Apalon announced the universal application for iOS-powered devices called Pimp Your Screen. As you can imagine from its name, it features a collection of different backgrounds for Home and Lock screens arranged in categories.

Apalon emphasizes this is not just a "mere collection of bright backgrounds for users iPhone, iPod touch or iPad" rather since it was designed with attention to every tiny detail and every element of the GUI, its an app that "simply cannot leave indifferent."

Included in the deal is a variety of Home Screens, Icon Skins, App Shelves and Neon Combos, and with the preview function you can see how the phone will look like prior to tapping the Apply button. However you should know we are not talking about an app for jailbroken device here, hence some limitations do exists due to inability to access all of the phone functions.

Are you one of those users bought an iPad a few days prior to the iPad 2 announcement? Are you frustrated because of the sudden $100 price drop? Well, we cannot blame you though you should have seen it coming! Anyway, Apple thought of a way to fix your disappointment.

Apple will return that $100 to you if your purchase is made after 15 February. The actual requirement is 14-days prior to the iPad 2 event, which amounts to all iPads bought after 16 February. Some of you might consider its still unfair and that Apple should have applied that for all February purchases. And I might agree with you. But it is still better than nothing.

Android has been growing at a wild pace, we all know that, and it's been doing other things too like powering tablets and even making trips to space. For its next trick it looks set to be making its way into cars thanks to Swedish car manufacturer SAAB.

SAAB say they will be installing Android powered infotainment systems in cars from next year. The interesting thing here though, apart from the fact that it is Android, is that it won't be a closed off system like other in-car information/entertainment systems. Rather SAAB are set to provide more than 500 inputs from the vehicle sensors to third party developers so expect to see some crazy stuff appearing!

 The unified charger for all mobiles was proposed back in June 2009 and the European Commission finalized talks with the 14 major manufacturers about the unified charger. The charger has now begun sampling.

Manufacturers are now ready with the sample microUSB chargers and the implementation process has stared based on the specifications everybody agreed on in December 2010. The manufacturers that have signed the agreement are Apple, Emblaze Mobile, Huawei Technologies, LGE, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, SonyEricsson, TCT Mobile (ALCATEL mobile phones), Texas Instruments and Atmel.

Using a common charger will certainly make it easier for all users, which currently have to use to every different phone with a different charger. The environment is sure to benefit from it also, as approximately 4 000 tons of accessories are thrown away by users, yearly.The new common European phone charger should hit the shelves this year. The European Commission has created a dedicated website for the new charger.

BTW if you are wondering what will happen with the proprietary port that Apple seem so keen on, the memorandum on the common charger allows for multimodal charging and also permits any of the companies to use a proprietary socket, as long as it supplies an adapter to charge the device with the universal charger. What that means is that Apple could either add a separate microUSB port on their next iPhone that can do the charging beside the original port, or they can add an adapter that would allow iPhones to be charged with a microUSB charger.

Software porting is pretty common in the world of WinMo and Android while Symbain users have much to catch up. Luckily, there have already been a handful of Symbian smartphones enabled to run other handset’s firmware, including the Nokia 523x family, which has just been treated to the latest Nokia C6 firmware.

Nokia is not one of those companies that stop releasing software updates soon after launching a mobile phone so normally, users just do not need to even think of porting one handset’s firmware to another. All they have to do is wait a bit for the next FW update full of bug fixes to arrive.

Still, in some cases the bugs, are not fixed properly or at all even via the robust update program. This is where ported software comes in handy. And Nokia 5230 is yet another example that FW porting is not a no-go for Symbain-powered smartphones too.