus and Telstra.

• The secret history of Android

  The Internet, as we all know, never forgets. And it turns out the World Wide Web has some pretty interesting memories on the subject of Android.

• HTC Android tablet: The pen makes it special

  HTC has posted a new promotional video for its upcoming Android tablet, which will either be named the Flyer--its moniker in the video--or the smartphone-like Evo View 4G when it arrives this summer.

• 5 features iOS needs, in order to sway me from Android

  With Apple preparing to talk about the future of iOS at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and the rumor mill churning, it's time for an old tradition: the iPhone feature wish list.

• Amazon's Android app store: Steve Jobs doesn't get it

  Roll out the welcome wagon, Android fans: It looks like you'll soon have a new place to shop.