Back in September 2010, Wired Magazine claimed, “The Web is Dead”. Yesterday, News.com.au posted “proof” of this statement: stats from Flurry, an analytics company, showing that as of this month, people in the USA are spending more time each day using mobile apps than they are browsing the web.
While I feel these claims of the Web’s death have been greatly exaggerated, I was still surprised to see that app time outranked web time by about 10%. I use my Android a lot, as you can imagine, but I don’t believe I use apps for longer each day than I use my desktop and mobile browsers.
How about you? I mean, here you are, reading a web site focused on Android apps. Do you use them more than the web itself? Let us know by voting in the poll and sticking your thoughts in the comments below.
Apparently, when books first became common, parents were reluctant to let their children have them, fearing that they would spend all their time reading, and rot their brains. Today our digital gadgets have the same bad rep. But electronic devices can be helpful for developing coordination, for learning, for safe entertainment… or just for keeping kids quiet for a little while. If you’ve got a child and an Android device, these 30 apps will help with all of those.
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Ever taken a photo of something breathtaking, but found later that something snuck in your shot? Or maybe you’ve seen a stunning landscape but there’s some random house in the background. Well now you can remove anything that should not be in a picture with TouchRetouch, an app that’s very simple to use, with a user-friendly interface. It basically brings Photoshop CS5′s context-sensitive fill to your handset.
I must admit: I am a Twitter addict. It is a fantastic way to keep in touch with not only other people but also the news and happenings in the world around me. I now check Twitter more often than Facebook (in fact, these days I hardly check Facebook at all) and it has become my primary source for obtaining news; I hardly ever use any other news apps on my phone.
With Android (and indeed with other platforms), users have a wide range of clients to use, since Twitter used to actively encourage developers to build their own applications for it. This has changed in recent months, however — take as one example the recent purchase of TweetDeck by Twitter. See this post by Ryan Sarver, Twitter’s platform project manager, for more info.
I find the stock version of Twitter on Android to be a little bland, and lacking in certain features. This is where Seesmic comes into play. It is a free client for Android devices running Android 1.5 and above. The beauty of Seesmic is that you are not just limited to Twitter – you can manage your Facebook and even Google Buzz accounts from the same app.
Seesmic is bursting with features and is, in my opinion, the best application for managing your social networks on your phone. Read on to find out why.
Did you know you can wipe the default version of Android and install a completely new, customized version of the operating system? Thanks to Android’s open-source nature, you aren’t bound by any copyright agreements, meaning that makers of phones allow you do this and — following HTC’s recent announcement to unlock their bootloaders on their devices — may even encourage you to do so.
Before you start tinkering with any kind of custom ROMs, you’ll need to “root” your phone (the Android version of jailbreaking; this basically allows you to access your phone’s core) which isn’t as scary as you might think. Rooting your phone is quite a simple process and brings a wealth of advantages.
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A few months ago, CNN, one of the largest news outlets, released their highly visual Android application. Paralleling the design of the iOS application and even the Android tablet version, CNN offers a highly visual news experience which includes video and audio options as well.
The Android Market is booming. Amazon’s own Android Appstore is giving away a free paid app every day. AT&T has reversed their position on installing apps from unknown sources. Apps like PicPlz and Socialcam make it easy to create and share video with your friends. The bottom line is, there is just not enough space on your average Android device to keep up. Never fear, the cloud is here! Rather than upgrading your storage, here are a few apps and services that you can use right now to help you offload your data to the cloud and extend your device’s capabilities.
Have you ever wondered what is happening inside your phone? Which apps are using up your RAM or CPU? I used to wonder, until I found Android Assistant, which gives me all this information and much more, even including some functions for RAM release, batch uninstallation, and battery usage stats.
Today’s mobile phones are nothing like mobile phones from as little as five years ago. They aren’t ‘phones’ any more: they send written messages, check emails, bid on eBay, and – if someone is willing to put the time into it – pretty much anything else. There are some great ideas floating about the web for the future of smart phones; here are some of the ones I have seen cropping up these last few months.
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