Tag Archives: notifications

Use Any Photo Or Color As Background For iPhone Notification Banners

by on
Leave a comment
BannerImage has not been around in the jailbreak store for too long, but many people are already comparing it to the FlagPaint tweak. The comparison is justified to a large extent, since both tweaks are designed to let users change the appearance of notification banners, but we have to point out that BannerImage takes things to the next level. While FlagPaint renders quite good-looking results, it gets a bit monotonous after a while, since there are only so many colors or styles you can apply to your banners with it. With BannerImage, on the other hand, you get all that, plus the ability to use any image from your iPhone’s camera roll as the background for the banners. Although the newer tweak’s controls don’t look as refined as FlagPaint’s, we have to say that the customization options are certainly better. Read More

SoundControl Adds Pandora Playback Controls & Notifications To Chrome

by on
Leave a comment
Extensions for controlling YouTube are very common and some of them can be quite powerful. What’s odd is that there aren't nearly as many extensions made for services like Pandora, Grooveshark, or Soundcloud, Pandora possibly being the most left out of the three. If you’re trying to find a convenient way to control Pandora, SoundControl Beta for Pandora might be the perfect solution . It’s a Chrome extension that gives you one button to play, pause, and skip songs. The button must be clicked a certain number of times to execute the function associated with it, and is customizable. SoundControl Beta for Pandora also gives you desktop notifications when a new song plays, and lets you select the volume of the ads and directly switch to the tab you have Pandora open in. The extension remembers the last song you were listening to, along with its last position during playback, so if you close Pandora, the same song that you were last listening to will resume from where you left off, the next time you open it. Read More

Get Update & Price Drop Notifications For Any iOS App With Apps Notifier

by on
Leave a comment
Ever since Apple started its crackdown on app discovery tools, vendors have started coming up with ingenious ways of slipping past the stringent App Store scrutiny, and pushing out apps that might help you in keeping your iPhone interesting. A few days back, we covered AppShopper Social that adds a dash of user-collaboration to app discovery. Push notifications are an important part of any app like AppShopper, but there are other tools available for different platforms that are designed to work in the background, and only alert users whenever there is something worth checking out in the app collection. For Android, Amazon App Notifier serves a similar purpose, whereas iPhone owners can now give the new Apps Notifier a shot. You just have to add your favorite apps to the Apps Notifier watch list, and then wait for any updates or price drops to come along. There's is no need to even repeatedly come back to the app, since it is based almost completely on push notifications. Read More

Unification Brings Cross-Platform Notification Sync To Windows 8 & RT

by on
Leave a comment
The lock screen notifications in Windows 8/RT isn't entirely a new concept, but it’s quite refreshing for Windows OS as it was never seen in any of its prior versions. These push notifications allow third-party apps to display real-time on-screen notifications for events like new email, weather updates, Facebook messages, Twitter mentions and the like. Although, its quite a nifty features that can save one a lot of time, there’s no central location where you can view all your pending notifications related to every app together. Earlier this month, we covered a Windows Phone app named Unification, aimed for somewhat similar purpose i.e. to bring all your notifications under one roof. The app has now arrived on Windows 8 and RT as well. Unification, being a cross-platform app, is designed to to automatically sync your notifications across all Windows based devices, including WP7, WP8, Windows 8 and Windows RT. Read More

Toggle Quiet Mode, Manage & Turn Off Desktop Notifications In Chrome

by on
Leave a comment
Notifications are one of the best features that several modern browsers now offer, not simply because they alert you on events happening in a tab in your browser, but also because they do for web apps what Notification Center in OS X & iOS and Notifications in Windows 8 do for system-wide apps. Granted that browser notifications are not as powerful as the notification feature of an operating system, browsers are definitely moving up in this regard. Chrome for one has implemented an experimental feature that allows you to mute notifications either for a day, an hour, or indefinitely. It is similar to the Do Not Disturb feature available for Notification Center in both iOS and Mountain Lion. Read More

Abstergo Lets You Clear Individual iOS Notifications Or Turn Them Into Reminders

by on
Leave a comment
It’s been around for more than a year, but some of you might still be using Lorem - the Cydia tweak that lets iOS users clear a single notification from a group within the Notification Center. A lot of tweaks dealing with notifications have been released since Lorem, and Abstergo combines the features offered by these newer ones with the functionality offered by Lorem. With Abstergo, you can get Remind Me Later options for any notification (just like with AnyReminder), and the tweak is also capable of letting you clear notifications from the lock screen or the NC just the way you want. You can use Abstergo to clear all notifications with one gesture, create reminders out of notifications without even unlocking your device, and convert texts into reminders from the stock Messages app. Read More

Get iOS Status Bar, Notification Center & Banners On Android With Espier Notifications

by on
2
Just a while back, we covered Espier Screen Locker, which replicates the iOS 6 lock screen on Android. The developers at Espier Studio are known for their efforts to bring the iOS look to Android devices and after Espier Launcher & Espier Screen Locker, they have released Espier Notifications. As you might have already guessed, the app brings you iOS-like notifications - both banners and prompts. There's more too - the app also adds an iOS 6-like status bar to your device, complete with an iOS 6-style Notification Center! There are plenty of options to configure such as changing status bar colors for specific apps, choosing the app for which notifications will be displayed in the Notification Center, and much more. Read on after the break to learn more about the app, as we take a closer look at it. Read More

[Giveaway] Mention: Google Alerts Alternative With Desktop, Mobile Apps & Analytics

by on
4
A few days ago we covered Talkwalker Alerts - a free web alerts service that does pretty much what Google Alerts does, by letting you add as many web-based alerts as you like and monitor them via an RSS feed. It’s a good service and a reliable one should Google decide to axe its offering. Mention is a similar service that's more suited for users who use alerts extensively to monitor specific topics being discussed online. The service has both free and premium accounts available, with the free accounts limited to a total of three alerts and 50,000 mentions per month. Mention has apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android that allow you to monitor these alerts as they come. The service does not send email alerts, and your inbox therefore remains clean from the clutter. Mention has its own ‘inbox’ that you can read the alerts in. Alerts can be narrowed down to include or exclude a certain phrase/word, originate from specific source(s), and be in a language of your choice. Mention allows you to view stats for your alerts and download them in report form as a PDF file. Read More

Looking For A Google Alerts Alternative? Try Talkwalker Alerts

by on
1
Google, as both a search engine and an email provider is very popular and has users by the millions. It’s safe to say that the Google Search Engine and Gmail will never be taken off the shelves, but for Google services that are less useful for the greater masses, the same cannot be said. If Google Reader’s fate has incited you to look for an alternative for the lesser-used Google Alerts service, then you should give Talkwalker Alerts a shot. The service monitors the web for content containing keywords that you’ve entered. You can set up how frequently the alerts will be sent, what language they should be in, and whether or not the notifications should be in plain text or HTML. Read More

Unification Is A Combined Notification Center For Windows Phone & Windows

by on
Leave a comment
Since the days of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has been claiming that the ‘Me’ section of the People hub is fully capable of serving as the notifications area of your phone, but most users haven't been satisfied with the somewhat limited functionality the Me tile offers. The People hub is enough if you are only interested in social media updates, but what about all the notifications you might miss from third-party apps just because the device was in your pocket when the toast notification showed up? Unification is a new app that has the potential to act like a notification repository for all the apps you use on your Windows Phone. The app has been released only on WP8 at present, but it is slated to arrive for Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 pretty soon, which is sure to make it a truly universal notification center for the entire Microsoft ecosystem. Read More

Get Chrome Desktop Alerts For Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & YouTube

by on
Leave a comment
A while ago, we reviewed Chime - a Chrome extension that connects with your personal accounts on multiple social networks and gives you notifications for any activity. Chime stands out for two reasons: its gorgeous interface, and the multitude of services that it supports. The Notifications for everything is a Chrome extension that does something similar but supports fewer services and slightly greater customization. Chime kept a historical record of activity in your different account while The Notifications for everything is like the notification system that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube lack. You can select which of the four mentioned services you want to receive notifications for, start receiving desktop notifications for them or simply view them on the extension’s icon. Read More

Run Android Apps In Full-Screen Mode With Access To Notifications & Navigation

by on
2
Accessing notifications, options and navigation controls can be a daunting task on an Android device when you’re using an app in full screen mode like watching a movie or playing game. This is most problematic in case of tablets and large phones. Also, there are occasions when you wish the status bar could just disappear so that an app can gain some more screen estate. full!screen is an app that takes all of these scenarios into consideration and delivers functions that will be hard to let go of, once you get used to them. The app will not simply hide the status bar, but will also provide you with two translucent, configurable on-screen buttons that remain available whether you’re watching a video, surfing the web, or just using the phone normally with the status bar hidden. The buttons can also be configured to your liking. Let's take a closer look at how the app functions and what else it has to offer. Read More

Enable ‘Do Not Disturb’ On iPhone Using Siri Or A Lock Screen Toggle

by on
Leave a comment
Judging by the popularity of SBSettings, iOS users really like shortcuts for important system toggles. The dropdown window can be configured to show controls for Airplane mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G and various other functions. One thing glaring omission from the support list however, is Do Not Disturb. The feature is fairly new to iOS, and maybe that’s why there haven't been a lot of shortcut options available for it until now. Thankfully, the Cydia community has finally started recognizing the true potential of this little gem, and there are now a few decent options to control Do Not Disturb without having to launch the Settings app. Two of the best tweaks for this purpose are Flusterless and Crescent. While Flusterless adds a very neat and unobtrusive toggle to the lock screen, the newly released Crescent hands the control of Do Not Disturb to Siri. Read More

Sticky Icky Keeps iOS Notification Banners On Screen Till Dismissed

by on
Leave a comment
Almost all major iOS apps offer support for push notifications to some extent, and these real-time alerts are specially important for social networking, instant messaging, news and task management apps. As is the case with most areas of iOS though, users don’t get full control over these banner notifications; they appear for a predefined amount of time, forcing many people to repeatedly visit Notification Center even if they take their eyes off their iPhone for just a few minutes. Sticky Icky can change that, and do even more for your iPhone. This newly released Cydia tweak lets users control the duration for which notifications appear on the status bar; you can dismiss the banner as soon as it appears, or keep it pinned to the screen for hours. Read More

View Customizable Pop-up Alerts For Any Android App With Notify Me!

by on
Leave a comment
iOS has used popup alerts for a while now, and is a feature that could be dearly missed once you get the hang of it. Android has its rich Notification Drawer, but no native popup alerts for incoming notifications except for apps that have individually implemented this feature for their own notifications. There are some third-party Android apps like Notification Popup Alert that bring this functionality to the entire OS, though if you want more enhanced and customizable notifications, there's Notify Me! Temember the popup message alerts from the CM10 Messaging app's popup alerts? This app brings something similar for all notifications. You can select any app to be notified about, and even alter the style of the popup. Let's take a more detailed look at Notify Me!'s features after the jump. Read More

Pin Live Tiles & Get Push Notifications For Facebook Pages On Windows Phone

by on
Leave a comment
Windows Phone’s Facebook integration has always been pretty good, thanks to its presence in the People hub, along with a decent Facebook client. While Mango users have had some complaints regarding push notifications in the past, they work pretty flawlessly on WP8. Having said that, there is a limit to the kind of content that is pushed to users via notifications. If you follow a lot of Facebook pages, there is no way of getting notified whenever there is some new activity on them. That’s where Pages comes handy. This aptly named Windows Phone app has been designed to let users pin Facebook pages to their Start screen, and configure notifications for them. The app also offers quite a good way to discover pages and make your timeline more interesting. Read More

Get iOS-Like Banner Notifications Anywhere On Android

by on
2
iOS 5 introduced us to what has come to be known as ‘Banner Alerts’ - a simple yet effective feature for those times when you’re running a full-screen app or simply watching a video on your iOS device, and don't want to miss out on your notifications. Android may have triumphed with it’s rich notification center from the start, but Banner Alerts is something we all could benefit from. In case you don't want to wait for Google to implement the feature, Notification Popup Alert is a free app recently released on the Play Store that attempts to replicate the feature on your Android device. The app is still in a Beta state, and does not have a whole lot of customization options to offer for now. However, it does serve its purpose, so let's take a detailed look at it after the jump. Read More

Get Real-Time Notifications On Android Lock Screen With This Widget

by on
1
Android's notification system is great for staying informed about all your phone and app activities and updates from anywhere in the OS, but what if you want to access this information without having to unlock your phone's screen?  Notification LockScreen Widget allows you to do just that! We have seen the likes of DashClock widget bring a lot of extra functionality to the lock screen, but the AnyDash notifications extension for the widget only offered setting up notifications for selective apps, and had its own styling. Notifications Widget places real-time notifications of everything from your Notification Drawer into a very neat widget, complete with a handful of very useful customizable features. Read More

Twitter For Windows Phone Gets New UI, Lock Screen Notifications & An Improved Live Tile

by on
Leave a comment
It might have taken longer than expected, but Microsoft’s promise of bringing better apps to Windows Phone 8 is finally coming true. After the WhatsApp overhaul last week, Twitter has received a significant update as well. Until now, Twitter’s Windows Phone client resembled the service’s web version rather than its smartphone counterpart, but finally the situation has been rectified, with the new update bringing a tabbed interface and better notification support. The ‘Connect’ and ‘Discover’ tabs have finally been added to the app. You can also configure lock screen notifications on WP8 devices quite easily. No Windows Phone app update is complete unless it improves the live tile, and Twitter is no exception. The app now supports a double-sided tile that shows alerts for mentions and direct messages. Read More

Customize Notifications For Individual Contacts & Apps On Your iPhone

by on
Leave a comment
Everybody loves free stuff but if an app is really good, most people don’t mind spending a few bucks on it. Before you give a developer your money though, it is always nice to get a taste of things to get a good idea of what you're paying for. This is why a lot of tweaks and apps come with trials or free lite versions. RingerX VIP is a Cydia tweak that thoroughly deserves its $2.99 price tag, but even if you aren’t willing to pay that amount straight away, its free version has finally arrived in the form of RingerX Lite. The new arrival has some pretty significant limitations and a few features are missing altogether, but overall, the tweak gives a pretty good account of itself. Apart from setting custom notifications for contacts or apps, you can also do several other things like disabling all notifications while on a call and setting different preferences for blocked or anonymous contacts. Read More