Monday, April 2, 2012

Android Phone Fans

Android Phone Fans

Hands-On Video: Shake to Charge and Solar Charger Apps Fix Your Battery Life Problem

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 04:27 PM PDT

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Alright, if you haven’t heard, it’s April Fool’s day. I’m sure by now, there’s already a fair share of “hilarious” April fools pranks being posted around the internet. That’s the main reason I always unplug from the internet on all-hallows-fools-day and of course — trust no one. But just because I wont compromise my journalistic integrity and prank our trusting Phandroid readers doesn’t mean my family, outside of the internet, is safe. Growing up as the middle child, I’ve always been known in my family as the mischievous one and April 1st is my time to shine.

So, what kind of hijinks did I get myself into? Well, a few weeks back I found a couple of spoof apps in the Google Play Store and no, I’m not talking about those “screen crack” apps. Shake to Charge and Solar Charger (also found WiFi Hacker which has since been removed) were some of the most intriguing. Upon checking their comments, I noticed the amount of users who were actually surprised the apps didn’t work as advertised (the apps actually give full disclosure in their description that they are fake, but who reads descriptions anyway?). To the tech savvy like you and I, sure, we know that something like shaking to charge your phone or solar charging would be impossible without implemented hardware, but to the uninitiated, an app that enables these functions seems perfectly plausible.

After a good laugh from the Market comments, I decided to pull one over on my friends and family and see if they would fall for these spoof apps. Sure enough, they bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. Here’s a video I uploaded of them attempting to charge their devices using these new, unconventional methods. Ha! I even went the extra mile and decided to prank my little cousin that my phone has “come alive” by making it talk using AndroidLost. Enjoy.

April Fool’s Day can be a whole lotta fun for people like me. Although, I believe a good April Fools prank should involve actually fooling someone and not just your everyday prank like thumbtacks on a toilet seat or randomly punching someone in the face screaming, “APRIL FOOLS!” Either way, I hope you pranksters will find some fun today using these apps. Oh — and if you can think of any others, feel free to drop some good suggestions in the comments. I’m on my way to church where the congregation can be a little too trusting when it comes to my expertise with Android phones. (Maniacal laugh).

[Google Play Links: Shake To Charge | Solar Charger | AndroidLost]

 

 

Humor: Gmail Tap looks to get rid of traditional keyboards to allow you to “tap it” better

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 12:25 PM PDT

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Google continues to be one of the lead innovating companies in the world, and they have been working even harder lately. They have just expanded their Google Maps service to the popular NES console. But today, they are reaching a much higher audience with a new service called Gmail Tap.

This is meant to be a replacement for those pesky and annoying keyboards, with overwhelming amounts of buttons. Forget auto-correction and predictions! Gmail Tap implements Morse Code, allowing users to type via a 2-button interface. It has two large buttons (as well as a space bar); one being a dash, while the other is a dot.

“You can tap it in the morning. You can tap it at night. You can tap it in the bathroom. It’s a dot and a dash to have a conversation with the entire world.” -Todd Smith, Gmail Tap Product Lead

Furthermore, users can even pull out a second Gmail Tap simultaneously, allowing you to type and send messages to multiple recipients at once.

Just what we have been waiting for, Google! You can head over to the Gmail Tap official website and learn Morse Code, as well as download the application by clicking the top-right button. Are you guys going to be tapping it all over the place from now on?

Thanks, Sam!

[Source: Gmail Tap]

Zite, my new (co-)favorite reading app

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 11:21 AM PDT

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I love to read. Books, not that much (though I’m really enjoying Jonah Lerner’s Imagine) but I can spend countless hours just bouncing around the internet, following a ton of blogs plus or just ending up somewhere randomly.

Hence, it’s no real surprise that my favorite app on my tablet is Pulse. As I explained in my introductory post when I first joined Phandroid

I love the UI, and the effort that they’re putting into Pulse Me such as synchronizing sources across devices and the desktop browser extension makes it stand out.

And I’m yet to find a quality competitor for it. Google Currents came the closest, but it just never cut it for me. Pulse does a ton of work on their server-side to speed up the syncing, whereas I find Currents extremely slow (in comparison).

However, the issue with Pulse is that it is, at best, an RSS reader. What I really mean is that there isn’t any content discovery going on, and while their feed suggestions is neat, I don’t want a whole new source to keep track of. I’d just much rather have individual articles that the app believes I’d be interested in.

This is the problem Zite fixes for me. The app gained a great deal of popularity on iOS, where it’s been around for about two years now, before releasing on Android earlier this week. It’s claim to fame is a fabulous recommendation engine, which gained such glowing reviews that CNN spent $20 million to buy the company.

The first thing you do, when you open the app, is connect your Google Reader account and provide your Twitter handler. Scanning your reading habits and your posts, Zite suggests you a few topics to follow, which you can edit. They only suggested 3 to me since I barely use Twitter or Google Reader. I added quite a few more, since I follow a wide range of topics from graphic design and typefaces, to sports to technology and entrepreneurship.

While the news feed Zite compiled for me was exquisite, I do have one issue: the tablet UI is the same as the phone. It’s a relatively minor complaint, and it’s not like the display becomes awful (hello, iOS!) but I really hope they’ve got something special up their sleeves for tablet users.

You can download the app over here. How many of you have been using Zite, and what’s your opinion about it? And if you use some other similar app, how about sharing with the group.

Microsoft’s “Smoked By WP7” Challenge extended. Go loot them, Phandroids!

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 09:25 AM PDT

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Didn’t get a chance to pick up a special edition "Hunger Games" laptop from HP during Microsoft’s Smoked By WP7 challenge? Good news for you, folks, ‘cos it’s been extended until the 5th of April.

A few limitations, though, this time. If you lose (and that is unfortunately very much possible, since the challenges you’d face over there are completely skewed to favor WP7) you’d only get a new phone if you are in the first 100 people at a particular store. If not, you go home with $25 store credit. Beat their device, and you get the PC, no matter how many people ahead of you do so.

Couple of tips before you go into battle: remove your lockscreen to save you time,  select your default apps so that you don’t get a query at the wrong moment, and practice, practice, practice!

Android 4.0.4 for Nexus S 4G leaked

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 08:27 AM PDT

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The Nexus brand has taken quite a bit of a hit over the recent few weeks, with Google failing to provide what we have all considered the defining feature for the handsets (quick and timely updates).

It’s disheartening to see that only a subset of the Nexus S users are on ICS, but we’ve finally got some good news: BriefMobile has managed to get their hands on all the files for an upcoming 4.0.4 OTA. Head over to their website to get all the files and instructions.

Thanks, Korey Nicholson!
Posted by at 7:48 AM

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