Android App Spotlight #33: picplz

Price: Free
Website
AppBrain

Tell your life's story through pictures with picplz, a nifty app that not only allows you to take ordinary pictures and make them interesting through the application of various filters. You can show them off on the picplz site, but you can also tag the photos with the location of where they were taken. At the same time, if you so desire, you can check yourself in via Foursquare and post it to Twitter or Facebook, too, to share with your friends no matter how few social networks they belong to. It's surprisingly fun to try and come up with good pics to share, and if you're going to checkin anyways, (you do check in, don't you?) it's a cool way to do it.

Android App Spotlight #32: Withings WiScale

Price: Free
Website


Alright, let's say you have the awesome Withings Wifi Body Scale, which takes your scale readout and sends it online for tracking on the Withings site, uploading to Google Health, or even Twitter. Now, let's also say that you would like to have access to this information no matter where you go via your Android device. Unfortunately, there was no way for you to do this, until now! with the beta release of WiScale, a port of Withings' iPhone app.

It's a pretty simple app, with a single-day breakdown of your weight, BMI, and fat mass when the phone is in portrait, and a line graph that shows progress over the span of weeks or months. What else could you want in an app that reports the output of your bathroom scale? I guess the ability to install to the SD card would be nice, but it's only 450KB, so it's not all that big of deal.

Obviously this app fulfills a distinct market - those who have splurged on the scale, and own an Android phone, and want to have immediate access to their weight at all times, but it could be useful the next time you're trying to decide between the deep fried bacon and the side salad when ordering at a restaurant. Personally, I could have used this about four months ago, though that deep fried bacon was mighty tasty.

Android App Spotlight #31: Lookout

Price: Free ($2.99/mo or $30/yr for advanced features)
Website
AppBrain







With how much we are using our smartphones nowadays, more and more of our sensitive information is sitting, unprotected, on our phones. What happens if someone steals your phone, or you lose your phone, or you accidentally erase all of your Google contacts? I'm not going to lie - my backup strategy is largely throwing it up into the cloud and hoping the Big G holds onto it, but anyone who's serious about backing up (and we all should be) knows that the key to protecting your data comes in redundancy, so while Google will probably keep everything nice and neat for you, it's no guarantee. Furthermore, with the future of computing being these little handheld computers, you're going to start seeing some viruses that target the platforms, and given Android's unfettered Marketplace, how can you make sure the apk you're about to install isn't going to steal all your information? Oh, and another thing, what if you misplaced your phone in your apartment and can't find it?

There's a solution for all of these things by way of Lookout, an app that combines signature antivirus protection, data backup, and lost phone services. I've been using if for the past six months, and I'm generally pleased.

Every time I download an app, and every week (the frequency can be changed), my system is scanned. While it's only signature-based scans (it's looking for pre-defined malicious code, so zero-day vulnerabilities are still a threat), but I haven't had a virus yet! That's probably specious reasoning, though, as I don't know if any viruses have actually been reported on Android. Still, each of these components can be disabled individually, so you can turn it off if you don't like it.

The app can also back up your calls, contacts, and pictures on a frequency of your choosing. The calls and contacts backup are just a source of redundancy for CallTrack and Google Contacts, respectively, but it's good to have that extra safety net. The pictures, though, is new, and something that I find useful, though be sure you choose to back those up during a time of night when you're plugged in, because I imagine that takes some juice. You can restore your data onto another phone if you so choose.

There's also a locating service that allows you to track your phone's location from the Lookout website. You can ping your device at any time, and it reports back with a Google Maps overlay. You can also choose to make your phone "scream," which signals a loud alarm on the phone, and remotely wipe or lock your phone.

The ability for remote wipe and lock is coming in the paid version of the app, which is being released on November 16th. Once that paid version is released, it's also moving some of the features available in the free version - mostly the data backup features - into the paid version, but until that paid version is released, you can still grab the free app and be grandfathered in on the backup services.

I would have happily paid a one-time fee for the app, but with the subscription model they're adopting ($2.99 a month or $30 a year), I don't know if I'm willing to pay that much for the remote wipe capabilities. Add to that HTC's new website which will provide much of that functionality for their phones for free, and I don't know if this was the wisest decision to make pricing-wise. Regardless, there's going to be a version of Lookout running on my phone for some time to come, giving me considerable piece of mind.

Android App Spotlight #30: Angry Birds

Price: Free (!)
AppBrain
Website

The final version of Angry Birds was released today. Featuring 150 levels of pig-smashing goodness, Android gaming is taking its first steps towards legitimacy.

Several things are interesting about this release. First, the game is first released exclusively on the GetJar market, with promises of the Android Market and Motorola "SHOP4APPS" to come soon. This market fragmentation is only going to get worse as popularity for the platform and other people start curating their own app markets. Personally, I don't care, as I can just go and find it whether it's located in the GetJar market, or the Amazon Market, or the Best Buy Market, but I think it might be difficult for ordinary people to find what they're looking for across a dozen different marketplaces (until there's a market app that searches across all markets...).

Of course, since I started typing this entry, GetJar crashed under the demand for the game, and is now available in the Android Market, too.

Secondly, the full game is a free, ad-supported version - the only other free versions of the app is a demo on Apple's Market. It's interesting that Rovio, despite having the #1 best-selling paid app on the iPhone for weeks, decided to go the ad-supported route for Android. It's probably the better move, as current stats are showing that iPhone owners are much more likely to pay for apps than Android owners, but given the demand that crashed GetJar's servers, it's clear that there's a significant demand on our platform, too.

Whatever political implications arise from this release, the Android version of Angry Birds is just as good as that on other platforms, and at the low, low price of free, there's no reason for you to add this to your collection.

Android App Spotlight #29: Gmail

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

The Gmail app was updated today for those of us with Froyo, adding some improved controls, better navigation of nested conversations, and some Priority Inbox support. It's also no longer a part of the OS, so the app can be updated more frequently, but it also means you have to go to the app store and download it yourself. Also, if I squish these couple of sentences between two pictures, it makes the post look longer than it really is.

Android App Spotlight #28: Barrr

Price: Free
AppBrain
Website

Seeing as how today is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I thought it would be appropriate to bring attention to Barrr, a cute little pirate-themed time management game. The game is simple enough - pirates come in with some certain needs, and you have to help them get what they want. More pirates and more activities crop up in later levels, and those impatient pirates start getting angry real fast.

The app was created by a couple of Dutch students for a school project, so the game is pretty short and not likely to be updated anytime soon (though I wouldn't mind giving up some doubloons for some additional content), but with free you get what you pay for, and on such an auspicious occassion as they one we're celebrating today, you owe it to yourself to pay respect to our brethren sailing the high seas.

Android App Spotlight #27: doubleTwist

Price: Free

AppBrain

Website

We got some problems.

One of Android's weak points is media management. Every time I want to add music, movies, or books to my phone, I have to plug it in to my computer, mount it as a USB drive, go into my "Music" folder I created, and create a new file for the album. This is as barebones as it gets (You could use Awesome Drop if you wanted to make things easier, of course). iTunes doesn't have this problem - you drag music from your iTunes library into your phone, and that's that.

Speaking of iTunes, it sucks. Maybe that's a little harsh - I've been using it since version 4.1 back in 2003, and I like it because it can easily handle my 200GB of music without much stutter. Over six versions it's also become quite powerful and very customizable. Of course, over six versions its also become a bit bloated and outdated, offering support for a variety of services I have no interest in (friend me on Ping!) and it's incredibly frustrating how they've chosen not to properly implement coverart in recent versions. 

And while we're on the subject of flawed music software, let's get back to Android and its stock music player which hasn't been updated since Android 1.x. Aesthetically it doesn't fit with the rest of the OS, and it's limited in functionality - offering support only for music, organized in only a couple of different ways, and support for a playlist or two, not that I've ever went to the trouble of exporting an iTunes playlist as an .m3u and importing it to my phone. 

I got two words to say to all three problems: doubleTwist (maybe it's one word). It's been around for a while, and it consists of two separate components: a piece of software for your desktop, and an app.

The desktop application is pretty much a straight rip-off of iTunes, attempting to match most of its look and functionality. doubleTwist (program) imports your iTunes library and playlists, including pictures and videos. There's even a built-in video converter, so any video you drag onto your phone should theoretically be transcoded so as to be playable. You also get a podcast browser and an interface to Amazon MP3 for buying music. It's as close as you're getting to iTunes for Android, though there are plenty of problems with the software - I don't think it works with .m4p files, so any older music you've purchased through iTunes shouldn't work (though it's not like it was working on Android anyway). The video transcoder is a nice thought, but it doesn't fare that well in execution - any Xvid files I tried to convert failed with an error (though if you use RockPlayer it shouldn't be a problem). Otherwise, music, podcasts, and pictures are all easily added to my phone without issues. The worst part about the program is it isn't nearly as customizable as iTunes, offering many fewer ways to edit and organize tracks. It seems to be a bit slow to respond, too, like when I'm typing an artist into the search bar.

doubleTwist also offers an app that duplicated much of the functionality in the standard Music app, though in a better looking interface, and with the addition of some nice features. You still have your music sorting by artist, album, song, and playlist, but there's also a home for podcasts and videos that you've brought over from your computer. Also interesting is the radio entry, which seems to cull radio stations from all over the country, organize them by genre, and present them for your listening. It's no Pandora or Last.fm, but if you're looking for something a little more raw or specific, it's a pretty cool feature. 

As boring as it may be, the default Music app gets the playback right, featuring little more than the artist info, coverart, and big navigation buttons, and doubleTwist presents a similar look, though it doesn't add much aside from an easy way to rate music. It also doesn't have a landscape view, which can be frustrating for the car rides. Regardless, by keeping a similar presentation to the classic Android player, while updating the look and adding a handful of nice features, it keeps things familiar and usable. 

I don't think I'll keep using the doubleTwist program - it can't match the functionality of iTunes, and I have no problem digging into my phone's file structure to manually add songs. Other people might not feel so comfortable doing this, in which case I would recommend doubleTwist as the easiest way to get your songs onto your phone. I'm on the fence as to the app, too - I'm pretty content with the plain ol' Music player, but again, doubleTwist's product is a nice improvement for those who are looking for a little bit more from their players. The choice is up to you, and that's what Android's all about.