A. Rehman Maqbool

Mobile Content Writer
Technology enthusiast. I love exploring, reviewing and sharing anything related to Google's mobile OS, Android. Follow me on Google+

GroupMe v4 For Android Exits Beta; Gets Revamped UI & Tablet Support

by on
Leave a comment
GroupMe is a popular cross-platform group messaging app for Android, iOS, web, Windows Phone & Blackberry that needs no long introduction. A few days back, the company behind the app announced an invite-only beta of its updated Android variant (v4) for those interested in trying out its new look and features. If you missed out the news, fret not, because the app is now out of beta and available in the Play Store for everyone. Besides a totally revamped UI, the biggest addition in GroupMe v4 for Android comes in the form of the much-awaited tablet support. You can now invite anyone to existing groups by sharing a public URL, and sending direct messages to select contacts has also been made a lot easier; by just tapping a user’s avatar anywhere within the app, you can start chatting with them in private. Read More

Create Local & Cloud Nandroid Backups Without Recovery Using Orange Backup

by on
3
A timely NANDROID backup of your Android device can save you from losing your precious mobile data and personalized system settings. Android users have long relied on custom recoveries (such as ClockworkMod Recovery and TWRP) to create NANDROID backups of their devices. However, there are various apps and solutions available these days that can help you create NANDROID backups without having to reboot into recovery. Developed by XDA member snoopy33, Orange Backup is arguably the finest addition to the list of such tools to date, as it supports 1-tap NANDROID backup, zipping and uploading to cloud storage of your choice. Needless to say, Orange Backup is meant to work with rooted devices only. The tool also supports scheduled backup & uploading to cloud, full, incremental or split backups, backing up user-selected partitions only, option to upload data over Wi-Fi and/or while charging only, integrated app & task manager, and lots more. Read More

Button Savior Now Offers Android Hardware Key Emulation Without Root

by on
1
Back in 2010, we covered an Android app called Button Savior that provided HTC HD2 users with an alternative means of navigation on their device through a dedicated on-screen panel sporting simulated hardware keys for search, home, menu and back buttons. At the time of review, the app was a bit feature-constrained and exclusively available for rooted HTC HD2, while support for other rooted Android devices was added later. XDA member jerryfan2000 – the developer behind several other Android apps including Smart Statusbar and Everywhere Clipboard – has worked hard to come up a version of Button Savior that works even on non-rooted devices, and packs quite a few other goodies as well. Unlike the rooted devices version, the version for non-rooted devices works only on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or higher. Through a slew of customizable options, Button Savior puts you in complete control of the on-screen panel’s layout, behavior and various actions that you wish to associate with the available keys. Read More

2ya Is An Android & iOS Facebook Chat App With Built-In Content Discovery & Sharing

by on
1
Multipurpose third-party Facebook chat apps are nothing new for Android and iOS users, but you won’t find too many options sporting an integrated search tool to help you find the exact item of interest that you wish to share with your friends. Say hello to Sprylogics International’s 2ya – an unofficial cross-platform Facebook messenger for Android and iOS that adds content discovery and sharing capabilities to the mix. With 2ya, you no longer have to worry about leaving the chat interface and switch to the Facebook app or the browser to search for something that you intend to share with your friends. Instead, the app itself presents you with a dedicated search and content discovery tool capable of helping you look for and share a variety of content including YouTube videos, nearby bars, clubs, restaurants, cafes & theaters, people, custom locations, movies and what not! Once your required item is found, you can share it with a mere swipe. Each category supported by 2ya offers extensive details, and the best part is that your recipient doesn’t even need to be running the 2ya client on their end to receive the shared information. Read More

Create Your Own Stunning Android Live Wallpapers With Ditalix

by on
Leave a comment
Live Wallpapers have been a distinctive feature of Android since the very early days of the OS. Over the years, we have seen some visually attractive and amazingly functional Android Live Wallpapers arrive in the Play Store, with most of them supporting extensive personalization. Today, we're bringing you yet another highly customizable Android live wallpaper app in the form of Ditalix by Fahrbot – the creators of several nifty Android apps including SwitchMe, CallMaster and Undelete. Sporting a plethora of customizable glow styles, designs, themes, pixelated effects, animations, palettes, interactions and layout settings, Ditalix is your very own custom Android LWP generator. Using all the aforementioned tools, a custom background image of your choice and personalized settings, you can design sparkling live wallpapers that respond to your taps and touches in the form of various glowing animations. Read More

1Weather v2 For Android Adds Tablet Support, Lock Screen Widgets & More

by on
Leave a comment
1Weather by OneLouder Apps is easily one of the most popular weather apps available for Android. Since its debut last year, the app has maintained high ratings and an ever-growing user base. Despite being one of the most gorgeously designed and informative apps of its kind, 1Weather has been criticized for the lack of tablet support for quite some time now. However, that all changes with the release of the app's latest version that not only introduces users to a fully tablet-optimized interface, but brings several additional features to the table as well, including a refined UI that seems more in compliance with the latest Android design guidelines. In addition, the radar section of the app has been optimized, and a Map Pin feature has been introduced to pinpoint your favorite weather locations on Google Maps. The app’s ongoing notifications now keep you well-informed about the current weather conditions of your chosen locations. Last but not the least, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean users now get a chance to select from a couple of customizable widgets for their lockscreens. Read More

Discover New YouTube Song Videos On Android & iOS With Music Monster

by on
Leave a comment
Blending the concept of online music discovery and social music sharing, Music Monster is a feature-rich Android and iOS app that comes loaded with tons of interesting features. The app fetches the best, popular and trending music videos and video playlists featured on YouTube, and lets you create custom audio playlists out of them and the local tracks of your choice. One of the high points of Music Monster is its various music exploration tools that allow users to browse tracks by genre, nationality, artist, most & recently listened, season, top YouTube playlists, rankings and those that other Music Monster you’re following are listening to. Besides searching for tracks and managing custom playlists, you can comment on and like posts by other users, and keep a close tab on your own activities on the Music Monster network in a number of ways. Videos can be played in a fullscreen view or in the background like regular audio tracks. Read More

Give Your Android A Google Now-Inspired Home Screen With SF Launcher

by on
1
The revamped, smarter and intuitive Google Search app for Android might have earned a lot of praises from users around the world, but that’s mainly because of the app’s tremendous improvement on the functionality front and more specifically, due to the inclusion of an immensely intelligent search assistant with a Smart Cards-filled UI in form of Google Now. That said, Alamo Apps seem to be inspired enough by the Google Now's interface to design a full-fledged Android launcher replicating its look and feel. Currently in alpha, SF Launcher is an Android home screen replacement app that takes cue from the stock search app included within Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and higher devices. The app’s main interface is split into three segments supporting multiple widgets and custom favorite apps. Read More

Drawnetic For Android Turns Simple Sketches Into Artistic Animations

by on
Leave a comment
Fresh to the Play Store, Drawnetic is a fun-filled and unique sketching app that analyzes your drawing patterns, and then automatically converts your piece of artwork into wonderful kinetic drawings or animations in real time. On the forefront, Drawnetic works just like a conventional drawing tool that provides you with a canvas to sketch and doodle on using a variety of customizable brush types, stroke styles, color combinations, painting tools, background effects, animations and other tools. Once done, you can enjoy seeing your rough sketches transformed into vivid and visually-rich animated graphics, thanks to the app's automatic generative system. Besides sporting plenty of preloaded sketches, Drawnetic features a dedicated online library from where you can download several graphics shared by other users, and share your own masterpieces with the rest. Each animation created via Drawnetic can be saved to local storage or cloud, and replayed as many times as you like. Read More

Apply Multiple Effects To Parts Of Images With Photo Touch For Android

by on
Leave a comment
Among the countless photo editing, sketching and image manipulation apps available for Android, many offer Instagram-style effects and coloring tools to give your photos a whole new look. Though if you’re not content with applying a single effect to the complete image and would prefer applying different effects and filters across different parts of the same photo, try Photo Touch. Unlike Instagram and most of its alternatives, Photo Touch for Android lets you apply the effects using a completely gesture-based photo editing environment, by simply gliding your finger over select part of the image. You can capture photos from your camera or import them from the Gallery or your Facebook account, pick the effects from a dozen different available options, and preview them on your image before applying them. That’s not all – Photo Touch also comes with several support tools that help you enjoy Photoshop-like features on your Android device. Read More

Listen To News Articles Read By Real People With Umano For Android & iOS

by on
Leave a comment
There is no shortage of feature-rich and great-looking news and RSS feed readers for Android, but how many of them actually let you listen to your favorite stories, thereby allowing you to multitask? Even the select few alternatives that do support the Text-To-Speech (TTS) feature to read out content loud to you mostly have nothing but a plain robotic tone to offer, with the option to select between just a male and female voice at best. Umano is a simple news app that offers both sleek looks and the option to listen to news stories in real people's voices instead of some monotonous robotic one. Initially rolled out as an iOS-exclusive app, Umano has just been released in Google Play Store to let Android users listen to news articles while commuting, relaxing on their couch or playing around with other apps on their devices. Read More

AppDisco: Android App & Game Discovery Tool With Per-Category Alerts

by on
Leave a comment
There are many Play Store alternatives available for Android that claim to help you discover the best apps and games out there in the most personalized manner, but few surpass the level of customization, advanced filtration and depth offered by AppDisco. Available for free, AppDisco is a highly customizable and intelligent Android app discovery engine equipped with a variety of tools that helps you discover apps from different categories, genres and price ranges via a user-curated feed. Based on the app categories you’re following, AppDisco lists the latest titles under what it calls app playlists, to make the exploration process easier for you. You can vote apps up and down to help AppDisco learn about your personal app tastes & preferences for future recommendations. The app also notifies you about any new titles added to the app categories you’re following. There's also a unique ‘Game Blender’ feature to help you find Android games supporting various user-specified traits like complexity level, themes, visuals (2D & 3D), interaction level, multiplayer support and a whole lot more. Read More

Advanced Mobile Care For Android Gets Cloud Backup, Privacy Advisor & More

by on
Leave a comment
Back in November, IObit debuted their power-packed Android optimization, protection and task management app in the Play Store by the name of Advanced Mobile Care. At the time of its release, the app emerged as one of the few truly multipurpose Android apps supporting several handy system care utilities like real-time virus protection, 1-tap performance boost & system cleanup, multi-mode power saver, app manager, privacy protector and Game Speeder, among others. After barely a couple of months of its release, version 2 of Advanced Mobile Care has been rolled out with even better and more powerful features including multilingual support, Privacy Advisor, Cloud Backup, revamped app manager with support for APK management, a multipurpose 4x1 home screen widget, updated database, and several bug fixes. Read More

Dolphin Browser Adds Remote Sync With Desktop Browsers & WiFi Sharing

by on
Leave a comment
Dolphin Browser might be one of the most popular web browsers for Android and iOS, but it has been lacking in some much-needed features like remote content syncing with desktop browsers and better page sharing capabilities that most rival mobile browsers have been offering for quite some time now. However, things seem to have taken a turn for good as the latest update of this crowd-favorite Android and iOS web browser addresses exactly these shortcomings. Dolphin Browser now supports 1-tap sharing of favorite pages to Facebook or Twitter. You can also clip your favorite web content to save in your Evernote account or Box cloud storage. The Dolphin Browser web extensions for Chrome, Safari and Firefox allow you to instantly push tabs, images, texts and other content from desktop to mobile, and vice versa. In addition, you can also sync your tabs, passwords, history & bookmarks across all your devices, including desktop browsers. Last but not the least, the update brings a ‘Wi-Fi Broadcast’ feature to let you share favorite webpages with nearby Dolphin users with utmost ease. Read More

AirDroid 2 Adds Remote Connection Over Web & Anti-Theft Features

by on
Leave a comment
In AirDroid, Android users have arguably the best and most feature-packed solution to wirelessly access, manage and control almost all aspects of their smartphones and tablets from a web browser. A few days back, the developers announced an invite-only beta of the latest version of AirDroid, which is now openly available to anyone interested. Currently available in beta, AirDroid 2 comes with a ‘Remote Connection Mode’ that allows users to access their devices’ contents and features over the internet from anywhere in the world in addition to the existing Wi-Fi connection mode, thus eliminating the limitation of having the computer and mobile device on the same Wi-Fi network. In addition, the latest update also brings remote camera access and a 'Find Phone' anti-theft feature. Further details after the break. Read More

Path Player For Android Offers PiP, Floating Video Playback, WiFi Streaming & DLNA

by on
2
Compared to most other mobile platforms, Android users have the luxury of choosing form a broad range of free, power-packed video players. Whether you’re looking for a player with a floating window to enjoy your videos atop your favorite app, or want one capable of playing almost all renowned video formats without requiring any additional plugins, rest assured that Google Play Store will have at least one quality option to cater to each use case scenario. Amidst such fierce competition, it can prove tough for a new entrant to impress a wide audience, especially if it has nothing new on the menu. Luckily, that’s not the case with Path Player – the latest addition to the huge list of feature-rich Android video players. Beside supporting MX Player-style universal file format support and gesture-based playback, brightness & volume controls, Path Player happens to be one of the few video streaming and playing apps supporting picture-in-picture video playback. The app can also be used as a floating video player. In addition, it has several other attractive features on offer, including dynamic walls, DLNA support, video bookmarking, content sharing over Wi-Fi, video screenshots and a plethora of customizations. Read More

Official MediaFire Android App Makes Its Way To The Play Store

by on
Leave a comment
If you’re a regular web surfer, you must have come across or used the file hosting services of MediaFire at some point in time. The service rolled out its companion app for iOS users back in September last year, and now, the official Android variant has been released to the Play Store with more or less the same feature set that the iOS version has to offer. Available for free, the Android app is laced with some basic file management, uploading, downloading and media streaming tools. In addition, it lets you instantly preview your MediaFire document files (Word documents, presentations & spreadsheets), search for required files, create new folders to better organize your cloud storage, capture and upload media, generate download links for files and manage your personal data privacy on the move. Read More

Calendar Pro: All-In-One Journal, To-Do List & Notes App For Android

by on
2
If your daily routine involves handling and keeping track of a lot of events, to-do lists, tasks, notes and reminders etc. on the move, you might be in search of a comprehensive personal schedule management app for your smartphone. Cloud sync support and an intuitive interface are two important aspects to consider for such an app, and those are exactly what Calendar Pro delivers. Fresh to the Play Store, Calendar Pro aims to be the only calendar and personal journals, notes, to-do lists, reminders, events and activity management app you’ll ever need on your Android device. Sporting an uncluttered UI, the app comes with Google Calendar and Facebook integration to let you sync your events and friends' birthdays. In addition, it also comes with extensive weather details for multiple locations, horoscopes, themes, a unified view for daily activities, and plenty of other options. Read More

GroupVox Is A Virtual Walkie Talkie For Facebook Groups & Events [Android, iOS]

by on
Leave a comment
The latest update to the official Facebook Messenger app for Android and iOS might have brought the support for voice messaging, but it cannot be deemed as a true walkie-talkie app. That is because the app only lets you share recorded voice messages with your friends rather than offering real push-to-talk (PTT) functionality like the previously-reviewed Rallee, which impressed us with most of its features but left much to be desired in terms of the interface. If you’re searching for a cross-platform Facebook walkie talkie app that sports a design similar to the official Facebook apps, take a look at GroupVox. Released recently for Android and iOS, GroupVox lets you communicate with select Facebook friends, Groups and Events in walkie talkie style via push-to-talk voice messaging. In addition, you get the option to switch to conventional text-based chatting from the same screen. Read More

Flow Reader Is A Gorgeous, Gesture-Rich Google Reader Client For Android

by on
Leave a comment
Google Play Store offers enough quality RSS readers and news apps to make the choice between them quite tough. Ranging from heavyweights like Flipboard and Google Currents to the likes of the official Google Reader Android app, there are plenty of options available that can help you keep up with the latest content from your RSS subscriptions. However, if you’re looking for a Google Reader alternative designed in compliance with the latest Android GUI guidelines and offering better control over syncing and caching of items, take a look at Flow Reader. Currently in beta, Flow Reader is an elegant, Holo-themed Google Reader client for Android offering certain features that are hard to find in most rival apps. Read More