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+

GramWidget Is An Awesome Instagram Widget For Android Home & Lock Screen

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Since the official Android app of the popular social photo-sharing wonder Instagram doesn’t (yet) support a dedicated widget, most avid users have to rely on a third-party offering to take a glance at the various activities taking place on the network from their home screens. In this regard, we have already reviewed an elegant solution by the name of BlinxBox that impressed us greatly with its overall features. However, with the widget no longer available in the market anymore, it’s a great opportunity for the developers community to offer a viable alternative. That’s exactly what the developer of GramWidget has done! Just like BlinxBox, GramWidget is a third-party Instagram Android widget capable of circling your favorite photo content from the service on your home screen. Users on Android 4.2 or higher also get the option to set GramWidget, complete with Instagram’s picture-filled goodness, on their devices’ lockscreens to enjoy an unending stream of high quality photos from their Instagram account. Read More

Android App Of Social Voice Messaging Service VoiceBo Hits Play Store

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VoiceBo is a cross-platform social voice message sharing service for web, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android that lets users privately as well as publicly share brief recorded audio clips with others. While the iOS client of the service has been around for quite some time now, the Android app has just made its way into the Play Store. Besides sharing Hallo-like short but high quality voice clips (known as Bos), the app supports sharing content under various tags/categories, and lets you supplement your audio bits with relevant images as well as your current location. Therefore, you can share almost anything that requires some sort of oral description, such as explanation of the picture being shared, a personal message to your loved one, your opinion on a common topic of interest, or anything similar. Each voice message can be recorded for a maximum of five minutes, and can be shared publicly, privately or directly with a specific contact. As with any social app, there are plenty of tools available at users’ disposal to interact with the shared content and spread the best content further with your mates. Read More

Protect & Optimize Your Android With Advanced Mobile Care By IObit

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IObit - the proud developer of several hugely successful computer protection and performance enhancement tools - has just released its very first Android app in Google Play Store by the name of Advanced Mobile Care. Available for free, this multilingual app is a power-packed suite of some highly sought-after system security and optimization utilities that can help you get the optimal performance out of your Android device, while at the same time ensuring that the device itself is protected from all sorts of malware including viruses, trojans, vulnerable installations, spyware and what not. Basically, Advanced Mobile Care is an attempt to provide Android users with a 1-tap scan-and-repair solution for most of their devices’ problems in as convenient a manner as possible. Besides supporting several conventional tools such as a built-in task & app manager, anti-malware, file locker, battery optimizer, cache cleaner and junk file remover, the app tries to impress even further with its sleek looks and the Game Speeder feature that helps you achieve a lag-free gaming experience on your Android device. There’s a lot more that the app has to offer, so let's explore all its features together after the break. Read More

Get iPhone Style Lock Screen Notifications On Android With LockerPro

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There is no shortage of quality Android lockscreen replacement apps in the Play Store, and most of them focus on aesthetics more than anything else. However, we have frequently shared with you certain alternatives that add some much-needed interactivity to the lockscreen, in addition to the cosmetic tweaks. For instance, almost a month ago, we reviewed Quick Launch – an elegant Android lockscreen replacement app with widgets and iPhone-style notification support. While the app worked flawlessly with both said features, its lock screen notifications were limited to missed calls and text messages only. What if you wanted to take a peek at notifications from other apps right from your device’s lockscreen? This is where LockerPro Lockscreen can come in handy. Apart from displaying iPhone-like multiple lockscreen notifications of your preferred apps, the app is capable of showing real-time banner notifications on your home screen as well. LockerPro Lockscreen is currently available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher devices only. Read More

SwitchApps Brings Unique Gesture-Controlled Multitasking To Android

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Fresh to the Google Play Store, SwitchApps is the latest addition to the long list of nifty multitasking and app switching solutions for Android. SwitchApps offers its users multiple ways to quickly launch their favorite Android apps & system settings, as well as lock their screens anywhere from within the entire OS. The app’s features and controls can be accessed via a customizable ubiquitous on-screen toggle that allows you to play around with the required apps and settings using different gestures. In this regard, you may use various multi-touch gestures in combination with the toggle itself, or utilize several touch controls to benefit from the app’s dedicated overlay menu, dock and controllers. Whether you’re looking to easily switch back and forth between your recent apps, close all recently opened apps with a single tap, lock your Android device’s screen without wanting to press the power button, quickly jump back to the home screen, or tinker with various Android power settings, SwitchApps has you covered. The app is available in the Play Store for free, and is compatible with Android 2.2 or higher devices. Read More

Create Scheduled Notification Panel Reminders With Lotify For Android

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The Android notification bar provides you with a quick and convenient means to take a peek at all your important phone, social media and other events and updates. Be it the app update notifications from the Play Store, your upcoming calendar event, a missed called alert or a critical system upgrade notification, the bar serves as a dedicated spot on your device to remind you about virtually every important thing. With the previously reviewed ReNotify, we have already seen a very handy solution to create multiple custom notification bar alerts that can keep you apprised of your important tasks/notes without requiring you to rely on any overly complicated alarm, to-lo list management or reminder apps. New to the market, Lotify is yet another app belonging to said genre that can be called an enhanced variant of ReNotify. Besides supporting almost all the core features of the aforementioned app, Lotify brings to the table certain subtle personalization tweaks, as well as the option to create scheduled notification bar alerts. Read More

Official Adblock Plus Android App Released; Blocks Ads On Rooted & Non-Rooted Devices

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The official Android app for Adblock Plus - the favorite ad blocking solution for many Chrome and Firefox users - has just been released in the Google Play Store. Unlike most existing alternatives, Adblock Plus for Android is available for free as a fully functional version, and works on rooted as well as non-rooted devices. From the mobile viewpoint, Adblock Plus helps you get rid of intrusive and annoying ads, banners, ad-oriented notifications et al within almost the entire OS, including the notification shade, home screen, browsers and apps. Adblock Plus’ effectiveness is very much dependent on whether your Android device has root access or not. While users with rooted devices get the full monty, those with non-rooted devices have to face a few restrictions. Details to follow. Read More

Manage & Automate Android Sound Profiles With Smart Volume Control

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Smart Volume Control is a powerful multilingual sound profile management app for Android that vows to be the ultimate solution for your device’s volume adjustment, automation and tweaking needs. Besides supporting hyper-customizable sound profiles, the app brings to the table several features that are hard to find in most similar solutions. For instance, it offers multiple profile presets under a accelerometer-controlled Speed Volume Mode that can be availed to activate personalized sound settings for when you’re out on the road, cycling, or crossing a subway. The app lets you schedule activation of profiles according to desired time, or as per your Google and/or Microsoft Exchange calendar events. Want your device to automatically silence, or redirect incoming calls to Bluetooth when at your workplace? Smart Volume Control’s location-based profile automation has your back. Then there is a fully customizable profile for when your headphones are plugged in to your device. The app’s many thoroughly customizable widgets allow you to play around with the desired sound profiles and settings directly from the home screen itself. Read More

easyMute: Pause Music Playback On Android By Covering Proximity Sensor

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We have previously covered a lot of Android apps that bring your device’s proximity sensor into play to help you easily accomplish various tasks. For instance, ShakeCall lets you receive and hang up calls by shaking your device, SpeakerProximity is capable of determining when to switch calls between your device’s earpiece and speaker, whereas Wave Control supports various gestures to let you control music playback totally hands-free. New to the Play Store, easyMute is yet another handy addition to the list of apps from this genre. Just like Wave Control,  this particular app can prove to be a godsend for music enthusiasts who are looking for a viable solution to temporarily pause music on their devices without having to unlock them. easyMute uses your device’s proximity sensor to automatically pause music once the sensor is covered. That’s not all; it also presents you with the option to set a volume level to which your music should automatically be shifted after you cover the sensor. Read More

aTorrent Is One Of The Best, Free Torrent Downloaders For Android

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The official uTorrent Android client, that was released in the Play Store a couple of months ago proved to be one of the most convenient means for managing your torrent downloads directly on your device. The app may be the preferred torrent downloader for most Android users, but that doesn’t imply that it’s the only feasible solution available. Fresh out of the oven, aTorrent (beta) is yet another remarkable torrent manager for Android 4.0 ICS and higher devices. The Holo-themed app supports all the rudimentary features synonymous with a torrent downloader, such as multiple simultaneous downloads, local & online torrent file fetching, built-in search engine, detailed information regarding download tasks, custom bandwidth allocation for uploading & downloading, auto start on boot, customizable notifications, enhanced content filtering, and last but not the least, setting the app to download only while the device is charging. Read More

Falcon Pro: Elegant Android Twitter App With An Impressive Widget

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Available in the Google Play Store for free, Falcon For Twitter is one of the most feature-rich standalone Android home screen widgets for Twitter that you’ll ever come across. Apparently, the developer of the widget approached XDA member Joenrv, asking for his help to transform the widget into a full-fledged Falcon app. As it currently stands, the beta version of Falcon Pro has just been released by the developer for public testing. Having tried out the app myself, I must say that the developer deserves a pat on the back for coming up with a truly well-polished product. Although still under development, this sort-of-Holo-themed app is looking well on course to emerge as a commendable third-party Twitter app for Android. Besides the sleek looks, the app shares most of the attributes with the widget itself, including support for @mentions, Direct Messages, Favorites, Lists, Trends, native search tool, inline image previews, built-in browser, geo-tagging of tweets, TwitLonger integration to post tweets longer than the 140-character limit, customizable notifications and other basic socializing elements required to constitute a typical Twitter mobile app. Read More

Explore Android Apps By Mood & Demographics With Cugga App Market

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Just like Android itself, its app discovery solutions are growing at a remarkable pace. Each app exploration tool that emerges on the scene brings its own set of filters, discovery tools and various criteria to easily find you the right app or game. That being said, you’d be hard-pressed to find a tool that suggests apps based on your mood. This is where Cugga App Market looks to create the difference from the rest of the competition. Besides supporting several conventional and unique filters, Cugga App Market happens to be one of the few tools that are capable of recommending apps by demographics, such as age and gender. In addition, it can come up with useful app suggestions for times when you’re feeling bored, high on adrenaline, angry, romantic, alone or ready to indulge in a roller coaster gaming session. Whether you need an app for your toddler, just looking to kill some time by playing fun games, or want to know what apps are trending in Google Play Store, Cugga App Market has your back. The app has its own dedicated search engine with real-time search suggestions, and sports arguably one of the most user-friendly UIs to help you with discovering the desired stuff. Read More

How To Disable Widgets & Camera Access On Android 4.2 Lock Screen

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The ever-intensifying competition between the leading mobile platforms constantly keeps pushing companies to offer new, innovative features to their users, but how often have we seen a company overdoing things in an attempt to become ‘truly innovative’? As most Android fans have just recently found, the brand new widget-supported, multiple lockscreens in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean are proving to be more of a headache than a boon. Be it from the security perspective or from the usability point of view, the new lockscreen can prove to be annoying in a number of ways. The worst part about the whole thing is that, Google has provided its users with close to no control over the configuration of the lockscreen. Thankfully, there is now a very effective workaround available in the Play Store in the form of Lockscreen Policy. This simple Android app is an ideal solution for all Android 4.2 JB users who want to revert back to the Android 4.1-style solitary lockscreen. Read More

Easily Bookmark & Share Android Apps Across Devices With AppSyncer

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So you’ve just got yourself a new Android tablet and want to fill it up with all the apps that you already have on your Android smartphone (or vice versa); what would be the easiest way to accomplish your goal? AppSyncer might be an option worth considering. Effectively an app bookmarking and sharing tool, AppSyncer is a simple yet extremely efficient solution to maintain a list of Android apps and games that you intend to install on every Android device you own. It stores a unified list of bookmarked apps from your devices on its dedicated online server that can be accessed from any device using an AppSyncer account. Read More

Add Multiple Widgets To The Lock Screen On Any Android Device

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It seems that, of all the exciting Android 4.2 Jelly Bean features, the brand new lockscreen with widgets is the one that has succeeded to tickle the fancy of many a developer around the world. Just a few days after its announcement, the JB lockscreen got its very first third-party weather clock widgets courtesy of Beautiful Clock Widgets, with HD Widgets (a paid app) following suit. While the latest JB lockscreen remains prerogative of Android 4.2 users only, there is now a very handy alternative available in the Play Store for users stuck on older Android versions. In fact, provided your device is rocking Android 2.2 or above, you can now install an interactive widget-filled lockscreen atop your default lockscreen with the help of Widget Lock. Unlike the Android 4.2 lockscreen, Widget Lock supports addition of multiple resizable widgets of your favorite system and/or third-party apps. Better yet, you have the option to reposition your favorite widgets anywhere on the lockscreen as you like. In this particular app’s case, pressing the unlock/power button displays the additional Widget Lock screen, complete with your widgets, and a slider to unlock directly to the lockscreen itself or your home screen. Read More

Floating Banner: Access Favorite Android Apps & Widgets From An Omnipresent Window

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From the creators of floating Android apps Super Video and Floating Browser, comes yet another innovative app called Floating Banner – a relatively new take on Android multitasking and app launchers. In essence, Floating Banner is a resizable, floating Android app drawer, or rather, a secondary home screen of sorts, capable of holding your favorite widgets and shortcuts to your most frequently-used apps. Once installed, the app adds a Popup Manager-like omnipresent toggle on the screen, tapping which displays a windowed overlay sporting app shortcuts and widgets. As with any floating app, this one is also accessible form anywhere in the entire OS, and the window can be resized to accommodate it on any screen you’re currently working on. Read More

Autodesk Pixlr Express Is One Of The Most Powerful Android & iOS Photo Editors Around

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Following the success of their maiden photo editing Android & iOS app, Pixlr-o-matic, the folks over at Autodesk Inc. have just released another remarkable tool by the name of Pixlr Express. Effectively, Pixlr Express can be cited as an advanced version of its predecessor, with quite a few additional photo editing & beautifying features, lighting and vintage effects, picture frames and image correction tools. Besides these basic improvements, Pixlr Express brings to the table several advanced features, including the denoise (noise reduction) effect, DSLR-like circular and linear focus blur, auto-fixation, red eye removal, whitening tool, and the best of all, a color splash (selective color) tool. Each effect or tool is further adjustable in multiple ways to help you with finding the perfect picture output you’re looking for. Read More

Speaktoit Voice Assistant For Android Ready To Take On Google Now After Huge Update

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Speaktoit, one of the highest-rated Siri-like virtual assistants for Android, has just received a relatively significant update. Already an outright favorite among Android users, the all-new Speaktoit app now supports extensive UI personalization, supplemented by user-created avatars and backgrounds. Your personal assistant is now deeply integrated with Facebook, as it can read aloud comments made by your Friends on your posts. It also supports integration with a large number of online services, like Yelp, ChaCha, Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, Google Maps and Bing Translator, to fetch relevant answers to your all-important queries. In addition, it communicates with Evernote, Google Calendar, calculator and several similar apps to automatically post notes, perform calculations & conversions, schedule events, update statuses and perform other activities on your behalf. Read More

Add Weather Clock Widgets To Android 4.2 Jelly Bean Lock Screen

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Well, that didn’t take long! It’s barely been a couple of days since we explored in detail the brand new customizable Android 4.2 Jelly Bean lockscreen with support for widgets & multiple screens, and we already have come across our first third-party lockscreen widgets. Beautiful Clock Widgets is a comprehensive suite of several gorgeous Android clock and weather home screen widgets, with support for being placed on the Android 4.2 lockscreen. There are dozens of snazzy alternatives to pick from, all coming in multiple sizes. Users with older Android versions need not be envious, since they can still add these to their home screens. Each widget on offer is customizable in one way or the other, and can be set to depict time & weather of user-selected location and preferences. Read More

Jottacloud Releases Android Cloud Backup App With 15GB Of Free Storage

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Besides being an exceptional cross-platform cloud storage service, Jottacloud specializes in the way it keeps your personal data organized by type and the device that it has been synced from. Be it from your Windows, Mac, Android or iOS device, Jottacloud takes care of all your online data backup and restoration needs, and lets you remotely access contents of one device from the other. Not only that; it also lets you retrieve accidentally deleted files from cloud.Same goes for its official Android client that has just been released to the Google Play Store. In addition to the initial 5GB of cloud storage that each user gets upon registering, the service is offering an additional 10GB to the early adopters of the Android client, making it a grand total of 15GB of free online storage space. All that, combined with the prospect of having your valued mobile data automatically synced with the cloud makes Jottacloud a contender worthy of a try. Read More