Thanks to this new pocket videoreview you can discover the Pose world, a new social network for fashion lovers. Tracking fashion, sharing your outfits, everything is possible.
AndroidZoom Blog Discovering the Best Android Apps
Pocket videoreview #15 Super Market Mania 2
26/01/2012 — AndroidZoomManagement games are among people’s favorites and Super Market Mania 2 is one of the most popular. In this pocket videoreview you will be able to manage everything that goes on in a supermarket.
A ‘Black Hole’ called Android (II)
20/01/2012 — AndroidZoom
This is part two in a two-part series about why smartphones are becoming our main tech devices.
In the previous post we introduced the process of integration that’s turning our smartphones into a multi-task all-in-one devices. Thanks to developers’ creativity and the apps they’re constantly releasing, new functionalities are added to our Androids. Some of these new functionalities get rid of devices that used to carry them out. Thus, we get freed of such a collection of gadgets. Our Android becomes this way a sort of “black hole” assimilates all that tasks, and generates new. In this post we wanted to show you a compilation of some Android apps that perform tasks which have been traditionally carry out by other devices that seem to be doomed since the smartphone went on stage.
House tools
Retired gadget: Remote control
Android app: Gmote 2.0
Turn your Android into a remote control with Gmote 2.0 that will allow you to control music and video players at a distance (over 3G/4G/WiFi). You can also control PowerPoint or any other image slide program, navigate and launch websites from phone, or use your Android touchpad/keyboard to your computer (Linux/Mac/Windows supported).
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Retired gadget: Heart rate monitor
Android App: Instant Heart Rate
It doesn’t need any external hardware since it uses the camera lens (and our finger) to gather the data. You can monitor your heart rate history and track your progresses. Some graphs will help you out to see at a glance the changes. Moreover, you can create different profiles for running, chilling, working…
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Retired gadget: Alarm Clock
Android app: WakeVoice ★ vocal alarm clock
Besides the classic alarm clock features: list a personalized alarm, daily, weekly, meeting advices, alarm tones, snooze, delay and repetition, WakeVoice wanted to offer some interesting added-value features like voice recognition, which allows you to record your own voice as a way to stop the alarm, snooze or postpone. Or even daily info as horoscope, weather or breaking news.
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Retired gadget: Grocery list
Android app: Out of Milk Shopping List
This useful application is a great way of keeping track of the things you need to buy and the things you need to do. It provides three different features. You can add the items you need to buy just by writing or thanks to the voice input too. You can also scan the item’s barcode to make it easier and there’s also a shopping list history to help you create it quicker. Sharing the lists is also possible
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Gaming
Retired gadgets: Mobile Game Console
Android app: Asphalt 6 HD
High-end smartphones have demonstrated that they’re powerful enough to be an alternative to PSP, Nintendo DS and other mobile game consoles. Games as Asphalt 6 HD are a reliable proof of this. Graphics, performance, interface… it has nothing to envy to that consoles. The difference is that what you got is a device with which you can give and receive calls as well as perform all the stuff we’re introducing you in this post (and much more). Give this a go, specially if you have a high-end device. If not, check the video and you’ll see what level the smartphones have reached.
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Music & video
Retired gadget: Radio
Android app: TuneIN Radio
TuneIn is a complete app that detects where you are and locates the nearest and most popular radio stations around. If you get bored of your favorite station, it suggests other similar stations. You can list your most listened to stations, look for international ones, podcasts or even themed stations.
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Retired gadget: Music/Video player
Android app: doubleTwist Player
Actually, doubleTwist is an all-in-one player. It doesn’t only support video, music and photos, but allows you also to play podcast and listen to streaming worldwide radio stations. Regarding music, you will be able to sort your tracks by artist, album, song title, or even manage your playlist manually or by importing it from your PC or Mac
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Retired gadget: MP3 Downloader (PC)
Android app: Tunee Music
Tunee Music is a multi-search engine mp3 downloader set in a user-friendly interface, with a simple search bar and a good-looking layout. What’s more, it’s fast on searching and downloading and it’s quite easy to use. As an added-value it includes album cover even if you only download a song.
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Work
Retired gadget: Scanner
Android app: CamScanner
CameraScanner adds a new functionality to your phone: document scan. It works this way: from the app you take a picture of the document by using your Android back camera. CameraScanner has a specific features to enhance the appearance of the photo, to convert it into other formats and to share it. Thus, thanks to the “autodetect and autocrop image”, you will fit the picture just to the size of the document. An “enhance image” option improve its quality and clear it. What’s more, you can convert it to .PDF
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Retired gadget: Newspaper
Android app: Feedly
Feedly is a really good-looking RSS reader specially designed to make it easier. You can log in with any of your Gmail accounts in order to sync your RSS list. If you haven’t added any RSS to your account yet, you can do it also from the app or choose the presets categories that Feedly suggests you. It’s true that there are heaps of RSS reader for Android, each one with their specific features. Feedly added value lies on simplicity and cuteness.
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GPS and mapping
Retired gadgets: maps, GPS, PC/Radio/TV (traffic info)…
Android app: Google Maps
Again and again: Google Maps. If we’re talking avoid new functionalities for our smartphone, that’s maybe, the first that comes to mind. Mapping, GPS, Check-in, traffic info, street view… and many other features. It substitutes such an amount of traditional gadgets (and add new) that we’ve even lost count. The must-have app. The special one.
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This is just a slice of the whole cake. We could add tenths of categories and thousand of apps and probably, while we were doing it, new apps with new uses would be release, retiring old gadgets. We’re in front of an unexplored territory that grows up everyday. We came here just to help you out on the task of discovering it all. The spaceship is about to take off. Are you in?
Pocket videoreview #14 Slot Machine
20/01/2012 — AndroidZoomThe constant debate about kids and phones… Some might it even be educational and good for them! Today’s videoreview features Kid Doodle, which stimulate the children’s creativity.
Pocket videoreview #13 Slot Machine
20/01/2012 — AndroidZoomConnecting three figures has never been this fun. Watch Slot Machine’s videoreview and find out if you’d be good at playing Casino games.
A ‘Black Hole’ called Android (I)
19/01/2012 — AndroidZoom
This is part one in a two-part series about why smartphones are becoming our main tech devices.
A black hole is a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape (Oxford Dictionary definition).
No intention of sounding pretentious, I cannot help thinking that a similar phenomenon is already going on with smartphones over other devices, electronic or not, that used to be part of our lives. Thus, there’s an ongoing process of integration of lots of tasks that, until now, required different devices to carry them out. For example, calculator, GPS, notebook, PC’s, camera, mp3 players, physical maps, agenda, books…
The assimilation of that issues has been only possible thanks to the smartphone apps. That’s probably the best gift that Steve Jobs has bequeathed to humanity due to all what it implies. Android took that idea and turned it upside down to give it back open-sourced aiming to be the actual catch-all OS.
The apps are the mean to provide our smartphone of new functionalities, as we used to do with our PC’s by installing software. The main difference lies precisely on the mobility. Ok, it’s true that laptops are also mobile. However, they aren’t as mobile as smartphones are (you cannot bring a laptop in your pocket, unless you have a big one). In a nutshell, the smartphone is the natural consequence of the technological evolution of the last times. First, came the revolutionary PC, then the spreading of the Internet, next we assimilate both elements in our lives to the point that we needed to carry them everywhere, so the laptops came up.Smartphones rid ourselves of the laptop’s backpack and then we met real mobility with no leaks on technological potential.
So, here we are. Size doesn’t matter anymore. What users expect from manufacturers is enhancing current hardware constantly (battery, graphics, screens) and, what they expect from developers is to provide their smartphones with more and more new functionalities that allow them to empty their pockets of gadgets. And that’s where apps come in, as virtual gadgets into an all-in-one mobile device: your Android. Users want it all, and want it now. Are out there developers willing to cover that huge market niche?
This is the first part of the article. The second part will be post tomorrow, 20/01 Friday: a compilation of must-have Android apps that free us from only-one-task devices.
Most popular reference apps
17/01/2012 — AndroidZoomDo you remember those times when doing homework meant going to the library or looking up the words in large and heavy encyclopedias? Some of you do and some of you don’t, but the truth is that those times are over now and life (and homework) is much easier and, depending on how you look at it, less fun.
For years now, we’re used to doing the homework with our computer, looking up everything we need to and sometimes even letting Internet do our whole work. It’s more comfortable, we know. But now technology has made it even easier, as we don’t even need to be at home to finish our school tasks and everything can be done from our mobile phones.
That’s why we wanted to talk a bit about three of the most looked up applications in the market: Wikipedia, Wordreference and The Bible.
Yesterday, the Official Wikipedia was launched. We already had tons of wiki-apps in the market but none of them was the official one. It’s definitely easier to browse through it now, not having to use the internet browser and making the process faster and more comfortable.
Of course, most of the features are includes, you can easily change the language, save articles to read later and share everything you find interesting enough. Even if it doesn’t have a widget yet, it’s one of the most useful applications and there are no apparent bugs so it’ll become quite an indispensable tool for the daily life in no time at all.
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WordReference is one of the most popular online dictionaries, easy to use, helpful and fast. With more than 10 languages that include Spanish, French and even Arabic, it’s a really complete tool for looking up words and checking your vocabulary doubts in the forum. So yes, it’s practically the same as the website, one of the most helpful websites out there, definitely a must-have.
This kind of online comprehensive dictionaries, when used wisely, can help a lot to translate single words that translators as complex as Google’s can not contextualize properly. An other virtue is that they grow when needed thanks to users’ help so they can be considered rather updated at any time.
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Finally, nobody should be struck by the fact that, as the Bible is the most popular book, Bible apps are maybe the most downloaded ones. If you want to read and share your favorite verses directly from your Android device, you should really get this Bible app or any other. It includes more than 50 languages and there are several features that allow you to write your thoughts about a concrete verse, share it with your friends and even use the app offline. Totally recommended for those interested in reading the word of God on a daily basis.
Disclaimer: we wouldn’t want to make any of our friends all over the world feel bad for choosing the Bible as an example of reference app. In AndroidZoom listing you’ll find Quran, Eastern Philosophy and any other reference Android app ever developed. Test our search bar out or browse the category ‘books’ and sort by popularity or rating.
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That is all for today; we’re sure you have more suggestions of helpful apps for looking up and using daily, don’t hesitate and let us know about them. Have an excellent week and don’t forget to do your homework and ask for help to your Android!
Interview with Wikitude
13/01/2012 — AndroidZoomWe had the honor of exchanging a few words with Wikitude’s Chief ARchitect Mr. Wolfgang Damm and, as it couldn’t be otherwise, it’ll be a pleasure to share it with you all.
For those of you who have just arrived from another planet or just in case you have lived in a bunker for a while, Wikitude was, and is, one of the pioneers in augmented reality (AR) apps. We’ve talked a little about the origins of Wikitude and, more important, about the imminent release of ARquitect and what all of this will mean for AR apps in the future.
- Tell us about Wikitude. How does it start?
Our founder Philipp Breuss Schneeweis started experimenting with Augmented Reality (AR) in 2008 when Google came out with the very first AR capable smartphone, the Android G1 which had GPS, accelerometer and most importantly a digital compass. Since then we have built an AR platform where more than 2,500 content providers with about 150 million points of interest (POIs) meet more than 10 million users worldwide across Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Symbian devices.
- Where is it going to? What can we expect of Wikitude and AR apps in the near future?
We will continue to build on the platform approach. We provide state of the art AR technology, particularly now with ARchitect, and a huge user base which is perfect for content owners to expose their content through exciting AR experiences to a very wide audience.
- Let’s dream a little further: what will users be able to do in five years time? Or ten? Where are we going?
Nobody knows where this will go exactly, but there is no doubt in our minds that the camera is a key sensor inside of the smartphone to experience and understand your surroundings better. In 3-5 years from now you will be seeing mainstream people using their smartphones to point at objects, locations and people to know more about them. As typing and even audio input can be quite tedious on a mobile, visual search is a natural, easy and intuitive way of absorbing information around you.
- Any advice to a starting Android developer?
AR is no longer complicated, we enable developers to build great AR experiences with simple web technologies like html, javascript and css. If you have these programming skills, you really don’t need any advice, all you need is a bit of imagination to build your first AR World and make it available on Wikitude World Browser.
- Wolfgang, what is ARquitect?
Currently available for the Android platform, ARchitect is a brand new developer kit from Wikitude for an open, flexible and powerful tool for creating Augmented Reality content by using common web technologies.
- How did ARchitect come about?
The idea for ARchitect was born out of the need for a more dynamic Augmented Reality experience. With the Wikitude World Browser we only showed static information but we always felt that this was only the beginning and that Augmented Reality should be even more engaging! Right from the start weʼve been an open company and provide content partners with the right tools to help them leverage Augmented Reality for their businesses. Therefore it was clear that we needed to build something everyone can develop for and we needed something that is easy yet powerful and built on something everyone knows. This was my starting point and from there I started to explore different methods to see what could be achieved with the help of modern smartphone Operating Systems. When it became clear that HTML5, Javascript and CSS could be used as a developer language to create Augmented Reality experiences the whole team got really excited. Once you get your head around the basic principle of ARchitect youʼll find itʼs just a website in front of the Augmented Reality view and it is just like developing a normal web app but with amazing results.
- So what can developers really do with ARchitect?
With ARchitect developers can create Worlds based on standards and technology trusted by billions of websites like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They are able to control their Augmented Reality window and decide how and what the users can see. Developers can build powerful Worlds as soon as they have downloaded the ARchitect Developer Kit. ARchitectʼs advanced features open unlimited possibilities with interaction, animations and media playback.
- That sounds great. Is releasing a free developer kit your own version of Android’s free source spirit?
The Wikitude World Browser has always followed an open approach, that’s really what we have been known for, we have no intention of changing this. You can become an ARchitect now and make your AR ideas available to the world free of charge!
- We’re impressed. Thank you very much!
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Pocket videoreview #12 my6sense
13/01/2012 — AndroidZoomIf you wish to be up-to-date with everything that goes on in the world, you should watch our next pocket videoreview and find out everything about my6sense. Reading new was never this easy.
Pocket videoreview #11 Guerrilla Bob
13/01/2012 — AndroidZoomGuerrilla Bob is the center of our new pocket videoreview. If you love Arcade games and haven’t tried this one yet, we encourage you to download it and help Bob in his difficult task. Do you like Arcade games? What’s your favorite thing about them?