Recently Facebook has been working on finishing their roll out of the new Timeline profile to all of its users (including us.) While Facebook and its 3rd party apps may be less secure than they used to be, the new profile view is, frankly, beautiful. The two-column display shows your photos in all their (relatively sizable) glory, and highlights what Facebook thinks is major events in your life, making them more prominent on your page. Profiles are much more attractive this way, but they also feature a new capability that may leave some uneasy, myself included.

Facebook’s Timeline features just that, a timeline, on the right hand side of your profile. Friends can now click through by date to view your history. While this makes sense for Facebook, and is pretty cool in theory, it might be slightly less so in practice. When I heard about Timeline, I was really, really excited. I love innovation on the web, and this seemed like some real change for Facebook. Additionally, it looked gorgeous, and I like that. What I didn’t realize at first though, was that this doesn’t just enable what I’ve deemed advanced, super easy Facebook stalking. It actually almost forces it. And that’s the part I’m not a fan of.

Today, I am a different person than I was yesterday. More to the point though, today I am an extremely different person than I was 1, 2, 3 or more years ago. While looking at my photos, this isn’t much of a problem. But when you start to look at individual wall posts, comments, etc. that are all being taken completely out of context (no, I don’t think you can get  feel for where I was in my life at the time by reading a few surrounding posts…) you could get a picture of me that is not at all who I am now, and possibly not who I wanted to be. We’ve talked before about how this can be a problem, particularly when applying to college or a new job.

That being said, Facebook doesn’t give you any particularly easy way to remedy this. You can go to your Activity View, and go post by post, deleting what you don’t want, but if you’re like me and have 5+ years on Facebook, this is just not an option. The good news is, there are ways to get this done satisfactorily, and I’m here to show you them. So read on for the beginner’s guide to cleaning up your Facebook Timeline.

Step 1: Privatize.

Step 1 is a good quick and dirty. It basically makes a ton of your stuff from the past that was set to Public and sets it to Friends Only. To do this, go to your Profile, then go to the top right corner and click the down-arrow, then click Privacy Settings. Near the bottom, you should see an option that says Limit the Audience for Past Posts. To the right of this option, click Manage Past Post Visibility. You’ll get a pop-up that warns you that if you proceed, anything you shared on your wall with Public or Friends of Friends will change to Friends. This is a great start, because it means that, at the very least, if you miss something in the following steps, you’ve got all your posts limited to be seen only by your friends. Click Limit Old Posts to complete the process.

Step 2: Exfoliate!

For Step 2, you’ll need to either own an Android phone, or know someone who does. (And really, who doesn’t know someone that uses and Android phone?) You’ll need to download an app called Exfoliate. Its free, and you can get it here, or search for it in the Google Play Store on the phone itself. Open Exfoliate and go in to the Settings. Here you can select exactly what you want to delete from Facebook, being as broad and specific as you’d like. (For example, I deleted everything older than 1 year on my wall, and everything older than 1 year that I posted to anyone else’s walls, or that I liked. I decided to leave comments that I made on photos.) Now, back out of settings and hit Login and Run. You’ll need to log in to Facebook, and once you do, Exfoliate will do its thing! Depending on how much stuff its going through and deleting this, can be very quick, or take hours. If you have the ability, I’d say start running it before you go to sleep, and when you wake up, you’ll be ready for Step 3!

Step 3: Double-check Exfoliate’s work!

For Step 3, you want to head over to your Profile page, and near the top, click Activity Log. This will show you everything you’ve done on Facebook that other people can see, with the ability to quickly change who can see each and every activity. This shouldn’t be too daunting a task, depending on how much you cleared out. Remember, this should all already be defaulted to Friends. So if you’re okay with everything you kept in your Exfoliate run being visible to Friends only, you’re all done! If you aren’t sure, just go down the list and check for anything you may want to hide, and change it up!

Wrap-Up

While Facebook made our pasts more visible to everyone with the new Timeline, it does look great. And with a little bit of work, we can clean up our Facebook’s in to something we’re proud of showing people. Do you know any other cool ways to clean up your Profile? Did we miss any easy steps? Let us know in the comments!

The argument has waged on for years…What is the better mobile OS and ecosystem for a certain person, Android or iOS? (Windows Phone may be starting to become part of the conversation, but its nowhere near as prominent as these two competitors.) And for as long as this arguments been around, the answer has been a similar one: it depends largely on you. How dependable do you want your phone to be, versus how much customization do you want it to be able to do? Do you absolutely love iTunes, or could you spend your money elsewhere? There are many more of these questions that techies like me have turned to in order to give good phone buying advice to friends, family, and colleagues over the years. However, with recent news, and some pretty basic realizations, I think the answer is more one-sided than many, myself included, previously thought…

Apple vs. Google

While I’m going to talk about a few reasons I’m switching, if I’m being honest, this is the biggest one. Apple makes phones because they make a huge profit on those phones, and because they make a huge profit from that phone’s ecosystem. From music to apps, they take a chunk of profits (albeit a relatively small chunk of profits) from the ecosystem people use when they’re on an iPhone. (The App Store itself is relatively close to break-even, but not a loss leader by any stretch of the imagination.) Google does not. In fact, as we’ll talk about it a minute, Google loses money on Android. Google makes all its money selling ads, so it does that to the best of its ability.

To reinforce my point, let me make a couple of references. First, to Larry Page himself. Speaking a couple weeks back in court (Oracle v Google) Mr. Page made things quite clear. When asked if Android was a critical asset to Google in 2010, Page responded that he did believe Android was very important to Google, but he also said he did not believe it was critical. And hes right, Android isn’t critical, because while mobile is growing, its still only a tiny percentage of Google’s ad revenues, and even of that mobile division, only 20% comes from Android…The rest? iOS.

This is a clear difference from Apple. While Steve Jobs is no longer around, you can bet he’d say the iPhone is absolutely critical to Apple’s success. Prior to the iPhone’s release, the iPod was the biggest success Apple had. The iPhone brought Apple from a company that sells MP3 players, to a company that sells millions and millions of devices every year, on contracts, and keeps them buying by tying them into their ecosystem.

Only serving to back that stance up is yet another factoid that came out during the trial. While Google does not publicly release financial information about Android, some if it happened to be relevant to the case, and is therefore now public knowledge. As it turns out, for every quarter in 2010, Android actually resulted in a net loss for Google, despite generating approximately 97.7 million in revenue in the first quarter alone. This is yet another reason that Apple is a wiser choice. Not only is the iPhone and iOS critical to the company’s success, but they actually drive profits. At Google, neither can be said, making it that much more difficult to find any motivating factor as strong as Apple has for Google to build an incredible device and an amazing experience.

First Party Apps

There is one other relatively big reason that I’m leaning toward iOS. The reason is that while the Android ecosystem’s third party app selection is slowly catching up to Apple’s (and while I’m chalking these up as a tie, most will tell you iOS still has the 3rd party app advantage,) the first party app advantage is where Apple’s really outshining Android. Don’t get me wrong here – I love Android’s Gmail and Calendar apps. Even Google Drive, with its document editing, is very good at what it does. However, with iCloud, Apple closed the Calendar and Documents gaps very quickly, and while Gmail still runs circles around Mail, that is only one application. And for the average consumer, these aren’t the most important apps anyway!

There are a couple of first party apps that really tip the scales in favor of iOS for most consumers. First of these, and most important in my opinion, is the Camera app and Photos, especially with iPhoto integration on the Mac. Its an absolutely unbeatable way to take pictures, back them up easily at full resolution, and do so on not just cloud storage, but also your own hard drive. You own all your files, and they’re accessible from anywhere. Its the perfect combination. The other first party iOS app that Android still can’t beat is Messages. Messages has a million features Android messaging can’t touch, but let’s just put it this way: Messaging on Android still can’t properly handle group messaging. And sure, you could go get a third party app to do it. But on iOS, you don’t need to, and everything is integrated nicely! Plus, you can pick that same conversation up in Messages on your Mac. It just can’t beat, at least not as of this moment.

And the reason for these apps having the advantages they do? Apple is dedicated to making iOS absolutely amazing, because they depend on iOS. Google does not depend on Android, and that is an inherent problem for the OS and its future.

This article was originally posted on The Verge Forums. Click here to see it, and be sure to participate in the ensuing discussion.

Android has a problem. Actually, Android has several problems. (Don’t freak out, its okay. Every platform has several problems.) Many of them we already know about. The half-baked Google TV. The lack of cohesion across different Android devices. Apple. Windows 8 with Metro. These are but a few (and likely the biggest) challenges the platform is facing going forward. But this post isn’t a list of problems. This post is the start of a conversation about how to fix them.

Step 1. Do you have an awesome product? Yes? Then act like it!

Google consistently and unfailingly underestimates itself. Or maybe it doesn’t, but it just acts like it does. Either way, Google constantly releases what has the potential to be amazing, to the least fanfare ever. Today, Apple did this. Sorry Google, but as modest as you may be, you need to do this to. You know why everyone (read: your parents, grandparents, and babies, not your fan boy buddy) thinks Apple products are so great? One reason is that they are great. But we’ll come back to that. The other reason is that Apple makes it a point to make sure it tells everyone how fantastic Apple products are. When Apple says it, and says it as passionately as they do, people believe it. Google doesn’t even begin to do this, and it makes a big difference. Fill a room with press and get them live blogging your biggest announcements. Create some hype. Just as importantly though, get to work creating products worth hyping!

Step 2. Sell products worth hyping!

The good news on this front is that Google is already part of the way there. They have some awesome products already, and are telling us all that they’re working on more. (See this. Unified Google and Android gaming is a great idea, even if everyone isn’t on G yet. This is the right mindset.) We need more though. At their event, Apple announced iPhoto. Its really, really nice. Combined with an iPhone and iCloud, it gets even cooler. Take 100 photos with your phone on vacation, edit them on your iPad. No syncing, and you don’t even need to own a PC to do any of it. Pretty incredible.

So why can’t Google pull this off? The short answer is…They can. Gallery on Ice Cream Sandwich syncs to G and Picasa, has awesome editing capabilities, and the cameras on Android phones just keep getting nicer. In fact, Gallery includes some great photo editing capabilities, and Movie Studio does a heck of a job, even if it doesn’t have every feature in the world, of quickly and simply editing movies on your phone or tablet. Calendar and Gmail are integrated well, and Google Docs seems to be slowly improving. All these things keep power users (like those reading this post) happy, but normal people see Apple’s announcements and fall in love with the products. From iWork to iLife, it all works well, and similarly, across every Apple device, and they have to have it. They love that no matter what device they do their work on, their pictures and movies are there. In closing, Google needs to compete better with the actual suite of products, as well as with their integration. Which brings me to my next point.

Step 3. Make Google Drive happen, and soon. (And it better be your answer to iCloud, not just DropBox.)

iLife on the iPad, from iPhoto to iMovie, would be nothing without content. And with no SD card (and many people not wanting to use their tablet as a full blown camera) there would be no content. iCloud though, changes all of that. iCloud means that you can take all your movies and pictures on your iPhone, and edit them on your iPad. Then email it to friends from the same place.

Google can do this, and they can do it better (heck, emailing those files out of Gmail is a major step up over doing it out of Mail.) They can do this by releasing Google Drive to the public, and changing a couple small things. First of all, everything on your Drive is private, and you can share what you want, manually. Think Google Docs sharing. You take a picture with your Android phone and it uploads automatically. Not to G (unless you install the G app and select the auto option update for that service) but to your Google Drive. Now you can access those files from your computer for whatever you’d like. They should upload at full resolution. You should be able to buy extra storage, but the first 5 or 10 gigs minimum should be free. All your Docs should be in your Drive. All your Music and Movies should be too. (By the way, I’m not diving in to it here, but part of fixing the suite is fixing Google Music. It feels completely disparate from the rest of the ecosystem, like Gmail and Docs.) Everything should be part of your Drive, and you should be able to access it over the web, at drive.google.com, just like the other web apps. Make it beautiful, make it sexy, make it automatic and fool proof, and sell the hell out of it. Tell everyone how it will improve their lives. Simply.

4. Google TV can beat Apple TV, feature for feature. And it can do it now. Freakin’ tell people!

To be fair, to make it really compete, Google needs more complete content. Seriously though. You’re Google. Make it happen, get better content. GTV already has Netflix and a browser. And with Google Drive, I should be able to start a movie on a car ride home (in which I’m a passenger) then get home and finish the movie no Google TV. Can I do this today? Possibly. But I have no clue. Because Google hasn’t told me enough to help me decide if I should go buy a Google TV. And if I can’t, I should really be able to.

5. Just like people need to be better informed, they need to be less confused.

There are some things Google does, as part of its culture, that just aren’t as well suited for a product when a product is selling in the hundreds of thousands of units per day range. For instance, when Android 5 comes out, don’t ever refer to it as Jelly Bean. Geeks love product code names. Normal people like things that are easy to understand, and they buy things that are easy to remember. Android 5. That is all you need to call it. People need to think “Android 5. It comes after 4, so its better, probably has more features, and its probably faster.” Not “Android 5.0 Jelly Bean. It might be the newest one, its might be good enough for what I need. When does the new version of the iPhone come out?”

To close this out, I know this isn’t everything they need to do. Not even close. But I think its the most important things, at least from a consumer’s perspective. Integrate. Simplify. Communicate. These three things could make a world of difference for Google’s ecosystem, and make people fall in love with their ecosystem, rather than just use it because its cheap. Or has Gmail. Or any other of the single, easily quantifiable reasons people use Android. Google needs people to get emotional and start loving Google, and these steps are would be a great start.

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

“ Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

-Steve Jobs

So…This is huge. Looks like we’ve finally got what appears to be a concrete release date for the Droid Bionic by Motorola. Even crazier than having it though, is the date itself – August 4th. While everyone was basically expecting this phone some time this summer, late August was the general consensus.

Furthermore, the Bionic was delayed, delayed, and delayed some more, leaving us all half-expecting it to not be out until fall. With a normal phone delayed this much, we’d be a little wary of the specs, as all too often a phone’s release will be pushed back due to contract negotiations or some other business function, and the phone won’t be updated in the meantime. Then, when the phone releases, its specs are already out of date. The Bionic though, appears to be a different story. Supposedly, the Bionic was delayed when the iPhone 4 came out, in order to be able to better compete with what Motorola felt will be the Bionic’s competition, which we hope Moto knows is the iPhone 5.

For the ridiculously good specs on the phone, click through to the full story!

When the Bionic was originally announced, it had decent specs. A dual-core, 1GHz processor was running the show, with Android 2.2 on board. Now though, specs have been slightly revamped, and are rumored to be as follows:

• 4G LTE running on Verizon Wireless
• 1GHz-1.2GHz dual-core processor, either Nvidia’s Tegra 2 or the new OMAP by Texas Instruments
• 512MB of Ram
• Nvidia GeForce Ultra low power GPU
• 4.5″ qHD screen
• 8MP rear facing camera with Dual LED flash
• VGA Front facing camera for video chat

We told you last week that Verizon was going to start carrying Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in July, and it looks like we’ve got even more news coming your way regarding the iPad 2′s big competitor.

Samsung has now made it official that the tablet will be available in the UK in both 3G and Wifi variations on August 4th, 2011 in stores across the UK. Launching with Android’s newest Honeycomb OS (3.1) and a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processer, the UK version will also rock an HSPA 3G radio, or if you’re in the US, 4G.

Check out the links above to remind yourself about all that is the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and then tell us, will you be picking one up? Or are you waiting for the next, next big thing?

Yes, you’re right, it has taken way too long, but after well over a year of waiting, it looks like there may finally be word of a native Facebook app for iPad coming our way designed by the actual Facebook team.

While Facebook has always had apps for the iPhone, Android, and even the lowly Blackberry, iPad users have been left out in the cold. Using either Facebook.com, which works but isn’t at all optimized for touch, or one of several third party apps available (like Friendly for Facebook,) iPad users haven’t had a perfect way to use the site. Thankfully though, the New York Times’ Nick Bolton seems to have picked up on some info that says that should all be changing soon.

Check the read link for the rest of the scoop!

According to Bolton, “The app has been in production at Facebook for almost a year, going through several design iterations, and is now in the final stages of testing, according to these people, who declined to be named because they were discussing confidential product plans.”

This leads us to believe that not only is the app on its way, but also that it should be here pretty soon. With most products, but software in particular, once the final stages of testing have been started, you’re looking at months, or very often only weeks, until some sort of release is at hand. Additionally, Bolton writes that a source who works with Facebook said that Mark Zuckerberg himself has been “heavily invested in the process, overseeing design decisions and the app’s unique features.”

If that is the case, and Zuckerberg himself hands his hands in the app, this may be the best native Facebook app to date, for any platform. (And it should be, since we’ve been waiting all this time to have an app that really takes advantage of the tablet form factor.

One interesting question that we don’t seem to have an answer to is whether or not the app will be compatible with both iPad versions, or just the iPad 2. While it seems easy enough to develop it for both, there are some differences for an app like Facebook that could make the answer unclear, the biggest of which is the cameras. The iPad 2 has front and rear facing cameras, which we can assume the app will take full advantadge of, allowing you to post photos and videos to your Profile, as this is a core function of Facebook. However, on the original iPad, lacking both cameras, will the functionality just not exist? Will we only be able to upload media from the Photo gallery? Only time will tell!

Let us know what you think about those questions, and any others you might have, in the comments below!

Source: New York Times

So a quick summary of a few different rumors around the Internet…We saw an interesting amalgamation of news this week surrounding the supposed “Nexus 4G,” including some crazy specs, and a potential release period.

While Google hasn’t really mentioned anything about a new Nexus device (and of course neither have any carriers) we have assumed one is forthcoming. With the success of the prior two Nexus devices, and Google’s constant desire to put skinless Android on a fast, marketable device, you can pretty well count on a new Nexus phone every once in a while.

For more on the phone, including hardware, and some interesting software specs, hit up the read link!

Software

So here’s what we’ve gleaned from a variety of sources…If this phone exits as its rumored to, its going to be a doozie. On the software side, like other Nexus devices, the Nexus 4G will be rocking stock Android. No skin to weigh your phone down means a faster device, as well as significantly faster updates, because you can put whatever stock image Google releases onto the phone, rather than waiting for your phone’s manufacturer to update their skin to work with the new operating system. Not only will it not be skinned, but its also rumored to be tested with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich, if you’re keeping track of Google’s code names.) Android 4.0 should bring many improvements, including an updated user interface, better Google Apps (like Music and Gmail) and no hardware buttons to speak of. While we can say with pretty good confidence that the Nexus 4G will have a power button and volume rocker, that’s about it. Android 4.0 does away with the four hardware buttons Android users are used to, opting instead to feature all touchscreen based navigation. But guess what? that’s not the only big hardware news for the Nexus 4G!

Hardware

So no, there won’t be any buttons on the phone’s face. Hardware wise this may be the most striking difference between the Nexus 4G and all pervious Android phones. But let’s not forget the inside of the phone, because while visually the buttons will make the phone look different, this thing continues to shine under the hood.

The rumors are that the Nexus 4G will bring all of the following to the table:

• 4G LTE support (Hoping for Verizon, but this phone seems like a Sprint device…)
• Dual-Core processor, possibly up to 1.5GHz
• 1GB of RAM (unlike our buddy the Droid 3)
• A true 720p HD screen
• 5MP rear facing camera
• 1MP front facing camera
• 1080p video capture and playback

As you can see, these are some sick specs, particularly if we see a dual-core 1.5GHz processor in this sucker. Alongside that 1GB of RAM, this phone will be a big step toward having an actual computer in your pocket. If it ends up having HDMI out to let you plug right into a TV, this will be a multimedia powerhouse for sure.

Release

This is pretty great. Rumor has it we’re looking at a Thanksgiving release. Makes sense in order to make a Christmas release, which will definitely up the ante on sales. Additionally, since its running stock Android, there won’t be a ton of modification that will need to be done to the phone prior to release. Hopefully who ever is doing the hardware manufacturing (looks like the work of either LG or Samsung, and Samsung produced the last Nexus device) will be able to keep up, and we’ll see the Nexus 4G this year!

Source: This is my next…, TechNewsWorld

Droid-Life was reporting last week that a Verizon Wireless rep had announced that Samsung’s Galaxy S II would be available through the carrier come July. Well, it looks like the rep was mistaken, and that wasn’t quite the case. What is face, however, is that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (head here for our details on this new Samsung tablet…) from Samsung will be for sale come July, and frankly, this news is just as good.

Giving us no exact date is a little annoying, but who are we to complain? If you recall, we’re talking about the thinnest tablet on the market to date, a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and Google’s Honeycomb 3.1, making it right on par with Motorola’s fully updated Xoom, but right from out of the box.

So are you waiting until July for your tablet purchase, or do you already have an iPad 2 anyway? Let us know in the comments, or give us a shout on Twitter!

Source: Droid-Life

Guess what? Like we reported on earlier this month, the HTC Sensation is available today at T-Mobile. If you remember, the Sensation has been up for sale in Walmart stores for 3 days now, but is now available at T-Mobile storefronts nationwide. Even better yet, if you order online, you’ll get a $50 discount right off the top, bringing the phone down to match Walmart’s final price of $150.

Just as a refresher, the Sensation is one of the hottest phones available, with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 4.3″ qHD screen, and HCT’s Sense 3.0 skin. The phone’s got super specs, and should a ridiculous phone to review. We’re trying to get our hands on one to review, so hang tight and keep your eye out for our take on the hottest phone on the block right now.

What do you think of the Sensation? Are you a T-Mo customer, and if so, will you be picking one up?

Source: Engadget