A while back I did a roundup of Multimedia App for Android Tablets. You may have noticed that missing from that list were music apps, but fear not; I have not forgotten about music apps — as a matter of fact I love music. There are so many great music apps for Android tablets that instead of lumping them in with other multimedia apps, we decided to dedicate a roundup strictly to them. Here, we’re going to look at streaming, discovery, syncing, and even playing apps that work very well on your Nexus 7, 10 or other Android tablet.
Recently Google released its new note-taking solution, Google Keep. The competition in this area is pretty stiff with a lot really great apps that already exist — just off the top of my head, there’s Evernote, Simple Notes, Fetch, and OneNote. With these and more already in the note-taking app space, how does Google Keep measure up? After using it for several weeks in real-world scenarios, here’s what I found out.
Mobile gaming, as you probably know, is super popular: people play games on mobile. Because of that, there are tons of games for Android; they even have their own section in the Play Store, completely separate from “Apps.” I have my select crop of games, as I’m sure you do. I prefer 2D side-scrollers — they are simple, somewhat mindless games that help me pass the time. However, when I came across Draw a Stickman I was pretty intrigued. It didn’t seem like your run of the mill adventure game, so I downloaded it and gave it a try. What did I think? Let’s take a look!
When it comes to Twitter clients I bounce around a lot — on all platforms. Heck on the desktop I use TweetDeck even though I’m not a huge fan of it. I haven’t really found a free app that I really like and I really don’t want to pay a ton of money for a client when the service itself is free. On Android, I’ve run the gamut: Twitter’s official app, Twicca, Carbon, Tweetlanes, Falcon, Tweetdeck, and more. Each, while good, left me wanting something more. Then I found out about Robird.
As you know, I’m a pretty big fan of movies! Earlier this year I reviewed Movie Mate Pro, an app for tracking theatrical releases. There is another side to the coin though; what about movies out of theaters that are released for purchase or streaming? With the amount of different online options out there, it can get tough to keep track of them all. That’s where eTrizzle comes in.
I have a confession: for a long time my passwords probably weren’t as secure as they should have been. With personal accounts at over 60 websites, it was tough to manage them properly — not to mention all of the accounts I have for my clients. In short, I wasn’t managing secure data properly. Then my friend told me about Dashlane, a cross platform password manager with an Android client.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed the iPad version of USA Today on our sister site iPad.Appstorm, stating that the latest version of the app was really well designed, feature-rich, and user-friendly. I also made mention of the fact that I don’t use too many news apps, instead opting for a news organization’s Twitter feed or the like. However, I use more news/feed apps on my Nexus 7 than on my iPad — Press, anyone? — and USA Today has a brand new app for Android that’s fantastic.
Let’s face it: we can do pretty much anything with our phones these days — get our location and see what’s in the area, find people nearby, track packages, get traffic updates and flight updates. And that’s just the stuff we can do with Google Now! If we move beyond the scope of “built-in Android functionality,” there’s a whole other world of things we can do, including complete banking. Online. From our phones.
I found out about Simple, a completely online bank, a little over a year ago and could not wait to try it. In January, my wait was over when I got an invite to try their brand new Android app. Since this isn’t a review of the web app, I won’t go into too much detail about the sign-up process, but I will say that since this is completely online banking — there are no brick and mortar locations — it’s incredibly important that the mobile app works in conjuction with the web service to give you a comparable experience. So how does it stack up? Let’s take a look!
At the University where I teach, the Spring semester is in full swing. Students, Faculty, and Staff are settling in and getting into a good routine. One of the things I’ve noticed is that tablets are becoming a lot more popular among students, and for good reason! You can download textbooks, take notes, and stay organized; and there are tons of apps out there to help! While I won’t cover the basic/common apps (like Kindle or Google Books for textbooks), I do have 10 apps designed for both students and Android tablets.
It’s Customization Month on Android.Appstorm! Throughout March, we plan to share with you all our tips, tricks, apps and resources to help you improve your phone or tablet experience and make them suit your style.
Time and time again when people ask me why I prefer Android to iOS, my number one answer is, “freedom.” The freedom to customize the homescreen as you see fit, not just moving icons around, the freedom to use custom launchers, and the freedom to install apps that are not on the Play Store. And because Android has such an active developer community, that freedom increases a hundred fold when you root your device. Once you do that, you have the ability to install custom ROMs, or builds of the Android OS. That’s when things get really fun.
