Author Archive: henry

Many smart phone users today still remember going on holiday doing cross-country trips with their parents guided only by red markers and a massive, unwieldy paper map that was normally torn of the after the first five uses, and blocked off all view the driver might have of the road through the windscreen when the passenger/navigator unfurled it. An improved alternative were map books where the navigator got lost by simply turning the page and find himself totally off the map and the following page indicated his route was 10 pages further along in the book. Considering all scenario, above drivers nowadays are spoilt by an abundance of GPS navigation apps where the quality, features and usefulness swings wildly between brilliant to barely there, which ever one you use it still a vast improvement on the paper maps of the days of yore.

Waze Social GPS Maps & Traffic offers users a free Navigation app, which is partially reliant on its subscriber/user community for to relay its continually updated traffic information. The fact that it enjoys tremendous popularity is a boon that makes the information offered by the app for more relevant to enjoy much speedier updates through broadcasts posted by users already in or past the traffic problem for the benefit of other subscribers still on their way into the traffic fray. With fairly detailed information regarding the hold-up weathered be police traps, accidents or road closures. Members of the ways community can upload reports of the above traffic problems and hold-ups to relay the information to other Waze subscribers.

Maps.Me is an off-line routing and mapping app initially offered at $ 4.99, it was well worth the expense, recently became a free offering that presented users with a simple and clear UI with the added benefit that the maps are available off-line as well, with the resultant savings in data as well as still being near fully functional even with no data signal available. It certainly represents one of the best of its kind GPS navigation apps available within the Google Play Store, with the capacity to display points of interest that include petrol filling stations, bank ATMs, and public transport stations along with numerous other landmarks commuters might find useful.

Smart phones and their content have certainly come a very long way since its early inception, with quantum steps made in the improvement in the quality of the offered products. In comparison, the improvement that occurred while making its convoluted way through its early inception, to its current fully grown offering that include PC or console style gaming quality represents astounding leaps made forward in available technologies both software and hardware to bring us today’s incredible mobile software addictions. Following are a couple of smart device addictions that are just to cool to recover from willingly an intervention would probably be required.

The first mental puzzle is a game called Edge, which is incidentally a puzzle game which requires that players control a single block set on a limitless floating map with no discernible edges. The aim of the game is in safely reaching one of the map’s edges while managing not to fall off the edge. With controls and camera angles that makes it incrementally more difficult than at first glance, it soon becomes apparent that success requires careful thought and consideration with sharp problem-solving skills that need to be displayed by players to reach a solution to each level. The game’s addiction lies in the immersion level that initially allows players to fly through levels at a pretty rapid pace or training you and your mind to concentrate for longer periods of time with increased intensity. The initial quick pace and high concentration levels soon leisure in believing in your ability to defeat every level, just a falloff and respawn at your last checkpoint. Players are never offered an end of game point or screen to provide the opportunity to quit.

Dragon, Fly……yes, there is a comma between Dragon and Fly. Requires all soon to be addicted players to assist a baby dragon in running away from its mother, and since dragon babies cannot fly too well players will have to assist the little creature by guiding it down hill slopes to pick up speed, giving it enough momentum to ramp itself into the air on the next uphill. Momentum and timing are the two main key factors to successful baby dragon flights. The addiction lies in its simplicity of play as well as the length of each game where excellent players can evade Dragon mothers for 15 minutes to half an hour at a time.

Smart phone users that have been doing the rounds in all the top-end app stores for the last couple of years know where and how to find the most useful glitch free apps after many hours of research and testing by pouring your precious and limited free time into making your mobile device better. The growing multitude of available apps out there is making this a tougher task by the day. The following hidden little treasures are not always on the Best Of whatever lists, they however perform some fantastic utilitarian tasks and offer additional, highly useful features to be enjoyed on any iOS device.

Overcast is a free app for iOS, but costs from Marco Ament, the creator of Instapaper, the new app presents its users with an incredibly beautiful clean design that includes some nifty management and audio features easily make it your favourite Podcatcher ever in absolutely no time. The app caters for all basic podcatching requirements from new episode release notifications, new episode downloads, new podcast discoveries, as well as off-line playability. What differentiates this app from all of the others are to magical little audio features, the first being Voice Boost which normalizes speech sound levels by lowering loud and boosting quite voice types. The second innovative feature called Smart Speed any gaps and silences automatically during podcasts to speed up play with no audio distortion.

Horizon another free iOS app when activated, will keep all the photos and videos you may take level with the horizon. It does this by utilizing an iPhone’s integrated gyroscope, immaterial of your stance or the angle you may be forced to hold your phone at while taking photos and videos. It actively supports numerous aspect ratios, resolutions, leveling modes, offers eight featured light filters, as well as slow motion video capture. The free version imprints a proprietary watermark, including putting a lock on some of the more advanced features, all these locks can be removed by simply purchasing the app from the Apple store.

The following apps are for the discerning iOS user who prefers to not often swap between apps, but rather selects the best of its kind that that might require and stick with their preferred choices until something truly better comes along, which may take several months or even years.

Qapital, a brand new app, offers dedicated young professionals assistance in meeting their personal financial goals through its innovative feature rich mobile app for banking. It will, on a regular basis automatically save small sums of money for a rainy day when the user can then without termed financial burdens purchase luxury items they simply must have to suit and enhance their lifestyle. It provides its users with the capacity to create their own assistive savings plans whereby they will be enabled to save towards specific goals, such as putting down a deposit on a home, or buying that new dream car. Thereby providing their users with the required bankroll when needed.

In another new app development PicJoy offers its users the capacity to find those near impossible to locate photos whenever they might want them, wherever they might want them from their endlessly accumulating camera folder. The app continuously and instantly organizes all photos in the camera roll in offer you to find and locate the fighter require in a much shorter period of time. This innovative new photo organizer app employs a highly complex algorithm that allows users to tag images on the iCloud as well as iPhone accounts. Once all images have been tagged users are then free to search by season, dates, weather conditions, events, holidays, places, or even landmarks.

BuzzFeed News have launched their own proprietary app for iOS, whereby users can easily catch up on new major stories featured around the world, offering all the updates that its users might require on massive variety of topics such as politics, technology, business, or even entertainment. Its users can set up customized alerts for specific stories or events and then share them with friends using its simple, easy interface while retrieving interesting background context on major stories. It will even highlight news from other alternate major publications.

One of the biggest bugbears that modern day society has to deal with when regularly perusing the internet is the virtual forest of advertising and other pop-ups that accompany each and every session on the net. Quite honestly, a lot of them are quite interesting and will distract and redirect your tension away from your original intentions and others are just irritations that spoil your precious time spent on the net.

The above-mentioned problems are actually twofold, firstly, it just plainly wastes time and secondly, and most importantly to mobile users, it is a complete waste of relatively expensive data over metered connections such as mobiles when away from Wi-Fi points. If you are one of those that are easily distracted from their intended reason for entering into an Internet search or doing research, or just plainly find pop-ups irritating and unnecessary time wasters a much more effective solution than standard web browser, pop-up blockers is now at hand.
Fortunately, and we say that with hesitation, pop-ups are a necessary evil that ensures that the web remains free for all to use at any time, as the alternative would mean paying menial fees just to enter a website or do a search. This would severely hamper and hamstring the ease of free information flow that we currently enjoy.

The solution is the newly launched Adblock Plus browser app, which is focused on the unique requirements of mobile Internet browsing and it presents an effective and trouble-free solution to the aforementioned irritations. The manufactures new mobile focused browser simply strips away all advertisements from any website you might wish to visit just like its highly popular originating desktop plug-in. The Adblock Plus browser app has now brought its advertisement dismissive capabilities to the realm of mobile devices in the shape of a new browser available to both Android, as well as iOS devices to block solicitous writings summarily according to its user’s custom profile choices and represents a first of its kind for mobile devices.

The following review should fulfil your need to go hunting for new exciting mobile apps in your favourite App Store and thereby save hours and maybe even days while you try to find a way out of the maze that you got yourself lost in hunting for top end quality new apps to entertain yourself with in the coming weeks and months.

Angry Birds 2 is definitely not the second release version of this highly popular and frequently expanded gaming series, but at first glance the new game’s graphics and playing style certainly takes a strong hankering after the highly popular original that made the series. This latest version features artistic wizardry that relays the woes of these ill-tempered avians via aesthetics that appear to be the result of quick meeting between cel-shading and a kids water colouring book, the graphics certainly represents a shiny new upgrade. The latest offering is a return to true fine form after a couple of spotted detours through versions, offering role-playing, bubble popping, as well as match-these-three puzzle s styled game plays. The new gaming mechanics and an extensively revised progressive design office its first true sequel nearly 6 years after the launch of its original popularity.

Kaboom is a new mobile app that offers users the opportunity to construct their text messages, add images, to then freely share it with the public at large. 1 million other apps can do the same except for as its wonderfully aptly picked moniker suggests the message will self-destruct to totally disappear in a preset manner, this allows users to make whatever eyebrow lifting rumble raising statement they wish to make only to leave potential respondents and bait takers with no physical evidence to hang them with later….. When thoughtfully applied, it could be a truly fun way to get your friends with practical jokes, or alternatively to keep private messages truly private.

The following roundup of new top Android apps definitely offers worthwhile download ability without having to personally get lost in the Play Store, it also offers an app or two that proved highly successful in the iOS market and now newly delivered to Android users.

Robinhood, is a serious stock market trading application that will allow subscribers to buy or sell shares directly from within the app itself as soon as the user’s account receives approval. Common transaction shares can be traded without the usual trade fees. It makes the app perfect for people on the go that are serious regarding their playing within the stock market by allowing them the freedom of not having to make trades only from the laptop or computer. This in turn could mean better profitability in the shares trading having near full control at all times, due to the capacity to stay connected and ability of conducting transactions wherever they may choose to find themselves. Robinhood to date racked up over billion dollars in shares transactions from its iOS subscribers this year alone, and now it is available to Android users sporting a brand-new smart sleek design.

Fallout Shelter, an offshoot of the acclaimed and highly popular PC game Fallout Shelter which is a post-apocalyptic open world quest game, is a not so serious but hugely fun game app that allows users to keep and develop their underground civilisation healthy and running trouble free. The challenges players to take control of their personal underground survivalist base, requiring them to expand on a room by room basis while keeping other survivors happy and alive. This hugely popular gaming app drew massive attention from iOS gamers after its launch in June and now Android users finally able to join in and also be drawn into its and ending an increasingly complicated web.

Developers release tons of brand-new apps each month aimed at Apple smart device users, however there are but a few that are truly worth taking a look at since most are just rehashes or alternatives to old ideas or even just represents substandard programming practices. August saw a great selection of new as well as improved apps and taking an early look at September, it seems smart phone users are in for another month of great treats. The following selection of apps is made from the millions available in the App Store and represents the best of its kind available in new apps.

A spoiling app from Google released last week aimed at Android Wear smartwatch users that enables them to use their android device coupled to their iPhone. This latest development presents another competitive element that enters the iPhone smartwatch market, which up till now just comprised of the Pebble and Apple watches. Thanks to this latest app release a host of alternative devices now into this market as well, including the likes of the LG G Watch, Moto 360, as well as the Samsung Gear Live which can all now be paired to iPhones. Currently the app still has limited functionality, but the step has been made and the future looks bright for this new technology.

Leading games developer Frontier officially launched their highly popular Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on iOS, offering virtually the same features found within the original PC versions now released more than 10 years in the past its long-standing continued success and popularity still continuing. Now Apple mobile smart device users can also build amusement parks that are the stuff of legend and dreams. This game was the first in a series of titles that change to a 3D UI appearance and has been translated to work quite well on touchscreen devices.

Google Street View has for a long time been a brilliant and extremely helpful add-on to Google maps Navigator on Android, however, Google in its latest wisdom correctly decided to turn up the notch on Street View functionality with several additions and making it a stand-alone application available to Android users.

The newly launched and age-old Street View from Google will additionally in its current relaunched format allow users the benefit of adding their personal content to the Google Maps app. One of the main reasons the Street View app has been separated from Maps is that it would allow users to share their own photo content with Street View in order for the application to use these photos for other users’ benefit. According to a blog by Google, the company stated that users would be able to utilise Street View’s company content and still be able to now separately view content uploaded by other users.

The stand-alone app will now feature an immersive 360° tour of company imagery filled out by user contributions, including your own rights to Google Maps, in order for users to from a single gallery explore Street View image collections as well as company content available as always from Google Maps in conjunction with photo spheres added by other users contributing continually from all over the globe. Photo spheres provide users with the capacity to take 360° panoramic views of memorable places they visit all around the globe and upload it to Google Maps/Street View instantly. The new functionality will allow more freedom to explore and view collections whereby they will be able to hike Mount Fuji, scale Yosemite’s famed El Capitan rock wall, or simply track Nessie (the Loch Ness monster) in his loch in Scotland, the new app will be able to submit to your wish.

Smart phones in its relatively short lifespan to date have evolved tremendously as a tool to be used and ease our daily lives with developers finding new and innovative ways to utilize these magnificent pieces of modern technology. The following apps are shining beacons to the innovation available from some of the best independent developers in the world.

iOnRoad Augmented Driving is available at $4.99, and offers drivers an early warning as well as assistive winning system whereby your smart phone can with the correct mounting be used as a collision prevention tool. The app has the capacity to assist drivers by supplying traffic warnings and alerts, as well as a host of other informative data to assist drivers in making the correct decisions before hazardous situations arise. Its Visual Radar utilities a smart phone’s camera and sensors to track the users vehicle speed, as well as following distance from the car ahead of you to provide visual as well as audio warnings against potential collisions, accidental or unwarranted lane departures, and speeding reminders without interfering with other apps that may be onscreen simultaneously. Additionally, it offers the capacity to record all driving sessions, which includes taking snapshots with Geo tags, a driving analysis and a multitude of other assistive data.

Valet is one of those free apps that you never think of until you are desperately lost looking for your car you left in the middle a massive of a parking lot maze and absentmindedly forgot to check your bearings before leaving it only to later return and you cannot find your car, the app will then provide you with a safe and short route back to your car by using the Google Maps location API. In addition, it offers assistive timers with alarms helping users avoid unnecessary parking fines and tickets. When parking. You only need to tap Park My Car to allow Valet to drop a pin on your parked location to later provide detailed turn-by-turn navigation returning you to your car. It even offers near full automation by allowing the app to dock with your Bluetooth audio connector where un-docking will automatically drop a pin to record the location of your car.