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Mar

[Update: Live!] Poweramp Has A Good Year, Goes $1.99 For 48 Hours To Celebrate

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Deals, News

The official press release said "This sale will begin Friday at 12PM EST," but they actually meant 12 PM CST.

To say that Poweramp is a major fan favorite music player is to put it mildly; the app has over 10 million downloads, and with over 146,500 ratings, checks in at an impressive 4.5 stars (out of 5). That's probably thanks in part to an impressive feature list:

Key Features:
- plays mp3, mp4/m4a (including alac), ogg, wma*, flac, wav, ape, wv, tta, mpc, aiff (* some wma pro files may require NEON support)
- 10 band optimized graphical equalizer for all supported formats, presets, custom presets
- separate Bass and Treble adjustment
- stereo eXpansion, mono mixing, balance
- crossfade
- gapless
- replay gain
- plays songs from folders and from own library
- dynamic queue
- lyrics support, including lyrics search via musiXmatch plugin
- embed and standalone .cue files support
- support for m3u, m3u8, pls, wpl playlists
- OpenGL based cover art animation
- downloads missing album art
- 4 configurable widget types
- configurable lock screen with optional Direct Unlock
- headset support, automatic Resume on headset and/or BT connection (can be disabled in settings)
- scrobbling
- tag editor
- visual themes, including support for external/3rd party skins
- fast library scan
- high level of customization via settings

In celebration of their success, the developers are dropping the price for 48 hours (from Friday at 12PM CST to Sunday at 12PM CST), from $4.99 to $2.49 - and they "might drop that to $1.99 if [they] get enough people excited for this sale." What are you waiting for?

Mar

Kairosoft Releases "Dungeon Village" In Typical 16-Bit Fashion, But With New Quasi-RPG Goodness

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, Games, News

If you've ever taken a look at the top Android games (or if you just follow Android news closely), you've almost certainly heard of Kairosoft before. They're the developer behind major hits like Game Dev Story and Grand Prix story. Now the company is back with a new title: Dungeon Village.

The game looks quite similar to the other titles, but they seem to think it has a bit of an RPG flair to it (though we can't figure out how):

Build a heroic hamlet that warriors and merchants can call home!

Welcome to an epic RPG world in which the town you build can grow from humble hamlet into a mecca for the land's most ambitious adventurers!

Mar

Major Update For CloudAround Music Player Drops, Brings Attractive New UI, More Features

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News

We first discussed the impressively-featured, but somewhat ugly, CloudAround Music Player when it was released about two months ago. The developers promised a "slick new interface" was coming soon, and boy have they delivered - as well as brought some new, even more impressive features.

Let's start with the features first:

Full settings section including:
Caching limits

Cache Clearing

Ability to toggle hiding duplicates

Force album/artist art scan

Prevent artist metadata scanning

Wifi only settings

Artist art download quality

Completely new beautiful UI based on user feedback
We've had easily a hundred emails of requests

default background images that are easy on the eye

default art covers

New mini player on the songs listing page, with control as well as progress

Enhanced for tablet sized interfaces

Landscape and portrait mode for player pages

Artist Image Backgrounds

Fixed foundation layer to provide for a more reliable player under OS stress

Improved stream times

Ability to hide/unhide artists/albums/songs from user view

Performance boosts, which were critical for massive cloud accounts

When they say brand new interface, they really mean it.

Mar

Fascinating: OnLive Unveils OnLive Desktop - A Free, Instantly Available Windows 7 Cloud Instance For Tablets, Complete With MS Office, Media Streaming, And More [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, Applications, News, Tablets, Videos

OnLive, the company that has already revolutionized gaming is now gunning for making the same kind of splash in OS virtualization. And not just any OS virtualization, but Windows 7 in the cloud, for free - a set of words I never thought I'd write in the same sentence.

Something worth pointing out right off the bat is OnLive's "groundbreaking video compression technology" that is used to stream the Desktop cloud to your tablet. If there's one company that has figured out how to perfect streaming of full-screen media, it's definitely OnLive.

I was a bit skeptical at first, but after trying out every aspect of the app through a relatively slow, Spanish Vodafone HSPA+ hotspot here in Barcelona, I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed.

Feb

[New App] Avira Jumps Into The Android Security Game, Combines Tried-And-True Functionality With A Polished Interface

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

Avira, a "worldwide leading supplier of self-developed security solutions," has thrown its hat into the Android security ring, releasing Avira Free Android Security to the Market today. The app offers a bevy of familiar anti-theft functions, including remote lock, scream, GPS tracking, and device info monitoring, among others.

Though Avira's solution offers the old standbys as far as anti-theft functionality, the app also has a few unique touches and key features that make it worth checking out.

First off, the service can handle multiple devices, which is a huge plus in my book. The app also allows users to add a convenient button to the lock screen which will call a predetermined phone number, allowing the person who finds your phone to get a hold of you quickly and easily.

Feb

eBay Releases Half.com App, Allows You To Browse, Buy, Search, And Scan Barcodes From The Comfort Of Your Android Device

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

Popular game, book, and textbook site Half.com (owned and operated by eBay) now has an official app, and as with just about every other shopping app, it allows you to browse the virtual store shelves, search for specific items, and place orders. It also includes a nifty barcode scanner to help make sure you snag the right item (and don't get ripped off... *ahem* college bookstores).

With the Half.com Android application you can buy media titles in books, textbooks, movies, music, games and game systems - anytime, anywhere.

Get the best price for next semester's classes by using the barcode scanner to search for textbook titles and have them shipped right to your door.

Feb

[Weekend Poll] Let's Talk Music Apps: What Flavor Do You Use?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Polls

Earlier this week, unofficial word came out that Google wasn't happy with Music's performance to date. I attribute part of the problem to the mediocre music app, though that's something that could be remedied by the unofficial Google Music API in the near future. Despite its shortcomings, some people - myself included - use the app. Others use the app that comes stock bundled with manufacturer UIs (for example, Sense, TouchWiz, and Blur all include their own custom music players). Still others use third-party apps, available on the market or as APKs (for example, Artem uses PowerAmp).

So, what do you use to play music locally?

Feb

Excellent Mobile Security App Cerberus Hits 100,000 Users, Offers Free Lifetime Licenses For A Few Days To Celebrate

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

A few months ago, Liam spent some time with 17 mobile security apps, one of which was an app called Cerberus. He came away quite impressed - so impressed, in fact, that he crowned it the winner (and, as a license is just $4, it was also crowned the best for the budget-minded).

The app is always free to download and comes with a 1 week free trial, but a lifetime license is normally $4. I say normally because, as you have likely deduced from the title, the developer is offering free lifetime licenses in celebration of hitting 100,000 users.

To get the license, just download the app and register an account (it requires a username, password, and email address - nothing tricky), then fill out the form and hit Submit.

Feb

Scalado Remove Gets The Hands-On Treatment Ahead Of MWC, Wipes Out Photobombers With Ease

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

You may remember a couple of weeks ago when we covered an app by Scalado called Remove that, well, removes strangers from your mobile photos. The app is officially scheduled to debut to the public at this years Mobile World Congress, but ABC News' This Could Be Big segment gave the software a quick hands-on ahead of time:

Remove, as explained in the video above, works by taking multiple photos of a scene and highlighting unnecessary foot traffic/unwanted objects, wiping them out quickly and easily, and patching them with the background your photo was supposed to have.

It's still not clear when we can expect to see the app distributed to individual users, or when we may see the software preloaded on devices, but we'll be here to cover all the details as they roll out next week.

Feb

Citibank Mobile For Android Now Accepts Remote Check Deposits, If You Can Get Through

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

After a period of limited beta testing, Citibank officially announced today that remote check deposits can now be done using its mobile app for Android. Just snap a picture of the check, and it's deposited remotely. The deposit limit seems to be $1,000 per day (at least it was during the beta), so it won't replace going to a local branch to deposit your paycheck just yet for some of you.

Sounds great. but does it work? I've been using the Chase app to deposit the few occasional checks that come in and haven't needed to go to a bank for a long time, but since Citibank is my main banking account, I decided to check it out.