Android App of the Week: Ulysse Gizmos

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

Ask my colleagues in the PC Pro office, and they’ll confirm that I’m not exactly a person who enjoys the great outdoors. My one attempt at skiing lasted barely two hours, and my single camping trip came to an abrupt end when I woke up with a duck asleep on my chest.

If you’re one of the millions who does enjoy spending time away from electricity, chairs, showers and beds, though, then this week’s Android App of the Week is essential.

It’s called Ulysse Gizmos, and it’s a neat tool that collects together almost every bit of information that a frequent traveller might need, thanks to the wealth of sensors that are included in the average Android handset.

Open up the app, and you’ll see what we mean: the main gauge provides a compass with heading, bearing and orientation indicators alongside both true and magnetic measurements. The screen also provides your longitude and latitude alongside altitude and accuracy measurements.

Three other meters are present on the home screen. The top-right corner provides GPS positioning, with your precise position measured alongside the number of satellites you’re using and any potential errors, the bottom-right serves up a magnetometer complete with current field strength, declination value and direction, and the third small small dial uses your phone’s accelerometer to measure vertical and horizontal angles alongside pitch, roll and more. (more…)

Android App of the Week: JustPictures

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Android’s default picture viewer is fine for flicking through photos, but it’s not what we’d call versatile – aside from basic picture viewing, there’s rudimentary integration with Facebook and Flickr, and little else.

If that’s not enough, then it’s worth downloading JustPictures, our Android App of the Week, to take advantage of its broad swathe of options.

Putting the extra features aside for a moment, JustPictures simply looks much better than the stock Android app. Albums are presented as stacks of pictures that increase in size depending on how many pictures they hold and, when you load up an album, your pictures are displayed at jaunty angles and surrounded by a Polaroid-style border. If that doesn’t float your boat, then turning it off displays your pictures in a slick grid format.

Delve into your albums and the app’s full range of options come to the fore. You can scroll through pictures, use multitouch gestures to zoom in and out, and use your phone’s accelerometer to change picture orientation automatically. (more…)

Android App of the Week: AppBrain

Friday, November 5th, 2010

The last couple of weeks in the PC Pro office have demonstrated that plenty of third-party companies are keen to capitalise on both Android and its apps, with tablets from Samsung and Creative boasting their own app stores and, in the latter’s case, preventing access to the standard Android Market altogether.

This approach is fraught with potential pitfalls, not least that these stores can never hope to compare with the sheer variety of offer in the standard Market – although Google’s offering has issues of its own, with poor navigation and search options.

Step forward AppBrain, a third-party app store that lets you browse Android’s 100,000 apps in a much more intuitive way.

For starters, there are more ways to sort through apps than you’l find in the official Market, from common choices such as the highest-rated software and the latest uploads, to the week’s hottest apps or those that are popular in different countries or, remarkably, with different demographics. (more…)

Android App of the Week: Winamp

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

The Android Market’s brimming with media management apps but, until this week, I hadn’t been entirely convinced by many: GrooveShark proved buggy, Last.fm seemed slow and kept churning out the same tunes, and others are hampered with fiddly user interfaces.

WinAmp, though, is a name I trust, having used it for years on desktops – and now that it’s arrived on Android, albeit in beta form, I had to give it a go.

It certainly makes a good first impression. It’s styled after the desktop version, and the UI is clean and simple – a breath of fresh air when so many apps try to cram as much information on screen as possible.

Instead, the bottom of the screen offers play/pause and previous/next track controls that remain persistent across every screen in the application. If you’d like more information, though, simply swipe upwards to open a larger tab, which contains the song’s name, album art, repeat and shuffle settings and a link to the song queue. You can also press the song’s name to search for it on YouTube or Google and, if you’ve got the app installed, scrobble the track with Last.fm. (more…)

Android App of the Week: TweetDeck

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

TweetDeck’s arrival on Android has been somewhat belated. After all, it’s the most popular desktop client around, and it’s been available on iOS since June 2009. It’s my desktop client of choice, too, so I’ve been particularly keen to try out the mobile version. Better late than never, I guess.

It certainly looks like TweetDeck. The familiar shades-of-grey theme is evident here, and the mobile app borrows the column-driven format of the desktop version. Three are initially included – your main feed, your mentions and your direct messages – but more can be added, with your favourites, lists or searches available.

It’s obvious that plenty of thought has gone into the UI, too. Navigation is as simple as swiping between columns, and each is refreshed by clicking on its name at the top of the window. Click on a tweet to find options for replying, retweeting and more, and select the user to load up a full profile. (more…)

Android App of the Week: The Weather Channel

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Android comes with its own weather app installed, but it’s not the most in-depth of tools: the settings menu offers little more than a choice between Celsius and Fahrenheit, and the front-end offers only basic data.

That’s where The Weather Channel’s eponymous app comes in. Type in your post code or use your phone’s GPS to select a location and you’re presented with a wealth of meteorological information. Aside from basic temperature statistics, a small graphic indicates local weather and wind conditions, humidity, visibility and even the UV index. A quartet of tabs also opens up forecasts for the coming hours, days and weeks.

The innocuous-looking Map It button on each current forecast unleashes another torrent of useful information. Take the selection of layers that can be used on top of Google Maps: radar and cloud cover can be selected individually or mashed up, and zoom controls allow you to get a handle on the weather in your town or, if you’re interested, across entire continents. (more…)

Android App of the Week: Epicurious

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Epicurious is one of the slickest Android apps we’ve seen yet. While that might have something to do with its iOS origins, cookery enthusiasts will be pleased that the mobile version of this popular culinary website has escaped Steve’s walled garden and found its way into the wider world.

Open the app and you’re immediately greeted with a selection of categories that reflect different situations and levels of kitchen experience.

A category for cookery novices sits beside a selection of recipes for more experienced hands, while other sections serve up dinner party menus, recipes for kids, and ideas for lavish desserts, healthy lunches and quick breakfasts. (more…)

Android App of the Week: QuickDesk

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Multitasking’s great, but it has its downfalls. Say you’re in the middle of a crucial level of Angry Birds when you notice that your battery’s draining fast. You don’t want to leave the game, but you need to turn off power-hungry services such as your phone’s 3G and GPS modules to ensure that you’ve got enough juice to last until home.

That’s a Catch-22 situation unless you download QuickDesk, our new Android App of the Week.

QuickDesk works in a similar fashion to the iPhone 4’s dock: hold down your search button (or, if your prefer, double click the home button) and a dock slides up from the foot of the screen. In typical Android fashion, though, it’s far more versatile than the iPhone’s restrictive attempt at multitasking. (more…)

Android App of the Week: Sky+

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Sell phones and the apps will come. That’s the theory anyway, and it looks like it’s working pretty well for Android: Google’s open-source mobile OS is being activated on over 200,000 handsets every day – and that’s new phones, not upgraded firmware, Steve – and the market now boasts more than 100,000 apps.

Our latest App of the Week, and one of the newest additions to the store, comes courtesy of Sky and, with almost 3.5 million Sky+ subscribers in the UK, this free tool could prove very useful indeed. (more…)

Android App of the Week: Google Goggles

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Google Labs has a hard-earned reputation for churning out some of the world’s most innovative software thanks to releases such as Google Earth, Google Sky Map and the Android App Inventor, so for an app to stand out amid such distinguished company it’s got to impress. Step forward Google Goggles.

This free tool, which runs on phones equipped with Android 1.6 and above, is a visual search engine that masks its incredible sophistication with a simple premise: take a picture of something and it’ll tell you what it is. (more…)