Archive for the ‘Apps’ Category

If You’re an Audiobook Junkie, You Have to Get the Audiobooks Now Android App!

January 30th, 2012 Admin No Comments »

Let’s face it — mobile living is great. It’s the perfect way to still enjoy the best that life has to offer without missing a beat. If you’re a fan of audiobooks, then you already understand this completely. It’s nice to be able to do whatever you want to do without having to stop and look at a book. It’s better to really make sure that you really can just do about anything that you want without having to slow down at all.

That actually brings us to the Android experience, doesn’t it? After all, the whole purpose of Android is to give us plenty of features so that we really don’t have to worry about stopping to take care of things that are inconvenient. In that spirit, wouldn’t it be nice to have an Android app that could take care of our need to read books on the run? No more waiting around in airports trying to figure out what to do, that’s for sure!

So, if you really want to make sure that you are getting everything you want out of your mobile experience, it might be time to start thinking about the AudiobooksNow app.

This app is from the same people behind the Booksfree website, where people just like you can check out the latest and greatest in terms of audiobooks and even traditional books as well.

What makes the Audiobooks Now app stand out to us is that you get a great gateway to incredible audiobooks. These are books from mainstream authors — as much as we like indie books, we still want to be able to get our favorite authors.

The pricing plan is nice as well — you get $5/mo access to special Club pricing, or you can just pay as you go by the download. It’s completely up to you. If you’re not a fan of monthly subscriptions, then you can just skip that part.

You know the next step, don’t you? You’re going to want to download the app and take it for a test drive. If you’re truly an audiobook junkie like we are, there’s just no way that you can go on without an app like this!

Posted in Apps Tags: , , No Comments »

Android Music Player Applications that You Might Want to Use

January 17th, 2012 Admin No Comments »

There are many different music player apps that have been designed for an Android powered mobile phone. One really interesting application is Double Twist Player. It is currently considered to be the best one on the market. It will help you to find music that you want to hear on the Android phone and it can synchronize with desktop PCs through WI-Fi connections. It will detect music files and if you own a MAC, this can be done with the use of iTunes. All basic functions are free for the app.

We need to also refer to TuneWiki. It is really interesting as it is the only application that is available at the moment when you need lyrics and a connection to a social network that helps you discover music. You can see song lyrics on the device while the track is played and it is impressive to notice that the lyrics can be translated to 40 languages. TuneWiki will help you to find users and follow them. Look at what they listen to and use included tops and charts to find new songs.

PowerAmp is another powerful Android music application that can play different files like WMA, WAV, ALAC, MP3 and FLAC. There are 10 band equalizers included and even a sleep timer that can stop the song after a chosen time. You can use the app to play music that is present in specific Android folders or from a library. Different home screen widgets can be included so that fast music control becomes a reality. Even Last.fm scrobbling is possible.

You might want to use PlayerPro if you want to be able to download and search lyrics only when you want them. This is a music player that will automatically download album art and this will save a lot of time. Mixable audio effects can be included for various devices that are powered by the Android platform. A 5 band equalizer with many presets is included.

WinAmp is the most popular free music player for desktop computers and there is also a version available for Android phones. You can easily play and manage music files while also being able to gain access to a series of very useful music management tools. WinAmp managed to make a wonderful transition from the PC to the smart phone that is powered by Android and it is expected to have many users in the near future.

Posted in Apps Tags: , , , , , No Comments »

5 Android Apps That You Might Want To Use

January 17th, 2012 Admin No Comments »

Android is highly popular at the moment and there are thousands of different apps that have been developed till now. It is really hard to recommend just five but after looking at what people are downloading and using, some do stand out as really popular.

The first one on the list is the Home Security System Android App. Most people will be skeptic when looking at it but it is one of those handy applications that are going to help you to monitor and control the security of your home from the Android mobile phone. You basically get updates and alarms whenever something happens.

The second application that has to be considered is the Kindle Android App, which is useful when you want to read books on the phone. It will also work on a PC and on the iPod. The great thing is that there are thousands of free books available. However, most will be paid. Even so, there are over 1 million books that you can read on your mobile phone thanks to this application.

If you use Facebook, you will most likely also want to download and install the Facebook Android app. It will help you to easily stay connected with friends and it has to be mentioned that the page layouts are simply superb. Navigation is really smooth and there is support for many Facebook accounts. You can easily make the switch whenever necessary, add friends, update statuses and almost all things that you regularly do on your personal computer.

The Microsoft Office Android app is another application that is of great use. There are many included features that allow you to view Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word files with ease. The only problem is that the demo version will not allow you to create files or edit them. For this there is a need to purchase the app. However, you can use the application to download files from Google Docs directly and this is definitely something you are going to like.

The last application on the list is Recipe Search. This is useful to search through thousands of different recipes. Learn about how to cook some of the most incredible meals and see the ingredients that are necessary. Complete cooking directions are offered and this will help you to efficiently cook food and make it taste better. There are also special recipes for people that suffer from diseases like diabetes.

Posted in Apps Tags: , , , , No Comments »

5 great Facebook and Twitter clients for Android

August 9th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Most people who own a smartphone, no matter what operating system it runs on, will probably want to use the 2 most popular social networks online: Facebook and Twitter. There are already a lot of client apps created for these networks for the Android operating system. In fact, there are so many, it’s confusing.

So, to make things easier for you, here’s a list of the best Twitter and Facebook client apps, as voted by users. They’re also the ones that are regularly updated and maintained, so you don’t run into the risk of having the application suddenly stop working.

Twidroid.

The leading Twitter client for Android. It has most of the features you need and is fast and stable. You can view and publish tweets, videos and images, shorten URL’s, share tweets using SMS or Email, reply (including reply-to-all for the paid version), and do a lot of other things. The free version has no support for multiple backgrounds, no reply-to-all and no desktop widgets, but should be enough for most users. If you need those features, you can get the paid version for $5. Of course it comes with lifetime support and a few additional phone-dependant features like shake for refresh, offline tweets scheduler and multiple accounts.

TweetsRide.

Formerly named TwitterRide, this is a simple, fast and light Twitter client application for Android. It has all the basic features one might need and nothing else. This makes it perfect for people who just want to read and publish tweets and images/photos. The latest update also includes support for video uploads through TwitVid, which is great, but can use up all your allocated bandwidth pretty fast.

Facebook for Android.

Many people thought this was an official Facebook app when it launched, but that turned out to be false. Still, Facebook seems to officially endorse it (they list it on their Facebook mobile page), so you can be sure that it works well. It is a good application with all the basic features you might need. It actually comes pre-installed on a lot of phones and you can also install it yourself if you don’t have it.

Bloo.

The name doesn’t imply it, but this app is actually a Facebook client for Android. It provides all of the basic features like status updates, viewing photos, comments, and others. That is probably enough for most users. People have reported a lot of problems with the free version, and even the developer posted a message saying you should get the paid version (which is only $1 and has no problems), but you can still try it before buying.

fooBook.

This is another client app for Facebook. It has the most features of all, but users are reporting that it doesn’t work right, so you need to try it for yourself. The free edition is missing only the comment posting feature and does not have on-demand re-syncing, while the paid version has those features and is only $1.50, so it could be worth it if the free version works on your device.

The above apps are some of the best clients for Facebook and Twitter. I’m sure they’ll be improved with the next updates, so you can safely download them knowing they’ll work. What would be really nice is one single app that would provide all the features of both these networks. Maybe we’ll see one someday, but for now we just have to wait.

Posted in Apps Tags: , , , , , , , No Comments »

5 cool apps for Android that you need to check out

June 21st, 2011 Admin No Comments »

The list of Android apps available on the marketplace is growing every day and currently counts over ten thousand apps. Android phones and tablets are being released and sold like fresh bread, and the number of users is getting bigger and bigger every day. Here are just a few very neat and interesting Android applications that you should really check out.

Google Voice.

This app comes preinstalled with a lot of the new Android devices. It allows the user to make inexpensive calls over the Internet (using the Voice over IP protocol) to any phone number in the world and send SMS messages to any mobile number. You get a phone number from Google for absolutely free, which you can then use like any other regular number, i.e. call from it and receive calls. A great benefit is that you can make these calls using any Wi-Fi network, which makes calls literally dirt cheap. A neat feature of Google Voice is its automatic transcription that transcribes your voice messages into text, which can then be sent to your email address and read instead of listened. This can save you a lot of time and bandwidth.

Layar Reality Browser.

This is an AR (Augmented Reality) app that is vey neat and cool to use. You get the feeling that you’re in one of those movies about the future where computers tell people everything they need to know about their surrounding areas. Layar achieves it by using all of the information provided by its huge database of users, as well as its integration with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. So, when you arrive in a new town and want to get some food, you can search aimlessly :-) , ask other people or just hold your phone in front of you, search for “best pizza or restaurant” and you will get a list of indicators (that are superimposed on top of real time camera footage) for the closest pizza places. You can also use your GPS to navigate anywhere, see the LinkedIn profiles, latest Facebook updates or Tweets of the people near you (using Layar’s database and some pretty advanced face recognition), check out the main landmarks and events that you can attend and do a lot of other cool stuff.

Talk to me.

This is a great free application that translates anything you say into another language. Basically, it is a real time speech-to-speech personal translator! Of course, it is not as accurate as a human yet, but it can still save you in quite a few situations like when you’re in a foreign country or are talking to a tourist whom you don’t understand. You might be thinking, “How come such a powerful app is free?”. Well, it is technically not that powerful by itself. It is just a very smart automated interface, which uses Android’s Voice Recognition, Text to Speech feature and Google Translate to achieve the translation. And it works pretty well, too! The only thing you will need in order to be able to use it is a fast and stable 3G connection. (more…)

Posted in Apps Tags: , , , No Comments »

Capturing Video on Your Android Phone

June 12th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Taking pictures on a phone is something that even non-smartphones seem to be capable of doing these days. However, there is something powerful about being able to take video. This is something that’s worth upgrading to a smartphone to be able to do, and the good news is that many Android phones are capable of taking video.

However, if you’ve never taken any video with your Android phone, you might wonder what you will need to do in order to get things started.

It’s really not as hard as you think. Here’s what you need to do:

To get started, you just need to open up the Camera app and flip into the video mode. Make sure that while you’re getting ready to capture video that you actually turn the phone sideways. There is not a portrait mode for video, so this could be the reason why you were never able to take video before.

As you begin recording video, you might wonder about quality. The quality of your videos will be dictated by the overall quality of your camera. If you have a higher end Android phone, your videos are definitely going to be pretty crisp. on the other hand, if you have one of the lower end video-enabled Android phones, you will not be able to take stunning video — but you will still be able to make decent clips that can be sent via MMS messaging, you know.

Taking video is one of the top reasons to go ahead and max out your phone’s overall SD card capacity. This means that if your phone can afford a 32GB SD card, you should definitely get one. Video takes up even more space than pictures do, and you can fill up a small SD card fast if you’re not careful.

The good news about this is that as time passes, the higher capacity cards go on sale a lot more often. This means that you will be able to pick up a 32GB SD card without too much fuss. Chances are also good that the capacity for SD cards will go up even more, to the point where a 32GB card will be considered small someday.

Now, if you’re someone that likes to stay organized, you might want to get a bunch of smaller cards that are just devoted to your videos. This can be a good option if you need to take video for business, but you also want to take videos of you and your friends out on the town. That’s definitely a time where you don’t want to mix the videos together!

Sharing the videos that you create is just the next logical step. Thankfully, you already have an app for this — it’s within your Gallery app. You get the opportunity to share your videos directly from the app. All you have to do is go to the video that you want, hold the video until the context menu comes up, and then select Share.

From the Share link, you’ll have a few options to choose from. You can go with getting your video on YouTube (as long as it’s under 10 minutes, of course!), or even going to put your video on Twitter. It’s just a matter of figuring out where you want your video to go.

If you’re really trying to share with your friends through MMS, you will need to make sure that you focus on a lower quality setting than if you were going with YouTube.

Overall, there’s something interesting about capturing a slice of our collective lives with video. The handy nature of Android means that you should have no problem really capturing all of the things that matter to you — don’t miss a single moment!

Posted in Apps Tags: , No Comments »

A Close Look at the Android App Market

June 12th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

If you just bought a nice new Android phone, you might think about getting a few apps for it. There’s nothing wrong with picking up new applications for your Android phone. In fact, it’s definitely encouraged. The culture of Android doesn’t assume that the phone will be able to do everything you want with no need for applications. Instead, the entire foundation of the Android platform is designed to encourage people to come up with solutions to make your Android phone run a little nicer, a little cleaner and a lot whole better.

It all really starts with the Android app market, a place where you can pick up the latest apps. Now, keep in mind that the Android market hosts both free and paid apps. Every program hopes to change your phone for the better, and the open source nature means that you can always count on yet another developer coming up with a program to make your phone does something cool. This is a lot different than the iPhone app market, which is tightly regulated. The apps in the Android market aren’t controlled very much at all, which means that you could end up getting a bad program here and there. This is where the community steps in to highlight the best apps. You can bet your phone that a bad app won’t stay in the market for long, considering how many people are addicted to all things Android.

Ready to jump in? Great! A few points:

One, you need to decide whether or not you want to upload apps to your phone from your computer or if you want to actually download them from the Android market directly on your phone. To go with direct downloads, you will need to open the Android Market application that’s already on your phone. You will be able to browse the market and download anything that looks interesting to you.

If you want to use an outside file manager to do this, there are some options as well — like AppBrain, Apps Installer and Astro File Manager. This will let you manipulate the “raw” APK file and install your application quickly.

If you’re not sure what programs to begin with, you might want to just spend some time navigating the market. Keep in mind that any file that you want to get is going to definitely to take up space on your phone, and that’s space that could be used for another program or even to store your personal files. If you really want to make sure that you’re balancing the space question properly, you will need to keep your apps on the SD card as much as possible. You can always swap out SD cards when you urn out of space, which is what a lot of Android users do.

Overall, the Android app market is definitely here to stay. You can be assured that no matter what Android phone you get, you will find something in the app market to make it work even better than the day you bought it!

Posted in Apps Tags: , No Comments »

Android App Review: Seesmic

June 7th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

Twitter apps for Android phones are certainly not hard to find. However, some of them just don’t cut it unfortunately. It is very much a trial and error process when it comes to finding a Twitter client that works for you. This is why we hope to narrow your search with this review. One of the many Twitter clients that you may have heard of is Seesmic, and this is one that you definitely want to consider. Let’s take a look at why.

Firstly, here are some of the pros of the app itself. The first thing that you will notice about this Android app is the fact that it is incredibly fast. A lot of Twitter clients out there at the moment are sluggish and tend to lag when attempting to give you real time Tweets from the people that you are following. Another thing that you will notice about this app is that it has been very well put together. It has been designed to offer ease of use and convenience when it comes to the home page. Finally, there is the Twitter lists feature that you do not get with other apps.

Now, the cons. Are there any? Well, yes. Considering this is supposed to be one of the top business models from Seesmic, you would think that they would have integrated Facebook as well. However, this is not really a con as such. There are many ways to remedy this, because there are a lot of different Facebook apps for the Android phone out there that work just as well on their own. The only other negative thing that can be said about Seesmic is the fact that it does not support more than one Twitter account, so you will not be able to use all of your business accounts at the same time.

So, now we go to the features. The first thing to point out is that anything that you can when using Twitter on a PC or laptop, you can still do on Seesmic. Obviously, this is a huge plus point, because some Twitter clients for the Android phone do not allow you to access certain features, but everything has been integrated into Seesmic.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of good things about this app. If you are looking for something professional, with a sleek, easy to use interface then this is one that you should definitely be trying out before you even look at any others.

Posted in Apps Tags: No Comments »

Top 5 Apps for Android

May 21st, 2011 Admin No Comments »

New apps are added to the Android marketplace on a daily basis, meaning that it can be difficult to sift through them all and determine what the best apps for your personal productivity actually are. Below, you will find a list of the top 5 apps currently available for Android to help get the most out of your smartphone.

Google Goggles:

It’s an app like Google Goggles that can really make you realize how far modern technology has come in the past few years. Google Goggles allows users to take photographs of historical monuments, business cards, products, and even landmarks and through the Google search engine, gives all relevant information about a product that a user might need. In a restaurant and would like to know the history of the Heinz ketchup bottle sitting next to your plate? Google Goggles has you covered.

Dropbox:

If you have Dropbox installed on your home computer, you probably already know the ease of use of being able to automatically sync your files between computers. With dropbox on your Android phone, you can automatically have access to all of the files that were updated on your home computer without having to work your way through the complicated process of emailing files to yourself or syncing them via an SD card.

TripIt:

For travelers out there, TripIt is an indispensable resource. TripIt allows users to forward their confirmation emails for flights, rental cars, and hotels to their TripIt account and have the app automatically organize everything you need to know about your travel plans in this easy to use app. That means that instead of fumbling around with crumpled papers in your briefcase or backpack, your smartphone can be your personal organizer and keep you on track for flights, cars, and travel plans no matter how frequently you travel.

Shazam:

We’ve all had those moments where we’re standing in the grocery store, or sitting in the car, listening to a song that we can’t quite figure out who it’s by. Shazam allows you to simply hold your smartphone in the air and let the song play into the microphone. Shazam looks through its endless database of songs and tells you the name and information of the song that you’re hearing. Truly remarkable and helpful for those moments when you can’t just Google the lyrics or ask your friend if they remember who it’s by either.

Barcode Scanner:

The real beauty behind Android’s ability to recognize things like barcodes and products is the ability to save money while you’re shopping in the store. The barcode scanner lets you scan barcodes, and in an instant, you are redirected to the web where you can find deals, reviews, and information about the product you’re looking at. This is a great way to figure out if the store you’re in has a huge markup, or if it’s worthwhile to take the plunge and buy from the traditional brick and mortar you’re in.

Posted in Apps Tags: , , No Comments »

Learn English Reading JFK Gives You The Power To Make Language Come Alive!

May 20th, 2011 Admin No Comments »

If there’s one gift that truly keeps on giving, it would definitely have to be the gift of education. Indeed, learning is something that we all need to continue doing in order to really take advantage of everything that life has to offer. Now, you might come to a point where you really do need to think about other skills that you need to develop. For example, if you know that your English isn’t the best or you want to grow in the language, you need to pick up some English lessons.

Of course, this is pretty obvious. Why wouldn’t you want to speak better English and grow your vocabulary? That’s not to say that your home language isn’t beautiful — but there’s a certain power in learning English well.

Now, we’re all about things Android around here, and we feel there’s no reason to not combine the power of the Android platform with great software and your desire to really learn a new skill. As we looked around for software that would meet our needs, we stumbled across Learn English Reading JFK.

Strange name? Not really — it describes exactly what you’re going to do. You might have heard this before — in order to really learn how to speak English well, you will need to make sure that you actually learn English from a source that is not only timeless, but will help you understand some idioms and other “quirks” about the English language. It will make you sound more natural as an English speaker, which most people learning English as a second language dream about anyway.

The app allows you to pull upon the power of audiobooks in order to learn English in a more natural way. What better source material can you think of that could compare to JFK’s famous inaugural speech?

There is a built-in dictionary, as well as flashcard technology. Now it’s easier than ever before to reinforce English lessons without feeling like you’re going backwards.

These days, English is the language of business and even style — so why wouldn’t you arm yourself with a free app like Learn English Reading JFK? Check it out — you might just learn a thing or two!

Posted in Apps Tags: , No Comments »
« Older Entries
RSS FeedSubscribe to our RSS feed!