Tag Archives: Apps

Set A Photo Sphere As Panoramic Live Wallpaper On Any Android Device

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Live Wallpapers are one of the perks of owning an Android device, and mind you, they’re not just animated wallpapers; they can make use of many other elements as well, including your phone’s gyroscope and accelerometer, and have several interactive elements that make them dynamic. In the past, we've covered our huge lists of the most beautiful Live Wallpapers as well as some of the most amazingly functional Live Wallpapers that fully showcase the capability of this feature. Would you like to have a wallpaper that reacts when you pick up your phone or when you scroll through the various home screens? How about creating a Photo Sphere, and setting it as your wallpaper? If this has managed to get you interested by now, keep reading, because this app is one cleverly executed idea. The app is called Photosphere Live Wallpaper, and is available for free on Google Play. Although Photo Sphere is a feature specific to Android 4.2 and above, the app can be used on any device running Android 2.2+, so go ahead and grab it for your device. You might be wondering "but if I cannot create photo spheres from my phone, what's the point of using this app?". Keep reading, for there's a workaround! Once installed, run the app, and it will display a helpful intro menu that guides you on what to do. Read More

Doo Comes To Android; Provides On-The-Go Access To Cloud Documents

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Doo is a document syncing service with desktop apps available for OS X 10.8+ and Windows 8. It initially gives you 25GB of storage space to try out, and allows you to connect folders on your hard drive, your Dropbox, Google Drive, and Skydrive to it in order to make all your documents available in a single cloud-synced location. A user can selectively pick the folders that will be synced to Doo. The service has just released its first smartphone app, and it is for the Android platform. For now, the app allows you to view a list of your cloud files complete with thumbnails, and lets you download any one of them to your phone. The app does not support uploading any file from your device yet though. However, you can search for files, or view them by name, date, flag, companies, people, and other tags that Doo supports on its desktop apps. Read More

Osito Brings Google Now-Like Traffic, Weather & Event Alerts To iPhone

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When it was initially released, Sherpa gained a lot of acclaim as many iOS users felt that the app brings the best bits of Google Now to iOS. As great as the app was, it was still in its beta until now. Things have finally changed though, and Sherpa has shed its beta tag. Not only that; the team behind the service has also decided to rebrand it to Osito. For those who didn't use the app previously, Osito analyzes your activities, location and calendar entries to come up with highly personalized notifications that can help you in a number of situations. The best thing about Osito is that you don’t have to configure the app to send you notifications; it does all the work automatically, and makes sure you are never late for an appointment or in danger of missing a flight. Read More

just.me For iPhone Combines Messaging, Email & Social File Sharing

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With so much saturation in the App Store, very few apps can become instant hits these days. just.me has had some time to reel in a decent number of users since the app’s beta came out a few months ago, and it has been in the news for even longer due to the fact that some big names have been backing the project. Now that the app stable version has finally been released, we are pleased to see that it doesn't disappoint. just.me is basically an instant messaging app, but one of the great things about it is that the app works even if your contacts aren't on just.me, as such people receive messages via email or SMS. just.me also incorporates cloud storage, where you can keep any text snippet or media file stored as long as you want. The privacy is completely in the user’s hands, which makes it possible to use just.me even as a social sharing network. Read More

OpenSignal For iPhone Maps Nearby WiFi Hotspots & Ranks Cellular Networks By Coverage

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Despite the availability of network monitoring apps for iOS, the platform has never had something as comprehensive as Android’s OpenSignal. The previously covered Signals 2 works only on jailbroken devices, and doesn't deal with Wi-Fi networks at all. OpenSignal, on the other hand, offers a  speed test, and has the capability of mapping out signal strength for both cellular and Wi-Fi networks. After a long wait, now you can have all these amazingly useful features on your iPhone, as the developers of OpenSignal have just released an iOS variant in the App Store. The app lets iDevice owners sniff out Wi-Fi networks in their vicinity, and also helps them in deciding which cellular network provides the best coverage in their area. Read More

Yahoo! Weather For iPhone Wows With Gorgeous UI, Maps & Detailed Stats

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The stock Weather app in iOS gets all its data from Yahoo!, but the app’s interface and features are Apple’s doing. While that partnership is still going strong, Yahoo! has just decided to show what a really good weather app can look like on the OS. Yahoo! Weather is anything but just another app released in a crowded genre of the App Store. It has an interface to die for, and is no slouch in terms of features either. The app has unique backgrounds for most locations you add to it, and also makes it possible to view a detailed weather map of any area you want. The app supports a few basic gestures to keep accessing its features as easy as possible. Read More

Share Articles From Pocket For Android & iOS Via “Send to Friend”

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To celebrate a year since Read It Later was rebranded to Pocket, the service’s iOS and Android clients have just been updated with a useful new feature. Although the apps are meant to let users keep webpages bookmarked for their personal use, Pocket seems to be going a bit more social now. The newly added ‘Send To Friend’ option allows iOS and Android users to share any article with their friends pretty easily. You can even opt to have the app scan your phone’s address book to make finding contacts easier. The recipient of shared stories doesn’t even have to be a Pocket user to benefit from Send To Friend, since the app sends articles to others via email. To add to the feature’s usefulness, Pocket users get a notification whenever an item is shared with them by another user of the service. Read More

How To Get Facebook Chat Heads Feature On Your iPhone Right Now

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Like many other users, I am still getting used to the revamped Facebook app for iOS, but the update is pretty good overall. The interface is much cleaner now, and gives the app a very uncluttered feel. Apart from UI changes, the app also offers two new options related to chat - Chat Heads and Stickers. Seeing as how attractive a feature Chat Heads is, we wouldn't be surprised if Facebookers stopped using Facebook's Messenger app a great deal until it gets these features as well. Although many have received Facebook’s latest iOS update in its entirety, not everyone has been lucky enough to gain access to Chat Heads and Stickers just yet. Facebook has decided to roll out these features gradually over the course of a few weeks. If you are one of those annoyed Facebookers who are in the waiting list, there is a way of enabling the features on your account right now. You don’t need to have a jailbroken device, but some basic knowledge of the iOS file system is sure to help. Read More

LinkedIn For iPhone & Android Gets A New UI & Customizable Navigation Menu

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LinkedIn’s Windows Phone update, which we covered yesterday, was pretty big, but it wasn't much compared to the complete revamp the social network’s iOS and Android clients have received today. The app’s interface has been overhauled to address a lot of aesthetic and usability issues. Not a lot of people have been huge fans of LinkedIn's mobile clients, but you should give the updated version a chance since it doesn’t look anything like its previous iterations. In addition to all the UI changes, the app has also gained the capability to let users like and comment on posts without ever leaving the main feed. You can also follow Influencers from within the app. The option to add sections of your choice to the navigation pane has been added to the mix as well. Read More

LinkedIn For Windows Phone Gets Live Tiles, Voice Controls & Dynamic Lock Screen Support

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A month shy of its first release anniversary, LinkedIn for Windows Phone has received a major update. Windows Phone has native integration with the world’s largest professional network since WP7, but you do need to have a decent app if you want to properly go through your updates, message someone or explore new jobs. The previous version of the official LinkedIn client for Windows Phone was pretty decent, but it did not take full advantage of all the awesome new possibilities added to the mix by WP8. With LinkedIn 1.5 however, you get to control many aspects of the app using WP8’s native voice commands; resizable live tiles are supported now, and it is possible to configure your lock screen to automatically cycle through images taken from the LinkedIn Today section of the app. Read More

Facebook For iOS Updated To v6.0: Chat Heads, Stickers & UI Improvements Galore!

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Mark Zuckerberg and his band of world-class engineers have made a habit of regularly iterating on Facebook’s design and features every few months even though, to the average user, the website works just the way they like. Each time, after some initial backlash from its enormous user-base, people just settle down with the updates, that is until the company decides that the current state of affairs isn’t good enough and changes everything all over again. This, I believe, is one of the biggest reasons behind Facebook’s success – revising design and features regularly keeps the service “fresh”. Read More

Post To Multiple Social Media & Blogs Simultaneously With Polarbear

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Smartphones have become quite an integral part of our lives. Apart from using them for texting, watching videos, surfing the internet or taking notes, a lot of us use them to incessantly update our social media presence. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn – these social media giants have dominated our social lives. And if you use all these services for staying in touch with your friends, family and professional contacts, it may seem quite tedious to manage all these accounts from their individual apps or websites. Polarbear is a simple app currently available for BlackBerry 10 & BlackBerry PlayBook - with Android, iOS, Windows and Mac versions in the private beta stage - that allows posting status messages to multiple networks in one go. The app aggregates your social media and blog accounts so you can post status updates to them in one go without requiring to open their dedicated apps or visit their websites. The developers sent us a copy of the Android app, which we're going to take for a spin after the break. Read More

NBC News Comes To WP8 With Full Shows, Narrated Articles & Video Clips

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For some reason, the WP Store has a particularly strong news category. Windows Phone still can’t compete against iOS or Android if you are looking at photo editors or games, but almost all major news services have released their WP7 and WP8 clients. Last month, Al Jazeera became the latest big name to join the ranks of WP8 news apps, and now we have an even bigger release in the Store. The NBC network already had some Windows Phone presence, thanks to its Breaking News and Nightly News apps, but with NBC News, there is now a proper WP8 app of the news giant that takes full advantage of the features available in the OS. Read More

AVG TuneUp: Easy Task, Battery, Storage & Data Management In One Android App

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Ever since I switched from the iPhone to an Android Phone (Galaxy Nexus), there have been several changes in my smartphone usage habits, the most important ones being managing storage, ensuring that I don’t run too many apps at once (gets me confused, and slows down the phone), close apps every once in a while, and most importantly, save battery. There's no dispute that the Galaxy Nexus isn't as good as the iPhone when it comes to battery life , but I somehow manage to keep it alive till the end of the day. There are some key settings that determine the battery life of your smartphone, and case of Android, these settings are quite scattered. In addition, there are also other maintenance tools like tasks, data use and installed apps management that are scattered across Android Settings.  A common user doesn't really know if changing such settings can affect their device performance. Fortunately though, the user doesn't need to be worried much, since there are apps for this purpose. Unlike many such complex-looking apps (some of which we have covered earlier), AVG TuneUp is really user-friendly, not requiring the user to be tech-savvy to understand and interact with it. Read More

Customize iOS Lock Screen Slider & Disable “Slide To Reply / View”

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Although there have been some really comprehensive Cydia tweaks (like SliderWidth and SlideToMod) for letting users change the basic properties of the iOS lock screen, there are a few features that are just so deeply ingrained into iPhone’s operating system that no one has ever given much thought to customizing them. You can easily change the interface of your device’s lock screen if you are a Winterboard user. Other elements can be customized using some tweaks available in the jailbreak store. There is one thing, however, that has annoyed a lot of users, with no way of bypassing it, until yesterday. Whenever you get a new notification on the iPhone lock screen, using the unlock slider immediately opens the app to which the notification belongs. Some of you might like this feature, but a lot of users aren't too fond of this feature, and instead make the device sleep and then wake it up again in order to bypass it. Though that in itself is an inconvenience. SliderCustomizer is a new tweak that not only addresses this issue, but also offers some pretty decent customization options for the iOS lock screen. Read More

Play Any Game Boy Or GB Color Title On Windows Phone With VGBC8

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VGBC8 for WP8 might not support as many platforms as RetroArch for Android, and those it does support are nowhere near as high-end as what PSSP emulates on iOS, but this Game Boy emulator does everything it is supposed to do in a really efficient and lag-free manner. The app is capable of running any Game Boy or Game Boy Color ROM, offering full controls and game saving options. VGBC8 is not the first emulator of this kind for Windows Phone, as the developer of this app has previously released a Game Boy Advance emulator in the WP Store as well. The new app works flawlessly, and loading new ROMs is really easy. Any game’s save state is uploaded to SkyDrive so that your progress doesn't get lost even if the app is uninstalled, and you start playing it right where you left even on another device. Read More

Got-IT For Android: Beautiful To-Do & Notes App With Google Tasks Sync

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Got-IT might seem like just other task management + note-taking app, but with its intuitive and Holo-themed UI coupled with features like unlimited lists, swipe navigation, widgets and DashClock support, it could very well become the choice for many users for taking notes and managing tasks in a quick and simple manner. Developed by XDA-Developers forum member ‘Mikro ddd’, the app was built with inspiration from Google Now and Google Keep while adding drop-down menus and swipe navigation to the mix. We take a closer look at the app and see how well it fares, after the jump! Read More

Crossfader Lets You Mix Songs Like A DJ Just By Waving Your iPhone Around

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One often sees apps belonging to the same genre getting released by developers in quick succession. We covered Ninja Jamm just yesterday, and another remixing app has now reached the ‘New & Noteworthy’ section of the App Store. Crossfader for iPhone kets users create a remixed version of songs just like the Jamm app, but that’s where the similarity ends. The apps are as different as two apps sharing a genre can be. While Ninja Jamm is full to the brim with features, music controls and sound effects, Crossfader has exactly zero buttons for remixing. Still, the remixes created using Crossfader can hold their own against results of most iOS apps of this kind. Crossfader makes use of your iPhone’s gyroscope to add effects to song. You can pick two songs from the collection supported by the app, and then act like a pro DJ merely by tilting your device, swiping across it and using a few taps here and there. Read More

How To Install & Run Facebook Home On Unsupported Android Devices

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As announced at Facebook's "New Home on Android" event, and a few days after its APK was leaked to the interwebs, Facebook Home was released to the Play Store today, but only in the US, and that too for a limited number of devices, namely HTC One X, One X+, One, Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S4. Where Facebook might be justified in localizing their product, we're sure there are countless users pouting in disappointment at having such a major release kept out of reach, and that too without an ETA on support for other regions and devices. Now, if you're a resident of the US and happen to own one of these devices (two of which are yet to hit the shelves), you needn't read on. If you own a supported device, but are in an unsupported region, you should only need to sideload the APK of the final release. If, however, you don't fulfill any of these requirements, as should be the case with quite a majority of Android-toting Facebook users around the world, join us past the break for a step-by-step guide on making your device Facebook Home-compatible! Read More

Universal Unroot Offers One-Click Unrooting For Any Android Device

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If you’re reading this, you already have a rooted Android device, or you’re looking for reasons not to root it. Sure, rooting your phone opens up a plethora of new possibilities for your device that are otherwise restricted by its manufacturers. Root access and the mods that follow, such as installing a custom recovery, and consequently, a custom ROM, are not meant for every novice Android user, which is precisely why most manufacturers want you to stick to the stock firmware. So, in order to discourage this practice and prevent complaints that lie outside the scope of support that a manufacturers can provide, consumer devices are designed with layers of protection.  The procedure leading to the rooting your device not only makes you ineligible for troubleshooting support but also voids any warranty that you could have claimed from the manufacturer in case of a fault in the device. So you do what you can – you unroot the device before handing it in to customer support. However, this is not always as easy as it sounds, especially if you’re a novice who had his phone rooted by a friend. Enter Universal Unroot, the one root access removal app to rule them all! This app is the simplest one-tap unroot solution out there till date for any and all rooted devices. Details to follow. Read More