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IDC: 1 billion smartphones shipped in 2013, most running Android

Remember when BlackBerry and Palm dominated the fledgling smartphone market? Things have changed a lot in the past decade. Research firm IDC reports that a billion smartphones were shipped in 2013, and 80 percent of them were running Google’s Android operating system. Apple’s iPhones come in second at just over 15 percent, and everyone else […]

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iOS 7.1 beta 5 released to devs, quickly jailbroken by Evad3rs

Apple recently released a fifth beta of iOS 7.1 to developers, offering bug fixes and new voices for Siri designed to sound better in UK and Australian English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. The update also patched some of the exploits used by the latest jailbreak utilities — but it didn’t take long for the folks […]

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Now you can use SwiftKey on an iPhone (in one app only)

Good news! You can finally use SwiftKey’s excellent keyboard to enter text on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Bad news! There’s a catch. Apple still doesn’t actually allow third-party keyboards to replace the stock keyboard. But you can add keyboard functionality to an individual app. So SwiftKey created a standalone note-taking app called SwiftKey Note […]

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Lilbits (1-28-2014): Does Samsung still need Tizen?

Tizen is a Linux-based operating system that’s strongly backed by Intel and Samsung, among others. While its Linux roots could make it an appealing option to hackers, geeks, and open source enthusiasts, it isn’t really designed to give you more control over your device — it’s designed to give hardware companies and wireless carriers more flexibility […]

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Google Play Movies & TV now available on iPhone and iPad

Google’s online movie and TV rental service is now available for iOS. Up until now if you’ve wanted to view content you’ve purchased from Google you’ve needed an Android device or a PC with a desktop operating system. Now you can access your Google Play video library on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad using […]

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Chrome for Android, iOS can now cut your bandwidth usage by 50 percent

Google Chrome for Android and iOS is a fast, simple, and powerful web browser for phones and tablets. Now there may be another reason to use it: Google is giving users the option of enabling data compression that could reduce data usage by up to 50 percent. The feature has been available in Chrome beta […]

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Lilbits (12-23-2013): Updating your devices (officially or not)

Want to make sure your gadget is running the latest software? Sometimes that’s easy… sometimes it’s less easy. And sometimes it’s officially unsupported. Today’s roundup of tech stories from around the web includes a few OS updates: Hackers have figured out how to install Android 4.4 KitKat on Google’s now-defunct Nexus Q media streaming orb. […]