It has been one month since I've encountered Oyster, a startup company that offers buffet-style selections of books to iPhone owners for a monthly fee. Since the initial product rollout, the service has been slowly expanding with new titles. With a free, one-month trial and the introduction of its iPad app, Oyster makes reading that much more accessible. My inner bookworm and outer cheapskate couldn't help but take them up on their offer.

My first reaction to Oyster's service was that it would be painful to do any sort of long reading on the iPhone's tiny screen. Even with the larger real estate of the iPhone 5, I still found it to be an annoyance to scroll through all of those pages. The alternative is to download the app on an iPad and use zoom, but this work-around doesn't offer the comfort or aesthetic feel of a native app. Now that the Oyster is natively supported on the iPad, reading has never been easier.

After signing in, Oyster will hit you up with some of its recommendations (most popular, editor's picks, and spotlight categories) from which you can browse from or start searching by books or authors. The selection is quite good fo... [Read more]

When consumers said "The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice," they sure weren't talking about apps. With far fewer applications at their fingertips than iOS, Android, and Windows phone users, BlackBerry aficionados, who just can't do away with the much-prized keyboard, are missing out on much of the latest and greatest in mobile software. Former Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver bassist -- currently with Walking Papers -- Duff McKagan is one of the loyalists who's unwilling to give his device its walking papers.

Walking Papers' bassist, Duff McKagan [right], fields Download.com's questions.

Speaking of Walking Papers, the rock quartet's self-titled debut LP, produced by Jack Endino (Soundgarden, Nirvana, Mudhoney) and featuring Pearl Jam/Mad Season guitarist Mike McCready, possesses enough poetic lyricism, skilled musicianship, and raw energy to recommend it as the finest rock album of the last decade. Download.com caught up with McKagan, currently on tour (Walking Papers plays the Pearl Concert Theater at the Las Vegas Palms on October 26), about keeping a BlackBerry, his favorite apps, the downside of social media, and what he does before every show to maintain collective harmony.

Being ... [Read more]

Keep your brain sharp with one of these fun, casual puzzle games for Android.

Pop quiz: you have 15 minutes to spare while you wait for your turn in the dentist's office -- now what? You're already caught up on your Facebook feed and the front page of Reddit looks the same as it did 10 minutes ago. So why not take this opportunity to test your mental mettle?

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I've put together a small collection of my favorite puzzle games for Android, many of which are free. While some might be incredibly simple in their premise, they can still challenge that gray matter. And, t... [Read more]

DreamWorks Animation's Dragon's Adventure game debuts on the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet.

DreamWorks' new game for the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet may be based around its film "How to Train Your Dragon," but it might as well be called "How to Train Your Children To Take Long Car Rides."

Starting Tuesday, Dragon's Adventure, as the game is called, puts Nokia's Here maps and existing augmented reality software to clever use by building gameplay around the morning commute, or really any road trip or drive.

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Flipboard, shown here on an Android device, is coming to Windows Phone soon.

Tuesday at Nokia World, Nokia announced that a few of the most popular apps from iOS and Android -- Flipboard, Instagram, and Vine -- are at last coming to Windows Phone.

In total, Nokia showed off 23 new apps that are coming to Windows Phone. Those include photo social network Instagram, social news magazine app Flipboard, Twitter-owned video app Vine, and video editor Vyclone Pro. The Windows Phone app store will also get several new games, such as Temple Run 2, My Talking Tom, and FIFA 14.

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