App Reviews - 13/19 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Mar

[Review] My Taptu: Social Media + News + Eye Candy = Success

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you, like me, are constantly checking what's going on in the world of technology, science, world news, entertainment, gaming, music, and a million other things - on top of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, have I got an app for you. Picture, if you will, an Android app that will aggregate all of these news feeds and your social media streams into a cohesive and, quite frankly, sexy interface. You just imagined My Taptu, my new favorite news reader.

My Taptu's interface is really easy to grasp immediately and adding feeds, modifying the existing feeds, adding your Facebook and Twitter, and sharing all of this information just could not be any easier.

Mar

[Review] Texty Brings Texting To Your Computer Because You're Not Texting Enough Already

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews

Last Updated: February 8th, 2012

If you're anything like me, you text constantly. There are times, however, that I put my phone down and hop on the computer to do some more in-depth tasks or just enjoy some good, old-fashioned big-screen browsing. When I'm doing that, it's usually a pain to receive a text message, have to dig out my phone, open the messaging app, and use a tiny keyboard to reply, even though I'm sitting at a much larger, easier to use keyboard. Well, that's not a problem anymore - now I've got Texty.

Texty is an app that will forward your text messages directly from your phone to your desktop (specifically, Chrome) using cloud magic and allow you to reply from your computer through your phone's messaging app.

Mar

[Updated] App Preview: Friday Is Your Very Own Personal Assistant

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, App Reviews, Applications, News, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Update: We have been notified by the developers of this app that the app does not upload any information. The information is kept on the phone and organised by the app. In the future there are plans to implement a feature that would allow the information to be uploaded to a backup server. However, at present, information collected by Friday is not shared with anyone including the developer.

Each day a smartphone user receives information from a variety of different sources, including phone calls, text messages and emails. Keeping track of it all can be a major headache and more often than not we misplace crucial pieces of information because we are unable to recall when we had received them and/or what we were doing at the time.

Feb

[Hands-On] Chomp: A New Hope For Finding Apps On Android

Posted by Zak Stinson in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you are reading this post, it's extremely likely that you have an Android device. If you have an Android, it's 100% certain that you want to pluck out your own eyeballs in rage every time you are forced to use the search feature in the Android Market. Even Market alternatives like AppBrain leave a lot to be desired, with sub-optimal search results and a less than beautiful UI. The sad fact that Google, a company that makes most of its revenue from search and ads, can't seem to provide half-decent results is what motivated the folks behind Chomp to get into Android.

Feb

Thumb Keyboard Is An Epic Win For Tablet Typing [Hands-On]

Posted by Will Shanklin in App Reviews, Applications, Galaxy Tab, NOOKcolor (Encore), Reviews, Tips & Tutorials, XOOM

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you caught our review of Thumb Keyboard last month, you'll know the gist of this clever keyboard app that aims to make two-thumbed typing a breeze. It's a novel (and potentially very useful) tool for a phone, but with recent updates that have accentuated the tablet layouts, this has now become my keyboard of choice on large tablet screens, and is a potential game-changer in the new slate arena.

On phones, trace keyboards like Swype and SlideIt are extremely hard to beat in the speed department (world texting records seem to be broken on a regular basis with Swype), but on the wider tablet screen, tracing suddenly becomes much less convenient.

Feb

Lookout Launches Lookout Labs And Its First Android App - The Ingenious "Plan B" [Hands-On Review]

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

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Lookout Labs

Lookout Inc's Lookout Mobile Security app is one of the most popular and trusted security apps on the Market, and while the company is going to continue active development of its flagship product, today it is launching Lookout Labs - a separate Android Market developer account dedicated to "pushing the bounds of mobile apps."

Plan B

Introduction

The first fruit of Lookout Labs' labor is a brilliantly simple yet very useful app called Plan B. Plan B was only made possible recently, after the release of the official Android web Market. The app is designed to be the last resort for finding a lost (or maybe even stolen - more on that later) phone and getting its latest position emailed to the account associated with the Android Market.

Feb

[Hands-On] Neato: Asurion Steps Up Its Game, Sprint TEP Subscribers Reap The Benefits

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Carriers, News, Reviews, Sprint

Last Updated: September 11th, 2012

Good news for all you prepared individuals out there who are subscribed to Sprints TEP (Total Equipment Protection) plan: You now have access to a new app that adds a whole new level of useful to protecting your device through Asurion, the third party company that handles the insurance rigmarole for Sprint (and pretty much every other U.S. carrier, but they don't get an app).

The Sprint Total Equipment Protection App essentially mirrors the functionality of services like Lookout Mobile Security (but without the antivirus part): It can be used for locating your phone via GPS, helping to find it by sounding an alarm (even when on silent mode), backing up your contacts, remotely locking your device with a pin code, and remotely wiping the contacts.

Feb

[Hands-On] Android Market Web Store: Get Your App On Anytime, Anywhere

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, App Reviews, Apps/Games, Google, Other Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Android users have been clamoring for an official online Android Market solution for ages, and today, El Goog finally delivered with the Android Market Web Store. Once the issues with the "Sign in" button (clicking it returned an 'Invalid Request' error) were fixed, we didn't think twice about delving in and giving it an in-depth look. Read on for our first impressions!

Front Page

The front page of market.android.com (aka the Android Market Web Store) is simple, clean, and sexy - just the way we like it. Across the very top, there are links to other Google services (i.e. Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc.), as well as links to "My Market Account" (more on that below), "My Account," and "Sign out." Below that is the good old Android Market logo and a Search box.

Jan

Task Identifier Tells You Your Apps' Secrets

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

XDA user x2kjosh got curious about what exactly his phone was doing at any given time, as I'm sure we all have at some point. Your GPS icon randomly showing up in the task bar is a perfect example: What the hell is it doing there? What app is getting my location? Obviously tired of all the questions, Josh wrote a handy little app called Task Identifier.

The idea of it is simple: Notify the user whenever an app is loaded into memory. It's a pretty straightforward concept, but it is actually really interesting to use. It's hard to explain, so I'll just put the description for the thread and some pictures here:

This is not another Auto Task Killer, no.

Jan

[Review] Thumb Keyboard Makes Two-Handed Typing A Breeze

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If there's one thing an Android power user really appreciates, it's options. I personally enjoy having a myriad of different apps to choose from for a single task so that I can find the one that best suits my needs, one of which is typing.

By now, we all know that there is no shortage of keyboard alternatives for Android users to choose from, but truly great and innovative keyboards can be somewhat hard to come by. If you like typing with two thumbs, though, I think I've found the perfect keyboard for you.

Thumb Keyboard is an input method that, at first, looks a little bit intimidating.