1. 3G and 4G (LTE) are battery intensive and drains your iPhone in no time
2. Airtel’s 3G/4G coverage is patchy even in Metros. Your iPhone will try to cling on to a low-available 3G/4G signal instead of switching on to 2G automatically, thus reducing battery life.

How to get the 2G toggle back?

• Switch to a different network. You can make use of the MNP (Mobile Number Portability) if required
• Install any of the following patches on your iPhone. These patches are harmless and can be installed on any iPhone (Tested up to iOS 8.1). Installation is simple. Just open these URLs on your iPhone’s Safari browser and hit the install button on the webpage. The 2G toggling patch app will appear on your home screen. Try any of the following patch links:-
• China3GPP
• UnlockPro

It works for me and let me know if it does for you as well.

[update] There’s a downside to this tweak as per it was reported by @direstraits_. 4G connectivity will be restored only after a full reset after using this tweak. Toggling between 2g/3G does not pose any issues though.

How to enable 2G and turn off 3G / 4G on Airtel network was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve been using a Nexus 5 for nearly a week now. Guess that is good enough time to assess the phone more realistically. Must admit that I bought the Nexus 5 on a whim. Somehow Google has made the Nexus launches/bulild-ups attractive enough to pony up some money — every year. So this is my 3rd Nexus after the ADP1 and the Nexus 4.

I’ll try to answer some of the questions that were asked over at Twitter/in-person to me:-

Is it worth upgrading to Nexus 5 from a Nexus 4 ?

I’m tempted to say — Yes. Because the display is much more vivid, text rendering-superb and battery life is much improved over Nexus 4. That’s some 3.5 hours of screen-on-time for above-average usage with stock kernel. Granted you are the true-blue Nexus enthusiast who tries custom-kernel-tweaks, ‘Greenifies’ apps and employs some smart radio switching — expect some impressive 5.5 hours of screen-on-time. It is definitely not ‘speedier’ than Nexus 4 on regular apps usage. At least, I could not perceive improvements in that department.

Do I like the Camera?

No. I don’t. It takes better pictures than the Galaxy S3. Sharper and much better colours in general. Low light pictures turned out surprisingly good. HDR+ mode really works — adding incredible details to scenic shots under great sunlight. Still I don’t like the camera, because, you may have already guessed it by now, the software SUCKS. This Camera needs full ~3 seconds to even start up from the cold. Add a second or two with HDR+ enabled. If you are used to burst modes and faster time between shots, be prepared to be thoroughly disappointed. Despite what Google makes you believe through their ‘moments’ oriented ads, Nexus 5 will pretty much guarantee you a lot of “missed moments”. Third party camera apps can’t do a better job either on Nexus 5. This would need a low-level tweak up by Google themselves.

How is the Design/Hardware and Feel in hand?

Nexus 5 feels solid and well-built. Feel-in-hand?.. perhaps something like holding a miniature hollow replica of a B-2 Spirit stealth airplane. ;)

The width of this phone is perfect. Weight minimal and balanced across. The ceramic buttons has sharper edges. People will begin doubting your personal hygiene once they notice the dirty back of the phone. I’ve a black Nexus 5 and it highlights fingerprints, coffee/tea stains and sweat. I should have said “magnifies” in lieu of “highlights”. I may probably be getting a d-Brand decal as a saviour. Speakers are good enough for occasional Youtube playbacks. Since the speaker is positioned at the bottom left, it is much easier to ‘cup’ it and direct the sound towards you.

How is KitKat on Nexus 5 and What are my favourite apps?

KitKat is a refined Jellybean. But the Google Experience Launcher and Google Now improvements are not important for me. I prefer Nova launcher beta and a home screen layout that has been ‘customized and ‘learned’ to suit my needs over past many years. Google Now still need to show me strong reasons to keep it despite being a battery-drainer. Here is a list containing my current apps:-

AdAway — I like it clean without Ads ;)
Buffer — For cross posting between Facebook and Twitter
Cerberus — Thieves beware!
Changelog Droid — To keep a tab on what changed
Chrome Beta — Has compression and is better.
Droid NAS — Share Files
Dropbox — My preferred Storage Cloud
Duolingo — One day I will use this App ;)
Endomondo PRO — Keeps a tab on my Walking/Running
Enhanced Email — Office Exchange email client
Facebook — Because Friends
Flashify — Can save a few steps
Foursquare — Interesting insights about places.
Google Play Music — Somehow sounds better than PowerAmp on Nexus 5
Google+ — Because Google ;)
Greenify — Force hibernate and improve battery.
Instagram — Because Hipster ;)
Lux — I’m waiting for the Nexus 5 plugin for Lux Autobrightness.
Loader Droid Download Manager.
MX Player — Plays anything.
Nova Launcher Prime — My Home.
Orbital — I like this Game.
Pocket — Silly me adds stuff here hoping I might read.. never happens.. ;)
Pushbullet — Push stuff between desktop and phone and vice versa. Desktop notifications.
Quell Reflect+ — Zen Game.
QuickPic — My photo viewer
reddit sync — Source of news
Root Explorer — Been serving me for long
Secure Settings — Taker plugin that helps access GPS etc.
Snapseed — My favorite Photo editor
SolCalendar — Nice Month View
Tasker — I’ve a bunch of automations. Essential.
Titanium Backup — Life Saver.
Today Settings — Agenda Widget
TubeMate — For downloading Youtube videos
Twitter — Because Twitter won’t let others make decent apps.
User Dictionary Plus — Since i prefer the stock keyboard over others.
Wallbase — Walls!
WhatsApp — Because Friends.
Wolfram Alpha — For quirky calculations.
Wunderlist — For ToDo lists and Simple Project Management
XDA Premium 4 — My fix!
Zedge — Ringtones
Zite — Relevant News source

Feel free to ask me if you have any further questions — in the comments below.

Nexus 5 — Opinions was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Maria Reyes-McDavis
Calepin

Skivr

Scriptogr.am

Dropplets

Anchor CMS

Koken

Couch CMS

Postachio

Kirby

BuildWithCraft

Markbox

Mobtvse

Ghost (Based on node.js)

Hexo ( Based on node.js)

Happy simple Markdown blogging!

Modern Blogging Frameworks was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pros:-

• Good Looking
• Nice HD Screen

[caption id=”attachment_863" align=”alignnone” width=”291"]

HTC One X India[/caption]

Cons:-

• Sharp edges makes it uncomfortable to hold HOX for longer periods.
• Battery life is a meh.
• Sense 4 stutters after installing few other 3rd party apps
• Multi-Tasking is screwed up
• The development community is not so vibrant on XDA-Forums
• Uses a Gingerbread Kernel! (NVIDIA’s fault)
• Camera is not as good as Galaxy S2 or iPhone 4S (I own both). Lots of noise and macro shots are crap.
• S-Off is not there.
• Screen flickers while on low brightness. (For many people)
• Game Volume is considerably lower than iPhone 4S.
• Stinks plastic. (really!)

Hope this helps!

[Update] I sold One X and moved on to a Samsung Galaxy S3.

HTC One X — Real Life Review was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[caption id=”attachment_841" align=”alignnone” width=”216" caption=”Wolfram Alpha Domain Search”]

[/caption]

Detailed Domain Analysis with Wolfram Alpha was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[caption id=”attachment_826" align=”alignnone” width=”300" caption=”SAMSUNG Galaxy S II inside a Zenus Case”]

[/caption]

Coming from a Samsung Galaxy S (i9000), the imposing Physical dimensions of Galaxy S2 is the most striking first impression one will get. It is super lite, yet feels very sturdy. The huge screen may prove unwieldy to those with smaller palms, often warranting two handed operations. The buttons are placed similar to that of Original Galaxy S; though one could easily find the Home button a lot more ‘clickier’. The speaker is better than Original Galaxy S; So is Phone call Quality.

Samsung seems to have done their home work well to optimize the software of Galaxy S II (I have a KE2 Build). The TouchWiz 4 Launcher is zippy and a lot customizable to suit everyone’s need. I did install LauncherPro for a while, but that did not stick. TouchWiz launcher seems capable and some of the neater widgets are exclusive to it. Programs open instantly. The scrolling performance of lists are very good. I did notice some lag while scrolling through Market App. Browsing on Galaxy S II is a near — shall I say better than — iPhone 4 experience? Buttery smooth is the word. Galaxy S II seem to gain better signals and I have no complaints on wireless performance. Pruning of the bloatware a.k.a Hubs etc.. are something one will have to do — if they were to expect a decent battery life out of SGS II. I am planning to upgrade to KE7 build which supposedly has better battery life. Those things can wait! — till I evaluate the raw stock performance over the next few days.

So should you get a Galaxy S II ?.. You should — for it’s beautiful vibrant display, excellent native browser and stylish exteriors (nah, i don’t buy the ‘plastic is cheap’ argument). The dual core processors should offer enough ampere for a Gamer. I read, ChainFire3D hack can effectively make all Tegra2 Games run on Galaxy S II. I honestly cannot differentiate the Sound/Music qualities between a Voodoo’d Original Galaxy S and S II. Probably the former is better. I took couple of snaps under fluorescent light with Flash ON, all of them were smiling in natural colors!. I should test the camera more during day light. How can a device be so perfect, one might ask — Yup — If I were to nitpick, it is the touch responsiveness. It is a little worse than the Original Galaxy S. But never a show stopper.

Conclusion: Samsung did the right thing!

Let me know if you have any questions or want to me post some more info on Galaxy S II.

[Update] I’ve had the phone powered on for 6 Hours. With Google, Exchange , Twitter and Facebook Sync all active, the battery is showing 70% now. I made 4 Calls. Demo’d the phone to couple of friends and browsed for nearly 15 minutes during this period.

Samsung Galaxy S II — Quick Review was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

1. Open a blank new tab
2. Type ‘about:flags’ into the address bar and hit enter
3. Scroll down to the botton and enable ‘Click to play’
4. Restart your browser
5. Now click the wrench menu > Options > Under the hood > Content setting > Plug-ins
6. Select ‘Click to play’ from the right hand side
7. Further, you can even use the Exception button to whitelist specific domains like Youtube etc.

Thanks to Mushaf for the Tip.

On Demand Flash Content in Google Chrome was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Simple.. isn’t it?!

How to stop animated GIFs — the easy way was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But remember, this feature only works if you have an active Internet connection. Manufactures like Motorola has partnered with MapMyIndia to offer offline maps for India. You can even purchase the MapMyIndia navigation software for various platforms separately.

I’m very happy Brut’s hack saved me some bucks!. Let me know if this worked for you in the comments.

Download:

Google Maps with free Global Navigation
md5sum: 456b3fe71f74bb8b76a443be4075473c

Get Turn-by-Turn Voice Navigation for Google Maps in India — on Android was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here are some of the benefits of having a rooted device.

• AdjBrightness : Adjust / Decrease and lock the brightness of your Android Screen. This helps save battery and your eyes!
• AutoKiller : This nifty tool available as free on the Market lets you customize the garbage collection intervals of Android operating system. That means better performance compared to the ordinary Task killers in the market.
• Titanium Backup : Hands down the best tool available right now to keep backup of your Apps and related data securely in the SD Card. This saves plenty of time and efforts if you are frequent ‘ROM Flasher’
• WiFi Tethering: Android 2.2 (Froyo) supports WiFi tethering (Creating a Mobile Wifi hotspot using your mobile). But this is a operator dependent service and you may have to subscribe to special plans to avail such services. But the rooted phones can enjoy a better Wifi Tethering service, without any of these hindrances. In my experience this works faster and consumers less energy than the official ones.
• Moving Caches to SD Card: System memory on Android phones are still a luxury. Recovering every bit of the precious space by moving the Caches to the external SD Card will yield better performances.
• Better Themes: Once rooted you have the capability to skin your Android phones to any level.
• Freedom! — Once a proper su (Super User) is obtained, the opportunities are limitless. Freedom to do whatever you want with your device!

Did I miss anything?.. Let me know in the comments.

Advantages of rooting Android Phones was originally published in On Mobility, Computing and Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.