Skype for Android vulnerable to hack that compromises personal info

If you didn't already have enough potential app privacy leaks to worry about, here's one more -- Android Police discovered that that Skype's Android client leaves your personal data wide open to assault. The publication reports that the app has SQLite3 databases where all your info and chat logs are stored, and that Skype forgot to encrypt the files or enforce permissions, which seems to be a decision akin to leaving keys hanging out of the door.

Basically, that means a rogue app could grab all your data and phone home -- an app much like Skypwned. That's a test program Android Police built to prove the vulnerability exists, and boy, oh boy does it work -- despite only asking for basic Android storage and phone permissions, it instantly displayed our full name, phone number, email addresses and a list of all our contacts without requiring so much as a username to figure it out. Android Police says Skype is investigating the issue now, but if you want to give the VoIP company an extra little push we're sure it couldn't hurt.

T-Mobile G2x now available online for $200, hitting stores April 20th

T-Mobile's Android roster is growing in number and sheer benchmarking virility today with the launch of the LG-produced G2X. This handset runs bone stock Android (Froyo today, Gingerbread in the future) atop a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 system-on-chip, and just like its international twin the Optimus 2X, eschews the physical flair and focuses on being the best damn 4-inch smartphone that it can be. It costs $199.99 on a two-year contract and can be bought online today or in stores starting April 20th. Also scheduled for general availability on that date is the QWERTY slider-equipped Sidekick 4G, though that sleepyhead is missing out on any early web availability -- it's probably too busy adjusting its tricked-out Android skin and checking that its magenta accents are all spotless. Links are below, whether you're feeling inquisitive or acquisitive.

Android will rule the smartphones, WP7 will be second, says Gartner

According to the analysts over at Gartner, Android will be the most popular mobile OS in the next four years reaching almost 50% market share. Meanwhile Windows Phone will catch up and overtake the second place from iOS by 2015 with 20% market share.

This is what the latest Gartner's report predicts. Quite expectedly the Symbian market share is shrinking rapidly, while those of Android's and Windows Phone will go up.

Apple's iOS will have the second place by the end of 2012, but Microsoft will overtake it by 2015. It seems both Android and iOS will lose some users in favor of Windows Phone. It's predicted that when this happens Apple will change its pricing policy in order to maintain its share.

RIM will also have a user withdrawal when its migration from BlackBerry OS to QNX, the OS behind the Playbook, starts in 2012 (we're not sure we've heard of those plans before) .

It seems there will be two major changes in the next four years - Android will be the king of the mobiles (eating the Symbian pie), while the Microsoft-Nokia cooperation will push the Windows Phone up to the second place. It seems logical, but we'll wait and see how things will turn up.

We already saw quite similar predictions in the IDC report a week ago. There are a few minor differences into the distribution of shares (a bit smaller Android share and a bigger Windows Phone one in 2015), but both reach to the same conclusion – Android will be the biggest player in 2015 and Windows Phone will beat iOS for the second place.

Another thing that is worth mentioning is we could expect doubled smartphones sales in 2012 (compared to 2010).

It seems Gartner also didn’t foresee any major players entering the smartphone market. Just like the IDC report, the Gartner’s one also doesn’t see Bada OS as a major player in the next four years. Another think that pops in mind is they think Apple will sit back and stay calm when it’s losing market share. What we are trying to say is there are just too many variables and not all of them were taken in consideration. So these predictions might apply in some version of our world, but can’t be a reliable source in our dynamic life.

Orange eBook app opens pages in the Android Market

Orange has announced that a dedicated app for its Orange Book Club has gone live in the Android Market, offering 23,000 eBooks and audio books.

The app, which will be compatible across multiple platform versions (such as Java, Symbian, BlackBerry and PC) includes titles from the Orange Prize for Fiction, which has entered its 16th year.

It also features a handy one-click purchase option whereby you won't need to enter any payment details, the cost will simply be added to your Orange phone bill.

The app will also offer sample chapters for free, personalisation and bookmarking features and titles will start from just 50p.

Stuart Jackson, brand communications director at Orange, said: "The new Orange Book Club app gives readers a truly 21st century book-buying experience. Think of a book you'd like to read and you can download it instantly on your connected device.

"Unlike many other eBook services on the market, ours allows you to purchase with a single click, making it easier than ever before to download your next must-read novel - wherever you are."

The app is live in the Android Market now, and it's free.

Sonos for Android delayed, now coming April

Sonos for Android, a remote control app for Android-loving Sonos owners, has been delayed; Pocket-lint has been told.

The new app, which was first showcased back in February at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and promised for March, has hit a stumbling block and therefore won’t be out this month.

“We know you’re anxiously awaiting the Sonos Controller for Android http://www.sonos.com/android. Unfortunately, testing the app is taking a bit longer than we anticipated. The latest addition to our free controller line-up won’t arrive until April, but when it does, it is going to rock.” Andrew Schulert - vice president, Quality, Sonos, Inc.

Unfortunately Sonos hasn’t detailed when in April.

We will keep you posted.

Google Maps 5.3 for Android updated with home checks, location history and more

Google Maps 5.3 for Android has been released bringing with it new features to map out and explore (see what we did there?).

Now in Google Maps for Android you’ll be able to see your Location History, where you’ve been, distance you’ve travelled, time spent at work, home or out and about, and other gems to really make you paranoid that Google has been watching you this whole time all from your phone, although Google are keen to stress that you can turn it off if you want to - it’s actually opt-in rather than opt-out.

Also added is the ability to “check-in” at home, whereby the app, once you’ve set it, will automatically check you in when you get home. Handy, say Google, for letting your friends that track you know when you’ve got home safe, but cunning parents will also realise it’s going to be great for finding out when your teenagers really did get through the front door.

Finally you can now categorise your check-ins with your own defined categories like music for example.

To get started, update Google Maps from Android Market on devices with Android OS 1.6+ anywhere Google Maps and Latitude are already available.

Firefox 4 for Mobile (Android)

Minimalist is certainly one word for for this Android app. Download the free app, fire it up on your Android device and you’ve got a firefox page staring out at you. There’s an address bar, and that's it. No clutter, no fuss, just a refresh icon.

That's great when it comes to knowing what site you want to look at, but what about tabbed browsing, bookmarks, favourites and all the other things that you like to use when you’re browsing the interwebs.

For this Firefox 4 for Mobile mainly uses hidden menus and actions that are revealed either by typing or swiping.

Swipe left for example in portrait orientation and this reveals the tabbed pages that you’ve got loaded (if you have any of course) and the ability to click on those images to access that page. Each page shows a graphical representation of the page where you left if and it’s incredibly easy to spot which page you want to switch to, as long as all the pages you are viewing aren’t virtually identical in their design.

Swiping to the right reveals bookmarks and favourites for you to mark, all there when you need them but hidden out of sight when you don’t.

Likewise that address bar isn’t just an address bar, but the “Awesome bar” in disguise, we say disguise, but in reality it’s just there waiting to be used. Start typing and it will pick up your search history, offer the ability to search Google or Wikipedia and even pick up on your Awesome bar details from your desktop version of Firefox 4 if you’ve opted to sync your accounts – very clever.

Syncing the two browsers (desktop and mobile) is very easy and because the system syncs every five minutes (or manually if that’s not quick) enough it means that you can carry on looking at a web link you’ve found in the office after you’ve headed out the door.

Elsewhere within the app you get pinch to zoom functionality with the ability to move around the screen at the same time (very similar to the iPhone) and the ability to enhance the mobile browser even further with Firefox add-ons. These can be anything from Personas to merely adding Twitter as a search option.

You can also search within a page, save to PDF, share a page via apps like email and Google reader, as well as the ability to play with HTML 5 friendly websites.

Of course all of this is irrelevant if the browser is slow and unwieldy and luckily it’s not. It’s fast, zippy, easy to use and ultimately a great browser to add to your Android phone.

Drawbacks? Well you will need an Android handset with some umph to run it and that means that early Android smartphones just aren't up to scratch, so it's best to check with Mozilla if your phone makes the grade.

If it does, it's highly recommended.

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android-music-3-streaming-player

There are a number of Android pieces waiting to fall into place and this leaked, but working, Music app seems to fit perfectly into the middle of that puzzle.

The app has the look and feel of the Honeycomb music player, using the same icon and essentially offering the same New and Recent view that lets you flick through your album art, a little like Apple’s Cover Flow.

Let’s be honest, the stock Android music player is pretty bland, really only offering up listings and playback, and Music 3.0 doesn’t extend too much further than that. You can sort and search music by the normal categories and you get the Now Playing bar at the bottom of most list-based pages, or an icon in the top right-hand corner in the New and Recent view.

When a song is playing you get a little animated meter on the right-hand side, a drop-down menu offering options, like adding to a playlist.

But the interesting thing here is the Settings menu. This will let you add a streamed music account and offers a range of settings to control how streamed music is handled. At the moment you click on the option to add an account and head through to a blank screen and there doesn’t seem to be any way to populate this section of the app.

The other options offer up cache settings, Wi-Fi only settings and a download queue. The Help option at the bottom of the page doesn’t offer up and suggestions, just taking you to a webpage that currently doesn’t exist.

Assuming this is a legitimate leak - rather than just an enthusiastic fan’s recreation of the Honeycomb app on Gingerbread - it seems to fit into other nuggets of information we’ve heard about Google addressing Music in the future.

It's not certain whether the option to select an account means you'll be able to choose from different streaming music services, or if it just lets you select the Google account to access music you have stored with Google, rather like the Amazon Cloud service.

Moving the music player for phones closer to the tablet version also fits in with Google ascertaining that the two strands of Android would come together. This certainly looks to bring a uniformity to the mobile operating system, and we guess the option would roll out to Honeycomb in an update.

The app is unstable at the moment, so we don’t recommend you use it as your main player - we installed in on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc without any problems, but it is a little delicate and will crash if you try to access certain menus whilst playing music - an option to access “sound effects” crashed the player every time we tried to take a look.

Music v3 brings with it a basic playback widget, integration into your notification bar (but doesn’t offer any playback controls here) and doesn’t offer you any lock screen playback either.

The app come courtesy of Droid Life, where you can download it for yourself, after seeing the story first appear when a test version of Android Market landed in the laps of Tech From 10.

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Quickoffice Pro HD (Android Honeycomb)

Tablets are great for mucking about the Internet, playing the odd game and generally not doing much from the comfort of your sofa, but what if you’ve got to do some work? Maybe write a document, or check out a spreadsheet?

Quickoffice Pro HD has been specifically designed for Honeycomb to take advantage of the new operating system's features, such as the higher resolutions and bigger screen sizes - so is perfectly suited to the new breed of Android tablets, like the Motorola Xoom and Asus Transformer.

And as it's an all-in-one office suite, you shouldn't need anything else...

Cloud support

The new app will let you create, view and edit Microsoft Office files, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, and access them through a number of cloud-based services, like Google Docs, Dropbox, Box, Huddle, SugarSync and MobileMe, or from an SD card that you’ve got in the device.

It ultimately means that you’ve got full office control over your documents regardless of whether you’’ve got them stored locally or not. It's incredibly clever and currently beats Google Docs in creating an Offline mode to work on, although you do need to be online to access the files

Documents

Yep, like any word processor you’re used to on a desktop, Quickoffice Pro HD will allow you to completely manage your word documents from a whole host of formats and treat them as if you were on a Windows PC.

Text can be highlighted in the device and then, using the Honeycomb features, searched for on the web straight away (providing you’re connected). Pictures can be added and manipulated, and the whole process is quick and simple.

Spreadsheets

Yep, we know they're boring (unless you're a Football Manager fan, in which case they're the entire basis of a game), but you’ve got to look at them from time to time. Here you get the ability to create, view and edit Excel spreadsheets (.xls & .xlsx).

While it doesn’t look like it has full Macro support, you can link cells, add formulas and do most tasks you’ll need for on-the-go editing.

PowerPoint

Like with documents and spreadsheets, you’re able to create and edit PowerPoint presentations via Quickoffice Pro HD. That includes dragging and dropping slides to set orders, WYSIWYG editing, and the ability to insert an image or take images from the gallery if the device has a camera.

More

There’s plenty more to Quickoffice Pro HD than we could do justice here on App of the Day. There’s PDF support, copy and paste between different files, and superb integration with Honeycomb, which all adds up to an app that has all the potential of replacing the need for a computer and Microsoft Office altogether.

And, the real kicker is that it’s just $14.99 compared with £320 - a steal! Get it while it’s hot.

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Samsung Galaxy 5 Review: The Small Android Your Non-Geeky Friends Will Love

The story with Android has been quite similar these last few years: manufacturers seem to always be on the run to deliver bigger, faster, better, devices with more specs inside than anyone can humanly memorize. Dual-Core processors, 4.3″ screens, 3D displays, HD video recording… are all interesting, except they target what? maybe 5-10% of the users. The rest, well, they get very confused and somewhat overwhelmed with these features. They want a phone, that’s it. Maybe they want Facebook in there, a camera of sorts, and email would be a nice plus. For those, the Samsung Galaxy 5 is perfect.

The Galaxy 5 is the smartphone brother of the iconic Samsung Corby, a device with a simple design, dedicated keys for calls, quite limited features in terms of camera and other hardware, but it packs Android Eclair 2.1 instead of Samsung’s dumbphone OS. But the question is does this mix work?

In a word, yes. The Galaxy 5 has everything in it to take the average Joe phone user, seduce him, and introduce him to Android and smartphones. Below is a list of 5 things to love about the Galaxy 5.

1. It runs Android Eclair 2.1: while being a bit old, Eclair is miles ahead of Donut 1.6. Some markets, specifically in South America, have shipped Froyo 2.2 for the Galaxy 5, making it quite a modern offer in terms of software. And despite all the hardware limitations, the software is the full Android version, with the Samsung TouchWiz UI on top.

2. Samsung TouchWiz: although many people prefer the vanilla experience of Android, TouchWiz can easily get out of the way, letting you enjoy an almost plain experience. Yes, there is a set of Samsung-specific widgets, like Accuweather, Buddies, Feeds and Updates, but you can opt out of these and customize the homescreen as you prefer. The application menu is divided into pages of 16 applications each scrollable horizontally, which fits more on a small screen like this. The TouchWiz Gallery and Camera UI are really great to look at and use. Also included are many of Samsung’s specific applications like Type and Go, Files, but the notable ones are Layar and Swype. Swype specifically makes a nice difference as that keyboard is a lot easier and more convenient to use than the default Samsung keyboard, in both portrait and landscape.

3. D-Pad: when you have a screen as small as the 2.8″ one on the Galaxy 5, finger selection gets a bit complicated, no matter how small your fingers are. In the browser, while typing text, in selection windows, basically all over the phone, precise selection is quite difficult at least at first, so the D-Pad helps a ton with that. You can scroll through lists and text, select the items you want, move easily around the browser, point to and click a link, without a lot of trouble.

4. Dedicated Call/End Call keys: while everyone is moving away from physical buttons, a lot of people still look at these new smartphones and wonder how to call or end a call. The Galaxy 5 outcomes that by including a regular set of calling buttons, allowing anyone who picks it to know how to initiate a phone conversation or end it. It’s also one of the elements that make it look more like a regular phone and less like a smartphone.

5. Battery life: thanks to its small screen and less resource intensive processor, the Galaxy 5 is one of a rare breed of battery champions when it comes to Android devices. The battery will easily last a day, with moderate to intense use, and if you install something like Juice Defender, it will even get to 2 days with that amount of usage.

But the Galaxy 5 isn’t all rainbows and butterflies, and there are many limitations to its use. Here are the 5 things that we hate about the Galaxy 5.

1. Small touchscreen: the main hamper on the Galaxy 5′s use is its 2.8″ screen. If this wasn’t a touchscreen device, the size would have been more than enough, but going below 3″ on a touchscreen is quite unforgivable. A bump to 3″ or 3.2″ would have been greatly appreciated as there are some instances where the screen is just too tiny to be of use, and many applications won’t look decent on it, or are simply not available for it.

2. Non-TouchWiz’ed Music Player: everything on the Galaxy 5 is quite pimped up, UI-wise, thanks to TouchWiz, except the music player which is the default Android one. This sort of makes it look out of place on the device, and leaves the experience a bit inconsistent with the rest.

3. No GPS: while I do realize that something had to give in order to lower the price of the Galaxy, omitting a GPS chip and relying totally on network location is a bit sad in a day and age where voice navigation is becoming free, ubiquitous, and one of the selling points of smartphones.

4. Very limited Camera: this is another factor that had to be compromised to fit the price and size range of the Galaxy 5, but a 2MP camera with no AutoFocus is quite ridiculous. There are 3.2MP cameras around and even 5MP modules that could be a much better fit than this.

5. Tiny Memory: while the target demographic for the Galaxy 5 is not those who want to install hundreds of applications and games, it was still a bit sad to see the memory low warning with around 30 apps installed on mine. That warning gets a bit more frustrating if you’re running Eclair, since you can’t move some applications to the SD card to free space.

As you see, the Galaxy 5 is a phone that brings many of the regular phone features: with the D-Pad, dedicated call keys, small and pocketable size, and great battery life. It will lure the unsuspecting non-smartphone user into buying and trying it, thanks to its quite reasonable price, and then will present them with a smartphone experience. With Eclair, TouchWiz and the Market, users will find themselves attracted to trying new applications, fiddling around, arranging homescreens to fit their needs. There are very few limitations on applications that the Galaxy 5 can run, and while the hardware isn’t up to par, it will offer a full Android experience from the software side. I was personally able to load it with what I wanted, in terms of apps and personalization items, make it fit my needs, and get quite satisfied with it.

Except that there will come a time when the limitations will start annoying the user. After being attracted to Android, they will want a bigger screen to see more information and have better control over things, a faster processor, a better camera, GPS to use with voice navigation and augmented reality apps, and more memory for all their apps. The Galaxy 5 will be like a stepping stone, a transitional device of sorts from the non-geeky average usage for its owner, to a more involved and smartphone-aware owner who will start looking for more.