The best iOS podcast in the ‘verse returns tonight to talk all the latest iPhone and iPad news, how-tos, and app and accessory reviews. Come join us!

Want to go full screen? Head to iMore.com/live. Want to watch via iPhone or iPad? Grab the Ustream app and search for “mobilenations”!

Now that our iPhone photography series is well on its way, it’s time to put our new skills to the test — and what a better way than with a contest!

That’s right, this is the debut of iMore’s newest series — weekly photo contests!

Each week will have a different focus, and this week’s is on flowers! Apple used a spectacular pink flower photo to show off the new iPad but never made it available as a wallpaper or download! We think the iMore nation can more than make up for it! It’s the perfect time too — it’s the beginning spring and gorgeous flowers are starting to pop up all over the place. You’re going to be taking photos of them anyway, so you might as well submit those beautiful shots and win a prize!

The prize

In addition to a thumbs up from the iMore crew and all of us yelling about how great of a photo star you are, the winner of this week’s photography contest will have their photo converted into an official iMore wallpaper and we’ll showcase it on the front page of iMore! But that’s not all! The winner will also receive an official iMore t-shirt!

Here’s an example of what your photo could look like as a wallpaper.

The rules

The rules of entry are very simple. The photo must have been taken with an iPhone or iPad (we’ll check the EXIF data of the original file to verify) and any edits must have been done with an iPhone or iPad app. No Photoshop CS6! You can submit as many photos as you’d like, but remember, this is a contest, so make sure you submit your best work!

Resources

Now, before you run off to take your flower photos, remember that it’s not technical skill alone that will claim this prize. Even if you’re not the best photographer (yet!) a great eye and some great flowers can still get you the win. However, a little help can never hurt, so make sure you check out these articles from our iPhone photography series for some tips.

• How to make your iPhone photography more striking with the "rule of thirds"
• How to make your iPhone photographs more powerful with negative space
• How to take amazing macro photos with your iPhone

How to submit

Submitting your photos is easy. Just head over to the iMore Photography Forum and post your photos to the official contest thread. Don’t forget to state which apps, if any, you used to edit your photo!

That’s it! Now go out and get those beautiful flower shots!

ENTER NOW

If you’ve accidentally cracked the screen on your Verizon or Sprint iPhone 4, or it’s just stopped responding, and you don’t want to pony up the money for a new CDMA iPhone just yet, you can DIY repair it. If you feel pretty confident that, with a little ninja daring, we can walk you through how to do an iPhone 4 screen replacement all on your own.

Disclaimer: As with any repair, iMore nor PXLFIX can be held responsible for any damage you may do to your device. It's also worth considering that opening up your device to perform any repair or modification can and will void your Apple warranty. If you don't feel comfortable opening your device, don't. Use extreme care and caution when performing a repair on any device.

This repair is one of the more difficult repairs when it comes to the iPhone 4 (be it GSM/AT&T or CDMA/Verizon/Sprint). In short, you’ll need to disassemble almost the entire phone in order to swap out the screen. While it may be a bit of a process, it’s definitely do-able with a bit of patience and steady hands. Just think about whether it’s a challenge you’re willing to take on before proceeding.

What you need for a DIY CDMA (Verizon or Sprint) iPhone 4 screen replacement

PXLFIX recommends using only quality and genuine parts from a reputable supplier like eTech Parts. They have quality parts, tools, and much more for all your repair needs.

• CDMA iPhone 4 (please note there ARE internal differences between the GSM and CDMA models – this guide strictly deals with the CDMA model – in the US, that means Verizon or Sprint)
• Replacement LCD & digitizer assembly – Black, White
• #00 Phillips screwdriver
• Flat blade screwdriver
• Pry tool or spudger (you may need a handheld razor blade as well)
• Security screwdriver (to remove the 2 screws in your dock connector, all CDMA models will come with security screws)

Power off your iPhone 4

Before performing any repair, always power off your device before removing any screws or parts.

Remove the back

1. First remove the bottom 2 dock connector screws in your iPhone 4. Use your five point security screwdriver for this as all versions of the CDMA iPhone 4 have security screws in the dock connector.

2. To remove the back simply slide the back upwards and lift it off gently.
3. Set the back and 2 dock connector screws aside.

Organize your screws

It’s very important to make sure you remember where you are pulling screws from, so place them in an arrangement that you’ll understand and remember. I normally lay them out the same way every time I disassemble a device so I remember where they came from and how they go back in. They’re all different sizes so trying to figure out where they go if you get them mixed up probably won’t be fun.

Remove the battery

1. To remove the battery you'll need to remove the #00 screw holding the battery clip in place. Remove this screw located to the bottom left of the battery.

2. The metal clip on the battery is what clips the battery to the logic board. You'll need to pop this clip up with your plastic pry tool. Simply stick the end of your pry tool underneath the clip and gently pull upwards until it unfastens from the logic board.

3. To remove the battery, I do not recommend using the plastic pull tab. There is quite a bit of adhesive underneath the battery and the tab will normally just rip off or you can bend the battery. Instead, run your pry tool along the right side of the battery and break the adhesive that way. Once the battery is free from the adhesive, you can pull the battery out of the phone. There are no other connectors holding it in.

4. I typically fold the plastic tab over while working on the iPhone 4 to keep it out of the way while I’m disassembling parts. It’s not necessary but convenient.

Remove the grounding clip

To the left of where you disconnected the battery you’ll see another screw holding in a grounding clip over the antenna. We’ll need to remove it.

1. Unscrew the one screw holding the grounding clip in place with your #00 Phillips screwdriver.

2. Gently lift the grounding clip out of the device. It’s very tiny as you can see above. Take care not to misplace it or lose it.

Remove the dock connector shield and disconnect the cable

1. There is a shield held on with two screws covering the dock connector cable. Remove the two screws holding it in place and set the shield and screws aside, remembering where they came from. (They are labeled as screw 1 & 2 in the photo above.)

2. Next, use your pry tool to pry up the actual dock connector cable. Be careful as there is adhesive holding the cable in place as well. Peel back the adhesive gently to free the cable.

Unclip the antenna from the logic board

Underneath where you removed the grounding clip, you’ll see a tiny circular cable. This is your antenna cable. You’ll need to unclip it from the logic board.

1. Take the edge of your pry tool or spudger and gently pry up the circular head to detach it from the logic board.

2. You’ll notice the cable is wound around some metal brackets. Just gently guide it out of the brackets with your pry tool and finger. It’s attached to the speaker assembly. Once you’ve finished unwinding it from the brackets, you can leave it where it is for now.

Remove the top logic board shield

1. There are 5 screws holding the logic board shield in place as labeled in the photo above. Remove the 5 screws holding it in place plus screw number 6 off to the right (we’ll get to this one in a second). Just be sure to remember which holes they came out of as the screws are different sizes. I keep them arranged in the shape they came out of the logic board with the shield next to it. I find this to be the easiest way to keep them in order.

2. Next you’ll need to remove the shield. There is a tiny clip built into the shield holding it in place. (Refer to the photo above.) Grab the shield by the top where the top screw came out and gently lift up and push down. The bottom notch will come out and you should be able to gently lift the shield out of the device.

Remove wifi antenna grounding clip

1. The number 6 screw we removed previously we’re now returning to. There is a clip underneath it. Gently use your pry tool to remove it.

2. You’ll find a cross head screw underneath it. We’ll get back to that in just a minute.

Disconnect 7 cables from the logic board

Click on the image to view a larger version

1. Pop up all the cables labeled in the pictures above by gently lifting them with your pry tool or spudger..

2. Next gently lift the camera out of the device. You’ll notice there is a tiny tab that is seated underneath the LCD and digitizer cables to the right.

3. Play close attention to the direction in which the cables pop up. The cable furthest to the right will pop up in the opposite direction of the others.

Remove the logic board

Click on the image to view a larger version

1. There are 5 screws you’ll need to remove in order to remove the logic board. Three need to be removed with a flat blade screwdriver (flathead) while the other two will be removed with your #00 Phillips screwdriver.
2. Remove the screws numbered 1-3 in the image above using your flat blade screw driver. Make sure you remember which ones go where as the heads are a bit different.
3. Now remove screws 4 and 5 with your #00 screwdriver. Notice that the screw labeled number 5 will have a tiny gold grounding clip for the camera underneath it. Make sure you don’t lose this and save it for re-assembly.

4. You should now be able to remove your logic board. Holding it at the bottom, gently pull it upwards. I use my other hand to lift up at the top where the rear facing camera used to be.

5. Take note that there is a small rubber piece that sits at the top of the logic board. You will need this for re-assembly so make sure it doesn’t fall off. If you lose this, you could experience wifi or reception issues.

Remove the speaker assembly

1. To remove the speaker assembly you have two #00 screws to remove. They sit to the right and the left of the speaker assembly. The left screw will have a tiny triangular shaped plastic spacer under the screw. Set it aside with the screw as well for re-assembly. If you lose this, your speaker assembly will not sit correctly.

2. Gently lift the speaker assembly out of your device and set it aside.

Remove the vibrator assembly

1. The vibrator assembly in the CDMA iPhone 4 is only held down with adhesive. Use your pry tool to gently pry it up from the mid-frame of the device. Just take care not to bend it.
2. Next, gently lift the vibrator assembly out of the device.

Remove the 4 screws in each corner

There are 10 total screws that attach your iPhone 4 LCD/Digitizer assembly to your frame. The 4 in the corners will need to be completely removed. They are all #00 screws.

1. The first two are located in the top right and left hand corners. You may notice the screw in the top left hand corner has black tape over it. If it does, you’ll need to peel it off.

2. The last 2 are in the bottom left and right corners. There’s no tricks here. Just remove them. All four screws are the same size as well, so you can keep them grouped together.

Loosen the remaining 6 screws

There are six other screws with washers holding in the LCD/digitizer assembly. Along the left and right side of the phone, loosen all six screws about 2.5 turns each. You can remove them if you’d like but I’ve always found them rather difficult to get back in. Loosening them works just as good.

Remove the broken LCD & digitizer assembly from your iPhone

This is where it can get a bit tricky. Your screen is held in not only with the 10 screws mentioned above but also with strong adhesive. You will need to break this adhesive in order to remove the front panel.

1. Hold your iPhone in one hand with the screen facing you. Starting in the top left hand corner, run a pry tool or razor blade in between the frame and front panel. You’ll need to pry up quite a bit in order to break the adhesive. Be careful around the front facing camera and speaker area.

2. Next move your pry tool or razor blade to the bottom of your device and do the same thing, working your way around until the adhesive is broken and the front panel starts to come off. If your screen is cracked, additional glass may break off. That’s perfectly normal.

3. To completely remove the front panel – start at the top of your iPhone and gently pull the assembly away from the frame. Be careful to allow the LCD and digitizer cables to slip through the opening in the frame without getting caught up.

Remove any left over glass or debris from the frame

Before reassembling your iPhone, you’ll need to make sure there is no glass stuck to the remaining adhesive or inside the frame. If there is it could cause damage to the new screen or you’ll be able to see it through the new assembly, which can be annoying. Just make sure you do a thorough job of picking off all the glass on and around the frame before continuing to reassembly.

Replace speaker mesh and camera hold

Some assemblies will come with new speaker mesh and camera holds pre-installed. Some will not. If your does, you can skip this step. If it doesn’t, continue on…

1. Remove the speaker mesh off the cracked screen and place it on the new assembly or the mid-frame. I’ve found it easiest to line it up perfectly by placing it on the mid-frame. Add more adhesive if needed.

2. Now remove the plastic camera hold from the old assembly and place it around the front facing camera in the mid-frame. Instead of placing it on the assembly and using adhesive, it’s going to be easier to place it on the mid-frame. You’ll notice there is a groove in it that will allow you to align it exactly correct.

Put on new LCD/digitizer assembly

When you feed the digitizer cables through to put on a new screen, make sure the cables are the same length once you put them through. The thinner one crimps up easily and if it does, you’ll find you won’t be able to attach it to the logic board.

When putting on the new digitizer assembly, you’ll need to make sure that it lines up correctly. Be sure to make sure the brackets for the frame go on the outside of the washers in the mid-frame. You may need to use your pry tool to position each bracket correctly.

To make sure the screen is on correctly, just look around each corner and make sure the black frame is completely flush with the aluminum mid-frame all the way around before replacing screws.

Reassemble your iPhone

Once you’re sure you’ve gotten all the glass and leftover debris out of your iPhone, you’re ready for reassembly. Watch our reassembly video or repeat all the steps above in the reverse order.

And… done!

If you followed the above steps correctly you should know have a working and non-broken iPhone 4 again. This definitely isn’t the easiest repair to perform so now’s the time to give yourself a big pat on the back and let us know how it went! Want to know how to perform another type of iPhone repair or modification? Send me suggestions to ally.kazmucha@imore.com.

For questions or to inquire about mail-in repairs through PXLFIX, please follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or e-mail us directly! Of course, you can like us and follow us just because you think we’re cool too!

Additional Resources:

• How to DIY replace a GSM iPhone 4 screen
• How to replace an iPhone 4 batter (GSM & CDMA
• Even more DIY repair guides

Easter Sunday is less than a week away, which means it’s time to start coloring some eggs! Egg Dyeing 101 from Martha Stewart Living for iPhone will help you create the most beautiful eggs on the block.

Egg Dying 101 is organized into 4 tabs: Home, Gallery, Basics, and Favorites. The home tab is basically worthless — it’s just a photo (albeit, a beautiful photo) that says “Egg Dying” over it. The information button is also on this page, but that could’ve easily been put somewhere else.

The Gallery tab is where the fun starts. It’s here that you’ll find 20 different categories of 101 egg designs with step by step directions and sometimes video on how to achieve the look. The categories include basic dipping techniques, various masking techniques, embossing, embellishing, and even creating egg creatures. For each egg creature, Egg Dyeing 101 includes a template that can be printed with AirPrint or emailed. Each of the egg designs can also be emailed.

The basics tab is where you’ll learn, well, the basics for egg coloring. This tab is broken down into 5 categories: Basic Recipe & Color Wheel, Egg Glossary, Blowing Out an Egg, Drying Pin-Board, and Sources.

The Basic Recipe & Color Wheel section includes three charts for light, dark, and neon hue colors. Each chart includes 12 colors, the number of drops of dye needed for each color, and the number of minutes you need to let the egg soak to achieve the desired color.

Blowing an egg is a technique for removing the contents of an egg so that you can save your creations for the years to come. This section of the app teaches you how to do it and includes a video.

The best way to dry your eggs in on a pin-board, so the Drying Pin-Board section is where you go to learn how to make one.

My only real complaint is that Egg Dyeing 101 is not universal for the iPhone and iPad. I’d rather have my iPad setup as a reference while coloring eggs than my iPhone. It’s also easier to share the iPad’s larger screen with the family.

The Good

• Gorgeous photos
• Clear instructions
• Well done videos
• 101 different egg designs
• Lots of dye recipes for every color in the light, dark, and neon hues categories

The Bad

• Home tab is pointless
• Not available for iPad

The Conclusion

My daughter is still a little too young to take part in the whole egg coloring experience, so I wasn’t planning to color eggs this year, but Egg Dyeing 101 from Martha Stewart Living for iPhone is making me seriously reconsider that decision.

$0.99 – Download Now

The iMore for iPhone app is here and while thousands upon thousands of you have downloaded it already, we wanted to take a moment to show it off, and show off some great features you might have missed!

iMore for iPhone was meticulously crafted to provide the absolute best reading and listening experience possible for our community. We specifically chose to focus on doing a few things really well at first, so that we had a solid foundation on which to add more and better things later. I think we accomplished that and the way I can tell is simple — the iMore app is the only way I read iMore on my iPhone now (and a lot of you have told us the very same thing.)

If you haven’t already, go ahead and download iMore for iPhone now. I’ll wait. It’s totally FREE and, if I do say so myself, totally awesome.

Once you’re done, check out the video above for a quick guided tour from yours truly.

You’ll see how to browse articles and categories, and how to re-order tabs so you get what you want, where you want, when you want it. You’ll see the podcatcher, which gives you access to not only iPhone & iPad live but all the Mobile Nations shows, including Iterate and ZEN and TECH, Android Central and CrackBerry.com, and much more. And you’ll see how to send us YOUR tips, so if you come across breaking news, you can instantly let us know all about it.

We want you to get the most out of your iMore experience and this app. And we want you to share your thoughts — what you love, what you hate, and what you want to see in the upcoming version 2. (Yes, the universal iPad version!) Once you’ve had a chance to use iMore for iPad, leave a comment in our official iMore for iPad feature request thread and let us know what else you want to see!

Free – Download now

Sparrow for iPhone, the replacement mail app that shames Google’s half-assed Gmail for iOS app and gives Apple’s built-in Mail app a run for its money has been updated to version 1.1 and it brings a lot of great stuff… though sadly still no push. Now, when you tap on a hyperlink in Sparrow for iPhone, you will not be taken out of the app and into Safari, but, instead, a nice built-in WebView will slide in. When you’re done looking at the website, your mail is just a tap away. Some of the other new features of Sparrow 1.1 include the ability to Send & Archive and to show/hide the dock badge for specific accounts. What’s notability missing from Sparrow’s update is push notifications.

However, the folks at Sparrow promise the feature is coming. They believe that Apple will change their position on the matter. We believe Apple won’t — Sparrow was misusing the VoIP API and Apple would (and arguably should) offer a new, specific multitasking API for persistent internet apps. Either way, Sparrow has a backup plan.

Thanks to your amazing support, we feel confident that Apple might revise its position on the Push API. We'll submit a first version of Sparrow 1.2 including it. This might delay Sparrow 1.2 validation but we're already working with some partners to include Push in future versions of Sparrow without needing Apple clearance.

Push is coming. With or without Apple.

So in the meantime, you can enjoy the new features of Sparrow, just without push. Personally, I’ve been using Sparrow when I have a moment to just sit back and browse through my email. Apple’s mail app is still my main client, but only because Sparrow doesn’t support push notifications, yet. Once Push becomes available for Sparrow, it’s very likely that it’ll take the place of Apple’s mail app on my dock. It’s a great mail app.

$2.99 – Download Now

Source: Sparrow

Google has started showing off Project Glass, a mobile computing interface contained in a pair of eyeglasses. Now I love cool, future-reaching technology. That most of them, even from the huge players, are demoware that never sees the light of day notwithstanding, they inspire and inform where technology is heading — and that technology is increasingly mobile.

Apple doesn’t do demos, of course. They typically take the stage, show off a finished product, and announce a ship date a few weeks, or at most a few months, off. But Apple is also an increasingly mobile-centric technology company, and we need no further proof of where they’re headed than Siri headlining the iPhone 4S launch.

Technology is becoming more accessible via interfaces that are more natural all the time. Whether Google brings the first mainstream, successful implementation of this type of device to market first, or Microsoft does, or Apple does, or some non-traditional player like Amazon or Facebook does is the question. While Google probably isn’t showing all their cards yet, what they are showing is intriguing:

We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't.

A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We're sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.

Is a pair of HUD-style glasses with this type of user-experience something you’re interested in? Would you like to see something like this with the Apple logo on it and a Siri-based UI? Or is this still the realm of sci-fi for now?

Source: Project Glass via Android Central

Steve Jobs had Apple halt iPhone production to make the display more prominent, halted iPad production to make the edges more scoop-able, and continuously, relentlessly, stopped Apple in mid-stride to cut what wasn’t necessary and simplify what absolutely was. This singular insight is brought into sharp focus once again by biographer Walter Isaacson, writing for the Harvard Business Review on the subject of Steve Job’s leadership.

Here are some examples:

The initial design [of the iPhone] had the glass screen set into an aluminum case. One Monday morning Jobs went over to see Ive. "I didn't sleep last night," he said, "because I realized that I just don't love it." Ive, to his dismay, instantly saw that Jobs was right. "I remember feeling absolutely embarrassed that he had to make the observation," he says. The problem was that the iPhone should have been all about the display, but in its current design the case competed with the display instead of getting out of the way. The whole device felt too masculine, task-driven, efficient. "Guys, you've killed yourselves over this design for the last nine months, but we're going to change it," Jobs told Ive's team. "We're all going to have to work nights and weekends, and if you want, we can hand out some guns so you can kill us now." Instead of balking, the team agreed. "It was one of my proudest moments at Apple," Jobs recalled.

A similar thing happened as Jobs and Ive were finishing the iPad. At one point Jobs looked at the model and felt slightly dissatisfied. It didn't seem casual and friendly enough to scoop up and whisk away. They needed to signal that you could grab it with one hand, on impulse. They decided that the bottom edge should be slightly rounded, so that a user would feel comfortable just snatching it up rather than lifting it carefully. That meant engineering had to design the necessary connection ports and buttons in a thin, simple lip that sloped away gently underneath. Jobs delayed the product until the change could be made.

And it extended into Steve Jobs’ plans for the future of Apple as well:

Even when he was dying, Jobs set his sights on disrupting more industries. He had a vision for turning textbooks into artistic creations that anyone with a Mac could fashion and craft—something that Apple announced in January 2012. He also dreamed of producing magical tools for digital photography and ways to make television simple and personal. Those, no doubt, will come as well. And even though he will not be around to see them to fruition, his rules for success helped him build a company that not only will create these and other disruptive products, but will stand at the intersection of creativity and technology as long as Jobs's DNA persists at its core.

This exemplifies why Jobs was rightly considered the best product guy of his generation, arguably in the history of computing and consumer electronics. No other company could produce what Apple produced over the last decade, and none really seem intent on trying. It’s not just the software — it’s everything from the materials used to produce casings to the buttons left off of them.

Apple made the iPod and not Sony, Apple made the iPhone and not Palm, Apple made the MacBook Air and not HP, Apple made the iPad and not Microsoft.

Steve Jobs gave Apple a remarkable insight, and there’s every indication they’re running with it. Hopefully they have several canny team members asking the impertinent questions and wielding the knives of simplicity.

Hopefully as well the rest of the industry is catching on — they need to compete based on innovation and accessibility, not just price and ancillary complexity. Apple needs it, and consumers deserve it.

They can start by reading the article below, it’s chock full of the insanely great.

Source: Harvard Business Revue via 9to5Mac

nTelos, a CDMA carrier which operates in Virginia, parts of Kentucky, Carolina, and Ohio, has just announced that they’ll be selling the iPhone 4S soon. So far, nTelos has spent most of their time advertising Android devices, so this is a pretty big shift in gears for them. They’ve got two unlimited plans: one for $80/month that includes 600 minutes and unlimited texting and data, or a $100 deal that includes unlimited talk.

Although it might seem odd that this small regional carrier is getting the iPhone 4S before T-Mobile, since nTelos operates on the same network technology as Verizon and Sprint, it’s a pretty straightforward process using that version of the device, especially since  nTelos apparently offers service nationwide through Sprint.

The nTelos iPhone 4S is hitting the streets on April 20, and they’ll be offering a decent unlimited everything plan for $80/month. The 16 GB model will be available for $150 on contract, while the 32 GB version will be $250, and the 64 GB iPhone 4S will be going for $350. The iPhone 4 will be sold for a scant $50, if you’re looking to save some cash. If you’re in the area, you can sign up for e-mail notifications over here, or take a look at our review over here if you’re on the fence.

Any locals have experience with nTelos? I’ve read a few comments suggesting their service is pretty spotty…

Source: BusinessWire

For today only, the iMore Store has the Belkin ProFit for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 on sale for only $19.95! That’s a whopping 50% off! Get them before they’re gone!

Get the Belkin ProFit for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 now!

Never miss a step, or a beat, with this high-performance iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 armband that's so comfortable you'll forget you're even wearing it. The armband provides a snug fit to avoid that bulky feeling caused by some armbands and the specially designed clip system provides easy on-off access.

Designed specifically for an active lifestyle, ProFit's moisture-wicking material will keep you cool and dry even on the back stretch. Water-resistant material is hand-washable and features a reflective safety stripe.

Features:

• Fits both AT&T and Verizon models
• Lightweight, breathable stretch material
• Antibacterial
• Water-resistant
• Hand-washable
• Reflective safety stripe
• Protective cover allows easy navigation

Instagram for Android finally hit the Market Play Store yesterday — check out our Instagram on Android vs. Instagram on iPhone shootout — and the reaction by some in the iOS community was… decidedly negative. It was almost like a TV sitcom when the pristine private pool is suddenly, forcibly opened to a flood of marauding masses. You know, like when AOL users finally got unrestricted internet access. (No doubt Android users would have felt them same way when Google+ opened up, had there been a similar flood…)

Some of it was obviously in jest, but a lot of it wasn’t, and not just from the general population — but from the higher profile technorati as well. And that’s too bad. See, I love my iPhone, but I don’t hate other phones, and I certainly don’t hate the people who use other phones. Just like I don’t hate the people who drive different types of cars, drink different brands of beer or soda, drive-through different franchises of fast food restaurants, or read comic books printed by different companies. I’m as tribal as the next person, but my tribe really doesn’t give a crap if your tribe is into something else.

A while back, when Instagram for Android was first introduced, I wrote a guest editorial for Android Central trying the explain why Android users might enjoy Instagram. Let’s face it, most modern smartphones can easily share photos right out of the box (tap Action button, tap Tweet, get on about your day). Some Android phones and user interfaces even have filters built right into the camera apps. But Instagram brings focus. It’s just photos. If that’s what you want to look at and enjoy, they’re right there ready and waiting for you, without having to wade through tons of text tweets or likes to get to them.

Until yesterday, those photos were exclusively from iPhones and iPhoneographers. Today we have a much richer diversity in lenses and eyes. I can see photos from people I’ve known and admired for years, like Phil Nickinson, Jerry Hildenbrand, and Alex Dobie. I can also see photos from some great mobile cameras like the Galaxy S II and some of the HTC kit. (I can also take some iPod touch photos and upload those so the Galaxy Nexus owners won’t feel so bad by comparison…)

Sure, there’s some gentle ribbing to be given over things like the latest, greatest HTC One X not being supported, but that’ll get fixed and then we’ll see some great shots from that pretty damn good camera too. And frankly, I’ve got a right to see what ALL my friends can do when they take state-of-the-mobile-art images and reduce them to 1960s Polaroids, not just my iPhone friends.

So instead of hating on Instagram for allowing them in, or Android users for crashing our here-to-for exclusive iPhone party, I’m offering them a lounge chair and giving them a place to put down whatever beverages and snacks they brought to the party.

It’s natural to fear change and a massive addition of divergent userbase to any social platform is about as big a change as online networks can have. But once everyone settles down and gets acquainted, it can be pretty great as well.

Goodness knows, something needs to disrupt the monotony of iPhone chick pics, bobble heads, pet shots, food pr0n, and landscapes. May as well be Android chick pics, bobble heads, pet shots, food pr0n, and landscapes…

(And if that’s terribly disappointing to you and you would have preferred some fervent denouncement of all things Instagram and Android, topped with a hearty rah-rah for iPhone-über-alles, then my apologies. Feel free to read this piece backwards.)

Apple now has 13.5% of the U.S. mobile market (i.e. not just smartphones), according to recent survey data. Combined with Motorola’s drop to 12.8% market share, that puts iPhone in third place behind LG (with 19.4%) and Samsung (25.6%). comScore’s data was gathered from 30,000 American mobile customers in the three months leading up to February, and also examined smartphone operating system market share. Of course Android is ruling the roost with 50.1%, which climbed 3.2% since November, while iOS sits at 30.2%, which only grew 1.5% in the same time frame. Meanwhile, BlackBerry and Windows Phone saw drops of 3.2% and 1.3%, respectively.

Beating out Motorola, which has been fairly well-entrenched since the dumbphone days, is a big symbolic win for Apple. Motorola is basically the figurehead for Android OEMs since Google plans to acquire them. Although the mass of smartphone manufacturers can gang up on Apple to push down iOS market share, few (if any) have a shot at duking it out one-on-one with the iPhone. It’s also a testament to the iPhone’s popularity that, despite having only one form factor, and despite being beat on price (i.e. total cost of ownership) by feature phones, Apple’s still able to climb the ranks. The only other manufacturer in the position of exclusively making smartphones in these rankings is HTC, and they aren’t making a lot of progress.

Anyone taking bets on how long it’ll take for Apple to take the number 2 spot from LG?

Source: comScore

A recent survey of 5,600 U.S. high school students found an impressive 34% used the iPhone. Another 34% owned a tablet, and of them 70% were using an iPad. 86% intend on buying a smartphone, with 51% opting for iOS, versus 22% of those who are interested in Android. 40% of those surveyed were planning on buying a new iPhone within the next six months. Expected iPad purchases are even higher; 19% of teenagers are going to get a tablet in the next six months, and of them, 80% will be buying an iPad. The survey was conducted by analyst firm Piper Jaffray.

Obviously, the kids still love Apple products, and odds are good that if they’re being hooked young, they’ll stick with iOS as the grow up. Apparently a big driver among this segment was the price drop of the iPhone 3GS  when the 4S was released. Even though the vast majority of shoppers are siding with the iPhone 4S, production of the 3GS was still strong through late 2011.

Any high school kids reading able to vouch for the popularity of the iPhone among the young whippersnappers? Parents, which phones do your kids drift towards?

Source: BusinessWire

Nokia’s Lumia 900 pairs out of this world hardware with elegant Windows Phone Mango release 2 software in a bid to become AT&T’s next darling. But is it hot or not?

Among the very first, and certainly most comprehensive, Nokia Lumia 900 reviews comes our way courtesy of WPCentral‘s Daniel Rubino, and not surprisingly, he finds a lot of Windows Phone to love.

For $99 on contract, the Lumia 900 is one of the nicest Windows Phone on the market today and for the foreseeing future all at a great price. It has solid hardware including super-fast 4G LTE and the latest version of Windows Phone Mango ensuring a great experience for new users and veterans looking for an upgrade. Plus the device oozes with Nokia’s quality craftsmanship making it a device many will want to talk about. With all the hype around this phone, this could be the next “it” device for the summer.

I had a chance to accompany Daniel to his Windows Phone and Nokia interview at CES 2012, and spent a few minutes playing with the Lumia 900. It’s build quality is fantastic, using a metal-feeling plastic that I’m not convinced actually comes from this planet. It meshes beautifully with Microsoft’s latest release of Windows Phone Mango, which adds an LTE radio stack to the Metro-based user experience. Judging by the reaction of the typically jaded gadget bloggers at the show, it was the first phone since the iPhone, with possible exceptions of the Palm Pre and Nexus One, to really get design-centric attention.

Still, they made the screen bigger without making it denser, which in the age of Retina displays makes for an overly pixelated experience. Doesn’t sound like the typical AMOLED color saturation problems help out much there either. Branding also remains an issue, with Windows Phone not being anywhere near as sexy or enticing as something like Xphone. (Slap that label on it, put out a Halo special edition, and just try to keep it on the shelves.) It’s also a big phone, like recent Android devices, using size to fit in the current generation of LTE chips and the batteries that go with them. And while apps are getting better all the time, they haven’t gotten anywhere near what the iPhone has to offer.

There have been rumors AT&T would make this their most marketed phone ever, even more so than the iPhone. That’s believable only insofar as Apple marketed the iPhone so well there really wasn’t that much for AT&T to do but slap their logo at the end of Apple-made ads and count their money at the end of each quarter.

It’s nice to see Nokia back in the game, though, and who would have thought Microsoft would be blazing the elegant UI trail? I don’t think many perspective iPhone buyers will be tempted to jump ship (the iPhone still reportedly outsells all other AT&T phones combined), but I do think the race for “not iPhone” just got far more interesting.

And that’s good for everyone.

Check out WPCentral‘s complete Nokia Lumia 900 review and then come back here and let us know what you think. Will the Nokai Lumia 900 cause any problems for the iPhone on AT&T?

Instagram’s developers hinted their new Android app might be better than their existing iPhone app. So is it, and if so, how?

While over 15 Million iPhone users have enjoyed the social photo sharing app, Instagram, for quite some time, just today Instagram for Android hit the Google Play Store. Over 430,000 Android users had registered to be notified about the app’s release, and the developers even hinted it might back a few features iPhone users were without. So does it?

First off, a few tabs look a little different between the Android and iPhone versions of Instagram, and the layout has been adopted to fit the Android screen format, but noticeably missing are the tilt shift and circle blur options. Some social features are missing as well, namely Flickr and Posterous.

There has been some reports of the Android version being slower than that of the iPhone version but, realistically that all depends on which Android device and which version of the Android OS it’s being run on. For what it’s worth, Instagram on Android is optimized to run best on Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich builds, but it will run on anything Android 2.2 and above, though results may vary. Although there have been some compatibility problems, Instagram for Android has already been updated to address a few of them, though not the HTC One X.

Overall, the Instagram team did a great job of keeping mostly everything intact for their new found Android base and it will no doubt, become one of the top download in the Google Play Store despite the fact that Google and various other Android OEM’s have been adding built-in filtering options to the Android camera application for quite some time now.

So what exactly were/are those features that would make the Android version of Instagram better than the iPhone version? No idea. The feature that makes both versions better is finally having a bigger device footprint for Instagram — iPhone and Android users can share and like and comment on way more photos by way more mobile photographers than ever before. And that’s a win for both platforms!

If you just bought a new iPad and have searched in vain for the built-in Apple Clock app, here’s some bad news — there isn’t one. Apple just doesn’t think the Clock app looks good on the big screen. Luckily for us, however, App Store developers don’t share that belief. In fact, the developers of Night Stand for iPad show just exactly how to do it right.

Main screen

Night Stand for iPad is so much more than a basic alarm clock. In addition to the time on the main, rather gorgeous, display, you can also see the date and current weather conditions. There are also four widgets that can be enabled at the bottom of the screen for Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and Weather.

Behind the main clock, Night Stand for iPad will play through your defined slideshow. It comes preinstalled with beautiful videos and has more available for purchase. Each movie series is $0.99, or you can buy all four series for $1.99. If you prefer a slideshow of still images, Night Stand for iPad also includes 3 beautiful images with more available for purchase. You can also have a slideshow of your own images if you prefer. The interval times for your slideshows can be anywhere from 1-60 minutes.

Sliding your finger up and down the main screen will adjust the screen brightness and flicking left and right will hide and show the clock display.

Widgets

The Twitter and Facebook widgets let you view recent posts and status updates from their respective social networks. Tapping one of the posts will popup a built-in browser and displays how that post looks on the web. If you want to reply, like, or comment, you’ll need to login to the social network in that browser. To the left of each of the widgets, you’ll find the button that lets you tweet or post to Facebook.

The RSS widget is tied to Google Reeder and displays recent posts from your feed. Tapping on a post will also slide up the article in a nice, stripped-down, easy to read view. To view the article in safari, tap “Full Article”.

The weather widget displays a 10 day forecast of the weather. Include with each day is the general weather (partly cloudy, clear, light rain, etc), the low and high tempertures, wind speed, and times for sunset and sunrise.

Alarm Clock

The alarm clock lets you add multiple alarms seth with custom repetitions, similar to the iPhone’s alarm clock. Night Stand for iPad includes 9 alarm sounds, many of which are actually very load, alarming, and annoying. I mean, seriously, who wants to wake up every morning to the sound of a smoke alarm going off? (Immediately after typing that sentence, my husband piped up that he loves the annoying sounds for an alarm, so apparently some people do like them). Many people actually prefer waking up to music, so Night Stand allows you to add music stored on your iPad to wake up to. However, if you want to wake up to music, you have to make sure Night Stand is actually running on your iPad overnight. Otherwise, Night Stand will send a notification to wake you up instead.

In the alarm settings menu, you’ll find the options to shuffle your selected music, the duration of snooze, and if you want the alarm sound or music that you chose to fade in over time, so as to not startle you awake. The durations range between 6 seconds to 30 minutes.

Sleep Timer

In addition to serving the purpose of waking you up in the morning, Night Stand for iPad also has a sleep timer so that you can listen to music while you fall asleep. The interval times range from 5 minutes to 23 hours and 55 minutes. Wow.

The Good

• Gorgeous
• Include Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds
• Ability to tweet and post to Facebook
• Included movies and images are beautiful
• Inclusion of weather is very convenient
• Can wake up to own music
• Can have slideshows of personal images
• Supports Fahrenheit, Celsius, miles and kilometers
• Includes alarm clock and sleep timer
• Multiple alarms
• Can make the main clock small and position in the upper right or left corner

The Bad

• Not enough alarm clock sounds. Should have more subtle ones.
• The popup for Twitter posts isn’t scaled properly. You have to scroll right to see the entire tweet.

The Conclusion

Night Stand is a gorgeous alarm clock for your iPad. I love how it isn’t just a clock, but a host for all the things I like to check before rolling out of bed. I used to use my iPhone as my alarm clock, but with the discovery of Night Stand, my iPad will be playing that roll from now on instead.

$2.99 – Download Now