Top 10 most popular Android 3.0 features
Friday, July 30th, 2010
By Yes I Can!
1. Battery life/power management improvements
The big daddy of the most wanted Android improvements is battery life. Smartphones are notorious for having bad battery life, but Android takes the biscuit as (quite possibly) the worst of the bunch. It’s an effect that varies between handsets, but we’ve seen some shocking battery performance on some Android phones. With a sprinkling of technical magic powder, and some more dynamic scaling of power usage, Android should be able to get up there with its smartphone rivals (into slightly-less-disappointing, but still bad, territory. Roll on the nuclear-powered phone.)
2. Homing/tracking facility
A surprise hit with readers, many want to see phone tracking introduced, so you’d be able to track friends and loved ones — with their permission of course. Tracking also becomes useful if you lose your phone, although naturally you’ll need another phone or a PC to track your lost phone. Let us know who you’d like to track with your phone in the comments. No stalkers, please.
3. New Android Market
The Android Market is growing at an exponential rate, but it remains woefully underequipped to deal with its thousands of apps. There’s no decent way to discover apps you don’t already know about, so you’re left scrabbling around the search facility trying out keywords and hoping for the best. It’s no way to treat the mobile app world’s second busiest app stor
4. Video editing
iMovie has arrived on iPhone 4 and the green monster has reared its head within the Android crowd. Some Android phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S, are starting to gain 720p video skills, ramping up the demand for some proper video editing capabilities. A couple of video editing apps are available on the Android Market, but nothing quite as snazzy as Apple’s iMovie, yet.
5. Real Multitasking
Apple’s iPhone caught a lot of flak before iOS 4 arrived because of its lack of multitasking skills, but Android’s not much better either, if we’re honest. You’re given very little control over which apps you keep running, giving rise to lots of demand for a proper task manager — to get rid of apps as well as keeping them running. The pinnacle would be to have two apps running on one screen, each in a panel, but we think you’d want a 4- or 5-inch screen to work with that effect, minimum.
6. Better GPS on Google Maps
Google Maps offers a near-complete GPS solution, but it’s not quite up there with standalone gadgets from Garmin and TomTom. Our readers are looking for more versatility from the built-in Google Maps app, and aside from the cash it’ll cost Google to get snazzier features bunged in, we can’t see why this shouldn’t happen.
7. Built-in remote desktop
You can already get a remote desktop app running on your mobile if you know your way around the Android Market, but getting them to work properly tends to be far more problematic than with most apps. C’mon Google, why not solve the problem with a good old first-party solution? Remote Desktop software would give you access to your PC’s screen from your mobile, over a net connection.
8. Google Docs integration
Being a Google-based system, Android offers integration with several Google services, with Google Mail and Google Maps at the top of the list. But why hasn’t Google Docs been fully integrated into Android yet? If you’re a Google Mail user, it’s a fab service for sharing work and play docs with friends and colleagues, so it’s no surprise Android fans want to see if more on their mobiles.
9. IR transmitter with Universal remote function
If you have a complicated home cinema setup, there’s a good chance you’ve considered investing in a universal remote at some point. However, they’re expensive and can be tricky to program. Bundling the functionality into an Android phone could…..
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