Speaking at the SXSW today, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger said that the Android version of the popular Instagram app is coming very soon. In fact, Systrom even said that in some ways the Android version of the app is even better than their iOS app and that it will be the most amazing Android app we’ll ever see.

Now we have been hearing about this Android version of Instagram for quite a while now when Instagram itself mentioned it on their blog a few months ago but we did not have any concrete date for the launch. Unfortunately, we still don’t have that yet but it’s nice to know that it will be coming shortly. Read more »

Although there is no dearth of third-party keyboards for Android, this one in particular stands out from the rest due to the inclusion of some nifty shortcut keys that you can use to enter commonly typed phrases with just a single tap. The keyboard presents you with a bunch of icons, each of which has a handful of commonly used phrases assigned to it. You just press the relevant buttons and the phrases are automatically entered into the text box. With just a couple of clicks you can have an entire message ready to send. You get a whole bunch of icons with several phrases that you can customize and you can also download additional sets from within the app.

Another cool feature is the way it lets you enter time. Instead of typing out the entire time or date into a message you just click on the clock icon and select the time on the clock or the date you want on the calendar and the keyboard enters it for you in the text box. Read more »

The default Bing search on Windows Phone has always been awful (at least in my experience) but there was some respite in the form of the Google Search app. However, compared to the Search app on Android, the Windows Phone app was noticeably bare bones.

Now, however, Google has updated the Search app for Windows Phone 7.5 devices, which brings some much needed features. Read more »

During the just iPad announcement yesterday we saw iPhoto migrate from a OS X-only to an iOS-capable app.

And while that on its own doesn’t deserve too much attention, the iPhoto maps integration is curious in that it no longer features Google’s Maps. Read more »

We’ve got some good news for those of your packing an iDevice with a non-A5 chipset. The iPhone Dev Team has updated redsn0w tool to support the newly released iOS 5.1, so you can update your iPhone 4, iPad (original one), iPhone 3GS without losing the full access to your system fails.

Sadly, that’s a tethered jailbreak, so you will need a computer every time you restart your iOS 5.1 iDevice, but we guess that’s just the price you have to pay for enjoying the latest and greatest from the Cupertino software developers right away. Read more »

There is a new update for Chrome for Android Beta, the mobile version of the popular Chrome browser from Google. (No, they haven’t added Flash support)

Keep in mind that this is still a beta, so some issues may still be expected. Read more »

If Foursquare is your social network of choice and you happen to have a Bada handset we have some great news for you. The official app has just landed at the Samsung Apps repository and is available as a free download to anyone interested.

Previously, Bada users had to resort to the Foursquare mobile version, but now they got their own apps to deliver the functionality of the popular network. The app is compatible with all versions of the Samsung proprietary OS, so you should be invited to the party no matter what Bada smartphone you have. Read more »

Opera Software just announced the availability of its Opera Mini 6.5 mobile browser on yet another platform. The native version of the popular data-saving browser just hit the BlackBerry App World and, if you happen to have a BlackBerry OS smartphone, you can have it right away.

You need to be running version 4.2.1 or later of the BlackBerry OS, no matter your carrier or country. This means that Opera Mini will be available on every half decent BlackBerry device, but the PlayBook tablet. Read more »

Just as promised, Nokia delivered Flash support for its N9 MeeGo flagship. Since Adobe officially abandoned the development of its mobile Flashplayer, it was down to the smartphone’s manufacturer to deliver it.

Well, the MeeGo-compatible Flashplayer is now available as a free download from the Ovi store and you can try it right away. There is a catch though – you will need to be using the recently released Firefox browser as it is the only one to support the plugin. Read more »

The MeeGo-running Nokia N9 is much beloved by its owners, but it seems that it wasn’t quite the Linux-powered phone that some hoped it would be. Those people like to pick and choose their software components (including stuff like kernel modules) and now they can.

They can use the newly released tool – called Inception – to root their N9 and disable the Aegis security system. Here’s what you can do after using Inception that you can’t do with an un-rooted Nokia N9: Read more »

There are over 10 thousand camera apps in the App Store today. Okay, that may be a bit exaggerating but there are lots of camera-centric apps in the Apple App Store giving you a variety of options at different price points.

Trust me, I’ve used most of them, Camera+, Camera Plus, TimeLapse, the expensive HDR ones, Panorama 360, Panoramatic, SlowShutter, etc. and I know my way around paid apps for the iPhone. SmugMug’s Camera Awesome may not be the best there is, but it brings the iPhone usually paid-for camera features for the perfect price of naught. Read more »

Nokia revamped their mapping apps for their Windows Phone handsets and added one more app to the list of Lumia-exclusive apps. Nokia Drive has gained full offline functionality and is joined by the new app, Nokia Transport, so you can navigate a city with public transport instead of a car.

Nokia Drive for Windows Phone had one big problem at launch – it couldn’t plot a route in offline mode (even if you have downloaded the map for the region). The latest update fixes that and adds other improvements. Read more »

Android Design, Google’s official portal for, you guessed it, Android design, has released image stencils for creating professional Android applications. Ehm…professional looking, anyway.

If you’re keen on designing great looking Android applications, or simply looking for a place to start from, Google’s Android Design team has made the process even easier. Read more »

As the smartphone world matures, revolutionary ideas get harder and harder to come by. Yet, this’s exactly what the Mozilla Foundation brought to the MWC 2012 with its Boot2Gecko platform – a cloud based open-source mobile OS, which looks cool and should perform great on even very modest hardware.

Boot2Gecko is using the latest open web standards for its apps, which means that apps written for it will be compatible with just about any smartphone running the OS, or even every device with an HTML5-enabled browser. And don’t worry – even though the OS itself is cloud-based, you might still use your phone offline and even run apps and games on it – offline caching is a technology already supported by the web standards. Read more »

With all those Tegra 3 smartphones and tablets out there, people will need quality games to push those 4-PLUS-1 CPU cores and the 12-core GeForce GPU to their limits. NVIDIA has that covered as they’re debuting several new game titles at the MWC that claim to provide a console-level gaming experience.

The games will eventually be available through Tegra Zone, but for now you can check out the highlights for these four games. Read more »