With the wet and cold winter season already upon us it’s important as ever to know what the weather’s going to be like outside so one can plan their day accordingly. Depending on where you live and what you do for a living, the weather can have a big impact on what kind of day you’ll have, and reliable weather forecast information is vital to it all. There are tons of weather apps for Android smartphones available, but which are the best to use? And in particular, which are the best free weather apps for Android smartphones to use? I’ve gone through dozens of them and sorted the good from the bad to save you time. I’ve listed the pros and cons of each and included screenshots to give you an idea of what to expect. AccuWeather for Android is probably my favorite of the bunch. It’s a free weather app for Android that has all of the features and functions I’d need packaged in a clean and sleek user interface. An interesting option is the ability to share weather data with family and friends via email, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Save up to 10 favorite locations that show current temperature along with a short description. Pros: Cons: MyWeather Mobile for Android is free weather app for Android that offers a more customized weather data experience than most. Users can automatically sync the app with their MyWeather.com site account settings so that they can have access to important weather data wherever and whenever you want. Pros: Cons: Weatherbug for Android is a free weather app for Android that’s probably one of the more widely used weather apps and for good reason: It has a ton of features and functions that the others simply don’t have. Weatherbug offers everything from weather Read More
Wether we want to admit it or not for many of us Facebook has become an important part of our daily lives. It’s how keep up with the lives of distant friends, family members, and old acquainatnces. It’s how we advertise events, share pictures videos and songs, or use just to tell people where we’re at and what we’re up to. Now we would liek ot be able to do all of these on things on the go, and there’s a slew of Facebook apps for Android that make it possible. Sure the standardd Facebook app for Android will help you get by until you reach a proper desktop or laptop PC, but why wait? These five free Facebook apps for Android will allow you to do all, if not most, of the functions you’d find on the full website, and in some cases will even make things a whole lot simpler. Seesmic much like the popular TweetDeck and other multi-social-networking platform apps. You can see and update your Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and Salesforce Chatter accounts all at the same time and from the same handy place. You can upload photos and videos to Facebook or to services like Plixi, yFrog, TwitPic, and even YouTube. It features full integration with Facebook, including management and posting to any Facebook pages you administer. FriendCaster is really the deluxe model of Facebook apps for Android. It honestly has just about feature you could possibly want and then some. Features include: One of the better features is the ability to select the privacy setting for each and every post you make. As it stands right now, the setting can only be changed on the desktop site, and who wants to accudentally post a pic that’s NSFW or NSFF? Go!Chat for Facebook is a free Read More
Smartphones have become the map and compass of the twentieth century, allowing us to navigate strange and distant lands in ways hereto unimaginable. Early last month I mentioned 5 apps that Android users in particular should have installed while traveling, and here, once again, I’ll mention five more. Taking a trip is already stressful enough as it is, and these apps, like the ones before, will help make your life on the road much easier. Skyscanner is probably the best flight search app out there. It allows you to compare over 600 budget and scheduled airlines on more than 700,000 routes around the world in a matter of seconds. If you’re travel dates are flexible you can compare fare prices by departure and return date to get the cheapest price. If you’re travelling with other r just want to keep friends and family updates you can share your flight details with a single button tap. Available in over 23 languages Skyscanner combines all your flight options in on easy to use app. Where is a free Android travel app that helps you find the best nearby places to “eat, drink and play.” The app will show you recommended restaurants, bars, stores, and more with just a few taps. It even gives you access to special offers and discounts at local businesses to help you save a buck or two. Active users can save their favorite places and share them with connected family and friends, taking the guesswork out of future travel plans. The only downside is that right now it’s limited to US cities so if you plan on leaving the country it won’t do you much good. Wikitude is one of the more fun Android travel apps to have installed. Wikitude works along the line of Google Goggles in that it “enhances” Read More
The open nature of Android and its rapidly expanding share of the samrtphone market has led to a rise in the amount of malware tailored to the Android OS. During the first six months of this year alone, between 500,000 and 1 million Android users were infected with malware. This was made clear when earlier this week I mentioned how security researchers had discovered new Android malware they nicknamed ANDROIDOS_NICKISPY.C. It masks itself as the Google+ app and is capable of collecting data such as SMS, call logs, GPS location, and can even record telephone conversations. Unlike the “simple flip-phones of yesteryear,” said ESET’s Cameron Camp, people now have a “computer that happens to make phone calls.” “These machines pack respectable CPU and storage, run a full operating system, and are all networked. On top of that, they, almost by definition, are filled with the personal information and contacts advertisers and businesses have been lusting after for decades.” With this in mind I’ve tracked down the top 5 anti-virus apps for Android around. AVG Antivirus is an anti-virus app for Android has been a longtime player in the PC anti-virus game, and so has a track record of protecting users from viruses, malware and exploits in real-time. With AVG Anti-virus you get easy-to-use virus and malware protection, a real-time AV scanner, backup assistant, phone locator, task killer, app locker and local device wipe. Lookout Security & Antivirus is arguably the most popular security and anti-virus for Android around. With Lookout Security & Antivirus you get anti-virus protection, of course, but also a phone locator, data backup and restore, and pre-scanning of apps BEFORE you download them. Dr.Web Anti-virus Light is truly a light anti-virus app for Android that focuses solely on anti-virus protection. It lacks all the bells and whostles of Read More
As the Android OS rises to smartphone prominence, the Android market is slowly becoming cluttered with such a wide variety of BitTorrent apps that it can be difficult for many to sort through them all to find one that is the best fit. So t o help you BitTorrent users out there save some time I’ve compiled a list of what I consider to be the top 5 of the bunch. uTorrent Remote is my favorite BitTorrent app for Android phones. uTorrent Remote is clean, sleek, simple to use, and is feature-rich: check the staus of your downloads; add, pause or remove downloads on your computer; and update and add torrents from RSS subscriptions The main feature of uTorrent Remote worth mentioning is the ability to transfer, save and play any completed file from your PC right to your Android phone! I’ve mentioned this one before, and it’s definitely one of my favorites.. Transdroid gives you complete control over individual torrents: users can pause, stop, remove, label, throttle, and prioritize just as they would with their desktop client. The best part about Transdroid is that you enter the RSS feeds of your favorite private (or public trackers) and download content on the go. Torrent-fu is an interesting client because it’s compatible with both uTorrent and Transmission. Torrent-fu allows you to manage your torrents and search for torrents by keyword, bar code scan, or from your browser and download remotely. The best feature of Torrent-fu is probably the ability to create user downlaod profiles. You can setup custom profiles to add, edit, and delete the locations of where you want your content downloaded to. EZTVDroid is an app that lists your favorite TV show from EZTV, and lets you send the corresponding torrent files to the uTorrent or Transmission BitTorrent client running Read More
With Sony finally having resolved the PlayStation Network hacking fiasco it’s moved forward with expanding it’s Music Unlimited powered Qriocity service with the release of a new Android app. Already available via the PS3, PSP, and desktop PC the Qriocity Android app now truly allows you to listen to over 7 million songs “anytime, anywhere” as Sony boasts. “The cloud-based, digital music service gives music lovers streaming, commercial-free access at anytime and anywhere to an ever expanding catalogue of currently over seven million licensed tracks from major labels including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music as well as leading independent labels and major publishers worldwide,” it says in a press release. Several key features: ・Create your own personalized channels ・Sync your songs on a PC and access from your phone ・Easily access your music using Android Home Widget Player The Basic service costs $3.99 per month and the Premium service costs $9.99 per month. The Premium plan boasts additional features like on-demand playback. New customers are currently able to get 30 days of the Premium Plan for free, and PSN subsribers caught up in the hacking quagmire are treated to 30 days of free Premium Plan service as well as part of its “Welcome Back” package. Sony also says that eligible PlayStation 3 owners can get a free 180-day Basic subscription. To be eligible you must be a new subscriber. Download Music Unlimited from the Android Market. Stay tuned. ____________________________ Read More
With smartphones quietly revolutionizing the way we listen to music these days apps that allow users to obtain free music are becoming more popular than ever. There are tons of apps to choose from, and it’s just a matter of selecting the one that best suits your needs. In the past I’ve casually mentioned FrostWire and several others, but now I’m to going to take an in depth look at one in particular – MP3 Music Downloader. From the Android Market app description: Enjoy Million of Free Songs by MP3 Music Download! Even you can read the lyric while listening! Nowadays, there are many websites allow you download free and legal musics, audio from them. MP3 Music Download is an application support you download hundreds of thousands free and legal songs from these sites. It says all of the songs it offers are “free and legal,” but I think the statement’s only half-right. It offers music from big name artists that is likely not available anywhere for free on a legal basis. In any event, MP3 Music Downloader is pretty straightforward to use. The coolest feature is the ability to browse titles by their popularity on iTunes, Billboard, the UK Chart, and by genre. This takes some of the guesswork out of finding new and exciting music. Stay tuned. Enter the artist's name.... Stream or download... Read More
The RIAA finally managed to shutdown LimeWire recently, but a new Android app from FrostWire proves how hallow that victory really is. Unlike the desktop version of FrostWire which uses both the Gnutella and BitTorrent protocols to download content, FrostWire for Android uses a new P2P protocol called “MetaFrost” which it says is “slowly evolving on every release and which has been designed with mobility and limited resources in mind.” FrostWire for Android allows you to search, browse and even share files locally and over the Internet using a Wi-Fi connection in a P2P fashion. Unfortunately FrostWire for Android does not work over 3G, the reason being that it wants to guarantee decent speeds and a reliable connection from most of the peers on the network. Some of the features include: The FrostWire for Android developers say where it’ll get really interesting is when people start using the program for close range file-sharing, like at a coffee shop or at the library. “Groups of Friends and family sitting at the dinner table in a restaurant who are usually ‘texting’, tweeting and being disconnected from what’s in front of them,” it says. “Now they have another way to interact with the people in front of them, they can exchange pictures, videos of earlier in the day and not be so technologically alienated. No need to have a rain check on that video you recorded of your friends hours earlier in the club, you can exchange the recently recorded memories while you’re having a slice of pizza at 3am on that open Wi-Fi of the pizzeria.” It also touts it as a classroom tool that teachers can use to share important videos, pictures, notes, or podcasts. FrostWire for Android proves once again that despite the music industry’s best efforts you can’t prevent people Read More
