When I head out for a run, a long walk, or a bike ride, I try to bring my phone with me. It’s less so I can take calls as I’m huffing and puffing, and more for safety reasons. It seems logical that as a smartphone with GPS, my phone should be pulling double duty tracking my workout. I tried a few different ones on Android, but hands down my…
(check out Snaptic at SXSW) Talk cloud-based notes on a smartphone, and everyone thinks Evernote. But there’s another competitor in that space, Snaptic, and they are quickly becoming a strong presence. Snaptic recently passed 2 million+ downloads of their 3Banana Android application! Their goal is to help your brain along, connecting all the pieces so you don’t have to. Specifically, they work to bridge your notes with context-aware items, using…
The default music widget for Android is, well, not so great. It’s actually downright terrible. Luckily, there’s a far better alternative: Pure Music Widget. Like the Pure Calendar Widget, Pure Music offers a huge number of sizes, so you can cram music controls onto your screen no matter how much room you have (or don’t have). What’s really nice is that you also get album art, so you can admire…
Driving to Maine from New Jersey is a looooong drive. Even breaking it up with a stop in Boston for a few days, we quickly ran through an audiobook and couldn’t find a decent radio station on the drive. Luckily, I had my Droid handy, and we gave Pandora and Slacker a spin. Slacker…I want to like it, I really do. But on the free version, it doesn’t seem to…
I usually need several types of productivity and reminder applications. Tasks need either alarms or some sort of agenda view or I won’t remember them, but they need to have a date. Floating tasks tend to be forgotten and languish on my lists for days or weeks. To combat this, I’ve usually relied on the old “email it to myself” trick. I also leave myself voice mails and even use…
I have to be honest and admit that I’ve never really been one to play around with custom ringtones for individual contacts. I just look at the screen to see who is calling and decide at that point whether or not to answer. So when Electric Pocket recently asked Gear Diary if we would like to take a look at Ringo Pro for Android, I’ll have to admit that I…
Newsy takes a different approach to delivering the latest news content over the net. Their unique method of compiling the same news story from many different sources gives you all angles and aspects of each story through various news agencies. The site has an easy to use interface and it is simple to search out the story you are looking for. Overall the site is quite impressive, the news delivery…
The built-in Android calendar is ok, but has a few major limitations. One, the default calendar widget is awful. It’s small and doesn’t really share much beyond the upcoming appointment. Two, there is no task integration, so if you plot out your day based on tasks and appointments you have to move back and forth between two programs. While there’s no solution for a better native calendar app, there is…
When I kicked off my “LCD vs eInk vs paper” smackdown, one of our readers emailed me asking about PDFs on the Camangi Webstation. I was slightly ashamed to admit that I hadn’t actually tried them yet! Reading ebooks on it had been such a great experience that I hadn’t branched out to PDFs yet, but that email gave me the impetus to try a few different options. Unfortunately, the…
So you bought a shiny new Android phone or tablet, and now it’s on to the important stuff: How can you read your books on it? Admittedly, there aren’t the same number of ebook options for Android as there are for the iPhone, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a decent selection of options! Rather than review each one individually, I thought it might be best to do a…
Android does not come with even a basic notes application. Luckily there are services like Evernote available, but sometimes you need a local notes application (rather than a cloud based one). That’s where Easy Note+Todo steps up. Can it replace a notes app and a to-do list? Read on and find out!
If you are an audiobook fan, you know how pricey they can get. Audiobooks usually cost around $30-$40 in a bookstore, though many libraries have decent selections on-hand. The best case scenario is when your library supports Overdrive, a company that supplies digital media to libraries, schools, etc. Overdrive audiobooks usually come in WMA and MP3 flavors, but of course, they are all coated with special DRM. Even digital files…
We’ve previously reviewed SplashData’s password protection program, SplashID, in various formats and generally given it favorable ratings (here, here, and here). I’ve used it as my standard password protection program for a while now. When I recently acquired a Motorola Droid, in addition to checking out some new, great programs for the Android operating system, I also wanted to see which of my standard programs were available for Android. SplashID,…
So you’ve bought an Android tablet, but it doesn’t come with the official marketplace. The manufacturer has a less than stellar collection of apps in a lackluster “app store”, and you’re looking enviously at your friends with their Android phones and their awesome app collections. Luckily for you, there’s more out there than just the official marketplace. As I mentioned when I talked about speeding up your Camangi with an…
I reviewed Astraware Casino for Symbian a few months ago, and now it has been released for Android! At the time, this is what I thought of AW Casino: Overall, AW Casino is a great addition to any phone; it offers you a huge selection of games to pass the time, is great for learning the basics of casino games, and is generally very entertaining. If you have a Symbian…
It took the Android world by storm a few weeks ago…a new style of Android Home Screen. Instead of several desktop style screens with widgets and icons, SlideScreen was only one screen, with sections for missed calls, emails, SMS, weather and time, Twitter, RSS and stocks. All useful stuff, and you could “slide” the weather/time block up or down to expand the information. Francis and I love our Android phones,…
If you have used a Camangi Webstation, you probably noticed one big issue: the default launcher is sloooooow. It’s also ugly as sin. Luckily, you are not stuck with it forever. Android supports multiple home replacement options, including my personal favorite, Home++. All you need to do is download the program file, or APK, and install it. Once it is installed, hit the home button and select Home++. If you…
Image Courtesy of PocketNow Tired of your WinMo OS or want to give Android a try? Pocketnow has a nice video of a simple linux bootloader that allows you to choose between Android or WinMo as a bootup option on your Windows Mobile phone. I don’t know what phones this is compatible with, but I’m gonna assume you can use any phone that has an Android Rom ported for it, or maybe…
(video courtesy of brandonnscott) Got an Android device, but missing that sweet multitouch goodness while web browsing? Tired of double-tapping in front of your iPhone-toting friends? Well, if you’ve got an Android 2.0 or higher device — I’m looking at you Motorola DROID and Nexus One owners — you want to download the Dolphin Browser. Aw, heck, we’ve even put the barcode right here in the post so you can…
CES proved there’s an onslaught of Android tablets headed our way this year, from the Entourage Edge to the Dell Mini 5 to the Notion Ink Adam. And of course, Judie and Dan have been familiarizing themselves with the Camangi Web Tablet. But something’s missing from this Android tablet equation: Where are the big eBook stores on Android?
Call me an Evernote evangelist if you like. It’s actually rather accurate. Evernote is probably the single most important productivity tool that I use. Looking back over my “relationship” with the service I realized that I’ve been involved with Evernote from early on. I joined the beta program within days of that initially rolling out. And I became one of their premium users every day it became available. There isn’t…
