Posts Tagged ‘app’

• FlyScreen [App]

  Date: 2010.04.15 | Posted by Jeff | Category: Gadgets & Mobile | Response: 0

  Fly Screen is a new type of App, that is located in a place that not many app developers fear to go: The lock screen.
  
  What Fly Screen does is allow you to put widgets on your lock screen, to save you time from having to unlock your phone, go to the screen with the widget on it, then see what you wanted to see. Right now there is built in access to e-mail, text messages, twitter, facebook, foursquare and many news sites. You can also add native android widgets.

  I love the idea, but it could still use some work. They are heading in the right direction though which is important. I’d like to see them implement this but then put a password protection on the lock/options. This way you can give your phone to somebody else to listen to music, or surf the net without worrying about them reading your e-mails.

  Pros:
  • Can make use of the empty space on the lock screen and fill it with stuff.
  • Haven’t seen this done much before.
  Can be better:
  • Can only put one widget on each screen. I’d like to be able to put my music player, bluetooth on/off and volume on the same screen.
  • Loads a little slow, as it seems to load my default lock, then switch each time.

  Fly Screen is available for Android (1.6 and higher) in the market, as well as Symbian (Nokia).

• Cubed Music Player [App]

  Date: 2010.04.07 | Posted by Jeff | Category: Gadgets & Mobile | Response: 0

  Myself, like 99.9% of all Android users, are disappointed and honestly hate the lack of originality and horrible sorting in the default stock music player in Android 2.0. Well maybe not hate, but I wouldn’t say that I’d vote for it any any contests anytime soon. I want it to be not only functional, but pretty as well. Cubed ( “3″ ) does that and not only makes it look easy but actually makes using it easy.

  What Cubed (formerly known as Rock On) does is takes your entire library, downloads the Album covers for it and turns it into a giant…well cube. You can then spin in horizontally to pick the artist by letter, or flick it vertically to just let it spin through them all the albums. Tapping on the facing cube will list you the songs from that artist, on that album. It’s pretty sweet, has no lag while flicking and is fun to just spin the cube around.

  This app features all the required functions: Next, back, random, repeat. It also throws in themes (effects to the cover art) and three different sized widgets that all show cover art. They also have a ‘concert’ app attached, though it doesn’t seem to work too well in my location.

  Pros:
  • Better interface than stock app
  • Album covers easily downloaded
  • Fun to play around with
  • Supports search
  • Good Widgets

  

  Cons:
  • Can’t spin cube from widget
  • Did mess up on some of the album covers
  • Auto-flip back to current song if you pause too long while browsing albums

  I’ve yet to find something that can compare in quality, and I think that it holds a lot of promise as it progresses through it’s beta. For anybody who uses their music player on a regular basis, Cubed is my suggestion for your music app.

• Urban Spoon [App]

  Date: 2010.03.31 | Posted by Jeff | Category: Gadgets & Mobile | Response: 0

  On today’s menu, we’re featuring a lovely Urban Spoon with a side dish of multi-device support topped with a light glaze of amusement. It’s like Shake n Bake, without the Baking.

  Instead of arguing about what to have for dinner, why not leave it to chance? Urban spoon provides you with a fun roulette that will tell you quick where, what and how much you’re going to pay to eat with just one quick wrist gesture. You pick the location, then give your phone a slight shake and it will randomly pick what kind of food you’re eating tonight and find a restaurant in that category. The price option is a big help too so you don’t end up buying a $70 steak with rent money (Which is awesome if you’re totally broke like me). When it finds the restaurant, it gives you info on where it is, the phone number, if it has delivery, and often some reviews.

  My city currently only has 140 restaurants, which leave a TON of room for improvement. Given how many placed to eat there are around here, this app has almost inspired me to actually travel around my town to new places I haven’t been to before just so I can add some more restaurant onto the list. I’d advise you to do the same, it’s not only a good way to contribute, but this can prove to be a good marketing platform for local businesses.

  Urban Spoon is available through their website or mobile site if you just want to do some browsing. You can get Urban Spoon’s addictive little app on Android (2.0+), iPhone, or Blackberry.

• Hoccer [App]

  Date: 2010.03.30 | Posted by Jeff | Category: Gadgets & Mobile | Response: 0

  Today’s awesome app is named Hoccer. It is available for both Android devices, as well as iPhones, and may be the coolest program of all time.

  Doesn’t having to transfer stuff to people suck? I hate having to e-mail something just to attach a picture, or share a song. This is where Hoccer jumps in. With Hoccer, you just need two phones somewhere around each other within 100 feet and you can actually drag it off your phone, on to their phone or throw it through the air. Easy as that, no kidding.

  Hoccer uses location based file sharing. In short: You throw it, server catches it. When somebody that is in the same area as you tries to catch it, the server checks recent throws. Theoretically, this means that multiple people can catch one throw if they time it right. That I’d love to see.

  A buddy of mine (also using android) and I did this on the bus. We had some issues with actual ‘hoccing’ (it could be because we were on a moving bus at the time) but ‘sweeping’ worked easily enough and he got the .apk file no problem.

  I’m going to have to keep playing around with this when I have free time, I would love to throw files around all willy-nilly. Not sure how often I’d use this, but god damn if it isn’t totally bad ass to show off.

• Ticked Tuesday: Google

  Date: 2008.10.18 | Posted by Jeff | Category: Ticked Tuesday | Response: 0

  Yes, it’s on Saturday, it’s a special edition

  I’m mad. Like Really mad here, enough to actually put down Google itself and write a Ticked Tuesday on a Saturday, so here’s the story.

  I use Google Apps with my domains, it manages all of my emails and makes calendars and docs a little be easier to share when needed. Normally, this is awesome. I also access my personal email through my phone (though apps, so still gives a general gMail interface when access on my computer). Up until yesterday, this worked great I just used pop to get everything. Then they added in a little damn button of fucking-retarded.

  Now, under Settings->Forwarding and POP/IMAP You have to select to enable POP. Well would have been nice if they let us know. When my email just stops working on my phone, I assume by default it’s my service provider. So they say they’re fine, Google should always be fine. An hour later I find the button.

  

  Short form: Let us know when you decide to be asshats or at least leave the stuff that we previously had enabled as they are when you decide to give us the option to turn it off, thanks.