07
May
Snoopify-Icon

Some apps enter the Play Store that leave me scratching my head wondering why someone would take the time to develop them. Snoop Lion's Snoopify is not one of those apps. This "photography" app fulfills a real societal need. Finally, I can be as cool as Snoop Dogg - erm - Lion. But that's just the beginning. My friends, family members, co-workers, and anyone else I've ever taken a picture of can now be as cool as Snoop Lion, too.

Snoopify

What it Does

The concept behind Snoopify isn't too difficult to grasp. It's a photography app that allows you to take a photo and apply some edits.

01
May
Automatic-icon

Automagic attempts to be Tasker, only easier to use. The problem is that Tasker is already pretty straightforward, and while Automagic makes certain things easier, it makes others more difficult. Still, a little competition never hurt anyone, and there are many ways Automagic challenges Tasker to step up its game.

Automagic-Banner

What it Does

The premise behind Automagic is nothing new. It is an app that automates tasks based on a wide range of variables. For example, you can tell Automagic to turn off auto-brightness when your phone's battery dips below 50%. If you don't want to receive any distractions while you're at your sweetheart's house, you can automagically set your phone to airplane mode when you're within 200 meters of their address.

30
Apr
SpinAlarmClock-logo
Last Updated: May 5th, 2013

For many people, a piercing alarm is the worst way imaginable to wake up in the morning. One moment you're in deep sleep, moments away from taking a battle axe to Bowser and rescuing Princess Peach in a lime green Lamborghini, the next you're covering your ears as a neglected smartphone wails from the side table nearby. It's bad, but it could be worse. Much worse. Spin Alarm Clock won't settle for mere acknowledgment to cease its unpleasant alarm, it demands you to spin around several times before accepting that you are, in fact, awake.

What it Does

Spin Alarm Clock doesn't look all that different from Android's default alarm clock application.

29
Apr
fl-logo

I Want It All

When I saw that Fruityloops Studio had been released for Android, I don’t mind admitting I was pretty excited. I love my phone and I love my tablet, but I often find myself wishing I could do something more productive with them. The tablet I use is the Acer Iconia A700 and, judging by the specs, this slate should be more than capable of empowering me to actually create some kind of content instead of simply facilitating content consumption. I’ve spent more than my fair share of hours working with Reason, Cubase, and Cakewalk on my PC, so the idea of high quality music production on a tablet was instantly attractive.

29
Apr
Dexlr-icon

Dextr is a new mail experience that hopes to bring you closer to the people you love, and it may help you do precisely that. The app allows you to communicate with your friends - and only your friends - in a simple and minimalistic interface. If you want a new third-party email app to simplify your inbox and make the incoming clutter easier to decipher, look elsewhere. But if you want a simple and attractive app for communicating with your favorite people on Gmail, this might just be what you have been waiting for.

Dextr-banner

What it Does

Dextr is a third-party email client that filters out all of the clutter from your Gmail account so that you can focus only on your email correspondence with close friends.

01
Apr
image

Update: The update is now live in the Store – find it by hitting the widget at the end of the post.

Last month, Google announced they'd be killing off Google Reader this July. Yes, in just a couple of short months, one of the most beloved RSS resources in existence would be kaput. Google says it decided to pull the plug because of dwindling use numbers. While there were plenty of discussions about Google's real motivation (everything from well-reasoned examinations of the situation to cries of "EVIL!"), there was something more important happening behind the outcry – there were people stepping up to fill the gap in as seamless and timely a fashion as possible.

20
Mar
nexusae0_keep-512_thumb

The Google Keep Android app is out, and it is way more functional than the sparse web site. Allow me to show you around.

wm_2013-03-20 16.26.20wm_2013-03-20 16.30.46

There are two different views to Keep, a multi-column view and a single-column view. Multi-column is "pretty typography mode" and single column is all business. You can switch views with the menu button.

wm_2013-03-20 16.43.53wm_2013-03-20 16.44.16wm_2013-03-20 16.44.23wm_2013-03-20 16.47.19

There's about a million different ways to take notes: plain text, a checklist, a voice note (which transcribes and saves the audio), or you can take a picture with the camera. Check list items have little draggable handles on them.

2013-03-20 16.34.02wm_2013-03-20 16.35.05wm_2013-03-20 16.35.11

Just like Gmail, archiving a note is as easy swiping it away, and, just like Gmail, there's a handy "undo" popup.

20
Mar
unnamed

There's nothing better than finding one of those rare apps that seems to do the impossible. Every time I try a piece of software, I have a tiny hope that it will be so good that I'll want to describe it as magic. As a photo editor, Handy Photo is definitely invoking some kind of witchcraft. This impressive app comes from ADVA Soft, the brilliant team responsible for TouchRetouch. Many of the same amazing powers have made their way into this new entry, but it goes much further. Let's just start with the video, which despite the marketing speak in the beginning, is pretty mind-blowing.

11
Mar
remoteplayicon

A few days ago, a pair of apps called RemotePlay and RemotePlayM by new Android developer Piddas21, a subsidiary of Taiwanese Quanta Computer, hit the Play Store ahead of SXSW. The idea is great - media and document sharing in real-time, across multiple platforms, such as Android, iOS, and Windows 8. Want to easily stream a video from your Nexus 4 to your iPad? No problem - it should be as simple as dragging it to a bucket with your iPad's name on it, and voila - you're watching a video on the big screen.

Note: At the time of this writing, both the iOS and Windows 8 versions were still in development, though they should be coming soon.

11
Feb
image

For the past few weeks, I've been testing Hideman - a VPN solution with a feature set I've been seeking for a very long time. I've been using both Android and Windows apps to test the service, and let me tell you - it is everything I was hoping it would be and then some.

Hideman is available for the following operating systems:

But let's start from the beginning.

Page 1 of 1912345...10...Last»