photo credit: iPhone Stick-on Keyboard

4i Concepts’s 4iThumbs2 is a stick on keyboard for the iPhone. The concept behind the stick on keyboard, available in both portrait and landscape mode for $13-$25 with bumper, is to get users comfortable with the virtual keyboard. According to an article by Doug Rule, Mobiledia, “4i Concepts’s 4iThumbs2 is an invisible, removable plastic film that sits over the face of an iPhone, with ridges between keys to help ensure a finger hits the intended key, not any of its neighbors. The film is held in place by a bumper, and can be easily removed and stored on the back of the phone when not in use.”

“As the only tactile ridged screen for the iPhone, 4iThumbs2 is sort of like training wheels for new iPhone users, making their transition to a touch screen comfortable and easy,” said Jerry Rosengarten, founder of 4i Concepts.

Have you sent embarrassing text messages because of typos? There is actually a website dedicated to the laughable and embarrassing mistakes. It’s called “Damn You Auto Correct.” It features mistakes like “Your Mum and I are going to divorce next month,” instead of “Your Mum and I are going to Disney next month.” The founder of the site, Jillian Madison, has actually been offered a book deal due out this month, according to an article by Brian McCullough, Mobiledia. Perhaps this new keyboard will help that situation.

iPhone users seem to be more susceptible to texting errors than other Smartphone texters. According to the article on Mobiledia, apparently this is due to the fact that iPhone requires specific input to decline an auto suggestion, and many users are in too much of a hurry and just press “send” without checking. Not only can this be embarrassing but can be potentially career damaging, depending on who you are texting.

What about the Android users? So far there are no plans for a similar keyboard for the Droids. Perhaps this is because they vary in screen size. Regardless, Google has given the Android users several tools to help with their clumsy fingers. I think my personal favorite is Swype. It allows you to slide your finger along from letter to letter in a continuous motion and have the Swype app auto suggest words. Another tool Google offers on the Android is speech to text so you can dictate your testing. It works fairly well, and is of course editable.

Got any embarrassing text mistakes you want to share? Are you an iPhone user or use another Smartphone? The bottom line is that you should proofread your texts before sending. Yes, a keyboard trainer would help, but you still need to check your words.

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photo credit: Asus Eee Pad

Asus demonstrated its 7-inch Android Memo tablet, including phone accessory, at the CeBit in Hanover, Germany last week. After CES, which takes place in Las Vegas in January every year, CeBIT is the next big tradeshow that showcases the latest digital innovations. Asus showcased its small 7″ tablet with the Android OS 2.2, but assured everyone that it would be shipping with the Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS as soon as April 2011. Pricing is reported to come in around $499-$699, depending on the options you choose.

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photo credit: Confession App

Are you a Catholic needing to go to confession? There’s an app for that. Seriously though, it’s not actually an app to substitute for confession. (The Catholic Church is very clear on this issue.) It is an app for the iPhone that helps you figure out how you’ve sinned (as if you didn’t know) and formulate a confession. It’s called Confession: A Roman Catholic App, and was created by Little iApps with the help of two Catholic priests ($1.99). And it has been given the blessing of Bishop Kevin C. Rhodes of the Diocese of Fort Wayne - South Bend, Indiana.

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photo credit: Android Nook Color

Want a new Android Tablet for $249? The Nook Color actually runs on the Android mobile operating system. Of course out of the box it isn’t an Android tablet, but with some tweeking, you can root the Nook Color to be an Android tablet. According to an article posted by Anya Vinclauv, Gather Technology, “Once rooted, the Nook Color has access to the Android 3.0 Honeycomb port, and the ability to run apps from Android Market. The market was locked out upon purchase of the device from Barnes & Noble.”

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photo credit: Android 3.0 vs. iPad 2

Pad wars are heating up. Today Apple is hosting an event in San Francisco where they are rumored to be revealing the new iPad 2. Google revealed the new Honeycomb (Android 3.0) last month. And the race is on! There are many Android based tablets debuting this year. Will they be able to compete with the new iPad 2?

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photo credit: Xoom Wins Performance

The Motorola Xoom, Google’s golden child Android 3.0 tablet, is great on performance testing. However, according to Aditya Bansod, Senior Director of Product Management with Sencha, a vendor that created the Sencha Touch HTML5 application framework for mobile Web apps, “The Xoom browser is not ready for prime-time — even for ‘HTML4′.” This is a major disappointment for Motorola, who touted the Xoom as the first “real Android tablet.” The Android 3.0 OS was built specifically for the tablet platform. According to Bansod, the results of a series of tests to see how the Xoom browser conforms to and performs with emerging Web standards such as HTML5 and Cascading Style Sheets 3 (CSS 3) for both developers and consumers are not encouraging.

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photo credit: It’s a Mobile World

There were 81 million Smartphones sold world-wide in the third quarter of 2010 alone. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, “Smartphones accounted for nearly one in five mobile phones sold that quarter. The chiefs of Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. think Smartphones could account for nearly three of every four phones sold by the middle of the decade. Between the emergence of the iPad, apps, Android Smartphones and the introduction of 4G networks, 2010 was the year the computer truly went mobile.” Welcome to 2011 and the mobile world. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Pay-by-Smartphone

Rumor has it that Apple is planning to introduce pay-by-phone on the next generation of iPhones and iPads. The new technology would allow you to use your iPhone or iPad to pay for products or services just like using your credit card. This could effectively reduce the number of plastic credit cards you need to carry in your wallet. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Google Body Map

Google is hosting the Google Android Event in Mountain View, California today. The announcement and demonstration of the Honeycomb Android 3.0 OS is one of the biggest highlights for the event. Andy Rubin started off the event with this to say, “We’re really excited to show off Android Honeycomb. We’ll have a demo of the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb. Briefly, let me talk a bit about how excited I am. We consider ourselves to be the shepherd of it. With open source you don’t know what people are doing to do with it. The innovation is all around us. There’s a lot of excitement. When you see Hugo’s demo, you’ll witness how Google’s cloud services tie together all these different devices. The cloud makes all these things work. The cloud helps all these services share this information. I truly believe the Android team — the guys in Building 44 — I truly believe they’re the hardest working team in mobile.” Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: MetroPCS Android Cell Phone

Partnering with Boingo, the nation’s leading source of public Wi-Fi, MetroPCS phones running Android can now tap into hotspots for free. The LG Optimus M and Huawei Ascend, two of MetroPCS’s Android phones, will now come pre-loaded with special software from a company called Devicescape. The app recognizes 500,000 hotspots that are controlled by Boingo, which would cost other users a monthly or weekly connection fee. For the other 200,000 hotspots that actually cost money, the user would have to pay $7.95 a month fee. Read the rest of this entry »