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If I’m not playing games or browsing through Reddit on my tablet, I’m probably watching videos on it — can you blame me? Google’s Nexus 7 is perfectly sized to allow you to easily catch up with the latest and greatest videos that YouTube has to offer, whether I’m on the couch, lying in bed or in the kitchen. I subscribe to scores on channels to get my fix, and I’m always on the lookout for new content to enjoy. I recently found a great app for this that I can’t believe I didn’t stumble upon sooner: ShowYou.
Designed to bring together all the videos your friends and family share with you, along with lots more content to discover, ShowYou is sure to keep you entertained wherever you can get an internet connection. The well designed app also makes it easy to share what you’re watching and find new content to pique your interest, and is available for free in the Play Store. Grab some popcorn as we take a look at how ShowYou works.
In the modern digital age, media is king. Whether it’s music blaring out of speakers, photos being styled and shared, movies and TV shows on demand, or the online video craze – we are all consuming entertainment at a mind-boggling rate, on an ever-growing number of devices.
iTunes is one of the most popular platform for organizing and collecting media, and for good reasons – it gets the job done, and it is backed by a goliath of an online store. It does have its limitations, though. If you want to stream media from your iTunes library, you’re going to need an iOS device. I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, here, that’s not going to suit you.
An alternative streaming system worth considering is Plex. Once you’ve set up a Plex media server on your Windows, OSX, or Linux computer, you can stream content to nearly any smart mobile device via Plex’s app. Unfortunately, there are times when streaming doesn’t cut it, either because you are restricted by a data cap, or because wi-fi isn’t available. For this kind of problem, Plex offers a syncing service (part of the PlexPass subscription), which, when combined with its beta Plex for PlexPass Android app, allows you to download media to your Android device, with ease.
Or, at least, that is the claim – but can media management really be that simple? Time for a test…
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 love watching movies. I have a pretty decent collection, reference movies often, and always have a list of movies I want to see — both old and new. Just recently I noticed my brother updating a list on his phone of movies he’d like to see while we were watching previews in the theater. He was using a simple text file, but I started to wonder what kind of apps existed to do just that. Then Rita told me about Movie Mate Pro [Editor note: you're welcome!].
Whatever your game is – NBA, Premier League, rugby, cricket, hockey, or almost anything else – PlayUp can connect you to other fans so you can chat about the game, celebrate victories, and commiserate brutal defeats. It also serves up live scores and stats, to keep you up to date.
One great things about tablets is that they can simulate other handheld media: books, newspapers, and magazines for instance. And while every newspaper under the sun has an app for the leading tablets, and you can read books via the Kindle, Google Books, or iBooks app, I never really came across a magazine app that made reading magazines a tablet experience – that is, until Zinio.
Sure, you can view PDFs on your tablet, but they don’t harness the power of the interactive device you’re using. Zinio, on the other hand, harnesses it well.
Do you remember the first time you saw a Shazam commercial or a SoundHound demo on a mobile phone and thought: “Oh my God! This is fantastic. Now I’ll never have to worry about getting stuck for hours trying to remember that song’s name!” Well, if you haven’t heard of IntoNow, you should prepare to be amazed again, as it does the same level of magic for TV shows and movies.
Over the last couple of years, the concept of tracking personal collections – be it books, movies, music, TV shows, venues you visit, recipes, or really anything else – has been more popularized by smartphones, thanks to them letting you carry a digital archive of your prized possessions, search through it quickly when asked about a specific item, and show it to your friends.
One good example of managing collections for movies and TV shows is Trakt, a web service. This already supports a full API allowing several developers to work on apps for our beloved Android phones.
As a former iPhone user and new Android convert, I miss my iPhone’s built-in music player. Though my new Android has a lot more storage space than my iPhone, I’ve neglected filling it up with music partly due to my lack of enthusiasm over the default player.
The developers of PlayerPro have attempted to create a more fully-featured, attractive, and intuitive music experience to the Android, adding features such as automatic album art downloading, customizable music organization, gesture support, and a variety of widgets for your home or lock screen. (more…)
Mook The Comic (in 3D) is a quirky comic strip featuring an oddball alien named Mook, and his friends CLiK and Blog. The most noticeable boast from this app is that it features the ability to view the stories in either 2D or 3D, (the latter by the use of 3D glasses). The idea behind the app is that the developer/writer will produce three new strips every three weeks, each available via updates. But is Mook any good? And are Android devices the best platforms for reading comics? Read on to find out more… (more…)
