Guide Them In With Your Own Custom QR Codes

Customized Tech's custom QR Code (give it a try)

QR codes or quick response codes are a new type of matrix barcode that are quickly gaining traction all around the world.  Although they were invented in 1994, consumer technology was not yet developed enough for businesses and consumers to make good use of them.  With the advent of the smartphone age this has quickly changed and they are becoming a common sight in magazines, on billboards, and all over the internet. One common use of them is to direct you to an App's page on the Android Market.  There are many apps available on Android to scan QR codes with my favorite being QR Droid.  On iOS, QR Reader seems to be the best app for scanning QR codes although there are a great number of them available in the App Store.  Both Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry OS 7 have the ability to scan QR codes baked right into the operating system.  The Blackberry OS can scan them natively through App World and Windows Phone 7 can scan them through Bing.  While the ability to scan and use QR codes in our daily life is useful, those of us who run small businesses or blogs can make better use of them by creating our own to easily attract attention to our brands or products.

iOS Makeover for Android

While last week saw all iOS devices receiving the latest update of Apple's mobile operating system, this week brings a fresh update to the look and feel of your Android handset if you so choose.  Once again through the use of a launcher, Android users are able to replicate the look and feel of another operating system without sacrificing the advantages that led them to Android in the first place.  While the first launcher I covered, Win 7 Launcher, gave Android users the chance to re-imagine their phone as a Windows Phone 7 device, Espier Launcher for Android gives users the same opportunity with Apple's iOS.  All of the basic functionality and ease of use of iOS carries over into this launcher including the simplicity that Apple products are known for.  Espier Launcher is now being offered for free on the Android Market and that alone deems it worth a try.

A Third Party Solution for Android on PC

Bluestacks running Launcher Pro on Windows

In the latest release of Mac OS X called Lion, Apple was able to bridge the gap between their mobile operating system and their desktop operating system.  Although there are over 250 new features available in Lion, the one that was the most interesting for a lot of people was the debut of the Mac App store and the ability to not only run many of their favorite mobile apps but also to be able to run them full screen.  Microsoft is aiming to do the exact same thing in the upcoming release of Windows 8 which takes the Metro User Interface and the best aspects of Windows Phone 7 to the desktop.  Google however, has not decided to bring the advantages of Android to PCs.  While Android can be run in an emulator, this is done mostly for development purposes and is often quite buggy.  To aid Android enthusiasts in bringing the best apps from their phone or tablet to their PC and eventually their Mac, Bluestacks has released the free alpha version of their Bluestacks App Player for Windows.  While only an initial release, Bluestacks already presents a slew of substantial features and offers users the ability to sync apps from their mobile device to their computer.

iTunes Without the Hassles (for Android)

One of the reasons the original iPod was able to gain a quick hold on the mp3 player market was that it had a great software suite to go along with it in the form of iTunes.  Unfortunately Google does not offer such a software suite.  This is because Android phones offer users the ability to access their phones memory right from any computer.  So instead of using a program to sync music, photos, videos, and podcasts, Android users are left to do this on their own manually.  For someone who has full control of their computer and knows where all of their files are and how to move them around, this is no problem.  Although it is a little time consuming.  With the release of its PC client and its mobile app for Android, doubleTwist aims to bring the simplicity of an iTunes sync to Android users everywhere.

Android Disguised as Windows Phone 7

If you have seen even a commercial for Windows Phone 7 or some of the news coverage regarding Windows 8 then this user interface will definitely look familiar.  This user interface is known as Metro UI.  It was designed to set Microsoft's new smartphone operating system apart from the rest and to give consumers something fresh.  It has also most likely helped Microsoft avoid the lawsuits that many other hardware manufacturers have become involved in with Apple.  Nonetheless the operating system does stand out from the crowd and gives users a much easier way to interact with their phone without being sucked in to it like many iOS and Android users have been.  This idea is really driven home by the tagline at the end of many Windows Phone 7 commercials: "It's time for a phone to save us from our phones."  However this is where the user interface truly shines.  However, today's smartphone consumers crave applications, something that Microsoft has quite few of.  Plus until the release of the next iteration of its operating system called Mango, Microsoft is still missing a few features its competitors have making Windows Phone 7 an unlikely choice for most consumers.