Post Tagged with: "android app reviews"

Sometimes it’s all about simplicity.

I often won’t use the memo or notes apps on my phone because those notes live on the device; I can’t always access them from another computer, and I can’t easily share them with friends and co-workers. I’d taken to using Google Drive, but Drive is a bit more powerful than I need to jot down a quick idea.

Keep is an offshoot of drive. When you’re not using the app, you’ll access your notes from http://drive.google.com/keep. Like many Google services, the idea is to deliver common functionality simply and efficiently. Keep is designed for notes, lists, and photos. Very basic categories to help you organize your thoughts.

Organization is simplified as well. Color code your notes for easy identification. Swipe away notes to archive them. Done.

Speech to text dictation is appreciated, as I often have my most brilliant moments of insight while doing something like operating a motor vehicle, and I’m not always able to type out my genius.

I’m a sucker for services like this tied to my Google account. Being able to write up a grocery list on my tablet at home, access it from my phone at work, and send it to my wife in an email is sublime functionality. You really start taking that kind of integration for granted.

Now let’s just hope Google doesn’t decide to kill this little project during their next culling.

RIP Reader…

Google Keep on Google Play

Seems like kind of a gimme, but I’m stoked to see Google finally making the stock calendar experience a stand alone app. Reviewing different phones, it can be frustrating how things like calendars function slightly differently on each device.

I’m a stock snob. What can I say? I like the simplicity. The Goog calendar follows the Holo UI aesthetic. Bold primary colors keep your separate calendars organized, and pinch to zoom in and out of your daily timeline becomes intuitive very quickly.

Nice touches, like snoozing reminders from the notification tray and syncing appointments from one in the past to one year in the future help this feel fresh. It’s a feature set easily competitive with my other favorite calendar apps, and it blends in with the rest of the Nexus UI seamlessly.

If you have an Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean device, you too can join in on the fun we Nexus users have been enjoying for a while now.

Google Calendar on Google Play

I’m embarrassed to say this little diversion has been destroying the battery on my Nexus 7.

This one’s easy to recommend folks. You’re sound asleep when an avalanche strikes your cabin, and you have to ski to safety! Ok, well, you never actually make it to safety per se, this game is all about trying to see how far you can make it down the mountain before you’re engulfed.

Tap the screen to jump, hold the screen to flip. Along the way you’re aided by various animals like penguins and yeti, and if you’re really lucky you might find the odd ski mobile to help accelerate your escape.

Execute jumps and tricks to rack up a higher score, and coins can be collected to buy new outfits and powerups. I’m partial to the ninja costume. Ninjas are rad.

Free in Google Play, so go hook it up!

Apps don’t always need to be super flashy, or tied into all of our social networks to be useful.

This a super easy recommend. How to Tie a Tie does exactly what it says it’s going to do–namely, show you how to tie a tie.

Including the bow tie, there are instructions for thirteen different knots, and once a style has been selected, the app gives you step by step instructions on how to accomplish said knot.

The diagramming is done in a Boy Scout knot style art, and the app helpfully includes a “mirror image” mode so that you can see the same image you would if looking in a mirror.

I didn’t know how to tie half of these knots, so now I need more excuses to wear a tie.

How to Tie a Tie (free) on Google Play

I’m a pretty connected guy when it comes to the social media. I’m pretty much on all of them (and yes I think I still do have logins for Friendster and Orkut), but I’ve never been much for combining my service– especially when it comes to location tracking. I like participating on Foursquare, but it’s rare that I’ll share that location data with Twitter and Facebook. Location is probably my last stand, and I get frustrated watching the GPS icon fire up on my phone everytime I launch the Facebook app.

However, there are times I do want to share my location with select people, and lately I’ve been using Gylmpse…

So I’m kind of a whore for tower defense games. From cartoony games like Plants Vs Zombies, to hardcore scifi throw downs like Sentinel 3, I can’t get enough.

So when I found out that one of my favorite app developers made a tower defense set in the world of one of my favorite Android shooters it was peanut butter jelly time!

Let’s take a look at Radiant Defense.

It takes a lot to get me engrossed in a tablet game.

Sure, I’ll burn a lot of time on puzzle games; but there’s a big difference between a good time waster and an immersive experience.

There haven’t been a lot of games which I feel have done first person gaming justice. We have some REALLY solid third person shooters, but no games where you got to see out of your character’s eyes.

That is, until now…