Android SDK Installation Guide

Here’s a quick start installation guide to get you up and running with the Google Android Software Development Kit (SDK). This guide will describe how to install the Android SDK and set up your chosen development environments. If you’ haven’t already done so you can download the Android SDK from the link below, then we can get started.

First you’ll need to download the Android SDK source files:
  http://code.google.com/android/download.html  

System Requirements

In order to first use the Android SDK code and tools for development you will of course need a suitable environment develop from.

Currently the following operating systems are supported:

    Windows XP or Vista
    Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later (x86 only)
    Linux (tested on Linux Ubuntu Dapper Drake)

You will also need to install a suitable development environment such as:

Eclipse

    Eclipse 3.2, 3.3 (Europa)
    Android Development Tools plugin (optional)

    Other development environments or IDEs

    JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
    Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
    Apache Ant 1.6.5 or later for Linux and Mac, 1.7 or later for Windows

Installing The Android SDK

First you will need to download the Android SDK pack .zip archive, once downloaded find a suitable installation location on your machine and extract the zipped files.

Please note: This installation location will be referred to as $SDK_ROOT from now on through this tutorial

Alternatively you can add /tools to your root path which will prevent the need to specify the full path to the tools directory along with enabling you to run Android Debug Bridge (adb) along with other command line tools.

To add /tools:

Linux

1.     Edit the ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc files looking for a line that sets the PATH variable.
2.     Add the full path location to your $SDK_ROOT/tools location for the PATH variable.
3.     If no PATH line exists you can add the line by typing the following:
4.     export PATH=${PATH}:

Mac OS X

1.     In the home directory locate the .bash_profile and locating the PATH variable add the location to your $SDK_ROOT/tools folder.

Windows XP / Vista

1.     Right click on the My Computer icon and select the properties tab.
2.     Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.
3.     In the new dialog box dowble-click on Path (located under System Variables) and type in the full path location to the tools directory.

The Android SDK also requires a suitable development environment to work in, here’s the installation guides for each of the supported environments.

Android Eclipse Plugin (ADT)

If you choose to use the Eclipse IDE as your Android development environment you will have the opportunity to install and run a plug-in called Android Development Tools. ADT comes with a variety of powerful tools and extensions that will make creating, running and debugging your Android applications much easier and faster.

In order to download and install ADT you will first need to configure an Eclipse remote update, this can achieved via the following steps:

1.     Start Eclipse, then select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install….
2.     In the dialog that appears, select Search for new features to install and press Next.
3.     Press New Remote Site.
4.     In the resulting dialog box, enter a name for the remote site (e.g. Android Plugin) and enter this as its URL: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/.
5.     Press OK.
6.     You should now see the new site added to the search list (and checked).
7.     Press Finish.
8.     In the subsequent Search Results dialog box, select the checkbox for Android Plugin > Eclipse Integration > Android Development Tools and press Next.
9.     Read the license agreement and then select Accept terms of the license agreement, if appropriate.
10.     Press Next.
11.     Press Finish.
12.     The ADT plugin is not signed; you can accept the installation anyway by pressing Install All.
13.     Restart Eclipse.
14.     After restart, update your Eclipse preferences to point to the SDK root directory ($SDK_ROOT):
15.     Select Window > Preferences… to open the Preferences panel. (Mac OS X: Eclipse > Preferences)
16.     Select Android from the left panel.
17.     For the SDK Location in the main panel, press Browse... and find the SDK root directory.
18.     Press Apply, then OK

Updating the ADT Plugin

To update the ADT plugin to the latest version, follow these steps:

1.     Select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install….
2.     Select Search for updates of the currently installed features and press Finish.
3.     If any update for ADT is available, select and install.

Alternatively:

1.     Select Help > Software Updates > Manage Configuration.
2.     Navigate down the tree and select Android Development Tools
3.     Select Scan for Updates under Available Tasks.

How-To Use Eclipse To Develop Android Applications

In order to begin development on your Android applications you will first need to create a new Android project and then configure a launch configuration. Once completed you will have the capability to write, run and debug your Android creations.

The following sections below will provide you with the necessary instructions to get you up and running with Android provided you have installed the ADT plugin (as previously mentioned) in your Eclipse environment.
Creating A New Android Project

The Android Development Tools plugins kindly provides a Wizard for setting up new Projects which will allow us to create new Eclipse projects relatively quickly for either new or existing code.

Select File > New > Project

    Select Android > Android Project, and press Next
    Select the contents for the project:

    Select Create new project in workspace to start a project for new code. Enter the project name, the base package name, the name of a single Activity class to create as a stub .java file, and a name to use for your application.
    Select Create project from existing source to start a project from existing code. Use this option if you want to build and run any of the sample applications included with the SDK. The sample applications are located in the samples/ directory in the SDK. Browse to the directory containing the existing source code and click OK. If the directory contains a valid Android manifest file, the ADT plugin fills in the package, activity, and application names for you.

Press Finish.

Once completed the ADT plugin will go ahead and create the following files and folders as appropriate for the type of project selected:

    src/ A folder that includes your stub .java Activity file.
    res/ A folder for your resources.
    AndroidManifest.xml The manifest for your project.

Creating A Launch Configuration For Eclipse

In order to be able to run and debug your own Eclipse applications you must first create a launch configuration. Simply, a launch config is used to specify which project to launch, which activity to start and the specific emulation options to use.

To create a launch configuration for the application, please see the following steps:
1. Select Run > Open Run Dialog… or Run > Open Debug Dialog… as appropriate.
2. In the project type list on the left, right-click Android Application and select New.
3. Enter a name for your configuration.
4. On the Android tab, browse for the project and Activity to start.
5. On the Emulator tab, set the desired screen and network properties, as well as any other emulator startup options.
6. You can set additional options on the Common tab as desired.
7. Press Apply to save the launch configuration, or press Run or Debug (as appropriate).
Running and Debugging an Eclipse Application

Once both steps 1 and 2 have been completed and your project and launch configs are up and running you will now be able to run or debug your application.

From the Eclipse main menu, select Run > Run or Run > Debug as appropriate. This command will run or debug the most recently selected application.

To set or change the active launch configuration, use the Run configuration manager, which you can access through Run > Open Run Dialog… or Run > Open Debug Dialog….

Running or debugging the application will trigger the following actions:

1.     Starts the emulator, if it is not already running.
2.     Compile the project, if there have been changes since the last build, and installs the application on the emulator.
3.     Run starts the application.
4.     Debug starts the application in “Wait for debugger” mode, then opens the Debug perspective and attaches the Eclipse Java debugger to the application.

Developing Android Applications with Other IDEs and Tools

Although it is recommended you use Eclipse with the Android plugin to develop your applications, the SDK also provides tools which will enable you to develop with other IDE’s including intelliJ (alternatively you could just use Eclipse without the plugin).
Creating an Android Project

Bundled with the Android SDK is a program called activityCreatory. activityCreator will generate a number of ‘stub’ files for your chosen project alongside a build file. This can be used to either create an Android project for new code or from existing code.

For Linux and Mac users the Android SDK provides a Python script called activityCreator.py, with Windows users receiving a btach script called activityCreator.bat. The program is used in the same way regardless of operating system.

In order to run activityCreator and create an Android project, follow these steps:

    In the command line, change to the tools/ directory of the SDK and create a new directory for your project files. If you are creating a project from existing code, change to the root folder of your application instead.
    Run activityCreator. In the command, you must specify a fully-qualified class name as an argument. If you are creating a project for new code, the class represents the name of a stub class that the script will create. If you are creating a project from existing code, you must specify the name of one Activity class in the package. Command options for the script include:

–out which sets the output directory. By default, the output directory is the current directory. If you created a new directory for your project files, use this option to point to it.

–ide intellij, which generates IntelliJ IDEA project files in the newly created project
Here’s an example:

/android_linux_sdk/tools$ ./activityCreator.py –out myproject your.package.name.ActivityName
package: your.package.name
out_dir: myproject
activity_name: ActivityName
~/android_linux_sdk/tools$

The activityCreator script generates the following files and directories (but will not overwrite existing ones):

    AndroidManifest.xml The application manifest file, synced to the specified Activity class for the project.
    build.xml An Ant file that you can use to build/package the application.
    src/your/package/name/ActivityName.java The Activity class you specified on input.
    your_activity.iml, your_activity.ipr, your_activity.iws [only with the -ide intelliJ flag] intelliJ project files.
    res/ A directory to hold resources.
    src/ The source directory.
    bin/ The output directory for the build script.

Once complete you will now be able to move your folder wherever you choose for development but you’ll need to bear in mind then you will need to use the adb program in the tools folder in order to send the files to the emulator.
How-To Build An Android Application

Here’s how to use the Ant build.xml file generated by activityCreator to build your application.

    If you don’t have it, you can obtain Ant from the Apache Ant home page. Install it and make sure it is on your executable path.
    Before calling Ant, you need to declare the JAVA_HOME environment variable to specify the path to where the JDK is installed.Note: When installing JDK on Windows, the default is to install in the “Program Files” directory. This location will cause ant to fail, because of the space. To fix the problem, you can specify the JAVA_HOME variable like this: set JAVA_HOME=c:\Prora~1\Java\. The easiest solution, however, is to install JDK in a non-space directory, for example: c:\java\jdk1.6.0_02.
    If you have not done so already, follow the instructions for Creating a New Project above to set up the project.
    You can now run the Ant build file by simply typing ant in the same folder as the build.xml file for your project. Each time you change a source file or resource, you should run ant again and it will package up the latest version of the application for you to deploy.

How-To Run An Android Application

In order to run a compiled application you will first need to upload the .apk file to the /data/app/ directory in the emulator using the adb tool:

    Start the emulator (run $SDK_HOME/tools/emulator from the command line)
    On the emulator, navigate to the home screen (it is best not to have that application running when you reinstall it on the emulator; press the Home key to navigate away from that application).
    Run adb install myproject/bin/.apk to upload the executable. So, for example, to install the Lunar Lander sample, navigate in the command line to $SDK_ROOT/sample/LunarLander and type ../../tools/adb install bin/LunarLander.apk
    In the emulator, open the list of available applications, and scroll down to select and start your application.

Please Note: When installing an activity for the first time you may need to restart the emulator engine in order for the activity to show up in the application launcher or before any other application can call. This is usually down to the fact that the package manager normally only examines manifests completely on emulator start-up.
How-To Attach a Debugger to Your Application

The following section details how to display debug information directly onto the screen (for example CPU usage). It also shows you how to hook up your IDE to debug running applications on the emulator.

The Eclipse plugin automatically attaches a debugger but you can configure other IDE’s to wait on a debugging port by doing the following:

Start the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) tool , which acts as a port forwarding service between your IDE and the emulator.

    Set optional debugging configurations on your emulator, such as blocking application startup for an activity until a debugger is attached. Note that many of these debugging options can be used without DDMS, such as displaying CPU usage or screen refresh rate on the emulator.
    Configure your IDE to attach to port 8700 for debugging. We’ve included information higher up on how to set up Eclipse to debug your project.

How-To Configure Your IDE To Attach To The Debugging Port

DDMS will automatically assign a specific debugging port for every virtual machine that it detects on the emulator. You must either attach your IDE to that port, or use a default port 8700 to connect to whatever application is currently selected on the list of discovered virtual machines.

Ideally your IDE will attach to the application running on the emulator, showing its threads and allowing you to suspend them, inspect them, or set breakpoints. If you choose to “Wait for debugger” in the Development settings panel, this will cause the application to run when Eclipse connects therefore you will need to set any breakpoints you want before connecting. If you change the application being debugged or the “Wait for debugger” then the system will kill the selected currently running application.

This can be handy if your application is in a bad state, you can simply go to the settings and toggle the checkbox to kill it.
Debugging Android

Google Android has a fairly extensive set of tools to help you debug your programs:

    DDMS – A graphical program that supports port forwarding (so you can set up breakpoints in your code in your IDE), screen captures on the emulator, thread and stack information, and many other features. You can also run logcat to retrieve your Log messages. See the linked topic for more information.
    logcat – Dumps a log of system messages. The messages include a stack trace when the emulator throws an error, as well as Log messages. To run logcat, see the linked topic. …
    I/MemoryDealer( 763): MemoryDealer (this=0x54bda0): Creating 2621440 bytes heap at 0x438db000
    I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 0
    I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 1
    I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 2
    D/ActivityManager( 763): Stopping: HistoryRecord{409dbb20 com.google.android.home.AllApps}
    …

    Android Log- A logging class to print out messages to a log file on the emulator. You can read messages in real time if you run logcat on DDMS (covered next). Add a few logging method calls to your code.

    To use the Log class, you just call Log.v() (verbose), Log.d() (debug), Log.i() (information), Log.w() (warning) or Log.e (error) depending on the importance you wish to assign the log message.
    Log.i(“MyActivity”, “MyClass.getView() — Requesting item number ” + position) You can use logcat to read these messages
    Traceview – Android can save a log of method calls and times to a logging file that you can view in a graphical reader called Traceview. See the linked topic for more information.
    Eclipse plugin – The Eclipse Android plugin incorporates a number of these tools (ADB, DDMS, logcat output, and other functionality). See the linked topic for more information.

    Debug and Test Device Settings – Android exposes several settings that expose useful information such as CPU usage and frame rate.

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What Do I Need To Consider When Buying A Phone For Kids?

It's not uncommon nowadays to see even young children with a cell phone. And with pink phones, Hello Kitty phones and even specific mobile phone plans for kids it seems like children are the target of a lot of marketing too. But should you buy a phone for your child? A recent report stated that three quarters of UK ten year olds owned a mobile phone, so obviously many people think it is appropriate for young kids to own a phone. If you're trying to decide whether or not to get a cell phone for your kid, there are a few things that you need to take into account...

It's Not as Bad as You Think:

Firstly, don't be close minded about the idea. Just because your kid is pestering you for the hundredth time doesn't necessarily mean that getting a phone is a bad idea. There are a lot of advantages. For example, your child will be able to get hold of you any time he or she needs you, and vice versa. They miss the school bus? No problem. When it comes to safety and security having a phone may be a better idea than you think it is. As long as mobile phone use is controlled properly, then there's no reason that having a phone should be anything other than a benefit to you and you kid.

Be Careful with Financing:

Face it, there's a pretty high chance that your kid is going to lose, break, or drop his phone (probably down the toilet). For this reason, it's not only inadvisable that you buy an expensive device, but also think about financing. When you sign up for a phone plan and get a phone included in the contract you are paying for that phone month by month. You kid loses the phone after three months, guess what? You still have to keep paying for it until the end of your contract. No matter what cool hand set your kid might have his eye on, going for something robust and cheap but functional is your best bet.

Make Sure it's Protected:

And that means protected in every way, shape and form. There's no reason to give younger kids access to the internet, and even older ones should have some form of child lock to prevent them accessing unsuitable material. Text messages should be checked regularly to make sure that you always know what's going on. And watch out for the money.

In general, a pay as you go phone is a better idea, particularly for younger kids, since it's far easier to control spending on PAYG. Contract phones can rapidly become billing nightmares with kids, since they're frequently irresponsible about staying on top of calling minute and text message limits. Finally, you might want to consider a special kids contract for the phone.

Many mobile service operators offer special features for phones that will belong to a child, including the ability to limit service to certain hours of the day, meaning that your kid can't use the phone in school or late at night. Having a kid contract might be an easy way of controlling your child's phone habits...

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32 iPad Tips and Tricks

You know that your new iPad will let you easily watch movies, browse the Internet, or play games on the go, but there are many advanced features hidden beneath the surface of iOS that can improve your tablet computing experience even further. To help you become an iPad master, we've compiled a handy list of tips and tricks for new iPad users. Read on if you want to learn how to multitask, take screenshots, encrypt your backups and more. 

Set the iPad to self-destruct in 10 seconds:
Okay, not really--but you can set the iPad to erase all data after ten failed passcode entry attempts by checking the Erase Data option under Settings, General, Passcode Lock.  

Don't let AutoCorrect mess you up: If you don't like the option AutoCorrect gives you, reject it by finishing the word as you prefer, and then tapping the suggestion. If you want to use AutoCorrect's choice, just type a space or punctuation mark, or tap Return, the moment it pops up.

Create custom shortcuts for common phrases: Make AutoCorrect work for you by teaching iOS to transform shorthand (such as "omw") into common phrases (like "on my way") using iOS 5 shortcuts. Simply navigate to Settings, General, Keyboard, and select Add New Shortcut. Type the phrase you want to shorten in the Phrase field, and then type the shortened version you want to use in the Shortcut field.

Download the free iPad User's Guide: You may have noticed that your iPad didn't come with a big printed manual--that's not Apple's style. However, you can download the PDF version of the iPad User's Guide from Apple's website, or you can read it in iBooks if you have that installed (iBooks is available as a free download in the App Store). Make sure to download the manual for the version of iOS you're currently using!

Use the Side Switch: You can use the switch on the side either to enable and disable audio alerts (this doesn't affect video/audio playback) or to lock the screen's orientation in portrait or landscape mode. You can toggle which function is assigned to the switch by opening Settings from the home screen, selecting General, and choosing the function you want under the 'Use Side Switch to' heading.

Take a free guided tour: Apple provides video tutorials on setting up iTunes, as well as a complete rundown of all your preinstalled apps so that you can get a good look at how to use them.

Speed up your sentences: Double-tapping the spacebar while typing a message will type a period and a space.

Multitask in iOS: You probably already know that you can press the Home button twice to bring up a list of currently running or suspended apps. However, you can also swipe the multitasking bar left to right to quickly access audio/video playback controls, a shortcut to the iTunes app itself, an AirPlay button that lets you wirelessly mirror the iPad display on an Apple TV, and volume controls. Also, when you choose whether the Side Switch should mute alert sounds or lock the screen orientation (see the tip above), the function you didn't choose will appear in this shortcut bar.

Secure your backups: You can encrypt your iPad's backup data in iTunes. Just open the iPad in iTunes, click the Summary tab, and check Encrypt iPad backup under the Options heading.

Swap the search engine: Too cool for Google? You can change Safari's default search engine by going to Settings, Safari, Search Engine. Alas, you can choose only from Google, Bing, or Yahoo--no vintage Metacrawler for you.

Take a screenshot of whatever is on the screen: Press the Home button and the sleep/wake button simultaneously. The screenshot will automatically appear among your photos.

Selectively prevent automatic sync: Sometimes you don't want to sync your iPad when you connect it to your computer. In that case, hold down Shift-Ctrl (or Command-Option, on a Mac) in iTunes while plugging your iPad in, and iTunes will skip the automatic sync just this once. Alternatively, you can safely interrupt a sync by dragging the unlock slider on your device while the iPad is midsync.

Toggle 3G/LTE data roaming: If you're using a 3G iPad, you can turn data roaming on in the Settings, Cellular Data menu in case you want to try receiving cellular Internet through a different provider (fees may apply). You can also disable LTE service if you're trying to conserve bandwidth, and you can check your data usage by going to Settings, General, Usage.

Restrict mature content: Go to Settings, General, Restrictions and tap Enable Restrictions to selectively apply controls on your apps, content, Game Center, and more. You can use this setting to limit mature content on your new iPad by disabling explicit-language recognition, blocking podcasts that have the "Explicit" tag, or blocking movies, TV shows, and apps that are rated for mature audiences.

Make your passcode more complicated: iOS defaults to a four-number passcode, but you can turn it off by going to Settings, General, Passcode Lock, Simple Passcode. Now you can use any full keyboard password to lock the iPad. The password also helps to encrypt your mail and attachments on the iPad, so you probably want to make it safer than a four-digit number.

Tweak AutoFill: You can choose to enable Safari's AutoFill feature under Settings, Safari, AutoFill. From there you can tell Safari to fill out forms automatically, either by using your specified contact information or by remembering the names and passwords from previous website login sessions.

Sync your bookmarks: You can use iTunes to sync your iPad's Safari bookmarks with your PC's Web browser. Open the iPad tab in iTunes, click the Info tab, scroll down to the Other heading, check Sync bookmarks with, and choose your preferred browser.

Email photos: The easiest way to email photos from an iPad is to open the Photos app, select a photo, press the button in the upper-right corner (the rectangle with the right-facing arrow, not the AirPlay or trash can button), and choose Email photo... to send.

Test your Web links: You can check a linked word's actual destination URL by touching and holding down on the link--it's a perfect way to sniff out phishy links.

Choose an app for email attachments: You can open a file attached to an email message by tapping the attachment in Mail, but if the default app isn't the one you want to use, simply press and hold and wait for a menu that lets you select an app.

Use your iPad as a picture frame: Not for physical photographs of course, but you can press the Picture icon in the lower-right corner of the lock screen to have the iPad display your photo stream as a slideshow.

Show traffic conditions: Open Maps, press the dog-eared page icon in the lower right, and then turn the Traffic overlay on. If your iPad has an Internet connection, Maps will show real-time traffic conditions in the displayed area. Green means traffic is going at the posted speed limit, yellow means traffic is slower than the posted speed limit, and red means traffic is stop-and-go.

Share podcasts with friends: Listening to a podcast that you think a friend would like? You can share the link while you're listening to it by pressing the Email button while it's open.

Don't forget your downloads: You can immediately see if your iTunes account is due for incoming downloads by opening iTunes on your PC, clicking the Store menu, and selecting Check for available downloads. This trick can come in handy if your download process is interrupted, or if you missed some bonus iTunes content that came with an album you purchased.

Turn on Universal Access: You can enable options such as closed-captioned movies, VoiceOver screen reading, zoom magnification, and inverted white-on-black text by selecting the iPad in iTunes, opening the Summary tab, and clicking Configure Universal Access under the Options heading.

Forget Wi-Fi networks: So you accidentally connected to a network once, and your iPad remembers it for life--whether you like it or not. On your iPad, go to Settings, Wi-Fi, and find the network under the 'Choose a Network' heading. Tap the blue arrow next to the network you want to remove, and tap the button on the top that says Forget this Network.

Customize your Spotlight searches: The iPad uses Spotlight for its built-in search functions, and you can tweak it to your needs under Settings, General, Spotlight Search. If you have a lot of data on your iPad, for example, you can selectively disable search in different categories (Contacts, Applications, Audiobooks, Notes, Events, Mail, and so on) that you don't use so that your desired results show up faster. You can also simply change the order in which the search-result categories display by dragging them up and down, so that your more frequently used search categories appear at the top of the page.

Turn off in-app purchases: Go to Settings, General, Restrictions and tap Enable Restrictions to selectively enable restrictions for your apps, content, Game Center, and more. If you're worried about other people breaking your bank account on in-app purchases, just disable In-App Purchases under the 'Allowed Content' setting.

Switch up the fetching frequency: Your iPad automatically grabs new data, such as incoming email. However, the iPad also periodically activates apps that don't support iOS's Push feature so that they can go fetch new data--which uses the tablet's battery life. You can tweak your Push and Fetch settings in Settings under the Mail, Contacts, Calendars menu by toggling the Fetch New Data option.

Change your email signature: Don't be one of those people who leave the default 'Sent from my iPad' signature on all their messages. Change it in Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Signature to something more interesting.

Master multitasking gesture controls: Enable multitasking gesture controls in any iPad running iOS 5 or later by navigating to General, Settings and toggling Multitasking Gestures on. Now you can place four or five fingers on the screen at once and swipe them left or right to switch between open apps, or swipe up to display the multitasking bar. You can pinch your fingers together on the screen to return to the iPad home screen.

Sync your iPad wirelessly: To set up iTunes wireless syncing, plug your iPad into your PC, make sure both devices are connected to the same wireless network, and then boot up iTunes on your PC. On your iPad, navigate to Settings, General, iTunes Wi-Fi Sync, select the computer you want to sync with, and tap the Sync Now button. Your iPad should sync wirelessly with your computer, and will now do so automatically whenever you have it plugged in and connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your computer.

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Best 5 Navigation Apps For IPhone

Apple Maps:

Many new iPhone users may be a bit upset with the functionality of the integrated Apple Maps within iOS 6. Many of the phone’s users have reported incomplete search results as well as a host of inaccurate instructions within the turn-by-turn features of the app. The last thing you want is to put trust into an inaccurate GPS system. The best thing to do is to wait until the software has been fixed and has become more reliable. The good news is that there are plenty of alternatives that you can use to get you to and from your destinations. Let’s talk about the 5 best navigation apps for iPhone and what you can expect from using them.

1.) Waze – Free:

One of the best things about Waze is that it is 100% free. This GPS app offers GPS navigation and it also has the function to display detailed traffic information. It is unique in that it pulls all of its traffic information from a user created resource. Now, this can be accurate and beneficial just as long as the other Waze members are nearby. If you live in a rather secluded area, you might want to look elsewhere for traffic details.
2.) GPS by Telenav – Free:

Telenav is yet another great free GPS app that has a lot of features. One thing that may turn off some potential users is that some of the more advanced apps require a monthly subscription charge. Users who vouch for the free service can expect to get turn by turn directions (without voice), landmark search, and up to date traffic and map details. The users who decide to go for the full version can expect voice functionality, rerouted directions based on road hazards or traffic jams as well as speed trap notifications.

3.) Motion X GPS – 0.99:

Motion X GPS is a very affordable GPS app that has quite a bit to offer. Users will have the ability to receive driving directions, walking, running, boating and other directions and heaps of other features. The app features turn by turn directions, but in order to unlock the voice assisted directions, you must dish out 9.99 a year. This may turn some people away, but it’s still one of the more affordable GPS apps that you can find.
4.) CoPilot Live Premium HD – 12.99:

CoPilot Live Premium HD is a high-end GPS app that has a lot of features and offers some great directions. This is only beneficial for those who live in the United States, as it only covers U.S. regions. In this app you will have access to a huge database of interests as well as turn by turn directions. Along with the great voice enabled directions, you can also expect to find a huge assortment of 3D and 2D maps.

5.) Navigon North America – 49.99:

This app is a bit on the pricey side, but for what you’ll get with the cost, you should be more than happy. You’ll have access to many U.S., Mexico and Canadian GPS maps that integrates Google search for points of interest.

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What to Do With a Wet iPhone

Need to know how to rescue a wet iPhone? Though the Internet may be filled with images of unfortunately cracked iPhones, in general, the iPhone is pretty durable.  It is going to survive most drops and bumps, most time you get food on it, and a case will do just about everything to increase its life span.  The real death sentence for the iPhone is going to be liquid, and if your iPhone is ever submerged in a good amount of water it may be done for.  Unless you act fast.

The first thing you have to note is that you cannot take your iPhone in to Apple Support if it has gotten wet.  There are sensors on the iPhone that will activate when water touches them and will indicate to the person looking at it that the user has exposed it to water, and warranties or Apple Care will not cover this.  Even if you try to get it past them and simply report problems with it working, it will be easy for them to figure this out and they tell you simply that you can feel free to buy a new one.  The sensor that they look for is called the Liquid Contact Indicator right inside where you slide your headphone.  Under the new policy the Apple staff cannot just determine it unable to be repaired based on the LCI reading, but once they open up the device they usually can figure it out.

If you have dropped the iPhone in a sizeable portion of water the first thing you will want to do is nothing.  Do not try to work with your iPhone at all as if it has gotten water into it any use of the iPhone will force the device to process from its energy source and could force it to short out.  This is a catch-22 since if you do not do anything to it then you may receive a phone call or notification, which could then short it out.  You have a choice to make then if you want to go ahead and actually turn off your iPhone, which you can do quickly by holding down the Wake and Home buttons simultaneously.  If it has a case on it then this should come off immediately, though many cases will protect it through this process.  This is especially true of the higher end of cases, such as the Otter Box.

From here you are going to want to give a sizeable amount of time to actually dry out the iPhone.  This can mean setting it in a dry and warm location at the very least, but you are going to need to know that it will take substantial time.  One of the most important things you can do to aid in this process is immediately put it into a bag filled part way with uncooked rice.  The rice will begin absorbing the moisture and you can let it set for a couple days.  Another method is to use a hair dryer on one of the lower settings, but whatever the option is you will need to do it for a substantial period of time to try to compensate for evaporation.  An additional option is to take a large number of Silica packets that are normally used in electronics or other commercial items that are shipping, and then put them in a back with the iPhone.

 For both of the absorption methods you are going to want to allow it 24-60 hours for drying before you take it out and attempt to restart it.  If you have gotten water behind the screen already it may be too late, though it is much more practical to change the touch screen than the entire iPhone.

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