The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is an impressive device, but today we’re interested in exposing faults and finding fixes you can use.

Who knew that a hybrid device combining elements of a smartphone and a tablet would prove to be popular with consumers? The original Galaxy Note took the market by surprise and Samsung’s follow up device, the Galaxy Note 2 has raised the stakes by improving on its predecessor in every way. Early signs suggest it will be a hit, but there are always flaws lurking in new mobile tech.

Here we examine the most notable Galaxy Note 2 problems that owners are complaining about and we try to find solutions or handy workarounds.

Cracked or broken screen

Problem: There are quite a few user reports of the screen being scratched or cracked after accidental drops. The Galaxy Note 2 has a truly mammoth 5.5-inch display, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 2, which is generally tough stuff. The device has performed well in most of the drop tests we’ve seen, but they aren’t hugely scientific. The size could make the display more prone to cracking on impact, or it could be the fact that the Note 2 is a little more difficult to handle than a smaller device.

If you’re worried, then it’s probably a good idea to have phone insurance or invest in one of the many Galaxy Note 2 cases on the market.

Solution: If your screen does get cracked or broken, you should be careful about where you order a replacement. The safest option is to go through Samsung and send your Note 2 away for repair, but it is likely to be expensive. Alternatively you could go to a local repair shop, or order replacement glass and try to do it yourself. If you are going to order replacement parts then make sure the source is reputable.

Won’t connect, very slow, or disconnecting from Wi-Fi

Problem: Some users have reported issues trying to connect to Wi-Fi, extremely slow speeds when they do connect, and random disconnecting. Sometimes it appears as though the Wi-Fi is on, but there is no Internet access on the Note 2. This can be down to individual routers and settings, or it can be caused by settings on your Note 2. There are probably various issues here, but the same troubleshooting steps apply.

Solutions: A simple restart of the Wi-Fi works for some people. You can turn Wi-Fi on your Note 2 off and on again. You can also try rebooting the device and your router.

You might want to take a look in Settings > Wi-Fi hit the Menu button again and choose Advanced and then make sure Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep is set to Always. You can also see if the Wi-Fi Timer is on and check your IP address in here.

If you’re on AT&T then check the Smart Wi-Fi app because it can override your device’s settings.

Some people have reported success after a Factory reset, but it does mean reinstalling apps and setting up your device the way you want again.

Can’t turn Wi-Fi off

Problem: Have you been turning Wi-Fi off only for it to turn itself back on again? This is a common issue for Sprint customers and it’s because of the Connections Optimizer.

Solution: You can find the Connections Optimizer by hitting Menu > Settings > More Settings > Mobile Networks and then disable it. You might find that the Connections Optimizer continues to turn itself back on again after you reboot the device.

Workaround: You can tell your Note 2 to forget Wi-Fi networks. If you go to Settings > Wi-Fi you can see available networks and forget them, but you won’t be able to use Wi-Fi until you add one again so it’s far from an ideal fix.

Phone won’t charge

Problem: You’re plugging your Note 2 in via the AC adapter or a USB PC port and you find that it isn’t charging.

Solution: Make sure the Micro USB port on your device is clean. You could try some compressed air to make sure there’s no dust in there blocking the connection. You could also reboot the device and try again. Some users are reporting that it works perfectly after a reboot, although that’s obviously not a good long term solution. If it’s not blocked and the problem keeps reoccurring after a reboot then contact Samsung.

Device takes too long to charge

Problem: Instead of charging in two or three hours as it should, some people have found that the Note 2 is taking much longer to charge.

Solution: Make sure you are using the correct 2A rated charger. The Samsung one that ships with the device is the most efficient in terms of speed. Try another 2A charger just in case the supplied charger is the culprit. If there’s no improvement you may have a faulty battery and it’s probably best to contact Samsung.

Sound while charging

Problem: A lot of people have complained about a buzzing or hissing sound while the Note 2 is charging. Apparently this is due to the charger and it’s normal. It is possibly more noticeable with the Note 2 because it is sucking down a lot of juice.

Solution: You could charge it via a USB PC port, but unless your PC is super quiet that won’t help and it will take much longer to charge. You could also try a different charger. A lower-rated charger will charge the device more slowly, but it should also make less noise.

Workaround: Charge it in a different room so the noise doesn’t bother you. It’s not ideal, but if typically charge at night and it’s keeping you awake then it might be the best idea.

Other Note 2 issues

That’s it for now, but if you’re experiencing any other problems with your Note 2 or you want to offer up some tips or solutions then please post a comment.

The saga of LucasArts' lost multiplayer shooter series continues, as word comes out that Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City developer Slant Six Games worked on a sequel titled Star Wars: Battlefront Online.

Given the continuing popularity of multiplayer shooters, it’s surprising that LucasArts has allowed the Star Wars: Battlefront series to lie dormant for so long. While Activision, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts reap the rewards of a gaming populace with an insatiable appetite for competitive digital shoot outs, LucasArts has allowed its multiplayer shooter series languish for an entire console generation. Apparently that hasn’t been on purpose, though. Studios apparently keep trying to make a new Star Wars: Battlefront and it just keeps getting cancelled. The most recent studio to take a stab at the series was Slant Six Games.

Siliconera reported on Wednesday that Slant Six, the studio behind 2012’s Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, was making a new game in the series called Star Wars: Battlefront Online for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2010. LucasArts cancelled the project before it was ever officially announced. Concept art for Slant Six’s take on the series is exclusively focused on scenes from Hoth, the ice planet featured in The Empire Strikes Back and roughly 300,000 different video games, both Star Wars and non-Star Wars games.

It may have been for the best. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was savaged by critics and fans alike when it was released in March, not just because of its bland multiplayer take on the faded horror series but also due to the myriad game breaking bugs and glitches in the game. Many reviewers found that the game simply wouldn’t work, with AI partners refusing to move. Slant Six’s response to these criticisms was that it “accomplished what [publisher] Capcom wanted us to do.”

The last major release in the Star Wars: Battlefront series was Star Wars: Battlefront II for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Gamecube in 2005. It remained one of the most played games on Xbox Live well into the current console generation, staying at the top of the charts until 2009.

Timesplitters developer Free Radical famously worked on Star Wars: Battlefront III for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before that game was cancelled and the studio was closed in 2009. Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis claimed earlier this fall that Battlefront III was “99 percent complete” when LucasArts cancelled the game, but a former LucasArts employee responded that the studio had finished just “75 percent of a mediocre game” and Free Radical repeatedly lied about its progress on the title. 

Google has blessed us with a new version of Google Maps for the iPhone, ending months of lost iPhone users. We give the new app a drive.

In the last few months, Apple Maps has led me dangerously astray no less than a dozen times. It’s told me to take the wrong exit off of a highway; its taken me to businesses that are shut down; it nearly forced me onto the Blue Water Bridge and into Canada when I just wanted to go to Port Huron, Michigan; and it thought our Digital Trends Portland office was on the other side of town. Why does Apple’s good-looking app screw up so majorly on such a regular basis?  I can’t tell you, but I can say that help has arrived. Months after Apple abruptly removed Google Maps from the iPhone, Google has finally released the first version of its maps in the App Store. It was worth the wait.

Swipe it like you mean it

Google isn’t developing apps for Windows Phone, but it definitely likes what it sees. The new Google Maps, like Android itself, is beginning to resemble Microsoft’s critically acclaimed, but slow-selling operating system in some functional and aesthetic ways. The app is full of areas to swipe back and forth between screens. For example, a swipe on the lower right of the screen will slide open options to turn on views for traffic, public transit, satellite imagery, or Google Earth, which requires a separate app.

The user interface is flat and clean, with an easy-to-read font. There’s a search bar on the top, and once you perform a search for a location like “Madison Square Garden,” you’re instantly taken to that place on the map and a bumper shoots up from the bottom. Pull or swipe the bar up to learn more about the location and/or initiate driving, walking, or mass transit directions to it. Google’s 3D maps are on display as well – use two fingers to tilt the angle and look around. Everything about this app looks slick and outshines Apple, which isn’t easy to do.

New features that work

Those who remember Google’s old Maps app should be happy. For the first time, Google has given iPhone users the same basic slate of features Android owners have had for years. The Google Maps for iPhone app has turn-by-turn, voice-navigated directions for walking, driving, and using the subway/bus. I’ve only done a few searches so far, but have had no problem finding absolutely everything I’ve looked for, from hidden laundromats to barber shops to burger joints. If you’ve been able to find it on Google Maps before, you’re back in luck. And those of you who are tired of driving right onto airport runways using Apple Maps, Google tends to know where you want to go.

As a New Yorker, my favorite feature is the mass transit map layer and turn-by-turn directions. Apple Maps does not have this at all yet and currently boots you to a third-party app of your choice (I use HopStop), but it saves time if one app can do the job. Being able to see where a subway train will stop on the map is also helpful.

Though it doesn’t seem to know where you’re going, Apple Maps does have a nice feature. When you are in the middle of turn-by-turn directions and minimize Maps, it keeps your directions on screen as a little notification. Either due to limitations or time, Google Maps doesn’t yet have this feature, so  you’ll have to keep the app open while you’re navigating.

My only other gripe is Street View. You can access it, but it’s hidden. To access it, find a yellow street, double tap to zoom in, and hold your finger to bring up a bumper about that street. Swipe up that bumper and tap the Street View picture to enter the mode. Once you’re in, you can walk around town just fine. 

Just download it

We’re going to have an in-depth comparison between Apple Maps and Google Maps soon, but until then, just download it. Google Maps is what powered your iPhone navigation for five years and this app is better than that one ever was. The rift between Apple and Google hurt all iPhone users for a few months, but it looks like ultimately, we’re the winners here. Without this split, who knows when we ever would have gotten turn-by-turn Google navigation. Now it’s here. Celebrate! Have a beer. And if you get lost in the woods, now you’ll know there’s a chance you’ll make it back alive before the bears get you.

You can download Google Maps in the iPhone App Store.

Sick of going to multiple travel sites to compare prices on the best flights available? Google's new Flight Explorer tool is here to help you find the perfect flight for your needs.

With the holidays almost upon us, chances are you’ve already booked your flights if you’re going on vacation. But there are always those of us who procrastinate or a last-minute event that pops up, leaving you scrambling to find a flight within your means. Luckily, now is the perfect time for you to take advantage of Google’s new travel service, Flight Explorer. Google stealthily launched the new feature, without any press releases or grandiose announcements.  Flight Explorer basically came out of nowhere. Google didn’t even introduce it as a Beta offering.

Though it caught us all by surprise, Flight Explorer actually seems like a helpful travel-planning tool. Augmenting its Google Flights service, Flight Explorer lets you quickly survey what flights have seats available to book that meet your guidelines at a price you can afford. ”Flight Explorer is an experimental feature of Flight Search that allow users to explore flight destinations,” a Google rep told The Next Web. “The feature enables users to consider multiple destinations and multiple days at once, all using live prices, quickly.”

To use Flight Explorer, simply type in your location and where you’re flying to. Then, at the top menu, choose how many stops you want to take, the flight duration you can endure, your airline of preference, and the outbound and return time frames. The service will then show you what flights are available. Clicking on any of them will bring you straight to Google Flights, which you can use to purchase tickets online. Google didn’t reveal any additional info about Flight Explorer, and it’s possible that it could just be a temporary feature; so enjoy it while it’s still up and running.

DayZ's surprise success has blunted Bohemia Interactive's year. Now its tumultuous 2012 comes to a close with its military simulator ArmA 3 delayed to an unspecified release date in 2013.

Bohemia Interactive’s military simulator ArmA 3 will not be out by the end of 2012 as planned. The studio announced on Thursday morning that it would delay the game into 2013, but didn’t specify when.

“In what might be described as an eventful year, Bohemia Interactive has decided to postpone the release of ArmA 3,” explains the announcement, “The additional development time enables the project to reach its full potential, with the studio expecting to finalize their release plans in the New Year.”

Eventful doesn’t quite begin to cover it. The Czech developer has had a year wild of ups and downs. The surprise success of DayZ, a zombie apocalypse-themed mod, saw sales of its parent game military simulator ArmA 2 skyrocket.  Bohemia said in May that ArmA 2 sales had increased “500 percent” thanks to the release of DayZ’s early alpha version. DayZ proved so popular that Bohemia Interactive brought on the game’s developer to help turn it into a full commercial game.

Those bright spots were blemished by internal staff upheavals and a number of other incidents. First, ArmA 3 project leader Daniel Musil left Bohemia Interactive before the game was finished, leaving it in the hands of company veteran Joris-Jan van’t Land. If that weren’t enough disruption for the development of the game, two ArmA 3 staff members were arrested while vacationing in Greece. Martin Pezlar and Ivan Buchta were imprisoned in September after being accused of espionage by Greek authorities. The two were recently denied bail and remain in reportedly poor living conditions.

Shortly after Buchta and Pezlar were arrested, the unreleased and unfinished ArmA 3 made headlines after getting banned in Iran.

Now, right as the ArmA series has gained a broad new audience, ArmA 3 has been delayed to some unidentified point in the future and Bohemia Interactive has missed out on potential holiday sales. The standalone release of DayZ could hopefully pick up the slack in its absence, but with just over two weeks to go in December, it looks like that game will miss 2012 as well.

DayZ creator Dean Hall said at the end of November that the game could be pushed into 2013. “We are still working towards a target for an initial foundation before the end of the year,” said Hall, “But we will slip this date if needed, we will not compromise the project for the short-term gain of meeting this date.”

Electronic Arts continues to consolidate and rebrand its various digital businesses in its effort to create a future proof video game company. Its plans in free-to-play gaming are well intentioned but they may not lead to financial or creative growth.

The next phase of Electronic Arts’s push into free-to-play gaming began this week as the company consolidated its digital businesses. Play4Free.com, EA’s web portal directing to early free-to-play games like Battlefield Heroes, is no longer an independent entity. Now it’s a part of EA’s digital game platform and network Origin, renamed appropriately as Origin Free To Play.

“Why change to Origin Free to Play?” reads EA’s press release, “The main reason is convenience for players—Origin now becomes your single destination for paid download PC games and free-to-play games alike.”

Of course, that’s not the main reason at all. The main reason is branding. Electronic Arts wants all of its toys in the same cabinet, so that it can entice the diehard Battlefield 3 PC player to potentially try out a free game like Battlefield Heroes if they’re looking at both games through the Origin user interface. Tightening its efforts is essential for a sprawling business like EA, and the switch jives well with EA’s goal of pushing its products across multiple platforms.

Electronic Arts has spent much of 2012 aggressively fortifying itself for a world where video games are not single $60 purchases but games downloaded for free and paid for piecemeal by players that want new content. It’s done this with varying degrees of success. Just take the company’s studio brand BioWare. Word that BioWare’s PC strategy game Command & Conquer: Generals 2 would be free-to-play but would lack a single player campaign, fans revolted and EA decided it would, after all, build single play content.

The company also recently recast BioWare’s MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic as a free-to-play game. The initial changes proved so disastrous that EA had to scramble to change the game yet again within days of the relaunch.

Electronic Arts has left no stone unturned over the past few years, investing heavily in social, mobile, and casual games. The company spent an alleged $1.3 billion on Plants vs. Zombies studio PopCap Games in 2011. Even as its digital business has grown thanks to free-to-play games and casual titles, real financial growth has eluded EA.

Origin Free To Play may be a crucial part of EA’s business at some point, but for the time being packaged products like Madden NFL and FIFA will remain its bread and butter. After all, only 10 percent of the $50 billion in revenue generated by the games industry each year comes from casual players. EA is tilling the soil but there’s no guarantee it will bear fruit.

After filing a trademark application back in June 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office granted Apple a registered trademark for the Mac startup chime.

Apple has trademarked many things over the years, from the names of its products to the term “App Store,” and it’s faced many legal battles due to trademark lawsuits. But it’ll be hard to contest Apple’s latest trademark, which we’re guessing long-time Mac users will instantly know when they listen to the video below. It’s none other than Mac’s startup chime that’s been used on the majority of Mac computers since it was made in 1991. 

The startup chime has been tweaked a few times since the 1990′s, but in spite of the obvious differences in pitch (as demonstrated in the clip below), it has remained largely the same throughout its lifetime. The chime was created by former Apple programmer Jim Reekes, who was also responsible for the old Sosumi Mac sound. The Sosumi Mac sound has a very interesting back story that involves Apple’s legal dispute against the Beatles-owned multimedia company, Apple Corps.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists Mac’s startup chime as a “sensory mark” and describes it as a “sound mark consisting of a slightly flat (by approximately 30 cents) G flat/F sharp major chord.” Interestingly enough, the startup chime actually denotes that diagnostic tests are running and that no hardware or software problems are affecting the system . The Trademark Office also made the chime available for download (warning: the link immediately downloads the  MP3 file to your computer) if, for some reason, you want to listen to it on repeat.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Assassin's Creed pushed two series to the forefront of the video game business at the end of 2007. While Call of Duty is starting to slow down in sales, Assassin's Creed continues to climb.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has sat atop the sales charts in both the United States and most of Europe since releasing at the end of November, an unsurprising feat for Activision’s perennially popular shooter series. The game went on to earn $1 billion in sales one day faster than 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, a feat that marks any media release a success, but an indicator that Black Ops 2‘s sales are relatively flat. There are signs, though, that Black Ops 2 is already showing the series in decline. The suggestion is that annual releases are diminishing the power of the brand, calcifying the audience rather than growing it.

If the Call of Duty bubble is bursting, then it isn’t because of annual releases in the franchise. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series just released its fourth annual installment in November. With 7 million in sales over the course of its first month, Assassin’s Creed III blew previous series sales records out of the water.

Take a look at the historical performance of the series. After debuting with strong sales in 2007, Ubisoft let the series rest on consoles for 2008. Starting in 2009, though, Assassin’s Creed has enjoyed impressive annual growth. Assassin’s Creed II sold 1.6 million copies on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 during its first week on shelves that year, and an additional 783,000 copies on Xbox 360 alone the following month.

2010’s Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was the first annualized sequel, but it still managed to build on its predecessor’s success, racking up 6.5 million in sales over the course of its first three months, helping Ubisoft’s revenue pull as an entire company grow over the previous year. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations saw the series grow, but only slightly over the same period. Released in November 2011, Revelations moved 7 million copies over its first three months, suggesting that Ubisoft’s series had saturated its audience.

Assassin’s Creed III obviously disproved that, matching its predecessor’s first quarter sales performance in a third of the time.

It’s possible that Ubisoft’s latest game has such power in the market thanks to branding. Rather than fracture the series into two running franchises as Activision has with Call of Duty, Ubisoft has marketed Assassin’s Creed games as either spinoffs or major numbered releases. The slight growth between Brotherhood and Revelations would suggest that consumers recognized the series’ name but may not have considered them “event” games. Assassin’s Creed III’s title implies it’s a major follow up to a three-year-old hit.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare started that series’ meteoric rise to industry dominance, released the same year as the first Assassin’s Creed. Activision will be sure to watch Ubisoft’s strategy with its flagship action series, as the French video game maker seems to have cracked a code for continued growth in a difficult video game market.

Announcing support for Twitter Cards, SoundTracking enables Twitter users to view photos and play music in expanded tweets

Now you can listen to music directly from Twitter – well, at least a sample of some songs, but baby steps, right? SoundTracking has added photo and player support for Twitter Cards at the request of its users.

If you’re not familiar with the app, SoundTracking is a music discovery service that marries images and music. You can then opt to share the music and photo combination with your social network (Facebook, Twitter), or simply leave it to be discovered by the SoundTracking community. Given Twitter’s strong media integration push, SoundTrack’s Twitter Card adoption is a natural fit, and one that Twitter should love. Of course, the only downside is that we wish we could listen to the full track within the SoundTracking Twitter cards.

SoundTracking isn’t the only platform that’s taking advantage of embedding their music services into a tweet. There are some popular platforms like Ustream and YouTube, which have for a long time have been integrated into Twitter to enable users to consume media inside tweets. Rdio embedded its services in 2010, and Offical.fm recently took advantage of this “free” distribution strategy to publish embedded playlists, with the hopes of reaching a wider audience.

It’s up for debate whether Twitter integrations are beneficial to third-party developers. If a user expands a tweet to get to the content, it means they are likely staying on Twitter to consume that media instead of making it over to the proprietary platform. This was, of course, the motivation for Instagram to pull its Twitter support. The sudden move was probably also spurred by Facebook’s impending monetization scheme.

SoundTracking, which is far from reaching the scale of Instagram’s size, is undoubtedly looking for additional channels to distribute its content. SoundTracking, based on rudimentary metrics from the Google Play Store, has between 500,000 and 1 million downloads so far – that doesn’t include its iOS downloads. Evidence to expanding its reach is SoundTracking’s announcement in October about its new Spotify app, which also for now exclusively allows users to publish Instagram photos. The iOS and Android apps have yet to add Instagram support.

Ideally SoundTracking has the opportunity to flourish on Twitter during large scale events like the MTV Awards show and music festivals when music loving Twitter users are the most active. Or it could take advantage of the hashtag #musicmonday, which according to 2012 Year on Twitter, was the fifth most trending keyword in the music category on Twitter. 

A huge shift is coming for the South Korean based company Samsung.  The Korea Times reports that Samsung is planning to focus on organic light emitting diode displays (OLED) and flexible plastic based displays in place of traditional liquid crystal displays (LCD) going forward.

The Korea Times also advises that Samsung is already working on the Galaxy S4 with plans of revealing it at February’s Mobile World Congress, which we have heard before.

As if that wasn’t enough in the rumor department, Korea Times also claims that Samsung is working on the Galaxy Note 3. Apparently the new phablet will increase the screen size even further, with a staggering 6.3 inch OLED display.

The OLED magic won’t end there. Samsung will also be selling a line of 55 inch OLED televisions starting next year.

“The global LCD industry is seeing signs of a major shift as Samsung is spending less on conventional LCDs. With money saved from LCD restructuring, the firm plans to spend more on OLED and flexible displays. Profitability is the top priority for Samsung’s display-making business next year,” an executive from a part supplier to Samsung said on Monday.

Keep in mind that this is all unofficial and should be taken with a grain of salt. Could this be the beginning of a major shift in display types?  Or is this all nothing but a rumor?

For the first time in a year, Yahoo has updated the Flickr app for iOS, just as CEO Marissa Mayer promised she would. And you know what? It's good – as in better-than-Instagram good. Really. See why in this hands on with Flickr for iOS.

Until this week, Flickr for iOS was a sad piece of work. The Flickr community reviled the app for its poor functionality and slow operating speed. And, despite these complaints, the Flickr development team didn’t offer an update for 12 months – a lifetime in app years. The app just kept sucking, and there was seemingly no end in sight for the community.

That pitiful era is now behind us. Marissa Mayer, the president and CEO of Flickr’s parent company, Yahoo, promised users when she took over the company this summer that she would revive Flickr. And that is precisely what she and the rest of her team have done with the new Flickr for iOS, which is easily one of the best photo apps currently in the App Store. Let’s dive in and see what’s new.

Overall style and functionality

Flickr users will immediately notice that the iOS app is essentially a mini version of the website, with all the same functionalities – more, actually, since you can take and edit photos with the app itself. Groups, sets, tags – it’s all there. And it’s really smooth and easy to use. Compared to some, I am more of a casual Flickr user, so there may be features that more advanced (or just picky) people will find with the app. But as an average user, I was quite impressed with the design, depth, and functionality of Flickr for iOS.

Taking a photo

After firing up the app – you can sign in with a Yahoo ID or your Facebook credentials – you can immediately start snapping shots. The actual taking photos part works more or less like every other iOS camera app out there, with a few exceptions. For example, using two fingers, you can set both focus and exposure at the same time – the blue square is for focus, the red circle for exposure. Touch with just one finger, and both focus and exposure will be set by the same spot in your frame. I found that this feature worked surprisingly well, especially in instances with extreme differences in lighting.

Other on-screen features include a grid, which turns on or off with a single button touch, flash settings, and digital zoom. You can also bring pictures from your Photo Stream into the app for editing and sharing, either one at a time or in batches. All these functionalities work as they should.

Filters and editing

Ah, yes, filters. It’s the hot new thing. Everybody’s doing it, including the new Flickr. But that’s not the only trick Flickr for iOS has up its sleeve.

Flickr’s app includes 15 stylized filters – three fewer than Instagram. And they are all pretty much what you will find in most other photo apps with filters: Lomo and cross-processed wannabes, black and white, Hipster blue, etc. (Their actual names are perhaps the most obnoxious part of Flickr for iOS, cutesy things like Ocelot and Narwhal and Salamander. Fortunately, this is entirely inconsequential.) In fact, the filters come courtesy of a company called Aviary, which provides the filters for other such apps, including the new Twitter filters. As Digital Trends’ Molly McHugh pointed out, however, this isn’t really a good thing – Instagram still has the best pre-cooked filters.

Fortunately, you aren’t stuck with nothing but baked-in filters with Flickr’s app, which has a complete set of photo-editing tools. Don’t like one of the pre-cooked filters? Make your own – and make it better. That’s what Flickr for iOS is for: Making great photos with your phone. And it might be the first app to give users the ability to actually do this easily and well.

To access the photo-editing tools, click the pencil icon that appears in the top-right corner when viewing the photo in its “original” form. If you’ve added one of the filters, the editing option disappears – a slightly annoying feature when you’re first starting out.

Of course, Flickr also gives users the ability to crop a photo however they like, or to not crop it at all – something I consider a major advantage over Instagram, whose tenaciously square crop has pissed me off on more than one occasion.

Sharing

Because this is a Flickr app, all photos you share will be posted to your Flickr profile. Wisely, Yahoo has made it just as easy to share across other social networks. After you’ve edited or filter-ized your picture (or set of pictures – batch editing is possible), you can add a title and description, and post to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or send via email with the touch of the corresponding buttons. And unlike Instagram, images shared to Twitter with the Flickr app will still show up for your Twitter followers.

The entire set of Flickr functionality is there as well, under the “advanced” drop-down menu, which reveals the ability to add the pictures to a photo set, or create a new set; add groups and tags; set the photo’s safety level; adjust location privacy settings, etc.

Yet another leg up on Instagram is the ability for Flickr users to choose the upload size. This can be changed under the Settings menu, which is accessible via the Flickr icon button on the home screen. Size options include original, large, and medium.

One thing that Pro users might not like is the fact that the photos taken with the Flickr app are not automatically separated from non-smartphone pictures, nor are they identified as having been taken with a mobile device. Of course, you can always tag the photo as such, or add that in the description. But it would be nice if there were a way to turn on automatic differentiation.

Browsing

The ability to browse and discover other users’ photos is just as deep as Flickr’s photo-editing capabilities. Under the “people” icon, you can access photos from your Flickr contacts, or groups. To scroll through a specific set of photos, just swipe to the left – a feature Instagram should steal. Tap the “world” button, and you’re given “interesting” (popular) photos from around Flickr. And the “nearby” tab will show you images uploaded close to your physical location. You can, of course, easily access your personal profile, where you’ll find all the photos you’e uploaded to Flickr (not just those added through the app), as well as your sets, groups, favorites, and more.

Final word

Flickr has completely won me over with this app. I went in preparing to hate it, but fell in love. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is significantly better than Instagram. Are the filters as good? Nope. But everything else about it is superior. And I adore the fact that you can apply more of your photography skills than just clever framing – as it should be in a photography app that caters to actual photographers.

Looks like Google's only getting a lump of coal this year from NORAD. The military organization is ditching Google Maps and going with Bing for its NORAD Tracks Santa site.

NORAD Tracks Santa is a popular website for those eagerly awaiting the ‘jingle jingle’ of sleigh bells on Christmas Eve, but this year, Saint Nick’s whereabouts will be shown on Bing Maps instead of Google. The site, run by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, now has an “Our Team” page that lists corporate sponsors. Microsoft, Windows Azure, and Bing Maps are prominently featured among the business backers. 

Since 2007, NORAD has been powered by Google Maps and Google Earth, but no mention of the search engine behemoth or either feature can be found anywhere on the website this year. For people looking for a 3D view à la Google Earth, NORAD is now working with Cesium. After Microsoft’s recent push against Google this holiday season, including a campaign called “Don’t Get Scroogled,” some may think the change in companies is a blow against Google. NORAD was a little vague about its split with Google, telling Search Engine Land that “NTS and Google mutually agreed to go in new directions.” Apparently, the split was amicable.

In previous years, the site allowed fans to track Saint Nick with their smartphones by searching “santa” within Google Maps. Clearly, that’s no longer an option. Another change this year is that NORAD built proprietary mobile apps for Windows Phone, Android, and iOS, along with a Windows 8 app. Fortunately, Google and Apple have not been entirely ignored on the app side. 

For anyone who is curious about why and how a military organization focused on missile tracking got involved with following the path Santa, the NORAD website has the history. 

Amazon has updated its Instant Video app for iOS, adding iPhone and iPod Touch support to the existing iPad-only application. This will be of particular interest to Amazon Prime members, who can enjoy their free streaming videos on the small screen too.

Amazon has released an iPhone version of its Instant Video app, previously only made available for the iPad. It’s free to download from the iTunes App Store, but to take advantage of its free content, you’ll have to be a paid-up member of Amazon Prime, the $80 per year service which provides free two-day shipping and access to the video library.

So what do you get for your money? Prime Instant Video contains 30,000 videos which can be streamed to your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch for free, plus the regular Amazon Instant Video catalog has a total of 140,000 titles ready to buy or rent, then download ready for viewing when offline. Amazon’s WhisperSync keeps your spot in a film should you have to stop, then syncs it up when you can restart, no matter whether you do so on the same device, or on your computer or games console.

The app isn’t without its technical drawbacks though, as there’s no streaming over 3G or 4G networks – a Wi-Fi connection is essential – and Apple’s Airplay is still not supported either, although this is less of a problem if you own a PS3, Xbox or have an Instant Video application on your TV or Blu-ray player.

Amazon Instant Video is available now from the App Store, and the iPhone/iPod support has been added in version 1.4, so if you already own the app on the iPad, an update is all that’s needed.

Dell has withdrawn from the international smartphone market, saying it requires too much investment before becoming successful, however it will continue building Windows 8 tablets and laptops.

Dell has decided it doesn’t want, or can’t get, a slice of the smartphone market. According to the company’s VP of Global Operations, Jeff Clarke, Dell has withdrawn from the business of building smartphones completely and apparently, from using Android too. Dell’s announcement stands out as a surprise in these days of being told the PC market is shrinking, Android’s market share is growing, and the smartphone business has the potential to be worth $150 billion by 2014.

Speaking at Dell World, it’s headline event of the year currently underway in Austin, Texas, Clarke said it had no plans to re-enter the market in the near future either, saying, “It needs a lot of investments to really be successful.” Many of you may have thought Dell had already stopped selling phones, however it was still active in the Chinese and Indian markets until now.

Android will also become less important, as according to Clarke the company found it difficult to monetize in a world apparently dominated by content delivery models such as Amazon’s and Google’s.

While Dell will abandon smartphones, it will continue to build Windows tablets and touchscreen laptops, based on both Windows 8 and Windows RT. Speaking on stage at the event, CEO Michael Dell said they were “optimistic” about Windows 8, calling the touch experience “incredible” and that we’re seeing “a revolution in PCs.” Instead of smartphones and in addition to tablets and laptops, Dell is also working on what they call end-to-end solutions, cloud computing and PC virtualization.

In November, Michael Dell said its Mobility unit wasn’t performing to expectations, and analysts figured its revenues fell by 26-percent and its share of the business dropped by 6-percent too.

Since very few will have missed devices such as the Streak, Venue and Venue Pro since they left U.S. stores earlier this year, it’s perhaps for the best that Dell concentrates its efforts on something new.

We chat with Rockstar North head and Grand Theft Auto series producer Leslie Benzies about the past and the future of the Grand Theft Auto series, as GTA: Vice City celebrates its 10th anniversary.

Rockstar producer Leslie Benzies is a busy guy, with  resume that reads like a “best of” list that most developers would kill for. So when we were given an opportunity to put the screws to the head of Rockstar North and lead producer on the Grand Theft Auto series, we jumped on it. Not coincidentally, the interview comes as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2012, and Rockstar Games is marking the landmark occasion with a mobile release of the ’80s-era Miami-inspired classic. (And a note of thanks to Rockstar for supplying us with the exclusive Ken Rosenberg artwork.) 

Few people can speak with more authority on the series and the evolution of open-world action than Benzies, who has been a producer on the Grand Theft Auto series since 2001′s Grand Theft Auto 3 shattered gamer expectations of what sort of experiences were possible on a home console. Vice City arrived soon after, delivering an even more personality-driven setting and carrying clear inspirations from various pop culture touchstones. The result was a breakthrough at the time, streamlining the ideas of the previous game while upping the sense of investment as you built Tommy Vercetti’s criminal empire. The game is still a favorite among Rockstar fans, and Benzies was a key player behind that success. Read on as we look back at where Grand Theft Auto has been and where it’s headed a full decade after fans were left wide-eyed by Vice City‘s neon-drenched beach side paradise.

Set the scene for me: it’s 2001 and you’ve just reinvented the open-world action genre with Grand Theft Auto 3. You sit down for your first pre-production meeting on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. What comes out of that meeting? What did GTA:VC look like when it was just an initial idea on a piece of paper?

We did not really sit down with the intention of making a sequel. After we released GTA3 we spent a few months working on the PC version and then started thinking about things we could put in a mission pack, such as new weapons, vehicles and cool missions, basically anything we had wanted to put into GTA3 but had not been able to do. We realized that there was too much stuff for a mission pack and that it should probably be its own game. We were all on quite a high from finishing GTA3 and I think we all wanted to see where we could take the concept, so the core of the game started falling into place quite quickly.

’80s-era Miami is a very specific point of reference to ground GTA: Vice City in. Where did that come from? What other locales did you toy with as possible sources of inspiration for your GTA3 follow-up?

In the early design meetings there were very few cities and regions on Earth that didn’t get pitched as a potential setting. We thought about revisiting London and a few other places but Sam was very keen on Miami with his love of the Miami Vice series.

We didn’t want to just pick a new city and change the color scheme, we wanted to go somewhere that had both similarities and differences to New York [Liberty City], and that’s what brought us to Miami. New York is busy and bustling, a real merchant city, whereas Miami is a party town, all sun and sea and sex, but with that same dark edge underneath. Also just like New York, it has been used as a setting for some classic film and television, so it was really the perfect fit.

The story in GTA: Vice City continues to be an all-time favorite among fans even now, 10 years later. What do you think it was about the narrative that resonated and continues to resonate so strongly? How have subsequent Rockstar offerings worked to tap into that?

Perhaps more than any of our other games Vice City wore its inspiration on its sleeve. You cannot play for more than five minutes and not think about Scarface or Miami Vice and from that point on you’re playing those roles, and who has never wanted to be Tony Montana on the balcony with his ‘little friend’?

Also GTA3 is a revenge story, whereas Vice City is about building an empire. The assets and businesses you acquire in VC really tie into that narrative and make you feel like a kingpin. In more recent games we’ve tried to keep that sense of progression, that ‘nobody to somebody’ story arc. We still like to show where our inspiration has come from, but perhaps less overtly than in Vice City.

Vice City’s voice cast is overflowing with recognizable Hollywood names, an approach that has been avoided in more recent Rockstar efforts. Can you speak a bit on how the attitude at the studio has changed with regards to casting? What advantages do you think the Hollywood-heavy cast brought to the table at that particular moment in time?

The main issue for us, especially when choosing voice-actors for main characters, is that if you choose a celebrity with a distinctive voice, it can damage the player’s immersion. They’re not thinking “ok, this is CJ,” or “this is Niko,” they’re thinking, “that’s Morgan Freeman.” It’s like when a well-known actor turns up in a cameo in film or TV, you are suddenly very aware that you’re watching a fiction. Because of this we have steered away from celebrity in recent years.

There is also an element of ego that comes along with hiring big-name celebrities. Many of the people we have worked with have been fantastic and a real joy to have on board, but some have perhaps seen themselves as bigger than the project. Our games are made by a team who work themselves to the bone for years, so when a big-shot celebrity turns up, records dialogue for 20 hours and then demands more money and credit than anyone else it can leave a sour taste. When we have worked with lesser-known voice actors they tend to be as proud to be working on the game as we are.

As you’ve looked back on Vice City now, what have you noticed about the game in hindsight that you didn’t necessarily zero in on back in 2002?

I think a lot of us have been surprised at how hard the game is in places. We have been going through the mobile version to balance certain aspects and some of the difficulty spikes in Vice City surprised us, and we designed them. We have always tried to find a balance between challenging the player and not leaving them frustrated, but revisiting Vice City shows that we were not always very good at it! 

Any chance that Vice City might return in a future GTA? 

It is always a possibility. There are a few references to the city in our current-gen GTAs so it is part of that HD universe, and it is certainly somewhere we would love to revisit. However Vice City, perhaps more than any other GTA game, was as much about the era as the setting. Miami in the 1980’s is so iconic it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period.

Of course at some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favorite areas, and in that context reimagining Vice City would be very interesting.

Beyond the new technology being used, has Rockstar’s approach to developing changed significantly since VC was released?

Despite all the technological changes since we made Vice City our design system has remained pretty much the same. We set out the story and mission flow of the game, then see when would be best to introduce new weapons, characters, abilities and so on. We don’t want to overwhelm the player with features too early in the game, but we don’t want to be stingy either. By getting the basic narrative structure and gameplay elements in place early it is easier to control the game’s pacing and keep it consistently tight. When we were designing Vice City there was very little deviation from this initial framework between inception and release, and the same is still true.

This also means that we do not look at the available technology and work out how to build our game around it. We design the game, and then see how we can push the technology to bring it to life.

Rockstar has always been regarded as one of the industry’s edgier developers. The noise has died down in recent years, but how have such experiences in the past shaped the internal approach to concepting and development?

I think the scrutiny we suffered when developing our earlier games has helped keep us creatively sharp. We do not sit down for design meetings and say, “let’s make the most appallingly violent game possible.” We choose to set our games in places where violence is or was a part of everyday life, the Old West or the criminal underworld or cocaine-flooded Miami. If we censored ourselves and sanitized the violence we would not be able to properly explore these settings and themes, and make the games we make. That is a compromise we have never been willing to make.

Also I think that a decade or so ago, games were still a soft target, a way to sell newspapers. The majority of people saw them as kid’s toys and were outraged when the details of our games were laid out to them. Today games are a massive part of our culture. People know that games are no longer all about eating dots or blowing up spaceships, that they can be dark and edgy and challenging.

Can fans look forward to seeing additional mobile development initiatives from Rockstar moving forward? Perhaps even something in the realm of all-new original content?

There are certainly a number of our previous titles we would like to see on tablets and mobiles, since it is essentially a whole new audience for them. Also the power of mobile technology is increasing so rapidly it is hard to imagine the kind of games we could be releasing for them in years to come. Whether these are repurposed versions of existing games or entirely new IPs I couldn’t say, but if you look at Chinatown Wars you can see that we are always up for the challenge of designing games for new technologies and making the most of all their features, not just their processing power.

What was your favorite part or aspect of VC?

With the core systems in place we were really able to let our creativity run wild and try out all sorts of new ideas. After the excellent reception we received for GTA3 we knew gamers liked what we were about, so it felt like a chance to really push ourselves to create something even better. The development of Vice City escalated so quickly from mission pack to full-blown game that the whole process was a bit of a blur, so I’m still proud that we pulled it off and made a game that people enjoy as much as they do. 

What sets this mobile edition of GTA: Vice City apart from its console predecessors?

There are a few core mechanics that we have reworked, such as the camera and aiming system, to better suit the platform. We have also made a few adjustments to certain missions and mechanics to make the game a bit more forgiving and a bit more accessible. This reflects the fact that we are selling to a different demographic. On the consoles this was a game people would sit and play for hours, but now it is a game we want people to be able to pick up for 10 minutes on their commute. We didn’t want people to be sat on the bus grinding cash or replaying a mission 20 times to progress. We want them to get home and say “Hey I bought a nightclub and robbed a bank on the way home, how was your day?”

Own an HTC Evo 4G LTE on Sprint’s network? Good news, Jelly Bean is arriving today– or so we hope! The news arrived last night by way of an anonymous tipster reporting to Android Police. The tip came with a photo of an internal Sprint page stating that Android 4.1 would start rolling out today.

Keep in mind that we have no proof that all of this is legit, so take it with a grain of salt. That said, you can probably bet it is. For starters, Sprint’s EVO 4G LTE product page now lists Jelly Bean as a feature. A recent update, I might add. Second, the wording and formatting of the leaked page looks like the real deal from Sprint.

Besides Android 4.1, the update also will come along with Sense 4+, which brings improved front-cam performance, a new gallery app and a few bug fixes.

Based on what we know, you should be able to pull it down for updating today, and it will start pushing out as an upgrade by January 3rd. Any HTC Evo 4G owners out there? Excited for this update? Let us know if/when it arrives!

Some people say that with our increasing reliance on smartphones that we don’t really need to have a conventional wristwatch anymore. That doesn’t have to be the case, especially when you have a “smart” watch to go with your smartphone. Case in point is the Sony MN2SW, which happens to be on sale for $45 off.

The Sony MN2SW SmartWatch works in tandem with a Google Android smartphone of your choosing, pairing it up so that you don’t have to go fumbling for your smartphone to achieve your basic smartphone needs. The SmartWatch, for example, can be used to read all of your texts, emails and social media updates. This is very useful if you keep your phone in your purse, backpack or similar bag.

The multi-touch color 1.3-inch OLED display can also be used to control your smartphone’s music, letting you skip through tracks and find the right song for your daily commute on the train. This is all done via Bluetooth 3.0 with an operating range of up to 30 feet. All you need is to find SmartWatch compatible apps through the Google Play Store. Battery life is rated at about 3-4 days of typical usage.