Tag Archives: Android

How To Install Any App As A System App On Android [Guide]

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While installing an app on your Android device is as simple as searching for it in the Google Play Store and hitting install, or sideloading its APK on your phone, that always installs them as user apps (also referred to as data apps). At times certain apps need to be installed as system apps rather than user apps in order to utilize their full potential, and that’s where things get a little complicated. In this guide, we will show you how you can install any Android app as a system app on your Android device. Read More

AROMA File Manager: Touch-Enabled Android File Explorer That Runs Within Recovery

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We at AddictiveTips always love to bring to you apps that provide the users with instant and convenient solutions to their routine technology-related issues. When it comes to Android, things are no different at all. As can be seen in our compilation of 10 best Android file browsers, we have already come across quite a few feature-packed file management apps for the Android platform. Managing your Android’s internal and external storage content from within the OS through a nifty file explorer is one thing, but what if you wanted to avail these tools right from within your device’s recovery? If you often flash custom ROMs or mod ZIP files onto your device, you might have, at least once or twice, forgotten to move the flashable ZIP file to local storage before rebooting into recovery. You can always use your custom recovery's mount USB storage option to remedy such situations, but now, there's a better way to go about it.  Fresh to the arena, AROMA File Manager by XDA member, amarullz, is among one of the very first successful attempts at providing Android users with a fully-functional root-level file explorer that can be operated from within system recovery; a custom recovery such as ClockworkMod Recovery. Read More

SoShare For Android & iPhone: Share Photos & Videos Of Any Size With Your Private Network

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SoShare is a relatively fresh private file-sharing web service that lets users instantly share photos, videos and other relatively larger files with each other without placing any restrictions on the storage capacity or the file type whatsoever. It is a social network of sorts that allows you to interact with your contacts and custom-created contact groups by sharing files and commenting on each others’ activities. The service has just launched mobile clients for Android and iOS, which lets you remotely access and manage your file-sharing activities on the network while on the move. Whether it’s sharing files with your SoShare contacts, downloading content shared by other users, commenting on each others’ activities, or creating custom groups with select contacts, the official SoShare client for Android has you covered. Read More

ididit! For Android & iPhone Gives You The Motivation You Need To Achieve Your Goals

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There is no better way of keeping yourself motivated to achieve your goals, and sharing them with the world. In this way, not only can you prevent yourself from going astray in pursuit of your dreams, but also serve as an invaluable source of inspiration for others. Based on said concept, ididit! is an online service that provides you with a unified platform for sharing your ambitions with the world. You can update your progress or distance from your goals, share success stories, and in return, extract motivation from the experiences of others. The service lets you announce your goals to the entire community, specify the deadlines by which you wish to intend to complete the goals, get timely notifications for each individual goal via a reminder, and share your entire progress on Facebook, Twitter or through email. The service released its official iOS client in the iTunes App Store last month, and now the Android variant has been released to the Google Play Store. Details to follow. Read More

Alarm Clock Ultra Is Arguably The Best, Most Comprehensive Android Alarm App Out There

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Just recently, we’ve been treated to quite a few feature-rich Android alarm apps, such as iHome Sleep, PipeUp! Voice Alarm and Morning Routine. However, when it comes to the amount of features and extent of customization, none of the above come even close to the fresh entrant, Alarm Clock Ultra. It’s not your run-of-the-mill alarm app. Alarm Clock Ultra is laced with goodies, including fully customizable alarms, eye-catching themes, multiple homescreen widgets (depicting current time & upcoming alarms), various time presets to enjoy a Quick Sleep (nap), slick stopwatch and timer, built-in egg timer to help your mom prepare you a boiled egg of preferred hardness, option to dismiss/snooze the alarm by solving mathematical problems, playing games or by just shaking your device, and lots more. Read More

[Giveaway] ESET Mobile Security For Android Out Of Beta, Now Supports ICS & Honeycomb

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The reliable computer and network security solutions provided by ESET are highly regarded among domestic and professional computer users all across the globe. When the company launched the public beta of ESET Mobile Security for the Android platform in June last year (2011), Android users were introduced to arguably one of the most comprehensive protection tools for their devices. This multi-lingual app encompasses several sought-after security features to secure your device and all the underlying data from any sort of unauthorized access. The app's feature set includes real-time device protection from viruses and malware through on-demand (user-requested) and on-access (event-triggered) scanning, specifying blacklists for all incoming calls, SMS, and/or MMS from specific users, integrated security audit to identify the most vulnerable aspects of your Android device, multiple anti-theft tools (SIM matching, specifying a trusted SIM card via its IMSI number), and a built-in task manager. The app just recently shed its beta tag and is now available as a 30-day free trial, after which it requires you to purchase a 1-year license to continue availing all the security features. Read More

Listen & Speak: Virtual Foreign Language Teacher That Tests & Rates Your Pronunciation [Android]

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Developed by 9spikes.com., Listen & Speak for Android is a free app that helps you improve your listening and speaking skills in various global languages by practising them through oral dictation. Listen & Speak sports an extensive online library, complete with various basic and advanced exercises in different foreign languages. The app uses your Android’s Text-To-Speech (TTS) engine to read aloud sentences or phrases from a selected exercise set. You can listen to a sentence as many times as you like, and then repeat it after the app to have your speaking skills analyzed. Based on the extent of your precision with the spoken sentence, the app ranks your speaking skills on a scale of 0-1, with intermediate scores represented in decimal figures. Apart from practicing with a specific exercise set, you can also set the app to translate all the sentences or phrases into a global language of choice. Read More

meshtiles: Interest-Aware Photo Styling & Sharing App For Android & iPhone

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There’s no shortage of entertainment-filled apps across various mobile platforms, and it also comes as no surprise that most of these apps are based on the concept of photo-capturing, decorating and sharing. Even before the photo-editing and sharing sensation Instagram hit the Google Play Store, Android users had plenty of quality alternative options to pick from, and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. A new app, called meshtiles, has just stepped into the foray to provide Android and iOS users with an Instagram-like photo styling and sharing experience, but with a nice little twist of its own. Fusing the concept of content-aware photo exploration and photo sharing, meshtiles provides you with an unending stream of photos fetched according to your areas of interest. The app also keeps a detailed log of all the photos that you’ve shared on the network, and presents you with a visually appealing timeline of your activities. As a reward for the extent of your activities on the network, the app also awards you with specific titles and points that keep accumulating with time. Read More

Gallery+ for Pinterest Displays The Photo-Sharing Social Network As A 3D Slideshow [Android, iOS]

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The popular pinboard-themed social photo-sharing service, Pinterest, has a mobile client available for iOS users whereas Android users are currently out of luck. That said, the official iOS client of the service isn’t exactly an app entirely worth dying for. There are plenty of third-party alternatives present across app stores of all renowned mobile platforms that not only let you gain complete control over your Pinterest activities, but add plenty of eye-candy as well. One such unofficial Pinterest client that has been around in the iTunes App Store for quite some time is Galley+ for Pinterest that presents you with a neatly-built photo gallery, complete with all the photo and video collections shared on Pinterest in the form of various pinboards. Apart from managing your own Pinterest account and indulging in various customary activities associated with the service, you can also dive into the world of photo-packed pinboards to explore all the underlying images via high quality, animated slideshows. To the delight of Android users, the app is no longer exclusive to the iTunes App Store, as an Android variant has just made its way into the Google Play Store. Read More

MusicBunk For Android & iPhone Is A Social Network For Music Discovery & Sharing

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Want to know how many of your Facebook friends love Adele’s Rolling In The Deep, or who else in the world loves Pitbull's tracks like you do? Say Hello to MusicBunk – a cross-platform social music discovery and sharing app for Android & iPhone that connects you to worldwide music fans so that you may share, like and comment on all your favorite music tracks while enjoying high quality music streams through personalized playlists. Simply put, the app scans your device’s music library for locally stored songs, lets you create and share playlists from those tracks, listen to the music tracks via its neatly-designed native music player, and lets your friends learn what tracks you’re currently listening to. In return, your friends can respond to your choice of music by commenting on and liking your activities on the network. That’s not all; based on your musical taste, the app also suggests friends who have a particular favorite of yours added to their own MusicBunk playlists. In this way, you can befriend other app users who have the same taste in music as yours, creating a nice little music circle comprising only your Music Matches! Read More

ShoeBox For Android & iOS Lets You Scan Old Photos, Auto-Adjusts Edges & Perspective

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ShoeBox by 1000memories is an online image gallery specifically dedicated to your old photos. It is a platform where you can gather all the old, scanned snaps that might be lying on your computer, smartphone or across various social media sharing platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The service presents you with various category-based ShoeBox (album) templates under which you can place all relevant snaps. You can also create your own ShoeBox, and share it with the entire world. Moreover, there is also the option to keep a ShoeBox private, wherein only authorized users (collaborators) can view the content contained within the album. ShowBox has both an iOS app (which has been around for a while now), and a freshly released Android client, both of which sport smart edge detection and automatic perspective adjustment so that you close to no effort is required at your end to make the scans look flawless. Read More

HTC Sensation Camera Mod Ported To HTC Vivid, Improves Photo & Video Quality

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The HTC Vivid boasts an 8MP AF camera with the ability to record videos at 1080p. However it’s Android, and with that label comes the urge to increasingly push a device to its limit. Camera Mods are not really a new concept and have been around for quite a while now. However, as the camera sensors and over all technology crept to astonishing heights, it is only fair that all that potent hardware is used at its maximum potential. Something like this happened for the HTC Sensation a while back, where the device could record full HD videos at 40mbps! Stuff like 0 compression on JPG images (photos taken), experimental addition of ISO 1250 mode and more were part of the deal. In short, huge improvement in the video and photo quality overall was achieved. Well guess what? The HTC Vivid just got all that! In fact, XDA-Developers forum member zacgoesrawr has simply ported the mod for the Sensation onto the Vivid. So if you’re hungry for some uber camera improvement on your HTC Vivid, read on after the break. Read More

AT&T HTC One X Gets One Click Root

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The HTC One X from AT&T has been rooted! Earlier we covered a rooting guide for the retail version of the HTC One X here, but the AT&T branded model was no where released back then. However, thanks to the efforts of XDA-Developers forum member kennethpenn, not only do AT&T users have the ability to root their device in a one click fashion, but users on Rogers and other networks as well. Even better, this method will work for Windows, Linux and Mac. Read More

Flipboard For Android Now Available For All Devices [Review]

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Once the official Instagram Android app finally hit the Google Play Store last moth, most users (including me) set their sights on another popular iOS-exclusive app, Flipboard – an elegant, customizable magazine style news and social feed reader. Just last week, along with the announcement of the much-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S III, came the news that Flipboard will be debuting on Android as an SGS III-exclusive app. Now, unless you’re one of the lucky few to-be owners of said device, chances are bleak that you’ll be getting a taste of Flipboard on your Android any time soon. That said, XDA member, Valcho, seems to have completely different plans, as he has managed to pull the APK of the much sought-after news reader from his Galaxy S III (a test unit, presumably). So, albeit not officially, Flipboard for Android is now available for download, and is ready to give Google Currents a good run for its money in the race of the best news reading Android apps. Update: A fully tablet-optimized version of Filpboard for Android is now officially available on the Google Play Store. We've added a link to its Play Store page at the end. Read More

Cool Converter: A Holo-Themed Advanced Unit Converter For Android

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There is no shortage of quality unit converters for Android in the Google Play Store, but if you are looking for an alternative that provides plenty of advanced conversion options, take a look at Cool Converter. Sporting a UI that borrows its elements from the Android Ice Cream Sandwich’s Holo Theme, Cool Converter offers you dozens of daily-use basic, as well as extended, conversion options. The app's conversion support goes beyond the routine physical units (time, length, temperature, area et al), and lets you perform necessary calculations on various scientific and computing units, including bits & bytes, numeral systems, force, torque, pressure, energy, electric current, magnetic field strength, power and metric prefixes etc. That’s not all; the app also lists values of all the useful universal scientific constants that you might be required to use in, perhaps, your homework. Read More

Metal Sniffer: Metal Detector That Exports Readings In CSV [Android]

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I remember the time the HTC G1 came out, and with it, a metal detector app. To be honest, I initially thought it was a gimmick and more of en entertainment app rather than an actually utility, but as it is, the thing actually worked! Since then, the Android Market, now renamed to Google Play, has been flooded with tons of metal detector apps that offer quite a lot of different functions, but if you talk about free ones, most out there are ad-supported, which can be a nuisance at times (although for free, one shouldn’t complain). Metal Sniffer is just another metal detector app, there, I said it. However, the app brings in what most don’t, and that is a Holo themed interface that blends in nicely with the ICS UI – for those of you running Ice Cream Sandwich on your Android device – and best of all, the app is entirely ad-free. More on the app and how well it actually fares in what it does, after the break. Read More

PipeUp! Voice Alarm For Android Can Read Aloud Almost Anything via TTS

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The smartphones (and tablets) of today have even smarter alarm & clock apps that provide way more functionality than presenting you with just the usual dismiss-and-snooze buttons. With the previously reviewed iHome Sleep, we’ve already seen an Android & iOS alarm app that wakes you up to your overnight social media feeds. Fresh to the Google Play Store, PipeUp! Voice Alarm is another immensely comprehensive, fully customizable Android alarm app that takes the aforementioned concept even further, and lets you specify various alarms that can be set to play aloud almost any content that you add to their respective playlists. Using the high quality Android Text-To-Speech (TTS) engine, the app can play your overnight social feeds in a typical radio broadcast style, business/stock news, custom text, unattended emails and text messages, quote of the day, daily language lessons, RSS feeds and podcasts, technology news, sports updates, custom audio/sound files, entertainment news, detailed weather forecast, wakeup messages from friends, Merriam Webster word of the day, trivia of the day, local traffic details, calendar event alerts, and lots more. The app supports playing all the content in multiple global languages, and lets you pick either a male or female voice to play the selected content in an accent of choice. Read More

Dashboard: Add Up To 9 Bookmark Slots To Your Android’s Homescreen

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If you’re an avid web surfer and frequently need to visit specific websites on your Android, but find it tiresome to navigate all the way to your browser app to open each individual website separately, then you must consider using Dashboard. This immensely convenient and customizable app lets you specify bookmark shortcuts to a maximum of nine (9) different most frequently used URLs on its main interface, so that you’re always just a single tap away from navigating to your favorite websites. What’s even better with Dashboard, is that it also supports a nifty skinnable homescreen widget, complete with the shortcuts to all nine bookmarks, so that you can head over to the required URL direct from your Android's homescreen. From the customization perspective, you can also apply various elegant skins/themes to your Dashboard widget to make it look even prettier, and in compliance with your default launcher. Details to follow. Read More

Shoptimus Is An Intelligent Virtual Assistant For All Kinds Of Shopping [Android]

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Sporting a polished and intelligently-crafted user interface, Shoptimus International is a free Android app that brings you the latest shopping deals from some of the leading online merchants, including Kmart, Shoes.com, Target, Abt Electronics and Sears. Be it the latest electronic gadgets, home appliances, products for men, women and kids, or any daily-use commodities, using Shoptimus International, you can explore a wide array of consumer products from across all supported online stores. The app offers you various filters that you can utilize to narrow down your search criteria, listing only those products that meet your liking and budget. While browsing various online stores, you can also add the required items to your wishlist on the go, or head over to the retailer’s website to instantly place the purchase order. That’s not all; the app also supports voice-enabled search, as well as real-time search suggestions, to help you instantly search for items of interest from required outlets. Read More

Seedair +3 Lets You Explore & Share Geotagged Photos & URLs [Android]

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Seedair +3 is a relatively fresh location-based social media-sharing and networking startup that specifically targets mobile users. Through its highly interactive and visually appealing Android app, Seedair +3 lets you instantly share geo-tagged photos, URLs and short messages that can be seen by other app users within your vicinity. You can opt to keep the shared content visible to all, none (apart from you), or only your Seedair +3 friends. There are multiple ways of exploring all the Airsigns (content shared via Seedair +3), and while you explore, the app provides you with a chance to add new friends to your social circle. In addition, it presents you with a host of customary socializing tool, using which you may like, comment on, or share an Airsign with your online buddies. Read More