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While the new iPhones frenzy was going on over the past few weeks, they were not the only games in town. At least three of my pockets had one of the Motorola Droids trio that certainly deserve some attention. Verizon Wireless sent a box full of Droids just as the the iPhone mania was heating up and I have been exploring and enjoying these Google and Motorola-branded devices so much that I haven't had a hankering for the new iPhone 5S. My FedEx box contained the Motorola Droid Maxx, Droid Ultra and Droid Mini. Let's just say I was surrounded by droids, which represent the newest creation from Google and Motorola since they agreed to join forces in August 2011 after Google put $12.5 million on the table. I think we all knew that something big would come out of this partnership, with Google's Android empire and Motorola's reputation for quality hardware. The Droid Maxx is certainly the flagship out of this trio and it has the features to prove it. Right off the ...

Now that iOS 7 is available, lots of iPhone users are anxious to get Apple Inc.'s latest operating system on their older devices, such as the iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. While some are having good luck with the iOS 7 download and install process, the Apple discussion forums are filled with users have problems with the install or the behavior of their iPhone after the update. To ensure a problem-free update,there are some actions to be aware of that might make the process a little smoother. The No. 1 thing you need to do before attempting to install iOS 7 is to backup your iPhone through iTunes. This will ensure that you don't lose your valuable contacts, photos and other things of importance on your iPhone. Some users are getting a "restore to factory defaults" message during the download process for iOS 7. If you haven't backed up beforehand, that's not a good feeling. Then you're going to need at least 3.1 gigabytes of free space o...

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...

I have been enjoying the company of the BlackBerry Q10 for the past couple of weeks. Some might think this smartphone is too little and too late. I think it's a lot of innovation and I hope it's not too late. My soft spot for the BlackBerry platform goes all the way back to the trackball or roller ball, and the scroll-wheel days. These devices set the standards for security and email management and were considered the "must have" mobile phone during its heyday, especially for enterprise customers. Now fast forward a decade and the BlackBerry is fighting for survival among the iPhones, Samsung Galaxies, Motorola Droids and a host of other newcomers. But the latest BlackBerry, the Q10, with the QWERTY physical keyboard for us that remember the good old days, is quite a smartphone and I wouldn't count BlackBerry out just yet. The Q10 is running the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, which is supposed to propel the BlackBerry devices into the future of smartphon...

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...

If you ever lose your iPhone, it's really a bad feeling and more than likely, you'll replace with it another iPhone. Then your thoughts will quickly turn to recovering all your contacts, calendar, notes, photos, videos and even a log of text messages that were on the iPhone that is missing in action. If you're lucky, there will be a backup in iTunes if you have been syncing regularly, or there might be a backup in iCloud. If not, then your next best option might be some free iPhone data recovery software from EaseUS , a software development company located in the Sichuan Province of China that specializes in backup and security solutions. According to the company if you had been using their backup software, you'll just need to connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to a PC and launch the free EaseUS MobiSaver software. The program will scan your iDevice and list recoverable files. Then it's simple matter of clicking the "Recover" button. The MobiS...

Well now, just when it seemed that Apple's innovation has slowed down, as the Android camp was full-steam ahead, the guys from Cupertino dealt what could be a winning hand at the start of the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Apple unveiled the mysterious and tightly-held-to-their-chest iOS 7 software update, stamped with the work of the possibly soon-to-be-famous Jony Ive, Apple's senior vice president of design. Already, it is being called "the most significant iOS update since the original iPhone that took the stage in 2007. After watching the video, I believe them, or they did a good job of snookering me and probably a lot of other Apple fans. I can't keep this to myself any longer; this update that is due this fall is going to be one fine upgrade, as every nook and cranny of the current iPhone software has been redesigned. The appearance is clean, minimalist, simplistic and very appealing. The icons for apps look fresh and not overdone, with cr...