Apple Updates Education Site with a Focus on iPad Teaching

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Microsoft Updates Mail, Calendar and People Apps for Windows 8

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Android Phone Updates: A Comprehensive Guide

Want to know whether your smartphone will ever be updated? This chart shows all currently available Android phones, as well as any that have been confirmed to receive the next major version of the Android operating system. The chart is arranged alphabetically by carrier, and we will update it regularly whenever a new phone is released or a new version of Android is announced.

If you're interested in learning how the different carriers and manufacturers fare against each other when it comes to issuing Android updates, check out our companion story, "Android Phones: Which Companies Do the Best Job With Android Updates?"

DEVICE NAMECarrierCurrent Android versionNext major updateSourceScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenDEVICE NAMECarrierCurrent Android versionNext major updateSourceScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenDEVICE NAMECarrierCurrent Android versionNext major updateSourceScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenDEVICE NAMECarrierCurrent Android versionNext major updateSourceTo be determined by August 2012None scheduled, but Verizon claims the phone is upgradable to Android Ice Cream SandwichScheduled to receive Ice Cream Sandwich, but no time frame givenN/A = Not available

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Android Phones: Which Companies Do the Best Job With Android Updates?

If there's one thing to hate about Android, it's the uncertainty about whether your phone will ever run the latest and greatest version of Google's mobile OS.

Besides delivering new features, these updated versions of Android also bring security patches and bug fixes that can solve major problems in performance, call quality, and even battery life.

Since Android updates vary depending on mobile service carrier and phone model, we've put together a chart to help you keep track of which phones will (or won't) be updated to the next major version of Android. To check for your phone's status on the chart, see "Android Phone Updates: A Comprehensive Guide."

The list focuses on phones now available and phones confirmed to be moving up to the next major version of the OS (currently, Android 4.0, code-named Ice Cream Sandwich). Android 4.0 is a huge step forward for the Android OS, and the update significantly changes how Android looks and feels. It includes updated versions of all of the core apps, such as Gmail and Maps, and the OS looks much slicker as well.

We'll update the chart regularly, so we invite you to check in periodically to see whether your phone will be getting a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich or any of the future dessert-nicknamed updates such as Android Jelly Bean.

That accounts for the specific information in the chart--but what does the overall data tell us about how successful different carriers and phone manufacturers are at updating their phones with newer versions of Android?

Updates by Carrier

The data in our comprehensive chart indicates several trends. AT&T and Verizon currently have the largest number of phones that either run Android Ice Cream Sandwich now or are scheduled to receive it (nine models each); next in line come Sprint (seven models) and Verizon (five).

If we look at how many phones are already on Ice Cream Sandwich, however, the rankings get shuffled quite a bit, with Sprint and T-Mobile tied at the top, and AT&T and Verizon playing catch-up.

In fact, T-Mobile, the carrier that had the lowest percentage of expected Ice Cream Sandwich-friendly phones in the first chart turns out to have the highest percentage of phones running Android 4.0 now. Sprint follows close behind T-Mobile on this measure, with AT&T coming in a distant third and Verizon an even more distant fourth. Most of Verizon's lineup is scheduled for updating, but at the moment only one of its phones runs Ice Cream Sandwich.

Updates by Phone Manufacturer

The data for updates by manufacturer is striking, too. First, let's look at the numbers for the top five Android phone makers, based on existing or planned upgrades to Android 4.0.

HTC has been good about promising updates, and 80 percent of HTC devices now available either have Ice Cream Sandwich or are slated to get it sometime this year.

Both Motorola and Samsung have issued timelines for future Android 4.0 updates; for various reasons, however, a few of these manufacturers' current Android phones won't be updated.

For instance, though Sony initially promised to update its entire line of 2011 Xperia phones to Android 4.0, the company subsequently announced that the Xperia Play and the Xperia Play 4G (on Verizon and AT&T, respectively) would not be receive that update. Likewise, Motorola's Droid 3 will never run anything higher than Android 2.3--even though the phone came out a little less than a year ago.

You may have noticed that the carrier data lists 30 existing or planned Android 4.0 phones while the manufacturer data lists 33 such phones. That's because Samsung's total includes three unlocked Ice Cream Sandwich models: the Galaxy Nexus, the Galaxy S II, and the Nexus S.

When we look at which manufacturers already have phones running Ice Cream Sandwich, we see little shifting in overall position.

Of the five major manufacturers of Android handsets, only two currently ship phones that run any version of the operating system higher than Android 2.3.

HTC has the largest number of phones currently running Ice Cream Sandwich; some of them shipped already running the OS, and others have been upgraded from Android 2.3. Samsung has three phones already on Android 4.0, but all of them are Nexus devices; the company's Galaxy S II line hasn't been updated since the phones launched back in the second half of 2011.

Motorola, like Sony, promised that most of its 2011 line of phones would receive Android 4.0 updates--but we've yet to see Ice Cream Sandwich running on any Motorola phone. With Motorola Mobility now part of Google, we hope that those updates will arrive sooner rather than later.

And the Winner Is…

HTC currently has the best track record for keeping its phones up-to-date. To strengthen the future likelihood that your Android phone will have the latest version of Android, according to our research, your best bet is to pick up an HTC phone on either T-Mobile or Sprint.

If neither of those carriers is available in your area, or if you're looking for LTE/4G speeds, buying an HTC phone on AT&T is your next-best option.

Though Verizon offers a lot of Android phones, most of the updates that the carrier has promised remain simply promises. That's not to say that the phones Verizon offers are bad. But you may have to wait a bit longer for updates to reach your Android phone.

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Apple introduces iPhoto App for the New iPad, Updates GarageBand and iWork

Amidst the juicy details revealed on the new iPad, Apple has taken the wraps off a brand new app to take advantage of the tablet’s new Retina display: iPhoto for iPad, an app which Mac users all know and love, but until today hadn’t yet been ported over to Apple’s 10-inch slate.

iPhoto for iPad makes a spectrum of photo editing and organization features touch-friendly on the just-released iPad. Gestures let you easily crop and rotate images, a new exposure tool lets you brighten dark shadows, and you can even tweak color saturation with the array of controls at your fingertips. It’s so powerful that you can darken or lighten the sky with a single tap.

Aside from all this, iPhoto for the iPad includes filters as well, which lets you create a sort of “journal” of the photos stored in your device. Think of it as a Flipboard for photos. With the Journal feature, you can add sticky notes and incorporate a calendar feature which shows when your photos were taken and even the weather for that day.

iPhoto for iPad hits the app store today, priced at $4.99. Stay tuned for our post on our hands-on impressions of the app, coming up shortly, and don’t forget to hit up our full list of best new apps for the new iPad.

Aside from iPhoto, Apple has also updated the rest of its suite of apps to make them Retina-friendly for the new iPad, including all of iLife (aside from iPhoto, this includes Garageband and iMovie; all priced at $4.99 apiece), and iWork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote; $9.99 each). For our full coverage of all the announcements related to the third-generation iPad, head over to our liveblog.

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Motorola Exec: iOS Security an “Illusion,” Don’t Blame Skins for Slow Android Updates

Android versus iOS Security

“There’s this sort of illusion that because the Apple App Store is curated…that they’re somehow testing for security and that you can outsource all of your security concerns to Apple,” said Wyatt. “And I think that’s a pretty false sense of security. At the end of the day, the individual responsible for security is the IT organization.”

Users Don’t Want Dual-Personality Smartphones

According to Wyatt, solutions like Enterproid that provide both a consumer and business profile on the same device are too cumbersome for users. What Motorola is doing with 3LM, a company it acquired last February, is providing a security platform that allows IT managers to create blacklists and white lists of apps, as well as enable password enforcement and remote data wipe. Wyatt said Motorola “really believed in what they were doing because they provided fine-grain device management.” HTC, LG, Sony, Pantech and Sharp also license 3LM technology.

NFC Coming to Moto Devices

In answer to a question about why Motorola has been slow to adopt near-field-communications chips in its phones, Wyatt said “you will see NFC coming out in our products in not too distant future.” She mentioned that adding NFC chips adds weight and cost to handsets, but the biggest hurdle has been the chicken-and egg issue surrounding mobile payments. With carriers, banks and other parties fighting over a piece of the pie, “the controversy around NFC between various constituents” is the biggest holdup.

Ice Cream Sandwich Helps, But Android for Tablets Still Needs Work

Wyatt attempted to explain why, if Android phones sell so well, Android tablets have flopped, noting that Google still has work to do in terms of making content consumption easier. “People see phones predominantly as communication devices that can also consume content. But people tend to see larger screens as content consumption first. The experience in terms of finding content, watching content and being able to buy it more seamlessly are all going to contribute to more adoption on the consumer side.”

The Motorola VP also seems optimistic that Android Ice Cream Sandwich will help bridge the gap between phones and tablets. “Bringing the phone and tablet ecosystems together has to be able to provide a more robust ecosystem for tablet applications. That has to be one of the promises of Ice Cream Sandwich,” Wyatt said. “That’s the hope, that by bringing these two UIs together you solve a lot of the experience gaps between the two and the ecosystem gaps between the two, and you get to more of a shared experience.”

“Life Ready” Rugged Tablets Could Be Coming

One reporter asked whether Motorola would consider making ruggedized tablets for specialized markets like healthcare and education. After all, Gorilla Glass will only take you so far. “We’ve done a franchise of phones that we refer to as Life Ready, which are a step up in terms of ruggedization,” Wyatt said. She’s referring to handsets like the Motorola Defy, which is water- and scratch-resistant, as well as dustproof. “It’s conceivable to think that you would take tablets or other screen sizes and apply the same Life Ready franchise over time.”

On Why Android Updates Take So Darn Long

Wyatt hears the complaints every day, but she also believes that most people don’t understand the real reasons why Android phones are so slow to get the latest software. According to her, skinning the OS isn’t the issue, it’s the multitude of devices available on the market. One of the benefits of Motorola releasing fewer devices is that updates should come faster. Then again, it doesn’t sound like it would hurt if Google gave device makers a little more notice.

‘When Google does a release of software they do not release it for all the different hardware versions that are supported. So hardware is by far the long pole in the tent,” Wyatt said. “They do the software for whatever phone they just shipped. The rest of the ecosystem doesn’t see it until you see it. The clock starts ticking then. So you have a product that’s in the market at the time you’re getting the code for the first time. You have multiple chipsets, multiple radio bands, multiple countries. So it’s a big machine to turn.”

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DriverMax Updates Drivers for Free...But It's Not the Best Solution

It can be hard to justify paying for software that handles a task that can, otherwise, be done for free--even when the software makes the process easier. That's why I was intrigued by DriverMax, one of the few free applications that helps you identify and update aging drivers. It works as advertised, but pales in comparison to its free rival SlimDrivers.

DriverMax's scan results include both outdated and current drivers, differentiated only by a small green or red icon, which can be confusing.Both DriverMax and SlimDrivers stand out among driver updating utilities because of their non-existent price tags: These are free applications that not only scan for outdated drivers, but also allow you to download and apply the updates, too. The free versions of rivals Perfect Updater, DriverScanner, and Driver Reviver driver scans, only; to download updates, you have to pay $30 for the full versions of the software.

But once you move beyond the price, DriverMax lags behind SlimDrivers. Where that product features a slick interface and an almost-seamless update process, DriverMax stumbles. Its interface is usable, certainly, but not as clean as it could be. I also dislike how its scan results include both outdated and updated drivers, and differentiates between the two with only a small icon. I continually found myself attempting to update drivers that were actually current, only to be told that no more current drivers were available.

And when I did update an outdate driver, the process was a bit convoluted. DriverMax informs you that, as a free user, you will be directed to a page on the DriverMax Web site, where you can choose between the recommended driver or another one. Only PRO users ($29 per year) can download drivers from within the application. Being bumped to a Website to download the drivers is annoying, but it's less so than the message I saw every time I landed there: "You are a free user and the DriverMax servers are currently overloaded. Since you are not a PRO user, you have to wait." The wait was usually no longer than 20 seconds, but it felt unnecessary. Add in the fact that DriverMax's free version only allows you to download two driver updates per day, and you'll realize that this application quickly makes the updating process a very time consuming project.

DriverMax does create a system restore point for you before installing drivers, which is a nice touch. But it's not enough to convince me to use this app. In the time I spent waiting for the DriverMax servers to handle my download requests, I switched my attention to SlimDrivers instead. That's the free app I'll be using to keep my drivers current.

-- Liane Cassavoy

DriverMax is a powerful utility which helps you download, backup and restore the drivers installed on your Windows Vista or Windows XP computer and check if newer versions are available. Download all drivers from one place in just a few steps. After backing up your drivers you will have all of them in a single place and will be able to reinstall all of your drivers or just the ones you choose in a single step which takes about one minute. This utility can save you a lot of time when reinstalling Windows, especially on older computers for which the original CDs containing the drivers have been lost. You no longer have to track down old driver installation CDs, insert one installation CD after another or spend hours searching for drivers on the Internet. DriverMax is also able to display a detailed report about all drivers (versions, release dates) installed on your system. Identify unknown devices in your computer and get Windows Vista rating information before you purchase new hardware!

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