It’s going to be pretty hard for Apple to top the Samsung Galaxy S III and the latest release of Android 4.1 that will be running on the Galaxy Nexus later this summer. In this edition of Ask Maggie I offer some advice on whether it’s worth it to wait for the new iPhone expected …

Android explosion! The giant Jelly Bean-filled Android on the front lawn of Google headquarters has literally blown up — and been struck by a thief to boot. The statue celebrating Jelly Bean, version 4.1 of Google’s Android software for phone and tablets, overheated in the Californian sun. Google employee Dan Morrill revealed on Google+ that the top of the statue “partially …

Leaked snaps have surfaced showing a new Samsung smart phone, reckoned to be running Ice Cream Sandwich, and — curiously — sporting a full Qwerty keyboard. Images showing the front and back of the mysterious mobile were spotted by Sammy Hub, with the finger-friendly phone bearing the name GT-B5330. That’s not such a catchy moniker, but I’d expect the phone to …

Research In Motion, despite delays in its upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system and continued disastrous financial performance, is just dandy. That’s according to RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, who denied the company was in a “death spiral” and said on a radio interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that “there was nothing wrong with the company as it exists now.” The …

Apple’s GarageBand gives wanna-be and real-world musicians alike the instruments they need to make music on an iPad. But when it comes to drums and guitar, there’s something lost in translation; your fingertips just don’t measure up to the feel of drumsticks and a guitar pick. Of course, the real deal won’t work on an iPad’s screen; wood and plastic …

Now playing: Watch this: Phone News: Jelly Bean launch 2:31 Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has arrived — but when’s it coming to your phone? Click play on our spiffy Phone News video to find out the latest. We’ll also update you on some new phone map technology that can go where GPS can’t, Firefox finding its way to phones, and …

For fans of Google’s Android OS, regular updates are sweeter treats than the sugary codenames that grace the various versions. A delayed update can feel like slow torture, and a new version is a geeky joy to receive. This is the place to find all the details on every version of Android, past and present. Bookmark this page as reference …

The Android tablet wars gained two new combatants today when Skytex Technology announced a pair of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices for release later in July. Priced lower than most products in their class, the tablets might have been much more appealing if only they arrived a few months earlier. On the lower end of the spectrum, the Skypad …

Break out the bubbly. Verizon will begin shipping its CDMA, LTE-ready version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 (reviewed here for T-Mobile) on July 10. The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich stunner will sell in blue and white shades, and in 16GB and 32GB storage capacities — for $199.99 and $249.99, respectively. You’ll be able to buy the 32GB version online …

Google Now is the Mountain View, Calif.-based monolith’s apparent answer to Apple’s Siri — a voice assistant that responds to requests for information and other commands, while also trying to anticipate what bits of data you might want by digging into your search history and other interactions with the Googleverse. It’s a buzz-worthy feature available only on Android 4.1 Jelly …

Ice Cream Sandwich — aka Android 4.0 — is finally on more than 10 per cent of Android devices (10.7 to be precise), a mere eight months after its launch. Its share of the droidspace has shot up from 7.1 per cent in the last month, however, according to figures from Google. This sudden change is likely down to the …

GPS could drop off the map as British boffins work on a new location technology that navigates by signals from mobile phones and Wi-Fi. Defence firm BAE is testing Navsop, a navigation system that goes where others can’t. Navsop figures out where it is from a GPS signal, then learns about different signals including medium-wave radio frequencies, mobile phones, TVs and …

Financial services giant MasterCard and mobile carrier Deutsche Telekom announced this morning that they would partner to accelerate adoption of mobile payments, which allow consumers to use their mobile phones to pay for goods and services. MasterCard sees business opportunity in Deutsche Telekom’s 93 million mobile customers in Europe. The companies plan to begin in Poland and Germany, Deutsche Telekom’s …

Mozilla’s brand-new Firefox OS will launch next year, with Alcatel and ZTE confirmed to be crafting the first phones running the new software. Firefox OS comes from Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko project, and is powered by HTML5. The Boot to Gecko name has been abandoned now, in favour of something much more recognisable. The first phones running the spangly new …

You’ve got an important text to send, but you’re also trying to flag down a taxi, make a rude gesture at an enemy or fight off a marauding seagull. It’s a nightmare scenario, but possibly not for much longer, as spy-shots leak suggesting that Windows Phone 8 will feature a one-handed one-screen keyboard. WMPoweruser got hold of the snap above, …