The interactive experience is designed around four titles in the Penguin English Library, a new collection of 100 of the best novels written in English. Using the Zappar augmentend reality app readers will be able to access a range of exclusive material including animations of Coralie Bickford-Smith’s illustrated covers, video, audio and extracts.

The free Zappar app is available now from the Google Play Store. Simply launch it then point your phone at the cover of one of the supported books to view the content. Moby Dick and Lady Audley’s Secret are initially available, with two further books to be added later in the year.

The goal of the Hope Relay is to encourage everyone around the world to take part in the Olympic Games and leave a lasting legacy. For every mile those taking part complete, Samsung will donate £1 to the designated charities.

To join in you need only download the Hope Relay app, upload a photo, and for every mile completed, GPS technology tracks the distance you run and records your results.

Pictures of those taking part will also be displayed on the huge screen of the Hope Relay caravan during the Olympic Torch relay which travels the lenght and breadth of the country for 70 days, starting on 19 May.

The company’s figures show that HTC and Samsung are dominating Android handset market sales, holding 86% share between them, and that the HTC One X has already moved into the top 10 of best-selling phones in the UK over the last twelve weeks. The impending launch of the Samsung Galaxy S III is expected to continue Android’s surge over the summer.

The success of HTC and Samsung comes at the expense of other manufacturers, however. Sony’s share of the market stands at 10.4%, despite the release of the generally well-received Xperia S. LG holds less than 1%.

In both cases the challenge is for manufacturers to convince their featurephone users to upgrade to smartphones, something only 11% of Sony users and 4% of LG users have done.

Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “With smartphone penetration in the UK at 53.1%, the pool of featurephone users left to trade up is beginning to diminish. This means that smartphone manufacturers need to step up their game and find ways of stealing consumers from their competitors – something that usually proves harder than convincing existing customers to trade up from featurephone to smartphone.”

Android is taking an increasingly strong hold on the market across Europe. In Spain it holds a 72.3% market share, with year-on-year growth of 39.5%, while growth hit 29.3% and 27.2% in Italy and Germany respectively.

Which is better – HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S III? Read our hands-on report.

Samsung Galaxy S III quad-core processor

The Galaxy S III is packing Samsung’s very own quad-core Exynos chip, clocked in at 1.4 GHz. The power behind this is phenomenal, and many believe the chip is more battery-efficient than the quad-core TEGRA 3 chip. Either way, the S III should have enough power to tackle even the most power hungry of apps, and hopefully not at the expense of the battery life that has been questionable on similar devices.

Samsung Galaxy S III display

Bigger is certain better in the case of the Galaxy S III. A might 4.8″ Super AMOLED HD screen lines nearly the entire face of the S III, meaning that every pixel should look its best. Colours look sharp and app icons look crisp and clear. If you can get past the plastic shell of the device, then you’ll instantly fall in love with the screen.

Samsung Galaxy S III TouchWiz

Samsung have stuck with their faithful TouchWiz interface, but have utilised a few subtle changes alongside it. Menus are easier to navigate with TouchWiz being stripped back to its most simplest form. A more interactive lock screen has been introduced, and the voice search integration has been revamped.

Samsung Galaxy S III AllShare Cast

One of the features within the S III that has hit the headlines is AllShare Cast. This gives its users the ability to stream their content remotely to other devices. Is isn’t just phones that benefit from this, with content from your S III being able to be streamed to your PC and TV through it.

Samsung Galaxy S III camera

Although the amount of megapixels hasn’t increased, the camera interface has been completely revamped to offer users the easiest photo taking yet. 8-megapixels should be enough to keep the most snap-happy person satisfied.

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The Samsung Galaxy S III is set for release at the end of the month. Will you be buying one?

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They’re the two biggest Android phones of the year, and the Galaxy S III and the HTC One X share many things in common: 720p screen, quad-core processor, high-quality camera and more. So how do you decide which is the right phone for you?

Design and build

There’s little between the two in size. The S3 is 2mm taller, a touch wider and a little lighter, and includes a slightly larger display (4.8″ as compared to 4.7″). Both devices feel great in the hand but the One is noticeably superior in both design and build quality, carved from a single polycarbonate block, while the S3 continues Samsung’s tradition of plasticky build.

Interestingly Samsung has kept the Menu button that Google is trying to phase out of Android. HTC removed this in favour of a task switching button, which results in a virtual menu button appearing at the bottom of the screen in many apps, one of the complaints we noted in our One X review.

Winner: HTC One X

Screen

Both the S3 and One X have a 720p display. The pixel density on the S3 is 306ppi compared to 312pii on the One X. The One X screen is Super IPS LCD2, and is sharper, crisper and brighter than the S3, but with its backlight also consumes an enormous amount of power. The S3 screen is Super AMOLED, which offers darker blacks and uses less power in most conditions.

The S3 has a pentile display, which does not always prove popular due to the way it can give text the appearance of jagged edges, although at this high pixel density you would be hard pushed to notice it in real world use.

Winner: HTC One X (although it’s a close call)

Software

The Galaxy S3 runs Ice Cream Sandwich with TouchWiz for the UI, which is bright and not altogether classy (Samsung has even replaced the default Roboto font from ICS). The most unique feature is the phone’s ability to adapt to how you’re using it – eye tracking software will detect whether you’re looking at the phone and keep the screen awake (such as when you’re reading an ebook), and there’s an app called S Voice that is best seen as Samsung’s version of Apple’s Siri voice recognition service.

The HTC One X runs Ice Cream Sandiwch with Sense UI. This is more stripped back and refined than TouchWiz, with a greater emphasis placed on the functionality. The key features are in the camera app, with the ability to shoot photos and videos simultaneously or extract still images from video. Some of these features have now found their way into the S3.

Winner: Draw

Camera

Both phone sport eight megapixel cameras. The One X is equipped with a dedictaed imaging chip which enables fast performance and near instant focussing. Samsung hasn’t done anything new on the physical camera spec, but has brought the zero-shutter lag feature over from the Galaxy Nexus. In our tests both are very fast and responsive, with quality about the same across the two.

Winner: Draw

Battery

One of the key differentiators is in the two companies approaches to battery life. The One X has a non-replaceable 1800mAh battery; the S3 has a replaceable 2100mAh battery. Although we’ll have to wait to test it properly we would expect the combination of bigger battery and less energy-sapping screen on the Galaxy S3 to give it a clear advantage.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy SIII

Features

Both phones have similar feature sets, yet on balance Samsung appears to have made better choices on some of the smaller but no less crucial decisions. The battery is replaceable, there are versions with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB of storage, and there is a microSD card slot to expand this further, and the front facing camera can shoot in HD. In addition there is Samsung’s S Beam service, which combines the Android Beam NFC solution with Wi-Fi to make faster wireless sharing of files a possibility, and AllShare cast, which enables you to stream movies to a TV with ease.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy SIII

ROMs

The One X is already proving a very popular device among the Android modding community with plenty of custom ROMs and tweaks already available. We’d expect the Galaxy S3 to be as popular if not moreso, with ROMs to remove the TouchWiz UI in favour of a vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich build likely to be in high demand.

Winner: Draw

Verdict

There’s no doubt HTC has been a lot more ambitious with the One X. The company had little choice after a pretty disastrous 2011, so had to completely rethink its approach with the One series.

By contrast Samsung has come to the S3 from a position of strength so has been able to be a lot more conservative – everything from the S2 has been upgraded but there’s nothing that is especially new. Both companies have, however, put a lot of thought into the software, and the voice and motion recognition features in the S3 could be very interesting, assuming they work as advertised.

HTC may be the moral winner, then, but the reality is that conservative usually wins out (see, for example, the enormous success of the very incremental update that was the iPhone 4S, compared to the radically different Windows Phone OS that Microsoft and Nokia cannot give away to consumers).

Samsung has built on the things that made the S2 so successful – better screen, better battery life, better software – and there’s no reason why it won’t repeat that success again.

Lightspeed’s research also showed that more than two thirds (69%) of smartphone or tablet owners who use paid-for apps have never paid more than £3 for a single app. The research does show however, that one in ten people have paid more than £5 for an app. Tablet owners spend more on apps than smartphone owners: 19% had spent a whopping £30 or more on them in the past six months alone. Just over one in four (42%) tablet owners had spent less than £10 in total buying apps over the past six months.

Managing director of Lightspeed Research, Ralph Risk says: “With the different content usage and take-up rates on smartphones compared to tablets, brands and marketers need to ensure that they are providing apps that meet the different needs of consumers when using those two devices, be that business, gaming or social.”

We also review the two stunning new devices from HTC, the One X and the One S, as well as show you how to de-Google your phone.

Also inside:

• Would Android be better off without Google?
• Get Hollywood movies on your phone
• Killer apps, including Instagram and Google Currents
• Guide to travelling with Android
• Unlock an HTC phone
• How to improve your IQ with apps
• Tablet group test
• and much more!

Android Magazine issue 11 is on sale now from all good newsagents, and you can also buy online. Or to ensure you never miss a copy of the world’s best Android magazine subscribe today!

And don’t forget – Android Magazine is now available on Zinio.

Visit the Android Magazine pages on Zinio to buy a single issue or a 13 issue subscription that will save you 15% off the newsstand price.

Shot Control

Shot Control is designed more specifically towards serious photographers; aiming to help them take the perfect shot. You can adjust the white balance of shots, as well as mess around with the flash, exposure and colour levels of each shot. The app is getting updated frequently, so you’ll always have the latest features onboard.

Price: £1.25/$2.02

Version: 2.1 +

Rating: 4/5

Imgur

Imgur is the ultimate anonymous image sharing app, allowing users to get rid of the standard account system and instead upload and share their images with anyone and everyone. Multiple images can be uploaded at any one time, and the gallery of images can be altered to suit your style. There’s even a direct link to the Imgur desktop site.

Price: Free

Version: 2.0+

Rating: 4/5

Instagram

The photography aspects will cater for any novices looking to add a simple effect to one of their photo’s, or seasoned photographers looking for a new way to edit and showcase their work. There are a variety of effects that can be applied, including many colour and light variations.

Price: Free

Version: 2.2+

Rating 5/5

Quickpic

Create slideshows with your photos with this ingenious photo sharing app. There are a good variety of sharing options, and you’ll be able to share all your photos amongst your friends on Facebook, or even your Twitter followers. What makes it different from the rest is being able to password protect your photos so only a select people can see them.

Price: Free

Version: 2.1+

Rating: 3/5

Want to try hacking your Android phone but don’t know where to begin? These 10 quick hacks are the perfect place to start, and can be done by everyone!

Access hidden Android settings

Spare Parts is fast becoming a standard install tool that appears in many custom roms. It provides access to a number of Android settings that would normally be kept hidden away. Using the app it’s possible to tweak windows animations, the wi-fi sleep policy, the screen brightness and plenty more besides. It’s also possible to track what apps are using the most power, essential for pin-pointing a new download that is suddenly draining your battery.

Customise your lock screen

The lockscreen is one of the most viewed parts of the Android system, every time you go to use your phone it’s the first thing you’ll see. With that in mind it stands to reason that you should be able to personalise that aspect of Android as you see fit. WidgetLocker Lockscreen allows you to do just that and with no need to root your device. Sliders can be moved around, added and removed and adjusted to operate a number of non-standard functions.

Boost your handset’s volume

If the volume of your rooted handset is somewhat lacking there are apps out there that can boost the sound above the standard available settings. Volume+ (available in both free and paid versions) offers a range of volume, EQ and stereo boosting settings. As the description in the marketplace states it’s an app that should be used with caution as it could cause damage to your speakers or even worse, your hearing. It is also best used with Cyanogen or MIUI roms, stock rom users should stay away.

Add hardware buttons to the screen

Button Saviour can help preserve faulty hardware keys by adding virtual keys to the display. The keys stay hidden and can be bought into view via a small on-screen trigger. Button Saviour offers a range of themes and customisation options that allow control over where the virtual buttons are located. It’s an odd system at first but with a little time it becomes a useful navigational tool. Button Saviour will only work on rooted devices.

Use root access to clear more cache

For phones with limited internal memory cache can be a real killer for free space. As apps such as Twitter or Facebook are used on a regular basis the cache for each of these grows and the free space shrinks. Standard cache cleaning apps do a fine job of clearing up the free space but CacheMate for Root Users uses root access to clear out more cache than any other app out there. The free version house a simple one click interface whilst the full version adds more cache clearout options.

Recover lost wifi passwords

Have you ever had it when you’ve gone to a friend’s house and you’ve forgotten their wifi password? Using root access Wifi Key Recovery can sniff out any previously entered password and use them to connect to the network. This app doesn’t hack wifi networks nor will it get you access onto newly discovered wireless points. It’s purely a handy fix for those occasions of rejoining a long forgotten wifi connection.

Use your PS3 controller to play Android games

Despite the murky legal issues involved there are a number of Android users out there who enjoy playing old console games on their devices via emulator apps. The only downside is how a touch screen simply doesn’t compare to using a controller. Sixasis Controller is an app that helps to remedy this by allowing a PS3 Sixasis controller to connect to a rooted Android device. As the Marketplace entry says this app isn’t for the faint hearted and does not support all devices so be sure to check ahead before installing.

Run Tegra apps on your Non-Tegra device

The introduction of Tegra devices to the Android portfolio created a notable hullabullo regarding games that would take advantage of the optimised hardware. The downside for non-Tegra owners was the fact that they would miss out on the titles that were deemed ‘Tegra only’. Rooted users can circumvent this restriction by installing Chainfire 3D, an program that “sits between your apps and your graphics drivers”. It’s not an exact science however and some games may not work properly with the plug-ins supplied by Chainfire. Either way, if your device supports it, Chainfire 3D might be worth a look.

Install non-marketplace apps

The Android Marketplace is a great repository for applications but there are also some worthwhile alternatives to try out. The only hurdle is that by default Android refuses to install apps (a.k.a. APK files) that have not been sourced from the Marketplace. To fix this press Menu > Settings > Applications and tick the box next to Unknown Sources. This will allow the installation of apk from other app sources such as GetJar.

Freeze unwanted bloatware

It’s annoying having a great phone ruined by unwanted bloatware. Network locked handsets can be notorious for this. Even the popular MIUI custom rom includes system apps that are of little use outside its home country. Deleting these apps can be problematic as they can be built into the Android eco-system in such a way that removing them could do more harm than good. As an alternative to this, Bloat Freezer can freeze those apps effectively making them invisible to the operating system but without deleting the files. It’s a quick solution to an annoying problem.