Android has over 450,000 apps. With so many apps out there, app discovery (aka finding new and useful apps) is extremely difficult. With our Android Apps of the Day initiative, dotTech aims to change that. Everyday we post three apps, allowing our readers to discover new apps, daily. Enjoy! [Subscribe to our Android section to never miss an article: RSS Feed | E-mail]
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Apps for March 27, 2012
Volume Locker
Ever accidentally change the volume settings on your Android device, whether that be while using your device or while your device sits in your pocket? Volume Locker is an app that helps prevent accidental changes to volume settings on Android by forcing users to confirm a volume settings change.
What happens is when you have Volume Locker enabled and you accidentally or intentionally change the volume on your device (e.g. from silent to vibrate or increasing the volume) Volume Locker displays a notification in the notification bar or displays a pop up (you control which one you want to see); you have to confirm the volume change via the notification/pop up within X seconds (default is 30 seconds but you can customize it) otherwise Volume Locker will undo the volume settings change. Volume Locker has settings to make it play well with other apps, such as the camera app or Google Navigation, so it doesn’t interfere when it shouldn’t.
Price: Free
Version discovered: Varies with device
Requires: Varies with device
Download size: Varies with device
Volume Locker on Play Store
Contact Remover
Contact Remover allows users to delete multiple contacts at a time. You can either select one contact to delete, select multiple contacts to delete, or select all contacts to delete. Contact Remover has the ability to show contacts detail from within the apps, making it easier for you to identify which contacts you want to delete; and there is a search function allowing you to search your contacts.
Contact Remover is free with no ads. Contact Remover Plus costs $1.99 (ad-free) and adds more features such as select contacts by account, merge contacts, move contacts and copy contacts.
Price: Free, $1.99
Version discovered: v17
Requires: Android 2.1 and up
Download size: 276 KB
Contact Remover on Play Store | Contact Remover Plus on Play Store
Deficit Hawk (US Fed Budget)
Think you can do a better job than the American government at reducing the US budget deficit? Deficit Hawk is a game that allows you to do just that. With Deficit Hawk you can apply new taxes and and new budget cuts to see if you can bring the deficit down. You can select as many taxes and cuts as you like; and each tax or cut has an optional explanation as to what it is. All data (the taxes and cuts) in the game is based on information provided by the Congressional Budget Office in a document published in 2011 called Reducing The Deficit: Spending And Revenue Options.
Price: Free
Version discovered: v1.6
Requires: Android 2.1 and up
Download size: 558 KB
Deficit Hawk (US Fed Budget) on Play Store
dotTechies: We have tested all the apps listed above. However, Android Apps of the Day articles are not intended as “reviews” but rather as “heads-up” to help you discover new apps. Always use your best judgement when downloading apps, such as trying trial/free versions before purchasing paid apps, if applicable.
[Thanks Herb Sharpe for the tip on Volume Locker.]
Smart Lock is an app locker that allows you to restrict access to your apps using a lock pattern or a four digit pin code. What makes Smart Lock different than other app lockers are the features it has in addition to locking apps. What features, you ask? Well in addition to locking apps, Smart Lock can: “fake crash” apps making whoever opens the app think the app crashed; protect media files; allows for recovery of pin code using a question and answer; has the ability to hide itself from the app tray/launcher; can lock internal/USB storage; chose specific apps to lock only on Monday-Friday or Monday-Saturday and/or during specific hours of the day; and more. There appears to even be a feature to protect contacts which will be added in future versions.
What2Do is a to-do list manager with a twist. Unlike traditional to-do list managers, with What2Do users do not create a list of what they need to do. Rather, with What2Do users can schedule tasks to automatically happen. Tasks that can be schedule with What2Do are: Sounds an alarm; send an SMS (text message); make a call; send an e-mail; run an app; send a file via e-mail; put device on silent mode; take device off silent mode; turn on airplane mode. Tasks are schedule to happen at a specific time and can be schedule to happen daily, on one specific date, or on specific days of the week
Are you one of those people that just can’t schedule events days, weeks, or months in advance yet still desire an app to help you keep track of stuff you need to do? Like What2Do, Do it (Tomorrow) is another to-do list manager with a twist. Instead of allowing you to schedule tasks, events, etc. in advance, Do it (Tomorrow) is specifically designed for people who want to focus on today… with the ability to push off tasks until tomorrow.
Corrupted files can suck. What happens if you accidentally somehow corrupt your only draft of your essay worth 50% of your grade!?
If you need to quickly know how many computers/devices are on your wireless network, NirSoft’s Wireless Network Watcher may be for you. It records the number of times a machine has been seen on the network, the machine’s name, its MAC address, and a bunch more useful information.
Some times, you need a window to be a certain size. Be it 1024×768 to make sure documents look good on small monitors or 800×600 to make sure they fit in small places like an article or documentation, it can be a hassle to resize windows to just the right size. Sizer makes resizing window easy by adding a sub-menu to the right-click context menu (the one that pops when you right-click on the minimize/maximize/close buttons) that allows you to set windows to certain predefined resolutions automatically, even moving them or using your own custom resolutions with custom shortcuts.
Does it ever annoy you when you’re typing something up in a program without spell check and you can’t figure out if you’re spelling a word right? Be annoyed no more! With tinySpell you can automatically check the spelling both in any program and when you copy text to the clipboard.
When you start typing, tinySpell will constantly monitor every word for spelling errors. When it finds one, it will beep and a little menu will appear. That menu will most often have the correct spelling of whatever you want to spell.
This is a very niche program, but is still quite useful for those it’s made for: you can hide the sticky notes taskbar icon while keeping the sticky notes open!
If your wifi is a bit slow, it could be that the channels it’s on are already occupied. While generally, multiple signals can occupy the same space, it can cause small issues and make your experience less fun. With inSSIDer, you can quickly glance at information about the networks around your area and even look at networks in your general area.
Software Description
Picture +D is a fun app that creates a 3D image out of a 2D picture. You can either snap a new photo with your camera or load an existing photo into Picture +D. Picture +D does the 2D -> 3D transformation automatically and after it is done you can view the new 3D image using controls such as rotate, pinch to zoom, multi-drag, and multi-rotate. If you aren’t totally happy with how the 3D image turned out, there are some controls you can customize but honestly most people won’t have a clue what the controls mean. Once you have a 3D image you can save it or share it with friends.
Daily Ab Workout is an app that guides you through a five, seven and a half, or ten minutes workout routine. Each routine consists of ten exercises; Daily Ab Workout explains how to do each exercise including a simple demonstration video. Daily Ab Workout times you for each exercise based on the length of workout routine you selected and automatically moves onto the next exercise until your whole time is up. And trust me, this may not sound like a lot on paper but these routines actually do help (assuming you do them daily) You won’t turn into a body builder over night but these routines help decrease belly fat and tone your abs.
Tap Tiles is a very simple game. you have a 3×4 grid. This grid shows 11 gray tiles and one colored tile. The colored tile is either red or blue. If the colored tile is red, you must tap the colored tile. If the colored tile is blue, you must tap any of the gray tiles. The score starts from twenty and goes down by one every time you tap the proper tile; if you tap the wrong tile the score increases by one. The goal is to get the score down to zero as fast as possible — you are timed.
7Files is a Windows Explorer file browsing replacement that focuses not only on having a greater level of functionality but still the ability to please your eyes. On the functionality end of the spectrum, it supports all the usual tasks such as drag and drop and even some more unusual tasks such as a simple file finding function that allows you to show files from a particular time period and file type, as shown at right.
Permissions Friendly Apps is an app that aims to help you analyze what system access permissions apps on your device have.
Warrantify is the Android app for Warrantify.com, the service that helps you keep track of your product warranties. With Warrantify you scan in a receipt (you take a picture of the receipt with your camera), input the date of purchase, shop the product was purchased at, product name, manufacturer name, product model, length of warranty, and price of product. Warrantify then starts tracking that product warranty, giving you alerts when the warranty is about to expire. You can input as many receipts as you desire.
Voxer is a push-to-talk walkie-talkie app that provides more than just walkie-talkie functionality. With Voxer users can have live walkie-talkie like conversations, yes, but users also have the ability to send voice messages, text messages, photos, and location to other Voxer users. The best part is Voxer works on all types of Internet connections (2G/EDGE, 3G, 4G, WiFi, etc.) and is cross platform — iOS can talk to Android and Android can talk to iOS.
Ever wanted some “me time” or quality time with friends or family without the hassle of your phone buzzing every five minutes? Unplug and Reconnect is an app that helps you do exactly that. With Unplug and Reconnect users schedule times and dates when they don’t want to be bothered by their phones. When that date/time arrives, Unplug and Reconnect automatically silences the phone, puts it on vibrate, puts it in airplane mode, or rejects all incoming calls — you pick what you want Unplug and Reconnect to do for each specific scheduled event. When the scheduled event is over (you specify a start and end for each event), Unplug and Reconnect automatically reverts your phone back to normal.
On my PC I often juggle between browsers, using Firefox as my main work horse but opting to use Opera when I do research. Do you perform the same juggling act on your Android? Or rather, would you like to perform the same juggling act on your Android? Maybe it is because one browser (e.g. Skyfire) plays Flash videos while other browsers don’t; or you like using a browser that doesn’t necessarily display pages all correctly and would like the ability to easily switch to another browser when the need arises. Whatever the case may be, Choose Browser is a tiny app that helps you move between browsers with ease.
0 Backup is an app specifically designed to backup the data (files and folders) stored on the internal storage/SD card of Android devices. 0 Backup wirelessly backs up the content of internal storage/SD card to your Windows computer; all you have to do is make sure your Android is connected to the Windows PC on the same WiFi network and make sure your Windows PC has a shared folder (aka network shares, network folder, etc.)