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Best Android browsers: 6 of the best for surfing the net

Google Now, the mind-reading personal assistant for iOS and Android, has gotten a ton of updates lately, making it the perfect smartphone companion for…well, anything. Here’s a list of the coolest stuff it can do

10. Keep Your Commute Simple

You spend a lot of time driving (or riding transit) between work, events, seeing friends, and everything else. Google Now can make it a lot easier.

9. Keep an Eye on Stocks & Sports

You probably already know about this one, since it’s been there since the beginning.

8. Travel Without Stress

If you’re leaving town, Google Now knows it—and can provide you with a ton of useful information

7. See How Far You’ve Walked (or Biked)

If you have Location Reporting and Location History enabled on your phone, Google Now will pop up a card once a month that estimates how far you’ve walked or biked, based on your phone’s accelerometer (Android only).

6. Go Shopping, Online and In-Store

You probably already know that Google Now will provide tracking information for packages you’ve ordered online.

5. Stay Up to Date on Movies, Books, and TV Shows

When you search for a movie, book, TV show, music artist, or video game on Google, it’ll remember—and give you information about it in Google Now.

4. Access Tickets for Upcoming Events

If you have a concert or other event coming up—and you were emailed the ticket—Google Now will remind you of the event, tell you when to leave, and give you one-tap access to the email with your tickets.

3. Keep Up With Your Favorite Web Sites and News

You probably know that Google Now will give you information on things you’ve recently searched, but it can do more than that.

2. Get Reminders Anytime, Anywhere

As if all the above weren’t enough, you can tell Google Now to remind you of just about anything, right when you need it the most.

1. Ask Your Phone Anything

Of course, Google Now does most of the above on its own, but you can ask it just about anything and get a smart answer, too.

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With the Gingerbread barely cooled on the Android 2.3 SDK, Google has now pushed another iteration to developers. In Android 2.3.3, it’s all about expanding support for near-field communications — that non-Packers NFC business we’ve been hearing so much about.

In Android 2.3.3, Google has added a full-featured NFC read and write API, which will work with “almost any standard NFC tag in use today.” They’re also providing developers with better control over how their apps react when an NFC tag comes into range.

Last but not least, similar to the Touchstone transfer wizardry shown off by HP on its new line of webOS hardware today, Android 2.3.3 has initial support for peer-to-peer connections with “other NFC devices.”

Google obviously wants to get some momentum behind Android’s NFC support, not least because the company is likely working on an NFC-driven payment system.

Let the proximity application awesomeness begin!

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Following the recent preview of INQ’s Cloud Touch phone, more commonly known as the Facebook Phone, the company has officially confirmed the device. Of course, the device is really an Android-powered device with some Facebook-oriented widgets and shortcuts that make accessing the social network’s chat, contacts, events, notices, news feeds and more much easier. The phone is powered by a 600MHz Qualcomm chip and INQ is planning to get Android 2.3 on the device further down the road. An interesting feature of this phone will be the use of Spotify in place of the stock Android media player,

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One of the strengths of Google’s Android mobile operating system is its support for customization. Android enthusiasts can augment the capabilities of their Android device by replacing key components of the platform with superior third-party alternatives.

There are a growing number of really great third-party home screen implementations and Web browsers that users can install directly from the Android Market. Some of the popular Web browsers include Opera, Skyfire, Firefox, and Dolphin HD. We plan to write up a full comparison at some point in the future, but decided to start by giving you a close look at our favorite: Dolphin HD.

First taste of Honeycomb: Android 3.0 user interface preview

Google has released an early preview of the Android 3.0 software development kit (SDK). Android 3.0—codenamed Honeycomb—introduces Android’s new tablet user interface, which is expected to officially debut next month on Motorola’s Xoom tablet. Developers will be able to use the SDK preview to get a head start on updating their applications to support the tablet form factor.

The SDK also offers Android enthusiasts an early look at the new tablet user interface. It includes a partial Android 3.0 environment that runs in the Android emulator. Due to the emulator’s glacially slow performance, however, we weren’t really able to get an accurate feel for the responsiveness of the interface. The following screenshots highlight some of the major characteristics that differentiate Honeycomb’s tablet interface from Android’s conventional smartphone interface, but keep in mind that it’s still just a preview build for developers and might not accurately represent what the platform will look like on an actual product.

The Honeycomb home screen comes with sophisticated scrolling widgets and can accommodate much more content than the conventional Android home screen. Like the traditional Android home screen, it still comes with multiple pages that the user can rotate through by swiping right and left.

Can Honeycomb tablets gain ground by being “just as good” as iPad?

The Google executives were still on stage at the Android Honeycomb event yesterday when a reader of our live coverage chimed in to respond to some chatter about Honeycomb not offering anything to make it better than the iPad. His comment was simple but it stuck with me.

He wrote: If it’s as good and not Apple, I’m fine with it.

Clearly, this reader isn’t a big Apple fan – so he has other motivations. But that got me thinking about whether the Motorola Xoom – the first tablet to be powered by Android 3 (aka Honeycomb) – needs to actually be better than the iPad. Is “just as good” enough?

After all, being “just as good” as the iPhone is how I initially saw Android smartphones. Don’t get me wrong. The iPhone is an amazing product and one that I wanted desperately – but wasn’t willing to do the AT&T thing. Now, I’m a big fan of the Android OS and have no desire to switch to the iPhone, regardless of which carrier it’s on. Never do I feel like I’m compromising my smartphone user experience because my device is powered by Android instead of Apple’s iOS.

Now that we’re moving into tablets, it needs to play out the same way. Google needed to make sure that the Honeycomb experience would be just as good as the iPad experience – and from what I’ve seen it is. And, based on some of my own personal metrics, it’s actually better.

Flash is still a big deal. Android tablets will run Flash while iPad doesn’t. And as much as Steve Jobs wants all of us to hate Flash as much as he does, it really does make me stop and pause. Flash exists in my world and I can’t just not have it – especially in a tablet.

The same goes for expandable storage. I never liked that Apple prices its devices – all of them – based on storage capacity. I love the microSD card in my Android phone – that’s where I store my music and photos. And with Xoom coming in with 32 GB of internal storage and the ability to expand to 32 GB more, it’s a one-up over the iPad.

Still, none of that matters if Google and partners don’t get the pricing right.

We still don’t have any pricing information for the Xoom. If Google or the partners don’t come in lower than the iPad, then it’s going to be an incredibly tough sell. If this experience is the same and the pricing is the same, then they’ve just handed the people who were on the fence over to team Apple. After all, the iPad is already a proven winner. Why would anyone pay the same money for a crapshoot that might or might not live up to the hype? I cannot overstate this: Pricing is key.

Certainly, the forthcoming release of iPad2 will be something to watch, especially if there are significant changes to the device or software. But if Google can build a following with tablets the way it has with smartphones, it can be go head-to-head with Apple – forcing both companies to compete on innovation, as well as pricing.

And when that happens, the consumers – all of us – are the ones who win.

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