Android, Ipad | featured news

According to a report by the Verge today, Microsoft is planning to release Office for the iPhone, iPad and Android in early 2013. Relying on inside sources, the Verge reports that Office Mobile will be offered as free apps that allow Android and iOS users to view Microsoft Office documents on mobile devices. The Verge also notes that Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents will all be supported, but edit functionality will only be enabled with an Office 365 subscription, which can be purchased using the app.

Apple Inc's worldwide legal crusade against the Android mobile operating system drew toward a climax on Tuesday as the iPhone maker's attorneys accused Samsung of taking a shortcut by copying Apple's designs after realizing it could not keep up.

Co-founded in 2009 by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, Square enables people to accept credit card payments on iPhone, iPad or Android devices... In a move that positions the company for a potential initial public offering, Square has hired former Goldman Sachs and Salesforce.com executive Sarah Friar as chief financial officer.

Google, undaunted by a short-lived attempt to sell a smartphone on its own, is now pushing into Apple's iPad market by selling tablets directly to consumers than an online store.

Google‘s long-awaited answer to Flipboard, the “social magazine” exclusively on Apple‘s iPad and iPhone, just debuted today. Google Currents offers a similar appearance, except it works on Android devices as well as iPads and iPhones. It’s the latest in a long string of applications, most recently Yahoo‘s Livestand, that seek to turn online content into something resembling print magazines, but without all those dead trees and with 20th century innovations like, say, video.

Verizon and Intuit announced Thursday that they are teaming up to introduce a mobile payment system that will let customers swipe their credit cards with their smartphones. Verizon will sell the Intuit Reader smartphone accessory in its retail stores. The Reader plugs into the audio jack of most Android phones, BlackBerrys, the iPhone and the iPad.
The product rollout is intended to make it easy for small-business owners and others to process mobile payments, likely boosting sales of smartphones.

The US Army is near finishing a largely successful test of smartphones on the battlefield. In an interview this week, project director Michael McCarthy told CNN the six-week trials in Fort Bliss, Texas and White Sands, New Mexico were 'encouraging' in gauging the effectiveness of Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone hardware for communicating information in the field. They had also been testing iPads as well as unspecified Dell and HP tablets.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is available in stores across the country today, and it seems the company has offered the best Android tablet on the market. The hardware on the tablet is great; it’s sleek and light with a great screen and is easily the best Android tablet I’ve played with so far. But what I — and non-Apple manufacturers, apparently — keep running up against is the iPad question. With the number of applications designed for tablets on Android, there’s just no comparison.

A number of Android smartphone makers who have turned their hand to Android tablets to try cash in on the tablet PC category dominated by the iPad are said to giving up. Instead, their focus has switched back from tablets to the development of larger, high-end smartphones with 4- to 5-inch displays. According to Digitimes, only Samsung has made any significant inroads into the segment, claiming a 10% share.

Apparently, the iPad isn't the only tablet in town capable of selling out. While the Asus Eee Pad Transformer might not have the big-name appeal of its Apple rival, the $399 16GB Honeycomb tablet managed to sell out online at Best Buy's website in its first day on sale.