There have been a lot of rumors floating around that Google is going to offer cloud storage, and those rumors are finally confirmed.  Starting next week in select countries Google Drive will be giving away 5Gb free per user.  This directly competes with Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Dropbox which currently let you store 25 GB and 2Gb.

Google Drive will be available on all platforms including Android, PC, and Mac.  Many users will switch over from services such as Dropbox because of sheer convenience.  I will not have to register another account to use Google Drive, it will simply be another service linked to my existing Google account.

This announcement comes after Microsoft said they would also be entering the cloud storage market with a service called SkyDrive.  SkyDrive will be directly integrated into Windows 8 and will be linked to your existing Live.com account.  It will be interesting to see how these services compete, SkyDrive already lets users store 25Gb.

Many people fear this is yet another way of Google having access to all your personal data and in many ways it is.  Google has access to pretty much everything you do on a PC and many consider Google having access to all your files putting too many eggs in one basket.

It seems that every day I hear an article about Apple denying legitimate applications from entering their market. VLC, web browsers that don’t use Safari’s rendering engine, torrent clients, and tethering apps are all among items that are extremely popular among Android devices, but are not allowed on iPhones. With Android devices you have maximum control over what your phone does. You can pick out which hardware is right for you and you can pick the price of your smart phone. Additionally you’re not forced to choose one brand; you have the choice of the entire market. With the amount of control you have over Android devices I can’t see why people who want anything more out of their phone than calling features purchase an iPhone.

A big gripe I have with iOS is not being able to use anything other than the default browser. Sure you can download other browser types, but these are just skins for Safari’s rendering engine. It seems that if Microsoft did something like this there would be a huge uproar. If you want to open a link from an application or an email client, there’s no way to set it to your installed skinned browser, it will always open in Safari. In fact there’s no way to set default actions for anything on an iPhone, whereas an Android will ask you which app you want to open with.

Widgets are another complaint I have with iOS. Widgets are useful for time, weather, RSS feeds, email and so many more things that require up to the minute updating on your smart phone or tablet. I can’t believe that Apple has not released widgets to the market yet.

With iPhones you can’t install any micro SD memory to add additional space. Apple greedily forces you to buy a more expensive phone that only doubles your memory from 16G to 32G. With an Android you can buy a cheap micro SD chip and add an additional 32Gb on top of your internal memory.

Syncing is a huge gripe I have with the iPhone. The ability to sync contacts, calendar, RSS feeds, email and every other Google service is a massive advantage Android has over iOS. You can sync your browser’s favorite places and your currently used Chrome tabs. It’s also harder to sync music and media files on the iPhone. You have to install iTunes which I’m not very fond of as far as software goes. With Androids all you have to do is plug it in and use Windows to drag and drop files from PC to smart phone or tablet.

Many popular websites including a lot of video sites use Adobe Flash to show videos and other content. The iPhone does not support Flash in any way. Only popular websites such as Youtube are supported on the iPhone with the video player application. With Android devices, any Flash based website – video or otherwise is fully supported.

Developing applications for the iPhone can be a huge pain. Aside from the developers licensing fee to even get a chance to ask Apple to add your application to the iPhone, there is the fact that apps are screened. If they don’t like what your application does, it doesn’t have a chance. They’ve repeatedly censored legitimate applications such as uTorrent and VLC. They say that because torrent clients CAN be used to download copyrighted files, they will not allow them. By that logic they should not allow Safari because it CAN be used to view illegal websites. They also don’t allow apps that allow you to tether your phone to your computer. This of course would allow you to use the 3g connection you rightfully pay for on your computer or tablet. With Android devices you’re free to download whatever application you’d like. Additionally developers can program and add apps without incurring any cost. This encourages developers to program more apps and adds to the diversity of Androids.

Google is clearly the best search engine in the world, so why not have it available on your phone to search through your files and contacts? With Androids you have a built in search feature that searches your contacts, songs, text messages, and every other piece of information on your phone. You have the power of Google search built into your phone or tablet.

Multitasking wasn’t an original feature in their so called smart phone. When they did add it, it was clunky and awkward to use. Android devices offer easy to use multitasking. Checking your running applications, closing them, and switching between applications are all easily done.

Notifications like multitasking were done by Androids first. iOS has still not figured out how to correctly implement notifications. With Androids (especially Ice Cream Sandwich) all your notifications including text messages, calls, updates, and everything else is easily accessible with the swipe of a finger.

With the release of Ice Cream Sandwich, Androids have blown away their iOS counterparts. An informed buyer doesn’t even have to make a decision anymore when deciding which operating system is right for their smart phone. Android OS is more customizable, open, and has better features. You don’t have to deal with Apple deciding how you should be using your smart phone; you’re free to use it how you want. You have your choice of price, hardware, and software. With all this in mind, why would anyone ever consider using an iPhone?

When you think of Google product interfaces you normally think of clean, clutter free, and easy to navigate. So why is the Android market interface so cluttered and difficult to navigate? Is there a way to clean it up and still have the same information on the market home page as before?

The first thing that stands out to me is the dark colors. No other Google service has dark colors which don’t seem to be astatically pleasing to me (and almost clash with the softer colors). Perhaps stick to white or other light colored background like the majority of Google products. Secondly, they’re not efficiently using the viewing space. Big icons that take up half the screen to direct us to games, apps, movies, and books can easily be refined down to just text.

To fix the Android market screen, perhaps it should be designed from top to bottom left to right instead of the tiled approach. Most apps have the file, edit, help buttons on the top from left to right. When designing Google Play, perhaps the navigation such as games and books should be on the top of the screen as well and read left to right. The featured apps from every category can be small icons with their name underneath, thus taking up less space and being easier to find. Lastly, changing the background from black to white makes eliminates the clashing light and dark colors seen previously.

Here are a few mockups that Android Police came up with to improve the GUI of the market. They have examples of what it could look like on a tablet and smart phone. I personally think it’s a vast improvement.

Lately I’ve been seeing some Android applications that are taking the art of trolling to the max. Bogus apps are being released into Android market with the sole intent of tech savvy users laughing at the naivety of less informed users.

Download an app to make your phone charge in the sun? Sounds pretty crazy huh? Well over 5,000 people have downloaded the hoax app Solar Charger since it’s been released to the market. This app promises to turn the screen of your Android powered device into a solar panel and charge your phone. Users are commenting and leaving 5 star reviews in order to trick other users into downloading the app.

“By far one of the most brilliant and well planned apps on the market. If you leave the app open long enough you will definitely see a difference in your battery.”

A user on the market writes. Other users are not so thrilled to have wasted their time.

“So useless *DO NOT INSTALL* actually drains my battery rather than charging it”

Apparently a lot of people are falling for this joke. Out of the some 5,000 downloads there are over 1,500 bad reviews and a lot more 2-3 star ratings as well.

Another app Shake to Charge that was just recently released also promises to charge the battery of your Android. This time it claims to use kinetic energy generated by the user shaking his phone. The app just came out today so not many people have fallen for it yet, but it already has almost 100 1 star reviews out of hundreds of downloads.

While these applications may seem funny to a lot of people it doesn’t say much for the quality of Android’s market. Google has always allowed a filter less admissions process for developers of applications in order to have a larger volume of apps, but where do you draw the line? Many malware apps, or just plain fake apps like these are starting to pollute the Android market.