AddictiveTips » Android

GO Dev Team Enters The Android Web Browser Arena With Next Browser

Waqas Ahmed — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:30:18 +0000

Even if you aren’t much of an Android fan, you might still have heard the name GO, which has long been rocking the Android ecosystem. No, it’s not a phone or a tablet, nor a pair of stylish headphones. In the Android world, the name GO is associated with a feature-laden launcher, a beautiful weather app, an exceptionally great SMS app, and loads of other great tools that are created by the super-talented GO Dev Team. Keeping their tradition, the folks behind the ever-popular GO Launcher have released a fascinating new app called Next Browser for Android. If you’re wondering why’d you need yet another browser when the likes of Opera, Chrome and Dolphin are already available for the platform, then we must tell you that Next Browser has what it takes to be in the same league as these names, packing in a plethora of features such as speed dial, an awesome Next View feature to find and explore interesting content, voice search, browser extensions support, bookmarks synchronization and more.

Although Next Browser won’t trounce the competition when it come to looks and functionality, everything that’s there works really well. Page rendering is fluid, tabs work well, speed dial provides instant access to your favorite sites, and the extensions support expand Next Browser’s functionality a few notches further. The app’s interface also looks pretty cool, while at the same time being fairly simple. When launched, you land on the speed dial screen, where you will find links to some popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo, CNN, Amazon and Pinterest by default, though you can always replace them with your own favorite or frequently visited websites. The tabs also works great, allowing you to quickly add new ones for browsing multiple sites in conjunction. Existing tabs can be closed by swiping them down in the tabs view.

The Next View feature that can be accessed straight from the home screen by swiping to the right. It presents you with popular stories from the internet related to technology, business, sports, travel, entertainment etc. This comes pretty handy for quickly going through some of the latest headlines and stories from all genres during your morning walk. Coming to extensions, Next Browser doesn’t have incredible third-party extension support at the moment, but considering it’s a fresh release, that’s perfectly understandable. The only available extensions as of this writing are Evernote Clipper and Pocket, both of which can be grabbed straight from the Google Play Store. The vertical extensions bar can be opened via swiping from the right edge of the screen, making them quickly accessible throughout the browser.

The app also lets you store, import and synchronize your bookmarks. The feature syncs your entire bookmarks list across multiple devices that have the same account configured, based on your email address. The voice search option can be enabled by pressing the hardware or on-screen search key while in the browser, and works great at searching any type of content online without having to type anything.

The app also keeps a history of your browsing data, though we couldn’t find any private session or incognito mode in there, which is quite disappointing since almost all major mobile web browser contain this option these days. The Preferences screen lets you configure some generic settings related to the app such as default search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing), user agent, display options and some other tidbits.

Next Browser is available at Google Play Store and can be download for free via the link provided below.

Download Next Browser For Android

Read GO Dev Team Enters The Android Web Browser Arena With Next Browser by Waqas Ahmed on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Glide Allows Easy Video Messaging With Live Broadcast On Android & iOS

Fatima Wahab — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:50:12 +0000

Messaging over mobile phone, or more precisely smartphones, has evolved beyond the simple texts that we used to send when Nokia was at the top of its game and everyone owned one of those indestructible yet ugly Handsets from the Finnish manufacturer. Today, messages are mostly sent over the internet, and can be anything from simple texts to images, voice clips, or even small video clips. Glide – Video Walkie Talkie is a messaging app for Android and iOS that lets you send video messages, or broadcast your video live to friends (currently only supports Facebook). It’s something like a cross between Skype and an answering machine. You can chat with one or several friends at once, and also leave messages for those who are offline. To send and receive messages, both the sender and recipient(s) must have the app installed.

After installing the app, sign in using your Facebook account. You can tap the contacts button at the top-right to view which of your friends are using the app, and select any one of them to send a message. It isn’t important for them to be online; any message you send will be delivered to them when they next log in.

You can send both text messages and video messages. To record a message, tap the video recorder button. If your friend is online, the app will inform you that you’re ready to broadcast live. To send a text message, tap the T button and type your message. In-app banners alert you when you receive a new message.

When sending or broadcasting messages, you can send them to one or several friends. The add friends slide-out menu allows you to create groups. You can use either the front facing camera or the back one to record your videos. If you’d like to leave any conversation, tap the menu button in that conversation and select ‘Leave’. This can be very useful if you’ve been included in a group chat but would like to stop receiving the messages shared in it.

The app is still in Beta on Android, and we experienced several crashes during our testing. There are no limits to how long you can broadcast your video, or the length of messages you can record. One shortcoming of the app is that you cannot delete the messages you’ve sent; it seems they will reside on the app’s servers forever. The Android app also collects anonymous user data and there is no way to opt out of it. Needless to say, the quality of the broadcast and any lag in its transmission will also depend significantly on the strength and speed of your internet connection.

Download Glide – Video Walkie Talkie For Android

Download Glide – Video Walkie Talkie For iOS

Read Glide Allows Easy Video Messaging With Live Broadcast On Android & iOS by Fatima Wahab on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Kakudo Brings iPad-Like Quick App Switching Gestures To Android

Waqas Ahmed — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:00:55 +0000

The way Android handles multitasking is simply phenomenal. You can easily switch back and forth between apps, thanks to the ‘Recent Apps’ feature introduced in Ice Cream Sandwich. Although I won’t cite it as true-multitasking like that in Windows or OS X, it still outdoes iOS and Windows Phone 7. However, I feel like there’s a lot of room to improve, as one has to continuously tap the recent apps button (or long press a key on some devices like the Galaxy S series) to switch between the apps. XDA member Acela1230 has come up with a surprisingly useful app called Kakudo, which makes switching apps (and as a matter of fact, multitasking itself) tenfold easier. The application uses an iPad-esque multitasking function that lets you use left and right swipe gestures to switch between running apps. Lets take a quick look.

Kakudo replicates four finger gestures app switching in a way, and brings it to Android to lets users quickly switch between apps via swiping from the left or right edges of the device’s screen. This makes it fairly easy to work between two apps in conjunction, such as copy-paste operations from app to the other, jotting down your favorite quotes off the internet from the web browser to a note taking app etc. Upon swiping from either edges, the screen vibrates and instantly switches to the other app in line.

Kakudo provides a number of settings that you can turn on and off according to your preferences. The settings panel not only lets you make changes to how the feature works, but also let you turn it off altogether. The available set of options include toggling swipe behavior for available set of features, enabling or disabling the vibration function, and adjusting sensitivity of the swipe gesture. Another interesting bit is the ability to place a few apps in a favorites bar for quick access, that can be brought up via swiping up from the bottom edge of the screen.

You can tap the plus button to add your favorites apps or toggles to the favorites bar. Not only can you add any type of app shortcut there, but also quick toggles for WI-FI, brightness, GPS, Bluetooth, Camera, Sound and so on. In short, it gives you a lot of flexibility and control over how Kakudo should work for you.

In a nutshell, this tiny little app unlocks an all new multi-tasking possibility and brings an intuitive way for switching between running apps. Kokuda is available at Google Play Store in Lite and Pro ($0.99) versions. The download links of both the variants are provided below.

Download Kakudo Lite For Android

Download Kakudo Pro For Android

[via XDA-Developers]

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Google Drive For Android Gets Card UI, OCR, Selective Offline Sync & More

Fatima Wahab — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:58:55 +0000

Google Drive is one of the services that didn’t make it to the headlines at Google I/O a few days back, and no noteworthy update to the service was expected either. What we do have now, is an update for the Google Drive Android app, a massive one. There are new features, a new interface, and bug fixes. When you update the app, the first thing you will notice is he interface that is now cleaner and easier to scroll, gives you a grid like view, and follows the card-based UI that users love from Google Now. Feature wise, the app can now connect with your camera to snap documents, and convert them to searchable PDF files using OCR. File editors now allow you to view a file’s properties, fonts & cell highlights can be edited for spreadsheets, and files can be made available offline.

Once you’ve updated the app, the interface will be the first and most obvious change you will notice. You can tap the little ‘i’ button to view file properties. From there, you can also set the file to be viewable offline.

When viewing excel sheets, you can now change the font (type and size) and the cell highlight color. From any file editor, you can view file properties as well; just open the options menu and tap ‘Properties’.

A new ‘scan’ options has been added to the add file menu with this update. This option lets you take pictures with your camera and provided the images contain legible text, it uses OCR to convert them into PDFs with searchable text.

The quality of the scan will depend on the condition of whatever it is you’re scanning, and also on the amount of light in the room when scanning. The files are converted to PDF automatically. For some reason, the app scanned receipts upside down in our testing. This might just be specific to the device used to test the app, and can easily be fixed by turning the document upside down.

The update may not have been announced ceremoniously, but it’s definitely a big one. The file editors are getting smarter and perhaps we will soon be able to take pictures directly from within the Google Drive app and save it as part of the document itself. For now, the Scan option will let you take a picture of just about anything, but it’s always saved as a PDF. Other updates include file previews within the app, and some bug fixes. One small caveat with the update and its new features is that files can be downloaded for offline viewing in Android Honeycomb or higher only.

Download Google Drive For Android

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[Ask The Readers] Physical Or Virtual: Which Android Smartphone Key Layout Do You Prefer?

Awais Imran — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:00:01 +0000

The first Android smartphone – the HTC “Dream” – came with a trackball and five hard buttons on the front: home, menu, back, call accept and call decline. Though as Android has evolved over the years, so have handsets running the OS and by now, we have lost the trackball and phone call buttons. In 2011, Google announced Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich running on the Galaxy Nexus, which used virtual buttons Back, Home and Multitasking Tray, along with on-screen menu buttons that only show when required, replacing their hardware counterpart.

Google’s attempts at standardizing Android phones’ button layouts haven’t been all too fruitful, as just about every Android smartphone manufacturer – save for Sony and Motorola – have their own special layout for their flagship devices. The HTC One, for example, uses two capacitive buttons for Home and Back, while high-end offerings from Samsung and LG phones feature two capacitive buttons for Menu & Back, and a hard button for Home.

So, at present we have two types of button layouts out in the market: Purely virtual keys, and a combination of hard keys plus capacitive ones.

I have spent a respectable amount of time using phones from both of these camps, and personally dig Samsung’s combination of hard buttons and capacitive ones. With solely capacitive button phones like the Xperia P and HTC One X, there is no distinct boundary between the different keys, which can result in misplaced taps. This is all the more problematic with purely virtual, on-screen buttons like in Nexus 4. By keeping a hard Home button in the middle that also separates the two capacitive buttons for Menu and Back, Samsung and LG have eliminated any chance of accidental button taps.

Of course, one beef I have with Samsung is the functions of these buttons; I don’t quite understand why they don’t adapt Google’s standard of Back, Home and App Switching buttons. Search and Menu now appear within apps wherever they are required but no! Samsung still clings on to the physical Menu button like an overly attached girlfriend.

Having a unique button configuration to maintain a distinct brand identity is understandable, but it comes at the cost of a diminished, inconsistent user experience, and increased headache for developers . It about time Android manufacturers started working properly to kill the beast that is fragmentation.

But that’s just my opinion! I’m clearly against a purely capacitive button layout, but virtual keys have their own, real benefits. They are dynamic in nature so if you are watching a video, the buttons can go away, leaving you to enjoy a full screen view. Bezels become smaller as well*, resulting in bigger displays on smaller device sizes. For instance, Motorola’s virtual key-equipped DROID RAZR HD has a 4.7” display within essentially the same dimensions as the DROID RAZR, which had a 4.3” display and a capacitive button layout. Also, developers have an easier time maintaining a consistent user experience. To sum it up, the world becomes a better place for everyone, except for people who prefer another button layout.

Enough from me; it’s time for you – our readers – to tell us what you think.

Read [Ask The Readers] Physical Or Virtual: Which Android Smartphone Key Layout Do You Prefer? by Awais Imran on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Now Playing Is An Android Music Player With A Google Now-Inspired UI

Waqas Ahmed — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:30:53 +0000

Some people don’t care much about looks when it comes to music apps on Android and iOS, as long as an entrancing, crisp tune is being injected into their ears. But if you want your apps to be great at both features and looks (as I do), try Now Playing for Android; its Google Now-inspired design might win a point or two from your side. Although it looks simple in comparison to other players available on the Play Store, don’t let these simple looks deceive you into thinking it’s short on features, because it boasts some really powerful ones of those as well, including an integrated equalizer, album cover art support, automatic lookup for song lyrics and album art, gestures navigation, and more.

Upon launch, the player automatically detects your music and presents it all neatly organized in its Holo tabs for artists, recent, albums and songs. You can use right and left swipe gestures to navigate between these sections, while swiping up and down lets you scroll through your music list. The app also detects and displays album cover art next to song titles, and automatically downloads missing covers if enabled under settings. There’s a playback bar at the bottom, complete with next and previous buttons to skip the current song, along with letting you play or pause it. A tiny seekbar above these controls makes it easy to instantly jump to any position in the currently playing song.

A rather useful feature is its ability to automatically fetch song lyrics and album cover from the internet. During our testing, however, it fetched inaccurate or wrong lyrics for certain songs. Though you shouldn’t take it as a deal breaker, as the rest of the features work as advertised. The Now Playing screen lets you toggle repeat and shuffle modes. Akin to the main screen, you can use horizontal swipe gestures to navigate between lyrics, album art and songs lists.

It comes as no surprise that many music apps come with an integrated music equalizer to let you fine tune the lows, mids and highs of your music to your liking, and Now Playing is no exception. It features an effective equalizer, where you can either choose from one of the genre-based presets ranging from hip hop and heavy metal to jazz and pop, or even define your own custom levels. Lastly, the Settings screen of the app lets you adjust a few options like toggling playback controls on the lock screen, deleting the app’s cache, and switching to a dark theme that can come handy on AMOLED displays, etc.

Now Playing is available at Google Play Store for $1.85. You may want to take its 3-day trial version for a spin before shelling out your money.

Download Now Playing Music Player For Android

Download Now Playing Free For Android

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Flickr Gets New Web, Android App Design, Cover Photos & 1TB Free Space

Fatima Wahab — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:30:50 +0000

Flickr is a treasure trove of amazing photos. Comprising of stunning collections of original shots as well as stunning digital art created by its users, the service is one of the largest online picture collections you will find, and it has just been redesigned. I for one think it’s about time too; visiting Flickr in the past always made me ask myself why it was still the year 2000 on Flickr, but Yahoo has finally given the service a much needed makeover. The interface is now image-focused and instead of the tiny (and occasionally ineligible) text, you have an infinitely scrolling stream of images from your contacts as well as your own albums. There’s a new image viewer as well, and the service now offers you one terabyte of storage space, saving and viewing photos in full resolutions, and a very handy little tool that tells you just how many full resolution images you can fit into a terabyte based on their resolution. Flickr’s new design isn’t exactly unique or unconventional; it’s done what most image sharing services did a while back and plastered its background with images. Though regardless, it’s still a major improvement..

New Home Page

The new home page is split into two columns; the larger one is dedicated to photos you or your contacts have uploaded, while the smaller one on the right suggests content or useful links. Each image is accompanied by a thumbnail of the user who uploaded it. You can favorite an image, add a comment, or share it. If the image you’re viewing isn’t from a contact, a small ‘Add’ button next to the user’s thumbnail will allow you to add them to your contacts.

Profile & Cover Photo

Much like every other web service these days, your Flickr profile now has a cover photo, and it makes sense since Flickr is where you’re sharing and uploading images. As you scroll down, you will see that images are now displayed as large tiles. You can also view your photostream as a slideshow.

How Much Better Is Biggr?

Now that you have a whole terabyte of space, you might be wondering just how many photos you can upload to it before it runs out. Flickr’s new home page features a neat little tool that should give you a reasonable estimate of what you can do with that space. Depending on the resolution of the photos you’re uploading, the Biggr tool tells you how many photos of that same resolution will fill 1TB.

New Ad-Free & Double Storage Plans

Your free account with 1TB space features ads, and Flickr is asking for $49.99 a year to get rid of them. If you need more space, you can get twice as much as you get with your free account i.e. 2 TB for $599.99 a year.

Redesigned Android App

Flickr’s Android app, like its web interface, has followed in its iOS variant’s footsteps with a complete UI overhaul that undoubtedly surpasses its previous look. It does support cover photos yet, but photostreams now scroll infinitely and the images appear as large tiles.

Download Flickr For Android

Conclusion

The new Flickr interface is definitely much better than ever, but that’s just in comparison to the way it used to be. If you look at image sharing and hosting services like Instagram, you still feel just how overwhelming and messy Flickr feels. While giving the service a new look, the footer seems to have been left out (or forgotten) entirely. The changes are certainly welcome but for many casual users, the interface might still be more complex than it has to be.

Visit Flickr

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Install Leaked Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ROM On Samsung Galaxy S III

Haroon Q Raja — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:34:09 +0000

The entire Android world seems to be talking about two devices these days – Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. Sammy’s latest offering comes with a lot of nifty features added to the software that make it smarter than your average smartphone. If you already have a Galaxy S III and are not sure whether you wanna shell out extra dough just to get those features or stick with what you’ve got, we have some amazing news for you! You can now get the latest S4 camera features and more on your S III without having to shell out a penny, thanks to SamMobile who have shared the latest official Android 4.2.2 XXUFME3 firmware with us that just got leaked hours ago. Read on for details & installation instructions.

Here are the most significant new features and improvements you can expect from this build:

Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with all its official core features like lock screen widgets, daydream, notification actions etc.
New S4 Lockscreen with different unlock effects and some other tweaks
New Adapt Display and Professional Photo screen modes from S4
S4-style Tabbed Settings interface
S4’s new S-Voice and voice controls for several phone features
S4 and Note II-style full-screen Samsung apps
New Smart Switch widget
Driving mode

and possibly more.

Before you proceed with the installation, do note that this is a leaked internal testing build, and not the final release. Therefore, it might contain some quirks that have yet to be ironed out. That said, if you just can’t wait till the final release is out (we can’t), here’s how to get it up and running on your Galaxy S III.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements

International GSM Galaxy S III I9300. Do NOT attempt to flash it to any other variant of the S III.
Samsung USB drivers
Leaked Android 4.2.2 XXUFME3 ROM for Galaxy S III
Odin 3.04 (included in the above file)

Procedure

Take a backup of any data that you might need in case you later need to do a factory reset. This includes any data you might have on your internal SD card.
Download the ROM’s package and extract the contents of the downloaded zip file to your computer.
Download and install Samsung’s USB drivers, if they aren’t already installed.
Power your phone off and boot it into download mode by holding Home and Volume-down buttons while powering it back on.
Launch Odin on your computer and connect your phone to it via USB. You should get a blue indicator sign on Odin.
Click ‘PDA’ in Odin and select the I9300XXUFME3_I9300OJKFME1_HOME.tar.md5 file.
Leave everything as it is, and especially make sure that Re-Partition is unchecked.
Click ‘Start’ to begin flashing, and wait for the process to finish.

You should now have the latest leaked Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean firmware up and running on your S III.

In case there are any issues like bootloops or force-closes when you reboot your phone after flashing the firmware, reboot your phone into recovery by powering it off and then powering it back on while keeping the Home and Volume-up keys pressed, perform a wipe data/factory reset, and reboot the phone. This WILL delete all your apps, data and internal SD card contents, but your phone should boot and work fine after that. For this reason, taking a backup before flashing anything like this is extremely important.

[Firmware & Screenshots via SamMobile]

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Smart Launcher For Android Boasts A Fast, Minimal Yet Beautiful UI

Waqas Ahmed — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:00:11 +0000

While many people buy a smartphone to run apps, check emails, surf the internet (and make phone calls too), it’s the customization factor of Android that really shines and give it an advantage over the likes of iOS and Windows Phone. When we speak of customization, it’s not just merely changing the wallpaper or swapping the Message icon, but the complete interface overhaul that third-party Android launchers bring with them. Smart Launcher Special is a new Android launcher based on the already popular Smart Launcher and Smart Launcher Pro, and has recently gone free in the Google Play Store as a limited time offer. The app brings with it all the features of the Pro variant and is being offered free for a limited time. For more details, read on.

The utmost edge Smart Launcher Special holds over the stock Android launcher (and other manufacturer-customized or third-party launchers for that matter) is the gorgeous, minimalist-friendly interface. There are no ugly icons to deal with, nor any cluttered home screens laden with random widgets. In fact, Smart Launcher Special keeps both of them (shortcuts and widgets) separate from one another. The main screen, aka the Quick Start screen, presents app shortcuts arranged in a flower-like shape that looks fairly immaculate, thanks to their uniform design. They are round and can be easily customized to your choice. Existing shortcuts can be removed by dragging them out of your way to the bottom right. In addition, when you tap an icon, a plus button pops up in the middle, letting you add additional shortcuts.

To enter the widgets area, simply tap the minuscule icon at the bottom-right. Likewise, you can tap and hold your finger on the screen to bring up the wallpaper menu. The widgets screen also looks equally nice, and you can place whatever widget you like on it. Unlike the Quick Start screem, the widgets section comprise of multiple home screens.

The app drawer is accessible via its pertaining button at the Quick Start screen or swipe gesture from the left edge, and it keeps your apps well organized under different categories named Communication, Internet, Media, Utility and Settings. This makes it easier to access things you want. If you’re not happy with the preconfigured categories, you can easily customize their names under Settings. The Preferences screen of the launcher lets you customize a plethora of options under Settings and Personalization.

Settings let users toggle functions such as status bar visibility, screen orientation, drawer activation mode, clock, left-handed mode and so on. Similarly, the Personalization section lets you apply cosmetic changes to the app, ranging from clock style and global theme to icon size and categories labels etc.

So, if you like to keep your Android home screen simple and minimal yet functional and elegant, give Smart Launcher Special a shot while the offer lasts. You can download it via the link provided below.

Looking for even more amazing home screen replacements for your Android device? Don’t forget to check out our list of the top free Android launchers out there.

Download Smart Launcher Special For Android (Free for limited time)

Download Smart Launcher For Android (Free)

Download Smart Launcher Pro For Android (Paid)

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[Ask The Readers] Which Google I/O 2013 Product Announcements Excited You The Most?

Awais Imran — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:30:03 +0000

Google announced a huge number of new products, services and feature updates at Google I/O two days ago. Maps, Search, Google+, Android, Chrome – no major product line was left untouched. In this week’s Ask The Readers Poll, we summarize the major announcements made at I/O 2013, and let you decide and discuss which one excited you the most.

Google Gives Spotify A Run For Its Money

Google has a bit of a habit of looking at a successful product in a lucrative market, and then doing their best to make a better version of it. In launching Google Play Music All Access with an 18 million+ song catalog, track streaming, unlimited skips, virtually unlimited number of downloadable tracks and intelligent mixing of your own library music, all at $7.99/month (introductory offer), Google is trying its best to beat Spotify on Android and the web.

Be sure to check out our review of Google Play Music All Access.

Unified: Google Talk, Google+ Hangouts, Google+ Messenger Merge Into “Hangouts”

Hangouts for Android, iOS and the web is the ultimate, all-in-one messaging app. It combines Google Talk’s instant messaging service with Google+ Hangouts’ group video chats and Google+ Messenger group messaging features. What’s more? Support for Google Voice and SMS on Android is on the way!

Google+ Gets Redesigned; Adds Amazing ‘Auto Awesome’ & ‘Auto Enhance’ Photo Enhancement Features

Just about every techie I know agrees that Google+ is – features and looks-wise – miles ahead of Facebook. At Google I/O, the tech giant announced awesome features that make Google+ even better! Firstly, Google+ now follows the cards-based design language introduced with Google Now. Secondly, photos uploaded on Google+ are analyzed by Google’s algorithms and then automatically tweaked for noise reduction, tonal distribution, skin softening, red-eye reduction and more, in what Google is calling ‘Auto Enhance’. Lastly, ‘Auto Awesome’ finds patterns in your uploaded photos, and creates animated GIFs of shots taken a few seconds apart, panoramas of photos taken at same location, and choosing the best smiling photo out of a bunch of chaotic family photos to create amazing family portraits.

We have already discussed both the new unified Hangouts messaging platform and updates to Google+, so give it a read for more details.

The Next ‘Nexus’ Smartphone: A Galaxy S4 Running Stock Android

One of the most surprising announcements at Google I/O 2013 was that of a Samsung Galaxy S 4 running Stock Android, without any customizations from Samsung whatsoever. With a price of $649 for a 16GB model, it is the most expensive Nexus device on the market to date, but that is fine considering that – compared to the $349 Nexus 4 – it has a Full HD 1080p display, a 13 megapixel camera, a faster processor, LTE support, expandable storage and a removable battery. The phone will be available fully contract-free on Google Play starting June 26th.

Google Maps Redesigned On Desktop And Android

Google Maps is the most popular as well as most powerful consumer maps application in the world, and the new updates for its Android and desktop web apps further cement this fact. The updated web app follows a new “The Map Is The UI” approach, where the actual map takes over most of the screen, with only the header and a little search bar at the top – no more sidebar! Google Earth, vector maps, Google Offers and Zagat’s trusted restaurant reviews are integrated right inside Maps. To make for a more personalized experience, your home, workplace and local points of interest are also included automatically in the map based on data from Google Now.

The new Google Maps for Desktop is slowly rolling out to invited users. You may request an invite at maps.google.com/preview. Android users should update their apps from Google Play to get the new Google Maps.

Google Search Integrated With Google Now For Voice Search And Other Commands

The rumors were right after all. For Chrome and Chrome OS users, Google Now is now integrated with Google Search. Saying “OK, Google” activates voice search – no typing or tapping required. Voice search has been developed to be more intelligent, so Google remembers what you last searched for, and predicts future searches. But that’s not all; you can also send emails, set reminders and more – all without leaving google.com or the Google Search app.

Google Play Books Allows User-Uploaded EPUBs / PDFs; Syncs Everything Across Android, iOS & Web

Google Play Books has always been at a distant third/fourth place in the eBooks reading app market, but a new feature update is bound to push it up ahead: the ability to upload your own collection of eBooks to the service, and to keep your page positions, bookmarks and notes synced across all platforms on which the service is available, i.e. Android, iOS and the web.

Check out our post to learn how to upload EPUBs to Play Books and read them on Android, iOS and the web.

Developer Features for Android

Rather unexpectedly for an I/O event, Google didn’t reveal the next version of Android this time, though that doesn’t mean the world’s most popular mobile operating system was completely neglected at the event. Google did announce several new features and improvements to Android, but most of them were targeted at developers rather than end users for now. However, it will be the users who will benefit from the fruits of these labors in the end.

The biggest new developer feature has got to be Android Studio – a dedicated IDE built by Google to make developing for Android easy. Apart from that, new APIs and developer features were announced for Google’s Maps and Location services, and Google Cloud Messaging. Several new features were added to the Google Play Developer Console as well, making it much easier for developers to optimize, translate and beta test their apps, with the ability to automatically roll out a beta update to a percentage of users first, and then gradually increase that percentage towards a full release. Lastly, a few major APIs were announced for game developers, allowing them to implement features like cloud save, achievements and leaderboards without having to use their own or third-party cloud services for the purpose.

Synced Notifications Across Android Devices

A major new feature for the end users was also announced: notification syncing across all your devices, meaning if you dismiss a notification from your phone, it’ll automatically disappear from your tablet as well. We will likely have to wait for the implementation of this feature in the next (likely minor) update to Android.

So which announcements do you think were the most significant? Join the poll below to let us know. You may select up to 3 answers out of the 9 available.

Haroon Q. Raja contributed to this post.

Read [Ask The Readers] Which Google I/O 2013 Product Announcements Excited You The Most? by Awais Imran on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Popular Twitter & Tumblr Mashup Pheed Comes To Android

Waqas Ahmed — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:00:10 +0000

If you’re keeping a tab on the social media sides of things, you might already be aware of Pheed. It’s a social network service launched back in October last year as a web app, followed by an iOS client in November. Since then, has become quite popular, attracting users’ attention from around the globe – specifically teens and youngsters. The service is primarily designed for sharing a variety of creative content such as photos, videos, audio and text with other Pheed users . In addition, it allows you to subscribe to a multitude of channels that suit your taste in order to discover content created by other users of the service. Although it was released on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad only, Pheed has now landed on Android as well. Lets take a closer look at the Android app of the service.

Pheed for Android sports an eye-catching interface. You can start using it by connecting to the service via your Facebook or Twitter. Though you can also alternatively sign up (or sign in if you already have an account) using your email address. If it’s the first time you’re using the service, you’ll have to provide your user account details, along with optional info for your profile such as a short bio, your photo and so on.

Pheed has strict policies regarding the type of content it allows users to share on their timelines. Therefore, make sure you specify an appropriate channel rating like G, PG, PG-13, R, or X. The rating feature also makes it sure that you don’t encounter channels that you may find inappropriate or offending. Next up, you can specify a few initial channels to subscribe to (NASA, Linkin Park, Snoop Dog are already in there), and invite friends via Facebook, Twitter or email.

Once past account setup wizard, you’re presented with Pheed’s landing screen that shares a few similarities with Twitter (Hashtags, anyone?). It presents a similar looking timeline that you can scroll through vertically. Though where Twitter only contains text based contents and with a few exceptions, shows links to related media, Pheeds display all shared content right within your timeline.

Tapping the miniscule buttons at the bottom let you navigate between timeline, search, new pheed (post), notifications and account settings. Pheed’s search feature lets you quickly discover content under pheeds, channels and hashtags. In terms of what you are allowed to share, you can attach pictures, music and videos to any of your pheeds.

Al in all, the Android app does justice to the service and provides a complete Pheed experience right from your smartphone. Pheed can be downloaded for free from Google Play Store.

Download Pheed

Vobok For iOS & Android Is Like Twitter For Short Voice Recordings

Hamza Khalid — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:21:21 +0000

On the surface, Twitter’s 140 character limit might seem like a hindrance, but in reality, this feature has helped make Twitter the social networking giant that it is today. The limit helps keep tweets interesting, and makes sure that people can easily go through their timeline even if they follow a large number of profiles. Vobok is a social network for smartphones that works on the same idea of intentional limitation, but instead of written words or links, Vobok focuses on audio. The app has been designed to let users record short voice messages, and then share them with their friends and followers. Even private messages can only be sent in audio form, making the whole network voice-based. In the past, Audiolip has offered a similar functionality for desktop, while mobile users have had VoiceBo. Vobok still has its own special place in this genre though, owing to the fact that it is a no-frills app, and enjoys integration with Facebook and Twitter.

Vobok offers three sign up options, including Facebook, Twitter and email. The welcome screen also lets users associate a profile picture with their new account. One signed in, Vobok displays a list of all of your contacts who are already on the service, while letting you send an invitation to anyone who is not using the app yet. Apart from personal contacts, people who have chosen to keep their Vobok profile public can be followed by anyone as well. These friends and followed users help populate the ‘Feed’ section of the app.

The Vobok feeds display a list of all the recordings posted by your contacts. These recordings can be played in-line without leaving the feed. The title of a post, along with its associated image (if any), also show up. Swipe across a recording if you want to re-post, add it to your favorites, or post a clip of your own in reply. The reply option only works for posts from people who follow you as well.

To create a Vobok recording of your own, hit the ‘Broadcast’ button from the bottom bar. To help keep things organized, you are strongly advised to give your posts a title. Attaching an image with the recording can also looks pretty good as the post’s cover. Thanks to the two button at the bottom of the recording area, users can choose to publish their posts to other social networks as well as on Vobok. To view your past posts, head to the ‘Profile’ section of the app, where you can also get an overview of your followers and people you are following.

Vobok has been around for a few months but before its latest update, the invitation method wasn’t exactly convenient. Now, however, this free app is truly uncomplicated, letting users focus on creating recordings rather than inviting friends.

Download Vobok For iOS

Download Vobok For Android

Read Vobok For iOS & Android Is Like Twitter For Short Voice Recordings by Hamza Khalid on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter