Google Play for Education will contain apps organized by subject and grade level, so when looking for a specific app (e.g. a Math app) for a specific grade level, it will be easily discoverable. The apps will come with recommendations from teachers to ensure quality. App purchases by schools will also be streamlined with app purchases charged to a common school credit card which Google will have on its files. The most interesting feature, however, is that the new Play Store will allow schools to simultaneously download the same app to multiple devices — Google’s cloud infrastructure will push the apps across the board and help schools scale up rapidly.

Large scale distribution could enable Google to gain traction in the trending area of educational technology. An it won’t end with Android apps, as Google will surely follow this move up with videos and books as well. With Android devices like Nexus 7 on hand, Google could easily cut into Apple’s pie in the education sector. Could it be a win-win situation for schools that can avail of cheaper teaching aids thanks to Google’s push? This remains to be seen.

What do you think of this new initiative? Will you use it?

Source: The Next Web

The post Google Play For Education Set To Enter Classrooms With A Play Store For Educational Apps [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Even Google’s major competitor, Apple, which still doesn’t have a streaming music service, may see its iTunes market share challenged by All Access. All Access is part of the Google Play platform which allows users to browse and purchase music, magazines, books, movies, television programs, and applications published through Google.

All Access costs $9.99 per month, with a 30-day free trial, but customers signing up before June 30th will pay a reduced monthly fee of $7.99. All Access provides unlimited access to Google’s entire online streaming music library, which is based on licensing agreements with music companies such as Universal Music and Sony Music Entertainment.

The subscription service can be used through the Google Play Web client and on Android devices. Subscribers can also add songs from the library to their devices for offline access. In addition, the monthly subscription includes a custom radio feature based on the songs, artists, and albums you select. All songs can be managed in playlists, purchased for download, and shared on Google+.

Included in the service for both subscribers and non-subscribers, is free access to the Google Play music storage locker which lets you upload up to 20,000 of your own songs and albums from your computer using the cross-platform Google Play Music Manager. The manager scans your iTunes library and any music folder on your computer and matches it with the same songs from the Google Play library. Copies of your songs not found in the Google library will be uploaded to your account.

All Access is currently US only, but if successful, might expand to other parts of the world in the future.

So what do you think of Google new music streaming service? Will you try it out or switch from your existing online music subscription?

Source: MercuryNews.com

The post Google Unveils Google Play Music All Access For Unlimited Music Streaming [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The platform is billed as a replacement for Google Talk and Voice, allowing one-on-one and group chats via text, along with media messaging and video calling. For the moment the service only works on Apple and Google’s mobile platforms and via a Web browser, either by logging in to Google+ and clicking on Hangouts or by downloading the Chrome extension.

The service is aimed at creating long-standing “conversations that last” according to Google, so chats are always kept up to date across devices, with chat histories stored unless you specify otherwise. That means you’ll have to turn off logging for each and every conversation you want to take off the record, as these logs are always enabled by default.

This launch sees Hangouts detach itself somewhat from Google+, the company’s social layer, though users will still need a Google+ enabled account. The new Hangouts has its own standalone apps and icon, but still relies on Google+ to connect with friends in circles and for use on a desktop PC.

The service joins an already busy marketplace for cross-platform messaging clients, with iOS devices connected for free over iMessage, Facebook chat more useful than ever thanks to “chat heads” and WhatsApp messenger continuing its domination of the SMS-replacements that bridge Android and iOS users.

Download: Google Hangouts for iPhone / Google Hangouts for Android / Google Hangouts for Chrome

Have you used the new service? Do you plan to?

Source: Official Google Blog

The post Google Launches Hangouts, A New Cross-Platform IM System for iOS, Android & Web [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

These mobile app updates mirror the makeover features of Pinterest’s Web platform. Now both mobile apps include a notifications list of activities related to your board, such as recent followers, re-pinned items, and comments made on your pins. Push Notifications are also included, if you enable them on your device.

Similar to the tagging feature in Twitter and Google+, the new notifications feature allows you to mention and notify Pinterest users you’re following in comments. To mention users, type the @ key followed by the first a few letters of a person’s Pinterest username, and then select that name in the pop-up. A notification will be sent to each of the people you mention.

Pinterest has also enhanced its mobile search feature. As you begin to type a keyword, a list of suggested terms will appear, starting with terms related to content on your boards. The list will also include recent terms you have searched for. This feature also syncs between your devices, so that if you search for an item on your computer, that same term will show up in a suggested list when you search for it on your mobile device.

Download: Pinterest for iOS, Pinterest for Android

If you’re an avid Pinterest user, these updates should make the mobile apps even better to use. Do you like them new features?

Source: Pinterest Blog

The post Pinterest Adds Notifications, People Mentions & Improved Search in Mobile Apps [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Google Finance

Sometimes, you may not want to use a full featured Android stock app in order to keep track of stock values, but rather a simpler go-to app that gives you sufficient information. This go-to app would have to be Google Finance. It allows you to look for whichever stock you want to follow, no matter which stock exchange it’s located in, and track its current trading price. You can also look up history graphs of the stock’s value, as well as online news concerning the stock which can include statements from financial analysts. Despite the fact that the app was developed by Google, it doesn’t look like they took a lot of time to develop the app, as much of the information it pulls ends up being separate pages rather than loading information into the app’s own user interface. However, it definitely suffices for a quick check on your stocks.

Stock Quote

If you’d rather not use a tool from Google to track stocks, you can also use an app called Stock Quote. This app does a very similar job to Google Finance, but it presents the information in a very different user interface (that some users may find more “rough around the edges” than Google Finance). After launching the app, you’ll immediately be shown stock exchange indexes as well as stocks that you are following — both are completely open for customization. You can also search other stocks without adding them by typing in their symbol and tapping on Quote. In there, you’ll be presented with lots of useful information as well as buttons that can lead you to more information, news, and charts. Either app should help you to satisfactorily follow your stocks and notice any important changes to them.

Stock Watcher

The above two are useful Android stock apps, but enjoying a great user interface can make or break your experience with an app. If you want to follow your stocks with a friendly user interface, then Stock Watcher may be the best app for you. While this app allows you to search for any stock you’d like to follow and access a handful of useful information about the stock including charts, you can also switch between portfolios, and access indices as well as “market movers”. The market movers feature is especially important because it highlights well-performing stocks that you may want to look into. Therefore, the app does offer some guidance on what may be good to invest in, but please remember that you will have to make your own well-educated decisions.

Stock Market Simulator

These three apps are great for giving you the information that you need to determine how well a stock is performing, but all of that information doesn’t help much if you don’t know what it actually means or if you don’t feel comfortable enough to actually buy or sell some stock based on the information you have. The best way to practice and learn, in my opinion, is through a simulator, and that’s what Stock Market Simulator is all about. In this simulator, you start out with $10,000 and are able to “buy” US stock. The app still uses real-world numbers to determine whether you make or lose money, so the simulator itself is completely accurate. However, since it’s a stock simulator, it is meant to be educational and not a tool that makes decisions for you. As far as games go, this one certainly isn’t the most interesting one you can play as your stocks change as slowly or quickly as the real stocks do, but it’s a great way to dive into the stock market without actually losing money. If you’d like a simulator for your computer, you can also try the UpDown Online Stock Market Trading Simulator.

Conclusion

These four Android stock apps should help you to learn about stocks and the entire market, or to simply follow stocks that you’re interested in with plenty of information. Again, please only view these apps as informative because stock markets are extremely volatile — even the best analysts can be wrong occasionally. The stock market is an opportunity to make lots of money, but it’s also an opportunity to lose a lot of it as well.

What are your favorite apps to follow the stock market? Do you invest in the stock market regularly? Let us know in the comments!

For more great Android apps, check out our list of the Best Android Apps, and to get the most out of your Android device, check out our Android guide.

Image Credit: kenteegardin

The post What Are the Best Stock Apps for Daily Use On Android? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

To do this, you’ll need the popular Titanium Backup. You don’t need the paid version, the free version will do — but you do need to have a rooted device to do this. If you’re not rooted, we have another app that will dramatically speed up your app-uninstalling process anyway.

Use Titanium Backup to Batch Uninstall Apps

Titanium Backup has a way to uninstall multiple Android apps at once — no tapping a confirmation dialog over and over — but it’s well-hidden in Titanium Backup’s confusing interface.

To do this, you’ll need to be using a rooted device. If you are, you can install the free Titanium Backup app from Google Play — the paid, pro version isn’t necessary.

Launch Titanium Backup and grant it root privileges. Once you have, tap the Menu button in its interface.

On the menu screen, locate the General category and tap Batch actions under it. This screen contains a wide variety of actions you can perform on multiple apps at once — everything from backing them up to restoring them, freezing them, and clearing their caches.

Scroll down to the Un-install section on the Batch actions screen and tap the Run button to the left of Un-install all user apps.

Don’t worry — this won’t automatically uninstall all your apps. The option is just confusingly named.

You’ll now see a list of all your installed users apps (this doesn’t include system apps). All of the apps you’ve installed are selected by default. if you want to get rid of them all, great — you can have a completely default device and start over from scratch.

You probably don’t want to do that, so tap the Deselect all button to uncheck all the apps.

Scroll through the list and select all the apps you’ve like to uninstall by selecting their checkboxes. When you’re done, tap the green checkmark button at the top-right corner of the app to uninstall all the apps you’ve selected.

Titanium Backup will now automatically uninstall all the apps you’ve selected without any additional confirmation. It uses its root access to do this — apps can’t normally do this sort of thing because of Android’s security model.

Batch Uninstall Apps Without Root

If you don’t have a rooted Android smartphone or tablet, this isn’t as easy. You can’t actually skip the confirmation messages without root access.

However, you can still speed things up. To more quickly uninstall apps if you’re not rooted, use the Easy Uninstaller app. It will display a list of your installed apps and allow you to check off individual apps you want to uninstall. The apps are sorted by their size, so you can see which apps you should uninstall to regain the most storage space.

Select the apps you want to uninstall and then tap the Batch Uninstall button. Easy Uninstaller will pop up a confirmation box for each app you want to uninstall. You’ll still have to tap OK to each confirmation box, but this is much faster than uninstalling multiple apps the normal way — no additional screens and waiting.

Of course, if you’re a real pro, you could use the adb utility to uninstall multiple apps after connecting your Android device to your computer and enabling USB debugging. The exact command you’ll need is “adb uninstall.” This method isn’t for casual users, but it wouldn’t require root and could be useful if you wanted to batch uninstall apps from multiple phones — you’d just have to run the same command after plugging in each individual phone.

If you’re looking to free up more storage space on our phone, be sure to check out our guide to freeing storage space on your Android device.

Do you have any other tips for quickly installing multiple Android apps without the confirmation screens and annoying delays? Leave a comment below and share them!

The post The Clean Droid: How To Bulk Uninstall Android Apps You Don’t Use appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Up until now, the popular BBM service has been exclusively available only on BlackBerry-branded phones. The existing app allows users to bypass calling, text-message and data charges by communicating using text, photos, videos, and voice on WiFi, similar to other popular apps such as iMessage and WhatsApp. By offering this app as a cross-platform service, users of almost all types of smartphones will be able to seamlessly communicate with each other.

“We’re committed to making the BBM experience on other platforms as fully featured as we can,” said BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins. “We’ll start with messaging and groups, but we’ll add voice and screen share later on. … BB10 is such a strong platform that we are confident it can become an independent messaging solution.”

With that said, the app will only allow for messaging functions for iPhone and Android. Heins has obviously alluded to potential updates, but since the app is targeted at the current iOS 6 and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0), it’s possible that the company is going to wait for phone OS upgrades.

Some say that Blackberry is behind the curve when it comes to this release. Other WiFi-oriented messaging apps exist, and services like Viber already allow for VoIP calls. However, it’s possible that the name “Blackberry” alone will reel in users.

Will you use BlackBerry Messenger for your iPhone or Android smartphone? Do you think the company was late to the game?

Source: All Things D

The post Blackberry Announces Summer Release Of BlackBerry Messenger For iPhone & Android [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Prior to writing this article, I’d never heard of n7player. MakeUseOf reader, Nevzat, recommended it to me and, to my great pleasure, it surpassed all of my expectations. I’m the kind of guy who will put up with good-but-not-great free apps, but n7player has entered into my list of paid apps that I think are worth the purchase.

When you first open up n7player, the app lets you know immediately that this is a free trial version of a paid app. It’s not the first app to do this sort of thing but I find it tactful and considerate so I can close it and uninstall it right away if I don’t intend to spend any money. Thankfully for me, I stuck with it because the n7player Android music player is awesome.

As you tap the Next button, n7player takes you on an introductory tour of five slides that explains how to use the app to its fullest potential. Having to learn a new app’s interface – even if it’s something as generic as a music player – can be frustrating, so mini-tutorials like this are always great.

And at the end of the tour, n7player offers to search and download album art for all of the songs/albums that are currently on your device. Personally, I don’t really care about album art too much, but the option was so convenient that I went with it anyway.

n7player is a local music player that’s made up of all of the songs on your Android device. But unlike most music players, the interface uses a tag cloud layout instead of the traditional list after list after list. What does this mean? Yes, the artists are ordered alphabetically, but the size of their names is proportional to how many songs you have for that artist.

The music library also implements a pinch-and-zoom feature that causes the tag cloud interface to change into an album grid if you zoom in close enough. The grid view is nice but it’s really only useful if you can identify albums at a glance – a skill that I haven’t fully developed since I rarely bother with album art.

I love the way that n7player handles the actual music playback interface. Other Android music players have utilized drawer-based players in the past, but n7player is the first music app where I’ve felt that there is a high quality mixture of performance, aesthetics, and practicality.

First of all, the design of it all looks modern. The icons and buttons share a sort of minimalism that alleviates much of the potential for clutter. There’s just enough three-dimensionality to it so that it doesn’t fall flat but not so much that it becomes an eyesore. n7player’s interface is the best one I’ve seen yet.

n7player comes with a built-in equalizer that works exceptionally well. There are a dozen different presets that each produce a unique sound and you can even create some of your own presets if you’d like.

As for options and customization, n7player offers just enough settings so that I don’t feel like I’m stuck with an out-of-the-box setup and no means of personalization. However, most of the customization options are simple toggles, so there’s no real way to change themes, fonts, layouts, etc. Not a big deal to me but just something to keep in mind.

Other features that may entice you to give this bad boy a try:

• Built-in tag editor so you can organize your library with ease.
• Search your library and file system for songs.
• Lock screen interface with direct unlock support.
• Sleep timer that will automatically close n7player after a set period.
• Last.FM scrobbling.

I mentioned before that this was a free trial for the paid version of n7player. The free trial lasts 14 days from the time of installation and the full version costs $3.49 USD. There is a separate version of this android music player called n7player 1.0 that is fully free but hasn’t been updated since December 2012. Feel free to check that out if you don’t want to pay.

The post n7player: An Android Music Player That’s Worth Every Cent appeared first on MakeUseOf.

What’d you have for breakfast this morning? How about two weeks ago? And hey, remember that time you and your friends went to that really fancy Japanese restaurant? If you’re a bit fuzzy on the last two questions (or even on the first), Evernote Food is a great way to answer them. I covered Evernote Food for Android before, when all it could do was log your meals. Now it’s time to give it another look, thanks to an all-new version that adds fun ways to track down new recipes and restaurants, as well as a fresh new look.

We’re big fans of Evernote here at MakeUseOf: We’ve previously shown you why you should be using it to remember everything, five uses for its desktop clients, as well as ten unique uses for Evernote itself. But even if you’re not so big on the core Evernote service, Evernote Food can be used on its own, and you don’t even have to have Evernote installed on your device.

Getting Started and Exploring Recipes

Evernote Food does a good job laying out its main features as you launch it:

Right off the bat, two things become obvious: It’s a beautiful app, and it lets you work with recipes, restaurants, and meals. Let’s dig into the Explore Recipes screen:

This mouth-watering screen pulls in recipes from a selection of food blogs (preconfigured with Evernote Food — those are some lucky food bloggers). The “huge thumbnail” aesthetic shown here carries through the rest of the app, as you will see later in the meal log. Tapping into a recipe, however, yields a disappointing result:

Evernote Food simply serves up the original website, making no attempt to summarize it or even apply a phone-friendly layout (like Pocket does so well). Reading the recipe off a phone screen will involve lots of zooming and panning, and is really not that great of an experience. Zoomed in, the text becomes a scosh more readable, at the expense of cropped graphics:

Tiny indeed. So yes, you can find new recipes using Evernote Food, but you’d be better off reading them off a tablet or a computer monitor. Fortunately, this is easy to do, because Evernote Food lets you clip those recipes to your own cookbook. Tap the familiar elephant icon in the top-right corner, and Evernote Food shows the clipping screen:

By clipping the recipe, you will be able to access it from any other Evernote client (not just Evernote Food).

Finding and Clipping Restaurants

Evernote Food also includes a new screen for searching and clipping restaurants you’d like to eat in. Powered by Foursquare, you can use the feature both for searching nearby restaurants, and to prepare for an upcoming trip. Here’s a search for restaurants around London:

An individual restaurant’s screen looks like this:

It has pretty much everything you’d expect: The name, a Foursquare rating, a map and an address, a phone number, and sometimes even a few tiny images (which cannot be resized). Notably missing are reviews, but that’s understandable: Evernote is very much an individual experience, and by including crowdsourced social reviews the company would risk muddling its focus. Still, this limits the restaurant’s screen usefulness: If you’re serious about finding some good eating, you may have to use Evernote Food in combination with a tool like Urbanspoon or one of these other helpful apps for deciding where to eat.

The Heart of The App: Logging Meals

New features notwithstanding, Evernote Food’s raison d’être is logging meals. Whether you enjoy logging only special meals with friends or, like me, you use it as a diet log to record all of your meals, Evernote’s meal logging feature is the most mature part of the app, and remains pleasantly polished in this new release. This is what an individual meal looks like:

You get plenty of fields to fill in, as well as automatic location tagging (which you can toggle off if you wish). New to this version, you can now pull down a gripper below the image to reveal a full-size photo:

Evernote’s meal browser uses the same layout as the recipe browser, and the wide, generous thumbnails are just as effective:

These are all photos I took with my own phone during routine use, and I can’t help but admire how nice Evernote Food makes my food look. Yes, I like chocolate — who doesn’t, really?

Making The Most Of Your Free Space Quota

I’d like to end off with one important trick. As a free Evernote user, you get a monthly storage quota of 60MB. If you use Evernote Food several times every day, this can fill up very quickly: A full-resolution 8MP image can easily take over half a megabyte. Fortunately, Evernote Food lets you pick what resolution you want the built-in camera to use:

If you go to the Settings screen and then pick Image Options, you’ll be able to set Image Size to Small (640×640). This is a completely adequate resolution for documenting your meals, and even for sharing particularly nice photos. If you intend to print photos of your food you might want to go for a higher resolution — but for most other use cases, 640×640 would be plenty. And photos at this resolution take up just a fraction of the space they’d otherwise take, stretching your 60MB monthly quota that much farther (in about a year of using Evernote Food, I have yet to hit my monthly quota even once).

Is Newer Always Better?

I can’t say I love all of the new additions in this version of Evernote Food. The new features are of limited use: One lets you browse recipes but doesn’t make it easy to actually read them, while the other lets you browse restaurants but doesn’t include diner reviews.  So, in the feature department, I’d have to say Evernote Food now suffers from a bit of bloat.

On the plus side, the new look works very well, and Evernote Food is a pleasure to use and browse. It remains my food log of choice on Android.

Do you log your meals? Do you use Evernote Food, or another app? Let me know below.

The post Evernote Food: A Beautiful Way to Keep Track Of Your Favorite Meals, Recipes, and Restaurants [Android] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

I just got back from a tour of California’s beautiful Sonoma County, internationally known for its extraordinary wines and verdant, rolling hills. Unfortunately, with a deadline looming and no laptop available, the task of composing an article fell to my trusty smartphone, a suite of productivity software and a handful of peripheral devices.

Plan Your Trip

First things, first: Prepare for your trip.

Knowing the weather ahead of time will allow you to pack accordingly. On my wine-tasting trip, an unusual weather pattern brought in sprinkles and cold weather. Fortunately, having used Weatherbug and Google’s search feature, I managed to pack my bags accordingly. Unfortunately, not everyone in my party prepared and two found themselves huddled together around cups of coffee while I gloated and snapped pictures.

Another handy tip is to download maps of your travel destination ahead of time, using Google Maps. As I’ve mentioned before, Google Maps offers an offline mode. Simply download and install the app. From the menu tri-dot, select the “make available offline” option. Maps will prompt you to manually indicate the region that you’re traveling to and will then save the entire region to your phone’s memory.

A number of other options exist for creating offline maps. GMapCatcher can download printable maps from Google. There’s also Stay for the iPhone.

Check the weather: As Joel can attest, it’s possible to check the weather of your travel destination using Weatherbug‘s forecast feature. If you’re on a desktop, searching Google + the region you’re traveling to will produce prediction results from the Weather Channel’s Weather Underground.

Essential Applications

The most useful productivity software to take on a vacation is a combination of office apps, offline navigation, theft recovery and place of interest discovery apps.

Offline Navigation: Offline navigation can help when visiting locations where data access is poor, absent or expensive. Two of the best offline navigation apps are OSMand and the outstanding Google Maps. Both provide excellent turn-by-turn navigation, in addition to offline functionality.

Chris and I covered several of the best offline maps available for Android. My opinion is that OSMand performs better for offline guidance, whereas Google Maps wins out in overall performance.

Office Applications: For free office apps two of the best apps are KingOffice and Google Drive. For paid apps consider DocumentsToGo or OfficeSuite Pro 7. While each app possesses various strengths and weaknesses, my preference is for OfficeSuite Pro 7 of the paid apps and KingOffice for the free apps. But overall, I don’t know if the additional features of the paid office suites justify their $15 price tags.

Unfortunately, many office productivity suites lack important features found on the desktop or laptop. A big issue among Microsoft Office users is the lack of higher spreadsheet functions on mobile devices. While mobile software improves constantly, it doesn’t yet appear to be on the level of the desktop.

SwiftKey: Joel first suggested SwiftKey in his article on the best Android apps money can buy. And as I can personally attest, SwiftKey provides one of the fastest virtual keyboard experiences on any platform. I cannot suggest this app enough.

Yelp: The Yelp app finds businesses pertinent to whatever you crave, in addition to offering augmented reality. Augmented reality apps visually overlay locations pertinent to your needs on the phone’s screen. Simply select a category from a number of Yelp’s predefined filters, such as restaurants or bars and Yelp takes care of the rest, using your phone’s camera to display places near you. Just wave the phone around and it shows the location’s proximity and direction.

Cerberus: Cerberus provides a formidable defense against thieves. One of its most effective features includes the ability to track a stolen phone even in the event of a SIM card swap. Another handy feature lies in Cerberus’s ability to activate the phone’s microphone, which helps in identifying the thief and assisting recovery of the phone. It also includes remote tracking from a desktop, and the ability to activate if another SIM card is swapped in – handy if the thieves resell the phone. Frankly, Cerberus is the ultimate security for your phone.

Unfortunately, Cerberus doesn’t come free. Alternatives that cost nothing, fortunately, do exist, although they don’t provide the same features. Plan-B is among some of the better alternatives.

Essential Smartphone Gear

One of the best features of smartphone gear is that it’s lightweight. Compared to many laptops, even ultraportable Chromebooks, a bag full of smartphone gear feels like a bag full of feathers. Additionally, they often provide a redundancy not found in a heavier computer. For example, if any individual device fails, such as a battery or charger, you can rely on the phone’s internal keyboard or battery. It may shock you that the SwiftKey app helped compose half of this article.

Bluetooth mouse: Having a mouse makes the mobile computing experience very similar to the desktop in several important ways: First, the mouse scroll-wheel perfectly integrates into Android, providing a seamless means of zooming around a word processor. Second, a mouse allows you to completely detach from touchscreen dependence, freeing you up to focus entirely on typing and editing. In my experience, almost all Bluetooth mice work with Android Honeycomb (3) and above.

The mouse pictured is the Eclipse Touch. While not well reviewed, in many ways it beat its two-star Amazon rating by offering good performance and portability. However, at $25, better mice can be found. Regarding peripheral devices, you may as well go as cheap as possible since not much of a difference exists between expensive and cheap mice. For example, some of the expensive “touch” mice on the market don’t require mechanically activating a mouse button and instead incorporate a touch-sensitive material. While the technology feels more organic than “clicky” traditional buttons, you’re better off with something inexpensive and disposable. Theft runs high while on the road and minimizing your risk should take precedent over novel or unique features.

Bluetooth keyboard: A keyboard provides many times more “words per minute” typing efficiency than does a virtual touch keyboard. While a travel keyboard may require batteries and drain quite a bit of energy over Bluetooth, they provide an optimal means of typing papers. They also oftentimes include keyboard shortcuts to the phone’s core functions, such as the dialer.

Unfortunately, most keyboards that can work on older versions of Android tend to run a high cost and offer poor functionality and performance. On the other hand, newer versions of Android (4+) offer excellent keyboard compatibility with Bluetooth devices. And some can in fact be found for relatively little money.

OTG Cable: On-the-Go cables allow newer Android devices (4+) connectivity with many USB devices. Erez did a great write-up explaining how OTG works. Christian also elaborated on how-to implement a keyboard-tablet pairing, which he actually used as his primary computer for a full week. One of the advantages of using a standard keyboard is that it doesn’t require its own batteries, instead drawing current from the mobile device itself. OTG cables sell on Amazon for just a few dollars, too.

AC adapter: When you’re not out and about, or sleeping, an AC adapter, AKA charger, keeps your device from draining out. Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you make extremely poor decisions and frequently purchase incompatible or poor quality computer parts. To illustrate, my AC adapter ended up failing, necessitating that I rely on a backup battery.

Backup battery: A backup battery will help in the event that you are unable to charge using your AC adapter. In my case, the AC adapter failed – however, the backup battery provided an entire additional day of charge. It also doubled as a flashlight.

Man-bag: While the majority of you would scoff at a man carrying a purse, I defy such rigid gender stratification. The canvas man-bag comfortably fit all my gadgets, including a Nexus 4 Smartphone, prized rooted Nook Simple Touch, Bluetooth travel keyboard, Bluetooth mouse and Cocoon gadget case. The whole kit weighed only a few pounds, to boot.

Towel: Never forget your towel.

Conclusion

If you hate lugging around a heavy laptop, and mobile productivity ranks high on your list of priorities, try rolling your very own mobile productivity kit. It takes little more than a handful of the best travel apps and gear to get up and running.

Anyone else love working on the go? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credits: Cellphone via MorgueFile.com

The post The Essential Smartphone Apps and Gear to Keep Productive When Traveling appeared first on MakeUseOf.

This feature is easy to set up if you have an Android 4.2 device. It’s a useful feature not found in Apple’s competing iPad, making it easy to leave a tablet lying around and share it with your significant other, children, or anyone else. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets also have multiple user accounts — Apple’s iPad is the only device that hasn’t caught up.

Note that Android 4.2 does not offer multiple user accounts on smartphones, only on tablets.

Creating Multiple User Accounts on Android 4.2

To get started, open the Settings screen on your Android tablet and tap the Users option under the Device category. If you don’t see this option, your device isn’t running Android 4.2 or above.

Tap the Add User button at the top of the screen to create a new account.

Note that the first user you already set up on the tablet is considered the “owner.” They have the ability to delete any user’s space from the tablet, while other users can only delete their own spaces.

You’ll see an informational message about user accounts. If the other person who will use the account is nearby, you can hand them the tablet and they can begin the setup process by entering their Google account and other information. They’ll go through a setup process just as they would when setting up a new Android tablet. If the other person isn’t nearby, you can leave the user account alone and they’ll be able to go through the set up process the first time they log in.

Using Multiple User Accounts

Once you have multiple user accounts enabled, you can switch between them by tapping the icons at the bottom of Android’s lock screen. if the user has a PIN or password set, they’ll need it to log into their account — this prevents unauthorized people from accessing the user’s account.

To “log out,” simply lock the tablet’s screen or allow it to time out as normal — from the lock screen, other people can switch to their user account and sign in.

Only three users can be “active” at a time. Active user accounts will sync in the background, so every user’s email and other data will always be ready when they go to use the device. If you have four accounts, the least recently used user will be considered “inactive” — the three accounts used most recently will be considered active accounts and will sync.

You can manage user accounts — changing icons, renaming them, deleting accounts, and creating new accounts — from the Users screen in Settings. You can also set an “owner info” message that will appear on the lock screen from here.

But I Don’t Have Android 4.2!

Let’s say you have a tablet running Android 4.1 or older and you really want multiple user accounts. You have some options, but they’ll all probably cause you problems.

• Android 4.1 contains a hidden multi-user feature that can be enabled with root access. However, we don’t recommend this — Google has said the feature was disabled for a reason in Android 4.1 and it will likely cause problems if you enable and use it. It’s an unfinished feature in Android 4.1.
• SwitchMe is an app that purports to add multiple user accounts to any device running Android 2.1 or later. Your tablet will need to be rooted to do this. The app has mixed reviews. Let’s be honest — this app is a dirty hack over Android and will likely cause you problems. The experience is not as smooth, and reviews indicate that you’ll have to reboot each time you change user profiles.

We don’t recommend using any of the above tricks. If your tablet is still running Android 4.1 or older, you may want to try looking for an installing a community-developed custom ROM (like Cyanogenmod) that will bring Android 4.2 to your device and give you multiple user accounts without any dirty hacks.

Do you use multiple user accounts on your Android tablet? Do you have any other tips and tricks to recommend? leave a comment below and let us know!

The post Two People, One Tablet: What Are Your Options? [Android] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Both Android and iOS have a number of great chat messengers – like Kakao, WhatsApp, or even Viber – which are mostly used as text message replacements that can be used over WiFi without paying a cent. Yes, Phonon provides text chat functionality, but its main selling point is that it is also a voice messenger. Intrigued? You should be. Join me as I explore this awesome new messenger app.

The first thing you’ll notice is that Phonon is highly integrated with Facebook – so integrated, in fact, that you need an active Facebook account in order to use Phonon. Phonon is nothing without Facebook, so if you’re trying to avoid Facebook, then I’ll just tell you straight away that this isn’t the messenger you’re looking for.

Phonon will ask you to log in using your Facebook credentials, which you’ll have to confirm by a code that Facebook sends you (thank you, Facebook privacy). Then, Phonon will ask you for a username. Just pick one and you’ll be shown through a brief introductory slideshow tour describing all of its features and what each of the buttons mean. Honestly, it’s straightforward and that’s one reason why Phonon has a fair chance at success: it’s really easy to pick up.

So the main selling point of Phonon Voice Messenger is that it can leave messages for other users to read when it’s most convenient for them. The chat message feature is simple to figure out – it’s just like leaving a comment. You type up a message and they can read it at their leisure.

But the cooler option is to leave a voice message. By tapping one of the microphone buttons, the app enters into recording mode. In this mode, you can speak into your device like any other microphone and it’ll begin to record your message. The app lets you know how long you’ve been recording, and when you’re done all you have to do is hit the send arrow. Think of it as a voice comment. Unfortunately, there’s no way that I know of to listen to or alter your recording before submitting it.

Phonon has two other big features that are central to the app’s philosophy. First, birthday tracking. There’s a gift box icon along the top bar which has a number counter on it – the number of friends whose birthday is today. When you tap on it, a list of those friends will come up and you’ll be able to leave birthday messages for them. This is a nice touch since voice is more real and intimate than simple text.

The second feature is group messaging. Invite a bunch of your friends into a group chat and you can all leave chat and voice messages for each other. I think this is the coolest feature in this app, mostly because I don’t care all too much about Facebook status updates and photo albums. However, leaving behind voice messages for a group of friends? That’s something I could really get behind.

I have to say that I really like Phonon’s layout. It’s not the most polished or most beautiful interface I’ve ever seen, but it does do a lot of things well enough that it doesn’t feel clunky, sloppy, or cluttered. Sometimes not being bad is just as effective as being innovative.

The first big eye-catcher is the similarity of its layout to most Facebook apps on Android. There’s the traditional navigation bar at the top with Home, Contacts, and Inbox. Then you have the feed interface that shows the latest activity of your friends. The next eye-catcher is the relatively huge size of the buttons for leaving messages. I think it’s great that these buttons are so large because that’s the main focus of the app, after all. These messages can be left on status updates, photo albums, and privately user-to-user.

Phonon is available on Android as well as iOS. Yes, if your friends want to be able to read/listen to the messages you leave, they’ll need Phonon, but fortunately it’s pretty widely available. Give it a try and let us know what you think of it!

The post Phonon: A New Way to Chat on Facebook With Text and Voice [Android & iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

WebMaster’s HTML Editor Lite

My personal favorite of web-focused code editors is called WebMaster’s HTML Editor Lite. This free app offers some really nifty features to make coding as easy as possible. These features include:

• Syntax highlighting
• Line numbering
• Open and close tag buttons as well as other code-related buttons
• Navigation buttons
• Its own file explorer
• A recent files dialog to access anything you’ve recently worked on

Despite its name, the app supports HTML, PHP, CSS, and JavaScript files, which should be enough file support for most web developers. It’s snappy and lightweight, so it definitely deserves a look if you’re on the search for a code editor.

Android Web Editor Lite

The next editor on my list is Android Web Editor Lite. It is a bit simpler than the above mentioned app, but it can still get the job done. It also offers:

• Syntax highlighting
• Line numbering
• Insertion of sets of tags (meaning it inserts both <> and </> at the same time, where you enter in code in between them)
• Support for an FTP server, which can allow you to easily upload your edited files onto a web server without having to use an additional app for FTP functionality

However, there are a few downsides to this app. For example, it doesn’t support SSH/SFTP servers, nor does it offer multiple FTP server support. The app also doesn’t look quite as clean as WebMaster’s HTML Editor Lite, which I tend to place a fair bit of consideration on.

920 Text Editor

Another great editor to use is called 920 Text Editor. This editor doesn’t focus on just web development languages, but also includes other programming languages such as C++, Java, Python, and plenty more. While — as is to be expected — it includes syntax highlighting and line numbering, it also offers:

• A tabbed interface to allow more than one file to be open at a time
• An HTML previewer
• A color picker (which is good for CSS files)
• The ability to run the app in root mode
• A search tool which supports regex

This allows a web developer to get a lot of serious work done. However, it does lack any sort of FTP support, nor does it offer web developer-friendly shortcuts such as tag insertion as the text editor aims to support more than just web languages.

DroidEdit

Last but not least is DroidEdit, another editor that supports languages like C++, Java, and Python besides HTML, PHP, CSS, and JavaScript. I happen to like this one a lot because it has a very clean, well-developed user interface. It offers (in my opinion) the best syntax highlighting with deeper contrasting colors. It also includes a number of different themes if you don’t want to use the Holo-styled theme. Also, did I mention I really like the user interface? It also includes:

• Line numbering
• An HTML previewer
• Bracket matching
• Infinite undo and redo
• Document sharing with Dropbox, email, and more

The pro version also features SFTP/FTP support, built-in Dropbox support, custom themes, and the ability to run the app in root mode. Overall, I think it’s a great general code editor, but it may not be an ideal solution for those who want web-specific text editors.

Conclusion

All four of these text editors are great choices to get going for web development on an Android device. However, despite the fact that they don’t focus entirely on web coding, 920 Text Editor and DroidEdit are the best ones of the list because they are very functional and offer a clean user interface. In any case, these apps offer some pretty nice features to make web development easier, which may allow you to drop your current computer for a lighter, more modern tablet.

What web development features do you look for in a text editor? Which HTML editor for Android is your favorite, whether it’s included here or not? Let us know in the comments!

For more great Android tips, check out our Android guide! Also, if you’d like to set up an FTP server to connect to, why not try CoreFTP?

The post Yes, You Can Code On The Go: 4 Of The Best HTML Editors for Android appeared first on MakeUseOf.

However, my battery problems went away after using a single app: Wakelock Detector. Unlike other battery analysis apps, Wake Lock Detector provides an easy method to seek out app issues causing battery drain.

This article explains how WLD identifies the apps causing your phone’s battery drain, demonstrates its use and compares it to two other superlative battery analysis tools: Carat and BetterBatteryStats.

What’s a Wakelock?

A wakelock is a mechanism within the Android operating system. Programs requiring system resources use the wakelock function to keep the phone awake. When the process finishes its task, it releases the wakelock function and the phone goes back to sleep. Wakelocks occur because an app requested the CPU’s processing power to perform a task. However, many wakelocks occur for trivial reasons, not actually related to the core functions of your phone.

Two kinds of wakelocks exist:

1. Full: Full wakelocks cause your device to totally wake up, which causes quite a bit of power drain — it fully powers on the CPU, screen (and keyboard backlight, in case you have a hardware keyboard on your device). These tend to be less common than the partial wakelocks. Even so, it still can cause massive battery drain.
2. Partial: A partial wakelock fully pulls your CPU out of slumber, although it doesn’t  power up the keyboard backlight or screen. Please note that, individually, a partial wakelock doesn’t drain as much as a full, which makes it less a threat, but cumulatively, they cause quite a drain on your battery. In fact, most users will see more drain on their battery from partial wakelocks than full ones. The more software loaded on your device, the more likely it is to suffer from a large number of partial wakelocks.

How Does Wakelock Detector Work?

Simply install the app and leave the phone alone for a few hours while Wakelock Detector monitors your power consumption. When you’re ready:

1. Fire WLD up for the first time. The first main window that displays will show two important pieces of information: First, the apps causing wakelocks. If you tap on the wakelock causing apps, you’ll see menu bar at the top of the screen. Second, if you tap on the menu button tri-dot in the upper right-hand side of the screen, you’ll find the configuration button.
2. Pay attention to the amount of time each app consumes. The longer the wakelocks associated with each app, the greater the battery drain. If the wastrel service isn’t something regularly used, it’s likely a background service that’s either improperly configured or poorly designed.
3. If you tap on an app from the main menu you’ll be presented with several options: First, you can uninstall the app via the Play Store or, second, you can open the app to reconfigure it. For misbehaving Google or system apps I suggest opening the app. Specifically, turn off the app’s access to GPS and/or try logging out. For more information on how to reconfigure some of the biggest battery wasters, check out my article on disabling Google services.

In my case, I found that two apps caused the most amount of battery drain: Google Search and Google Maps. Reconfiguring the two apps yielded another full day of use.

How Does Wakelock Detector Compare to the Competition?

Two other apps take very different approaches to monitoring battery drain: BetterBatteryStats, which requires a more technical understanding and Carat, which requires that you run the app every day. Both have their various strengths and weaknesses, but after using all three apps it’s clear that WLD provides the quickest identification process while being extremely easy to use.

• BetterBatteryStats: While offering the most comprehensive results of the three apps, its results remain inscrutable to the casual user. Chris Hoffman did a fantastic job explaining how BBS works its magic, but even with help, it takes a fair amount of reading to fully comprehend its function and how to properly optimize a phone’s battery function.
• Carat: Carat specializes in finding apps that are either horrible battery wasters or suffering from a bug, which results in wasted energy. It possesses no autostarting trigger, so you must manually run Carat over several days before it will report back accurate information on your apps. Another interesting feature of Carat is its ranking system, which awards your device a percentile rating in battery efficiency. While interesting, it lacks WLD’s simplicity and ease-of-use.

Conclusion

Wakelock Detector really can help get your Android device’s battery consumption down. It’s easy to just install the app, identify the problematic battery wasting apps, then eliminate the source. While a multispectrum approach using all three apps would also provide additional efficacy, if you had to pick just one, go with WLD.

Does anyone else have any favorite battery aiding app? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credits: Fireworks via MorgueFile.com

The post Battery Woes Got You Down? Supercharge Your Battery With Wakelock Detector [Android] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

So, the brand-new Galaxy S4 has just started retailing! And as most early adopters, one of the first things I wanted to do with my new Galaxy S4 was of course to root it. This post shows exactly how I’ve done it. The root exploit I used was released by XDA developer cofface  in this thread. It is not a foolproof procedure, and it does involve some trial and error. The exploit itself offers two rooting methods, only one of which actually worked for me. So, caveat emptor! The good news is that I did end up with a rooted phone, and so can you.

Initial Requirements and Caveats

First things first: As I write this, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is a very recent arrival. This procedure should be regarded as experimental, and we are in no way responsible if you somehow mess up your phone trying to root it. That said, I did test this on my own Galaxy S4 and can confirm the procedure worked for me. This procedure requires some familiarity with Android and rooting. It’s not as easy as SuperOneClick, but it is possible. If you’re looking for a more general introduction to rooting, check out 3 Cool Things You Can Do With A Rooted Android Phone.

This procedure works with the Galaxy S4 international version (I9500), with a build number that ends with XXUAMDE, Android version 4.2.2. To see if your device qualifies, go to Settings > More > About device:

Note Android version and Build number above. If you see the same thing on your device, you can proceed.

Setting Up USB Debugging Mode

To make this work, you may need to switch on USB Debugging Mode on your Galaxy S4. Note the “may”: It might work if you skip this step. But at any rate, USB debugging is useful for tinkering with the device, so we might as well go ahead and enable it. Samsung made this trickier than necessary. Here’s how:

1. Go to Settings > More > About device (you should already be there if you did the previous step).

2. Scroll down to Build number, and tap it seven times. Yup, just tap-tap-tap, seven times. I know there’s no button there. Keep tapping.

3. You will eventually get a toast (notification) saying “Developer mode has been enabled”.

4. You will now have a Developer options menu (before-last in this screeenshot):

5. Tap into Developer options, and enable USB debugging.

Getting The Files You Need

We’re going to need the Samsung USB driver, Odin (the tool we’ll use to flash the device), and of course, the actual binary we’re going to use to flash the phone.

1. Download the Samsung USB driver from here, and install it. Be sure you have an up-to-date antivirus installed (such as MS Security Essentials) since this is not an official Samsung download.

2. Download the latest cofface root file. Here’s a direct link to the file at the time of this writing (filename is SamsungI9500_cwm_Recovery_by cofface_0503.zip, and yes, the site is in Chinese). Ideally, take a moment to dig through the original thread and get the latest binary (it may well change after this post is published). This zip already contains both the binary we will flash and Odin.

Flashing The File: This Is The Risky Bit

So we now have all of our basic ingredients.

1. Extract the file from Cofface somewhere. The folder should look like this:

2. Turn your phone off.

3. Press and hold the volume down and Home buttons together or a few seconds, then press the Power button. A screen would now show asking if you want to proceed. Press volume up to confirm. Congratulations, you’re in Download Mode.

4. Plug in your phone. This should trigger a driver install:

5. Start Odin:

Note the text under ID:COM above, and the Added message.

4. Click the PDA button on Odin, and browse for cofface_samsungI9500_recovery_en_0503.tar. Note the en in the filename – that stands for English, so you really do want that file and not the one with cn (Chinese) in the filename.

5. Now’s the scary part: Time to flash the file. Click Start, and wait. Do not disconnect the phone, obviously. This will take just a moment, and will then show:

Booting To Recovery and Rooting

You thought we were done, right? Not so. When Odin completed flashing the device, it should have restarted it. Let it finish booting, then shut it off again. Now:

1. Turn the device back on, this time in Recovery mode. To do this, hold volume up + Home, and press the power button.

2. You should find yourself in CWM recovery after a moment. (It does take a moment, don’t worry.)

3. Navigate to “root your phone.”

4. Pick “Root your phone (Old method)”. Yes, we’re using the so-called old method (this is for a phone less than a month old, mind you). The new method didn’t work.

5. CWM will now show “Root Done, Please Reboot.”

6. Reboot the phone.

7. You will get a brief prompt saying “Android is upgrading”.  And you should have a new app, SuperSU:

Verifying

To make sure the phone is indeed rooted, install Titanium Backup. Once it starts, it should prompt for root access. When you grant it, you should get this:

(Very) Limited Tech Support

I will finish this post as I’ve started it, with a disclaimer and a warning: This method worked for me. These are my own screenshots, on my own phone. So it did work. But I cannot guarantee it is going to work for you. It’s finicky and tricky. While I welcome any and all comments, I will not be able to provide tech support and help you troubleshoot issues with rooting your Galaxy S4 — there are just too many variables involved.

That said, good luck! Rooting your Galaxy S4 is definitely doable.

The post How To Root The Samsung Galaxy S4 (I9500 International Version) appeared first on MakeUseOf.