Should I Be Streaming the Radio on my Android?

(published: 5/6/14)
So if you Googled this title just to find Apps to use for streaming the radio on your android, then I'll suggest iHeartRadio (Android-download IOS-download) or TuneIn Radio (Android-download IOS-download), however, you should stick around and read this article to learn better ways listen to your music or the radio.

So I'm going to wright about the different ways people can use a radio on their smartphone and the effect it has on your data and the battery of your phone.

The amount Americans spend on the radio.
In 2012, 90% of Americans listened to the radio at least once a week. And on average Americans spend about 14 hours listening to the radio every week. All I'm trying to say is how heavily we rely on it and that as the years pass people are starting to go to their smartphones and downloading apps like iHeartRadio, or maybe TuneIn Radio.

Effects on the data and battery of your phone.
Unless you are one of those lucky people with unlimited data (like me), then you probably have around 2 or 3 GB of mobile data you can use from your carrier every month. So if you listen to about an hour and a half of radio with the phones data a day, then that will burn 2.5 GB of data in a month.  Also I might note that streaming just 2 minutes of HD video every day will also burn through 2 GB in a month. As far as battery goes, this will depend on a few factors such as signal strength, what type of tower your connected to, and your phone battery size. Usually streaming for an 1 1/2 hours will get your battery down by about 10 to 25%

Saving your data and battery.
 There are 2 great alternatives to streaming on the radio.

 1. So, to significantly reduce the usage of data and draining of your battery, your first choice is to download the music. This might seem obvious but it comes with a great deal of benefits for your data and battery. If you are using an android phone I would recommend the app MusicManiac (Android-download), it's probably the easiest app to use and has practically every song that you could want. You can also download this app for iOS but only if your iPhone is jail broken.

2. If you listen with your headphones and absolutely want it to be the radio, then you can download the app called Radio FM (Android-download), this uses your headphone jack as an antenna to pick up the radio frequency around you without using any of your mobile data. There are a few limitations with this method like, Apple iPhone's can't do this, not all android devices can (although most), and the antenna is small and the sound quality might not always sound perfect. You can however, use this app with an axillary cord (it would be the same concept) if you connect it to a set of speakers.

So I hope these tips can help someone to save both their data and battery, as well as reduce the amount of times their phone overheats and turns into an oven.
Source, Source

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The Evolution of Android and iOS

(published: 5/5/14)
Android and IOS have had hundreds if not thousands of changes over the last few years.

Now I know that there are many other mobile operating systems like Windows or Blackberry that have been around for many years and have had changes of their own, but I will be focusing purely on Android and iOS as they are the biggest players taking up the huge majority (currently about 90%) of the global market share.

The Beginning of the Apple iPhone.

Starting from the beginning, all the way back about 7 years ago, to the 79th Academy Awards February 25, 2007 when the very first Apple iPhone was announced to the public by Steve Jobs. This would be one of the most important presentations and what set the platform to one of the biggest advancement in smartphone technology. So it's not that Apple really created something completely new here, there were other smartphones at the time. In fact, the term smartphone appeared as early as 1997 when Ericsson released its GS 88 Penelope which should also be given some credit as well (This can be a article for another time).

What Apple did, was create the perfect recipe with the combination of hardware, as well as what was probably the best optimized software at the time.

At first, the iPhone operating system came with just a few apps like: notes, weather, mail, stocks, and maps. It was also called simply the iPhone OS, but eventually changed to iOS 2.0; 3.0, 4, 5, 6 and finally 7 (That's one every year with a new iPhone). One of the first things that was missing was the App Store coming out the very next year in 2008 along with the new iPhone and their first SDK (which is what developers use to create apps). The App Store was an amazing success and brought an early advantage for apple in years to come.

With every update new features were added; like the iTunes app and voice recorder, then the ability to change backgrounds of home and lock screens, copy and paste feature, top slider, and eventually in iOS 7 the entire look was changed to be more colorful and vibrant with the app icons looking a bit flattened out.

The Start of Android Smartphone.

The company Android was founded by Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Andy Ruben, in 2003. Not much was known about the company but in 2005 Google came to them with an offer to buy out the company Android Inc. for an estimated amount of around 50 million. Anyways, after years of development on October 22nd, 2008 Google unveiled its first commercially available smartphone running Android 1.0, the HTC Dream (also known as the T-Mobile G1 in the United States). It came with a physical QWERTY, No touchscreen, not even notifications. It was very heavily integrated with Google services and had a very limited Android Market (now called Google Play).

So, this was clearly an uphill battle to beat iOS, one that would last many years but as time went on, Google released more and more updates, 1.5 Cupcake was the first time android stared using desserts and went alphabetically to D- Donut, E- Eclair, F- Froyo, G- Gingerbread, H- Honeycomb, I- Icecream Sandwitch, J- Jelly Bean, and today which is K- Kitkat (this chart goes up to Jelly bean)

The entire mobile platform was a bit dull and ugly at the start, but as time passed it became especially noticeable with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwitch that the entire look was changed into a more modern theme and the software was optimized to be smoother. This was when I bought my first android smartphone (switching from apple) and for the first time it seemed that android was able to fully compete with Apple iOS as the glitches, lags, crashes, and other bugs were mostly rid of. Android went its own route opening the OS for any manufacturer and having much greater freedom of customization then iOS.
Conclusion..
There is really much more that could be added to this article, but I hope this was a good, quick overview of the two platforms. I have obviously had experience with both platforms and even owned a smartphone running Windows OS for some time. Feel free to check out my last article where I explained waterproofing on smartphones.

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How Does Waterproofing Work on Smartphones?

(published: 5/4/14)

The concept of waterproofing on smartphones and what the IP ratings stand for.
So if any one reading this has seen or owned a Sony Xperia Z/Z1/Z2/Z ultra, or maybe a Samsung Galaxy S5 or S4 active, then you might have noticed that the mic. and speaker are completely exposed. Which is weird right? So all these phones are labeled as IP 57, IP 58, or maybe IP 67 certified. First it's important to understand that the I in IP stands for ingress which basically means an entrance. The P in IP stands for protections, so entrance protection or technically ingress protection. The goal here is to keep foreign particles like water or dust from getting inside the phone. It's really pretty simple, the first digit stands for how well the phone is resistant against solid objects like dust, and the second digit shows how resistant it is against fluids like water. There can also actually be a third digit which would show how resistant it is against mechanical impact, such as being thrown against the ground. Here you can see a chart of the first two ratings.

What makes them water-proof.
So now, to answer the question of how the phones are actually water-proof and why their mics. and speakers are open. The charging ports usually have a flap over them so the speaker and mic. (and sometimes headphone jacks) are really the only things that have to be open in order to use your phone. What companies do is put a special coating of a spray or substance that prevents water from getting through to your internal parts. If you've ever thrown a waterproof phone into a pool or washed it under the sink you would notice that the speaker gets kind of muffled and unclear. That's because some water gets stuck inside the speaker and it will usually take a few minutes up to a few hours to dry completely and return to normal.

 How to make any smartphone waterproof.
There are also ways to make a smartphones like an iPhone waterproof through varies companies. For example there is a company called Liquipel that will take your smartphone, put it in a vacuum, then pump a secret fluid into the chamber with your phone. The vapor will spread to all the components of your smartphone and then successfully make your smartphone waterproof for only $60. This technology is called nano-coating. So hopefully you learned something new about the process and rating of waterproof and dust-proof phones and other electronics. I have links to a few articles were you can learn much of what I wrote in more depth.
Understanding IP ratings: link
Cools ways to waterproof you device: link

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