The world's most-used Android app may surprise you

You'd expect to see apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp on top of the most used lists for Android, but this isn't the case. According to app analytics tracking firm Drawbridge, the most used app of Q4 2015 was Clean Master by Cheetah Mobile, a Chinese mobile internet company. Clean Master is an app management platform that promises to "improve your device's performance by cleaning junk files, optimizing device memory, providing complete protections against viruses and managing the apps you installed."

The company targets their app directly at the low level of tech know-how of the average consumer. Plain and simple, most users just want their device to perform fast! Without understanding what the application really does, they see a promising illusion of a 'speedier and cleaner' device. It's hard to blame consumers when the appeal is so great and the marketing and design is done exceptionally well.

Apps like Clean Master may have once been useful but Android has progressed far enough that they are now obsolete, unnecessary, and can be harmful. The Android operating system has it's own native handler for assigning RAM to apps and making sure that all of it is being used in the most optimal way. In fact, Android purposely tries to keep apps loaded into RAM for better performance. Remember, RAM is fast, so on mobile devices every bit of speed is crucial for a good user experience. Therefore, keeping apps in RAM is actually a good thing!

Not only does Android handle RAM assignment, but it also keeps track of background apps, automatically closing or hibernating them so that there isn't a noticeable performance hit for leaving apps loaded in RAM.

App killers, memory boosters, performance enhancers and the like, all claim that freeing up your memory will speed up your device. With current versions of Android, this simply isn't true and actually does quite the opposite. Task killer apps kill other apps which use resources to process. When the operating system restarts those tasks, or other apps to fill the memory again, this takes even more resources. The task killer app kills again and the process repeats itself continuously. Essentially, these apps reduce performance and decrease battery life by restarting apps again and again. It's important to understand that dormant apps on your device don't consume any additional resources (for example, CPU time and battery life) in the first place. Additionally, apps like Clean Master barrage your device with unnecessary notifications, like how a certain app is stealing x-amount of RAM and how another app is violating privacy (without any proof), which often hurt productivity and can be quite distracting and annoying for the user.

Beware of apps that claim to instantly 'breathe new life' into your device. Android's RAM and cache management systems are rock solid. Because these task killer apps clear out even the essential processes of the operating system, restarting them is a big drain on system resources. Whatever speed increase the user feels is purely imaginary which makes this probably the best example of a placebo effect in the Android world. Be sure to check out the Lifehacker article to learn more about task killer apps and alternative ways to increase the performance of your device. For expert advice on technology and Google related assistance, be sure to contact our InterlockIT support team!

Google infiltrates iOS - Googlifying your iPhone/iPad/iPod

We get a lot of requests from novice and veteran Google users alike who want to better integrate the Google experience into their iOS devices. Not all users of Google's massive ecosystem are Android users which makes the Google-on-iOS combination quite appealing if you enjoy Apple's hardware, customer service, and general usability.

If you use an iOS device, replacing Apple's default apps with Google alternatives is now a seamless experience, especially compared to the painful past. It's very easy to do, and if done properly, you'll probably never need to open the default Apple apps ever again. Begin by downloading the Google apps you'll need to begin the 'Google-fication' of your iOS device. Here's a list of some of the most popular ones.

These are just a handful of the many Google apps that can replace most, if not all, of Apple's default apps. Although Apple does not allow you to pick a default app for a specific service, Google has implemented a clever workaround for this: all of Google's apps (and even many third party apps) have an "open in" option that gives you the ability to open links in the intended Google app. For example, this will allow you to open links in Chrome, videos in YouTube, and addresses in Google Maps.

The Google Hangouts setting here shows a list of existing Google apps that links will direct to.

You'll find that nearly all of Google's apps have this setting to some extent, enabling you to stay fully within the Google world. Although this setting allows fluidity between Google apps, you still can't change things like your default email or calendar app, which is an understandable compromise if you fully buy into the plethora of Google's ecosystem.

Google's apps weren't always the best on iOS as they weren't as polished as Apple's were, but in our experience, this has changed and they now far outstrip Apple's default offerings. Google Maps and the Drive suite of apps (Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides) are both great examples of how far Google has come on the iOS platform. Google Maps offers better driving directions than Apple Maps, as well as cycling and transit directions, and navigation inside buildings where supported. Furthermore, Drive is much easier to use for storage than iCloud and offers you access to all of your files without configuring and searching through unnecessary settings. And as you'd expect, Drive automatically opens any files in the appropriate Google app, ignoring Apple's defaults entirely.

With all these Google Apps taking over iOS defaults, there are still a few small drawbacks. Google tends to update its iOS apps more slowly than its Android counterparts. Unless you really need to have the latest updates, this isn't really problematic, but it does mean they won't integrate with the latest iOS features immediately. For example, many Google apps don't have Notification Center support, and none of them have Force Touch support yet. If these aren't of concern to you, then your Google experience on iOS can be near-perfect. 

If you're faithful to iOS, but still want or need to indulge in Google's apps for personal or work reasons, hopefully you now see that Google and iOS can harmoniously coexist. Sometimes, you can have the best of both worlds! Check out this article from LifeHacker to learn about more Google apps and their integration to iOS.

Android wallops Blackberry

Back on March 21, 2010 I blogged about the cost savings of using Android phones.

The Globe and Mail reports that Android phones account for a dominant 44 percent of the consumer smartphone market in Q3 2010

We're big proponents of the cloud because we're saving corporations lots of money on their IT and putting them on a continuous innovation curve; but we'll miss the billable hours from configuring Blackberries. :)

With an Android phone you sign it into your Google Apps account and you're done.  Email, Calendar, and Contact sync starts working immediately.

Tip:  Only buy phones with version 2.1 or greater of the Android OS.  And make sure the manufacturer is going to upgrade it to version 2.2 which is faster and adds flash player support.

In Canada we recommend the Google Nexus One from Videotron, Samsung Galaxy S from Rogers, HTC Desire from Telus, Motorola Milestone from Telus, and the HTC Desire Z from Bell

Enjoy!

Android Phones and the Google Nexus One from HTC

I've now had sufficient time to put the Google One Nexus through its paces and I fully recommend it to all Google Apps customers.  It's a beautiful phone.  Businesses can save big on IT labour because setup is as simple as turning on the phone and signing the user into their Google Apps account.  Everything instantly integrates; email, calendar, and contacts.

Ask your IT department how many hours they spend on Blackberries, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices and drop me an email (or comment if you don't mind making it public).  Since I'm a professional accountant I'm interested in calculating the ROI across a range of samples.

Here's what I now recommend to corporations running Google Apps for phones:

1. Google Nexus One running Android OS 2.1.  End user can completely configure it themselves.  It's unlocked so you can swap your Rogers Sim for an AT&T Sim and save big on roaming charges when you travel.  Only minus is that you need to install EasyTether or PdaNet for modem tethering with your notebook.  The LG Eve didn't require extra software for tethering.  I look forward to testing a phone like the Motorola Droid which has a hardware keyboard to see if the setup is just as simple as the Nexus One.
2. iPhone - You have to carefully read the documentation to get the full experience.  We usually help the IT department do the first few but the integration is excellent and second only to the Android.
3. Blackberry - still the preferred unit for speedy typing of emails on the go but it's really showing its age with too much complexity.  It still integrates wonderfully with Google Apps but the IT department definitely has to configure it for most users to get full email, calendar sync, and contacts sync.