Last year, Facebook’s mobile apps received flak for uploading numbers of cell phone contacts without intimating the user. Unfortunately, it now appears that this practise is a lot more prevalent than most of us could have anticipated.

Earlier today, Arun Thampi discovered that the new social network Path is also doing pretty much the same thing. He made this startling discovery by snooping on the API requests made by Path’s iOS app with the help of a man-in-the-middle proxy tool. Thampi found that as soon as you create a new account or log into Path’s iOS app, your entire contact list is uploaded to its servers. Everything including your contacts’ name, email address, and phone number is silently uploaded over HTTPS, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Soon after, Mark Chang uncovered that location sharing social network Hipster also grabs your contact list. However, Hipster is even more callous with your personal data. It transmits email addresses from your phone’s address book to its servers without even bothering to encrypt them.

Path uploading user’s address book

After the news broke, Path’s CEO Dave Morin apologized to users and offered the following statement.

We actually think this is an important conversation and take this very seriously. We upload the address book to our servers in order to help the user find and connect to their friends and family on Path quickly and efficiently as well as to notify them when friends and family join Path. Nothing more.

We believe that this type of friend finding & matching is important to the industry and that it is important that users clearly understand it, so we proactively rolled out an opt-in for this on our Android client a few weeks ago and are rolling out the opt-in for this in 2.0.6 of our iOS Client, pending App Store approval.

As Morin explains, social networking apps like Path have a valid reason for requiring access to your address book. However, there is simply no excuse for failing to intimate the user about the same. Heck, Path and Hipster doesn’t even mention this in their FAQ, which most services use for covering their back while performing shady activities. The good thing is that Path has already rectified its mistake. In the latest version of its Android app, contact upload is opt-in, and the iPhone users will also get the same treatment as soon as Apple approves the latest update. Meanwhile, if you don’t want Path to have a copy of your phone book, you can request the deletion of data from its servers by sending a mail to service@path.com.

Update: Path 2.0.6 for iOS is now available in the App Store.

As I mentioned upfront, this practice is way more widespread than any of us could have imagined. Hacker News readers have already identified the same behavior in Beluga and Kik Messenger. Earlier today, Aurora Feint got delisted from the App Store for transmitting address book as plain text. However, with Feint, at least this is strictly opt-in.

Address book is something most users treat as extremely sensitive information, and it’s high time that the industry realizes that. Android does notify the user during installation, if the app accesses the address book. However, most users simply don’t have the habit of paying attention to the “Permissions” screen while installing apps. Moreover, there is no reason to conclude that if an app is reading contact data, it is uploading the same to its servers without permission. On the other hand, Apple, which often positions its App Store as more secure, gives apps full access to the address book without even requiring any additional permission.

One thing that Morin is right about is that this is an extremely important conversation. Hopefully, people will not just move on after expressing their knee-jerk reaction. An iOS app called MobileSubstrate that will alert users every time an app tries to access the phonebook is already under development for jailbroken devices. Ideally though, Apple and Google should take responsibility, and do a better job at protecting the user’s privacy. Perhaps, they should even consider changing their APIs to force apps into explicitly seeking permission before accessing the address book.

Motorola has just announced its latest 4G LTE sporting phone for Verizon’s network, the Droid 4. The handset might come as a surprise to many since the Droid 3 has been available for hardly 7 months now.

The Droid 4 is based on the RAZR’s chassis, along with a five-row QWERTY keyboard. Motorola is dubbing the Droid 4 as the thinnest QWERTY packing 4G LTE compatible handset in the market right now.

Other than the thinness and the support for 4G LTE network, the Droid 4 shares similar internals to the Droid 3. The handset packs in a 4-inch qHD (640×960) display, a 1.2Ghz dual-core OMAP processor with PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 1 GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. All the other usual features like Wi-Fi, HDMI out, GPS, Bluetooth and sensors are also present.

At the back of the Droid 4 is an 8MP camera aided by an LED flash, which is capable of recording videos in 1080p HD resolution. The 1.3MP front-facing camera is also capable of recording videos in 720p HD resolution. The Droid 4 will run on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread out of the box with a new version of MotoBLUR, which is nothing short of disappointing. Motorola should have launched the Droid 4 with Ice Cream Sandwich on-board, and not Gingerbread.

The Droid 4 is barely an update over Droid 3, and adds to the list of ‘less quality and more quantity’ handsets from Motorola. Looks like Motorola already forgot their promise of releasing fewer phones in 2012.

The Droid 4 will be available from Feb. 10th in all the retail Verizon stores for $199.99 on a two-year contract.

Now that we’re well into 2012, we’ve caught a glimpse of upcoming smartphones at CES and Mobile World Congress is just around the corner, we stop to ask: what direction are smartphones really heading? What trends are we faced with and what new technologies will we see in 12 to 24 months from now?

This guest post aims to answer these questions and briefly discusses the emerging trends and upcoming technologies that will give us a glimpse of the future evolution of the smartphone.

Smartphones go on a diet
Look at the massive success of the Samsung Galaxy S2 and you’ll know that thinner is better. Huawei has gone one step further with the announcement of the Huawei P1 S at an incredible 6.68mm thick. Expect to see Samsung fight back in the sveltness department with the Galaxy S3 however.

Faster Processors
Dual-core processors on a phone? Now quad-core? I remember when computers ran at 20 megahertz! One thing is for sure though; phones will find a way to consume this power, and gaming will be the way. With Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core monster and Intel’s Medway processor, phones are speeding up at an accelerating rate.

Bigger, Brighter Screens
How large is too large? One should look towards the Samsung Galaxy Note for that answer. Last year we saw many screen sizes creep up to 4.3 inches. Now with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus at 4.65 inches and the HTC Edge at 4.7 inches, the average is increasing. Add hi-def and Super AMOLED to all these monsters, and brighter and bigger is better.

Games Galore
As processors are becoming more powerful, people are ditching their gaming consoles and using their smartphones for a bit of game escapism. People with kids are well too aware of this with the regular ‘dad, can I play on your phone?’ on the way home from school. Proper phone gaming has arrived.

Cloud Storage
Once the IT industry’s favourite buzzword, “The Cloud” has now shifted over to the smartphone world. China’s Alibaba has the Aliyun Cloud OS, Apple has the iCloud, BlackBerry has a Cloud based music service and Android constantly syncs with Google’s Cloud based services. The smartphone Clouds are gathering.

Better Battery Life
Manufacturers are finally responding to consumers needs and shipping with larger batteries. Companies like Huawei are even talking about using their cell-mast infrastructure expertise to further optimise phone battery life. Expect tweaks and tune-ups, but don’t expect to go back to the good ‘ole days of charging once a week.

Cheaper Phones
As we saw at CES 2012, China is taking on the world with cheap smartphones from the likes of ZTE and Huawei. Competition can only be a good thing and this means millions of consumers from both eastern and western markets will soon be able to afford the latest smartphones.

Cameras
Optical zooming on smartphone is still a thing of fantasies, but megapixels are increasing. Look at the HTC Titan with its 16 megapixel and we can all see where this trend is heading. How many more mega pixels do we need though?

=== About the Author ===
Bryan Hunter is the founder of Phone Tips and Tricks which provides the world’s largest database of tips and tricks for smartphones and tablets. Bryan is based in London, UK and regularly writes about the mobile phone industry.

Google just released Chrome, one of the most popular Desktop browsers out there, for one of the most popular mobile OS in the market, Android.

Chrome for Android is still in Beta, like any other Google product is when it is initially launched, but is feature packed to the brim. The Android version of Chrome comes with all the features, which we find in its desktop counterpart, including speed, syncing features and simplicity.

Chrome for Android automatically loads your top few Google search results in the background for faster browsing, has a URL/Search omnibox, comes with a UI, which is specifically made for small-screen phones, card view, and makes use of intuitive gestures. The Link Preview feature in Chrome for Android will make it easier for users to select a particular link out of thousands of them in a page, much more easier.

The best feature of Chrome for Android is its syncing ability. By syncing Chrome for Android with the same email ID they use on the desktop version, users can view their open tabs, sync their bookmarks, get smarter auto-fill suggestion and much more. Other features of Chrome for Android include Remote Debugging, GPU accelerated, 3D transforms, Full screen API, binary screenshots and much more.

Sadly, all this goodness comes at a price. Chrome for Android is only available for Ice Cream Sandwich running handsets and tablets, and only in selected regions of the world. If your handset/tablet is already running Ice Cream Sandwich, you can download Chrome for Android (beta) from here.

Nokia has started rolling out the much-awaited and hyped, Nokia Belle update for its Symbian Anna handsets. The update brings significant UI improvements to Symbian handsets, along with some new features.

Users can now have up to 6 home screens, resizable widgets, new notification bar, an improved camera app, and a much-improved browser. The update also installs some Microsoft apps on your Symbian handsets, like MS OneNote and Lync, which would be appreciated by workaholics. Nokia also states that Belle would bring a noticeable improvement in the performance of older Symbian handsets. The update also includes many other minor and major changes, which would be appreciated by long-term Symbian users.

The Belle update is being rolled out for all older-generation Symbian^3 handsets including the Nokia N8, E7, C7, C6-01, and the Oro. The Nokia 500 will get its Belle update sometime in the next few weeks.

The Nokia Belle update is already available in majority of markets including India, Russia, UAE, Poland, Germany, Italy and Indonesia. Readers can check out whether the Belle update is available for their handset in their region or not via this page from Nokia.

The Belle update is not being rolled out via OTA (Over-The-Air). Instead, users need to use the latest version of Nokia’s PC Suite to install the update on their handset.

Last week, we learnt that the eagerly awaited Galaxy S3 won’t be making an appearance at the Mobile World Congress, which will be held in Barcelona towards the end of this month. However, we were hopeful that the latest and greatest Galaxy device will hit the shelves before the end of first half of 2012. Now, South Korea’s Electronic Times News has published a new report that backs this up.

ET News believes that the first quad-core powered behemoth from Samsung will be released in May. As you might expect from Samsung, there are multiple variations of the Galaxy device in the pipeline, including a 3D version and one with a touch pen. ET also divulged some of the other specifications of the Galaxy S3. The S3 will feature an 8 megapixel rear and a 2 megapixel front camera, SAMOLED Plus display, 2GB RAM, and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). However, the S3 isn’t simply about mighty specs. Measuring in at 7mm, the next-gen flagship from Samsung is also rumored to have killer looks.

Samsung has witnessed spectacular success in the smartphone segment with the Galaxy S and S2. However, it will face stiffer challenge this year. The iPhone 5 is expected to be a significant overhaul that should hit the market around about the same time as the S3. 2012 should be an extremely interesting year for smartphone enthusiasts.

After a disastrous Q4 of 2011, HTC is all set to bounce back in 2012. The company has promised to release a true “hero” handset this year. The rumored HTC Ville might just be that.

Rumors about the Ville leaked quite a few months back, but until now no one knew how the phone would look. Now, one guy over at ameblo has managed to get his hands on the Ville, and has posted some pictures for other readers to see.

The Ville is going to be the thinnest handset from HTC, and will come with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor and a 4.3-inch qHD (640×960) display. From the leaked screenshots, the Ville seems to be running Sense 3.0 with Ice Cream Sandwich, which does not sound good. I know it is not the final version of the handset or the software, but I definitely hope the Ville does not run an older version of Sense out of the box.

What is also worrying to see is that the Ville comes with a 4.3-inch screen with qHD resolution. 2012 is going to be about Android handsets with 720p displays, and I definitely don’t think anyone would be interested in buying a high-end Android handset with qHD resolution.

I also hope that the Ville does not come with the same 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor that HTC used on the Sensation XE and a few other handsets. Nothing less than a dual/quad-core Krait would suffice for the next-generation high-end handset from HTC.

Looking at its spec sheet, the only thing I can hope for right now is that the Ville is not HTC’s flagship handset at MWC, otherwise a lot of people will be disappointed!

(Source)

HTC had already lowered its Q4, 2011 earnings expectations, and it did so with a good reason. For the last quarter of 2011, the company saw its revenue fell by a whopping 2.49% year-on-year and by more than 25% compared to the Q3 of 2011.

The company had already released its Q4 earning last month, but has again released its revised audited earnings today. The company’s consolidated revenue fell by a whopping 52.88% Y-o-Y (Year-on-Year). The Taiwanese manufacture expects a weaker Q1 of 2012 as well, due to “product cycle transition”. HTC’s CFO, Winston Yung, also said that the company “dropped the ball” with its over-sized and thick LTE handsets, which offered poor battery life. The company’s gross profit margin also fell continuously throughout the year.

HTC had literally spammed the market with similar, thick and over-sized handsets, which performed poorly and had extremely poor battery life. I am glad to see that HTC finally realized its mistake, and is working on rectifying it.

HTC expects to release a true ‘’hero’’ device in 2012, and release quality handsets over quantity. The company will release its next-generation handsets at MWC (Mobile World Congress) at Barcelona, next month.

Software updates are raining in for Android handsets. After the Atrix 2, Samsung Infuse 4G and the LG Optimus 3D, its now the turn of the Motorola’s Verizon Droid RAZR and RAZR MAXX to receive a software update. And No, its not the Ice Cream Sandwich update, RAZR owners are hoping for.

The software update carries the version number 6.12.173 and is being rolled out for the Droid RAZR as well as the RAZR MAXX. Technically, both the handsets are just the same, and in fact run on the same software version as well.

Below is the full change-log of the update via AndroidPolice -:

Applications:
+  Mobile Hotspot will now successfully allow other devices to connect to all
Internet websites.
+  Improvements in the Mobile Hotspot security.
+  VZ Navigator® has been updated with the latest 3D map improvements.
+  Visual Voice Mail Updates:
•  Visual Voice Mail messages can be marked as read.
•  Visual Voice Mail message playback resumes when audio is switched
to speaker.
•  Visual Voice Mail will successfully subscribe or unsubscribe while
connected with Wi-Fi.
•  Successfully press back key after playback in Visual Voice Mail
without error.
+  V CAST App now comes preloaded.
+  MotoCast installation steps have been improved for easier use.
Data Connectivity:
+  Improved stability of data connectivity after Airplane Mode is disabled.
+ Improved data throughput performance in low-signal 4G environments.
Device Operation:
+  Improved Battery life when using Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP)
Bluetooth® headsets.
+  Successfully save multimedia ringtones.
+  Favorite Contacts widget has been updated.
+  Improved device stability when moving between home screen panels.
+  Email icon has been updated for improved visibility.
+  When performing an Over the Air (OTA) update, the display will correctly
show the remaining download time.
+  CMAS (Commercial Mobile Alert Service) feature has been added.

As it can be seen from the change-log above, the update mainly brings enhancements to the Visual Voicemail service, along with updating some bloatware from Verizon and improving the overall stability of the phone.

The update is being rolled out via OTA, and should hit your RAZR/RAZR MAXX sometime in the next couple of weeks. While Motorola has not specified any particular date, the Droid RAZR/RAZR MAXX should get the Ice Cream Sandwich update by the end of Q1 or early Q2.

In the last few months, numerous companies, which sell anti-malware and anti-virus apps, have published reports stating that the Malware on Android phones are on the rise. According to them, many apps that are added to the Android Market daily are infected with Malware. These reports made it look like Android is getting less secure with every passing day.

Today, Google has revealed its new service, codenamed Bouncer, which automatically scans the Android Market for apps, which are potentially malware or are, infected, and silently removes them. The service is already active since quite “a while now”, and according to Google this led to a 40% decrease in the number of potentially malicious app in the Android Market. The Bouncer service will perform a set of analysis on new applications, scan them for any potential thread, and if found removes them immediately. The service also analyses the developer accounts for any suspicious activity. Google also highlighted some of the core security features present in Android, which make the OS less prone to malware infection.

Hopefully, this move from Google will lead to a reduction in the number of malicious apps in the Android Market.