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As expected, the 5S and the 5C iPhones were unveiled on Tuesday, Sept. 10 with a splash of colors. In the past, a new iPhone announcement was always a magical moment, thanks to all the hype created Apple Inc., the media and Apple fans all around the world. The magic continues with these two devices. The initial excitement surrounding iPhone announcements started on Jan. 9, 2007, at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, when the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs pulled an iPhone 2G out his pocket. The hoopla surrounding Apple smartphones announcement has been gaining traction every since and there seems to be no end in sight. The true Apple fans can probably name them all, starting with the 2G in 2007, the 3G in 2008, followed by the 3GS in 2009 and the 4G in 2010. We're not done. Then we had the 4S in 2011 and the evolutionary, if not revolutionary, iPhone 5 just a year ago. Now we have the iPhone 5S, a souped-up doozy of a device with fingerprint reader techno...

The Samsung ATIV S Neo is coming to Sprint on Friday. This will be Sprint's second Windows Phone 8 smartphone of the year, with the HTC 8XT being the first WP8 device earlier this summer. The ATIV S Neo will be sporting a 4.8-inch display with a 1.4 gigahertz dual-core processor under the hood, which falls short when compared with some of the other high-powered quad-core smartphones, such as the 1.9 GHz Samsung Galaxy S4 or the LG Optimus G Pro at 1.7 GHz of processing power. You can also add 1 gigabyte of RAM and 16 GB if internal storage to the balance sheet. The battery is a respectable 2,000 mAh lithium-ion, but there are other devices out there with larger capacity. The good news is that the ATIV S Neo features ATIV Beam for sharing photos, music and video with other WP8 devices using the NFC technology. For snapshots, Sprint's WP8 baby has a eight-megapixel camera with LED flash and a 1.9 MP camera for video chats and self-portraits. Despite a few shortcomings, th...

I've never been as excited about a FedEx delivery as I was for the package with the BlackBerry Z10. It arrived from Verizon Wireless in an understated velvet-black box. Now it's showtime. All the hype about the new BlackBerry was running through my mind — the delays and months of waiting while other smartphones made their debut. The promise of a new operating system based on QNX technology that is also known very well in the automobile technology circles and the nuclear reactors industry. So I'm thinking this device had better be special and worth the wait. At the first glance, I noticed that the Z10, clad in solid back with a grippy, textured back that almost sticks to your hand, has grown in size to a respectable 4.2-inch display, which makes my iPhone 5 seem small. BlackBerry needed this size increase, as the older models seemed to stuck in the past, much like the earlier iPhone devices were for several years, while the competitors rocketed past them in width and hei...

It was a big day for Facebook, as Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, unveiled "Facebook Home," a slick interface for the Android operation system that brings messages, photos and recent stories to the home screen of your Android smartphone. Smartphone manufacturer HTC also announced the HTC First, the first device to have the Facebook Home interface incorporated into the Android OS. It'll also come pre-loaded with Instagram, which is another popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook that utilizes a twist of photo filters for cool effects. The Facebook gurus views the home screen as "the soul of your phone" and offers an alternative with Facebook Home, which does not need to open an app to see all your social media connections. The ingenuity with Home begins with a virtual button at the bottom of your display that shows your face. A simple swipe up and it shows all your regular apps or you can swipe it away to hide them all. Then the beauty of the...

The big question is whether Facebook, the king of social media, will unveil a smartphone during an April 4 shindig? Will it also be powered by Android, the king of mobile operating systems. The invitations have been sent out and all eyes are on Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., where attendees will find 1 Hacker Way and get inside by 10 a.m. PST to see Facebook's "New Home on Android" announcement. From the day Facebook was founded in 2004, they have reached one milestone after another, such as adding photo uploading in 2005, launching music listening applications in 2011 and taking the big, big step of going public in the fall of 2012. A lot of fans must have been thrilled with their growth, as Facebook reached one billion users in September. That a lot of updates, photos albums, music apps, messages, likes and just overall spending a bunch of time on Facebook. If a Facebook-branded smartphone does come true, I wonder how Facebook will make it un...

I have been feeling a little like Dick Tracy lately, as I walked around with a Sony SmartWatch on my arm. There is a certain cool factor about this device, which was on loan from Verizon Wireless. The SmartWatch functions as an extension of your Andriod smartphone or tablet and will allow you to read text messages and view social network updates, as well as check the time and date. The latter should be a "duh" moment; of course it'll give you the time and date. I was up and running in no time, which allowed me to leave the Android smartphone in my pocket for most tasks. The SmartWatch makes a Bluetooth connection to Android devices. After downloading a SmartWatch Liveware manager app from the Google play store, you're off and running with Facebook and Twitter updates, the weather, text messages and other features that have smart watch apps available. After digging around in the Android app store, I discovered SmartWatch apps for eBay, Web Cams, games, and get t...

As we wait on the BlackBerry 10 platform to arrive sometime early in 2013, Research In Motion says the developers are hard at work creating apps for the new upcoming devices. Developers have been issued 5,000 BlackBerry Dev Alpha test devices to put their apps through the paces on various BlackBerry 10 projects. We can expect apps from Cisco, Foursquare, Sencha, Gameloft, HalfBrick Studios, Madfinger Games, Funkol and others when the magic time comes. The developers are hoping to create BlackBerry 10 apps that will entice customers to take a closer look at the new platform. “The Weather Network is excited to develop for BlackBerry 10," said Gita Ashar, Director of Mobile and Emerging Technologies for Weather Network. "The innovations in the operating system will provide our existing loyal consumers and new consumers an application that is as stunning as it is informative, helping users to plan for anything.” The developers will work with BlackBerry WebWorks and will use ...

I usually carry my regular smartphone in my right pocket and whatever phone I'm reviewing for this column in my left pocket. Then it's a matter of how often I reach in my left pocket for the review phone to read email, run an app, check social networks, surf the Web, take a photo or shoot video. I've been carrying the HTC One V from C Spire Wireless for a couple of weeks and I've been reaching in my left pocket quite often. I like this phone for a lot of reasons. The HTC One V is one of the latest Android devices running OS 4.0, also know as Ice Cream Sandwich, with the HTC Sense interface running in the background. This combination gives a smooth experience with easy to navigate features. One of first things I think anyone would like about the One V is the Beats Audio feature that HTC has deployed in several of their smartphones after announcing a "strategic partnership" with Beats Electronics in August 2011. You might be familiar with Beats Audio fro...