Android Community

Brightness Rocker Lite

| FREE | Nikhil Bhatla

Android Community App of the Week: Brightness Rocker Pro | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? Every week we bring you news about big apps, flashy apps, important apps. This week’s most notable addition to the Android Market is certainly Google Currents, and it’s definitely worth checking out (and adding Android Community via the Search function). But smaller apps that work great deserve at least as much attention, so we’re featuring Brightness Rocker Pro as our App of the Week. It’s a great little utility that grants you quick and unobtrusive access to your Android phone or tablet’s screen brightness. Brightness Rocker Pro does just one thing: when you press the volume button on your phone up or down, a slider for screen brightness appears just below the volume indicator. That’s about it as far as functionality goes, though in the best traditions of Android, there’s a lot of different ways you can set it up. The most important setting you can adjust is the fade delay, changing how fast the rocker dialogue disappears. You can also change which volume settings trigger the rocker – for example, if you don’t want it to accidentally appear while you’re in a call, disable in-call volume trigger. Standard features like quick access to the automatic brightness and application settings round it out, and if you want Brightness Rocker Pro to display a visual indication it can hang out in your status bar. But the fact that it doesn’t have to is part of why I love this app. Once it’s set up, you don’t need an extra widget on your homescreen or an icon in your notification tray to have access to the brightness settings. If you’re heading into a movie theater (before the previews, please!) or going out of one into a bright afternoon, just tap the volume and you can instantly set brightness to your liking. Read More

DroidMote Server

| $2.01 | Videomap

DroidMote lets XPERIA Play owners control Android tablet games | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? There are a lot of exciting developments in the Android gaming world, but at the end of the day, touchsceen controls are still a limiting factor for complex games. Owners of Sony’s XPERIA Play have a built-in solution, but what if you want to play your games with glorious button-mashing accuracy on a screen more than a few inches wide? If you find yourself in this conundrum, and you’ve got an enviable amount of Android hardware lying around, you might want to invest in DroidMote, an app that allows the XPERIA Play to remotely control games on any Android tablet. The app’s been around for a while, but what’s the sense in replacing a touchscreen with a slightly smaller one, or even a cramped QWERTY keyboard? The latest update allows the XPERIA Play’s gaming buttons on its slide-out lower half to come into play. Throw in an HDMI cable and you’ve got a full-fledged mobile console, albeit one that requires about a thousand dollars worth of hardware to run properly. Check it out in action with an HDTV setup below: The server app runs on the tablet of your choice, and costs $2. At this point, you will unfortunately need to be rooted in order for it to work. The client app runs on the XPERIA Play, or any Android phone you’d like to use, and it’s a free download. Naturally the controls are completely customizable, allowing you to use any combination of physical and virtual buttons you like, plus tilt controls. Device Specifications and Information [via Droid Gamers] Read More

Google Goggles

| FREE | Google Inc.

Google Goggles updates with continuous tracking and other goodies | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? Google Goggles, the self-referential app for scanning just about anything, sees its latest major release today. The official Google Mobile blog has all the saucy details on version 1.7. The big new feature is continuous scanning, i.e., getting your barcode or QR code results instantly without taking a photo first. It’s essentially extracting the relevant information straight out of a video feed from your smartphone’s camera sensor – neat. Also included is a richer text recognition feature. You can now instantly search a big clump of text, say a magazine article snippit, and find an online version to easily share a link. I imagine it could be very useful for students, saving just relevant parts of a textbook like a formula or short biography and leaving the heavy dead tree format in the drawer. Nothing groundbreaking, but incremental updates are always welcome. User-supplied results will also be getting more emphasis when searching via Goggles. Combine this with a slightly updated UI (along the lines of the latest Google+ app revision) and you’ve got a nice housecleaning update. Goggles is still one of the most versatile scanning apps in the Market, if not the fastest; well worth your download if you need surprisingly accurate text scanning and barcode reading to boot. Download it in the Android Market now. Read More

Thumb Keyboard (Phone/Tablet)

| €1.75 | Beansoft

Android Community App of the Week: Thumb Keyboard | Android Community - Android Community

We cover a lot of app news here on Android Community, but sometimes we like to share the apps that we use day-in and day-out. The apps that we rely on, are entertained by or that just make life easier. This week we’re featuring my personal favorite in the wide field of Android virtual keyboards, Thumb Keyboard. Thumb Keyboard doesn’t have any fancy gimmicks to separate it from the pack: no super predictive text engine, no Swype-style line entry, no fancy animations. What it does have is rock-solid reliability and enough customization to make and tweaker drool. The amount of settings and adjustments you can set manually is staggering, and the most important of these is the layout choice. The app features seven different pre-defined key layouts that can be selected on any device, preconfigured for smartphones and various tablet sizes. The keys move around the virtual keyboard for the best thumb typing experience – for example, in tablet mode, the letter keys are spaced for easy reach in landscape mode, and the middle space fills with a dedicated number pad. At least one of the choices will absolutely suit you, whether you use one hand, two hands or a hunt-and-peck style. You can even switch layouts depending upon whether you’re in landscape or portrait mode. You want themes? Thumb Keyboard’s got you covered. There’s 29 included themes to please lovers of nearly every color, plus themes designed to integrate with the various manufacturer Android skins out there. Default colors and styles for Froyo, Gingerbread and Honeycomb are included, plus a spiffy new Ice Cream Sandwich theme. You can adjust the font and size of the keys manually, making the keys themselves much easier to read on tablets.Cursor keys are included if you want them, making text selection a lot simpler. Read More

ADWLauncher EX

| $3.32 | AnderWeb

ADWLauncher EX gets an Ice Cream flavored update, 10 Billion App discount | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? +3 [3 votes] There’s a lot of aftermarket Android launchers out there, but very few can claim to have the kind of following that ADWLauncher EX enjoys. A rock-solid foundation, tons of customization options and a robust theme engine makes it one of the most popular launchers on the Market. Of course, with Ice Cream Sandwich‘s enhanced launcher a lot of the current offerings are looking long in the tooth. To that end, developer Anderweb has released a new version, with a ton of new features to bring it up to date. Most dramatic is a new dock bar system that apes ICS’ “pinned” apps at the bottom of the screen. Most launchers including ADW have had some variation on this feature before, but new placement and visual options make ADW’s feel fresh. Folders have been given an ICS-flavored upgrade, with more visual settings to tweak. Other small visual and under-the-hood changes are present, including support for hardware acceleration on some devices. Notably it now plays nice with tablets running Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich, allowing for easier integration with the bottom action bar. But don’t run out and purchase ADW Launcher EX just yet, if you haven’t already: the developer has announced that he’s participating in Google’s 10 Billion Apps promotion, and the full version will be just 10 cents/pence some time in the upcoming week. So if you can wait to try out the new features, you’ll save yourself a coffee’s worth of cash. Download it in the Market – but not right away! Read More

Dolphin Browser® HD

| FREE | Dolphin Browser

Dolphin HD updated to version 7.2, shows minor improvements | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? The ever so popular browser Dolphin HD has just recently received an update. Though improvements were minor, they will appeal to many. Backup data written to the SD is now encrypted, the option to disable the Toggle Webzine button was added, and by popular demand they’ve brought back the double-tap to exit feature. Once used to it, the double tap to exit feature is quite nice. It’s gesture is rather quick once you want to go straight back to your home screen. Yeah, you can always just move your finger down to the home soft key, but at least try it out if you haven’t. I’ve already set it back up and it’s quite nice. It may even pull me away from the stock browser completely. In recent news you may have seen the major privacy concerns from Carrier IQ software. You can bet the dev’s at Dolphin want to make sure they don’t follow suit with privacy vulnerabilities, even though they would be on a much smaller scale than Carrier IQ. Backup data encryption is a feature that should have been there all along, but at least now we’ve got it. [via AndroidPolice] Read More

Androidify

| FREE | Google Inc.

BobbleDroids turns your Androidify avatar into a custom bobblehead | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? +4 [4 votes] A new breed of geeky desktop toys for Android fans has launched today and they’re called BobbleDroids. These Android bobbleheads are custom handmade based on your Androidify avatar, making them truly unique gifts this holiday season for yourself or your hardcore Android-loving friends and family. Have the coolest desk in the office and show off your Android pride with no less than a fully decked out BobbleDroid – created to your exact specifications, obeying and bobbling at your every command. BobbleDroids stand about 7 to 9 inches tall on a circular wooden base and are made from a combination of clay, foam, wood, and other non-toxic craft materials. They not only have heads that wobble in that fun quirky way, but also arms that can rotate to strike a pose. They are made with great attention to detail and are each like an individually commissioned one-of-a-kind artistic creation. No two BobbleDroids are identical. You will need to get the free Androidify app from the [Android Market] to design your own avatar as BobbleDroids are only custom made at the moment. Limited edition original design BobbleDroid series may be available later on down the road. But for now, if you want to get one in time for holiday delivery, you’ll have to order by December 1, as they can take up to 3 weeks to make. Read More

Pogoplug

| FREE | Pogoplug

PogoPlug Cloud gives Android access to free cloud storage | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? +1 [1 votes] Niche hardware maker PogoPlug have made a name for themselves delivering reliable and easy access to network attached storage, both on home and local business networks and across the Internet. Their latest creation is in line with a lot of their more web-centric competitors: PogoPlug Cloud. The free service will give anyone 5 gigabytes of free data storage – no PogoPlug hardware purchase needed – and the current Android app will be updated to access the storage natively. The PogoPlug app has been available for some time, but previously it could only access drives, files and folders physically connected to your home network. Now the app is capable of retrieving up to 5 gigabytes of data, and instantly uploads photos and videos to its sharing service, a la Picasa. Video and music can be streamed from the storage space, and files or folders can be shared with your Google+ contacts. Free users get “only” five gigabytes, but you can expand your data storage for a monthly fee. The cloud move puts PogoPlug in direct competition with DropBox, which is currently offering only 2GB of data storage to its free members. HTC customers get an expanded 5GB. At the present PogoPlug hasn’t revealed any integration software like Dropbox has, but then, committed users of PogoPlug’s hardware will tell you that its Network-attached storage devices fill that niche perfectly. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the cloud storage space, especially as Google itself pushes its users more and more towards on-demand file access. You can download the updated app now. Read More

Philips Fidelio

| FREE | Philips Consumer Lifestyle, B.V.

Philips Fidelio AS851 Docking Speaker for Android Review | Android Community - Android Community

Android users have a virtually unlimited choice when it comes to smartphone hardware, and it’s one of the most important advantages of the platform. Unfortunately a wide variety of hardware inexorably means a smaller selection of accessories, especially ones that work with all models. Nowhere is this more evident than in the dock/speaker department. Whereas you can’t find a $20 alarm clock without an iPod dock, models that support Android are few and far between. Philips seems to be the only company that’s interested in this particular segment, and for that, we’re eternally grateful. They sent us the top-of-the-line Fidelio AS851 speaker dock, designed specifically to work with Android smartphones, for review. Hardware The AS851 is the largest of the Fidelio docks, and at about a foot and a half wide by eight inches tall and deep, it’s quite sizable for a speaker dock. The front is dominated by a huge speaker grille hiding stereo speakers, with the microUSB dock itself and some minimal controls at the bottom. Power and volume are all you get – a play/pause and track skipping buttons would have been nice. The build quality is pretty good, with no loose seams or creaking. The Fidelio dock is pretty hefty, but not so heavy as to be unwieldy for its size. Around the curved back you get the AC input, a USB port for charging devices that won’t fit on the dock itself, and a headphone port for directly connecting  devices without Bluetooth. Also included in the box are a male-to-male audio cable and a small remote. The most important part of the dock is the flexible USB port on the front. It slides from left to right and rotates 180 degrees to accommodate any size smartphone, and a tiny wheel on the side can lock it Read More

SwiftKey X Keyboard

| $2.99 | TouchType Ltd

Swiftkey X Beta brings better tablet support, we go hands-on | Android Community - Android Community

Worth Reading? With its advanced text prediction and easily theme-friendly interface, Swiftkey X is the software keyboard of choice for a lot of Android users. Developer TouchType sent us the new beta for Swiftkey X, in both smartphone and tablet versions. We couldn’t resist trying it out. The most important new feature is the ability to customize the height of the keys themselves. Take a look: That may not seem like much, but it’s an absolute godsend to those of us using tablets running Gingerbread or earlier. When Swiftkey is installed on a 7-10 inch tablet, the keys default to their smartphone dimensions, making typing a hunt-and-peck hassle. But in the new beta you can choose between several different key heights, including a much larger option. Since the tablet version of Swiftkey is only available to Honeycomb users, it’s an important step in supporting a wide variety of devices. Issues with the prediction row not appearing on tablets seem to have been fixed as well. Check out the difference on my Touchpad running Cyanogenmod: Elsewhere, support for fans of the Dvorak and Colemak layouts has been added ,as well as compatibility support for when Ice Cream Sandwich arrives. (Hello? Verizon? Anybody home?) If the Swiftkey servers are busy, you can save a custom prediction text for later. General speed and stability tests were also implemented. The experience isn’t that different from normal Swiftkey on a smartphone, but if you’ve been waiting for Swiftkey to become more useful on your Gingerbread tablet, head over to the download page right now. The larger keys make typing a lot easier, and well worth the upgrade, especially if you’re a long-time user. Swiftkey’s prediction is as fast as ever, and the Beta seems to be stable as the regular release at this point, even on Read More