Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner

| FREE | Allrecipes.com, Inc.

Great Apps for Android | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Illustration by Michael ByersNavigating an app store can be tricky, with vague descriptions, dubious user reviews, and sometimes buggy apps. We searched for the best apps available. Locale$1 Locale lets you create location-based tasks. For example, you can have your phone turn on Wi-Fi when you get home, or have the phone silence itself when you get to work. It’s a great way to automate minor tasks, saving you a few extra minutes—and the embarrassment of having an overly noisy ringtone go off in the middle of a meeting. Head to Locale. SpringpadFree Create notes and reminders about movies you’d like to see, books you’d like to buy, or just events you’d like to remember. Springpad is also great for putting together shopping lists: You can quickly create checklists and scan barcodes to keep track of items you’ll need in the future. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Springpad. WunderlistWunderlist for AndroidFree Wunderlist syncs your to-do lists across all your devices, so you al­­ways have your tasks with you. Wunderlist will also email you when you are close to a deadline, in case you don’t check the app every day. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Wunderlist. Minecraft Pocket Edition$7  When you need to kill time on the go, you’ll find no better game to play than Minecraft Pocket Edition. Al­­though the app lacks the Survival Mode found in the desktop version, its Create Mode lets you mine and build to your heart’s content. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Minecraft Pocket Edition. Reckless Racing$3 Reckless Racing is one of the best-looking racing games available for mo­­bile devices, and it has dozens of courses to choose from, some with hidden shortcuts (a huge advantage if you know them). Then, once you’ve sharpened your skills, you can challenge friends and strangers to online multiplayer contests to find out who Read More

Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner

| FREE | Allrecipes.com, Inc.

Great Apps for Android | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Illustration by Michael ByersNavigating an app store can be tricky, with vague descriptions, dubious user reviews, and sometimes buggy apps. We searched for the best apps available. Locale$1 Locale lets you create location-based tasks. For example, you can have your phone turn on Wi-Fi when you get home, or have the phone silence itself when you get to work. It’s a great way to automate minor tasks, saving you a few extra minutes—and the embarrassment of having an overly noisy ringtone go off in the middle of a meeting. Head to Locale. SpringpadFree Create notes and reminders about movies you’d like to see, books you’d like to buy, or just events you’d like to remember. Springpad is also great for putting together shopping lists: You can quickly create checklists and scan barcodes to keep track of items you’ll need in the future. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Springpad. WunderlistWunderlist for AndroidFree Wunderlist syncs your to-do lists across all your devices, so you al­­ways have your tasks with you. Wunderlist will also email you when you are close to a deadline, in case you don’t check the app every day. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Wunderlist. Minecraft Pocket Edition$7  When you need to kill time on the go, you’ll find no better game to play than Minecraft Pocket Edition. Al­­though the app lacks the Survival Mode found in the desktop version, its Create Mode lets you mine and build to your heart’s content. (Also optimized for tablets.) Head to Minecraft Pocket Edition. Reckless Racing$3 Reckless Racing is one of the best-looking racing games available for mo­­bile devices, and it has dozens of courses to choose from, some with hidden shortcuts (a huge advantage if you know them). Then, once you’ve sharpened your skills, you can challenge friends and strangers to online multiplayer contests to find out who Read More

Jeannie

| FREE | Pannous

Want Siri on Your Android Phone? Try These Apps - Page 2 | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Up until about a week ago, this app was called Voice Actions, just like the Google app. To end the confusion, the third-party developer, Pannous, changed the name of its app to Jeannie (it still shows up on my phone as Voice Actions, however, even though I've updated the app). Jeannie is free. Alternatively you can purchase a $3 Voice Actions Plus app with the same capabilities. Pannous says that the Plus version of the app should process your speech more quickly. Unfortunately, signing up Jeannie as your personal assistant is a bit like hiring a slacker with a poor work ethic. When I asked Jeannie to send a text, for instance, it asked for the recipient's name, but then just switched me to my texting app, without starting the text or adding the name of the recipient. (Jeannie can be a bit passive-aggressive, too. It asked whether I wanted to leave it to go to my texting app. When I said "Okay," it responded "Okay by me, too." Ouch.) Other things Jeannie did were just mysterious. It set an alarm when I asked it to, and the alarm went off right on schedule, but I couldn't figure out how to turn it off because Jeannie hadn't set it using Android's built-in alarm system. When I asked Jeannie to take a note, it started recording me--but never showed me what it had transcribed. Instead, it simply said "Done," and then told me I could send the note by email "later." It wasn't clear to me how. One of my tasks involved asking each of the personal assistants to get me Apple's stock price. Many of them fell short in various ways--giving me a general market report, for instance. But Jeannie's response was the most surreal: It searched the Web for images Read More

SwiftKey X Keyboard

| $2.99 | TouchType Ltd

11 Essential Android Tablet Apps: The Ultimate Starter Kit | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Apps are the heart and soul of the Android tablet experience--but for new tablet owners, it isn't always easy to figure out where to begin. While Google's Android Market offers a small section of "featured" tablet apps, it doesn't provide a comprehensive list of programs that are optimized for the larger screen. And, while most Android apps will run on a tablet, those that are built explicitly to take advantage of the devices' larger screens tend to provide the best experiences. I've spent countless hours finding and testing Android tablet apps to uncover the best of the best. Here are 11 essential apps every Android tablet owner should consider. SwiftKey Tablet XGoogle's standard tablet keyboard is fine, but trust me, you can do better. Grab SwiftKey Tablet X, available for exactly $4.99 in the Android Market. It gives you a pimped-out keyboard that does all the hard work for you (well, most of it): SwiftKey uses a special "prediction engine" to analyze your typing habits and thereby predict your words before you type them. I never cease to be amazed at how often SwiftKey's predictions are right (and how much key-tapping that saves). SwiftKey is fully customizable, too, with multiple color schemes and an optional split-screen mode for thumbs-only input. Altogether, this app is a must-have add-on for any Android tablet. PicSay ProAndroid tablets pack plenty of multimedia potential, but what good is having photos if you can't edit them on the fly? PicSay Pro, available for $3.99 in the Android Market, gives you everything you need to make your images pop. Its tablet-optimized interface has easy-to-use tools for resizing, rotating, cropping, and flipping photos. Aside from being useful, I found the app fun to use: A couple of taps, for example, will let you paint on your pictures or apply Read More

Wheres My Droid

| FREE | Alienman Tech

Recover a Missing Android Phone with Where's My Droid | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

If an iPhone goes missing, well, there's an app for that. (It's Apple's venerable Find My iPhone.) But where's the equivalent for Android? Surely there must be some app-tastic way to locate a rogue Android handset. There are several, actually, so it's just a matter of picking one and getting it set up. I'm partial to Where's My Droid, a free app designed expressly to help you find your lost phone. (And don't let the name fool you: Where's My Droid works with all Android-powered phones running OS 1.6 and later, not just Motorola's Droid series.) The app goes above and beyond the usual method of locating a missing phone: calling it. If your phone is set to vibrate, you're much less likely to hear it. And, of course, if it's not within earshot (i.e., you dropped it at that rest stop on the interstate), calling does no good. With Where's My Droid, you text a secret "attention" word or phrase to the phone. That activates the app's find-me mode, which switches the phone from vibrate to ringer, cranks the volume, and makes it ring for 30 seconds. Alternately, you can text a different word to enable GPS mode. Once the phone locates itself, Where's My Droid will respond with its exact coordinates. (These are provided as latitude and longitude, which you can enter into Google Maps to get a real-world location.) What's nice about Where's My Droid is that, unlike a lot of other phone-finder apps, it's not constantly transmitting location information, so it should have minimal impact on your battery. (And remember: a phone with a dead battery can't be found via app methods.) What's not so nice is that you need access to another phone so you can send your attention-word text messages (and, if necessary, get the Read More

Memory Booster - RAM Optimizer

| FREE | IMOBLIFE INC.

11 Android Apps to Boost Speed and Battery Life | PCWorld Business Center - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Latedroid Price: Free (basic version), $1.99 (Plus version), $4.99 (Ultimate version) This app helps reduce battery drain by regulating your data connections and by syncing schedule, screen settings and other device components. You configure it by enabling the profile for the level of juice-saving you desire: Balanced, Aggressive or Extreme. The Balanced profile is fully automatic and doesn't require your input. The Aggressive profile automatically disables data connectivity when the battery is low, which you can turn back on when needed by clicking the shortcut in the notification area of Android. The Extreme profile keeps data connections disabled by default; they can be turned on manually and you can whitelist apps that always need connectivity. For example, it can automatically disable the Wi-Fi if you aren't connected to a network or you aren't nearby networks you frequently use. The Free version of JuiceDefender supports the Balanced and Aggressive profiles and offers limited mobile data connection controls and sync scheduling. The Plus version ($1.99) offers more setting customizations for the Aggressive profile and adds support for the Extreme profile. It also adds Wi-Fi control and more customization for the sync schedule. The Ultimate version ($4.99) adds AutoSync, screen timeout and screen brightness controls and offers additional sync scheduling customization. If you have a rooted device, it also lets you control CPU speed, GPS control and 2G/3G switching. You can customize the functionality even more with the Customize and Advanced profiles. All versions of JuiceDefender support these profiles, but there are limitations on what settings you can configure in the lower versions. However, you can still see and review the settings to understand what the app offers in the higher versions. Despite the rather confusing number of configurations and versions, I found JuiceDefender to be straightforward to configure and use. Sorting through the Read More

App 2 SD (move app to SD)

| FREE | Sam Lu

11 Android Apps to Boost Speed and Battery Life | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

The mobile operating system Android for phones and tablets offers a wide variety of apps and can be quite useful in your professional and personal life. But after you've added a bunch of apps and used it for a while, Android can also get bogged down or unstable, run slowly and/or eat battery juice too quickly. Like their larger computing counterparts, Android-based devices need to be maintained. Problems can start if the internal storage becomes full (or close to it) or if you're running too many apps or background processes at once (which also decreases battery life). What follows is a description of 10 apps that can help increase the performance of your Android device. Note: A few of these apps require you to root your device -- in other words, you need to unlock the device, giving apps the ability to use full root permissions. (Keep in mind that there's the possibility that you could void your warranty.) Sam Lu Price: Free (basic version), $1.29 (Pro version) 1Tap Cleaner comes with a Cache Cleaner, History Cleaner and a Default Cleaner. The Cache Cleaner frees up storage space by removing temporary files left by apps. You can manually clear the cache for select apps or clear all apps at once. It lists apps sorted by their cache size so you can quickly see those taking up the most space. It also displays the total and available internal storage space so you can see how much space you need to free up. 1Tap Cleaner also supports automatic scheduled cache cleaning. The free version lets you choose an interval of every three days or every week. The Pro version ($1.29) offers more interval settings, from every hour to every two weeks. It also adds the ability to auto-clear app histories as well. You Read More

Seesmic (Facebook, Twitter)

| FREE | Seesmic

The Best Free Twitter Apps for Android | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

As a self-proclaimed Twitter fiend, I like to tweet my thoughts and ramblings both at home and on the go. I used to just text my tweets to Twitter; soon, however, I discovered that I was missing out on a ton of high-quality tweets and conversations from the people I followed, since I couldn’t view the Twitter Newsfeed via text message and I wasn’t a huge fan of the Twitter mobile website. Thus I set out in search of a worthy Twitter Android app that would serve as my new way to tweet on the go. Now that I've used some of the most popular (and free) Twitter apps in the Android Market, here is my evaluation of how each one works. Plume for TwitterPlume for Twitter is a great-looking app, but it can be a little confusing to navigate at first. Panes slide in and out of view, and you can easily click a link by accident, when you meant to reply to a tweet. Still, once you master the unusual layout, getting around the app is a snap. Like TweetDeck (reviewed below), Plume separates your Twitter account into various columns: Newsfeed, @Replies, and Direct Messages. Plume allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts, but unfortunately it doesn’t support other social networks. I like Plume a bit more than the official Twitter app, but it lacks some of the elegance of TweetDeck. A premium version, available for about $3, will remove the occasional ad that appears in your Twitter Newsfeed. Personally, I didn’t find the ads too obtrusive. Pros: Colorful and compelling design Cons: Ads in the Newsfeed; confusing navigation Similar to TweetDeck (reviewed below), Seesmic allows you to update multiple social media accounts at once: Aside from Twitter, you can also check your Facebook, Google Buzz, or Salesforce feeds. Read More

imo instant messenger

| FREE | imo.im

imo instant messenger 2.1.2 Review | Android Arcade and Action App | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

A multiplatform messenger app for Android, Imo currently supports AIM/ICQ, Facebook, Google Talk, Jabber, MSN, MySpace, Skype, and Yahoo. Imo lets you sign in to multiple platforms at once. You can either link all of your accounts (which will let you sign in to all of them simultaneously), or you can sign in to each account individually. Like other multi-messenger apps, Imo preserves the contact groups you've set up on your different platforms. Unfortunately, you can't disable the group view, so you're stuck scrolling through tons of irrelevant groups for assorted platforms. The Imo interface is pretty typical: Basic navigation options across the top of the screen allow you to look at your accounts, your contact list, and your chats. In the accounts screen you can add, remove, and sign in and out of accounts. In the contacts screen you can start chats with buddies on various platforms. You can tell which buddy is on which platform thanks to the persistent available/away icons next to their name. Unlike IM+, Imo doesn't show a platform logo--instead, the display looks more like your actual buddy list on whatever platform you're using. For example, instead of showing a G for each of your Google Talk buddies, it shows you their little green/orange/red circle. In the chats window you can switch between (and exit) chats. You can also switch between chats when you're in the actual chat, by swiping from side to side. Imo has a decent settings menu. You can choose how to be alerted when a chat message comes in (including notifications, status bar symbols, ringtones, and vibrations), you can store your chat history, and you can change the font size and whether to display buddy icons. When you receive a chat, the notification in the status bar will be the Imo logo--not Read More

Winamp

| FREE | Nullsoft, Inc.

Winamp 1.1.1 Review | Android Unknown App | PCWorld - Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads - PCWorld

Winamp for Android is an excellent music management app for users looking to do a bit more with their music. Two features that especially stand out are the built-in Shoutcast radio and the simple-yet-full-featured interface. Winamp doesn't have the most advanced-looking user interface: The main screen consists of eight rectangular buttons arranged in a grid. Still, without being overcomplicated, this app lets you perform just about any type of music management action you might want to. From the main screen, you can view your tracks by artist, album, individual song, or genre. You can also view playlists, go to Shoutcast radio, search your music, and download free music from Spinner or from Full CD Listening Party. At the bottom of the main screen (and at the bottom of every screen) is the name of the currently playing track, along with media buttons (forward, back, play/pause), a playlist button that brings up the playlist you're currently listening to, and a Winamp button (shaped like a lightning bolt) that takes you back to the main screen. If you want to see more information on the currently playing track, you can tap the dots beside the name of the track to open a more detailed window that displays the album art (if there is any). You can put the track on repeat (or put the playlist on shuffle or repeat) and even search for the artist via various services, including YouTube and Amazon MP3. Winamp lets you sync your music library over Wi-Fi, enable playback controls for the app on your lock screen, control the headset with the app, and even "scrobble" straight to Last.fm (though you must have the Last.fm app installed to do this). It's also nice to have the media controls constantly visible, even on the lock screen. Winamp isn't for Read More