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Dec

Facedroid Finally Comes To Phones With Update To Version 2.52, Goes On Sale For $0.99

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

Facedroid is an app that ambitiously set out to give users a more powerful, functional Facebook experience. Until now, though, it was only available for Android tablets.

In a substantial update to version 2.52 today, that changed – the new update finally brings Facedroid to your phone. The phone interface, as you may expect, looks to bring the same functionality users have come to know and love from the tablet version. That being said, it should be noted that the phone interface is in beta, so users can expect that not everything works perfectly yet. To that end, the developers promise plenty of updates "coming soon" to continue refining Facedroid for the small screen.

Dec

Our Five Favorite New Apps To Check Out From November 2012

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications

The Google Play Store, as always, was abuzz with new apps last month. More than just new apps, though, the Play Store gained plenty of well-crafted, quality apps. The kind that have spurred the market's recent growth spurt, and which allow users to discover functionalities they never knew they needed. As always, we've sifted through all last month's new apps and selected our top five picks – a kind of short list for those looking to get the most out of their device with awesome apps.

Pixlr Express

Pixlr Express, despite its name, is an impressively powerful tool for on-the-go photo editing.

Oct

Google+ Mobile App Now Supports Page Management, New Widget, And One Tap Photo Access

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

It seems like you can't go a day anymore without something new being added to Google+. Today, the mobile app is seeing an update that brings some much-requested features, including the ability to manage Pages from mobile. The method is a little wonky. Unlike on the web version, you can't just hop over to a page you're managing. You have to manually log out then log back in, at which point you will be asked what profile or page you want to control. It's bothersome, but at least it works.

The new app also brings an updated widget that looks a bit nicer than the old one.

Sep

Chameleon Beta Updated To Version 0.9.0 - The Widget API Is Here!

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Since the Chameleon beta first became available, the most requested feature has been for more widgets. The initial build only offered a handful of choices, and while they were all useful, they didn't showcase the launcher's usefulness. More recently, the team updated the application to offer even more widgets, adding a bit more value to the launcher.

Now, however, the launcher has received what I think is its biggest and most important update thus far: the launcher just hit version 0.9.0, which brings the first version of the widget API. Why is this a big deal, you ask? Because developers can now start working on their own widgets just for Chameleon!

Aug

[New App] Falcon For Twitter Beta Flies Above And Beyond Other Twitter Widgets

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

There's a lot of options for Twitter on Android, both in full apps and widgets. But the newest player may just be my new favorite. Falcon for Twitter, now in beta, combines the standard timeline view with enough options and settings to make the obsessive compulsive Android user ecstatic, while still fitting in with the Holo theme of ICS and Jelly Bean beautifully. The standard features include listing your mentions, retweets and private messages, and a quick and useful mobile view that opens links in a mini-browser without ever leaving your homescreen. This can be changed to open a standard Twitter app.

Aug

Google Voice Search Now Available In Thirteen New Languages

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Applications, Google, News

In a post to its official blog that's sure to excite users across the globe, Google has just announced that Voice Search is now available in thirteen new languages. The list of newly included languages, which range from Basque to Swedish, brings the total number of supported tongues up to 42.

In the post, Product Manager Bertrand Damiba explains just what it takes to add a new language to Voice Search – first and foremost, Google must collect "hundreds of thousands of utterances" from volunteers to bring speech recognition up to par.

While this sounds easy enough, Google engineers also face challenges in adding support for new languages – Damiba explains that languages that don't follow predictable pronunciation rules (like Swedish) require that Google recruit native speakers to pronounce thousands of individual words.

Aug

TSF Shell 3D Updates With More Gestures, Widgets, Settings, And Enough Shine To Blind Other Launchers

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

Last Updated: August 23rd, 2012

The Android launcher has always been ground zero for device customization, and most launchers make at least some concession to user options. But TSF Shell, which we've covered before, surely takes the cake for sheer flexibility. The latest update, to Beta version 1.6.0, adds a dazzling amount of new features. Granted, most of these are eye candy - something that TSF never lacked in the first place - but a few of them are genuinely useful. The ability to select and move multiple apps at a time is something I've wished stock and source-based launchers would implement for years.

The mini-docks on the right and left of TSF, as well as the homescreen itself, get plenty of small tweaks and options.

Jul

Weather Underground Is Now Available For Google TV, Makes You Forget The Weather Channel You've Already Forgotten

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Now here's a novel idea! Putting weather information on the television! Weather Underground is now available for the Google TV, bringing a rather nice, simple weather app to the Google TV. The app features a 6-day forecast, hourly forecasts, and maps of your local area with weather information overlaid. It's pretty nifty.

It may not be the most exciting app, but this is the way it should be, shouldn't it? Gone are the days of turning to a static channel and waiting around for a man in a suit to eventually get around to talking about your area. Just pop open the app and see.

Jun

Tagy Replaces Rows Of App Icons On Your Home Screen With A Tag Cloud, Lets You Know What You Don't Use

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

One of the nicest things about Android that gets taken for granted is the ability to customize your user interface. While most folks tend to stick to app icons for launching their apps, Tagy offers an alternative approach: a tag cloud. Tagy is actually a set of widgets that let you specify a list of apps, contacts, or bookmarks to appear in a single widget. Then, as you use the widget, the items you use more often will get bigger.

Users can customize the color of their tags to fit into whatever theme they're already using. Additionally, because the items you use get larger the more you use them, you can isolate the less-used apps, which you can then either remove from the list or uninstall altogether.

Mar

[New App Review] Slider Widget Puts Powerful Volume And Brightness Controls On Your Homescreen

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in App Reviews, Applications, News, Videos

Volume control on Android can be kind of a pain to manage, as there's multiple volume settings that need to be managed, but it's not always obvious what settings you're adjusting when. Slider Widget simplifies this process by placing all five independent volume controls, as wells a brightness control setting, on your homescreen in one convenient widget.

The widget not only displays what level the various settings are at, but gives the user a handy slider for adjusting each one without taking up a ton of space on the homescreen. The stock power widget (and the manufacturer variations thereof) generally only allow you to adjust the brightness to a couple of preset levels, and volume buttons only affect whatever volume level you're currently using.