Daniel Ionescu, Ginny Mies

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would increase secrecy of the products in its pipeline, a speech that occurred on the same day alleged designs of the iPhone 5 were leaked online. Speaking at the D10: All Things Digital conference, Cook said: “We’re going to double down on secrecy on products.” Meanwhile, online photos of what appear to be parts of the next-generation iPhone were published by 9To5Mac.

Could it be a coincidence that Cook gave his speech on the same day the photos were leaked? Absolutely. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time we have seen alleged parts of a future iPhone that turn out to be wildly off-base when the real product arrives.

The Samsung Galaxy S III arrives this week in Europe and the first reviews are in to give you an idea about what to expect from the phone when it hits the US shores. Samsung and wireless carriers have yet to announce when the Samsung will be available here in the US.

The delay is likely due to certain customizations, on the inside and outside, carriers are requesting. But, if you must have Samsung’s latest hot phone now, you can get one unlocked from Amazon from Friday for $800. But if you’re patient, you’ll be able to get one for much less on a contract when it arrived stateside.

As gamers are slowly abandoning their portable consoles in favor of smartphones and tablets, it might come as no surprise that GameStop, the top U.S. games retailer, is now turning to Android tablets to boost sales. The retailer announced a variety of tablets running on Google’s mobile OS are on sale at more than 1,600 of its U.S. stores, from manufacturers such as Acer, Asus and Toshiba.

There aren’t as many games and apps for Android tablets compared to the iPad, so GameStop will pre-load a bunch of free games with each tablet sold, including Sonic CD, Riptide, a free issue of GameStop’s gaming mag, Game Informer, and the Kongregate Arcade gaming app that GameStop acquired.

Facebook has five mobile apps, no clear way to monetize its mobile users, and it is now looking to build a smartphone, according to a recent New York Times report. Yes, we've heard this all before. This the the third time the social network has been reportedly working on a smartphone to rival Apple and Google, which would arrive in consumers’ hands some time next year. But, this is the first time the rumor start making sense given Facebook's post-IPO pressures to make money and 900 million user base.

To refresh your memory, the first time we’ve heard of the Facebook phone was in 2010 from TechCrunch, and the second time in 2011 from AllThingsD on the partnership between the social network and HTC. Facebook denied the rumors on both occasions and the only Facebook-enabled phones from the manufacturer were two HTC Android devices featuring some software and hardware integration with the social network.

Yahoo on Thursday introduced a new browser plugin for desktop computers as well as an iOS browser called Axis. Yahoo’s browser is not meant to be a replacement for Chrome, Firefox or Internet explorer on desktop computers. Instead, Axis is what Yahoo calls a “search browser”, which is basically a plugin to visually display search results served by the search engine.

Apple is currently working on its “most important and best work” so far, Jonathan Ive, the company’s senior vice president of industrial design, said in a rare interview for UK daily The Telegraph. Ive was in his home country this week to receive his knighthood from the queen, who has both an iPod and an iPad, recognizing his “services to design and enterprise.”

When asked by the paper what would be one design that he would like to be remembered for, Ive, 45, hinted that “what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about.” So what is Apple’s next big thing?

Consumers who want to be among the first in the U.S. to own Samsung’s Galaxy S III smartphone on June 1 will pay a steep price. Amazon is now taking U.S. pre-orders for the flagship Android device and bitter iPhone rival for $800 unlocked, but the price tag is not the only thing you should be wary of.

Samsung and U.S. wireless carriers are yet to announce their versions of the Galaxy S III, which usually vary from one another both internally and externally. So what you will be getting for $800 is the 16GB SIM-free international version of the S III (blue or white), also known as GT-i9300, with a huge 4.8-inch display, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera, and Android 4.0 with a lot of Samsung software goodies.

Four of the best smartphones: (left) the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx; (top middle) the Nokia Lumia 900; (bottom middle) the Sprint LG Viper; and (right) the T-Mobile HTC One S. Shopping for a new smartphone can be overwhelming.

So many good phones are available that upgraders may feel swamped with op­­tions. Never fear: I’ve picked the best ones on each of the four major carriers. And since the smartphone world moves incredibly fast, I’ll also tell you about phones not yet out.

Google’s Chrome is now the most popular Web browser worldwide, surpassing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the first time, according to the latest figures from StatCounter. After years of slowly chipping away Internet Explorer’s market share, Chrome took the lead with 32.76 percent share, while IE dipped to 31.94 percent.

Just a year ago, Internet Explorer was leading the Web browser market share with 43 percent, followed by Mozilla Firefox with 29 percent, and Chrome was third with 19 percent. Twelve months later, IE has lost 12 percent of the browser market share while Chrome gained 13 percent to the detriment of IE and Firefox, which also lost about 4 percent of its users and now comes in at just over 25 percent.

Apple's walled garden is a paradise for many, simplifying the tasks of finding, downloading, and managing music and video for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. But for some people (including me), Apple's walled garden feels more like a penitentiary.

The iTunes software is optimized to sell you content. Using it for anything else, such as adding your own video or a music track, isn't so easy. But I don't like the idea of buying a music track or a video from the iTunes Store, even though I already own it, just because doing so is easier than importing it via iTunes.

One in two U.S. mobile subscribers now has a smartphone, fueling the American appetite for apps, according to a Nielsen study. In the past year, the average number of apps on a smartphone has increased from 32 to 41, a 28 percent jump, according to the research.

Despite some publishers abandoning native apps in favor of Web apps, Nielsen found that people are actually spending more time in apps than on the mobile Web. Last year, 73 percent of the time was spent on apps, compared with 83 percent this year. Nielsen did note earlier this year, that when it comes to shopping, people prefer websites instead of apps.