Sony’s PS Vita is the first portable game to come with two joysticks; on the screen, apps are represented by playful bubblelike icons.

This week I tested the newest gaming device that tries to do many of the things a smartphone does, short of making phone calls: Sony’s PlayStation Vita. It has front- and back-facing cameras; a Web browser; a store for downloading movies, TV shows and games; a music player; and an optional AT&T 3G network connection. This spring, Sony plans to add its own music-streaming service, Facebook, Skype and Foursquare. Netflix, Flickr and Twitter apps are slated to work on the device on Wednesday, when it’s available in stores. All these features are still secondary to the main reason a person might plunk down $299 (3G and Wi-Fi capable) or $249 (Wi-Fi) for this device: gaming.

Sony’s PS Vita is the latest move by a portable-game maker to gain some ground back from smartphones. Nintendo’s 3DS, which I reviewed last March, now has a Netflix app and other smartphone characteristics. The company also plans to add Hulu Plus to the 3DS later this year.

Not surprisingly, I found the PS Vita did best with games and pretty well with the programs over which it seemed to have the most control. Other features seemed like they were added just for the sake of adding them and didn’t work nearly as well.

The PS Vita’s pre-loaded Near app has a whimsical interface that showed 28 people near me who were signed into the PlayStation Network. The PS Store was easy to navigate and clearly displayed details about each downloadable item. But the Web browser can’t play Flash and only partially supports HTML 5, which will make it impossible to see content on many websites.

It lacks an email program, so users are limited to sending things via the PlayStation Network to people using PlayStation. Photos I took with the device could only be sent this way and a workaround of hooking my PS Vita into a PS3 or a PC to offload photos seemed antiquated.

The device’s rear touch pad, lets users control games with fingers on the back.

The PS Vita embraces multi-touch gestures on its responsive, bright screen. A peeling-back gesture reveals the home screen and can be used to close any program. A bubble in the top right can be tapped to see download progress or device notifications, and swipes up, down, left and right help users navigate around screens. Playful bubblelike icons represent all apps.

The design of the PS Vita is obviously related to its predecessor, the PlayStation Portable. It has game controllers that flank the right and left sides of its 5-inch touch-screen, and its top right and left corners double as buttons. At 7.2 inches by 3.3 inches, the PS Vita looks like it could eat an iPod Touch for lunch. Its 3G model weighs twice as much as the iPhone 4S.

This is the first portable gaming device to have two joysticks instead of one. Sony says the “dual analog sticks” offer better gaming. When I played “Uncharted: Golden Abyss,” the right joystick adjusted my vantage point and the left moved my character.

People can control games using their fingers on the screen or—in a novel twist—on the back of the device. A rear touch pad lets fingers operate from where they naturally rest when holding the PS Vita. I played Sony Computer Entertainment America’s $30 “Little Deviants” game by rolling a ball-shaped creature through mazes, controlling where the ball moved with my fingers touching the back of the PS Vita. While playing the $40 EA Sports “FIFA Soccer” game, I used the touch pad to aim and shoot the ball. I found the touch pad so sensitive that it was hard to use, but this might get easier over time.

In the $50 “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” game, I guided the main character up a wall by moving my finger on the touch screen rather than using multidirectional buttons. Likewise, I balanced my character as he walked across a plank of wood using the PS Vita’s built-in motion sensor; aiming a gun works with the motion sensors rather than a joystick.

Plenty of PS Vita games are geared toward the serious gamer, with 21 of the 26 games launching with the PS Vita costing $30 or more. (These can be downloaded through the PlayStation Store or bought as PS Vita Cards at retailers.) “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” comes with a 43-page digital instruction manual, which I had to read to get anywhere in the game. There are 275 PlayStation Portable games playable on the PS Vita and available for download, and pricing for those starts at 99 cents.

(Games for Nintendo’s $170 3DS portable gaming device range from $2 to $40 apiece. The most expensive game you can buy for Apple’s $499 iPad is the $17 “Final Fantasy III” game by Square Enix.)

Wirelessly downloading content from the PS Store only works in Wi-Fi, but the 3G model can download files smaller than 20 megabytes over 3G. I downloaded a demo mode for one game from the PS Store and 26 minutes later, it was on my PS Vita. Downloading a movie was harder: I used a $25 gift card and bought the $14.99 standard-definition (HD wasn’t available) version of the movie “Tower Heist,” but an estimate told me that it would take over 3,000 minutes to download, and I gave up shortly after the download started.

Battery life is estimated at three to five hours for gaming without network features in use. I played in shorter intervals and didn’t have any trouble with battery life.

At times, the PS Vita seemed a bit slow to respond. As I initially set up my PlayStation Network account for use in “Friends,” a built-in social-networking app for interacting with other PS Vita and PlayStation 3 users, I waited several seconds. A polite “Please wait” message appeared far too often.

Gamers will like the PS Vita’s double joysticks, while non-gamers will feel more comfortable with its motion and touch controls. But instead of competing with smartphones, this device should stick to what it knows: games.

Write to Katie at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

As many people know or quickly find out, backing up a computer can be a painfully slow process. This week, I tested a computer-backup system that requires minimal effort and works in the background to automatically back up files: CrashPlan. This appropriately named program is made by Code 42 Software, a Minneapolis-based company.

CrashPlan works with all types of operating systems and lets users back up to remote servers in the cloud and/or other computers or hard drives, like another PC they own or one belonging to a good friend or family member (as long as they give permission). The system also sets no restrictions on file size.

On a typical home Internet connection, the backup process to a CrashPlan remote server could take several days or even weeks for a first-time backup. (After that, backups are much faster and happen unnoticed.) The first-time backup for one of my laptops with about 46 gigabytes of data had been running almost continuously for three days when I filed this column on Tuesday. After the initial backup, regular backups won’t take nearly as long. CrashPlan has a mobile app that works on Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, Android and Windows Phone 7, allowing remote access to backed-up files.

The free version of CrashPlan enables a daily backup to other computers and hard drives but not to Code 42’s remote servers. The subscription-based CrashPlan+ will back up to the remote servers as well as other computers or hard drives. It can back up as often as once a minute and lets users choose what data to back up where.

CrashPlan’s straightforward user interface clearly shows what your data are doing and where they are being stored.

CrashPlan+ comes in three payment plans, each with its own tiered rates — from a month-to-month option to a four-year subscription. For each of the three plans, the four-year subscription is the least expensive at $70, or about $1.50 a month per computer for up to 10 gigabytes of data; $140 or $3 monthly per computer for unlimited storage; and $288 or $6 monthly for up to 10 computers and unlimited storage. The company offers a free 30-day trial.

I got started by downloading the software to my MacBook, creating an account and starting the initial backup. A scan of my data took a few minutes before the actual backup began. Using my Verizon DSL connection over Wi-Fi, the estimates of how long it would take changed dramatically by the second. I saw estimates of as much as 17.5 days and as little as 6.6 hours.

I also downloaded CrashPlan onto my office Windows PC, which has a fast, hard-wired Ethernet connection. I logged into my account and opted to back up a folder of photos that was roughly 16 gigabytes. The estimate for this backup was a little over one day, though I didn’t adjust CrashPlan settings to get the fastest transfer on this PC. In a simple menu, I could opt to back up the Windows PC to my MacBook as well as to remote servers — or just to the MacBook alone. On my MacBook, I made sure to adjust the settings to get the fastest speed possible for my giant backup.

Code 42 CEO Matthew Dornquast said the worst-case scenario speeds are initially displayed, but that these adjust down as time goes on. In my experience, the initial estimates didn’t change much.

CrashPlan backs up your newest files first on the assumption those mean the most to you, and it encrypts all files, so file names can’t be read on remote servers or backup computers. I liked CrashPlan’s straightforward user interface because it clearly showed me what my data were doing and where it was being stored. A section labeled “Destinations” let me choose where data was backed up and options included “CrashPlan Central” (remote servers), “Friend,” “Another Computer” or “Folder.” A section labeled “Files” showed exactly what was being stored; in my case, this meant 285,930 files. An “Inbound” section showed any computers that were using my computer for backup.

A CrashPlan mobile app is available on a Windows Phone 7, iPhone and Android phone.

In settings, users can opt to be emailed or even sent direct messages via Twitter that tell them the latest backup status. This is helpful if you’re only backing up to, say, one other PC in your house and that PC fails to back up.

In addition to over-the-air backups, CrashPlan users with a lot of data, very little patience or both may want to try an alternate option. For $125 (including shipping both ways) and a monthly fee for remote storage, the company will send a one-terabyte hard drive that can be loaded with data and mailed back. Once that huge block of data is initially stored on remote servers, regular backups won’t take nearly as long.

To get data back, a “Restore to Your Door” feature will send you a hard drive filled with your data so you can load it onto a new computer. This also costs $125 (with shipping both ways) and the monthly cost of remote storage.

Compared with competitors, CrashPlan fares well. For example, CrashPlan doesn’t limit upload or download speeds, while Carbonite limits upload speeds for large amounts of data after a certain amount has been backed up, further slowing the process. Mozy supports external drives, but this backup is deleted if the drive is disconnected or turned off for more than 30 days. CrashPlan keeps the backup indefinitely, waiting for the drive to be reconnected.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120214/for-backup-youve-got-a-friend-family-or-cloud/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120207/a-textbook-case-of-ipad-fun-with-studying/ http://allthingsd.com/20120207/a-textbook-case-of-ipad-fun-with-studying/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:40:16 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=172362 As a kid, I was lucky to have a dad who was a top-notch book-cover maker, wrapping my school textbooks in brown paper bags that he transformed into precisely folded, sharp cornered, blank canvases.

But even Dad’s covers couldn’t fix everything: Some books showed their age with dog-eared pages, highlights, tears and leftover love notes. Plus, they weighed several pounds each, tugging down my JanSport backpack.

This week, I tested a one-stop solution to much of that which ails textbooks: Apple’s iBooks 2. This redesigned iPad app offers enhanced educational textbooks that are, for now, focused on high-school students and cost no more than $15 each. Apple’s smallest and least expensive iPad can store roughly eight to 10 textbooks, along with other content. (High schoolers have an average of four textbooks a year, according to Apple.) The iPad itself weighs just over one pound.

These electronic textbooks include interactive materials that seem like they should’ve been available long ago: multiple-choice questions that can be answered with taps on the screen, embedded videos, dynamic diagrams that change with touch gestures and flash cards for studying important terms in a book.

The big catch is you need an iPad to read these textbooks, and schools or parents may have trouble budgeting for these devices. The least expensive iPad costs $499. Apple argues the low cost of books will offset the cost of the device.

Currently about 1,000 of the iBooks 2 books, 11 of which are textbooks, have new enhancements such as video, dynamic diagrams and study flash cards. A pinch gesture will restore a zoomed-in image to its place in a book.

Also, some people have trouble reading long passages on the iPad’s backlit screen, or find it uncomfortable to hold. In the sun, its reflective surface makes reading nearly impossible.

Currently about 1,000 books, 11 of which are textbooks, have the new iBooks 2 features. These include titles from well-known publishers like Pearson Education, Dorling Kindersley and McGraw-Hill; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt books are coming in time for the start of the next school year.

But the books also include published works from teachers, experts and regular people who used Apple’s new iBooks Author app to create a book. This is a free app for Macs for creating and publishing content. User-created books are approved by Apple and then made available in the iBooks store for free or for a price.

I downloaded several of the new iBooks textbooks onto my iPad, including “Biology,” “Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life,” “Chemistry” and “Life on Earth.” I also downloaded an older AP Biology title without enhancements: Zoomed-in images weren’t in focus, and the book lacked interactive materials.

Delightful animations and gestures abound in these enhanced e-books.

Tap on any image to see it larger and tap different parts of the image to see animations, like an electromagnetic spectrum diagram in a science textbook that showed frequency and wavelength as I tapped on images of infrared lamps and lasers. A two-finger pinch returns the image to its place in the book with a playful animation.

Highlighting works in several colors and readers just hold down a finger and start dragging that finger along text to highlight.

When these books are read with the iPad held in landscape (horizontally), visuals take up large portions of the screen. But when the iPad is in portrait mode, text takes center stage, with smaller representations of each image appearing in the margins. This option to focus on reading could be a real help for kids who are easily distracted. Some titles, however, may only be readable in landscape view.

Study cards, a digital version of the 3-by-5 index cards you used to spend hours making by hand, are a huge timesaver. Every term in a book’s glossary generates its own study card. The front shows the word, and a tap on its corner flips the card to show its definition.

Even highlighting is easier and looks better in iBooks 2: It works in several colors, and rather than turning on highlighting first, readers simply hold down a finger and start dragging that finger along text to highlight. Study cards also are created for every passage you highlight.

But I found a few bugs. The new iBooks 2 app crashed several times and an Algebra 1 book froze in mid-download. The download didn’t complete because my iPad was full, but a notice about this didn’t appear, even after rebooting, until several hours later.

Apple later reported that the file I was trying to download was corrupted, and replaced the file.

And there are other curious omissions. Some parts of these books, like blank lab charts and chapter review questions, didn’t offer a built-in place to enter answers.

For that, I had to create and add a digital note in the book (using the iPad’s on-screen keyboard) or do the unthinkable—use a pencil and paper.

An Apple official said all notes are text-based and there are no current plans for finger or stylus input.

In addition to iBooks, Apple revamped its free iTunes U app, which used to be limited to audio and video lectures for higher education.

Now, iTunes U is available for students in kindergarten through 12th grade and can include all sorts of course components like the new iBooks textbooks, outlines, Web links and apps. This content is free, except for in-app materials including things like textbooks or apps. I downloaded Duke University’s “Introductory Chemistry” in iTunes U and it contained 567 videos, books, documents, apps and Web links.

If anyone can move textbooks into a new realm with interactive, smart gestures, it’s Apple. But iBooks needs to work out a few kinks before it can be used as a full replacement for physical textbooks.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120207/a-textbook-case-of-ipad-fun-with-studying/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120124/subtext-app-makes-readers-thoughts-an-open-book/ http://allthingsd.com/20120124/subtext-app-makes-readers-thoughts-an-open-book/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:26:09 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=167139 Even the shyest airplane passengers are hard-pressed to remain mum when a seatmate pulls out a book with a familiar cover. Now, thanks to the popularity of e-books, these once visible book covers are shrouded in the nondescript cases of Kindles, Nooks and iPads.

This week, I tried Subtext, a free iPad app designed to enable and encourage conversations based on e-books—not necessarily with fellow plane passengers, but among readers within digital books themselves. A revamped version of Subtext, originally released in October, is available in Apple’s App Store Tuesday.

On the Subtext iPad app, a reader’s profile page, with her shelf of books.

Like Amazon’s Kindle already does, Subtext gives anyone who reads an e-book the ability to make notes, highlight passages and to keep private or share those notes or highlights with other users. But this app goes much further: It also lets readers post questions, polls, quizzes or even Web links that are noted in the margins of the book. Other users respond to these posts and start mini book discussions that can continue indefinitely. Subtext content can be kept private, made visible to all users or made visible only to a user’s friends. Along with comments from fellow readers, Subtext users can see comments marked in blue that are made by a book’s author or other experts.

Unfortunately, Subtext smacks of immaturity when compared with other reading apps like Amazon’s Kindle app and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app. While those work on several devices and operating systems, Subtext works only on Apple’s iPad. It only runs with books from Google Books or those in Adobe’s ePub format, and the process for getting the latter—emailing the book to oneself or downloading the file from a website to the iPad—is clumsy and not intuitive. Co-founder Rachel Thomas said Subtext is actively developing for other platforms.

Another issue is that Subtext is only as good as its users’ involvement. The more people comment and create discussions, the more interesting it will be for others. For this to happen, the app has to lure readers away from the devices and apps they’re already comfortable with, like the Kindle or Nook, or the Kindle, Nook and Apple iBooks apps on the iPad.

I got an early look at the new version of Subtext and found it more self-explanatory than its predecessor. I signed in using my Google account, though users can sign in using a Facebook account or explore the app as a guest. By signing into my Google Account, my shelves were populated with the Google e-books I already purchased. Previews of books give users a sense of what the app does.

A Discussions section neatly organizes all social interactions about books in one place.

Users can tap on any book cover to see all content and social information related to that book. Likewise, tapping on any user profile image lets you visit that person’s shelf. A Featured Shelves section suggests different categories of books like Critics Picks 2011 and 2011′s Most Social Books.

As I used Subtext for the first time, small hint windows floated onto the iPad screen at certain points to demonstrate how things worked. One encouraged me to tap and hold my finger on the screen at a favorite book passage to see options for adding notes to that passage. I tried this a few times, including while reading a line in Tina Fey’s “Bossypants” about working moms with kids. I highlighted this passage and posed a question to all Subtext users: How many kids does Tina Fey have? Someone, who I later found out was Subtext’s co-founder Andrew Goldman, answered about an hour later, saying Ms. Fey has two daughters—a 6-year-old and a 6-month-old.

The Discussions section of the app neatly organizes all social interactions in one place, so people don’t have to skip back through books to see the continued conversations surrounding a question.

I like the way Subtext subtly notifies readers that notes exist: by showing a tiny thumbnail image of the user who posted the note in the margin of a book. Tapping on that image opens the note. I commented on some existing discussions by tapping the Reply button.

I created a note for one book passage using a related Web link, and the steps for doing this were clear and understandable. I kept this visible only to myself; other times, I made notes about passages and shared them only with my friends who I could invite to use Subtext via Facebook or email.

But what’s to stop someone from posting something inaccurate or abusive? Users can flag any note as inappropriate or as a spoiler, and the note is reviewed by the company. Users can vote on others’ comments, and over time, comments with more votes will be more broadly distributed.

As of now, authors and experts have enhanced just 18 books in Subtext, though users have left thousands of notes across books. The few books enhanced by authors or experts were fun to read. Steven Levy remarked on a line in his book, “In the Plex,” that described his travels from San Francisco to Tokyo, Beijing, Bangalore and Tel Aviv: “Newsweek paid for my trip, shelling out over $10,000 for my expenses. Kind of ironic because a couple of years later, Newsweek itself sold for $1.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120124/subtext-app-makes-readers-thoughts-an-open-book/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120117/picking-the-brightest-most-efficient-bulb/ http://allthingsd.com/20120117/picking-the-brightest-most-efficient-bulb/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:41:30 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=164498 The light bulb used to be one of the simplest hardware-store purchases. Now a walk down the lighting aisle prompts an assortment of questions. Is it energy efficient? Will it switch on fast? Can I put it on a dimmer? What is a lumen? How long will it last? Why so pricey? Why is it a weird color?

Here’s a brief guide to some bulb basics, with help from Consumer Reports ratings, and a peek at what the future holds for the light bulb (hint: lower prices and remote control).

The Big Three Plus One

Bulbs can be divided into three main categories: incandescents, compact fluorescents (CFLs) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). We’re most familiar with incandescents, which make use of technology from over 100 years ago. These cost the least, but emit heat and use up the most energy. An incandescent lasts an average of 1,000 hours, or 125 days when used for eight hours a day.

Lighting Science Group’s World Bulb uses less than 13 watts and will cost less than $15 a bulb.

More recently, halogen incandescent bulbs have become popular. The bulbs, which cost as little as $3 for two, look and behave like incandescents by dimming and turning on immediately, but use less energy. The Philips EcoVantage line, which became available in April, uses 28% less energy: A 72-watt bulb replaces a 100-watt, and a 43-watt bulb replaces a 60-watt. Halogen incandescents last as long as a traditional incandescent bulb.

Compact fluorescents, the spiral bulbs that became popular about five years ago, use less energy than incandescents but made a rough first impression. Compared with incandescents, compact fluorescents can appear harsher in color and most don’t turn on immediately. They’re made of glass, like incandescents, cost about $5 to $10 each and have an estimated average lifespan of 10,000 hours, or about 3½ years at eight hours a day. They contain a small amount of mercury and can be recycled at stores like Home Depot.

LEDs, which look roughly like the incandescents we’re used to, are the latest hit in energy-efficient bulbs. They’re also the most expensive, costing around $20 to $60 a bulb, though this will drop in coming months as they become more prevalent. These bulbs, which don’t contain mercury, turn on immediately, even in cold weather. Some are made of a durable plastic and many can be dimmed. Their light-emitting surfaces remain cool to the touch. The hue of light from these LED bulbs appears more like that of the traditional incandescents. They are estimated to save up to 85% more energy than standard incandescents, with a lifespan of 20,000 to 50,000 hours, or 20 to 40 years. At seven hours a day, one bulb could last an average of 17 years.

New Labeling Explained

For years, we’ve measured light bulbs by watts, which indicate how much energy a bulb uses. But bulb brightness is measured in lumens. Many of the new light bulbs’ boxes list lumens and include helpful notes about how the bulb compares with the wattage you are looking to replace. An incandescent 40-watt bulb gets replaced with a 450-lumen bulb; a 60-watt bulb with a 800-lumen bulb; a 75-watt bulb by a 1,100 lumen; and a 100 watt by a 1,600 lumen.

The Philips L Prize Bulb consumes less than 10 watts and has a lifespan of more than 25,000 hours.

More light bulbs are now packaged with a “Lighting Facts” label. Besides lumens, this may include factors like lumens per watt (bulb efficiency); watts (energy used to make the light); correlated color temperature, which indicates cool or warm color (about 2700 Kelvin replicates what we’re familiar with in a traditional incandescent); and a color-rendering index (the measurement of a light’s appearance on objects).

Best in Show

Consumer Reports recently tested several bulbs for factors like brightness, warm-up time, light distribution and actual lumens. The $10 GE Energy Smart SAF-T-GARD earned the highest overall ranking for 60-watt equivalent spiral CFL bulbs.

The $25 Philips AmbientLED 12.5W ranked best overall in the 60-watt equivalent A19 style (the typical pear-shape found in incandescent bulbs) covered bulb category.

Future Is Bright

Lighting Science Group Corp., maker of Home Depot’s EcoSmart bulbs, unveiled its sub-$15 World Bulb in December. This is a redesigned, 60-watt-replacement LED bulb that uses less power than the 13 watts of the company’s current equivalent bulb. It’ll be available in India in February and later this year in the U.S.

Lighting Science Group also has paired with Google to create the Android@Home Intelligent LED bulb, which people will be able to control using an Android smartphone, tablet or a computer. The bulb, which is expected to come out before June, will have an embedded chip and works with a gateway box that hooks into a router.

By June, Philips Lighting North America will debut its L Prize Bulb, an LED bulb that was the first to win the Department of Energy’s “L Prize,” an award for energy efficiency. Designed to replace a 60-watt incandescent, the LED bulb consumes less than 10 watts, according to Philips. In rigorous testing, the Energy Department said, the bulb had a useful lifetime of more than 25,000 hours. The bulb will likely start out at about $50.

Picking a Bulb

Light-bulb savings calculators found online, like one from National Geographic, give people a rough idea of how much they may save over time with incandescent, compact fluorescent and LED bulbs.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120117/picking-the-brightest-most-efficient-bulb/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120110/walt-and-katie-take-a-tour-of-ces-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120110/walt-and-katie-take-a-tour-of-ces-video/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:38:22 +0000 Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=162717 Walt walks the CES floor with Katie, and finds less “newness” at this year’s event, noting that the absent Apple looms over the show.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120110/walt-and-katie-take-a-tour-of-ces-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120110/digging-deeper-into-roots-with-spruced-up-ancestry-com/ http://allthingsd.com/20120110/digging-deeper-into-roots-with-spruced-up-ancestry-com/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:59:53 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=162609 When my great grandfather signed his World War I draft registration card in 1917, I’m pretty sure he never imagined I’d be examining it 95 years later with a touch screen sitting on my lap.

This week, I took a fresh look at this and several other gems from my family history with help from a company that has led the charge in online genealogy for 15 years: Ancestry.com. Thanks to mobile apps, other users and a new ability to synchronize content between the Web and desktop software, Ancestry has grown into a robust tool.

The World War I draft card for the author’s great grandfather.

Since I last tested Ancestry in 2006, the company has revamped its desktop software program, Family Tree Maker, so the program can synchronize with Web-based data on Ancestry.com. It’s now available as a mobile app for the iPhone, iPad and Android phones. And the site holds over eight billion records, including content from a partnership with the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

The addition of mobile apps plus the syncing feature make Ancestry.com more useful and will bring me back to the site more often. I found several new things on Ancestry this time around, including more census data, ship manifests for two cruises an aunt took, and more suggested family-tree data from other users.

I tested Ancestry.com, its iPhone and iPad apps and the Family Tree Maker desktop software on a Mac. I found a computer to be the best tool for inputting family information like names, birth dates, death dates and locations using Ancestry.com and the Family Tree Maker software. The iPad app was the most enjoyable way of exploring my family-tree records. The site’s pricing can be confusing given the various membership and access levels.

A simple right-to-left swipe on the iPad screen shifted my view of the tree from one branch to the next. In four swipes, I dove back in time to read about my mother’s father’s mother’s mother, Florence Antonia Ford, and her family in the 1910 Census record. Using the iPad on my lap, related records from Ancestry felt more personal than seeing them on a computer. A pinch-to-zoom gesture let me clearly read names and details in each record. (Records can be magnified on a computer screen as well, which is helpful when studying small cursive writing or type, like a 1935 passenger list for a cruise to Bermuda that included my Great Aunt Romayne’s name.)

I was delighted to find data I entered on Ancestry.com six years ago was still in my account, which saved me the trouble of inputting everything again. A new feature called TreeSync let me synchronize all of my family-tree information over to my Family Tree Maker desktop software, and vice versa. After using the Ancestry app on my iPad and adding records to my family tree, I easily synced that data with my desktop software by clicking a top-right button when I next opened the Family Tree Maker.

Users who have spent years on Family Tree Maker software, which has been around for 23 years, will be able to sync data from their PCs to the Web version of their family trees. They can now opt to make their trees public for all Ancestry users to access, thus growing the online database.

I found the desktop software to be more heavy-duty than the website and mobile apps, but its interface is a bit antiquated in comparison.

Winston Churchill’s family tree seen via Ancestry.com’s app on the iPad.

Whenever Ancestry.com has a “hint” to show you about a name you entered on your tree, a green leaf appears beside that name. Selecting that leaf lets you see anything in the Ancestry database that may be associated with that name. These could include paper records scanned in by Ancestry.com or content entered by other people. You can view these hints and, if applicable, merge that data with your own after viewing a side-by-side comparison of your information and the new information.

You can share your findings with friends via Facebook, Twitter or email. When I saw my grandfather’s signature on his World War I draft card, I clicked one button and shared this digitized memento from 1917 with friends and family on Facebook. Content shared from Ancestry.com can be seen by other people, even if they don’t have an account, for up to 14 days. You also can keep everything private.

I know quite a bit about my family history, thanks to work my grandfather did years ago, and this helped me with entering names and knowing which hints were relevant or not. For example, an Ancestry-suggested hint that a record for Florence Ladley was for Florence Antonia Ford in my tree wasn’t accurate. I made the most progress when I called my parents for more names and dates.

Ancestry.com offers a free 14-day trial, after which fees range from $13 to $35 a month, depending on six-month or monthly memberships and whether a person is paying for U.S. Discovery (all records in the U.S.) or World Explorer (unlimited access, including records from other countries) access. The Family Tree Maker software, which starts at around $32, can be downloaded to Macs or Windows PCs or bought in stores. Combined pricing for the desktop software and access to the website starts around $40.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120110/digging-deeper-into-roots-with-spruced-up-ancestry-com/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111220/using-another-screen-to-interact-with-the-tv/ http://allthingsd.com/20111220/using-another-screen-to-interact-with-the-tv/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:56:27 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=155609 This week families will gather to celebrate the holidays over home-cooked meals, gift exchanges and fights over the TV remote.

That last annual tradition may be dying off, thanks to changing technology habits. More people now watch TV while simultaneously using second screens like tablets, laptops and smartphones. A recent Nielson study showed 70% of tablet owners and 68% of smartphone owners said they use their devices while watching television.

I, too, find myself watching TV in this multi-tasking mode. This week, I’ve been testing three free apps that aim to get viewers more engaged in shows as they watch them on TV. Ironically, these apps require people to look away from the TV and at their second screens, but in my experience, this actually worked. I tried Yahoo’s IntoNow, which runs on iPhone and iPad and Android smartphones; Showtime Social, which works on the iPad; and Shazam, which works on nearly all mobile platforms, including Apple, RIM, Android and Windows Phones.

I had fun with these apps, and each uses a different method to draw in users. IntoNow and Showtime Social poll viewers during shows, Shazam displays behind-the-scenes footage, and IntoNow displays related social-network updates and live discussions. The apps virtually introduced me to fans of shows I liked, reminding me of my freshman year of college when I piled into a dorm room with 20 people (many of whom I didn’t know) to watch the series finale of “Felicity”: The show got more interesting in the company of other fans.

The Showtime Social iPad app polled ‘Dexter’ viewers to gauge reactions to the show.

Unfortunately, some aspects of these apps aren’t designed to work with pre-recorded shows—and more viewers, especially the ones likely to use a second screen, are recording their TV these days. Showtime Social must be used as a show airs. Shazam works with pre-recorded TV shows, but to work with commercials, it must be used live or for as long as an ad campaign is still running. And though IntoNow will work with a pre-recorded show, discussions and related Twitter content aren’t live when you use the app after the show airs.

I started with Yahoo’s IntoNow app on the iPad. It has a green TV icon in the top left corner that, when I tapped it, listens to whatever is playing. Using its patented SoundPrint technology, IntoNow figured out what was on by matching it against a database of over 160 million hours of TV.

I hesitated to use IntoNow while watching my pre-recorded shows, especially the season finale of “The Amazing Race,” for fear of accidentally seeing something that would spoil the ending. The app asks users who contribute to discussions to mark their comments with a spoiler alert symbol, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

While watching a football game, IntoNow provided expanded statistics and other team news.

IntoNow was a real help while watching football: Statistics showed up in Game Info, and other team news appeared in an Around the League section. It also brought in Twitter updates from the @NFL_Football Twitter account. But when I paused the game for 20 minutes to fold laundry, I didn’t want to look at the app because it showed the live score.

IntoNow failed when I turned on CNN for news of Kim Jong Il’s death. The app thought I was watching the regularly scheduled program, a show called “Black in America.” IntoNow’s vice president said the app has trouble with unplanned programming, something the company is addressing.

The Showtime Social iPad app only works when a show is airing, and it prompts viewers to share their reactions to the show. I watched an episode of “Dexter” with this app opened, and questions popped up every so often, polling the audience. These questions were playful enough that even someone like me, who hadn’t watched “Dexter” in two years, could answer them. More thought-provoking questions delved into symbolism and future predictions.

When Showtime Social wasn’t asking polling questions, it prompted me to comment on how the show made me feel. I tapped on an icon under the “I am…” description and chose from happy, shocked, sad or angry. A drop-down menu within each emotion offered several iterations; the “angry” category had 13 emotions to choose from.

Viewers using Shazam could buy things that they saw on USA Network’s ‘Covert Affairs.

Shazam is an app known best for identifying songs as they play, but it also works with movies, TV shows, ads and music videos to display extra features. To use it with TV, the Shazam logo appears on screen during shows to remind users that they can use the app with a tablet or smartphone; in the case of short commercials, this moment passes quickly.

Since many shows are on hiatus around the holidays, it was hard to find live examples for testing this app. But past examples include the Shazam logo appearing in an Old Navy commercial, and people who used Shazam while watching could get a free pair of jeans. It also worked with Oxygen’s “The Glee Project,” showing viewers the full version of judge’s deliberations if they tapped the Shazam button. And when Shazam was used with USA Network’s “Covert Affairs,” viewers could buy things that they saw on the show.

Instead of just watching TV, these apps help you get a lot more out of a show—as long as you’re watching live.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

The Shazam app works with pre-recorded TV shows throughout the show. An earlier version of this column said Shazam only works when its logo appears on a TV screen.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111220/using-another-screen-to-interact-with-the-tv/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111213/a-few-new-reasons-to-reunite-with-twitter-com/ http://allthingsd.com/20111213/a-few-new-reasons-to-reunite-with-twitter-com/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:36:41 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=153518 Twitter is making a bid to lure us all back.

Like many of the 100 million monthly active Twitter users, I tweet all the time, but I stopped doing it through Twitter’s own site, Twitter.com, ages ago. That’s because tons of desktop and mobile apps, such as TweetDeck and even Twitter for BlackBerry, are simply more feature-filled and easier to use.

Now Twitter has revamped its website, deconstructing its menus to be more approachable and easier to use, even for Twitter newbies. So I returned to the site and found three features that make a big difference. Meanwhile, two features I hoped would, by now, be available on the site still aren’t.

Twitter is a short-messaging social network that limits each user’s posts, or tweets, to 140 characters. Some people tweet such mundane things as what they ate for lunch, while others tweet play-by-play accounts of live events or links to news stories. You’ll only see someone’s tweets if you “follow” them, and followers can retweet, mark as a favorite or reply to a tweet.

The new Twitter is slowly rolling out to all users over the next few weeks, and will automatically replace the old version of the site.

Easier on the Eyes

The first thing people will notice about the new Twitter is that everything that was once hugging the right side of the screen has shifted to the left. A black banner across the top gives users the feeling of being anchored—an improvement over the past, lost feeling. The Twitter app for iPhone and Android devices also has this black banner.

Twitter ‘Stories’ helps users keep up with news.

Better Reading and Browsing

Two features (one new and one improved) found under Twitter’s Discover tab solve the problem of what to read given the overwhelming number of choices in this social network.

The Stories feature, though in its infancy, has the potential to become the first thing people skip to when they open Twitter.com. Here, Twitter displays 10 stories it thinks you’ll want to read. These are curated using an algorithm: Twitter studies the accounts you follow and serves up similar stories. Twitter also considers your location and which stories you interact with so that, over time, it will give you more personalized offerings.

Done right, Stories could solve the problem of missing news on Twitter, where tweets speed by in an ever-changing stream and can be missed unless users look at the site all the time.

Browse Categories is a redesigned, improved version of Browse Interests. It groups people you might want to follow by category. For example, Entertainment includes Tom Hanks, Chelsea Handler and the Twitter account for the movie reviews website Rotten Tomatoes. This will be a help for people new to Twitter, as it can be hard to figure out how to get started.

Following the Tit-for-Tat

Conversations on Twitter can be hard to follow. That’s mostly because when people reply to a tweet, only that response—not the original tweet—gets sent to followers. Now, users can catch up on entire conversations by clicking on any tweet to read the back-and-forth between two people.

Feeling More Popular

Social networks are, of course, far more interesting when people actually interact with you. Unless you’re famous, an avid Twitter user with plenty of followers or both, Twitter can feel a bit stale after a while.

The Connect tab has two subcategories: Interactions and Mentions. Interactions is a new feature that displays more of the hidden activities related to your Twitter account, making you feel more engaged with the network. These Interactions list whenever another user mentions your username, “favorites” one of your tweets, retweets one of your tweets, follows you or adds you to a public list.

As always, Mentions still includes only the tweets in which your username is mentioned. Some people will be frustrated that the new location for this category is less prominent than in the old version of Twitter.com.

Short on URLs

Twitter has always lagged behind other sites and apps when it comes to URL shortening—taking a long, messy web link and automatically shrinking it down. Most people think that Twitter doesn’t shorten URLs at all. That’s in part because it only shortens them to 20 characters (still too long) and doesn’t obviously notify users that it’s doing this.

Also, the tweet-composing box doesn’t show a preview of what the shortened URL will look like before you share it with followers. Without a smarter built-in URL shortener, Twitter forces people to use other services, like bitly.com, to shorten links.

Retweet, But No Comment

Twitter still doesn’t let its users retweet, or share someone else’s tweet to their followers with their own added comment. (Some apps refer to this as quoting a tweet.) This means I can only re-share exactly what someone else posted—there’s no way to include what I think of the tweet. Almost all of Twitter’s apps enable adding comments in retweets. A spokeswoman for Twitter says this feature is often requested and the company is actively considering it.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111213/a-few-new-reasons-to-reunite-with-twitter-com/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111206/in-your-hands-just-what-you-want-to-read/ http://allthingsd.com/20111206/in-your-hands-just-what-you-want-to-read/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:05:09 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=151168 Personalized-reading apps save you from pawing through the Web for news and bring you more of what you want to read. Until now, these have been mostly found on tablets like the iPad, but Wednesday, the first of those apps moves to the smartphone for reading on the go.

A new personalized-reading app for the iPhone is being launched by Flipboard, the design-centric company that led the customized-news charge with its app for iPad. News can be rapidly browsed with a thumb flick from the hand holding the iPhone, like a digital Rolodex. It’s the kind of thing you’ll want to show off to friends.

Flipboard’s iPad rivals aren’t far behind in the jump to phones, though each take a unique approach in how to a user personalizes content. Zite is an algorithm-generated personalized-magazine app for the iPad that plans to release an iPhone app very soon, perhaps even this week. A phone version is planned for AOL Editions, a personalized news magazine delivered to the iPad once a day. Yahoo’s Livestand app for iPad will expand next year to additional platforms, including Android tablets and possibly phones, according to a spokesman.

Flipboard for iPhone app

Google has been working on a personalized-reading app that individuals close to the company say will run on Android tablets and phones, the iPad and the iPhone. It will be released this month with the ability to use multiple accounts, offline reading and over 100 partners, according to the individuals.

For the past week, I’ve been testing a pre-release version of Flipboard for iPhone. I’ve also revisited Zite, AOL Editions, Yahoo Livestand and Flipboard on the iPad to check out some updated features in these apps. You may like one more than another depending on how much tweaking you want to do to the app’s settings. Most allow for users to take an active role in helping the app decide what kinds of things they want to read. Others, like Zite and AOL Editions, add an automated method to the process.

Flipboard for iPhone is enhanced by Flipboard Accounts, which was added to the iPad app last month. The feature lets families sharing iPads give each person an account that saves personalized settings and account information—including from Facebook and Twitter. The first time I signed into my Flipboard account on the iPhone made my phone feel a lot more useful. As I waited in line at Starbucks, I flipped through dozens of news bits and images from Flipboard partners like Bon Appetit and ProPublica, Facebook updates from my friends and tweets I follow. The bottom of each screen looked like a page flapping in the breeze—Flipboard’s playful way of reminding you to page forward for more content.

Zite’s iPad app

A lot is packed into each Flipboard nibble, though I never felt a screen was too crowded. A tap on each tweet pulled up a cartoon word bubble from which I could opt to mute tweets from someone, re-share content or star it as a favorite. Facebook updates displayed who else “liked” a status and let me add comments. A mini version of the red Flipboard ribbon, which opens settings on the iPad app, appears on the iPhone.

The Zite app for iPad curates its magazine content by studying a user’s reading behavior, though readers also can make manual tweaks. Zite can study who users follow on Twitter to generate a magazine filled with similar content. I’ve used Zite almost every morning for months without having to make any adjustments.

Starting this week, Zite has its first branded channel: Lululemon Athletica, which offers health articles and fitness tips. Zite also has multiple accounts for those who share an iPad.

AOL Editions

AOL’s Editions iPad app is a digital magazine that publishes once a day and has a beginning and an end. This means you can read the entire thing each day—a rarity in the online world of continuous updates. But it also means content can feel outdated at the end of the day. AOL Editions takes an algorithmic approach that can be helped manually. It incorporates Facebook and iCal calendars, so the first page shows calendar events and birthdays. As of October, it can now be read in landscape or portrait view.

Yahoo’s Livestand feels sluggish, with spinning circles appearing on the screen almost every time I tapped on something. The home screen is clearly focused on Yahoo content, according to the large Featured on Livestand section that takes up most of each screen. Even when I selected content I wanted in my Livestand, it was buried in a book labeled Personal Mix, and then I had to dig through sections within this book.

This month, Yahoo will add Twitter sharing (users can currently share to only Facebook or via email), and early next year Livestand will incorporate personal Twitter and Facebook feeds as topics. A subscription model is planned for certain publications.

Yahoo Livestand

Personalized-reading apps can change the way you consume information on the iPad—and they’ll soon start changing the way you consume information on smartphones.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111206/in-your-hands-just-what-you-want-to-read/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111129/hotel-booking-for-procrastinators-or-the-picky/ http://allthingsd.com/20111129/hotel-booking-for-procrastinators-or-the-picky/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:39:55 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=148324 After a long Thanksgiving weekend spent with family, the idea of booking a hotel for a Christmas and/or a New Year’s Eve getaway may sound better than ever.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing two digital tools that use distinct criteria for booking hotel rooms: HotelTonight and Room 77. HotelTonight aims to get people into rooms no matter how late they book, and Room 77 wants to get people into the specific room they want.

HotelTonight is a free app that works strictly for same-day hotel bookings. Once installed on an iPhone or Android smartphone, it will display about three steeply discounted hotel rooms per city after noon local time each day, when hotel representatives know what will be available that night.

Right now, the app can find hotels in some 28 cities, as well as several nearby getaway destinations (like Cape Cod for Boston). HotelTonight plans to add more cities like Tampa, Fla., and Palm Springs, Calif., and will expand in existing cities. An iPad app is planned for early next year.

HotelTonight’s deals for San Francisco hotels.

HotelTonight seems more serious about getting guests in beds than big-name rival sites. Many competitors, including Travelocity and Hotwire, offer same-day hotel bookings, but they don’t reveal the name of the hotel or its location until you book it. HotelTonight shows all information about a hotel. Another difference is HotelTonight lets people snag rooms until 2 a.m., instead of the usual cutoff time of 11 p.m.

But HotelTonight users can’t specify the type of room or bed they want. All rooms are just guaranteed to sleep two adults.

Using the HotelTonight app on an Android device and an iPhone, I found good hotel deals in my home city of Washington, D.C., as well as other cities like Boston. A categorization system labels each hotel as basic, hip, classic, boutique, elegant, luxe or solid.

Among the deals were the Washington Court (classic), very close to D.C.’s Union Station for $99 instead of $147; Chicago’s Wyndham Blake Hotel (solid) for $379 rather than $455; and the Langham (luxe) in Boston’s financial district for $199 rather than $275.

One getaway near Washington, D.C., was the famed Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, Md. The deal offered rooms for $195 a night rather than $215, and guests could stay up to five nights starting on a Monday.

Room 77 is a free website and an app for iPhone and Android that gives guests the inside scoop on hotels and rooms before they book. It looks at some 750,000 rooms and offers details like size, views and which floors are the quietest.

The website’s “Heard in the Lobby” offers tips from the concierge and hotel staff. Having stayed at the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto many times, I agreed with one tip for that hotel that said, “Light sleepers should request a room facing the Borders’ parking lot or Cowper Street to avoid any noise that might float up from the courtyard.”

Room 77 shows detailed information on hotels, including sample views, such as those from rooms in a hotel in Hawaii.

What I found most useful on Room 77 was that some hotels include floor maps that let you see more clearly how the hotel is laid out. By selecting a room on the floor map, you can see Google Earth images of the views from that room.

You can narrow room choices to floor (high or low), view (important or not important), elevator (near or far) and connecting room (yes or don’t care). A data sorter on the left of the screen lets you narrow hotels to those with free Wi-Fi, free parking (a big plus in cities), free breakfast or free hotel shuttles.

I used Room 77 to investigate the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans, where I’ll be staying for a wedding in March. I narrowed my search to rooms on high floors that had views of the Mississippi River and were far from the elevator.

Unfortunately, the wedding-party discount couldn’t apply on Room 77, so I couldn’t actually book through the site.

(While Room 77 doesn’t offer steep discounts on rooms, it displays beside each hotel prices offered at big-name sites like Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Booking.com and others.)

If you do use Room 77 to book, a feature called Room Concierge asks you to fill in your room preferences, including specific room numbers (if applicable). The largely automated service informs hotels of your request and follows up until a room that best matches your preferences is found, all the while sending you updates on the status of your request.

Room 77 is exploring ways people who book hotels elsewhere can use its room-finding service.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111129/hotel-booking-for-procrastinators-or-the-picky/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111122/galaxy-nexus-an-in-your-face-android-phone/ http://allthingsd.com/20111122/galaxy-nexus-an-in-your-face-android-phone/#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:32:58 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=146878 Thanksgiving is coming, but techies are salivating over something that doesn’t involve turkey and stuffing: Ice Cream Sandwich—the operating system of the newest Google phone, the Galaxy Nexus.

The Galaxy Nexus from Samsung is the first device to run Google’s Android 4.0 operating system, known by its dessert code name. Ice Cream Sandwich is designed to be a blend of the Android phone and tablet operating systems that irons out many geeky wrinkles. Android’s former annoying reliance on menus to perform tasks is reduced with the inclusion of more user-friendly icons, and these dynamically change according to whatever program is opened.

It has familiar swiping gestures across apps, of which there are over 300,000 available in the Android Market, as well as playful new features like facial recognition to unlock the phone. Several existing Android devices from HTC and Motorola will receive free software updates so that they, too, can run this OS.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is stylish, with it’s 4.65 inch display and svelte profile.

There’s much speculation that the Galaxy Nexus will be available in the U.S. in the next two weeks, since its release in the U.K. last week. A Verizon spokeswoman says it will be out sometime before the end of the year and it will run on the carrier’s 4G network. It could cost as much as $300 if it’s treated like some other recent Android phones considered flagship models.

I got my hands on a U.K. version of the Galaxy Nexus and enjoyed using Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the most well-rounded version of Android yet. My phone’s battery lasted nearly a full day under heavy testing.

But some of Android’s inelegant traits remain, like the confusing way it organizes Widgets (icons representing programs) and restricts their placement on home screens according to the icons’ various shapes and sizes. And its folders for apps look cluttered.

The Galaxy Nexus itself is stylishly designed. Its giant 4.65-inch display may be overkill for some people. But its svelte build, which measures just over three-tenths of an inch thick, balances it out. Its rear- and front-facing cameras capture 5- and 1.3-megapixel images, respectively, and it records video in full 1080p HD quality. A built-in barometer helps with more precise GPS detection, and an NFC (near field communication) chip enables swapping data with other NFC-enabled Android phones, a process called Android Beam.

I found the facial-recognition feature to be unreliable. To set this up, I held the Galaxy Nexus up as if I was about to take a photo of myself with the front-facing camera, and a traced image of my face appeared on the screen. I also set up a back-up unlocking option: tracing a pattern on the screen. Whenever I wanted to use the phone, I held it up to my face and if facial recognition worked, it unlocked.

But this only worked half the time, sometimes because of low lighting, whether outside at night, in restaurants or even in my own kitchen. Other times it just didn’t recognize me. When I stood on city streets and held the phone up to my face to unlock it, I looked as if I was taking a photo of the people around me. And it’s impossible to slyly check your phone under the table during meetings or dinners using this unlocking method.

A facial-recognition feature unlocks the phone.

Google warns users this isn’t necessarily the safest method for locking a phone. Case in point: I was able to unlock the phone by holding a photo of my face up to its lock screen. But a Google engineer noted most people who find lost phones don’t know what the phone’s owner looks like.

Like Microsoft’s Windows Phones and the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus can be unlocked just for using its camera, or unlocked fully to access the rest of the phone’s features. When calls come in, a large image representing the caller appears on the screen along with options to drag an on-screen icon to ignore, answer, or send a text reply.

In Ice Cream Sandwich, app folders can be created by dragging app icons on top of one another. These icons seem to stack up in a messy pile; in one folder I made, called “Social,” only the blue beak of Twitter’s bird icon was visible.

In place of the Android Menu button, a small three-dot icon appears in all apps and this opens the menu. More icons at the bottom of each app screen perform actions, such as an envelope with a plus sign beside it in Gmail that opens a screen for composing an email. A Multitasking soft key displays all opened apps in one tap. Small images show the screen last opened on these apps like a webpage or a search term in a box. And the Android Market icon is now easier to find in the top right corner of the App Tray.

The photo gallery feels more lush and magazine-like than the text lists of albums in previous versions of Android. Thumbnail images representing albums appear side-by-side and fill the phone’s screen in a checkerboard fashion. Albums from my Flickr account were automatically pulled in here, and any photos I captured on the phone were automatically sent to my Google+ account using Instant Upload, a feature also available on other iterations of Android.

Ice Cream Sandwich has more options for photo editing and adds silly effects and backgrounds to videos. You can even make a time-lapse video.

Typing on this phone felt more accurate than in the past, and text can be dragged and dropped to different places using a gesture to swipe down and up. Items in the drop-down Notifications menu can be deleted with a swipe right.

If you’ve been curious about Android, the release of Ice Cream Sandwich will mark a good time to jump in.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com

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