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iTunes has been a staple of Apple's device strategy for nearly two decades. Even after the iPod lineup faded into obscurity, it's still used as a way to backup and restore data locally from iOS devices — a point of envy for many Android users. According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple could replace iTunes entirely at this week's WWDC event.
It took a couple of years for Google Duo to spread its wings beyond single-device support, but now that it has, there's no stopping it. After enabling you to make video calls on multiple devices, including Android tablets, Duo is now expanding from the iPhone to the iPad as well.
Disney's Movies Anywhere has just launched a new service that allows you to store and access all your movies in one place. It has support from 5 major Hollywood studios, but more importantly also from 4 digital retailers where users already have movie libraries. Content from Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu can be brought into the Movies Anywhere app, which is great for anyone with a fragmented collection spanning more than one of those services. Now, you'll only ever need to use one app again.
Facebook has many apps, side-projects, and different ways to suck you into its social network and try to get you to stay on it. One day it wants to be your news source, the other it wants to be your communication hub or your work's intranet. Facebook's Mentions launched in July 2014 with an iOS app as a way for celebrities to manage their pages, then was opened to all verified profiles in September 2015. Now the app has crossed the dark forest, jumped the big void, and ventured into the unknown abyss between iOS and Android and come to the Play Store.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared with you a selection of lesser known music players for locally stored media that had some special powers and functions. However, playback and streaming aren't the only functions a music aficionado looks for, especially when your favorite app sometimes lacks a certain functionality. So how do you fill this void, or how do you improve on your basic listening experience? Here are 10 utilities that can be used in conjunction with your preferred music apps to complement them.
Google Play Music. Poweramp. Apollo Music Player. We certainly do not suffer from a lack of choice when it comes to local music playback on Android. A simple search for the terms "music player" on the Play Store is guaranteed to yield hundreds of alternatives, varying from the excellent to the good and often the mediocre. However, in a sea of notoriously powerful (like Poweramp, GoneMAD, AIMP, Neutron) or familiar (like DoubleTwist, Apollo, n7 player) apps, hide a few that do something different. This is a selection of 5 such apps.
Moborobo 2.1.2 Brings Cross-Device Contact Transfers, Batch App Installs, And More To Android [Sponsored Post]
We've looked at Moborobo and all it has to offer once before, but the team has been hard at work bringing new features and tools to the already-useful
We've looked at Moborobo and all it has to offer once before, but the team has been hard at work bringing new features and tools to the already-useful application. While it has always been a full-fledged Android management suite for end users, the new features really focus on bringing increased functionality for phone vendors, telecom operators, and the like.
Android phone management is a bit of a double-edged sword. And by that, I mean that the devices themselves are self-contained and self-managed. Whereas iOS devices require iTunes to transfer data and the like, Android can do those things without the need to be tethered to a PC. However, that comes at a cost. There's only so much that can be done on the device, and what can be done is sometimes cumbersome. To put it bluntly, sometimes a management solution on the PC is not only good to have, but clutch in taking care of business in a timely manner.
While Google's been working feverishly to build out its Play Store, bringing it to other countries and expanding its offerings, the company's music store has been lacking one crucial feature that its competitors have: library matching. Where Amazon and iTunes can scan your current collection and add the songs to your online storage, Google has, until recently, required users to upload every individual track manually. A long and tedious process. In mid-November, the scan and match feature came out for Europe, and today it arrives for US residents.
Google Music is old hat. Sorry, guys - it's true. Streaming? Amazon's Cloud Player and iTunes iCloud both have it. Locker storage? Amazon gives you a decent amount, too - and they might even increase it if they feel Google Music is one-upping them. Purchase options? Apple and Amazon both have more music you can purchase digitally, including titles from Warner Music Group (which Google Music does not have), where many major contemporary artists are signed.
If you're anything like me, your Android handset has completely demolished the need for an mp3 player, you're constantly adding and removing files from your device, and you find the process of plugging your phone or tablet into your computer via USB to be tedious, if not tiresome.
Google's Music service has been an incomplete experience since its unveiling at Google I/O back in May. While Music Beta does allow you to upload your songs and stream them to your Android device, it lacks any kind of storefront. Google does have a small library of featured free tunes for Music users, but I can't say any of the albums or artists there have ever really interested me too much.
To answer the question, briefly: nobody really knows at this point. But I do think Google is going to have to make some sacrifices in the short term if the Music service is going to get off the ground. And that's because the record labels won't play ball - at least not by Google's rules according to All Things D, quoting two apparently well-connected sources.
While some companies are content to just talk, talk, talk about what they are doing, Amazon seems to be quietly hard at work. Last week they gave us the Amazon Appstore for Android and last night they dropped another bomb – the Amazon Cloud Player.
